NOVEL NEXT 04 – Welcome to Curleaf!
*****
After the bright light subsided, Vermouth continued to cackle like a lunatic, before she was pulled out of her stupor glee and was met with the familiar glow of the interface right in front of her face.
Welcome to the world of Curleaf! May you enjoy your stay!
Your beginner's package has been transferred to your inventory!
"Very neat! I thought I was gonna be stuck with that dumb staff!" Vermouth cleared her throat to rid herself of her previous excitement, to an extent, before dismissing the announcement and opening her inventory, finding a wooden worn-down chest in the very first slot.
'Should have not expected anything. Welp, I'll open that later, for now, I gotta explore!' Vermouth took in her surroundings, taking note of the players walking around and appearing from nowhere. She noticed the huge fountain behind her in the middle of the huge opening. The ground was paved with bricks, and the houses and structures were made of the same materials but much more refined, creating a medieval feel to the city, just what one would see in a fantasy video game.
Opening the map for the first time, Vermouth looked for the markers in order to navigate her way through the city. "The City of Lorden, a trading city… makes sense with a market that huge."
There was the inn to her right just down the path, the skills shop, sitting right in front of her, the spell scroll shop, which she would need to visit sooner or later for her spells, the goods shop, for materials and supplies, and lastly the blacksmith. There were multiple other ones too but Vermouth decided that these were currently the most important.
And since her starting gold is zero, she will need to pay the monster forest to the north of the city a visit to collect some materials which she will then sell to the NPCs before she would be able to buy herself some scrolls.
Finding a bench near her, Vermouth takes a seat before opening her inventory and taking out her beginner's package. She placed the unimpressive wooden chest on her lap and opened it. It disappeared into golden dust before she received a notification.
[You've received the following items from the beginner's package!]
[Novice Mage's Staff] [Pointy hat] [Robe]
[Mage's Garb] [Wizardry Gloves] [MP Ring]
[Int Bracelet] [Woolen Skirt] [Leather Boots]
[x10,000 Rof] [x10 Fair MP Regen Potion] [x10 Fair MP Regen Potion]
"Well, that solves the need to hunt for money," Vermouth uttered. "Now, just to equip these for the time being…"
On top of her head appeared a pointy wizard hat. Vermouth's grayish garb was replaced by a white shirt with symbols embroidered on the front, its hem tucked inside her skirt. Her skirt was replaced by a black one that reached below her knees, much longer than the previous one.
Her small leather shoes were replaced by a pair of comfortable knee-high leather boots. To finish it all off, a purple and baggy robe wrapped around her shoulders, reaching down to her knees. Her wooden staff was replaced by a refined cane with some form of small blue jewel on its tip.
"Uwaah, that's so cliched…" Vermouth uttered as she lifted her arms and looked down at her new outfit with slight annoyance.
Dismissing her opinions and thoughts on the stereotypical wizard outfit, Vermouth hopped off the bench and walked down the path to her left, toward where the spell scroll shop was located, staff in hand. The stares she received went completely unnoticed.
Upon reaching the establishment, Vermouth entered and came out a few minutes after, walking down the path like nothing happened. The stares the players inside gave her was quite unpleasant and she hurriedly bought the spells she found to be in her range of money, spending a total of 4,500 Rof for four elemental spells. The typical fire ball, wind blade, water gun, and earth spikes. There was nothing of interest in the shop. The good spells were expensive, and the interesting ones were outside of her budget.
Vermouth took out the scrolls before ripping them to shreds as she walked. She is headed to the monster forest, also known as the beginner forest, to level herself up.
Magic Spells
[Magic Arrow] ……
[Fire Ball]1Launch a ball of flames toward the aimed direction. Deals 250% of M.atk with the fire element. 30% chance to apply [burn] status effect and deal 1% of the target's HP as fire element for 5 seconds. Cast time: 1 second. Mana cost: 170 [Wind Blade]2Let out three swift blades of wind toward the aimed direction. Deals 120% of M.atk with the wind element, before bursting outward, dealing an additional 20% of M.atk. Cast time: 0.5 seconds. Mana cost: 120 [Water Gun]3Continuously fire a torrent of water for two seconds toward the aimed direction. Continuously dealing 100% of m.atk as water element. Cast time: 2 seconds. Mana cost: 200 [Earth Spikes]4Swiftly create earthen spikes under the target's location, dealing 300% of m.atk with the earth element. 15% chance to apply [immobilized] status effect. Cast time: 2 seconds. Mana cost 250
Upon reaching the gates of the city, she ignored the guards' strange stare and walked down the path leading to the forest.
"What was that about?" Vermouth questioned with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice. "First in the Spell Scrolls shop, now the guards. Am I doing something wrong or what?"
Vermouth pondered about her previous actions and found them to be quite normal, confusing her even more as to why she received unpleasant looks.
"Oh well. Nothing I can do about it if I don't even understand the reason," she put those thoughts in the back of her mind and focused on the path leading to the forest opening in front of her.
Vermouth entered the forest and walked off the path into the forest bushes before silently casting [Living Sword]. She watched as the magic circles surrounding her staff turned into motes of light before fusing and forming a pair of blue longswords overhead.
"That's better than a lot of VR games I have played, wow…" Vermouth uttered with interest.
Vermouth's musings were cut short when she heard the rustling of the bushes in front of her. She readied her staff and prepared to cast her magic.
From the bushes, a horned rabbit came charging at her. She started casting her fastest spell in preparation. "Wind blade!"
The rabbit neared her at the same time her casting finished and the magic circles turned into green waves of wind and… missed the already dead rabbit.
She looked at the blades floating over her head, which quickly sliced up the rabbit in three pieces, making it puff into a small cloud of smoke.
"These things might be more powerful than I initially thought…" Vermouth uttered while staring at the floating swords with a complex expression on her face. "That was too easy…"
Vermouth approached the horned rabbit's drops, picking them up and transferring them to her inventory.
[Obtained x1 Small Horn]
[Obtained x1 Rabbit Pelt]
[Obtained x1 Rabbit Leg]
"No, think positively, Vermouth! That just means you're stronger than most! These things were prepared for weak players, that must be it!" Vermouth huffed in determination and slapped her cheeks with both hands. "I just have to find something stronger to fight!"
With that, Vermouth went deeper into the forest, her determination to fight a stronger opponent pumped.
As Vermouth continued to walk, she ignored the squeals and dying whimpers of the rabbits that jumped at her and were slain by the swords, mindlessly collecting their drops as she continued walking, pausing now and then to resummon the swords, completely ignoring her rising level.
[Obtained x7 Small Horn]
[Obtained x7 Rabbit Pelt]
[Obtained x7 Rabbit Leg]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
That was until she heard a different kind of whimper. Looking to the side, Vermouth found a wolf-like black beast biting onto a living sword while holding down the other, its mouth profusely bleeding due to the sharp edge of the living sword. The moment it noticed Vermouth's gaze, it gave her a malicious glare.
"Finally! Something worth putting effort into!" Vermouth activated the game's identify function, revealing the monster's name and level.
[FieldBoss - Balza] [Level: 23]
'Holy crap, it's a boss!?' Vermouth watched as her living swords were crushed by the monster wolf's fangs, turning into shards of light and fading away. The wolf charged at her, narrowly missing her head after she ducked down.
"Crap!" Vermouth rose from her position and retreated backward, making some distance between herself and the wolf. "I won't be able to cast if I'm this near! Dang it, I should have crafted a totem!"
Grumbling in frustration, Vermouth continued retreating as the wolf hurriedly recovered from crashing into a tree. With enough distance, Vermouth started casting a spell, exploiting the wolf's disorganized state. "Earth Spike!"
Earthen spikes rose from underneath the wolf, only for it to stomp its feet and destroy the spikes.
"It can do that!?" Vermouth muttered in disbelief. She continued to retreat further away. She used this spell in hopes of hindering its movement for a moment and giving herself time to recast her Living Sword spell but her hopes were quite literally stomped on.
'Don't hope!' Vermouth repeated in her mind as she gritted her teeth in frustration.
Deciding that she was unprepared for this monster boss, Vermouth decided to retreat. She turned around and started running. Seeing this, the monster gave chase. Having double the legs Vermouth had, the wolf caught up to her and slashed at her retreating back, taking away half her HP.
"Darn it! It's not going to let me go, is it!?" Vermouth grumbled in frustration as she rolled to the side, creating distance between herself and the monster. "Wind Blade!"
The casting was almost immediate and hit the monster square in the face and dealt critical hits, throwing the monster into disarray as its blood entered its eyes.
"Magic Missile!" She cast another quick spell, pointing the tip of her staff as the magic circle burst forward and balls of purple light assaulted the monster on the face once more, dealing ten critical hits.
It growled as it limped forward onto the dirt ground, glaring at Vermouth with all of its hatred.
Vermouth, taking advantage of the wolf's weakened state, recast her swords and let them loose on the monster, cutting it up into pieces as it helplessly glared at Vermouth.
As the monster turned into a red cloud of smoke and left its drops, Vermouth plopped to the ground backward.
"Haah…" Vermouth sighed out loud as the adrenaline slowly left her body. Whether it was stimulated by the game or her real body, Vermouth didn't know. "Gosh, that was crazy!"
"I did say I wanted to fight something strong, but not that strong!" After reorganizing herself, Vermouth slowly rose from her resting position and approached the monster drops, ignoring the notifications for the time being. "If I didn't get lucky with the first hits my swords did, I seriously would have died."
"Now what do we have here…" Vermouth uttered as she looked at her long notifications.
[Casting has leveled up!]
[Magic Mastery has leveled up!]
[You have defeated FieldBoss - Balza! Obtained Lone Wolf's Saber. Bounty reward, 120,000 Rof]
[For defeating a monster 20 levels higher than yourself, rewarded Lone Wolf's Scepter!]
[Obtained Head of Balza]
[Obtained x3 Balza's fur]
[Obtained x16 Balza's fang]
[Obtained x16 Balza's claw]
[Obtained Balza's Tail]
[Level up x15!]
"Holy crap! 120,000! That's a lot!" Vermouth squealed in shock. "For now, I'll check my stats…"
Vermouth closed the notifications and opened her stat interface.5Oh boy… here we go again…
[Vermouth] [Mage] [Level: 18]
[Base Stats]
[HP 1,770/1,770 | MP 15,598/15,598 ]
[ p.atk 420(+20) | m.atk 1,440(+646) ]
[ p.def 60 | m.def 40 ]
[Status Points: 18]
[STR 10|AGI 10|DEX 64|END 10|WIS 136(+20)]
"I leveled up that much from just that monster? Maybe I should start hunting field bosses instead of normal monsters?" Vermouth seriously considered. As if hunting field bosses was a normal task.
Vermouth did not know this, but she had managed to exploit Balza's weakness without prior knowledge of it. Balza's weakness is his head, which has a damage multiplier of 400% aside from a guaranteed critical hit the vital point had. The first hit that her swords did to it before they were crushed by his fangs, dealt a little less than half its health after it managed to cut through its mouth. That was also the reason it opted to use its claws instead of its mighty fangs to hit her on the back because it could no longer use its jaw!
As for why she received so much EXP, that was because this monster was supposed to be hunted with a party, which she didn't have! Earning her all the EXP with no one to share with! Truly, a lucky break.
"But the real highlight of this fight is this! Come on out!" Vermouth closed her status interface before opening her inventory and equipped her brand new Lone Wolf's Scepter.
Her cane for a staff was replaced by a thin log with a wolf head carved onto its thicker tip, a black cloth wrapped around the wolf's neck. Vermouth clutched her new staff on the thinner part in its middle as she looked at its status with the game's identify function.
[Lone Wolf's Scepter] [Staff] [Rank 4]
[M.atk 452] [P.atk 120]
[M.atk +25%] [Wis +15%] [Wis +35]
[Aggro -25%]
"Balza's symbol of authority."
[Drop Requirement]
Dropped by Balza with a 2% rate. Balza must be fairly fought solo and not get hit on the head to honor his authority as the wolven chief in order for this scepter to drop.
"Would you look at that! A proper weapon with proper bonus stats!" Vermouth swung the staff left and right, getting used to its weight. "Got real lucky again! Now I just have to find an armor set and I'm good to go! For a while at least. Hehe."
"I'll try crafting a totem once I'm back using the materials I got from Balza. Can't risk doing that again with no totems." Vermouth recast her swords before trodding her way out of the forest back to the dirt path.
Upon arriving back in the city, ignoring the weird looks she was getting and filtering out the whispers, Vermouth made her way to the goods shop.
Vermouth bought a few planks of wood before selling the drops she collected from the horned rabbits. Those are low-level materials, there's no way a good totem will come out of those pitiful things. At most, she could make a scarf using the pelt but she doubted that it would serve any purpose other than vanity.
"Hey, miss." Someone said from behind her. He spoke again, his voice laced with disbelief. "Is that Balza's rare drop? That rank 4 staff?"
Vermouth turned around to see a player wearing some robe much better looking than hers.
"Yes, it is… what of it?" Vermouth nodded and spoke, blissfully unaware of the boy's inner turmoil upon hearing her words.
"Did you really beat him solo? As a mage? How?" His face sported disbelief as he ogled the staff, his hands twitching as if he wanted to grab it right off of Vermouth's hands.
Stepping back and approaching the exit, Vermouth frowned at the man as she protectively hugged the staff, frowning at the man. "It's not for sale, just so you know."
"W-wait, maybe we can talk about it?" The man approached. "I can offer up to a million Rof? So please hear me out?"
'Is it that good? Then the more reason not to sell it!' She decided to run off and left the man with her parting words. "I said not for saaale!"
Vermouth ran through the streets before reaching a back alley, where no one could see her. Vermouth peeked out of the corner of the building and found no one resembling the man. Heaving a sigh of relief, Vermouth looked at the staff, her eyes sparkling.
"So you're a big gun, huh? Good to know, good to know…" Vermouth whispered as she unequipped the staff to not experience a similar situation from earlier.
"Now, let's test out Totem Creation!" Vermouth took out the fangs first and placed them on the floor. With her hands hovering over the pile of fangs, Vermouth spoke the trigger words. "Totem Creation!"
She watched with intense interest and fascination as multiple layers of magic circles appeared above and under the pile of fangs. As the casting time counted halfway down, the fangs started glowing before floating off the ground.
"Woah…" Vermouth uttered inadvertently.
The fangs spun in midair before turning into motes of light, gathering at one point in the middle of the magic circles. Slowly, Vermouth could vaguely tell the shape of a small head of an animal.
The light dispersed and revealed a sharp fang the size of her clenched hand with the head of a wolf carved on its root. Its eyes were closed and seemed to be resting, around the surface of its neck were symbols intricately carved. Vermouth picked up the newly made totem and observed it, taking note of its lightness.
"Wow…" She uttered, staring at the totem. "This is very detailed and cool too…"
Dismissing her fascination, Milya decides to assign her most powerful spell to it. Her Totemist - One with Mana spell.
"Assign Totem!" She whispered to the totem before it floated off her palms and radiated a golden light.
In front of the totem appeared words with the same golden glow as the totem. Upon reading them, Vermouth understood that these were her spells, under it was an instruction.
[Cast the spell of your choosing to assign it to the totem.]
And Vermouth did just that, equipping her staff once more, she started casting her spell.
"Totemist - One with Mana!" Intricate magic symbols appeared from the surface of her skin as her body started glowing a blue hue. The golden light radiating off of the totem turned blue as well, as a straight line of blue light connected to herself and the totem. The glow subsided along with the symbols on her skin as the casting finished, the totem falling to the ground as Vermouth heaved out a breath she didn't know she was holding back.
"Wow…" Was the only thing she could utter, her hand mindlessly picking up the totem and holding it close to her chest.
"Wait! This is not the time to be captivated! I need to check its description!"
Vermouth opened its description interface using the game's identify function and carefully read through its description.
[Balza's Mighty Fang] [Totem] [Rank 4]
"A totem created by [Vermouth] using the mighty fangs of Balza the lone chief. Holding onto the totem or attaching it to a staff will allow the user to instantly use the spell assigned without the risk of failing."
[Totemist - One with Mana]
[Increases the damage reduction of spell 'Totemist - One with Mana' by an additional 10%]
"Woah…" Vermouth uttered in amazement. "Let's try it out quickly!"
Vermouth left the alleyway and ran for the gates without a care for the world, headed for the monster den that is the forest.
*****
