Chapter 117 Return To The Forest
On Friday morning, Klaus took apart the last of the furniture that needed to be dismantled in his room and drove the rented moving truck to the new house that Michael, Ard and Chun would be living in for a while. Although they had money now, they preferred to keep paying cheap rent to try to get money together to pay the next monthly payments or the monthly arrears little by little.
The rooms in the place they would live now were cramped, there was a single room for the three people, a small bathroom without even a bathtub, and a living room already merged with a narrow kitchen.
Since Michael and Chun needed to go to their respective jobs and Ard to school, Klaus would be responsible for closing for the last time, at least for a few months, the house where he grew up, just as he was to hand over the keys to the bank the next day, after all he would be living in central New York.
As soon as Klaus opened the door, it was a shock to see the house completely empty. While they were organizing everything, he didn't feel it, but now that there was hardly any furniture in the rooms it all became real. Looking at the white walls and the beige carpet became uncomfortable.
He walked to his kitchen, where his refrigerator, stove and microwave still remained, opened the refrigerator, took out the carton of milk he had asked his mother to leave, and then he opened a compartment of the cupboards, where there was a box of cereal, a bowl and a spoon.
This was the longest breakfast of his life. A gale of thoughts, ideas, hypotheses, theories, questions and answers raced through every neuron in Klaus' brain.
However, after so long, he finally felt that he was alive and had a real purpose, unlike a week ago when he was still working at Arc Insurance.
After he finished eating, he washed the dishes he had soiled with water and put everything that was left in the kitchen into a small cardboard box. Then he walked up the stairs, sliding his right hand along the old and failingly painted banister, on which different shades of wood could be seen.
The moment he entered his room, he stopped under the doorframe and stared at the clean room. This time he did not feel shock as before, but fondness for this place.
Hundreds of warm memories dulled his mind, and even now everything seemed so real. These memories flash across the room as if Klaus could see them with his own eyes, but at an almost time-lapse speed. From his childhood to his adulthood.
From the days when he played with his brother Rhyzer, the first computer he won, his first championship, his first professional contract, his world championship, to the darkest and most stressful days of his life, which happened after Rhyzer's accident. On those days, he couldn't stop crying and didn't feel like doing anything. For a young man who understood almost nothing about life, seeing his brother between life and death was enough to take away his confidence.
Even as he watched and remembered all this, Klaus Park stepped forward and entered his room. This whirlwind of memory was not even able to make him hesitate, for it was he himself who suffered in those days, it was he who cried those tears and it was also he who learned alone to have confidence and hope that Rhyzer would wake up.
In his room there was no longer his bed, no longer a table for his computer. There were a few boxes of clothes piled up, his CPU, his mouse, his keyboard, and his NeuroGear.
Naturally, he turned on his computer, ran the Rise Online application, sat down on the floor, and, with his back against the wall, entered the game world.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself again in that unfamiliar forest to which he had been teleported. It was daylight, so now it didn't seem as mysterious a place as it had the night before.
"I'm going to have to punch Jayaa for making me waste my time with this..." Kaizen said as he opened the map interface.
As soon as the map expanded before him, he realized from the position of his icon that he was not far from the Royal City.
"It would take me twenty minutes to get back to the city from the Lightlands, now it will take me thirty from here. At least I'm technically exploring new areas." He tried to comfort himself and started walking north.
The climate in the area was mild. A light summer breeze cooled Kaizen's face from time to time.
Along the way, wild animals appeared that tried to attack him, only the region was low level, because the Royal City was still an early city like Holinda, so no creature was even able to scratch Kaizen. He felt that he was indeed getting faster and stronger, not only that the monsters were getting weaker. His ability to react to attacks increased, so did his reflexes, not to mention his strength. It was clear to him that the evolution curve in this VRMMORPG was not like in most classic MMORPGS, where the attribute numbers were just a mathematical way to numerically simulate evolution.
Halfway to town, Kaizen decided to test the limit of his weight debuff stamina and whether he could force it to increase just by running.
In the first five minutes of running, he became tremendously tired, but that was not enough to stop his momentum. Soon, he heard the long-awaited message.
[Your persistence increased. The amount of AGILITY attributes you will receive when you move up to the next level will be higher].
This was not enough to make him stop running, and once again he heard the same message.
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[Your persistence has increased. The amount of AGILITY attributes you will receive when you ascend to the next level will be higher].
This made Kaizen smile with happiness. His theory not only worked for Strength, but also for Agility. At that moment, he was eager to test whether it worked for the other attributes as well, but he didn't have time for that now, because he had a History Quest to start.
...
Edited by: DrHitsuji
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