Chapter 43: Worries
John flipped the skillbook in his hands, his grin refusing to fade. He looked like a kid who’d just gotten a new toy and couldn’t wait to try it out.
Then his gaze moved back to Arthur as he asked excitedly,
"What about you, Art? You wanna look around for any Mage skillbooks? I bet there’s a couple of decent ones in this place."
But Arthur shook his head right away,
"No need. Water Arrow is enough for me now," he said.
Although he had a good chunk of elemental stones now, he wasn’t about to start spending them recklessly. Even if he found a skill better than [Water Arrow], he wasn’t going to buy it unless it was absolutely necessary.
After all, Arthur knew he’d have to buy a storage bag soon, and the thousand stones that one would cost were already making him feel the pinch.
But there was no way around it. He couldn’t keep storing his elemental stones in small leather pouches at his waist. What would happen if he lost one of them? Or, worse... if he ended up dying?
Also, his Child of the Elements title needed more elemental stones to raise his affinity, so he’d have to spend on that front as well.
...Judging by how eagerly John had bought [Roar], Arthur could tell John’s Wind affinity was almost certainly at (Lesser), if not higher, but his own Fire and Water affinities were still sitting at (Minor).
Arthur could almost feel the weight of the stones in his pouches slipping away before he even had a chance to look for any skillbooks.
John caught the complicated look on his face and let out a laugh, as he threw an arm around Arthur’s shoulder and said,
"Alright, alright. I guess it’s not so bad to save up a bit."
The two of them left the private chamber together, their feline attendant nowhere in sight.
Arthur considered looking around the rest of the place for a bit, at the remaining floors they’d yet to visit, but decided against it. It was getting late, and about time for him to log out.
...
When they stepped outside, the city’s noise greeted them again.
John stretched his arms over his head with a satisfied groan and patted the book under his shirt as he turned to Arthur,
"Not a bad day, huh? From Goblin Shaman guards to a damn Howler, and now this. Still... it was worth every fight."
Arthur nodded, his left hand involuntarily falling on the three pouches at his waist as he said,
"Yeah, it wasn’t bad at all."
John looked at the people around them, and after a moment of hesitation he asked,
"You wanna call it a day? My stomach’s been killing me. I haven’t eaten since morning."
Arthur nodded. Honestly, he could also feel his own stomach complaining for a while now, and his grandpa must have been getting worried by now.
"Yeah. Meet by the city gates, same time tomorrow?" he asked.
"Sounds good." John gave him a thumbs up.
The two of them parted ways a few blocks later.
John disappeared into the crowd, his broad frame swallowed by the press of bodies, while Arthur slipped down a quieter street, not far from the Golden Oak.
At the end of the alley, the noise of the city dimmed to little more than a background hum.
Arthur stopped and looked up at the purple sky.
There was no sun, no moon, or stars up there.
For some reason, Zenith, or at least this tutorial Arthur was in, didn’t seem to mark any difference between day and night. But Arthur knew he’d spent way too many hours in the game in one go.
It was time to go back.
He closed his eyes and imagined returning to his room.
The sounds of the city soon dulled, and even the voices of the passersby eventually turned into nothing but distant whispers, as the familiar sensation of weightless falling enveloped him once more.
And then... the world around him turned dark.
...
"Son!"
By the time he opened his eyes, Arthur was already back in his room, as a worried, aged voice rang out beside him.
The urgency of it made him jolt. He turned his head hurriedly.
Luke was right there, sitting on the edge of a chair by his desk. The old man’s eyes were wide with worry, his back bent forward as though he’d been waiting there for hours.
Arthur blinked, the sensation of returning to the real world having yet to fade. His gaze drifted to the clock on his wall.
"23:45?" he stared at it in shock.
It was almost midnight! He’d been inside Zenith the entire day.
"Son, are you alright?" Luke asked, his voice laden with fatigue.
Arthur pushed himself upright slowly. His body felt sluggish, a mix of exhaustion from spending so many hours inside the game and hunger from not eating all day.
"I couldn’t log out earlier. I’m sorry, Grandpa," Arthur said, his voice tinged with a bit of guilt.
But it was true. There’d been no safe spot in the mountain for him and John to log out, and Arthur didn’t trust the safe zone as much as Greg and his group seemingly did. What would happen if they did, only to log back in later and get ambushed by a swarm of Iron Boars, or... something even worse? He also couldn’t get out of the game before getting rid of all that loot.
Luke let out a breath and patted his shoulder as he nodded,
"As long as you’re alright, son. Don’t... push yourself too hard. I’ve heard that game is more dangerous than it looks. The people on the news are even calling it a nightmare."
Arthur sat at the edge of the bed, meeting his grandfather’s eyes and answering with a grin,
"Don’t worry about it. I’m doing pretty well in there, you know. I’ve gathered more than twelve hundred stones already."
Luke froze at those words. His eyes widened, and his aged face softened with something Arthur rarely saw these days: shock turning into joy.
The old man stepped forward and clutched his grandson’s shoulders, but Arthur could feel the trembling in his fingers as Luke asked,
"Son! Is that true?"
Arthur nodded and continued,
"I told you, you don’t have to worry about this. Just take care of the shop."
Arthur kept his tone even, omitting a few details here and there like having to fight a Goblin Shaman and a few dozen of its guards today, the Iron Boars that were impervious to spears, the Rock Serpents lurking in the mist, and even the Mountain Howler that had nearly torn him and John apart. His grandfather didn’t need those images weighing on him with his feeble heart.
And indeed, Luke eased back in his chair, as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. But then he scrubbed a hand over his face, and continued,
"Still, the restaurant... I’m not sure how we’ll survive the month."