Chapter 6: Chapter 5: “Never Above C”

CHAPTER 5: “NEVER ABOVE C”

 

Ai hesitated to open the door. 

He’d only been in the game for a little while and during that time, he never encountered any player. Facing the possibility of meeting with one now made him nervous. 

It was odd really. He felt more at peace and comfortable with the programmed NPCs rather than real players. Maybe it was because other players were essentially a human like him really, and humans were unpredictable, code was. 

[Player Eusyca_] has requested entry to your room!

The [Thought System] notified once again, meaning this Eusyca_ had requested entry twice now. Feeling more and more nervous as he let the other player wait outside without any response, Ai dashed towards the door and chose ‘yes’ when asked if he wanted to let the other player in.

Eusyca_ was a player using a female character model. They were also another elf character with long dark hair, golden brown skin, and sharp yellow eyes. The garb they wore told Ai that they chose another scholar class, the mage. 

Already Ai could tell that this mage was much better equipped than him. The red orb on their staff was glowing, exuding power as it did. The glistening accessories were also better than the lantern oil Ai had. 

Looking at the accessories a bit further, Ai recognized these items. He’d seen them somewhere, he just couldn’t remember where…

“Hey!” Eusyca_ said, their voice firm. “You’re a newbie, right?”

Startled, Ai could only nod in response. His eyes slowly drifted away from the glowing equipment and stared at the other’s player’s face. They weren’t smiling but there was a twinkle of amusement in their yellow eyes.

“I saw you today around town,” Euscya_ walked past Ai, almost uninvited, and looked around at the Golden Suite. “Wow...how did you get a Golden Suite? They key to this place isn’t even available on the game shop.”

The game shop...speaking of it, Ai realized that he hadn’t even once peeked at the game shop for [World Symphony]. Simply put, he wasn’t interested at all and didn’t even bother to open it. He knew that there were items that could help out players, especially newbies. The shop sold mid level armor and weapons that could help new players on their starting adventure.

Ai never liked buying exclusive items to progress a game. It was much more satisfying to grind and earn stuff on your own. [World Symphony] seemed to agree with him to some degree. Though their shop did contain items that could help new players, the items there stopped at that. There were no super powerful artifacts or mounts or weapons that players could buy at the shop. Everything had to be earned through manual gaming. Even the newbie helper gear were weaker than the ones grinded and earned through beginner quests.

“Anyway, I’m a newbie too.” Eusyca_ said after getting a good look at the suite. “Since we both unfortunately got elf as our race, let’s work together.”

Ai stared at Eusyca_’s outstretched hand but didn’t take it. His mind was still processing what the other player had said about elves.

“Unfortunately…?”

Eusyca_ tilted their head in confusion and dropped their hand. 

“Did you read third party forums before you played this game?” Eusyca_ said. “Especially about elves?”

Though Ai surfed the hot trending topics in the forums, he didn’t touch unofficial forums since the information there were too easily fabricated and could easily spoil him of the story, which he didn’t want. He preferred official forums where the forum moderators of the game were more strict on what information can be shared and what can’t. He also didn’t really get into the topics talking about the race option, truthfully he didn’t care too much since any race that players picked didn’t affect the story in any way shape or form and he didn’t care about the aesthetics either. He looked for more gameplay clues and quest pointers.

“I’m guessing from your face that you didn’t.” Eusyca_ sighed. “The game devs don’t want us to talk about these kinds of things in the official forums, so most threads surrounding it are deleted immediately. They consider it too much of a spoiler to be put out. Hmph, I think they just didn’t want players to be turned off.”

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Ai thought back to the post the player Maestro made about Mediators and how terrible they were. How did that post survive as a top rated thread and not get deleted?

“Since you don’t read third party forums, I’ll just explain it to you.” Eusyca_ suddenly got closer, their voice dropping to a whisper as if they were scared that someone was listening in to the conversation. Ai didn’t try to ruin their fun by letting them know that the game devs probably know everything a player is saying.

“The elf beginner quest is almost impossible to finish with a ranking above C.”

Ai wanted to curse right there and then.

Ranking for a quest was a thing in [World Symphony]. If a player completed a quest, their performance would be given a score from F to S. The score a player gave determined quest rewards, EXP, and for mediators, the possibility of unlocking new dialogues which meant more rewards. So getting the highest possible ranking in a quest was what you wanted. C was middle tier, it meant that the quest was done mediocrely, not terribly but also excellently. Getting a high score in a beginner quest was even more important since it could give the new players rewards that would make them sail through the first few stages of the game.

Ai scrolled through the game settings through the [Thought System] and wondered if he could restart the account and pick a different class. Even the C ranking seemed like a distant goal for a mediator without even a single bit of special skills.

“Are you a mediator?” Eusyca_ asked, only just then realizing. Their brows furrowed in confusion and Ai could almost see the bafflement in the other player’s face. “Either you’re stupid or think you’re better than the other players who tried to use this class.”

Ai wanted to scream that that wasn’t true but kept silent.

“Hmph, well, you might still have some use.” Eusyca_ said, their tone changing slightly colder and condescending. “Anyway, if you didn’t notice, there aren’t many players in this city. The elf population has dwindled because of the high beginner quest difficulty. Most people can’t even complete it.”

Ai wanted to ask whether or not the C ranking rewards were that bad, but before he could, Eusyca_ already marched back to the door. Seemed like knowing that they only had a mediator to partner with had killed their interest almost entirely.

They looked back at Ai before they left, their face smug. “Well, I’ll still partner with you anyway, just don’t hold me back.”

Then they left, their brown mage cloak swishing around as they did. 

Ai was left stunned. He was unsure of how to feel. Eusyca_ was definitely not as friendly when they found out that Ai was a mediator. The hatred against this class may have run deeper than Ai first thought. He realized now that the post that Maestro made in the forum served not only as a warning for newbies to not pick the useless class, but also as a warning that high leveled players will not take mediators for their parties.

Ai sighed, he figured it out too late.

According to the [Thought System], he could change his character data if he wanted to as long as he hadn’t reached level 10 and had experienced at least 24 real time hours of the class he wanted to change.

Depressed that he had to spend at least 24 hours, Ai closed the [Thought System]. Though Eusyca_ demanded that Ai became their partner, Ai didn’t agree nor disagree. He decided that it was best to just wait out the 24 hours. He would change class, hopefully not run into Eusyca_ again, and finally play this game with a bit more joy in it.

For now he didn’t want to stay in the Golden Suite. Though it was nice and it was a waste not to use it more, 24 real time hours was too long to be doing nothing. He should familiarize himself with the game. Though he definitely wouldn’t be picking the elf race again, Pymule was still a nice place that he would probably be visiting in the future. Besides, their library surely has knowledge of other places and races intertwined in their history.

Feeling slightly happier that he didn’t have to log out, Ai rushed away to exit the inn.

As he left, he could feel Avra staring at him, their gaze silently burning his back. Ai stopped himself at the door and looked back at the silent NPC. They were still standing behind the counter, their face blank, but their eyes were starting unblinkingly at Ai.

Ai bowed slightly at them and gave a small wave.

He left immediately after that but he could’ve sworn Avra’s eyes widened ever so slightly.

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