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It was finally time to get out there and explore the area. People were already talking about getting missions or finding NPCs that gave missions which in turn gave people more points to spend and so on and so forth it really seemed that the world had turned into the deadliest MMO and there was no way to avoid it. Well Crom assumed you might be able to if you simply hid in the Safe zones that had popped up around the world, but they didn’t know how long those would last or if they would disappear the next day.[break][break]

The mission that Crom was heading off to do today was a simple one that asked for help gathering some medicinal plants to be processed into medicine, bandages, potions and all that, which was actually then sold in the nearby safe zone. It was interesting to see that the actions of the “players” actually contributed to the safety and progression of the safe zones. While Crom did feel like he would be fine simply doing this task by himself he figured he would try and recruit another person that he had met in Los Angeles and also understood gaming a bit, so he was currently looking for Zhao Wang or as he liked to call himself “Booblord” it was a nonsensical gamer name but Crom didn’t care, if Zhao wanted to tell people about it he could do what he wanted but Crom was probably never going to call him by that name.
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Finding Zhao wasn’t as difficult as people would expect he had a very certain way of speaking and his mannerisms were easy to predict to an extent so Crom simply went looking for any place that held any kind of reference to gaming, manga or the like which luckily there was a nearby PC café that Crom was sure Zhao was in.

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Crom

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“Hey Zhao, what ya reading?” Crom asked as he found Zhao within the manga section, his eyes looking over what was left over. He was surprised that people hadn’t taken these to use as kindling and such. Crom would make a note to come back and see what he could take and read since entertainment was limited now a days. “Oh yeah the actual thing I came here for, There is a mission being given out by an NPC in the safe zone to collect some medicinal herbs.” Crom explained to the gamer, he was sure that Zhao would be up for doing some missions. “Figured you would be up to do some grinding of missions as we find them, get those points and such.” Crom offered with a smile, this was reminding him of his childhood talking about games and such with friends before he stopped really playing them to focus on his research.

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Crom

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“Two piece? Oh I remember that one. Can’t believe it was still ongoing.” Crom commented as he listened to Zhao go about how it needed to be preserved in a vault for future generations and how they would never know the ending of the series. “That is a shame actually.” Crom nodded his head, nothing worse then a series not being complete, to many shows ended their seasons on a cliffhanger only for that to be the last episode due to cancellations and such.[break][break]


Zhao seemed ready to do the mission as he pulled up his screen and accepted the mission without hesitation and opened the portal to where they needed to go to collect the herbs. “Yeah, this should be fun.” Crom chuckled as he followed Zhao into the portal, they were transported to an overgrown woods. There was so much foliage it was hard to see more then 10 feet in front of them, though Crom hoped that finding the herbs wouldn’t be to difficult. He pulled up his menu and looked at the picture attached to the mission that showed what the herbs looked like and looked around in the immediate area to see if they would get lucky on finding one off the bat. It looked like they only needed 10 of them to complete the mission.[break][break]



“You wouldn’t happen to have anything that can search for specific things?” Crom asked Zhao as he looked through the surrounding foliage. He didn’t think Zhao would have such an ability but you could never be sure.

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Crom

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Crom was a bit disheartened to hear that Zhao didn’t have any ability that could search to find specific things but he already figured that wasn’t going to be a thing, now he was more surprised by Zhao saying he had someone that could help him and with a snap of his fingers summoned a woman with pink pigtails who looked like someone straight out of an anime. [break][break]

“You can summon people?” Crom asked as he got up from where he was searching. “So you are a summoner in simplest terms, is there a limit of how many people you can summon? Is she the only one you can summon? Are you able to summon multiples of her?” A barrage of questions came flowing out of the Russian boy’s mouth as his interest in these different abilities and classes took over. “I have seen someone summon things before like with Dakota’s Fox back in LA but I didn’t know that some people were going to be able to also summon actual people.”

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Crom

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Crom stood back as he listened to Zhao explain what he does and even more so listened to what Himari said and explained when it came to who or more accurately what she is. “Oh that’s interesting so you can summon Waifus and they will do what you order. I assume since they have a personality that they will go against doing some things and be more for doing others depending on which is summoned and all that.” Crom commented as he thought about how extreme this situation was, they were in a game where they can bring to life the fictional and magical. What else was being brought to life and into reality what was the real reason why this game was being played, there was quite a few questions that Crom had since the beginning but he knew he wasn’t going to get any of those anytime soon. [break][break]

“Well then, It’s nice to meet you Himari always best to have another pair of eyes and hands to help out.” Crom offered as he went back to searching for the herbs they were looking for. It took some time but he was able to find five of them now they only needed to find another five and they were all set.

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Crom

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Crom continued to look for more of the herbs but it was seeming like his luck on foraging had been spent as the five he found were the only ones he was seeing in his area. “Well I got five so at least we are past the halfway part.” He offered as he moved around looking in a new place. [break][break]

Zhao offered up some questions about what stopped people from making build to simply farm the mission here and Himari offered up the suggestion that there was probably a limit in place. “Yeah that would make sense or the prices of good things just increase way more then its worth to farm this mission for more then the beginning stages.” Crom gave his own theory on Zhao’s questions. [break][break]

“I feel like if anything if Earth-chan saw people farming low missions they? It? Probably it would change it to some super dangerous mission out of spite.” He said with a smirk since it seemed pretty in character with this random being to be that petty.

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Crom

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“Honestly with how they respond to people in messages, I fully believe Earth-chan is the highest tier of Sadist. I believe it would be a triple-S rank.” Crom mentioned listening to Zhao’s comments on how the “game” was built and such.[break][break]

It didn’t seem that Zhao was having any luck finding any herbs and it was starting to show with his annoyance, at least it seemed Himari was having luck at finding some though Crom himself wasn’t having any more luck finding anything past the ones he had already discovered and he had moved a few times now around the place. [break][break]

“Oh?” Crom said in surprise he wasn’t exactly expecting Zhao of all people to ask about someone’s life before the game or outside of the gaming world. “I use to be a meteorologist studying weather and trying to learn everything I could about it.” Crom offered as he pushed foliage out of the way. “I was actually in my Uni’s lab finishing up some papers when the game started.” He finished his short explanation.[break][break]

“How about you Zhao? Beyond your gaming exploits what did you do when the games you were playing had maintenance or were down?” Crom asked curious what else Zhao did beyond gaming, reading and watching anime.

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Crom