Chapter 106 - A Day of Rest: Part II

Chapter 106: A Day of Rest: Part II
It had already been two days after the players battled with the Mountain Bandits and the Barren Giant, and many players started having the idea to explore and obtain rewards just like Jom and Terry did. Hence, they started to explore new maps starting from the surroundings of the Unnamed Town, but most of the players still returned to the two after they finished their daily quests.
The Living Dead Cellar was still open every day, and the Valley of the Tragic Dead hadn’t been fully explored yet, so they didn’t think it was a priority to explore yet.
As the most popular spot between the players, the Iron Cauldron Tavern was still as packed up with players as always.
But somehow, the atmosphere in the tavern was somewhat different than always.
In the past, there were many players that had bragged endlessly about their exploits and talked about their interesting experiences while conquering dungeons, causing the tavern to seem extremely noisy, and even players that sat at the same table had to shout to hear each other properly.
There were still players like that in the tavern, but the amount was much less, and more of them were talking and chatting with their own friends, unlike in the past where those players seemed to want the entire world to know the interesting things that happened to them.
Most of the players glanced at the table whenever they were eating roasted meat or drinking beer, and if a human from Earth transmigrated here at this very moment, they would have thought that there was an invisible mobile phone…
In actuality, the players weren’t looking at phones, but the system forum. Of course, there wasn’t much of a difference between the two, anyway.
Most of the players had reservations about this forum, and were scared to leave behind comments on it in case they left a bad impression on their god, but after the event from earlier, the importance of the forum dawned on all of them. Upon knowing how convenient it was to communicate with each other whenever they wanted to, the players started using the forum more and more.
As the strategy guides and fun stories multiplied on the forum, many players started to join its ranks, and even though there were barely more than a hundred players, most of the users were extremely active, and the forum became more and more active and popular.
Different from the forums back on Earth that would become filled with spam and malice once the amount of users increased, this forum was created and moderated by the God of Games himself. As his believers, the players would still be respectful of the forum and would not dare to post anything too bad, and so the discipline of the forum was impeccable. To Xi Wei’s memory, only some forums with restricted topics back on Earth would have such an atmosphere, because many users would reply to the posts with ‘May the kind poster have a peaceful act for this act of generosity’ whenever there was a post that was particularly useful (In all kinds of ways).
Even if the players wanted to fight, they wouldn’t say it directly on the forums, and would only leave behind vague time and place, and sincere comments of ‘See you then’, to the point where the players that clicked in unknowingly felt as if the forum was wafting with a strange, pink and gay atmosphere…
At the same time, Xi Wei didn’t have to worry that the players were going to become shut-ins and neets like they did back on Earth. After all, it was completely different than how the players could clear dungeons through a screen back on Earth, and the players here had to party together offline and beat up (or get beaten up by) monsters in dungeons together, and a shut-in life was completely unsustainable.
Tie Fu was wiping his beer mugs as always, but the one in his hand was a glass one that could be considered extremely rare in terms of this world’s craftsmanship. This item was one of the rewards given to the players for collecting items on the Collectibles tab, and Tie Fu used half of his game coins to buy these glass mugs from other players, and now all of the wooden mugs used to hold wine were changed out with these ones.
Unfortunately, all the players were either refugees or mercenaries before they became players, and so they weren’t all that interested in fancy drinks like wine. In comparison, they loved beer that they could gulp down quickly much more. The only player that would order red wine was Angora, who swung by for dinner occasionally.
At this moment, a fat and a thin figure walked in through the entrance of the tavern.
“Ah, if it isn’t Silva and Terrosche!” One of the players knew who they were and asked, “Weren’t you two still catching crabs near the tidal flats yesterday? Why did you come back? Did you finish exploring the Grey Fjord Port?”
“What do you know, we were invited by Mr. Marni as bodyguards!” Silva puffed his chest proudly.
“Bodyguard? Marni died at sea three days ago, and didn’t even get to fight the Barren Giant! I even saw you two get tied up and beaten with a stick yesterday!”
Silva’s chest deflated quickly, but he was still muttering to himself things like ‘How could you people slander me like this?’ and how ‘That can’t be called beating up, it’s PK!’ and how ‘no one knew how to be a bodyguard better than him’, which made the players roar in laughter, filling the tavern with a cheery atmosphere.
Meanwhile, Terrosche was quite calm about it and went over to the empty seat by the bar counter, ordering two steaks from Tie Fu. They had drunk fish soup all the while they were at the Frogman Village, and he almost forgot what seasoned food tasted like.
Tie Fu had accepted two apprentices, so he didn’t have to cook by himself anymore, so he used the time to ask what happened as he poured up a mug of beer for Terrosche.
“Silva didn’t lie, Mr. Marni really did pay us to be his bodyguard because his regular guard Ivan seemed to have matters to attend to outside the town.” Terrosche sighed to himself, “But we’ve been free for too long, you see? So we arrived there an hour late on the first day, because we weren’t used to being mercenaries and stuff.”
“And? What happened next?” Tie Fu asked curiously.
“So we thought that we should get there earlier the next day, since we’ve gotten compensation for it you see?” Terrosche replied with a righteous expression.
“I would think so too, yes.” Tie Fu nodded in agreement.
“So we got there only half an hour late the next day!” Terrosche replied, his expression twisting as if it were a bad memory. “When we got there, half of his head had already been munched off by a fish monster, and he couldn’t even be revived anymore.”
Terrosche then smiled victoriously. “But because of this, we finally calmed down and focused on clearing the 11% and 12% area of Grey Fjord Port!”
Tie Fu served them their platters of steak, and asked again, “So why did he beat you guys up anyway?”
Terrosche’s face scrunched up again, as if the memory were painful to even recall.
“We apologized to Mr. Marni later on.”
“And?”
“Our reputation with him was still Hate.”
“…”