Chapter 2

Move Forward Part IV

    A not-so-big, two-story wooden house stood before Tan and Blanche. It was secured by a fine fence. The duo headed to the house. After Tan opened a wooden door and went inside, they were greeted by a bald gentleman with a mustache.

    “Greeting, Master,” He greeted them.

    Blanche was alarmed by the way the gentleman addressed him. He looked at Tan and saw a smiley face. “You can call me Blanche,” he said.

    “My apology, Master. An NPC like me must perform as programmed,” replied the gentleman.

    “NPC?” Tan repeated the word.

    “Yes…I am an NPC,” the bald gentleman reassured before he continued. “It will be 500 Gil, sir.”

    “500 Gil? For what?” Dissatisfied, Tan frowned and asked.

    “For staying, sir.”

    “What?! We’re the owner of the area!” Tan yelled.

    The bald gentleman shook his head. “Master Blanche is the owner of this area.”

    Tan was stunned. He then looked at Blanche who had a sheepish grin on his face. “Calm down, I’ll pay for you,” Blanche said and was about to pay the gentleman.

    “No, no. I’ll take care of it myself,” Tan spoke as he paid 500 Gil. He then had to frown at his friend again after that.

    The resting spot in the Black Forest has an income. 50 Gil has been transferred to your electronics account. If you wish to be notified each time, please press the accept button. If not, please press the reject button.

    The system voice sounded. Tan, who stood next to Blanche and was in the same party, heard that loud and clear. Blanche, the owner of the area, did not like to be bothered with stuff like this, so he pressed the reject button and then gave Tan a sheepish grin once more.

    “Yeah…I’m not a kind person. I’m not the area owner…” Tan spoke sarcastically. “Hand it to me. Let me see the Area Card,” Tan asked as he walked to a table nearby. He sat down with his legs crossed before heaving a long sigh.

    Blanche started to smile at the scene as he sat down across Tan. He then summoned the Area Card and handed it to his friend.

    “Take it,” said Blanche.

    Tan narrowed his eyes. “Nope, too crappy for me. I want a much more powerful one,” he criticized. Blanche, who was sitting across from him, shook his head and smiled. Blanche knew Tan said all that because he did not want to take this card away from him.

    “Look…! Why it’s different from other cards,” Tan asked as he examined the Black Forest card and realized that it was different from common cards. The Area Card consisted of three parts and had a description of a monster, magic, and equipment.

    “Area Cards are different from common cards,” Blanche explained. “When used, an Area Card will random out one of its three abilities: Monster, Magic, and Avatar.”

    Surprised, Tan raised his eyebrows. “That means we don’t know what’s going to happen?”

    “That’s right,” Blanche replied calmly. “But each ability is sure to be way more powerful than any common cards,” he added.

    “Hold on.” Tan put his hand forward. “What is the Avatar?”

    “Transform,” Blanche answered briefly.

    “Transform?”

    “Yeah…transform like you don’t conform…”

    Hearing the pun, Tan was shocked. The NPC resided here narrowed his eyes and looked at his master. “Blanche…” Tan called out his friend’s name. “I don’t think you are good with puns. I swear with my scout’s badges.”

    Blanche seemed disappointed. “Really…?” He looked a bit sad. “Avatar is an ability to transform players into an incredible being based on the Area Card they used,” Blanche elaborated.

    “Why is there no description about it?” Tan frowned and asked.

    “It differs from one another. No one gets the gist of it. Legend had it that Jobs and Classes have something to do with the Avatar that players will transform into,” Blanche slowly explained. “Am I that bad with puns?” He insisted on not giving up.

    Tan pretended he could not hear the question his friend had asked and continued further about the Avatar. “That means we have to try out if we want to know,” he concluded.

    “That’s right…” Blanche replied.

    “Class H, does it mean this card is weak?” Hearing the question, the bald NPC who worked for this place turned his gaze towards Tan.

    “H-Class Area Cards are much more powerful than 10-star cards,” The NPC interrupted.

    “Does the system programmed you to stick your nose into others’ business?” Tan picked on the NPC as he was still hurtful having to pay for a stay. The gentleman was stunned. He closed his mouth shut and carried on with his task.

    “Anyway, thanks for telling me that,” Tan spoke as he noticed a terrible look on the gentleman’s face. He was not that mad and was just fooling around. The NPC bowed at him after hearing that and started introducing himself.

    “My pleasure. You can call me Wilson,” he said. “Still, you have to pay for your stay, sir.”

    Hearing what the NPC said, Tan smiled and shook his head. “Fine, I can pay you that. Don’t worry.” He gestured to the gentleman that it was not a big deal then turned his attention back to the card in his hand.

    “How much can we earn from this?” Tan asked. Blanche pouted his lips as he did not know the price and then asked Wilson.

    “Mr. Wilson, how much we can earn if we were to sell this card,” asked Blanche.

    “Not less than 500,000 Gil,” Wilson replied. “I suggest you keep it because when an Area Card is unlocked, it will not appear for the second time, meaning this card is one of a kind.”

    “500,000!” Tan burst. “You get 500,000 for an H-Class card. What about an A-Class card?”

    “As far as I know, there’s only up to C-Class cards that have been out in the market. It was at 52,000,000 Gil,” Wilson answered while wiping a tall glass.

    He spoke no more and handed the card back to Blanche then said, “I want to see how awesome the card is,” Tan said. “Now we can go to the city that holds the tournament. You are almost level 20 now. Killing about twenty monsters along the way would do.”

    Blanche raised his eyebrows. He forgot that he was currently at level 19. “That’s right. I didn’t think I could participate in this tournament. Let’s prepare ourselves. We’ll go there when we have done rearranging our deck.

    Tan smirked. “Hold on, we’ve got something to do,” He spoke as he rearranged his deck. Judging from his expression…

    …It was obvious that he was up to no good—more likely plotting something very mischievous.

    A tavern in Rindervel sounded louder than usual. In the tavern, many people were forced to put up with a group of loud talkers who were rude and thoughtless of others.

    “You know what, when that noob saw the damage I caused, he became so scared that he made a horrible face. It was too ugly to bear to look at,” A familiar face in copper armor bragged about how well he handled a newbie to his three to four underlings.

    One of his underlings joined the conversation in a rather irritating manner. “Hashtag lit AF…” He made a silly face as he continued, “You were, hashtag, a GOAT when you taught that brat a lesson. You were like the knight in the movie, Gladiator, so awesome AF…”

    The leader turned his gaze to his underling and frowned. “Handbag? A-F? What are you saying?” As he drank half a mug of his beer, he asked.

    “Come on…It’s a trend now. That’s how teenagers nowadays say stuff. You put ‘Hashtag’ in front of anything to make it sound cooler. ‘AF’ is from ‘as f*ck’,” The weirdo with his way of saying things explained. “Girls like it when you talk like that.”

    The copper armor knight widened his eyes as he heard the last sentence. “Is that true?” He asked with a solemn voice.

    “I wouldn’t dare to lie to my beloved leader,” seemingly drunk, the underling replied.

    “Handbag. A-F,” He repeated the words he learned. Hearing that, the same underling shook his finger at his leader.

    “No, no. It’s ‘Hashtag.’ Not hand, not bag, but hashtag, say it with me.”

    “Hashtag,” he tried again. This time he got a thumbs up.

    “Hashtag, like. Hashtag, you’re da boss,” the underling praised. The grumpy copper armor knight smiled widely as the other underling started laughing.

    “So annoying!”