Golden Experience

“Huh? What? Is something wrong?”

Blanc looked over and noticed that it was the biggest building facing the clearing. There was a sign hung over the door that read:

INN

THE WASTELAND COYOTEAHOUSE

“Gah, that’s such a stupid pun! But it’s an inn… Hrmmm.”

An inn in a city. She could’ve sworn there was something important about that. Something she read somewhere. It wasn’t in one of the system announcements. She hadn’t read the online game manual either. If she remembered correctly…

“Ah, from that social networking site. Right. I think it said that inns are safe zones for cities.”

Back when Blanc had been looking up tips on casting magic, this topic had gotten a pinned thread. The SNS bulletin board topic list only showed each thread title and first post, that was where she read about someone not knowing where to find a safe zone like an inn.

While Blanc was lost in thought, the zombies had barged into the inn.

“Huh? If it’s a safe zone, then how can monsters get inside?”

But once she stopped to think about it, her room in the count’s old castle was also a safe zone, but the mormos could barge in at any time. They would even take naps on her bed whenever they wanted.

“I guess the rules are different if they’re followers. I wonder what would happen if they came across other players. You can’t PvP in safe zones, right?”

“They went into that place after you ordered them to ‘kill any humans,’ so wouldn’t that mean there are humans inside?”

“I shall inspect the building. Azalea, Carmine, watch the Master.”

“Wait, why did that sound like ‘don’t let that kid out of your sight’?”

“…Leave things to us. Do be careful, Magenta.”

Magenta elegantly strode into the inn, disappearing from sight.

＊

Inside the inn, the zombies had surrounded a human man and were groaning incessantly.

“What are you doing? You… cannot attack? Ahh, perhaps this is that ‘safe zone’ that the Master spoke of.”

“There’s another one! …Huh? A person? Um, are you a player?!”

Blanc sometimes talked about “players,” so he must have come from the same place that she had. Magenta noticed that this person instantly looked relieved upon seeing her face, so she realized that as long as she were also a “player,” he should let his guard down.

“Indeed, that’s correct. Are you as well?”

“Oh, I’m so glad! Ah, outside, what happened outside?! When I got back from grinding XP, the town was being attacked by these red skeletons… I got killed right away, and as soon as I revived the inn was already surrounded… now even zombies came inside! Why the hell can monsters get into a safe zone?!”

“Well, I can explain. Why don’t we go outside first? Don’t worry, these zombies won’t really do anything to you.”

While talking, Magenta showed him that she could head outside. The player-man fearfully skirted around the zombies and followed Magenta out of the inn.

Crimson the spartoi was right there waiting and, with a flick of his claws, the man’s head went flying.

“Hey, that guy will respawn in the inn soon. If we wait, he’ll come out again and we can kill him,” Blanc said.

“What kind of idiot would keep respawning in the same location just to get killed…?”

“……Yeah, you’re right.”

If spawn camping was no good, then there was no reason to keep standing around here. Blanc felt like she saw somewhere what would happen if someone’s safe zone was gone when they respawned, but she couldn’t remember where. They probably wouldn’t spawn on top of a pile of rubble, though, that was for sure. If she was going to leave zombies in this city, then it would be annoying for enemy players to keep respawning here. The zombies would also respawn, so the numbers wouldn’t change, but as they kept killing each other over and over again, the players would earn XP and start to get stronger. On her side, though, all the XP they earned was shared, and it didn’t make sense to keep powering up these zombies just to deal with the players.

“Ah, what if we made a deal with that person to earn unlimited XP…?”

Normally, you’d lose 10% of your XP with the death penalty, so kill trading in PvP would only result in a negative XP income. But since players didn’t lose XP during this event, it was now possible to kill trade.

Actually, unrelated to the event, it was possible to attempt something similar by having followers kill each other, since they weren’t affect by the death penalty. However, XP calculations included a clause where killing an unresisting hostile target would give no XP, so actually trying to do it was horribly inefficient. By the way, “unresisting hostile target” meant a character that recognized you as an enemy but still deliberately didn’t resist, so it didn’t include sneak attacks or traps.

“Let’s figure out if that’s possible later; for now we should think about how we can keep killing this player to earn more XP… And in considering that, I think it’s clear that just attacking another city would be more profitable.”

Thinking that sometimes Blanc wanted to get in on the action, she tried to destroy the inn by casting [Lightning Strike]. Since she couldn’t completely level it with just one cast, she had to wait for the cooldown to cast it again. Some minutes later, this now became the location of a former inn, and the Coyoteahouse had been forcibly shuttered.

“Hmm. I thought he would’ve respawned one more time by now, but he didn’t come out.”

“…Maybe he got killed when you blew up the inn?”

“I wonder what happened to him if he did? Or like, seriously, what happens if your respawn point gets destroyed?”

Blanc would have to look that up later too. She would be drowning in game-related homework at this rate.

“Eh, it’s fine if I don’t know! Okay, you zombies stay here; we’re off to the next place! If we stick to the road, we should reach the neighboring town, right?”

“Yes, we should.”

Blanc led her forces from the city and onto the road. While traveling, they would periodically see groups of skinny coyotes eyeing them from a distance. When the spartoi saw this, they would gnash their teeth menacingly, and the coyotes would immediately run off somewhere.

“Hm, they won’t attack us.”

“Since the spartoi are clearly stronger, I don’t think they would dare attack us with inferior numbers…”

“Ah, I guess you’re right. On the other hand, if they did attack us anyway, that would mean there might be something we don’t know to watch out for.”

“That may well be the case.”

Some time later, she saw a human shape on the road, far in the distance. Blanc was only able to see them with her racial characteristic Night Vision, but she couldn’t tell whether they had noticed her group as well or not.

“A bandit or something, probably.”

“It’d be nice if it was.”

But as they continued to close the distance without concern, the person immediately ran off after noticing them, and they didn’t show up again thereafter.

“Just like those coyotes.”

“Humans are clever, so of course they’d run.”

After that, they kept marching onward without encountering anything to fight. Soon, the eastern sky began to lighten, signalling the end of night.

“Crap, the sun’s beginning to rise. I gotta put on my mantle.”

“Things turned out exactly the way the count said they would. You will have to thank him later.”

“Shaddap, I know!”

They kept walking, and before long they made out another city.

“Wow, this’s horrible timing. Fighting at this hour is kinda… What should we do?”

“Hold that thought. We may not have much of a choice.”

“Why not?”

“That city… looks like it’s completely prepared for battle. I believe they are on guard against us.”

“Seriously?!”

“Perhaps it was that person from earlier. They could have been from this city.”

“Ah—”

True; if any people were in this wasteland, they would most definitely either be already visitors of that city, or planning to go there next. If this was the closest city to where they had seen that person before, then they should have been able to predict this outcome. Sure enough…

“Don’t you bring up that butler!”

“I wasn’t even thinking about him yet!!!”