Chapter 2: Horned Rabbit

As I asked for a Status inside of my mind, it showed up in front of me. It looked like a holographic window you saw in those sci-fi movies. My husband used to love those and always made me watch them with him...

The Status by itself seemed convoluted with numbers and weird letters here and there. Why did they have to make games so complicated nowadays?

It was a bit stressful for me to look at this thing and try to find a meaning to it. It made me wish that I had a more personalized guide that could help me out by explaining to me what these numbers were exactly.

Ding!

"Eh?"

However, the moment I wondered what these stats were, small windows that explained each stat in detail showed up just as I wanted. But it was still way too much text for me. Did I have to read all of this to understand such basic mechanics?

"Is there not a guide around here? Hello? Gaia? Can you help me?"

I looked around the forest in search of anyone who could have been around.

But the only thing I got was just tranquility.

Hmm... I remembered there was something like an Inventory where Gaia left me a gift.

Maybe that could be more useful?

Let us see...

Inventory!

FLASH!

Before I knew it, a small little window showed up.

Player: Planta

Gold Coins: 0

Fame Points: 0

Added Friends: 0 / 100

NPC Allies: 0 / 100

Inventory: 1 / 100

So there was another Status screen? Eh, this one showed stuff I kind of understood and wasn't as dense. So there was a currency in this game, right? Was it gold coins like in the medieval settings? I understood that.

But what were Fame Points and the rest? Why did I have a limit on how many friends I can make? That's a bit... Well, I don't think I'll ever get a hundred friends anyways.

Let's look into the Inventory first!

I clicked into the icon, and then, a box with several squares inside of it showed up.

The blue box showed that there was a small little, red-colored gift inside.

I put my hands inside of the box and then pulled it out.

Is this...?

[Beginner's Gift Box]

Contains the most basic of things to start your journey in New Life Online. Enjoy the game.

The gift was rather light in my hands. Included with it was a small note that didn't say much about what could be inside. But anyways... I opened it with my hands and then, it exploded into bright light.

POOF!

And what showed in front of me were several items...

[You have opened the [Beginner's Gift Box]!]

[You acquired a bag with 1000 Gold Coins!]

[You acquired [Health Potion (Low-Grade)] x20!]

[You acquired [Mana Potion (Low-Grade)] x20!]

[You acquired [Helper Spirit]!]

Oh wow!

On the floor, there were several items.

I saw some red and blue drinks which I figured out were potions. And then there was a bag with 1000 gold coins! Wow, if I could bring this out to the real world, I would be rich...

But it was just digital currency.

And then there was... this thing.

What was this?

It was named Helper Spirit.

But to me it looked like a small blue orb.

I touched it, then picked it up to inspect it closer. I looked into it with my eye up close to see if there was something inside of it, but it suddenly glowed brightly.

FLASH!

"Uwah!"

It almost made me fall out of surprise!

The blue orb started to float in midair. Two little blue wings showed up around it and it started to flap its wings like a hummingbird. It flapped its wings at incredible speeds.

"W-What? Is this a pet?" I wondered aloud.

"I am not your pet! In fact, I cannot fight nor grow, nor do I feel hunger at that!"

The thing spoke!

It had the voice of a cheeky little boy.

"What are you exactly?" I asked.

"I am a helper spirit! I was sent here by Gaia to help you out in your journey. If you have any questions regarding something, or you don't know what to do, just ask me." The little floating bulb said.

"I don't need to feed you, don't I?" I asked.

"You don't! I feed on the divine power of my goddess!" said the little ball.

"I see... Erm, I guess this is the perfect opportunity then! Can you explain to me what these stats things are?" I asked.

"Stats? You don't know what stats are?" asked the ball.

"No..." I said.

"Seriously? What are you? Forty?" asked the ball.

"How rude! I am only 36! I am in the bloom of my youthfulness!" I said angrily.

"Y-You're quite old..." he said.

"I am not!" I said angrily.

How rude! I am not going to talk with this thing if it's going to tell me I am old. What were the game developers thinking by making such an annoying A.I.?

"Wait! Okay, I am sorry. I didn't mean to offend you..." sighed the spirit.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, it is just surprising. Anyways, let me give you a brief explanation."

The Spirit floated around me as my Status Window emerged once more and he began to point each stat on it with its wing.

"HP are Health Points. It is pretty much your current amount of points before you die, your life, if they reach zero, you die and need to wait until you can respawn."

"Eh? That's awful... I didn't know I could die here..."

"MP are Mana Points. It is the number of points you have that is of Mana. Mana is something which you can use to activate Skills and Magic. Without it, you can't activate Active Skills or conjure Spells, if it reaches zero, you'll feel mentally tired, so try to always save some."

"Mana..."

"STR is your physical strength, it calculates how much damage a punch, a kick, a swing of your sword or other physical weapons can deal against a foe. It also helps in carrying things and other stuff..."

"I see... I am very weak, aren't I?"

"VIT is your vitality, it increases your HP a bit, and it also helps with your physical Stamina. More Vitality means you'll get tired less and your satiation meter becomes larger as well."

"I can eat in here?" I asked.

"Yes, you can eat. Anyways, DEX is Dexterity, it deals with handling things with dexterous movements and also being delicate at the time of handling tools,"

"AGI calculates your maximum speed, evasion, and critical hit, it is pretty good for thieves and assassins,"

"INT calculates how much information you can store inside your brain, also, the more you got the stronger your magical attacks become,"

"WIS is Wisdom, the more Wisdom, the more information you've accumulated and the smarter and more experienced you become, it also can reduce magic damage against you..."

"And lastly, LUC is luck! Simply put, Luck helps you deal with things that require certain percentages to be decided, evasion and critical hits, and even things such as random loot drops and etcetera." Said the spirit.

When the spirit finally finished explaining everything, I finally understood it a little bit, but I seriously didn't get why they had to make it so complicated...

"Geez, couldn't they make it simpler? There are way too many Stats to keep track of..." I sighed.

"Well you can just ignore them for now, you're a newbie... Anyways, save those items in your inventory for now if you don't want anyone to steal them." The spirit said.

"S-Steal? Can people steal here?" I asked.

"Yes, they can. There are even Player Killers that can loot your items if they kill you! ...Of course, you can also disable this option, I will disable it for you. Just by looking at your fearful face I can already notice you're not made for fighting." the spirit sighed..

"You have my gratitude! I actually just joined to find my daughter in the game and socialize with her by being here... I want to reconnect with her by playing her favorite game," I said.

"Oh, so that's it? I guess that's why such an old lady would come play this game..." he said.

"S-Stop calling me old, will you?!" I asked angrily.

"S-Sorry! Okay, don't report me, or the devs are going to delete me..." he cried.

"Sigh... But don't act cocky then!" I said.

This spirit was a bit too disrespectful; nobody had ever called me old before... I was actually very young-looking, many young men had flirted with me when I was working in the supermarket or the cafeteria, so I still got it with me!

Sigh.

Now, I had to concentrate and see what to do.

I was inside of this forest and with no other players around to guide me, so I had to ask help from this disrespectful little child.

The system said something about going to meet the Tree of Beginnings, so I should go there.

Oh? There was a big red arrow now atop me, aside from the two bars that say "HP" and "MP"...

Should I go there?

"What is this arrow?" I asked.

"Oh? That? It is an Indication Arrow, it will guide you to where you can pick up a quest. Remember, you can only pick a quest once, so you must finish it or cancel it before picking another," the spirit said..

"Huh, okay... I guess I'll go search for that tree!" I said.

"The tree? Oh right, that's the quest for the Dryad Race... So you're a Dryad, at first sight you look like an Elf..." said the spirit.

"They looked almost identical, didn't they?" I asked.

"Yes, they do... the devs should really try being a bit more original." the spirit said.

And like that, I decided to follow the red arrow indicating to me where the tree that would give me a quest was located. I wandered around barefoot over the beautiful forest, but my feet didn't hurt even when I stepped over hard stones.

Perhaps my entire body was stronger than that of my own self? I wonder...

There were a lot of beautiful flowers and herbs I found along the way, and an assortment of colorful mushrooms as well. When I looked into them, they showed some information one after the other, and I had the urge to pick them up... but I contained myself and continued on my journey.

"So what's the player name of your daughter? Maybe I could search her through the player database." the spirit offered.

"Y-You can do that?" I asked.

"Any player can search another if they know their name, I am doing it for you right now if you could provide her name." the spirit said.

"I see... Not exactly, I don't have any idea what her game name was..." I sighed.

"Sigh... You're really a handful," the spirit said.

The spirit was a bit annoying, but it was nice to have someone to talk to in this silent place.

However, as I got closer to the tree, I felt the bushes around me wave strangely. Before I knew it, a little thing jumped out of it and appeared in front of me!

"Chuu!"

It looked like a small... rabbit!

It was a brown-colored rabbit with a tiny horn on top of its head.

"Oh! T-That's a monster! Be careful! Kill it! It is a Level 1 Horned Rabbit, nothing too hard, even a punch should do it..." said the spirit.

"A monster? Ah... But it's so cute!" I said.

"Cute?!"

I tried to approach the little rabbit, as it looked at me sharply with its eyes.

"Chuuu!"

It suddenly and angrily pounced towards me. It tried to pierce my hand with its horn!

"Uwaah!"

I quickly retreated, as I looked at the angered creature.

"See? What did I tell you? Grab your weapon and- Wait, Dryads don't come equipped with weapons?!" asked the spirit. It realized I had no weapons.

"Haha..." I laughed.

"T-Then use Green Magic, shape your body!" he said.

"Shape it?" I asked.

"Well, Dryads have the power to shape their bodies, like... imagine having a large and sharp thorn in your hand." Said the spirit.

"That's..."

I looked into my hand and imagined just that.

CRACK!

And right in front of me, I lost 10 MP but my hand suddenly shaped into a sharp thorn?!

Uwah, this was freaky!

"A lot of Dryad players never figure this out, you know? This is why they always drop the Race and delete their character to make another race at the end..." said the spirit.

"This is a bit creepy, you know?" I sighed.

"Come on, don't be a chicken and kill that rabbit!" said the spirit.

"You're such a monster... it is just afraid of me..." I sighed.

"CHUUU!"

However, I was proven wrong. The rabbit leaped towards me and nearly pierced my chest with its horn!

"Uwah! No!"

I cried desperately, as I felt my heart beating fast, I ended up hitting the rabbit with my thorn-shaped hand. I stabbed the rabbit on the spot.

CLASH!

[You dealt 20 Damage! Critical Hit!]

[The Rabbit has died!]

"Chuu..."

"Ah! I did it?!"

"You did!"

POOF!

The rabbit was dead but it didn't drop a single amount of blood, but instead it turned into small particles of light, and dropped some items on the floor.

[You defeated a Horned Rabbit: Lv1, you gained 50 EXP]

[Race & Job Class EXP: 50 / 1000]

Even more, I seem to have gained some... Exupé?

"Sweet! You gained some experience points." The spirit said. He flew towards the dropped items and then made them disappear.

[You acquired [Horned Rabbit Meat] x1, [Horned Rabbit Fur] x1, and [Rabbit Horn] x1]

[You acquired 5 Gold Coins]

I gained some gold too? So by just killing a little animal I even gain gold and items... This was a bit sad.

I looked into the Inventory and the rabbit seemed already butchered for me. Did the game do this for me? That's sweet though...

Maybe I could cook the meat?

Ah, no! I must concentrate on searching for the quest-giving tree!

But suddenly, I heard the whisper of an old man.

"My child... Come closer..."