[NR] A More Reasonable Encounter - Chapter 524 (Patreon)

After those discoveries and the planning, the trio checked the time and decided to not bother repacking everything. Courtney’s fact finding had happened irl and thus took a few hours so while there was still half the day left, it wasn’t out of the question to stop. Of course, that meant they only managed a couple hours of travel, but it isn’t like they’re on a strict timeline.

Oh, and it gave Rosha and Courtney some extra time to cultivate. Jason of course had been planning to do just that, but graciously bowed out when they brought it up first. After all, part of the plan with the Deep Wilds was for him to have more than enough time. Though being stuck with their two unmoving forms wasn’t exactly all that fun.

Of course, since Jason and Lily are the only ones active, this is exactly when they get attacked by monsters. Then their forms were no longer all that unmoving. He hadn’t seen it happen before personally, but NeoRealm’s solution to being logged out in an unsecured location worked as described.

When disturbed, your body fights in an approximation of how you would fight. Before this, it hadn’t come up because of that “when disturbed” clause. Sure, the party had been attacked while some of them were logged out before, but they generally would log out while in a tent and so not disturbed enough to join in.

After all, the System wasn’t going to give people a free pass when camping in a dangerous location. Thus, what would count as having disturbed you was much higher than what would wake you. That way, those who stay logged in and sleep through the night will have an advantage over someone trying to pass the night by logging off.

Though Jason had to admit as he watched the other two fight with him, the feature was disturbing to watch. The two bodies did fight in a familiar fashion with an obvious dip in quality implemented by the System to prevent certain kinds of abuse. However, the way they fought raised the hair on the back of his neck.

It wasn’t robotic in the fashion that most people mean. No jerky motions or sudden changes in direction. However, it was mechanical in a smooth perfection sort of way.

Like watching a really optimized factory arm, they moved smoothly. Except that was the problem. People don’t fight like that. They start and stop, change their minds, and flub small movements all the time. Instead, the two were fighting as if they were going through a kata with machine-like perfection.

The difference in skill between how they normally fought and this was more a matter of their current form moving slower instead of worse fundamentals. In fact, even the mistakes in their fighting styles were being replicated with such perfection that it no longer felt like an error. Like watching someone seem to trip only to turn it into a brilliant roll.

Of course, the long-tailed cats that attacked were just normal animals. Or, maybe monsters? Jason couldn’t really tell, as the line between the two could be a little vague if you didn’t have a skill to help. Anyway, they didn’t have that primal desire to see sapients dead that some critters do and ran away when the going got tough.

It was honestly kind of refreshing. The way most enemies seemed to fight in NeoRealm was unsustainable as far as Jason was concerned. Nature isn’t about duels to the death. It is about hunting, hiding, and trying to escape.

Yet so many attacks seem to be more like the enemies in old school games. Maybe not with a literal aggro range, instead working off actual senses. But still, monsters trying to escape when outmatched should be more common.

Of course, Jason knows why it isn’t. No matter how real NeoRealm is, the System still controls it. That means a number of odd game features are in place. After all, someone playing a video game doesn’t want enemies to just run away.

Though supposedly the sapient locals aren’t like that. Except as far as Jason is concerned, hunting them is just like hunting any other person, in game or irl. Now, he isn’t some bleeding heart and if someone starts something? Well, Jason very much plans to finish it.

Not that much else bothers them. The road is more the domain of bandits than it is monsters, at least in an area as open as this. Jason pauses as he considers that last bit, before shaking his head.

No, even a place as open as this had monster threats. They just hide better and are more particular about what they hunt. Besides that, some of the so-called bandits are actually monster threats as well.

NeoRealm, of course, has your normal bandits. Those who end up out in the wilds, robbing travelers. However, there are also less fortunate sorts, some would even say cursed.

The long and short of it is that the System took the Wendigo myth and broadened what it covered. So some bandits are just bandits. Other bandits, though? Well, they’re actually soulless monsters who only happen to look like some sapient race or another.

This caused a sort of strange truce between kingdoms and bandits. Neither side wants the monsters to proliferate and only one of them is in the right places to handle an outbreak. So kingdoms have an unwritten agreement with the bandits that as long as they don’t get too rambunctious and clear up any bandit monsters, the kingdom won’t come down on them too hard.

Almost as if something was trying to set up a self sustaining bandit presence that even the most aggressive kingdom couldn’t completely remove. Because even if no sapient sorts end up going too deeply into banditry to end up cursed. They’re still monsters and thus something the System has no problem spawning in whole cloth. So it was either allow the more money motivated sorts ply their trade, or the bloody sort takes their toll.