Anton’s family’s journey to the next village was uneventful so he asked permission from his father if he could meditate so he could become stronger. Anders gave his son the go-ahead even though Anna kept saying that she would like for his brother to stay with her and just play his lute or tell her stories before they arrived in the village.
“Anna, I need to meditate. Why don’t you create stories in your head instead and then write them down in your notebook when you have the chance? Maybe someday you’ll become a renowned author.”
Anna just rolled her eyes at his brother. He then entered the game to continue leveling up. After a couple of hours, he was able to complete the Spider Forest and the Great Marsh in Kurast Docks. He leveled up to twenty-five, so he immediately put his skill points in Blizzard and Energy Shield. Now he had one skill point remaining. The stats he put into energy since he felt like he would need more mana in the game and real life but if he were playing the game normally, he would have put the majority of his stats in vitality. In the last hour, he went to Rogue Encampment and outside the safe area, he practiced his Blizzard spell some more.
One advantage that he had was since the game followed the original Diablo II, there was no friendly fire. He could cast Blizzard with impunity since he and his mercenary would not be affected by the area of effect damage of the spell. Anton was quite sure that he couldn’t do the same thing in real life.
Anton exited the game just in time to hear his father saying that he could see the next village in the distance. He and Anna joined their father in the driver’s seat and according to Anna, the village was as big as Oakswood, the village near their farm.
When Anders saw the size of the village, Anton’s father smiled since it meant that his father would be able to gather a lot of things from the people there.
When they arrived at the inn, Anton saw that everyone was respectful towards them, and he realized it was because of their carriage and their clothes. They didn’t look like farmers. They looked like prosperous merchants at the very least.
Anders left the carriage to the stable hands and all of them went inside the inn. When Anton saw his sister’s behavior, he almost laughed out loud. She was behaving like she thought rich people would behave with their noses raised upwards and walking slowly. To him, it was not rich people's behavior, but a parody, and Anton was quite sure that the inn folks would have figured her out. But when he looked at the people inside, they were looking at his family in awe.
“My lord, how may we serve you?” A middle-aged man asked Anders.
“Don’t call me Lord, I’m not a lord just a merchant. My name is Anders. We would like to hire two rooms. One for my daughter and one room big enough for myself and my son.”
Anton looked around while his father negotiated for a couple of rooms for them. The inn looked like the inn from a movie set but much more real with its stains and noises. After his father’s talk with the innkeeper, somebody led them upstairs to their rooms.
While they were walking the man who was leading them informed them that there was a bath downstairs and lunch was available if they wanted to eat. Anton’s father told the man that they would eat in the common room after they settled down in their rooms. Another man was also following them carrying their luggage with him.
When they arrived in their rooms, they left their belongings there and they all went to the common room to eat. They were not worried about the luggage since there was nothing valuable inside them.
They arrived in the common room and Anders ordered food for the whole family.
“I’m so hungry, I wish the food here is good,” Anna said.
“If it is, we should buy a lot so we can have hot meals during our journey,” Anton added.
The food when they ate it was average at best, but they were hot and filling. While they were eating Anders talked to them about his plan of purchasing things from the villagers. Anton requested not to be part of it since he would like to concentrate on his meditation so he could become more powerful.
Although Anders would have liked his help, his father understood that his son’s power was more important so he told Anton that Anna’s help would be enough.
Anton reminded his father of his request for more soap, baking soda, and spices for their food. His father told him that they had enough time since they would probably stay here today and tomorrow depending on how many things they could purchase.
After their meal, he left his father and Anna to their devices and went upstairs to their room. Honestly, the main reason why he didn’t want to join his father was he was not comfortable being surrounded by a lot of people. He had always been an introvert which was why his main hobby before he was busy working was going to the library to read fantasy and sci-fi books then when he was given a laptop, he added playing games and watching animes, TV shows, and movies from illegal websites to his hobbies.
In their room, instead of playing the game, Anton opened his browser. He then went to a website where he could watch animes and was glad that one of his favorite anime had been updated and as a matter of fact, there were three new episodes. It was about a man who grew up in a modern world where dungeons appeared, and he was the only one who could level up. He was so grateful that his browser was connected to the internet and the sounds that he could hear were exceptionally good as if he were wearing top-of-the-line earbuds.
As a curiosity, he ran an internet speed test using a website and he was taken aback by the speed that he received. It was so fast that he doubted that he would experience any lag when he streamed a movie.
Anton also checked if he could watch movies legitimately even though he had no credit card that he could use. Maybe his Diablo II system would find a way. When he went to a famous steaming site, he was happily surprised that he had an account with lots of credit and when he checked it had exactly the same amount of gold coins that he had in the game only instead of gold, it was converted to dollars. That meant he could use his funds in the game to stream movies and animes on famous sites without any problem. The only thing that he couldn’t do was purchase physical things or download programs or applications. He wondered why his Diablo II system did not allow him to download any other programs. Maybe it would be jealous if he played another game but at least he could still play browser games.
He then went back to the anime website and streamed the latest episodes of his favorite new anime.