Chapter 107 - Hoarding Quests

The two continued shopping for about twenty minutes. Arthur helped Anna pick things out, so she didn't take quite as long as she would have otherwise. He didn't seem as annoyed with this shopping trip as he usually would be, perhaps he just wanted to spend time with his sister after witnessing that horrible vision.

With their trolley stacked up, mostly with snacks, the two made their way over to a cash register to finish their purpose.

"You know if you keep eating so many snacks, you'll eventually get fa-- Oww." Arthur began teasing his sister, but he was cut off short when she reached over and pinched his arm.

"Don't call a lady fat." Anna remarked with a pouty expression. "Who taught you your manners?"

"You did." Arthur retorted while rubbing his arm.

The two bantered on their way home. Arthur was on edge as they were leaving the shopping centre, where even the slightest noise would cause him to jump, but it seemed they were fine. The vision wouldn't happen for a couple of years anyway, he was just being paranoid.

As they eventually arrived home, they noticed that their street was swarming with parked cars, and there were a large group of people around. The cars ranged from standard black SUVs to trucks and vans featuring various logos, the common theme being that they were all repairmen in a sense.

The two noticed a couple men walking into the laboratory while carrying a large pane of glass, and it seemed the repairmen were running back and forth from their vans to the lab.

Government agents were standing around, seemingly not doing much. And there seemed to be a lot more of them sitting in the black SUVs.

"Well, since nobody seems to be getting arrested or thrown through windows, I think you owe me a hundred dollars." Arthur remarked.

"Unless father is making a bloodbath out of them right now." Anna retorted.

"Fair point." Arthur walked towards their house. "I guess we'll find out afterwards."

After making their way inside Anna unloaded her wide array of snacks while searching for the eggs, and the two eventually had breakfast.

Arthur received a message from the beta test developers, it seemed the start time had been delayed by a couple hours. Although it didn't specify, it was highly likely that Gaia's core needed to be transported to another facility due to the issues that happened at the lab last night.

Hours passed and Arthur received a notification that Maria was on her way. Arthur got ready and made his way outside while waiting for her to arrive.

He saw an expensive-looking pink convertible drive down the road before stopping at the curb next to him, Maria was sitting in the driver seat and she motioned for him to enter.

"What's with the secret service?" She asked as she pointed towards the large group of black SUVs parked around the street.

"Something happened at my father's lab, so there have been a bunch of government officials coming and going all day." He said as he entered the vehicle and put his seat belt on.

"You live next to your father's laboratory?" She asked, as she gazed at the apartment-looking building and the large laboratory building that towered over it.

"Cool" She remarked as she took off from the curb, making sure not to speed next to all the government cars, but once they turned the corner she slammed the gas. Wind blew through Arthur's hair as Maria sped down the road.

The two started talking about things, which eventually shifted to Maria asking if Arthur was planning on getting his drivers license, something that Arthur hadn't thought of doing just yet. But he realised that he'd likely pass his driving test with flying colours, as he had several years of driving experience already, so he was looking forward to it.

"So what happened to your butler?" She asked. She occasionally saw Donovan pick Arthur up from the facility, and he was there at the tea party too.

"Ah, you mean Donovan. He's my father's secretary." Arthur responded, "But he's usually free, so he just acts as my chauffeur. Unfortunately he's busy at the moment, it was sort of last minute."

"Fair enough." Maria replied as she continued on her way to the facility.

They parked at the facility parking lot and made their way to the front. It seemed there was already a large group formed, some probably didn't read the message they got and ended up arriving an hour or two early.

"We apologise for the delay, there will be no briefing today." A developer finally came out of the facility and began speaking to the crowd. "Both groups will be allowed to enter at the same time, you will be informed when the server comes online."

The two groups entered the facility, quickly finding their VR capsules to log in. Arthur entered his and began the login process, and a few moments later he was back in that familiar white room. While waiting for the server to start, he decided to join the beta tester's lobby to entertain himself.

It just so happened that he was spawned in one of his favourite virtual playgrounds, the cat island theme park. It was a large theme park full of cat themed rides and games, but the best part was that there were thousands of cats roaming around. If you sat down, you'd be surrounded by cats in less than a minute. It was heaven for cat lovers, especially those with cat allergies.

Eventually the server came back online, and Arthur hit the join button after petting the cats one last time. He vanished in a flash of white light, only for the sewer system of the thieves guild to appear before him. He received his welcome message, and the usual timer that showed his spawn protection.

Merlin turned to see that there was a stack of boxes next to him. Fortunately there was no possible way of spawning inside an object, the system found the nearest safe location to spawn you in if your original spawn location was obstructed.

"He didn't." Merlin glanced at the boxes, he felt like perhaps a certain elf was too caught up with his curiosity.

Merlin made his way to the main hall, where he saw the usual suspects indulging on alcohol, and the elf downing the same glass of liquor. He approached the elf and took a seat next to him.

"Oh, Merlin, welcome back!" The elf seemed cheerful, although that might have been because of the alcohol.

"I take it the boxes were a little prank." Merlin said, he didn't seem pleased. "It doesn't drop us back in the exact location we left, for the record. Otherwise we'd be dropped in the middle of space."

"Space?" The elf seemed confused and focused on that part of Merlin's complaints. He was clearly trying to avoid the topic of the boxes, but Merlin didn't really care enough to push the issue.

"Uh, well. I don't quite have the time to explain the concept of astronomy today, we'll save that for another time. But it's basically the endless void above the sky." Merlin tried to dumb his explanation down as much as he could, before bringing back the topic he wanted to visit. "Anyway, how have you been doing in regards to the translation?"

"Well, it seems they're making progress, I've been given an estimation of about a week, give or take." The elf explained.

"Right, I'll check back on that in a week then. How about any more tasks?" Merlin asked.

"We've got something big in development, but nothing that requires your assistance yet." The elf explained. "We've got our hands full with the issues going on in Orchomenus and Macedonia right now, we've got no time to cause trouble."

"Alright, I'll go cause trouble elsewhere." Merlin said as he made his way out of the guild, ending up in the cellar of a shabby run down tavern. Merlin quickly left the building and made his way out of the slums, it seemed there was still a large number of guards around, but they wouldn't be that much of a bother to him.

Merlin made his way to the mercenary guild, as he entered and made his way to the front counter, the receptionist asked him the same question as usual. "Job, News or Alcohol?"

"I'll take any nearby jobs, or something along the way to Megalopolis." Merlin requested.

"Let me just see here." The receptionist flipped through a large stack of quest forms for a few minutes. "It doesn't seem like we've got any escort quests for Megalopolis, but we've got plenty of extermination quests up there."

"There seems to be quite a few goblin quests heading that way. It sounds like the locals have found a few camps appearing in the area that they want taken care of." The receptionist explained. "Roaming gangs of kobolds and gnolls have also been threatening travelling merchants, so there are a couple quests here to deal with those too."

"Sure that sounds good. I'll take as many extermination quests as you've got in that area." Merlin said.

"Alright, I see you're confident." She said as she started pulling out several quest sheets before handing them to Merlin. Several notifications appeared before him, and he accepted them all.

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[Common Quest] Destroy the Goblin Camp. • Reward: 50 EXP, 5 Silver

[Uncommon Quest] A Hobgoblin's Heart. • Reward: 70 EXP, 10 Silver

[Common Quest] Goblin Exterminator. • Reward: 70 EXP, 10 Silver

[Common Quest] Killing Kobolds. • Reward: 80 EXP, 5 Silver

[Common Quest] Gnoll Gangs. • Reward: 80 EXP, 5 Silver

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"Are you sure you can handle all of those?" The receptionist asked with a concerned look.

"Yeah, I should be fine." Merlin said before throwing all the quest forms in his inventory.

After leaving the building, he made his way to the eastern gate, it led to a wide paved road that connected Megalopolis and Macedonia.