"How did you do it?"
"Do what?" Adrien asked, genuinely perplexed.
"The fighting. How?"
Adrien rolled his eyes.
"Anyone could have done that."
"No one could do that. You dodged bullets and arrows effortlessly."
"It wasn't that easy, I—"
"Shut up!" Vera snapped.
She leaned in, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"You're not using a script or hacking the game, are you?"
Adrien recoiled as if he'd been slapped. "What? No! Why would I even do that?"
"Then explain how you defeated them. A few were on our level, the rest were close. You tore through them. How?"
Adrien shrugged, his expression shifting from shock to a frustrated kind of helplessness.
"I don't know. It just feels... natural. Like I've done a thousand times before, and not just in here, back home, I signed up for martial arts and ended up outclassing everyone within a year. I quit because it got boring."
He looked down at his hands, closing them into fists. "I guess I'm just wired differently. I can't explain how, but the second a fight starts, it's like my senses finally wake up, and everything gets sharp, I see the tiny shifts, the little openings, and I just... react."
Vera studied Adrien for a long beat, searching his face, before finally letting out a heavy sigh. "Fine. Let's just loot these guys."
"Fair enough," Adrien said, eyeing the fallen bandits. "By the way, how do we actually collect the bounties on them?"
"Honestly? I have no idea."
"Me neither. But let's see what they're carrying first."
The two set to work, picking through the gear. It was a decent haul: a mess of ammunition, weathered firearms, bows, mismatched armour pieces, and some travel rations. Most of it was common fodder, though Adrien did manage to snag a much-needed bag upgrade.
"Adrien, over here! Check this out."
Vera's voice pulled him away from a pile of discarded boots. He jogged over and stopped short. Tucked behind a thicket, fifteen horses stood tethered to a tree, huffing plumes of mist into the cold air.
Adrien clasped his hands together, looking toward the sky with mock reverence. "Did Christmas come early? Santa, if you can hear me, thank you."
Vera swatted his arm with a grin. "Stop being an idiot, but you're right, this is a massive score."
"I think it just solved our bounty problem, too," Adrien added.
Vera tilted her head. "How so?"
"We've already got sacks of coal making this rickety cart groan," Adrien said, patting the wooden side of the wagon.
"There's no room left for the bandits, but we can drape the bodies over the spare horses. It'll be a lot easier to cash in if we're actually delivering the Snow Wolves."
They picked out two of the healthiest-looking mounts to serve as their personal steeds, then led the two strongest remaining horses to the front of the wagon. They carefully hitched them to the traces, mindful of the cart's fragile frame.
The rest of the horses became a grim caravan. They hoisted the corpses across the empty saddles, securing them with rope. Once the bodies were balanced, they tied the spare horses in a long line to the rear of the coal-heavy cart. It was a slow, rattling procession, but they were finally ready to move out.
"Adrien, wait," Vera called out, her voice cutting through the heavy rattling of the cart. "While I was picking through those bandit corpses, I found this. Take a look."
She handed him a weathered, yellowed scrap of parchment. Adrien took the paper, squinting as he smoothed out the deep creases. At first glance, it looked like a child's messy doodle, a series of jagged, charcoal-smudged lines and crude symbols.
He tilted it sideways, then upside down, before the shapes finally clicked into place. Recognition sparked in his mind; it wasn't just a drawing. It was a rough map of the surrounding territory, though whoever drew it clearly lacked formal drawing skills, let alone cartographic ones.
——————————[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]——————————
Item Discovered: Incomplete Crudely Drawn Map (Fragmented Copy)
Rarity: Rare / Quest Item
Condition: Poor (Smudged/Incomplete)
Description:
*A roughly sketched map, which was found on the Snow Wolves bandits.
*This map might show the general location of the hidden (???).
*This is a crudely drawn copy of an original, incomplete map.
*This is one of several known copies circulating among various factions.————————————————————
"What do you think, Adrien?" Vera asked, eyeing the scrap of parchment. "Do you want to take a closer look?"
Adrien shook his head, "Not today. We're already hauling a cart full of coal and a line of corpses; carrying a treasure map on top of that is just asking for the wrong kind of attention."
Vera nodded, her expression grim, "Fair point. Besides, if I remember correctly, that area is crawling with high-level wild animals and god-knows-what else." She paused, glancing at his status bar. "With the experience share from these fights, I've almost hit level eight. How about you?"
"I have reached it," Adrien replied. "Two more levels until we can finally head to a church for our 'Baptism.' I'm looking forward to picking a Knight or Mage path. I'm tired of just swinging a sword without any active skills."
"Did you check the cost of the ceremony?" Vera's brow furrowed. "Thirty Velars. Each."
Adrien let out a sharp, frustrated sigh, "Disgusting, but what choice do we have? They're the only ones who can grant class advancements, and the locals follow them blindly. I even heard their 'minor blessings' start at fifteen Velars."
"Fifteen?" Vera scoffed. "That's worth several days of lodging and food in a town like this. I don't know what the starter villages were like since we skipped them, but that price is robbery."
"It's the opulence that gets me," Adrien spat, his gaze hardening as they passed the outskirts of town. "Those bloated clergymen look like they're about to burst from overindulgence, while children are begging for scraps just outside their gates. They extort the poor in the name of religion and call it a holy service."
A flicker of genuine distaste crossed his face. "Behind the beautiful graphics and the immersive physics, this world is a damn dystopia."He went quiet for a moment, his eyes scanning the road ahead.
"Look," he said, his voice softening. "More players. You hardly see anyone in Ashfall unless they're here for a specific quest."
"It makes sense," Vera noted. "None of them has reached level ten yet, so they have no reason to be in the main frontier town. The villages are easier for earning early gold, everything is cheaper, and that's where the basic occupational skills are taught."
"True," Adrien agreed. "Plus, the world is just too big right now, and with the shortage of VR pods at launch, the player density is tiny. It'll take some time before these roads actually feel crowded."
They continued their slow crawl toward the horizon until the road branched. Vera pulled her horse to a halt at the fork, her eyes darting between the two paths.
"Hey Adrien," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hum. "If we take the right, we hit Ashfall, but if we go straight, that leads to Ebonworth Village, doesn't it?"
Adrien slowed his mount, his eyes widening as the realisation hit him like a physical blow. "Vera, no. You are not going to plant that letter at the drop site now."
"Why not?" she countered, her jaw set. "You said yourself that this situation could turn into a problem. I'm just nipping it in the bud before it has a chance to bloom."
"We're in no condition to—"
"Marko already told us he'd arrange a task that takes us to Ebonworth anyway," Vera interrupted, patting her pouch. "I have the letter right here, so why wait for him when I can get ahead of the curve?"
Adrien gripped his reins, his voice rising with worry. "Vera, you're taking an insane risk. We don't know who's watching that drop-off, and—"
"No risk, no gain, Adrien," Vera said with a sharp, daring grin. "Keep this rattling coffin moving toward Ashfall at a steady pace. I'll be back before you even reach the gates."
Before he could offer another protest, Vera snapped the reins. Her horse reared slightly before thundering down the straight path, leaving Adrien standing in a cloud of settling dust, the grim caravan of bandit corpses and coal trailing silently behind him.
Vera moved with purpose, the landscape blurring until the quaint outskirts of Ebonworth came into view. Unlike the open frontier, the village was crowded with players and fortified by sturdy wooden walls, where local militia paced the battlements with watchful eyes.
Midway through her sprint, she had adjusted her gear. She pulled on a heavy poncho and a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed her eyes, wrapping a scarf around her neck to obscure the lower half of her face. In a world of high-definition avatars, anonymity was a rare and precious commodity.
There were no guards to stop and inspect her at the gates, but Vera dismounted anyway. She caught the reins, leading her horse through the muddy streets to blend in with the foot traffic.
'What did Marko say again? The market, then the well near the centre.'
She navigated the bustling stalls, stopping briefly at a fruit seller to buy a few apples, a small distraction to justify her presence. Once she reached the central well, her eyes scanned the surrounding architecture.
'There, tucked between a baker and a tanner, was the house Marko had described, white-washed stone adorned with hand-painted lilies.'
"Excuse me, Grandma," Vera said, pitching her voice to sound like a weary traveller as she approached an elderly NPC nearby.
"Could my horse drink from the well? I'm afraid I don't have a trough."
The old woman smiled kindly, "Of course, child. There's an empty bucket just there. Fill it up, and your beast can drink his fill."
"Thank you, Grandma."
Vera drew a bucket of water and carried it toward the targeted house, positioning her horse so its large body blocked the view from the street. She pulled out an apple, cored it, and fed the pieces to the mare, petting its neck to keep it calm.
As the horse lowered its head to drink, Vera made her move.
She turned toward the wall, her fingers dancing over the painted flowers. On the fifth lily, she found it, a loose, hollow brick. With a subtle motion, she pried it back, stuffed the letter into the dark cavity, and slid the stone back into place. It was seamless.
'Job done. Time to vanish.'
Meanwhile, back on the road to Ashfall, Adrien had covered considerable ground. The rhythmic creaking of the coal cart and the heavy thud of the trailing horses were the only sounds in the quiet afternoon. He reached out, gently patting his mount's neck, before waving a hand to pull up his status window.
━━━━━━━━━━━[ PLAYER STATUS ]━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Adrien
Level: 08 (13%)
Race: Unknown
--
[ VITAL STATS ]
HP:240/240
MP:115/ 115
--
[ ATTRIBUTES ]
Prowess:2
==> Blades[] Heavy Weapons[] Polearms[]
Precision:3
==> Marksmanship[] Ballistics[] Throwing[]
Endurance: 3
==> Athletics[] Riding[] Fortitude[]
Cunning:1
==> Reconnaissance[] Tactics[] Subterfuge[]
Authority:1
==> Charm[] Command[] Commerce[]
Cognition:1
==> Arcana[] Engineering[] Logistics[]
--
[ Unassigned Points ]
Attribute Points: 2
Skill Points: 2
--
[ Proficiencies ]
1) Tactical Marksman
2) Heavy Vehicle Piloting
3) Mining
4) Riding