The Roleplayer

Responsibility

Riley sighed in relief from hearing the nurse's good news. He thanked her profusely and stood up to follow the nurse as she led him to his mother's roo.m

His mom was resting peacefully on the hospital bed, IV drips and bandages galore. Her skin had returned to a normal complexion, as opposed to the pale, white skin she had had just a few hours back.

In a daze, Riley sat on a chair next to her bed, and leaned back as he stared into the ceiling.

He covered his eyes with his right arm as he leaned his head back on the seat rest. He thought to himself, 'I endangered her because I thought I was hot shit with all these new powers. I thought I was invincible. Undefeatable. And she got hurt because of my irresponsibility. When will I ever grow up and take care of her?'

Riley was conflicted. He was both sad and angry. Sad because his reckless actions endangered the life of his sole family member, and angry because of the rampant crime happening in his neighborhood that exacerbated the situation to this tipping point.

If Riley had to guess, the thugs would not stop at failure. He only had movies and games to fuel his knowledge, but it seemed like a reasonable assumption that there would be more attempts on his life after this. In fact, they would probably bring even more bodies the next time around.

Remembering the namesake of his new class, whose purpose was to prevent crimes out of the police's power or knowledge, Riley pulled out his class system for the first time. Upon entering, Riley was greeted with a cut-scene in the menu box.

"For as long as criminal activities have been rampant, heroes from every locale have aimed to master the art of battle and stealth to suppress such criminal organisations. Vigilantes combine strength and stealth to wreak havoc within the ranks of these criminal organisations by unraveling each of their activities, and starve the monstrous beast from within. Vigilantes are mostly solo-players, hence the need to be all-rounders in their field, yet having many diverse play-styles."

"Class 'Vigilante' Main Quests Unlocked"

"Class 'Vigilante' Side Quests Unlocked"

"Class 'Vigilante' Time-limited Quests Unlocked"

"Class 'Vigilante' Equipments Unlocked"

"Class 'Vigilante' Skills Unlocked"

After the series of popups, Riley clicked on the first menu to redirect himself to his class quests.

The quest menu showed a few types of quests: main, side, and time-limited quests. Just like in games, there were different categorisations of quests.

Main quests are missions that move the storyline or plot of the game. Usually in RPG games, there are many different plotlines that the player can explore, but the main storyline is the centre of what the game is built upon, and tends to reward the player with unique equipment or skills.

Side quests are similar to main quests, but on a smaller scale. Usually these side quests provide unique rewards from certain factions or characters. Think of it like this; though main quests provide more experience points and good equipment as rewards, and would further the main storyline, side quests would move forward a side story, and provide unique equipment to the faction it benefits. A main quest is akin to Cinderella meeting the prince in the ball; side quests would be Cinderella doing chores.

Finally, there are time-limited quests. Time-limited quests are rarer than the aforementioned quests. Time-limited quests, as the namesake suggests, are time-sensitive. Unlike other quests that allow players to fail and repeat it again, time-sensitive quests have dire consequences; if you fail to complete it by the allotted time, it's gone for good. Usually time-sensitive quests appear all of a sudden, giving the player no time to prepare, unlike main and side quests.