Sucked into a Fantasy Game

To start off her grinding, Kiyomi wanted to see if a skill or item existed that would allow her to see the stats and skills of whatever target she examined. That would be incredibly useful because it would allow her to come up with counters against the skills. And once she could counter, any battle she chose would almost be a guaranteed victory.

She headed to the capital’s library as a starting point and spent a few hours there. Most of the books had lore about the world. After searching for a long while, she went and sat down with several books and skimmed the pages. One after another.

She opened and flipped through a book. Nope.

Another one. Nope.

Another one. Nope.

Another.

Another.

Another. Nope. She shut it and sighed. I’d have better luck asking a random player for help. 

Speaking of players…

Kiyomi pulled up her UI with a quick hand gesture and messaged Sako.

Kiyomi: u have anyone in mind who might know about spying on someone’s skills

Sako: Try Kondor.

Kiyomi: …

Sako: …

Kiyomi: no one else??

Sako: Nope. Sorry. I haven’t made many friends yet apart from these NPCs.

Kiyomi swiped down, closing the UI. She had a feeling Vell might know, but he was too far away right now. Someone close by… Kondor was a noob. Luna was a noob and a lunatic…

She got an idea though she didn’t like it since it might involve talking to people…

~~~

She teleported back to Luthyia, stepped into the Adventurers’ Guild, and walked up to the counter. It was packed with players of all sorts who were talking among themselves. It was noisy. She had come at the right time.

Elora… wasn’t there?

Kiyomi leaned over the counter, and to her surprise, Elora was sleeping on the floor with a pillow tucked under her head, an eye mask over her eyes, and covered in a bedsheet. It was a real head-scratcher how she managed to sleep soundly in all this noise.

She conjured up a black bucket of cold water—another one of her Odd Spells—and tossed it over the counter and onto her.

“GAH!” Elora squirmed then sat up and lifted her eye mask to look around frantically. Her sleepy eyes came to rest on Kiyomi above her.

“Can you help me?” Kiyomi asked.

“…What? With what?” Her tuxedo and hair were drenched. Covering her mouth, she yawned.

“Do you know where I can get a skill or item that lets me see everyone’s stats and skills even when they hide it?”

“A what? Um… I dunno…” She lowered her head, about to fall asleep.

“Do you know anyone who might know?”

“Uh… some guy… named Vell…”

“Apart from him. Anyone else?”

“I think…” Elora sluggishly scanned the room of adventurers. She pointed in a direction behind Kiyomi. “That girl. Rika Kazutani. She’s very experienced.”

Kiyomi looked to where she was pointing.

A girl was sitting at a table with a group of guys in dark robes and an animated skeleton standing next to her. Her hair was bright green with flowers in it.

“I’m telling you, we can’t do it,” one of the guys said to her.

“Aww, but why?” Rika asked.

“Because we need more people. Minimum 40 more, all S-ranked at least. You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve been saying,” another guy told her.

“No, no, noooo! I’m pretty sure we can win. You won’t know until you try again.” She grinned. “Just be confident, and we’ll do fine.”

“What? You think we’ll win with the power of positivity? You can go on, but I’m not following you and getting my ass handed to me again after dying 18 times.”

“Kaz, what do you think?” She turned her head to a bigger, bulkier, and older man on the far side of the table who had been quiet for the longest while.

“We can’t do it. It’s that simple,” he replied.

“Felix?” She looked at the younger lad next to him.

“They’re obviously right,” he replied, “especially Kaz. He knows his shit.”

“No one’s with me on this?!” Rika looked at them all in disbelief.

“Girl, you are on crack,” another said as he sat back in his chair folding his arms.

Kiyomi walked over to the table. Just play it cool. “Hey.” She glanced at them all once then focused on Rika. “Do you know anything that players can use to see all the details of any target?”

They all looked at her.

One of the guys looked at Rika. “You know this noob?”

Rika shook her head then looked Kiyomi up and down.

They stared at her in wonder…

“So, none of you’ll answer then?” Kiyomi asked.

“Uh… There’s one place I know off the top of my head,” Rika replied.

“And that is…?”

“Wait. You have to help us first.”

“With what?”

“Our raid team.”

One of the guys slammed his fist down on the table. “Are you really still on that, Rika?”

“Shh. Calm down. Drink some water.” She waved her hand at him dismissively.

“You’re really going to let a noob handle this with us?” Felix asked.

“Well, we don’t know what she’s capable of yet—”

“No. I’m not having this.” One of them got up and walked out the door.

A man sighed. “Make that 41.”

Rika looked at her holoscreen before her eyes, reading Kiyomi’s stats—whatever she could see anyway. She wouldn’t be able to see everything since she had Shroud on. After about a minute, she looked up. “Can I see your ID?”

Kiyomi summoned her ID into her hand and gave it to Rika.

Rika read the card for a few moments. Suddenly, she looked disgusted. “Yikes, not even a C-rank.”

One of the guys snorted. “Not even C. She’s wasting our time.”

“Yeah… Sorry, but…” Rika didn’t know how to put it, but the message was clear.

Kiyomi couldn’t see any numbers on them. Their stats were hidden. Typical and annoying. All she knew was that their levels were in the 600s. Basically midgamers. “And what're your ranks?”

“S’s,” Rika replied.

“All of you?”

“Yeah.” Rika nodded.

“Tell you what, if I can beat all of you at once in PvP, you let me join you on the raid and then you tell me where I can find the thing I’m looking for.” She was curious now about the raid boss and the loot.

They all looked baffled.

“Nah, she doesn’t mean that,” someone said.

“No, I think she does,” Rika said.

“That’s big talk. Reeeaaally big talk,” Kaz said.

“There is no way she can take all of us on,” Felix said. “Not even a C, only a Level 221, and she hasn’t even seen our gear, stats, or skills. Like really, how dumb can you get?”

Kiyomi wanted to murder him. She sighed and turned her back. “Well, your loss. I’m sure you’ll all do just fine without me.”

“Wait,” Rika said.

Kiyomi turned around.

“Let’s have the PvP match. You against the 9 of us.”