Not every Player had been present during the Marsh Drake’s slaying.
After all, it was an operation the Players at the Lancaster Hideout took up on their own initiative instead of an Event Quest assigned by the God of Games, which was why there weren’t any definitive rewards.
Since it entailed going down the aqueducts, wading through thick snow and swamps to find an enemy that might not exist, many Players who were either rational or not so materialistic chose to go about their lives law-abidingly.
Naturally, there were others who did not want to get involved with another matter because they had their own objectives to strive for.
And Zonyan Grayclaw was one such Player.
The God of Games was encouraging Zonyan to return to his homeland and reclaim the honor his younger brother Swordtail had stolen from him, even giving him the fittingly majestic quest title ‘the Triumph of the King of Beasts’. Naturally, he would work hard toward that objective.
Moreover, the God of Games seemed aware that the quest would be too difficult to complete in one go, and therefore specifically drew out a chain of quests for him.
What Zonyan was supposed to do at the moment was the second task in the quest chain: accumulate points to redeem a boat with seafaring capacity.
Naturally, there was only one source to accumulate points: accomplishing quests.
That could be achieved through both Side Quests or Daily Quests, although the points gained varied depending on the difficulty of the quests.
Simple quests such as sowing seeds would only be awarded a handful of points, whereas hunting selected beasts would reward much more in comparison.
As such, Zonyan would often seek out the Players who had inadvertently accepted difficult quests at the taverns. He would help them complete said quests with the condition of accepting less rewards, thereby accumulating more points.
One should also mention at this point that Zonyan’s reason for accepting less rewards and not helping them accomplish quests free of charge was because those Players appeared more trusting towards paid assistance than unpaid assistance…
That being said, there were many Players who received quests such as ‘clear a dungeon multiple times’ but were reluctant to let Zonyan help them even though he was offering to pay them instead. They did not want his support at all, and they would look like a maiden being stared down by a hungry wolf if he gets to close, screaming ‘Don’t come, Black Hand! Aaaaaaaaaah!’ as they fled from him.
That naturally made gathering points difficult for Zonyan…
***
“I’ve got the points! Finally!”
It was fortunate that Zonyan did not give up. Soon after the Players who had slain the Marsh Drake returned to the Lancaster Hideout and the Unnamed Town, he eventually achieved his objective by helping every Player who approached him without refusing any.
“Finally done!” The newbie Joey was sobbing in joy. “I don’t want to clear clogged toilets anymore—and is the God of Games really so idle? How could he assign clogged toilet as side quests?!”
“Ahem. Don’t curse the God of Games, or you’ll get banned.” Vulcan cleared his throat in warning while playing Tierra Blocks beside them.
“Brother Vulcan, is the game that good? You’ve been playing it for two days.” Joey was merely complaining nonchalantly as a believer, but he quickly changed the topic when he realized that it wasn’t right.
“More or less. I prefer Thunder.” Vulcan replied casually. “But I’ve already secured a seven hundred thousand point-gap against the second place, so he’s not catching up anytime soon. On the other hand, Miss Eleena is hot on my heels in points in Tierra Blocks… so if I don’t score higher… Wait, you’re giving me that now?! Ah, I’m dead.”
Perhaps because he had been distracted, the round Vulcan had been playing for most of the day went game over. The man himself turned gray-white in dejection, sprawled over the table motionlessly.
Beside him, Joey decided that he would probably never understand the superior beings who reigned on top of the leaderboards, after having stayed at the bottom end of the leaderboards throughout.
In this life, the best bragging he would afford to his descendants would be that he had once been on the top ten as well—back on the first day the games came online, and he reached tenth place.
“Thanks for your help, you two. This way, I could finally redeem the cheapest seafaring boat!”
Meanwhile, Zonyan wasn’t concerned about Joey’s complaint at all, and instead feeling earnestly thankful for their help. “It was lucky that the first quest in the quest chain was to find teammates I trust for the other quests, or I’m going to have to gather points for a long time if I went at it alone.”
“Hold on, isn’t there just one boat available for redemption?” Joey asked, perplexed—following the Fishmen Island event, he had assumed that Zonyan was referring to the same default redeemable boat.
But from what Zonyan said just now, it doesn’t seem like there was just one redeemable boat.
“There’s around eight in the quest rewards list,” Zonyan replied. “That said, the others need more points, and all we need is to cross the sea. It’s not like we would fight on the water anyway, so a little boat would suffice.”
After all, the most important part of the quest in his perspective was his return to the Grayclaw Tribe and dueling his brother Swordtail. Crossing the sea and whatnot was merely a prerequisite that paved the path to accomplishing his quest!
“Hmmm… it does feel like that…”
Joey nodded as well, completely oblivious to the dangers of the sea.
All of them did not know that those boats were all replicas Xi Wei had molded.
***
In the end, the Players were restrained considerably in the Valla Empire. Developing a sea route was therefore a good choice, just like trying their luck on the Western Continent by using the sea routes that the Secret Eye Society navigated.
Naturally, this path required a ship capable of seafaring —not those crude rafts in the Fishmen Island event that break apart with the simplest of mishaps, but one that could ride the waves and sail against the wind.
While Xi Wei thought of himself as clever and capable, he did not actually have experience in making such things. That was why he needed a professional party of adventurers to test the boats he had made.
Zonyan’s group clearly fit the bill.
The trio was unaware at all about their own god’s sinister intentions, but instead happily headed towards the Grey Fjord through the Lifestone. Then, after Zonyan decided to redeem the boat and watching as the boat appeared before them, they made a big, excited fuss out of it since it looked much improved than the simple boat of the Fishmen Island event.
They hence boarded one after another, taking their first step in the journey to the Western Continent.
Then, probably just ten minutes later, a colossal whale started to follow the boat in curiosity, and crushed half of it with one whale breached, leaving the boat slowly sinking in its wake.
Another twenty minutes, the completely soaked trio swam out of the city and walked up on the beach, looking extremely miserable.
That was truer for Zonyan, who wanted to cry but had no tears when he saw the quest notification that had moved up to ‘head to the new continent’ revert to ‘redeem a boat’…
