Chapter 15 - 15. Invisible Wall
On the fifth day since the world transformed, Jack finally reached the suburb part of the city. If he spent half more day time in traveling, he could be considered as already left the city.
The houses that decorated both sides of the street were getting sparser as he proceeded. More empty lands could be seen, with several had sale signs looking for buyers on the plot of land. He could see faraway hills and prairies as the road stretched onward to the distance. Monsters were also getting scant.
Weird, in normal RPG games, it was the wilderness that was teeming with monsters, but he couldn't see any visible monsters in the faraway open fields. He continued following the paved road.
Looking at the faraway scenery, he was contemplating where he should spend the night, and how to scavenge supplies, or cook foods once he was out of town, since there would be no more stores or houses to be found. Maybe he should go back and looked for some camping supplies and portable cooking wares before he set out of the city.
During his deep thought, he bumped into something. He was reeling from the impact. He touched and massaged his forehead which had been the point of impact. He didn't receive any damage but the bang had left him dazed because it was too unanticipated. There was nothing in front!
He stretched out his hands, and they could feel a hard surface. He traced the surface along the empty air. It stretched out wide, he couldn't find its edges as he kept on tracing it with his hands. It was like there was an invisible wall.
A thought occurred to him.
"It can't be…," he muttered as he continued to trace the invisible wall. It continued to stretch out sideways without any gap.
Could it be, they were not only trapped in this game world, but also trapped within the city? Just like how the world in an RPG game was comprised of several maps which had edges on them that were not traversable? The only way to move to another map was via a designated doorway location? This made things more complicated. How would he find these exit or entrance locations? There were no guides nor clues!
Damn it! He kicked a rock in frustration. The rock hit the invisible wall and bounced off. He took a deep breath and looked around.
Now, where was he supposed to go?
He spent the entire morning and half of the afternoon tracing along the invisible walls. Just as he expected, the wall was not a straight line, it went along a slight curve with the city as its center. It was circumventing the city, so the city was one huge enclosed map.
Although the monsters at the edge of this map were not as abundant, he still had several encounters while he was traveling following the invisible wall. At this moment, he detected five red dots in his radar, clustered together not far from where he was. His Fighter level was near level 6 now, it would take one or two more encounters for him to level up. He advanced towards the red dots.
When they appeared within his sight, he scanned them with his God-eye monocle. They were three level 2 Zombies, one level 3, and one level 4 Skeleton Thugs. All of them were monsters he had fought before.
Overall, their increased level only made them stronger and tougher, their movement patterns were still the same. In the case of Zombie, their speed was even the same as their level 1 counterpart. While for the Skeleton Thug, the higher level was a little bit faster, but not significant enough to matter.
After making some mental calculations, he decided to break his previous record of fighting three opponents. Since all of them were lower levels, it would not be too dangerous fighting with these many foes.
He ran towards them. Since the five monsters were all looking in different directions, there was no blind spot for him to perform an ambush. A straight-up brawl then!
When he came within eight meters of the nearest monster, he cast Mana Bullet. He had familiarized himself with melee battle for these two days, it's time for freestyle. He would mix between melee and ranged combat. He sidestepped on the first monster that lounged at him, and cast Magic Shield to block the second monster's attack while he did Power Strike on the first one. He then moved around again to position the five monsters in front of him.
Executing the same strategy which he had accustomed to, he blocked the attacks with Magic Shield and Parry. When the monsters were lumped in front of him, he performed Swing, which hit only four out of the five opponents. It proved difficult to control these many opponents. When the monsters seemed like they were about to surround him, he ran away and cast Mana Bullet.
In this way, he grinded away the Monsters until only the level 4 Skeleton Thug was left. He lost one-third of his HP which he considered was fine already. When he wanted to focus his attention to dispatch this last monster, he noticed two blue dots on his radar, and they were approaching his position. Remembering his previous experience with Bill, he knew those two dots were players. Finally, he could meet other people again. Two of it this time.
He paid attention to the two blue dots while evading the Thug's attack. He had deactivated his Magic Shield as it consumed MP each second. Against one lower-level opponent, there was no need to waste Mana. He made some casual slashes when opportunities arose, but his mind was more focused on the blue dots. Strangely, the blue dots stopped not far from his place. He made a side glance in that direction, there was a dilapidated barn house at that side. He figured the two arrivals must have observed him from there.
Why did they stay hidden? They had been there for a while now. Surely, they should have seen that he was a human too. If he was the one that encountered another person fighting a monster, he would have immediately lent a hand. Were they being cautious?
Under normal situation, it was reasonable, but the world had turned into a place where monsters roamed freely while human was in scarce supply. He would be happy to find anybody. Or maybe he was the one being na?ve? After giving the matter some thought, he decided to be cautious as well.
He stored his staff, and made it look as if he had difficulties fighting the Skeleton Thug. He intentionally let the Thug hit him a few times, but kept his health above half. After more than ten minutes of bogus fight, he landed the final hit on the Thug and it disintegrated into dust, leaving 1 copper coin. He picked it up and looked at the radar. The blue dots were still unmoving.
Were they going to ignore him the whole way? He wondered. He took out a piece of bread and ate it. He then decided to walk towards their direction, he wanted to see what their reaction would be. As he was getting near the barn, he saw the blue dots circling the building away from him. It was clear that they tried to stay out of his sight.
He stopped when he arrived at one corner of the building, and pretending to look faraway towards the city, putting his back for them. They were motionless still. When he was considering to just drop the pretense and call out to them, the two blue dots moved. They were coming at him.