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Chapter 19: The Mage, the Chamberlain, and the Talentless Girl 2

Im Marie Alexia von Zavarish. Alexia is fine. Thank you for accompanying me today, Chaos.

Im her chamberlain, Irene. I ask that you please avoid disrespecting Lady Alexia. By the way, is payment really unnecessary, even though were hiring you?

Yeah, I dont need it. We can just split the reward when we complete the quest.

Alexia and Irene share a look. Did I really say something that strange, though? When I asked to join their party, they said something about paying me in advance for guarding them like they were paying me some sort of friendship fee and I felt weird about it. If possible, Id like us to have a healthy friendship with no money involved. Anyway, whats up with those introductions? Theres a lot of things to point out here. Firstly, Irene, what do you mean chamberlain? Theres no class like that in Another World. Judging by the rapier hanging from your waist, youre a Warrior no matter how I look at it. And AlexiaThis is the first time Ive met someone who goes by their middle name, so it feels a bit weird using it, but first of all, the character limit on names is 15, so its impossible to give yourself a name that long, and wasnt von what nobles used in the past?

At first, I thought this was some sort of event, but I didnt accept a quest, so they must be players. Is there some event that only I dont know about that lets you become a noble? But theres no system for obtaining court ranks.

Wait a minute, are they roleplaying as characters with a noble-and-maid type setup, maybe? Sometimes, people will borrow the name of a game or anime character and roleplay as them, so maybe theyre doing something like that. The RPG in MMORPG stands for roleplaying game, so it wouldnt be that weird if there were people who roleplay as their character. Its true that Alexias character is an amazingly beautiful girl, and if someone told me that she was some sort of sheltered maiden, I could probably believe it.

Im bad at talking to people, so Im always trying my best not to make people uncomfortable when I talk to them, but this goes in a whole different direction, roleplaying to become a completely different person. Theres a chance that the young lady act might actually be for real. For now, Ill just not mention it. Itd be bad if I butted in and made things awkward between us in our first meeting because I misread the mood.

The quest they accepted is a quest to hunt blood rabbits. Despite their cute, timid appearance, blood rabbits make powerful ramming attacks and are level 3-7. Theyre enemies suited to beginners.

Irene has invited you to join her party. Do you accept?

When the message window pops up, I accept the invitation and join the party. Now that Im in the party, I can see the party window and the ally information displayed on it, including levels. Alexias level is 3, and Irenes is 14. 14, thats amazing. The open beta only just started. Has she been playing this whole time? Wait, 14?

Is this your first time forming a party?

Yes, it is our first time. Is there a problem?

I see, thats why they dont know. These two might be total newbies playing their first MMORPG.

MMOs tend to have a lot of specialized terminology and unique game rules. The worlds first VRMMORPG especially would have a lot of differences from normal MMOs. However, its also true that people who have played other MMOs would know the rules and systems that it shares with them. Even if the content is different, other MMOs have similar rules, such as the restrictions that occur when players with a level difference form a party. Therefore, I can make an educated guess that these two lack experience in party play as well as MMORPGs. I should warn them.

Irene, it would be best if you didnt participate in the party.

What? she says, raising her eyebrows. I might have worded it badly, but I need to be clear about this. After all, in this game, if theres a level difference of 10 or more, you wont be able to gain experience points when the monster is defeated.

Your levels are too different. If you fight directly, itll only keep Alexia from growing.

After a short pause, as if giving this careful consideration, Irene responds, You mean, I shouldnt fight. Understood. However, staying by her side will pose no hindrance to her. Also, call her Lady Alexia! Youre being overly familiar with her!All new 𝒄hapters 𝒐n nov𝒆lbin(.)com

Right, got it.

Even if the person themself says its okay, its bad to suddenly act friendly with someone you just met. She looks younger than me, so I wasnt really thinking about that, but it looks like the maid-like Irene took issue with it. Im not too sure about calling her Lady, but Alexia I mean, Lady Alexia does look sort of embarrassed. And if Irene wants to be near her even if she cant fight, they must be pretty close.

Well, if they know each other well enough to roleplay together, they must be friends in real life, too. Dont worry, Im sure it wont be long until you reach a level where you can be in a party together.

Ill reform the party. To make a party, well have to temporarily disband it. To form a party, you go to the party window and press the invite button while looking at the person you want to add to your party, and then itll send that person an invite message. This system sure is amazing. I dont think Ill mess it up, but this is my first time, so I carefully stare at Alexia while sending her the party invite. Woah, fast response. The partys all set up.

Anyway, sometimes Alexia has a complicated expression No, more like gloomy. I wonder what thats about?

In the grassland to the east of Stolbrussen, theres a blood rabbit spawn point nearby.

So thats a blood rabbit? I researched them beforehand, but theyre larger than I expected. Oh, it ran away.

After seeing us, the bright red rabbit about the size of a small dog hurriedly runs away. By the way, the red isnt from being covered in blood splatter, it only has blood-red fur. Anyway, shes studying the wiki even though shes only a newbie, huh? This might not be necessary, but just in case, I should explain about blood rabbits.

Blood rabbits will run away if they see you. Thankfully, since this is grassland, youre sure to make the first move if you hide in the bushes and attack. If you hit it, itll attack you back, but it tends to run away when its life is in danger, so you should defeat it before it runs.

Oh, youre quite knowledgeable, Irene says in admiration, but Alexia looks somewhat uneasy. I wonder whats wrong? Oh, Ive got it. It may be big, but it looks like its just a rabbit. It sounds like its her first time seeing it, and it looks cute, so maybe shes conflicted because she doesnt want to hit it. Its a bit late to worry about this, but isnt this the kind of thing that animal welfare groups would protest?

Alexias expression changes. It looks like shes found her resolve. After spotting a level 3 blood rabbit and cautiously approaching, Alexia readies her staff. Shes a Magician, just like me. If she allocated her stats like I did, putting most of it into Intelligence, she should either defeat it in one hit with Mana Bolt or deal enough damage to make it run away.

Chaos, um Alexia says, as if hesitant to continue. This is embarrassing to admit, but my spells arent particularly strong. It most likely wont be enough to defeat it. Therefore, please provide support before it gets away.

Wait, is she? A certain theory comes to mind from her words, actions, and facial expression. No, Ill think about that later.

Alright. Lady Alexia, Ill support you after you land the first strike, so aim carefully.

I also point my staff at the blood rabbit Alexia is aiming for. Seeing this, Alexia grips her staff a bit tighter and fires a Mana Bolt.

The blood rabbit, hit with purple lightning, trembles from the impact, but this effect is trivial and, just as she said, it isnt enough to defeat it. As a result, Alexias attack only increased the blood rabbits hostility. Hostility, called aggro in MMORPGs, increases the more damage you deal or when you use threat skills. Basically, the enemy will concentrate its attacks on the character with the highest aggro.

When playing in a party, the common strategy is to have classes with high defense power like Warriors in the vanguard drawing aggro to protect the classes with weak defense like Magicians.

Naturally, after Alexia attacks the blood rabbit and gets aggro, it charges at her. At the same time, I fire a Mana Bolt and finish it off.

When they see the blood rabbit suddenly collapse, Alexia and Irenes faces brighten. I knew it, the reason she was feeling down wasnt because she had to hurt a bunny.

Just as I expected. It doesnt go very well when I do it. It would be dangerous if I was doing this by myself, Alexia says with a sad smile. Then, I hear her mumble, I cant do anything by myself. Why am I the only one whose spells are this weak?

I knew it, shes After hearing this, my theory from earlier turned to conviction.

She isnt enjoying this game. The reason for that is because theres a problem with her spell strength.

That would explain the many suspicions I had. Her gloomy expression up until now was probably because she was worried about that.

Now I understand why a beautiful woman and a pretty girl werent being invited to a party. Its true that it was hard to approach when Irene was yelling so angrily, but since theyre both so beautiful, Id usually expect them to be invited by a guy with ulterior motives. They were probably avoiding her because they knew her spells were weak and useless in combat. Magicians are a DPS class whose role in a party is to annihilate the enemy, so if she cant deal much damage, itd be hard for her to contribute. Not to mention that Magicians already have low HP and defense, so they cant defend, and they dont have any healing or support skills like Healers do, either. Players who value efficiency would only see her as dead weight and make fun of her for leeching off of the party. Thats why nobody invited her to a party except for her friend Irene.

But even if she plays solo, the fact that her spells are too weak would make it really difficult. It would probably be frustrating for only one person to be struggling while everyone else around them is defeating enemies effortlessly.

I think everyone has different ways of enjoying MMORPGs, but combat classes would generally want to have fun in combat. Levelling up to become stronger, defeating strong enemies, competing in PVP (fights between players), coordinating well with your party, saving your allies when theyre struggling. They may experience the hardships of defeat, but even that can be shared among allies.

But she cant experience that yet. Thats probably why it feels pointless to her. If Irene wasnt here, shed probably be a solitary player like me or give up. If this keeps up, shell probably quit the game someday.

I cant let that happen. Another World isnt a boring game at all. Her problems need to be fixed so that she can experience the fun of this game.

Why are her spells so weak? Thats because shes a Magician whos raising her Wisdom stat. If you dont raise your Intelligence, your Magic Attack Power will be low and the Magicians magic skills will be that much weaker. Also, your Intelligence value has a direct effect on Mana Bolt. Thats why her spells are so weak. Magic Attack Power is a hidden parameter deduced from other players analysis. Its common for newbies to misunderstand because its not displayed in their stats.

Of course, its also possible that she raised other stats, or she might not have raised any of them. However, its hard to imagine that a newbie whod look up monsters on the wiki before going hunting wouldnt look at Magician builds. The wiki also lists the stat allocations for Magician builds. Sage was recommended as the Rank 2 class, so naturally, it would also describe a build centered on raising Wisdom. Of course, it also describes builds centered on raising Intelligence, but the Wisdom build emphasized as being strong in parties probably had a strong impact. Thats why she most likely chose that build.

If shes raising her Wisdom, theres three ways she could go about this.

The first is to delete her character, create a new one, and reassign her stat points to Intelligence. Shed be starting over from level 1, but since shes level 3, that wont take much time, so its the safest method. However, since shes a roleplayer, shes probably attached to her character, and we only just met, so Im a bit hesitant to tell her to remake her character all of a sudden.

The second method is to assign her stat points to Intelligence when she levels up from now on. However, she cant recover the points she allocated to Wisdom so far. Plus, itll be too time-consuming and in terms of ability, shell be slightly behind players whove been raising their Intelligence from the start, so this method is no good since its too sloppy.

The final method is to keep her build as is. To be frank, this one is the toughest. It would be nice if we could figure out some kind of efficient fighting style, but

I open the skill window and think about which Magician skills Id choose if I put my points into Wisdom. There are some skills that are directly affected by the Wisdom value. Theres Wisdom Burst, a skill that attacks enemies within a certain radius around you, the strength of which is dependent on Wisdom. However, you cant learn that skill until youre pretty high level, so what do we do until then?

Come on, think. I looked through the skills thoroughly yesterday. Is there really no way for her to contribute in parties and fight by herself with low damage?

There is. These skills dont rely on Intelligence or Wisdom. Luckily, theyre on the same path of the skill tree that Wisdom Burst is on, so there are no problems there.

Now, it all depends on Alexias decision.

Lady Alexia, I say, and both of them look in my direction. Do you want to become stronger as you are now?

Does she want to become stronger with her current build? If she says no, then Ill recommend that she delete her character no matter what else she says. But if she says yes

I can become stronger?

Theres a way. If you learn a certain spell, you can become much stronger than you are now.

Alexia looks down in hesitation. I can feel Irenes gaze becoming more intense, but I pay it no attention. Within this tense atmosphere, Alexia gives me a small but unmistakable nod.

In that case, theres only one answer. Im the one who got her hopes up. You may call it selfish. So, its my responsibility to watch over her until the end. Until she can enjoy this game and smile for real.