Where the Road Goes - Chapter One

Jessica arrived at Emmett’s house. Somewhat to her surprise, it was neater than she had expected. She clearly remembered the room of the boys across the hall from her. They were friends with one of her roommates. Their rooms were a mess. Clothes were strewn about, the counters were cluttered, candy wrappers and plastic bags were on the floor, and in someone’s room she’d stepped across dirty clothes, guitar picks, and an old sandwich in a sealed Ziploc bag. Admittedly, they hadn’t really been expecting guests.

His room was simple: dark bed coverings, still rumpled from sleeping in, a rug on the floor, a desk, a lamp, a printer, a dresser, and an office chair. On the desk there were three monitors and a computer. Next to the desk was the capsule. As excited as she was to be this close to her dream, she was also wary. She was unwilling to trust good luck. For this meeting, she had chosen to wear a turtle-neck and jeans with a belt. She had also told her roommates and other friends from class where she would be going. As the number of people who knew about where she was increased, the more her personal safety increased.

Emmett explained the system to her and how it would work before letting her use the capsule. The explanation helped. She had never really used one of these before. He then explained a bit of the basics of the game Royal Road, and suggested a place for her to start.

***

She politely listened to the voice that spoke when she was creating her character.

Hm… what name should I choose? It should be a good one. Ah, I should have thought about this before. Hm…

“Fang”

What gender I should go with female? Ah, but that doesn’t seem so fun. Hm… guy? Ah, but there might be some disadvantages for being a guy. What's neutral? It's like genderless, right? Otherwise they would have said hermaphrodite, right? Let’s go with…

“Neutral”

Race? Ah, there are too many races! I can’t decide. Ah! Why are there so many elves? There are Dark Elves, Wood Elves, and High Elves? Why couldn’t all the races just be combined into one elf race? There are too many options! Um… I just… I think I’ll pick..!

“Human”

Alter my appearance? Ah this is something I would know.

Jessica decided to remove the fat on her legs, stomach, and upper arms. The blemishes on her skin disappeared, and she made her eyes a little larger. She had her lower jaw become a little less wide and removed some of the baby fat from her cheeks. Her eyelashes were longer and darker. Her eyebrows were groomed to make them look better, and she attempted to keep a bit of the beauty. She made her face a little more angular, with higher cheekbones and a sharper jawline. After a careful study of the face, she found that it could be both beautiful and/or handsome. Her hair she cut shorter, a little above shoulder length. The body was lithe, but there was the hint of the muscle beneath the surface. She looked fit, athletic, graceful, and best of all; the gender could go either way. This was what she wanted.

Now, where was I supposed to go again? Hm… Emmett said something about Rosenheim? Supposedly there are less high level guilds, meaning that if I get out and level fast enough, I should be able to get into a dungeon without trouble?

“Er… please send me to the capital of Rosenheim.”

***

*Flash*

“Aaaaah! I’m blind! Oh my god!"

"Oh? I can see again. Ah, that's very good. I was afraid I'd be permanently blinded before I even saw the game.”

Fang looked around to see if anyone had heard her exclamation. The streets were crowded, but she’d seen worse in the few travels she’d had. It seemed she was fortunate. No one paid her any attention. Indeed, luck was with her.

Fang wanted to test out the movement, to see how like reality this would be. She experimentally moved her body around and checked her vision and coordination. She did her best to test things in an unobtrusive way. First she walked a bit this way, and then she walked the other way for a bit. All the while she was pretending to be studying the scenery. When she was satisfied with the movement, she found an out of the way place to sit.

Step one: check stats and inventory.

All basic stats were 10. Health and Mana were 100. She had no magic resistance, luck, or leadership. Her attack was 3. She wondered if that meant she would only hit monsters for three points of damage. If so, she hoped the monsters around would have a total HP of 9, otherwise things could be troublesome.

After taking a look at her inventory, she found that she had a canteen and 10 pieces of bread. Only ten pieces of bread? She couldn’t leave the city for four weeks. How was she supposed to survive on ten pieces of bread? After a moment of thought, she concluded that she would have to take quests to earn enough money to pay for bread.

Step two: tour the city and pick up quests.

A few hours later she was busy running errands all over the city. She talked to as many NPCs as possible and took any quests that would take her to another part of the city. Why not? It was killing two birds with one stone anyways. Through her errands she met more NPCs. Meanwhile she scoped out potential classes. She was already certain she didn’t want to be a bard, painter, or merchant. She wasn’t creative enough to make new songs, she wasn’t talented enough to paint anything of worth, and she hadn’t a head for numbers to be a merchant.

On reflection, she probably had no talent to be a sculptor either. However, she’d always liked whittling. She remembered a tiny bird she carved once. Perhaps she would just pick up the skill on the side, but certainly not as a class. From what she had heard, the class was completely useless. She would trust the experience of the older more experienced players. They knew best. She did consider picking up the crafting skills though, those could prove useful, but would she have the time to level them?

With a regretful sigh, she realized she wouldn’t have the time. It was best if she just picked one class's skills and stuck to it, though she intended to at least learn how to cook. It could save lots of coin for her. Hunt, kill, eat, gain experience, don’t spend money on food, get loot, and maybe get skins off the corpses to sell or perhaps try her hand at. She had always liked arts and crafts, perhaps she’d just try to do such things on the side.

Ah, no. I don’t have time, remember?

Oh well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Perhaps she would figure out a way to juggle her schedule enough that she’d be able to do something decent. If only there were more hours in the day.

Fang ran about the capital like she was being chased, until her legs felt like jelly. She had pushed on telling herself it would be one more errand, and then one more errand, and then just one more errand, until she could run no further. She forced herself to keep moving even though she felt like collapsing; she couldn’t let herself rest without doing a cool-down.

Walk off the aches and pains, Jess, walk it off.

After pacing back and forth in front of a fountain for a few minutes, she felt better, but still exhausted. At least now she had her ragged breathing under control. She splashed water on her face and drank some of the cool water. After this she checked her stats. She vaguely recalled hearing that she had gained more stats for her hard work. She opened up her window, and found that her agility had indeed increased by one sometime during her errands.

Why does it take so long to gain stat points? Argh, it would take forever for me to increase my stats wouldn’t it? Perhaps there’s a place where I can train up my stats faster.

Her wandering feet led her to the Training Hall. She spotted the Instructor and approached him. He told her that there was basic training here, and she asked what it entailed. When she heard just how much work it would take to finish the training, she couldn’t help but be flabbergasted.

Who has the time and energy to waste doing this? It’s exhausting and grueling. Who on earth could ever complete this basic training?

“How many people have passed this training?”

“4305 people have completed this training.”

“…”

This place was filled with monsters in the guise of players.