Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Jim's PoV

Jim focused on his breathing as his temper cooled off. How dare that vile digital man try to lay a hand on his cute digital dog? Had it not been for his conversation with Bilgar he would have toasted that guy.

As his rage lessened he reflected on the conversation he had with the man. It was obvious now that the simulated environment was doing a much better job at processing people than he had thought at first. He almost felt sorry for screwing up the guy's name so many times. It was very Terry-like behavior, but still, should he feel bad about treating puppets badly?

No matter how life-like they were, they were not real. It was the equivalent of programming a cyborg with a ton of conditional statements and then being surprised that it could imitate life so well. Unfortunately for him even imitation was very dangerous.

Only yesterday he would have been jumping for joy that the people in his game were this realistic. The final boss might have been dead, but there were plenty of things out in the world that could probably kill Jim in the game if they found him while he was helpless and in the real world.

The fact that time moves at the same rate in both worlds, as well as a digital avatar that's vulnerable while he's on the other side made a really crappy combo. And now he had to deal with digital people that acted like real people.

Glancing down at his masterfully crafted armor, it wouldn't be hard to guess that anyone who saw him vulnerable and wearing this armor would try to take it. Should he wear crappy armor so people would leave him alone? Or trust his best armor to keep him alive while he found time to log back into the game? Even if he found a room in a good inn, he would still be vulnerable to robbery. If only he could find someone trustworthy to watch over his body...

Looking around in his menu again he saw the evil spell named Sense Lv2. Glancing back at the pair that was still following him he saw that he could no longer see the extra details that Sense had provided. On autopilot he casted it on the two of them.

To no surprise at all, the wolves were hungry again. Jim sighed and started looking through his inventory. There had to be something other than Elixirs that he could feed the dogs. And that was when a glimmer of an idea started to form. He once again read the extra text that Sense Lv2 provided to him about his companions.