Atstāt Desert

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It takes him a while until he can finish off the first monster. Meanwhile the second one is just two more blows away from killing him. Somehow, Sehun manages to snatch a potion from his item bag to drink it, filling his health bar which should save him from death momentarily. Hopefully he can kill the mob in time, but with the element of surprise and the shock that has paralysed him for a second, he doesn't feel like he can take on that sirtlon.

He hasn't hit that hyena yet, but there's a shrill outcry that startles Sehun more. Suddenly, the monster falls down, dead on its spot. When he looks up, he finds another player waving at him. "Watch out," the male says. "You shouldn't take on sirtlons alone. They fight in groups, so sooner or later they will crowd on you." Sehun can only nod at those words and then he's out of that place, teleporting right away to the city where he will be safe.

[ >> Renivohitra City]

Once the monster is taken down, Sehun collects his first gold coins in the game. It fills him with pride, even if it's just two gold coins that he gets from the N rank monster. He will need to kill about twenty more or so to buy the staff he's been eyeing. It shouldn't take him too long to do so, so Sehun is happy to continue.

He's in midst of a fight with the fourth monster when suddenly, he feels a blow from behind. The pain shoots through his body, it's not a too bad pain, but enough to momentarily shock him as it comes unexpected. He curses out loud, scared he's gonna experience his first in game depth within an hour of playing the game. One blow from a monster of the same rank takes away about a fifth of his health, so he needs to kill the mob in front of him fast before turning to the second one.

Watching the other unarmed player, Sehun tries the same despite actually hating any physical work. He jumps on the back of a hyena - or sirtlon as it is called here - and starts punching it. It's an odd thing to do because Sehun has never in his life raised his hand to hit a person or an animal, not intentionally at least, and attacking a monster here seems weird. He's doing it for a purpose though, after all he needs the gold and these monsters are just that - monsters. They're the enemies here and they aren't real, even if they feel so.

Sehun keeps punching the poor thing, his fist raining down on the sirtlon in a pace that is faster than he would manage in real life. He's actually weak, so despite taking a longer time to take down his first mob than the other player he watched prior did, he still feels proud. It's his first time winning in a battle where he's required to actually fight, and he's come out almost unscathed, except for the little scratches he's gotten.

There's another player taking down a monster despite not having any weapon beside his hands. The sight is enough to encourage Sehun to do the same. He's got a goal in mind, and that is to collect enough in game gold to buy his weapon once he meets up with monggus_dad in the city. It would definitely facilitate leveling up later when they're out there as a group. Killing monsters fast means gaining experience fast after all, and Sehun wants nothing more than that. Being N rank makes him too vulnerable. He doesn't want to die by a C rank monster's hands or claws just because he was too busy with taking down another mob to focus on a second one barging at him.

He's moving surprisingly fast. Maybe the game is still more like a game than real life because distances are different. What looks like a two hour long march ends up to be just ten minutes of walking. Okay, maybe Sehun is exaggerating, but the distances are shorter than what they seem like. He's already crossed the border from Dwyrain to Ipar, thanks to Qytet city being close to the bordering country in the north.

The landscape is changing slowly as he moves. When at first everything has been green, he finds himself in a desert now. Atstat Desert, the map tells him. He's on the right way. And it is also here in the desert that Sehun sees In Game monsters and fights for the first time. There are other players killing mobs there and Sehun watches in awe as a knight keeps striking some sort of hyena. He looks cool like that, but Sehun's never been one to like physical exertion, another reason why he chose to be mage.

Sehun knows that he is supposed to go to Ipar and then teleport to the city from there. He also knows that maybe, before he actually meets up with Jongin, he should try to kill a few monsters and see how strong they are, if he would be able to kill them on his own without a weapon, and how much gold and items they would drop. If he's understood the NPC correctly - he didn't paid full attention though he should have - only boss monsters would drop items. Regular mobs only gave gold that he could use to stock up on potions, as well as buy a weapon. He's checked out the weapon store before, so he knows how much gold he would need to get a basic staff. It would be a rather weak one, the damage rate was small compared to the others, but at least it would enable him to use his magic powers that were far stronger than his mage's physical strength alone.