There was nothing wrong with hoarding your rations of meat in your inventory, but why would I even need about thirty pieces of meat if I couldn’t even eat them?
I decided to go in the direction of the voices, walking as fast as my over-encumbered status would allow me to.
「What about this one…… Aha, there it is!」
I couldn’t exactly see them in the tall grass they were in, but judging from the nametags above their heads they must have been players like me. There were two women and one man. They must have been a party that was grinding monsters together.
「A Knight, a Thief and a Sorceress…… Well-balanced party.」
If my memory serves me correctly, Magicians would always start up with Fireball as their basic offensive spell. For some reason it was always the same in every single game.
Summing up all of the raw ingredients I had on me right now it would give about seventy pieces, so if I offer them some they may be willing to share their fire with me.
While I was thinking that, it seems that the party managed to encounter a monster on their path.
「Uwah, what a cutie!」
Cutie? Was there a cute monster out here aside from Orcs and Goblins?
「It looks just like a cute bunny…… But it must also be a monster.」
Fumu, the description would fit the Vorpal Bunny alright. Who would have thought that rare monster would spawn so frequently?
「This bunny, it’s walking on two legs.」
That’s definitely a Vorpal Bunny alright!
I stick my head into the grass and I can see a Sorceress that is approaching the Vorpal Bunny without a care in the world, while her companions stayed vigilant and guarded her. But looking at the Bunny, it was cracking its large head in a weird way. I knew it could only mean that it was readying itself to attack, but apparently they had no such knowledge.
「Waaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiittttttttt!!」
「Hee?」
「Huh?」
「Haa?」
The party could see a half-naked man in a bird mask flying out of the tall grass while swinging his dual swords.
I knew that it wasn’t the best first impression out there, but I jumped in front of them, activating “Flash Counter” at the same time.
Coming in between the Sorceress and the Vorpal Bunny, I manage to counter its attack and make my own, slashing at it neck with my swords.
I then spin around and slash with my left blade from the bottom all the way to the top of the Bunny’s body, not giving it a moment to retaliate.
My attack must have been a critical hit, for the Vorpal Bunny’s HP drops to zero and it explodes in a geyser of pixels, leaving some drop behind him. While casting a quick glance at the loot I turn around to the three-people party that stood there dumbfounded.
It looks like they needed a moment to comprehend what just happened.
…… And what happened could be summarized as: “a half-naked birdman jumped out of the tall grass and massacred a cute bunny.”
「Kyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!」
「Iyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!」
「Uwaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!」
The three of them screamed in loud voices while raising their weapons in the air, ready to fight.
「Woah there, that’s dangerous, you know!?」
I said passively while the three players launched a simultaneous all-out attack in my direction.
So I used my other skill “Tap Step” to put some distance in between us, trying to resolve the conflict with words rather than violence. It would be a good thing if they understood my intentions.
「STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP THAT!!!」
「Perverttttttttt!!!」
「Okay, yeah, right! I admit that my appearance is a little bit unusual, but look at my name tag! See!?I’m a player, just like you! A player, God damn it!」
「Dieeeeeeeeee!!!」
I wasn’t against PVP in games like this, but I was against the idea of my very first PVP experience in this game to be something like that!
So I did my best to try to avoid the hits of the group. I repeated that action until the girl eventually started to calm down a little bit and stopped the other two.
「Umm, this is…… Thank you very much for helping us out with that monster……」
「Oh, it’s no big deal, if I saw something like that at the very start of my adventuring I would certainly take such a person for a pervert as well……」
Once my status changed from the “Perverted Birdhead” to a “Perverted Player with A Birdhead Sanraku”, the party lowered their heads to me in an apologizing gesture.
The boy knight’s name was Soma, the thief girl was Kaho and the Sorceress was named Lina.
You could change many settings in the character creation, but the only thing that you were unable to change was your voice.
That is why even the three people looked like young adults, from their voices I could kind of tell that they must have been Middle Schoolers at best.
I was kind of feeling sorry for scaring my juniors like that, but apparently they have never seen a mask like that before, hence the misunderstanding.
「Umm, this is, have you been always leveling up around these parts, Sanraku-san?」
「Hm? Oh, yeah, I guess? I was originally going to see how the monsters behave around these parts, but it somehow happened that I stayed here and leveled up.」
I guess one of my nasty habits from previous sh*tty games was surfacing.
It was a habit of taking advantage of the places where monsters with good EXP values or rare items would spawn, which would allow me to go from one point to another while clearing the area over and over again.
Please pardon me from spawn-camping the mobs.
Basically there is little to no benefit to be had from not wearing any armor in this game.
As a result of that painful realization, there is always a bunch of half-naked players who want to buy the cheapest armor set possible, only to acquire at least some form of defense.
That is why if you want to gaze at half-naked avatars, you can only do this here, since you’ll find them nowhere else. If you DO happen to encounter them, it is probably because of the following reasons:
–> They enjoy being seen half-naked by others.
–> They enjoy taking huge amounts of damage, like any Massive Masochist would.
By the way, the protagonist is neither of the two. He’s irregular in that regard.