Life is a GameCh11 - Climbing down?!

“Are you still mad about what happened back then? I didn’t think much about it. I considered everything over since we had become friends one way or the other…” Knightrider smiled sheepishly, not noticing that his own words held two messages.

I am sorry, I didn’t think it was a problem. pOdsRS

I don’t know why it was one for you, but you’re not mad anymore, right? I have already graciously apologized despite you being the over-sensitive one.

Ice turned the wooden cup in his hands round and round. People rarely considered their words exactly, so more often than not, the things they involuntarily said were their true thoughts, whether they were aware of it or not.

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Knightrider was a leader. He was the type to keep a group together and ensure that its dynamic worked out to allow progress. He did not expect perfect obedience, but what he expected was for people to lay down all their grievances as long as it helped the dynamic.

Right now, he wanted to get along with Ice – which meant that, in order to achieve that, Ice had to put down his grievances from the past. DUsmYk

And Ice did as he was asked.

Because Knightrider truly hadn’t meant anything bad. Because they had been children back then. Because he had overreacted for sure.

“I’m not mad.” Ice gave in and Knightrider smiled even happier. He switched seats to sit next to Ice, putting an arm over his shoulder.

“That’s awesome! So we’re back to being friends, right? Let’s waste some time until we meet up with everyone else.” The warrior took the lead of the conversation, talking about what he had learned about the mountain and confirming as much as possible with Ice.

EQGWd

Over time, everyone else trickled in. They ordered a private room, waiting for the last two – Bloody and the unknown player.

Surprisingly, Bloodless Sunset entered with a dark face, followed by White Light.

For some reason, Blackstone’s eye twitched.

The group dynamic was… interesting, to say the least. dHx2wl

There were two leader types, one the more gentlemanly and polite type, the other the funny and cheerful type.

There were two very quiet people, and one guy who was a bit hyperactive.

Finally there was someone who seemed to hate groups in general, and one whose very existence was triggering the other girl.

The last one was Blackstone, who was used to being a bridge between all kinds of people and groups but… WVCYds

Not a group this messy!

White Light was famous enough that he didn’t have to be introduced. It was a quick introduction round, full of politeness – if you ignored how wary the warrior’s eyes grew when he heard that one of the people was Knightrider, who had joined the competitive rankers.

“So we have… three close combat fighters, with one being suitable for playing tank and another could be a secondary tank. We have one support, one healer, two ranged fighters and one… I’m not sure how useful ice magic will be on the mountain”, Blackstone methodically explained.

While all three close-combat fighters could be summed up under the warrior class, their actual specialisation was different. mQOV t

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Bloody was a barbarian, who fought with no or little weapons. Their fighting style was focused on swift but strong attacks with no regard for defense. The best way to work against that disadvantage was by having high agility to evade.

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Knightrider was the true knight class. He was wearing heavier armor and was a perfect tank. His task was standing at the frontline and protecting his lord… or party members, in this case. That was why his movements were slower, but his hits were heavy and his defense was high.

Players usually called this class and specialisation, just like the rogue class had a specialisation for assassins and thieves, or mages had specialisations depending on their magic type. Contrary to classes, there was no in-game penalty for switching specialisations, but most players preferred learning a single one and perfecting it. Xdn2vl

“You’ve entered the mountains, right? What was your experience with the monsters there? Can you fight?”, White Light asked directly, his forehead creasing thoughtfully.

The Ice Emperor took a slow, deep breath that caused everyone to pause and glance over. Ice spoke, his voice completely monotone. “I haven’t fought. We avoided the monsters and went to explore. Only Bloody went against a couple of monsters.”

Absinth squeaked in surprise. She almost jumped out of her seat, envy burning in her eyes. “What a waste of your VIP pass!”

Ice’s eyes lowered. It looked like he did not want to bother with her outburst, but in truth he simply couldn’t meet her gaze. He pursed his lips before continuing. “During our exploration, we found the castle.” zlnRJT

Absinth froze. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table. Little Droplet whistled appreciatively, breaking a surprisingly excited Spiderlily out of her trance. “You have found it already?”

Ice looked over to Bloody, searching for help. The beastman patted his hand under the table and took over. “Yes! It’s not that hard to find. Honestly, this part of the quest is ridiculously easy, but there’s a different problem. I imagine no one here wants to simply report its existence and be done with it?”

He waited a couple of seconds in which no one denied his words.

“I thought so. Well, the issue is – reaching the actual castle will be hard. It’s in the middle of a… hole, basically. Also, the monsters around there managed to one-hit us before we even saw them.” He spread his hands helplessly. “We had basically dashed the last bit blindly and somehow managed to get through.” QjkizR

“Wait a second.” White Light stopped Bloody by raising his hand and fiddled with his bag. Not much later, he had taken out a notebook, a pencil and a map. “Where is the castle? And what do you mean by hole?”

He shoved both over to Bloody, who checked with his own user map before tapping a point. “It’s here. We went roughly this way… It was okay in terms of terrain.”

The beastman opened the notebook, ears twitching. He drew a simple sketch of how the castle was positioned. It was hardly pretty, but along with his explanation everyone got the gist of it.

“Do we… need a climbing set?” Blackstone swallowed heavily. 7 8FyV

“I have never climbed before”, Spiderlily whispered under her breath, looking uncertain.

“I can’t handle that descend…” Little Droplet’s face tensed. “You’re not going to get me down there.”

“Haven doesn’t have any terrain where you need to climb yet… I’m not even sure where to buy equipment. I’ve thought of it before, but never needed any. We might need a blacksmith to make it for us.” White Light leaned on his palm. When his gaze met Blackstone’s, she quickly shook her head to ensure she couldn’t do it.

“I don’t have the blueprints”, she explained. “Haven’s smithing is kind of like cooking. I could try on my own but… I don’t even have a vague idea. I need a blueprint or I can’t do anything. And before you ask – no, I’ve never even seen blueprints for it. I wouldn’t even know where to buy or lend them. It might be better to find a professional to buy them.” w0SYp7

“Which means we need two things to even reach the castle: A way to get past the monsters, and a way to descend down to it. Am I correct?” Knightrider held up two fingers.

“Ensuring our safety down there aside, yes. We don’t know if its inhabitants are hostile, or if there are any at all. The whole thing might be one huge trap. It could even be a dungeon.”

Chrysanthemum Garden.

This time, Ice kept quiet. He didn’t want to reveal the existence of the person he had seen just yet.

“First we should find a way to safely reach the castle. Are there guides online yet? Did any of the rankers make one? I can’t imagine we can manage without fighting at all.” Knightrider pointed at the map, trying to call everyone to attention. s2X7I5

White Light had a different approach. “We won’t get guides this early. It makes more sense to focus on what we can do first – the equipment.”

The Ice Emperor leaned as far back in his seat as possible. Bloody knew why, and he couldn’t help but laugh a bit.

Ice didn’t prepare too much. Ice loved walking right into new terrain and letting things happen. With his luck stat, that went well more often than it did not, and he’d even stumble upon especially good encounters once in a while. If it was only him and Bloody, they’d probably be on the way back up the mountain by now to simply try again.

Ice was not an e-sports player. He was not a player who engaged in competition, or who planned out his character build. He was playing the game to enjoy and somehow made it up the rankings, mostly due to sheer luck, some talent and a lot of time. BfIuDm

During an interview with the developers, they had been asked about the success of the Ice Emperor. The team lead had shrugged and grinned. There are two ways to play this game, he had said. You can play against the world, or you can play alongside it. The Ice Emperor is doing the latter.

Relationships with NPCs were not forged by superficial politeness. In the early game, Ice had discarded the concept of levelling up quickly and had instead begun to help out the inhabitants of the game world. He had gotten to know them, knew their families and friends, their likes and dislikes. Where others blindly handed in quests, he tried to finish his quests in a way that would benefit the NPCs the most, and they returned the favour.

It was a concept that truly only worked for people who were willing to invest so much time into artificial characters.

That didn’t mean that he got things for free all the time, of course, but he was much more likely to get a quest with high rewards than others. Rmvn F

Bloodless Sunset was more of a classical player. When the two attacked an area together, it was him who would prepare everything.

That was why he knew that Ice didn’t know how to join this conversation at all.

“White Light, you’re the only one in the group who has enough connections to ask for information about the mountain. How about you do that while the rest of us go to find out more about the equipment?”, Bloody suggested with open glee.

“I’ll ask my guild to gather information. There is no need to split up.” A very polite answer. If the man’s smile had been a bit more honest, you could have believed it. jJSPYW

“I think splitting up is good. What do you think, Ice? As our leader?”

Whether he was aware of the underlying currents or not, Knightrider pushed the decision onto Ice.

The ice mage felt his brain turn a blank. Was splitting up better or worse? He wasn’t sure what kind of plan was the most logical. He had no experience leading a group, but-

“Let’s split up”, he said anyway. The reason was simple – he trusted Bloody’s decision. “Some of us gather information about the mountain, the others search for the blueprint.” YmCuDZ

It wasn’t clear why the rest accepted his words. It was most likely because although they all had the same quest, the Ice Emperor had been officially named as the leader by the quest giver. If he went to complain to the prince, they weren’t sure they could keep the quest and no one wanted to lose it.

Ice looked over the group.

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He didn’t want to be in one group with Absinth. At the same time, he would prefer for neither Blackstone nor Little Droplet to be in a group with her. If he wanted to keep Bloody too, the groups were already decided.

“Me, Bloody, Little Droplet and Blackstone will search for blueprints. I have connections that might help us. Absinth, White Light, Knightrider and Spiderlily can try to find as much information as possible.” SwjRGz

The young man cleared his throat at the end and nervously looked at everyone. Absinth accepted his decision but was clearly going to do it her way. “I’ll go directly to the mountain and fight at the edge. It’s open to the public soon.”

“I as well”, Spiderlily joined in, but with a much more thoughtful tone. “I will ask the guards stationed there what they know. Maybe some of them are willing to share some gossip that might be useful.”

“I’ll get my guild to attack the mountain. We should be able to cover some ground with those numbers.”

“I can’t move my guild, but if I inform my guild leader that I’ve got a world quest, everyone will help”, Knightrider finished up with a certainty that was surprising. It was like he had no doubt that his guild leader would do as he asked. 2ogRXx

“Ice Emperor, do you know any good blacksmiths? I think it makes most sense to ask one directly”, Blackstone – visibly pleased with the grouping – asked politely.

Ice mentally went through all blacksmith NPCs he knew. He wasn’t on great terms with dwarves – elves and dwarves had a slightly strained relationship, just like beastmen and humans – but because he was a Foreigner, they accepted him easier. He nodded.

“There’s one living at the Fish Tree, right?” Bloody scratched his cheek and tilted his head, ear flicking.

“Fish Tree?” Little Droplet blinked their huge eyes. “What’s that?” RCj34D

“It’s a large tree that has a wooden plaque saying Fish. No one knows why, but according to the NPCs, that plaque has been there ever since they could remember.”

“That’s… weird.”

“Haven has many strange things. It might be a joke from the developers, or there’s some hidden story.” Bloody spread his hands in a helpless manner. “Anyway, it’s a landmark that kind of makes it easy to remember where that guy lives. He’s a bit eccentric, but he might have a blueprint for it exactly because of that. Or maybe he can make one. Do you two have flying mounts?”

“I have one”, Little Droplet said. “Drew it during the last event.” KpOa5g

“I don’t. Little Droplet, would you mind if we shared?”, Blackstone sighed, looking uncomfortable. Dwarven faces were naturally not as expressive as human ones, but she somehow managed to still show her emotions on her face like an open book.

“It’s no problem”, Little Droplet chirped.

The youth wasn’t too talkative, but clearly very friendly. Only Ice frowned a tiny bit – he felt like the other sounded weirdly distant. In his experience, people that were outwardly easy-going while still keeping a distance were the ones that he didn’t dare trust the most.

“Information gathering is an endless undertaking. I’d suggest that we will gather as much as we can in the timeframe it takes you to find blueprints and make us equipment? Should we send a deadline? We are planning to climb down, but considering that no one here has taken a close look at the situation, we might be wasting time”, White Light warned. Indeed, it was a players’ habit to gather things you might need before making a troublesome trip. W28vag

This was, in one way, a good habit – based on experience, you could avoid making a trip twice by already gathering what you were likely to need before even reaching your destination. On the other hand, there was always a chance that you’d waste time and money acquiring something you didn’t even need.


Author’s Note

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The hidden story is that I asked someone if they wanted to have a char in this story and her response was, she wants a tree named fish. It does nothing.
I’ll probably start uploading on Wednesday too from now on – but only as long as my backlog manages to keep up.
Have mini-Bloody because he’s cute. This is roughly the type of chibi that accompanies the chat messages they send!

  yinzYp

Translator's Note

Knight and swordsman are not the same in all details, as I explain here. Swordsman just means person who wields a sword, while a knight is someone in service. Depending on the time these words are used, knights might even be a term specifically only for those under lords

Leave a Comment

7 comments

  1. chibi Bloody is adorable!

    I dont know how I feel about that knightrider… I dont like the overly friendly types.

    thanks for the chapter <3

  2. When Bloody’s ears twitch I get the urge to touch them >3

    Seems like there’s more behind Little Droplet….. or you’re just confusing us (me lol) on purpose again xDD

    Thx for the ch ٩(。˃ ᵕ ˂ )و

  3. Omg chibi Bloody so CUTEEEEE!! Want to squeeze and pull and pinch and poke and and and~ 😍

    Hm. Now there’s 3 people in the party who’s vibes are either on the negative or neutral scale. Goodness, I wonder how this quest will turn out. Can’t they use a flying mount to fly down the hole, rather than climbing equipment? Or is that area a no-fly zone? Anyway. Things are bound to get interesting 🧐

    • Yup you guessed right! There’s no-fly zones. Ingame-logic, they’re areas which the mounts refuse to enter, on game-logic, they’re areas where flying/having a mount would be too much of a cheat