9 Chapter 09

Friday, November 14, 2019 7:00 AM

Harry covered up a yawn as he stepped out of the town for the first time since the day of the game's launch. The Players had now been trapped in the game for a little over a week and the despair was really starting to set in for those that were only just now realizing that there was no use pretending that this wasn't happening. Quite a few people had died during those first nine days and that only made matters worse for those who were unhappy with their lot once it really sunk in that those that died in the game weren't going to be regenerated.

Harry had spent that time improving his grasp of spoken Japanese (by using his Listening Skill to eavesdrop which also gained him Skill Points) and gathering as much information about what was happening within the game as he could. He was now ready to strike out on his own so that he could focus on training without worrying about anyone discovering that he'd been one of the one thousand Beta Testers (technically he was number one thousand two since Dudley had been number one thousand one).

Beta testers had quickly become outcasts within the game due to the fact that they had inside knowledge about the game and that so few of them were willing to share that knowledge with the other Players. There was also the fact that he was still wearing his created Avatar (he had deleted the gifted mirror straight from his Inventory the first chance he got so as to avoid being uncovered as a child in the game) and he feared that someone would figure that out and accuse him of cheating because no one else (that he knew of) still hid behind a created Avatar.

A quick look around the fields surrounding Hajimari no Machi revealed hundreds of Players attacking the Frenzy Boars in the area in an effort to level up; more than a few yelling matches breaking out when one Player poached another Player's boar at the last minute. Shaking his head, Harry activated his Sprint Skill and dashed off in the direction of the out of the way corner where he'd set up his traps that first day. As he traveled, Harry was pleased to discover that his sprinting distance had increased from twenty-five yards to fifty yards and hoped that meant that it wouldn't be long before he was performing on his previous mastery level for that Skill.

Upon reaching his hidden corner of the field, Harry took a moment to inspect the area for other Players before he began digging a pit trap. It took him four hours to make the pit deep enough and wide enough to hold up to three Frenzy Boars; he would need to gain more Skill Points before he could move more than a few inches of 'dirt' with each swing of the shovel. He would have liked to have filled the bottom of the floor with sharpened wooden stakes in order to obtain easy kills but he needed to have at least five hundred Skill Points before he could create lethal pit traps. Trap set, Harry went searching for a small herd of Frenzy Boar that he could lure into the trap; gaining Skill Points for both the Tracking and Searching Skills.

At the end of the day, Harry had amassed over four hundred Experience Points (which had brought him up to level three; the number of Points needed to reach the next level almost doubling with each successful level increase), gathered eight uncommon Items (and dozens of common ones), earned several hundred Col, increased the number of Skill Points in half of his Equipped Skills and a couple of his Unarmed Skills, and gained two levels. Overall it was a profitable day for the nine year old and he was looking forward to doing the same thing again the following day.

He spent the last forty-five minutes of daylight in the game setting up camp in a small copse of trees quite some distance from his pit trap; taking the time to trap the perimeter of his camp in order to avoid getting attacked by any of the various wandering Monsters that were active during the night. Once his camp was as secure as he could make it, he pulled a coil of rope from his Inventory and quickly formed the required knots to create a hammock high up in the branches so that he could sleep out of reach of predators and Players alike (after checking to make certain the tree wasn't home to any of the game's flying Monsters).

Harry then spent another three hours practicing his limited Night Vision and Listening Skills while he nibbled on a loaf of bread he'd purchased prior to leaving the village safely hidden behind the foliage of the copse. Twice he had to climb down and dispose of Ravenous Wolves that had walked into his traps; the nocturnal Monsters drawn to the copse by his scent. He could have just left them but then they'd draw additional wolves and he'd lose Skill Points if his traps broke and the wolves escaped because he left the Monsters tangled in them. He drifted off to sleep around nine in the evening, secure in the knowledge that his traps would protect him and that the sound of the traps activating would wake him.