8 To the Donut!

"To tell you the truth. I don't know."

Bob stood still as he said. He had a dumb look on his face that Chikinsupu could not refute Bob's ignorance of his invincibility.

*You have leveled up. Due to the level difference between you and the monster, you will now receive lower experience.

"All I can say is that words show up on my face. Just like this one."

Bob said as he pointed in front of him. He was pointing towards the prompt but other players could not see it, not that he knows.

"What does it say?" Chikinsupu asked vehemently. He wanted to know every detail so he could also take some of that cake.

"It says I leveled up. Earlier, it said that I can't die and my HP goes back to a minimum."

Chikinsupu clearly heard what Bob said, but he did not believe it at face value. He thought that Bob could be lying but Bob could also be telling the truth.

"Does it say why you don't die?" Chikinsupu inquired with greed evident in his voice.

Bob thought for a while. He tried recalling the word that described him within the prompts. And after a while, Bob spoke.

"I forgot."

Chikinsupu sneered inside his head. He was thinking that Bob was playing dumb and that he didn't want to share his blessing. What Chikinsupu didn't know was that Bob was just that dumb.

"Okay. Try dying once more." Chikinsupu demanded Bob's death.

"Eh? NO!"

"Come on! Help me out. I want to know why!"

"Does it really matter? I don't wanna feel pain again."

BANG!

*Your HP value has reached 0.

*You are an Essential. You can't die.

*Your HP is set back to minimum.

*Stop hunting lower leveled mobs.

"Ouch." Bob squealed.

"Cluck cluck." The chicken, who didn't make an appearance within the last two chapters, finally made a sound.

They were suddenly ambushed by an exploding hamster.

'Ah. We probably should have walked away before talking.'

Bob was pretty lax about the situation. He has been exposed to explosions like this for the past few hours, so to him, the phenomenon was lukewarm at best.

Despite being higher level, he still took the explosion point-blank, so it was a given that he'd be thrown away. After tumbling down for a few seconds. Bob stood with confidence, fully standing up with pride unlike earlier.

'It's good to have clothes.'

"Cluck!"

For some unknown reason, the chicken's basket was still held in one piece. Bob should make armor using basket weave.

"Alright. Hey Chikinsupu! I remember now! It says I'm an Essential!"

Picking himself up, Bob stood and looked around. He said in a loud voice to attract Chikinsupu's attention but he was not given a reply.

"Hello? Chikinsupu?"

Bob looked around but he could not find anything that resembled a person within his field of view. There were only the jagged ground, broken trees, and a blue light floating around which soon faded.

"Pretty lights. I wonder if the explosion caused that."

Bob got distracted for a while due to the light but soon began moving. He was going to search for his friend in the meantime. A foolish decision since he's friend was no longer around.

*Your HP value has reached 0.

*The 24-hour penalty will begin now.

*Due to being low-leveled, there will be no experience percentage deduction.

These prompts filled Chikinsupu's vision at the moment after the impact. He was level 6 but he got killed in one blow because he let the hamster creep right below his nose.

"Fiddlesticks."

================

Logging out.

================

Kazuma spaced out as the game shut down. He didn't feel pain because the game limited the amount of pain the player receives to avoid causing traumas. But still, Kazuma heard the loud explosion and the sound was still ringing in his ears.

"Damn it."

He took his sweet time to calm down. And the rage of suffering the death penalty subsided. Kazuma realized that he was to blame for that incident. He asked too much from another player. It was a case of curiosity killing the cat.

"Bob will probably go power-leveling by himself. I hope he'll give me a bus as soon as I log in." (AN: Bus refers to leveling lower leveled players by killing higher leveled mobs as a higher leveled player.)

Kazuma was feeling dejected, but he didn't lose hope. He was the type to get serious about rankings within a game that he fancies so a 24-hour log in restriction was a bummer. Poor Kazuma, he shouldn't have died if he didn't want the penalty.

"To heal my wounded heart."

He opened the game library within his virtual reality rig. He scrolled to the last option and opened an application classification entitled For Academic Purposes or F.A.P for short.

"Fukada-san, please do your best today!"

And so, Kazuma booted up a porn game on his system. He was going full dive so he could not hear his mother's screeching.

"Kazuma! Your Dad brought beer!"

Hearing no reply, Kazuma's mother was about to head upstairs to his room but she was stopped by the father.

"You can continue watching TV. I'll go and have drinks with Kazuma in his room.

And so, Kazuma's dad was going straight to his room. Poor Kazuma also forgot to lock his room.

"Son. I'm coming in."

As Kazuma's dad entered the room. He could not utter a word. He could not believe what he saw on Kazuma's desktop monitor.

(For context, virtual reality sessions could be hooked to a monitor for viewing purposes.)

"KAZUMA."

Kazuma's dad unbuckled his belt and locked the door. He opened the bottle of beer and drank before situating himself on top of Kazuma's bed. He removed one of his socks and spat on his hand.

"I can't believe technology has come this far."

And so, the father and son had a bonding time with Fukada-san but Kazuma will never be aware of such an event.

Back to our innocent protagonist, who was busy searching for his friend Chikinsupu.

"He's gone?"

Bob combed through the general vicinity of the explosion. After looking through the same places plenty of times, Bob's attention span snapped and he found a new distraction.

Bang!

He listened to the explosions and looked towards the general direction. Bob decided to walk towards the source because he had nothing better to do.

'There should be people there, right?'

There was also another reason why Bob looked for other people. As an NPC who stayed in one spot, he didn't know where to go to reach Donut City. In other words, Bob was about to get lost.

'I hope Chikinsupu did not get lost within the woods.'

He saw a group of people that wore the same set of clothes as he was. Bob felt a sense of home so he approached the group in a calm manner.

"Beginner Healing."

"Beginner Taunt!"

They were having a hard time walking through the forest because the hamsters had the ability to kill them in one shot.

'Wow.'

Bob was amazed at the poor coordination of the players. The tank shouldn't have taunted the hamsters because they will all go and explode on top of him, stacking all of the damage.

Fortunately for the tank, the healer was adequate and used a healing spell in advance.

After two more explosions went off, the scene calmed down and everyone within the group relaxed their guard.

"Hi."

The sudden greeting from behind caught them off-guard. A player that carried a dagger stood up frankly and rushed towards Bob. They were on high alert due to Bob's appearance.

Realizing that Bob was a player, the dagger-bearing player stopped his tracks and sighed. He was relieved that there wasn't any monster to surprise them.

"Hello everyone! I am Bob and I am traveling to Donut City."

Bob said with a loud voice for everyone to hear. However, he was met with silence. Nobody answered his greeting.

"Oh. Forgive me for intruding but its best to keep moving. The hamster's explosion attracts more hamsters, so the correct thing to do is continue onwards."

Bob explained like an expert. To be fair, Bob had a lot of experience with the hamsters due to being stuck within the forest by himself for a couple of hours.

In all honesty, Bob decided to stay within the forest. There was a simple reason, and that was because he was naked. He did not want to go streaking in a child-friendly novel. (AN: Too late for that.)

"So. Everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful time. Have a good day." Bob felt awkward about the situation. He was ignored but everyone was looking at him keenly. So he decided to just walk away and forget the conversation ever happened.

After walking for dozens of meters-

BANG!

Another explosion rang inside the forest.

'They'll be fine.'

Bob was not worried about the party at all. He realized that they were just staying vigilant of anything that could be hostile, therefore the cold shoulder was to be expected.

BANG!

After hearing the second explosion, Bob had the uncanny feeling that he was forgetting something.

BANG!

'Wait! I forgot to ask for Donut City's general direction.'

He looked back and he could see that after the initial explosions, the hamsters began grouping up and were running towards the group of people.

"Ah, shit. Here we go again."

Bob unwittingly said as he ran back to the group of noobs.