Much to my embarrassment as soon as we got to the inn, we were enthusiastically greeted by the innkeeper much to Fern and Evie’s rather obvious amusement.

“Zeke, it’s good to see you lad!” The middle-aged man said loudly attracting the attention of everyone in the common room. “Thank you for your help the other day.”

“That’s fine mister, uh…” I trailed off as I realised that I still didn’t know the innkeepers name, but the older man just smiled.

“Oh, that’s right I never actually introduced myself, did I?” he laughed. “My name is Conrad, and as I’m sure you are all aware, I run this inn and you’ve already met my daughter Milly, right?”

“Yes, we’ve met,” I replied as the young girl that had delivered my dinner to me the first night came up to me shyly. “It’s good to see that you’re looking happier.”

“Thank you,” she replied quietly giving me a weak smile before turning to Evie. “And how are you doing.”

“I’m good, thank you for suggesting that I find Zeke, you described him very well.” Evie told her friend whose smile widened as she nodded happily. While Evie was still a bit annoyed at me, she had calmed down on the way through town and eventually apologised for her outburst.

“That’s fine, I knew that after helping me out with an issue caused by other outsiders it would be difficult for him to find other people who would be willing to fight with him and I thought this would be the best way to repay him. But I see that my worries may have been unfounded. May I ask your name?” She said, turning towards a smirking Fern.

“I’m Fern, it’s nice to meet you Milly,” Fern said holding out a hand which Milly and then Conrad shook.

“So, would you three like a table?” Milly asked.

“That would be great,” I replied looking around the common room, noting that once again a number of the customers were glaring at me. However, I wasn’t sure whether this was because of the fact that I had walked in with two pretty girls, because Conrad and Milly were so happy to see me or because some of them knew that I had killed a few players. Either way I decided to ignore them for now. If they wanted to cause trouble, then they would there wasn’t anything that I could do about it. “Could we have one in a corner down the back for some privacy?”

“Sure,” she replied. “Would you like to order anything?”

After asking what was on offer, we chose to order drinks and a couple of the dishes that were on offer before Milly led us to a large table down the back where we sat down and started talking about how we were going to distribute the loot we had onto some plates that I had asked Milly to get for us so that we didn’t make a big mess on the table.

“So, what are we going to do about the kid?” Fern asked once we had emptied the loot out, drawing the jealous attention of some of the other people in the room which told me that they were likely players.

We had managed to get four Rabbit’s feet, a decent amount of meat, a couple of skins and another Core Shard like the one that I had looted from one of the Terror Chicks.

“Well let’s put one of the feet aside for him and whatever else you guys think as fair, for starters,” I sighed rubbing my face tiredly.

“Alright, what should we do with the other three?” Evie asked as she quickly took one of the Rabbit’s feet and putting it on a separate plate before I changed my mind.

“Well I already have two but I’m going to be absent tomorrow,” I mused. “On the other hand, I wouldn’t have too much difficulty catching up tomorrow afternoon so I’m not too worried. I do want the Core Shard though.”

“I don’t see any reason we can’t just split them evenly between the three of us and I’m okay with you having the Core Shard,” Fern said. “I take it you’re planning on getting the profession that allows you to craft your own Soul Cores?”

“Yeah I am,” I replied. “I already have one Core Shard already from a different monster but until I unlock the gathering Skill for obtaining them, they’ll be hard to find so it would be great if you would let me have it.”

“Alright,” Evie agreed. “That seems fair. What about the other stuff?”

“I dunno, Fern are you planning on unlocking the Leatherworking profession?” I asked knowing that Evie was still trying to figure out what to unlock but Fern was a much more experienced player so she should have some idea of what she was doing.

“I think I might,” the rogue replied. “But skins are a bit easier to come across than Core Shards so we can share those out a bit more.”

“Well then that’s up to you and Evie I guess as I’ve already got my share of the loot. By the way if we’re going to continue to work together, we should probably set aside some party funds,” I suggested. “Also, Conrad.”

“I think we make a good team, so I’d be happy to do that,” Fern replied making evie smile happily.

“Well we only need enough to pay for some potions so we should have a little left over from selling the meat, not much but every little bit helps right?” I said chuckling weakly as my party members gave me blank looks as they realised just what I was saying. “Hey if you want to sell some of your share of the loot to buy some more gear early on be my guest.”

“Are you sure we need to have party funds just yet?” Fern asked looking slightly irritated by my amusement. “Don’t’ get me wrong I don’t have any problem with the idea it’s just that the money that we get from selling the meat probably won’t pay for much.”

“Normally I would agree with you that we wouldn’t need party funds this early on in a game,” I replied. “But if one of us dies we’re locked out of the game for a long time and we’re already behind the Levelling curve and this game is considerably more difficult than most.”

“All the more reason to buy better gear!” Fern argued.

“Again normally yes, but as I’m sure that you’ve realised I have a couple of advantages over the average player and as long as we don’t get into a situation like earlier we should be fine with just a Health Potion each and a Spirit Potion for Evie which won’t cost too much and you two can keep the change if you want.” I told her calmly.

Fern hesitated slightly at my words, before looking me directly in the eye and nodding in agreement.

“By the way I expect you to explain exactly what that advantage is you know?” she grumbled.

“That’s fine,” I replied. “I wasn’t going to tell you if you didn’t say that you were going to stay in our Party but now that you’ve told me that you’re going to I guess I have no choice.”

“But,” I continued looking her directly and then Evie directly in the eyes. “Only if you both promise me not to tell any of the other players, at least for now.”

As I said this I activated my Detect Truth Skill blinking in surprise as white auras surrounded the girls in front of me and quickly I looked around the common room and saw that most of the people in the room had the same white auras surrounding them with only a couple of exceptions who had murky looking auras surrounding them as they talked to the other people at their table before quickly turning my attention back to my companions who were watching the way I was acting with confusion over their faces.

“I’m a gamer,” Fern answered. “And we’re in a party together so any advantage that you have benefits me, now don’t get me wrong. I want to know what that advantage is so that I can try and get one of my own, but it would be stupid of me to just give that advantage away to someone else.”

“I already told you that I wouldn’t be telling anyone about your advantage, right?” Evie said as well.

The auras surrounding them didn’t even waver for so much as a second and while Fern technically didn’t answer the question what she said made sense as well apparently still being truthful if I was reading the auras right, so I decided to let it go.

“Alright then,” I said looking around the room carefully to work out how I could hide what I was about to do, luckily I had my back to the rest of the room and it would be easy enough to hide what I was going to show them.

Holding my arm out I changed the shape of my Ranger’s bracelet back to what it had been when it was given to me right in front of them making their eyes widen in surprise before quickly changing it back before anyone else could notice.

“This has a special Soul Core inside it that I received from helping the guards here out with a certain problem involving players like us, namely, how to police criminals who can come back from the dead or disappear randomly from their cells as well as some other things that I’m not at liberty to talk about,” I explained causing their eyes to widen even further. “The reward came with a title called Ranger Initiate that also increased my Stats slightly at the moment I’m still under observation for the time being and it comes with a lot of responsibilities, but the rewards are worth it.”

“So, you were the one that told the guards how to punish players,” Fern breathed looking at me incredulously.

“That’s part of it yes, for the rest of the story you’ll have to talk to Milly,” I replied as the young woman in question came up behind me and started placing mugs of beer on the table making me jump in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that just yet. But I can tell you that I trust Zeke with my life after what he did for me.”

“Alright,” Evie agreed giving me an odd look. “But if you change your mind, we’re ready to talk.”

“Thanks,” Milly replied giving her friend a smile before brushing imaginary crumbs off her apron. “Now then, your meals will be along in a minute.”

After thanking her we returned to our original conversation which was basically just me explaining the benefits I received from the title and the Soul Core currently linked to my bracelet as well as some of the responsibilities that I now had because of it.

Once I was done explaining how the Ranger Core worked, I realised that I had something else to tell them and pulled up my Status page to confirm sure enough I was right.

Name: Zeke

Level: 2

Next Level: 13%

Health: 155/155

Combat Regen: 1 per sec

Spirit: 135/135

Combat Regen: 1.5 per sec

Strength:1

Dexterity:2

Agility:1

Costitution:2

Intelligence:2

Charisma:2

Physical Defence:5

Magical Defence:4

Physical Damage:

1 Handed 6-9

2 Handed 8-12

Magic Power:3

“Oh, and by the way, ding,” I said casually as Evie and Fern watched me curiously waiting for what I was going to tell them next. As Katy had told me in the tutorial Levelling Up had only increased my HP and SP by 10 each but it was still an important milestone.

“Ding?” Evie asked cocking her head to one side and I sighed as I remembered that she was fairly new to gaming luckily Fern decided to take it upon herself to explain the term.

“It means that he Levelled Up,” she told the other girl rolling her eyes at me.

“Oh!” Evie gasped excitedly before turning back to me. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“I hadn’t checked until now,” I replied honestly. “Besides it doesn’t matter as much in this game as it does in others where you get Stat Points from Levelling Up.”

“That’s true,” Fern agreed. “I’m getting close to Levelling Up myself, how about you Evie?”

“Um,” Evie’s eyes glazed over slightly as she accessed her own Status. “I’m nearly three quarters of the way to Level 2.”

This of course got us talking about the importance of having multiple Soul Cores that increased Stats over actually Levelling Up, even if they were minor increases like the Core that I had that increased my HP. By the time our meals arrived the conversation had mostly petered out and after we finished eating, we decided to turn in for the night.

“Conrad, how much do I owe you for the meals and a room for tonight? “I asked the innkeeper as I walked up to the bar.

“For you?” Conrad laughed. “Meals and room on the house! Your friends still have to pay though.”

“Uh, I don’t suppose there’s any way to convince you to let me friends have a discount?” I asked wincing slightly as I felt the glares of the two young women with me burning into my back.

“Hmm, so long as you’re all okay with the silver tag rooms, I can go down as low as half, but you all have to pay,” he replied after a moment of thought. “Sorry but I do have a business to run.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him waving away his apology. “So how much will we owe you for three rooms?”

“1 silver and 5 copper in total,” he replied and I nodded I still had some money left over from killing the Terror Chicks so this wouldn’t be too much of a problem once we sold the 12 pieces of rabbit eat that we had, although it was still looking like we’d have to sell a skin or two to buy the emergency supplies. Upon realising this I took a moment to lament how little money you got for loot from low levelled mobs in games, it was going to take a while before I could actually start making money out of this game at the rate I was going.

“How does that sound?” I asked turning to my party members who both nodded their agreement. “Alright, here’s some meat for the kitchen take what we owe you out of that please.”

Conrad nodded and took the offered meat from me and gave me 9 copper and three keys in exchange which I passed out to my new friends before we all head upstairs and bid each other goodnight. Reaching the same room that I had slept in the night before I once more lay down on the bed and logged out.

Finding myself in my personal space I wandered over and sat down next to Katy on the couch.

“Thanks for getting me to give Evie a shot,” I said eventually, and she snorted in very unladylike amusement.

“Yeah you almost stuffed that one right up, didn’t you?” she chuckled. “Still it all worked out in the end, you even got another party member who seems to know what she’s doing which is good too.”

“True, actually feel a little bad about using my Detect Truth Skill on them especially as neither of them called me out when I explained the Skill that I received from the Ranger Core,” I sighed rubbing my face tiredly.

“Probably because you told them pretty much right after using it on them,” Katy mused. “If it had come out later, they probably would’ve reacted worse.”

“True,” I agreed. “Well I’d better go and take care of some things in the real world; my cupboards are looking pretty bare.”

Katy agreed reminding me to actually get some real food making me grin as I exited my personal space and got out of my Rig. In all fairness I suppose I could splurge a little on something cheap to cook in celebration of both the game coming out and the events over the past few days.

Throwing on some clothes I grabbed my shopping bag from its place in the cupboard and made my way outside grimacing at the smog filled sky that awaited me outside my door. Apparently back when my parents had been kids, they had been able to actually see the sky more than a few days of the year but thanks to the sheer amount of pollution in the atmosphere these days actually being able to see the blue sky like I could in game was very rare which if I was honest was what had drawn me to games in the first place.

I shook my head as I remembered how bad I had been the first time I had played a VR game, eventually I was picked up by a group of people who took pity on me and eventually I became a trusted member of their party. Most of them had moved on and gotten real jobs now but I met up with some of them sometimes to hang out or play games when they had time. Unfortunately, none of them had decided to pre-order Soul Core Online but after the announcement the other day I expected to hear from them any minute now.

Making my way to my local supermarket I quickly grabbed some essential items that I was running out of as well as the ingredients for dinner before making my way to self-checkout with my head down as I tried not to draw too much attention to myself. While I might act a bit different in game, I was actually pretty uncomfortable with other people. Particularly crowds like the one surrounding me right now. Unfortunately, I had chosen to do my shopping at a busy time and there were a lot of parents and their kids rushing around trying to get the stuff that they needed as quickly as possible so that they could go home.

Waving my CM at the scanner I grabbed my groceries and made my way out the doors as fast as I could. Only once I was outside did I finally relax and start walking at a normal pace until I reached my apartment and unlocked the door, thankful that I didn’t have to fumble for keys like I would’ve had to even back when I was a kid and walked inside.

“Welcome back!” Katy chirped in greeting. “Did you get some proper food?”

“Yes mum,” I grumbled as I placed the bag on the counter and started putting things away. “The menu for tonight, well actually for the next few nights, is chilli con carne made from canned tomatoes, beans and some vat grown beef mince that was on special.”

While vat grown meats were much cheaper than their more traditional counterparts they also didn’t have very much flavour which meant that if you were going to eat them it was best to use them in something that had a lot of flavour on its own like the chilli that I was going to make. Really, I was lucky that I even knew how to cook as the number of people my age who could was lower than it had ever been.

Another lucky thing was that I still had some spices left over from when I was actually making money from my job and I quickly had the chilli bubbling away nicely as the smell of tomatoes and paprika filled the air. Most people would be surprised that I was planning on making and having dinner at this time of day, as it was only a little after 1pm but I was planning on spending the whole night in my Rig, at night I would sleep at the inn like a local rather than logging out like most players would, with the effects of my Rig this would mean that I was getting close (but not quite) the normal amount of sleep that someone needed while also allowing me to wake up and instantly be ready to get on with killing mobs and completing Quests.

“You’re quite good at that,” Katy noted sounding happy that I was actually going to be eating something other than the instant noodles or rice that she’d noticed that I’d been subsisting on for some time.

“I actually used to cook pretty much everything I ate,” I admitted sheepishly. “It’s cheaper than getting meals delivered or going out to eat and I had to save money for the games I wanted.”

“But now you barely have enough money to pay for rent let alone new games,” Katy sighed over the speakers installed in the ceiling and I grimaced as I imagined her shaking her head in exasperation.

“Hey, I’d like to point out that if I hadn’t been living like that, I wouldn’t have pre-ordered this game and you wouldn’t exist as the person you are now,” I grumbled irritably.

“I know,” she replied. “It’s not your fault that the store that you work at is struggling.”

I was still a bit sore over what was going on with my job but then I shrugged; I was on holiday right now so there was no point worrying about it right now. Besides hopefully it wouldn’t matter soon, I still had a bit of work to do before I was actually making money out of the game but with my new party members things were already looking up.

Once I had finished my meal and washed the dishes I decided to sit down and read for a bit, I still had around two hours before dawn broke in game. Grabbing my e-reader from my room I sat down on the couch and started reading one of my favourite books sighing as I relaxed fully.

A few minutes later Katy suddenly spoke up making me jerk awake having dozed off some time ago and unfortunately fell off the couch in surprise.

“What is it?” I groaned from my new position on the floor.

“I have received a message for you from Gransoft Entertainment,” Katy replied, her voice sounding slightly strange to my ears. “One of their representatives wishes to interview you.”

“Come again!?”