Artificial Fantasy

Chapter 133: New Plans

Winter break can be a mixed bag depending on what you want to do once school is over. You can play a lot of video games, hang out with your friends, or go on a trip with them and your family. It can be either fun or boring depending on if you're interested in these kinds of activities.

Originally, most of my winter breaks boil down to hanging out with Damon and Zac, playing RPGs with Dad and Kazuki, reading novels with Kazuki, and practicing cooking with the recipes I found online. But since <Isekai Online> came into our lives, we've mostly spent most of our days playing there when we didn't have anything to do. But that doesn't mean we can play it for 24 hours. We still need real-life connections and Mom would flip if we stayed in our rooms playing it without any rest. So before the long-awaited departure from the game, we decided to do our own thing in the daytime.

For Kazuki, he's working on an art project back home. I would have helped him out, but he insisted he could make it on his own and he wanted it to be a secret to surprise me and my friends. Either way, I'm guessing it's his first step to gaining his independence in real life.

As for me, I've decided to call on my friends for some arcade fun followed by lunch at that 2010-themed cafe, which I learned that it's called a "Tennie's Hangout". Weird and cringy name, but it's not too lame.

"Alright! You guys got plans once we reach the title kingdom in the game?" Zac asks while enjoying his sloppy burger. "I was planning to fl- I mean, meet some NPCs and players visiting there."

This guy... I have a feeling he might do the same with Dahlia once we deliver that container to her.

"Other than the delivery, Kazuki and I are planning to set up separate stands in the kingdom and explore outside of the city," I answer while sipping a cup of dalgona coffee. "Now that he's free to roam around without me following his every move, there's a chance he might spend mostly on exploring rather than selling potions. He hasn't decided about it yet, but it's a possibility."

"I was planning to replenish my magazine and find new guns there," Damon answers while enjoying his tomato salad and grape juice. "My current ones might reach their limit soon and I'm hoping the shops have much stronger equipment that can help me with the monsters for the time being."

"Speaking of which, Hayate... Why don't you try exploring a [Dungeon]?"

I tilt my head and raise my eyebrow. "But I already traveled through <Tested Wilds> and <Hill Forest>."

"One, both of them involved you guys grinding monsters rather than exploring, and in the case of <Hill Forest>, you guys simply did a revenge plot on those ants before the whole [Hidden Quest] antics you guys mentioned," Zac counters. "Second, you need to know two types of [Dungeons]. [Open] and [Instance]. [Open] is what <Tested Wilds> and <Hill Forest> are and they're meant for beginners who want a bit of challenge and EXP after hitting double digits while [Instance] is mostly roguelike dungeon crawling."

"Roguelike...dungeon crawling? As in like tabletop RPG's dungeons and those old-timey dungeon crawler games I've been hearing about?"

Zac grins. "Yep! You travel through random layouts on each floor and finish some challenges to move up a floor. The difference is that the higher you go, the strength of the monsters and the difficulty of the challenges will grow. If you die, you will get a nasty [Death Penalty] that doubles your EXP loss and bans you from taking any [Instance Dungeon] for in-game hours or days after logging back in. Plus, if you're at a party, there's no way you can get back to them after you die thanks to the login ban. So you better avoid any losses if you want to succeed."