Second World

"Cool, right?" Ogre commented beside him. "It's just like the other VR RPG games.  You should be able to do Blacksmithing activities with this Forge. You have unlocked your Auxiliary Skill page, haven't you?"

"I have," Jack answered.

"That's good, saves me from explaining. Now, this Forge corresponds to the Blacksmith Job. If you check the interface, you need a recipe to craft stuff. But it also has a function that allows equipment repair."

Jack studied the interface; he saw the repair option and clicked it. A hammer materialized on the workbench, a text description showed it as Basic Blacksmith Hammer. A demonstration video appeared and showed the repair process using the hammer. Some complementary text was beside the video, saying that he would need to pay 1 copper coin for 1 Durability of Common equipment and 5 Copper coins for 1 Durability of Uncommon equipment.

"I need to pay coins for the repair?" Jack asked.

"Yeah. Nothing is free, mate," Ogre answered. "1 copper for 1 durability, you should have gotten some from killing monsters, right?"

"Yes, but not much. I will save the repair for later." He closed the interface and the hammer vanished. Ogre only mentioned 1 coin to repair, it was possible that he didn't know that uncommon costs more because the workbench only displayed options to repair equipment that the user possessed. Or he might be assuming that Jack only had common equipment. Either way, Jack didn't want to let on that his sword was uncommon.  If he performed the repair now, Ogre would see him spending 5 coins for each hammering process.

"Your choice, mate." Ogre said with a shrug. "It's getting dark now; you should spend the night here. There's a bunk room at the end of this hall. You can spend the night there."

"I am grateful for your hospitality."

"No problem! We have to look after each other in such times, right?" He exclaimed with a laugh.

It was in the middle of the night.  The sky was clear and a full moon shone brightly. It was dim inside a certain room of Rick's workshop, however. Its windows were murky, so little light entered. The door to this room opened silently. Its hinges had been recently oiled to make sure of it. Two shadows crept through this door.  They approached the blanket covered person who was sleeping in the room.

The two shadows stealthily sneaked up the bedside. One of the shadows used one of his hands to make a countdown sign. When his last finger curled into a fist, they simultaneously swung their weapons, and struck down into the blanketed man.

They repeated the attack multiple times, making sure that their target couldn't fight back before his health bar expired. But when one of the attackers realized there were no damage numbers appearing after all those hits, he made a gesture have his partner stop. Then he reached out and pulled the blanket away. Underneath it was a scrunched-up pillow and a bolster.

Both attackers were baffled and dismayed by this.  The one holding the axe had a sudden epiphany and was just about to turn around. But he was too late,  A tram-like force slammed onto his back and sent him flying. A red number of 42 followed him as he crashed onto the wall beside the bed; a red number 6 replaced the previous number.

The attacker's partner was shocked but didn't stay still.  He ducked and the swing of a sharp object barely missed his shoulder. He continued with a frantic roll on the floor before reaching a table with a bed lamp and turned on the light.

As the room brightened, three people were at different positions of the room staring at each other. Jack was standing in the middle of the room. Ogre was near the far wall gasping for breath as he tried to bear the pain in his back, while Mouse was crouching on the floor next to the side table.

"Ho– How did you know?!" Ogre asked between his clenched teeth.

"You have been waiting for us?" Mouse added.

Jack stared at them with disgust.

"I've had a bad feeling about you two from the start. I reckoned I was not the first person you guys ambushed. Aside from the woman whose dress is on the pile of clothes out there, how many players have been your victims?"

"What? How could you pick out that dress among the other clothes? I never saw you touch that dress. How do you know it belongs to a Player?"

Jack just smiled.  He was not going to explain to them that his God-eye monocle could identify items without touching them.

"So, you have been hiding and waiting for us all this time?" Mouse repeated his question.

Jack was also not going to explain to them that his God-eye monocle could detect their positions. He had indeed stayed up all night due to his suspicions, but he only hid after seeing them move towards his room on his radar.

"What have you done to the others? You killed and robbed them?" He asked instead. No wonder these two guys had way more equipment than him.

"Same way we are gonna rob and kill you too!" Mouse retorted as he lunged forward with his dagger.

Jack sidestepped to evade the attack. Mouse followed and tried to use his speed to overwhelm his foe, but, to his surprise, Jack matched his speed. In his confusion, he was slashed by Jack's sword. He would never imagine that Jack had double classes that gave him a higher Dexterity than a ranger.

A 31 damage appeared above his head. He quickly retreated to avoid further damage.

As Jack started to chase after Mouse, Ogre jumped out and made a fierce overhead swing with his axe. Jack avoided that fierce attack and back-stepped towards the door. He continued out of that room and into the more spacious hall. Although he knew his attributes were higher, fighting in a cramped space against two opponents would be disadvantageous. It would end up being pure blow-exchanging if they fought in there, and Jack would get hit twice for each attack he made. And besides, he could use the doorway as a chokepoint.

The first one that came towards the door was Ogre. Jack met him head-on at the doorway. Jack's sword clashed with his axe and the impact threw the big guy backward. Jack could see the confusion on his face at the disparity of their strength. Taking advantage of his imbalance, Jack made a thrust which added more damage to his brawny assailant.

Mouse came forward but his dagger thrust was easily parried. On his second thrust, his arm became a blur and Jack felt pain in his abdomen. The little guy managed to hit him!

'That fast second thrust must have been a Skill!' Jack moved back due to the hit which allowed his two enemies to come out the door. Jack used his Swing skill and hit both of them.

"You are level 5?!" Ogre exclaimed in shock.

Jack didn't bother to reply as he executed several consecutive slashes to keep them off balance. His opponents were freaked out by his relentless attacks. They were the ones that were supposed to be attackers, but now they were more like victims.

They frantically tried to put some distance between them. Ogre managed to block some of Jack's blows using Parry, but Mouse was more miserable as he could only rely on his speed which turned out to be slower than his opponent. By the time they escaped to a safe distance, Mouse's HP bar had dropped to a dangerous low.

"Quick, drink a Medicine!" Ogre shouted as he used Swing on Jack to keep him occupied.

Jack evaded the poorly executed Swing and brought out his staff. While Mouse was about to drink the Medicine, he cast Magic Bullet and the spell took out the remainder of Mouse's HP before the Medicine entered his mouth. He fell to the floor.

Ogre's eyes almost bulged out when he saw this.

"What's that!? How come you could use a Magician's spell?"

"Find out in your next life!" Jack told him grimly as he dashed forward.

Ogre made a desperate slash with his axe but his weapon hit a hard glowing surface. He stared at the Magic Shield in disbelief as Jack's sword, with the full power of Power Strike skill, landed on him. His vision went blurry as he dropped to the floor.. He still couldn't believe how the tables had been turned on their beautiful ambush.