The journey from Blackwater Village to the capital was safe overall ..... it was about half a days walk to reach the capital city's wall about 3 hours if one took a horse .

Not having a mount was extremely frustrating ..... but mounts would not unlock untill level 40 soo Rudra was stuck walking.

There were no monsters on the road to the capital however the same could not be said for bandits.

Some rogue bandits and some connected to underworld organizations would often plunder travellers on the road.

This is part of the reason why the AI made it soo that one could not venture out towards the capital before reaching level 10

As the bandits would be around the level 10-13 on each road leading towards the capital city. Unless you are sufficiently prepared you cannot reach the capital in the early stages of the game.

Well he was not worried about bandits much as he had the semi legendary item Lich's Ring

He could just summon his Knight Durahal and it would be game over for the bandits

He felt happy and chirpy for this reason alone,

The weather was pleasent in the countryside leading to the capital

He was not afraid of players to see him soo

In the security that noone was watching him

Rudra broke into song while dancing as he moved along the road

" Iv got fire for her heart im not scared of the dark you never see me look soo ....."

" Baby , baby , baby oooooo like ..."

Unbeknownst to him there was a player behind him

Yes a player indeed reached level 10 about 8 hours after Rudra ... the levelling maniac ' Neatwit ' .

He was the one dominating the leaderboards for 7 years straight in Rudra ' s past life. Well Apart from these two most elite players were around level 8 and would still take a day to reach level 10 and most of the mobs would take about 3 more .

And here he was seeing Rudra dance like a buffoon

Soo thats the top player ' Shakuni' ???? he thought

Well he meant to just think it but ended up saying it out loud

That made Rudra look back and turn beet red at being caught in this embarrassing situation.

But before he could give an explanation

Neatwit said

" Sooooo cooollllllll!!!!"

"Oh my god big brother , your dance moves are soo sick" He said

" Big brother?? whose your brother ?" , did this guy fall on his head when he was young or what?"

The official age to play 'Omega' was 19

soo considering he was 21 noone should call him big brother.

" Hi , sir im Neatwit ..... i assume you are the first level 10 player Mr Shakuni ..... its an absolute pleasure to meet you sir" He introduced

" Rudra got the whole picture now.... this was the levelling maniac Neatwit who had a childlike personality"

' Neatwit' never joined a guild in his past Life the only thing he did was to level level and level

He would grind mobs like noone else

Not interested in loot , fame or power the only thing he wanted was to level up faster!

Well if i had not been reincarnated i guess he would still be on the top of leaderboards. He thought

" Pleasure to meet you my friend..... wanna head towards the capital with me?" Rudra asked

" sure .... it s boring to travel alone anyway " he said

They both started chatting and walking casually it was actually quite fun

They had great chemistry and Neatwit s goofy nature instantly appealed to Rudra who was by nature Goofy himself

They had a rollicking good time untill suddenly an arrow shot out of the woods barely missing Rudra 's head.

They both drew their swords and were alert in an instant.

"BANDITS!" said Rudra

They stood back to back as they calmly analysed the situation ..... there were six bandits all level 13 ... who surrounded them blocking all exits

It was not a very favourable fighting condition

" Drop your sword armour and valuables and we will let you go punks" One of the bandit said

Neatwit was scared

well not about the loot

but about the death penalty

his hard earned exp will be lost

plus the 3 hours he took to walk

UNACCEPTABLE he thought

Rudra was pissed right now as he did not want to reveal the power of his ring to anyone

If Neatwit was not here Durahal would have been enough to deal with them all

But he could not summon Durahal yet.

No worries though

Darkness bind and windcutter could still annihilate 3 bandits easy

Well he could take on two more himself but the last one needed to be dealt by Neatwit

"Can you take on one? " Rudra asked

He nodded

Darkness bind said Rudra and he quickly used windslice to kill 3 Bandits in one fell swoop

The bandits were dumbfounded .....

What the hell

What just happened

But before they could recover from their shock

Rudra charged on two more

Neatwit did too

It was a smooth fight for Rudra

and surprisingly Neatwit held his own too

5 minutes later

all 6 Bandits were dead

𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 5 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘴

𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴

+1500 𝘌𝘹𝘱

+ 30 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘳

+ 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘻𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴

+ 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘱 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘤𝘦 (1/3)

LEVEL UP!

Rudra was pleased with the way the battle turned out

He did not reveal his trump card while he also got decent items

" Woww..... Big brother is soo strong" Neatwit was awed by Rudra 's remarkable skills and strength.

Rudra called for the system pannel

-----------------------

Player Name : Shakuni

Title : Viscount of Hazelgroove kingdom, Reputable knight

Class : Knight

Subclass : none

LVL:12

Tier : 0

STATS

AGI : 20 VIT : 15

INT : 15 STA : 15

PHY : 15 HP : 500/500

Status : Fatigued

Equipment : common stone sword , leather boots , Darkness Armour , Lich's Ring , Bronze shins

-----------------------

With his stats levelling up he felt lighter and stronger

Well it was an addictive feeling

He could see why Neatwit only focused on levelling

It was like steriods you could not get off off.

If he did not neee money soo badly

maybe becoming a solo high level player would not have been a bad option

Alas he cant do that

Not yet atleast!

" let's go ..... lets reach the capital before sundown .... night is even more unsafe to travel"

with this they both started walking faster towards the capital