Hail the King

Chapter 4: “Barbarian” Fei

“Why am I here? What happened?”

The recent events left confused Fei even more. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had magically appeared in this Diablo-esque world after that mysteriously cold voice read off some familiar loading screen lingo. Looking around, Fei saw that he had become a “Barbarian”, which Fei recognized was one of the game characters.

The rusty hand axe appeared in his right hand and a battered, junk-like buckler in his left. It didn’t take long for Fei to subconsciously understand his status in the game.

The next second, a high tech like screen popped up in front of him out of nowhere, just like those in Iron Man’s mansion.

Gamer: Fei

Class: Barbarian

Level: 1

Experience: 0/5000

Strength: 30 Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 10 Vitality: 20

Damage: 3-7 Accuracy: 102

Armor: 11 Endurance: 92

Health: 45 Resource (Fury): 10

Fire-Resistance: 0 Cold-Resistance: 0

Lightning-Resistance: 0 Poison-Resistance: 0

……

“These are my attributes in the game?”

Fei saw his name on the top of the screen. “What the heck! I just became the king and now I’m in a game world? And a barbarian? NO! At least let me be classier like a wizard or a crusader.”

At this moment, an armored man in blue rushed over.

“Greetings, stranger. I’m not surprised to see your kind here. Many adventurers have traveled this way since the recent troubles began. No doubt you’ve heard about the tragedy that befell the town of Tristram. Some say that Diablo, the Lord of Terror, walks the world again……”

The man just went on and on with his dialogue. Fei’s jaw dropped.

As one of the original fans of Diablo, Fei could immediately see that this man was Warriv, a NPC (Non-playable character) from the【Rogue Encampment】by the way he dressed and his dialogue lines. Every time a new player spawns, this dude will run to the player with a big golden question mark over his head.

Fei observed him while listening to his lines.

Neither his movement nor his facial expression felt like an NPC. If Fei didn’t recognize this man, he would have thought that Warriv was a real person. Even the heat that he exhaled while speaking turned into a white fog in this cold air. Fei even felt the moist sensation from it.

“I’m not sure if the NPCs in this world have any intelligence?”

After Warriv finished his long speech, Fei purposely asked a few questions.

“Hey, what’s your mother’s maiden name? What street did you grown up on?”

However, Warriv didn’t bother answering him. He just walked away after he finished.

He still left Fei clueless.

After thinking for a while, Fei decided to go find another person – Priestess Akara.

From his gaming memory, if he remembered correctly, the first ever quest in Diablo’s first map 【Rogue Encampment】was from her, a high priestess from the sisterhood of the “Sightless Eye”. On top of that, she was also the leader of the 【Rogue Encampment】so Fei had to find her if he wants to know what was going on.

The streets were quiet and lifeless.

Fei passed through a few tents and fences and finally spotted priestess Akara’s tent behind a wooden cage wagon. There were lots of weirdly shaped bottles and jars surrounding the tent. Fei was quite far away and could already smell the strange odours coming from them.

Akara, who was wearing a purple nun robe, was standing in front of the tent.

Fei walked over and a golden question mark appeared above Akara’s head.

“I am Akara, High Priestess of the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye. I welcome you, traveler ……” Akara started to introduce herself, the same as in the original game.

As expected, after the conversation, she gave Fei a quest.

“The Den of Evil”, kill all the evil creatures in an evil cave at【Blood Moor】 just outside of the 【Rogue Encampment】. It’s exactly as Fei remembered. A red button was projected on the left side of Fei’s vision.

He pressed the button and a detailed description came up. It looked like there weren’t any other choice so he accepted the quest.

Fei tried to organize his words to appear more sophisticated. “Honorable Akara, may I know more information about this place?”

He wanted to know if any of the NPCs had any intelligence and he hoped he could get some clues about why he appeared in this world.

“Young traveller, you have to complete your quest first before you can know more…”

Akara’s answer surprised Fei.

This is not something that was scripted in the original game. That showed that in this world, NPCs had some freedom, and that they aren’t some rigid pre-programmed code.

Fei wanted to ask more, but Akara turned around and went into her tent.

He tried to follow her but was blocked by a mysterious force and couldn’t get within 1 meter of the entrance.

“Looks like I have to complete the quest first…”

After failing to get any answers from a couple other NPCs in the【Rogue Encampment】, Fei walked out the gate that was guarded by a female rogue, and stepped into the dangerous【Blood Moor】where a ton of monsters were lurking around.

“Warning!! Gamer Fei, you have enter 【Blood Moor】. Killing monsters will grant you unexpected surprises… But if you fail your quest, you will receive some mysterious penalties!” said a mysterious voice before laughing like a maniac.

Fei recognized it as the voice that appeared in his mind earlier. It went by so fast, that Fei only heard the first couple sentences. The laughter was filled with gloat; however, compared with the cold, machine like tone before, it’s definitely more human like this time.

……

After three hours,

“Kacha!”

Fei chopped the twentieth 【Quill Rat】with his axe. A white beam of light came down from the sky and embraced Fei.

“Level up!”

This is not the first time that it happened, and Fei was expecting it. It’s very comfortable in the light, Fei felt like moaning. All the bleeding wounds from fighting the monsters closed and healed within three seconds.

After four or five second, the light disappeared.

Two dark red buttons appeared in front of Fei. The one on the left was labeled【New Attributes Points】 and the one on the right read【New Skill Points】. These are the rewards each time after leveling up.

Fei first opened up the【New Attributes Points】 menu.

Every time after leveling up, there will be five points for Fei to improve his physique. He distributed three points to 【Strength】 and two points to 【Vitality】without thinking. Those were the primary attributes of a “Barbarian”.

He then opened up 【New Skill Points】and distributed the one point he got from leveling up to 【Weapon Mastery】

Fei is now a level five “Barbarian”. All the twenty five attribute points were distributed to 【Strength and【Vitality】. Out of the five skill points, three were distributed to 【Weapon Mastery】and two to the Warcry skill【Howl】.

The reason he did it is because this is a real world.

As a player, Fei gets injured and wounded from fight the monsters. He doesn’t just lose health, he felt one hundred percent of the pain as well.

What is worth mentioning is that everything in this world is real, even the monsters. They are not programs nor codes. Their screams, spewing blood and chopped up bodies were irritating Fei’s nerves every second.