VRMMORPG: Dragomancer Reborn



Arthur deliberated about meeting Rain for a while before deciding against it.

'It isn't in my favor to reveal my cards this early. At the very least I cannot meet him in the real world. It is best I meet him in game.' Arthur concluded.

~Sigh~

"Things are really amping up huh…" Arthur shook his head and decided to just relax till it was time to login.

He simply ordered some food for dinner and watched a movie to pass time.

>Detected user Arthur Grey!<

Arthur entered the Dream Pod V3 and logged into the game again. The flurry of colors swept past him, welcoming him.

~shua~

Arthur's avatar materialized and he felt his senses become strong again.

"Hmm, the difference is significant between my body and the Avatar now… Even more so due to the synchronization stat…" Arthur muttered to himself before walking out of the inn.

The first thing he did was to check the town's atmosphere. After all, two days had gone by when he had logged out and there were bound to be some differences. And sure enough, there was a massive change.

"Haha, a town is so much better than the village."

"I know right, I can finally buy some good equipment that doesn't feel like a waste of coins."

"Forget that, did you see the skills we can buy? Some of them are crazy!"

"Nah, I barely got my class change done and bought some items. I still need to do some quests to farm coins." 

Arthur could see tens of players talking among themselves. 

'That's a lot more than I thought…' Arthur checked the levels of the players and found everyone to be at level 10. "No one above level 10 yet, and most have just entered the town. Seems like they should be the players that play in the day instead of night." He guessed.

While players could only play for 8 hours a day, it didn't have to be constrained to the night time. That was just the most common time that people played as it aligned with their normal sleeping patterns.

There were always others who would just sleep normally in the night and play in the day time. The only limitation that people had was of 8 hours, rather than the exact time period.

One could also split their play time.

For example, they could play for 4 hours in the afternoon, and 4 hours in the night when they slept. The Dream Pod V3 could easily accommodate for this and there were no issues in doing so either.

In fact, later on in the game, players would strategize their play times so that they could take the most benefit. For examples, if some quest had them waiting for a day or so to progress, they could just log out and wait for 8 hours in the real world before logging in again.

This was very common for people who had night shifts or night-time jobs. Allowing them to not miss out on playing the game. After all, they wouldn't be sleeping in the night like others, and would instead sleep in the day.

Of course, there were advantages and disadvantages to this, but it was all still fair for the players as everyone roughly had the same amount of playtime.

Even when Hypnotek would eventually allow players to play for a longer period of time, it would still be the same for everyone and thus keeping it fair for them.

'So the players are about a day earlier this time around… Hmm, at least there aren't too many outliers like Val.' Arthur inferred after checking the players.

But he wasn't the only one checking the players, they were doing the same to him.

"Hey, who's that?" One of the players asked his friend.

"No idea… but that equipment looks fire." The second player said ogling at Arthur's armor.

"Let's check who that is then, Inspect!" the players finally used the skill.

But unfortunately for them, it didn't work.

>Inspect Skill has failed!<

"Huh? It failed?" The player couldn't believe his eye.

"Wait, doesn't that only happen if the target is over 10 levels above us?" they felt confused.

"Yeah… there's no way he's a player then. He'd have to be at least level 20 or something."

"Pfft!~ haha! Sure, why don't you also tell me he's also the first one to arrive here dayyyyys in advance." They joked.

"He doesn't look like a guard though, their armors are different. His is way too 'fiery'." They wondered.

"Probably just an NPC adventurer." Someone suggested.

"Huh? There are other adventurers than players?" a player was surprised.

"Did you even read the basics dude? Of course, there are NPC adventurers too." His friend chided.

"Yeah, other than guards and other common NPCs, there are adventurer NPCs too. Did you not register at the Adventurers guild yet?"

"Nah man, I just got here an hour ago. And I barely have 30 minutes left to log out. So I was just rushing to get my class first." The player explained himself.

"Makes sense then. You should definitely register, they'll give you a run down of how things work there."  The more 'senior' players informed the newbie. "You'll see the other NPC adventurers having good armor too. Heck some of them have really cool weapons. I saw one with a giant sword that was literally two meters tall!"

Arthur who watched all this happen was rather surprised, though it was all hidden due to his helmet that covered his face.

'Well, well… seems like I have another advantage I didn't think about before…' Arthur thought to himself. 'Even without using the Veil of Thousand Skins, as long as my level is 10 levels above most players, they won't be able to tell I'm a player like them… at least not until they obtain a stronger Appraisal skill or a player function that tells them about me.' 

It was a good thing for Arthur as he didn't wish to get hounded by players. It could also expose his identity as Grey Watcher as players would be able to connect the most 'experienced guide maker to the person with significantly better armor than them.

'Another reason for me to stay higher leveled than them at all times. So far only Val knows about me, so I should talk to her about this too.' Arthur reckoned. "Oh wait, is she Online yet?" he opened up the friend list.

~Ding~

——

Friends: 1. Player Val [Offline]

——

"Guess she hasn't logged in yet…" Arthur muttered before continuing towards the guard captain's office. 

He looked at the residents of the town and saw that most of them seemed to still be a bit anxious, but the atmosphere was relatively calm. At the very least, it didn't seem like they were worried about getting attacked anytime soon.

Even the guards were patrolling normally and didn't seem to be aggressively checking everything like they had in Arthur's past life.

'When players arrived in the town at first, they were heavily scrutinized by the guards all the time. It was kinda hard for them to get used to it. But since the invasion by the bandits didn't happen and the town was protected, it seems like they won't be going through that.' Arthur concluded seeing the changes.

He didn't know how it would affect the players, but he could guess that they wouldn't be facing as much antagonism from the guards. They were suspicious of everyone in Arthur's last life, understandably so due to the invasion of the bandits. 

To them, the players who had suddenly arrived and were growing strong fast were obviously strange. 

'Looks like Caleb will be having a busy time for sure.' Arthur chuckled thinking of all the nosy players crowding the guild. 

Players by nature were curious and would often ask weird and crazy questions. Some would even try crazy things without thinking about the consequences.

This made Arthur think of something suddenly.

"I wonder who'll be the first player to become vilified?" Arthur thought. "It isn't exactly hard to do that, and pretty sure someone will attempt to do that, thinking it'll give them some secret quest or something." He muttered to himself just as he stepped into the guard building.

Things had calmed down a little bit in the building though the staff still seemed to be busy for the most part. 

"You guys okay?" Arthur peeked into the room.

"Ah, Arzhur! You're back." The staff seemed rather relieved seeing him.

"Yes, I have bounties to submit," Arthur replied. 

"Of course, we're sorry we couldn't accommodate you earlier. We simply had things to rush because of Captain leaving." The staff clarified.

"It is fine, I talked to the captain too. It was understandable." Arthur didn't mind.

"Please come, I'll get you sorted out." The staff member placed the register on the table, gesturing Arthur.

"Can you show me the proofs?" The staff member asked.

"Sure," Arthur said before taking out the two bounty proofs.