Nyxfall 7: The Veilbreakers-Chapter 61: LancasterLaw Joins
Kai looked at the Physics teacher absentmindedly. She used to be one of his favourite teachers in the school. She always had a no-bullshit-tolerated attitude, which was quite handy when your class was filled with teenagers.
Before the start of the class, Zayden, Mimi, and even Sora had gathered near his desk, talking about Nyxfall and how similar yet different it was from real life. When Bella mentioned how she had never learned the basic martial arts skill and was still using fighting techniques purely with her experience, Zayden and Mimi were surprised. Zayden had learned the basic martial arts skill from her, and she herself had it available but never learned it with SP. Kai told her how impressive it was and how she could learn one more skill since the martial arts one was not occupying her one slot.
This was the last day before the online official shop would open to players. Kai had decided to visit the market once again and buy all the good equipment and materials being sold there before it opened. After tomorrow, players would only prefer to trade online with their best items.
Money is a strong motivator. Especially when many planets are far richer than Earth — there was an option of using real currency to buy in-game gold, which the online shop traded in. The added game currency (Limited per person) could only be used in the shop though, and not inside the game — that would ruin the experience. And of course, there was also an option to use this online shop to convert gold into Earth’s money and have it transferred to one’s bank account.
Soon the bell rang, and the classes ended. Today, even Mimi and her friend Lizzy also joined the club room since there were no extra classes held for them. As usual, Kai edited his videos. He wouldn’t upload them before conquering the dungeon, but he could still edit the footage he had. It would also help him notice if there was anything he could make use of.
Sora and Zayden were also invested in searching for information and compiling it in one document that could be accessed by all club members. Now they were even more serious about finding ways to finish this dungeon, or any other interesting things about the towns around theirs.
Mimi was explaining to her friend what to do to get the maximum benefits from her starting village — how she should save SP, only go for good powerful skills, how to do missions and such. In Mimi’s holo, Kai’s beginner village video was going on as a reference, using which Mimi was giving her "sagely" advice.
Suddenly someone knocked on their door, and everyone looked up all at once. LancasterLaw was there. He wasn’t alone though — a group of students were behind him. Kai recognized one of them — that was the captain of their school’s Nyxfall team in his last timeline. The others must be members of the General PC Gaming Club. There was a scroll of paper in LancasterLaw’s hand, Kai noticed.
Coming in, he looked around the cleaned clubroom. Kai, along with others, had made it squeaky clean, with all the unnecessary stuff piled in stacks to one side of the corner. Their table was now in the middle of the room — instead, when it was set to the side.
After looking for a second, LancasterLaw said, "Since you have enough members before even the week is over — I officially give this club a welcome notice."
Kai smiled politely at the middle-aged teacher and accepted the letter. Opening it, Kai’s mild smile turned into a genuine one. LancasterLaw had agreed to be their club sponsor from the staff. He had even signed it as his in-game name LancasterLaw instead of his real name.
’Nice to have you with us, sir,’ Kai said through his holo, as Zayden took the letter from his hand and everyone started reading it, circling around him.
The teacher replied, "I was surprised you lot started the same game’s club that I recently started playing myself." The group of general gaming club members outside the door started murmuring, hearing the teacher say he too was playing the same game.
’We have started doing some activities in-game. Do you want me to inform you about it?’ Kai asked. ’And if you don’t mind — can I know your exact location?’
"It’s just been a week since it launched, right? Everyone is just starting out.. I’m in one of the Exodian cities. I chose that path.."
Kai nodded, ’Most of us are in Nexus Kin village and from the Stonebinder cities.. Currently trying to clear the local dungeons.’
"Good, You continue it.. You don’t have to inform me. Just text me on this ID if you need something. Or if you have some ideas for offline school club activities.." LancasterLaw said, and shaking Kai’s hand and nodding at all the club members, he walked out of their clubroom.
Kai was about to go back to his seat when the head of the general gaming club spoke up, "Hey dude! Why make a separate club for just one game? You could have joined ours.."
"Yeah, yeah.." the other members murmured.
"Some of us also play this game.. You all could have played together."
"Or maybe we could come here.. The atmosphere here is much more pleasant.." said one of the flat-nosed guys, looking behind Kai at the girls.
Kai walked up to them near the door frame, blocking their view. Glaring at all of them, he simply typed, ’We have club things to do. If you do not have anything worthwhile to say, then leave.’
"Hey! Hey!" the head spoke up, "What’s with the hostility? We too are into video games — we just came to say hello.."
’And hello to you. Anything else?’ Kai wrote. The whole group glared at him with hostility. Kai’s own club members gathered behind him, noticing the heated conversation.
"Is there a problem here?" Sora asked in her authoritarian voice.
The gaming club guys had wide eyes as murmurs of ’Student Council Member’ started circulating. The head of the club gritted his teeth, blew air from his flaring nostrils and turned around to leave. Before taking a step though, he said, "We will meet again.. Fellow gamers.."
Then he started walking away. While moving though, the head of the gaming club heard Sora ask Kai,
"Do you want me to do something about them?"
The head looked back hearing it and saw a typed message on Kai’s holo, ’No, they are nobodies. They don’t know how to say hello apparently.’
The head, along with his group, was fuming all the way back to their clubroom — the group talking about what they could do to mess with the newcomers.
Kai was happy at least LancasterLaw had not changed his mind about playing the game. He was one of the players who was invited to the Stonebinder planet last time, along with the school team. They had survived for a long time, even joining the deciding battle against one of the powerful alien guilds. Unfortunately, he had not survived the battle. They had lost a lot of people in that battle.
Once again, everyone started doing their own thing after they talked a bit about framing the welcome letter and keeping it in the clubroom. After some 20 minutes, Sora suddenly spoke up.
"That Obsidian Knight and Red Wolf Legion seem to be fighting for a while now in Somnium. Both arrived at somewhat the same time and are fully devoted to clearing dungeons and doing all the high-rank missions.."
Kai looked up and asked, ’Anything about us?’
She replied, "No, but I don’t think they would post about it even if they doubted us.."
’Anything else interesting or useful?’ Kai asked. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
Zayden replied this time, "That sudden rage-inducing illness had more cases in the past few in-game days in our town. Seems like whatever it is, it’s increasing in effect."
"Still.. No one has gone past the second objective though." Sora added.
’Keep looking. Also, if you have extra gold, buy good equipment and valuable items.. you’ll thank me later.’
"For that online shop? We can sell the game items there?" Sora asked.
Kai just nodded, not elaborating further.
After school, Kai logged into the game, reaching home. Once everyone was there, they entered Beast Hollow — Sherry and Jor had done it many times, so they decided to do some missions Bella and Zayden had found from the threads and shared with them. The purpose was to gather equipment anyway, and even if they were not there, they would receive their suitable class equipment once they tackled the Grimhorn Den again.
All three runs took most of their time. Then they spread into the market and looked for anything that might help in resisting the poison effect. Also while doing it, following Kai’s advice, everyone bought useful weapons and equipment, even if they were not suitable to them.
Kai used all the poison-related ingredients he had to try and derive the poison’s antidote using his Basic Forger skill, while the others decided to raid the Grimhorn Den once again with random extra players with them, so they would have more info on the dungeon and could make some strategy to deal with it.
