Ero-Game: Power and Sword

"You're by yourself today." The young man with purple eyes said, handing me my morning coffee. "Where's the other guy you were with yesterday?"

"He'll come." I smiled at him and took a sip of my coffee. "I told him to jot down all the jobs on the adventurer guild's bulletin board."

"You're an adventurer, miss?"

"Yeah, just started. Still an F-rank. My name's Sherrie Hooper, by the way. What's yours?" I asked, though I already knew.

"It's Sterling Quazi."

"Okay, Sterling. It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too, Sherrie." He smiled for the first time. Yes, I need to get friendly with him like this, then I can cure his mother and get 2000 points.

"What kind of quests are you trying to do?" There weren't many customers in the cafe, so he sat down at the table beside me.

"Maybe just collecting herbs for now."

"Are you going to join a big adventurer group?"

"Maybe, later." I just shrugged.

"What type are you?"

"A magician."

"An alchemist? Or maybe... Ah..." Knowing his back story, I could almost guess what he was thinking. He probably wants to know if I knew anything about diseases, cures, healing magic, etc. This was going perfectly.

"I know some alchemical knowledge. I can confidently say I'm quite knowledgeable about herbs, chemicals, and so forth." I nodded confidently. I'd played an alchemist multiple times in the game, so it wasn't a lie. I got pretty high level a few times too. For an Ero-game, it was one of the biggest games I'd ever played. It was the result of the latest open-source AI technology. Other Ero-games came close, but... I don't want to go into that. I should stop getting lost in my own thoughts. 

Anyway, this game had so many routes to its dozen endings that I played it many times over. Enjoying all the different sex scenes and other hidden gems. You could continue to play even after the story ends, but that was a lot of aimless wandering around.

"Really? You sound confident." He looked at me doubtfully.

"I am," I said again very confidently. At least for what he wanted, I was more than confident in delivering.

"Sterling! Quazi! What are you doing talking!? Go clean the dishes if you have free time!" The aunty in the kitchen yelled at him.

"I have to go." He said and ran back to the kitchen. 

Just as Sterling went to the kitchen, Garth showed up at the front door. He came with the book I gave him and handed it to me.

"I jotted down every F-rank job like you wanted me to, master."

"Good job. Sit down." I told Garth and signaled to the aunty by the counter. "Aunty, we'd like another coffee."

"Tea if possible, master."

"Right. Correct that, tea." While he waited for his tea, I went through the jobs he'd written down.

"So, what job are we going to pick?" Garth asked.

I was thinking... "What jobs do you think will help us make friends? By friends, I mean other adventurers that are without a team like us."

"We're a team." He said.

"You know what I mean."

"Right. You want to meet other adventurers that don't already have a group."

"Yes." There were two basic endings to this game. Technically, there were a few dozen, but they were all variations of the same two basic types. One was to form a strong mercenary or adventurer group and head straight into the thick of the demon territory (the castle) and kill the queen. This will replace the current evil queen with her more peaceful nephew, thus ending the war. The other was to join the military and win battle after battle till we reach the capital, then tear down the castle and the queen. With the second scenario, the demon territory gets divided into parts and subordinate to the Empire of Hull, Minkin Queendom, and Forest of Horn. I was planning for the first method. If I execute it well, I might be able to save my mother's fief. And every other fief in that area.

After the war starts, within a few months, the northern region of the Minkin Queendom falls, so it'll be tough. But if I can delay the fall of the north, then I can- There I go again, getting lost in thought. Right now, the most important thing is raising my level. I have 4 years to get to a point where I can fight the Demon Queen (with a team).

So I needed to form a team of women able and ambitious enough to head to the top. Perhaps I can share certain rewards with them, but for the most part, they weren't sharable. If they wanted it, they'd have to complete the quest or challenge or whatever themselves. So I'm not capable of helping them gain levels; they'd have to be good enough to do that themselves. Or they would need to be already strong. I needed to form a group able to spearhead right into the demon castle in 4 years. It'll be tough to find people like that, but that's what I was looking for.

"They also need to be strong or have strong ambitions," I told Garth. I had no idea why I was telling him all this; it's not like he had the solutions.

"You want them to be strong too?" He whined. "But they'll be F-ranks like us. You're not even strong-" He immediately realized his mistake. "I'm sorry, master!" He almost smacked his head on the table.

"I mean a strong ambition," I said.

"But how would I... How would you quantify that?" He asked, puzzled.

As stupid as he sounded when he said it, he was right. There was no way of quantifying that or looking for it. Maybe I can try looking for criminals with big egos or something, but if they're too stupid, their ambition means nothing.

Whenever I played the adventurer route, I always chose random NPCs to join my group. Since it was a game, it worked out fine because the mechanism automatically leveled up the NPCs I picked. The system simply made them similar in level to me. That system no longer exists. But it looks like I'll just have to go with the same method. There was no other way.

"Yeah, there's no way to quantify it," I admitted. "Then just keep an eye out for people who you think will be strong and let me know." I'll just have to pick random people and hope it works out. If it doesn't, then the military is the only option. In the end, as long as my mother evacuates in time, it'll be fine. As long as she survives, she can take back the land after the war is won - that is unless we lose.

The losing scenario, you could say, is the 3rd basic ending. There were some fun things in that scenario as well. But it would not be fun in real life.

"Will do, master." He nodded. "Should we order lunch."

"Isn't it a bit too early for lunch?"

"But I'm hungry." He said, and I rolled my eyes.

Sterling showed up with the tea I'd ordered for Garth.

"Sterling, let me introduce you to my butler officially. His name is Garth Banister."

"Butler? Are you a noble?"

"Well, yes. But the 3rd daughter, so it doesn't really matter."

"Is that so?" He asked with his handsomely innocent face. I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm Sterling; nice to meet you." He extended his hand to Garth.

"Nice to meet you too." They shook hands.

"My butler is also hungry. Can you get him a sandwich too?"

"Sure."

The second day in the old cafe went by with us getting friendly with Sterling. It'll take some time before he opens up about his mother. Until then, we'll have to keep revisiting.

Garth sipped on his tea while I went over the jobs again, making sure to underline the ones issued by men. It was a technique I'd found in the game that works well. I suspect it'll work well in the real world too. By doing adventure quests issued by men, I'd be able to become friends with some of them, earn rewards and rank up. I might even be able to meet other smart girls who'd figured out the same thing. It was killing quite a lot of birds with one stone.

Watching me underline the jobs, Garth asked, "So, will we be going on an adventure quest tomorrow?"

"No, we'll do that same thing we're doing today. You'll go write down any new quests that show up and cross out the ones that get completed. Then you'll meet me here."

"But... What about doing quests? Ranking up?"

"I haven't finished my preparations yet. And remember, after lunch, we're going cloth shopping."

"Cloth shopping? Don't we already have enough clothes?"

"Yeah, it was a mistake to bring so many. We need to buy clothes that'll blend us in as regular citizens. Sterling might not have noticed, but a lot of other people notice that we're nobles just from our clothes."

"What's wrong with them noticing?"

Because there are thieves around, you idiot, I wanted to say but didn't say. It was lucky we didn't get robbed already. "Nothing's wrong with them noticing, but we're changing our style to match our environment."

"But-"

"I've already made up my mind."

"Yes, master." He bowed to me again.

"Good."

***

After lunch, just as I'd said, we went shopping for new clothes. The clothes were cheap and simple.

We bought boots that would be expected of adventurers. Since I was a magician, I didn't buy any armor. The necklace would take care of that.

I ended up buying cheaper dress pants and a simple cotton jacket. I didn't look that different, and neither did Garth.

"We look pretty much the same, except the boots." Garth realized the same thing I did.

"You should change to jeans as well. Brown jeans will make you look plainer."

"Plain?" He had no idea what was going on, and frankly, neither did I. I just didn't want to get robbed. With the patrol knights around, one didn't need to worry about it too much, but it was still safer not to show off anything expensive.

"I don't know. Just do what I say." I commanded.