Chapter 53

Beginner Town had changed. Previously, the number of players at nightfall was decreasing, but now it was the opposite.

Hiro even saw that several players were already in pairs like people on a date walking casually on the street. There were also people gathering in other corners to just chat and share their reviews of the new game.

The atmosphere in Beginner Town seemed a lot more lively now and Hiro felt a little strange about it. Even though it looked like a good sign because the LSO game could make players stay and play until the night.

Even so, the other thing that differed was their level. Hiro checked his HUD system to see the current World level.

World level is the average player level that had been estimated by the system after the server was officially opened.

[Current World Level: 10]

Now it was Hiro who had more than doubled the world level and he felt both proud and satisfied with his achievements this time.

“This is how it should be.” He muttered and then hid his overly conspicuous greatsword that managed to grab a lot of people’s attention at once.

Finally, he had arrived in front of a Tavern that hadn’t changed in the slightest, especially its size.

Only this time, the table inside the Tavern was almost full, and Hiro was lucky to find an empty table at the far end of the room.

“This is fun!” Shouted an angelic-faced elven woman with long straight hair that almost touched the floor as she sat down.

“Is your avatar your real face?” asked the man sitting in front of her.

“Of course!”

“I don’t believe in beautiful avatars in this game because there is a visual appearance selling feature on the Marketplace.”

“Yeah, I saw it! There’s even a Trans-gender feature for 10,000 LSC!”

“So you think I bought this face?!” The girl looked displeased.

“Well, I can’t trust you 100%, Ma’am.”

“You! Don’t be overly confident! I know your arm muscles are fake too! You bought it on the Marketplace to customize your bulky appearance, didn’t you?! What price did you pay? 1000 LSC? Hmph. Cheap.” The offended woman then left the Tavern while tossing her hair.

Hiro, who had been listening in the corner silently, wasn’t even aware that such a feature existed now.

“Really?” He didn’t know whether to cringe or feel relieved after hearing that.

The long-waited one had now finally arrived.

Jacob still looked the same as his previous appearance. He waved at Hiro as enthusiastically.

As usual, he also greeted Jack, the NPC owner of the Tavern before approaching Hiro’s table and sitting with him.

[Level 15. Jacob. Knights. First-year Student]

At least this time there was something different about him, an improvement to see Jacob has a higher level than the world level. Hiro was a little proud because he was the one who helped Jacob how to play correctly when they were grinding together at that time with Liberty.

“Hiro! It’s good to see you again, Bro. I thought you disappeared or something.”

“Jack, two glasses of wine please!”

Hiro had been sitting for fifteen minutes and he didn’t order anything because he didn’t know what to try at the Tavern.

“What happens when a system has an error? Were you forced to log out?” Hiro immediately asked a question that was difficult for Jacob to answer so his eyebrows knit together. He looked as if he was deep in thought.

“What do you mean, Bro?”

Hiro was silent and busy giving his speculations in his head.

‘Didn’t he get forced to log out like me? How could that be? He’s also a player like me.’

“Hey, Bro. You’re always dumbfounded. What happened to you? Is it because you were dumped by Liberty?”

Hiro shook his head in response.

‘Wait–that didn’t happen, did it? Liberty didn’t dump me, did she?’

Hiro reopened his HUD system and checked the friendlist. Liberty was still online but he still hadn’t received the approval of the friend request he had sent since he first logged into the game.

He took a deep breath.

It looked like Jacob was right, He had been dumped by her.

“I told you! Relax, my friend. I have many beautiful ladies that I can spare with you.” Jacob looked at Hiro with pity.

“No need. I don’t need it. I’m glad to see you again after the system bug, Jacob.” This time he spoke sincerely, for the first time, Hiro was talking softly to Jacob and it took Jacob by surprise.

“Hiro, is it you? You look like someone else, man. You give me goosebumps, you didn’t turn gay and fall in love with me, did you?”

Hiro frowned. He regretted telling Jacob what was in his heart.

“Forget it.”

“So where do you live now?” Hiro deliberately asked this question because he was still curious about CBT players who couldn’t log out of the game even though the system had errors. No one knew what happened.

Even though it was clear that they were real humans. Hiro already knew their true identities, especially Jacob.

[Name: Jacob Smith]

[Sex: Male]

[Age: 18 Years old]

[Source: NewYork-Presburg Hospital, New York]

And for whatever reason, Anonymous found their identities from hospital data sources.

All from hospitals and all from world-class hospitals whose quality has been recognized by the World.

One thing Hiro deduced from that information was the fact that 1000 CBT players were rich people. However, why was the data taken from the hospital? Were they sick? Were they hospital employees? No–way, please ignore the second thought.

“My parents bought 2 settlements to take care of. I have to stay in the town of Vul Faldur, the City of Dwarven.” Jacob complained a little.

‘Parents? If Jacob can’t log out of the game, how can he stay in touch with his parents? Or–’

Hiro closed his eyes to recall the names in the [1000] file that Anonymous gave him. He tried to find the same surname as Jacob which was ‘Smith’ and he remembered there were players who roughly bear the status of Jacob’s parents in the game.

And as far as he remembered, no Jacob’s parents were in the file. Not registered as a CBT player. Although some of the names share the same surname, their ages were mostly inappropriate for Jacob’s parents as they were in their 20s.

So it was very clear that there was no way Jacob’s parents were CBT players. But, how did he get connected?

‘Ahh–’

Hiro almost forgot one important thing. Liberty had contacted him many times via direct message when he was offline. Maybe Jacob’s parents did the same.