This was my chance. Finally catching up from the rear, I planted my foot and lunged. Its hide was thick, only allowing my sword to sink three inches deep into its flank.
The annoying squeal came again. It turned to face me, but I had already bounded back, trying my best to do something that resembled fencing. Virtual gaming was no substitute for real experience and muscle memory. All of the gamers were experiencing this same problem. We felt clumsy.
That didn’t lessen the elation I felt. Regardless of the thousands of hours I had spent in virtual games, I felt as if I was wielding a sword for the first time. Who would have thought something like lack of coordination would do so much to emphasize realism.
Every player still standing fell upon the boar. The four athletes were the first to take advantage. Blades rose and fell. Drool was soon stabbing at it. Treetop joined in. As skinny as he was, he used his full height to land a frightening two-handed blow to its back with his sword.
There was nothing left for me to do.
Over a minute later the last blow was leveled on the beast that had probably died long before. It lay in a heap of wounds.
Well, there went any doubt as to the level of realism in Freedom. It was rather frustrating admitting it had taken an entire gang of high-level athletes and gamers to kill a single boar.
Checking my viewer's log was more difficult than I was used to. I had to bring up my main menu then scroll two screens to get to it. It was not designed to remain open. With a few gestures, I found over 12 million people were joint-viewing us.
My mouth dropped.
Over five hundred thousand people… were watching me.
I shook my head to regain my composure. If I wasn’t careful Drool might think her looks had ensnared another guy.
It wasn’t necessary to upload the scene to my channel. The AI automatically did that for me, pinpointing my highlights for the day. Vent, my channel manager, would make sure a video was put together if something important was missed. I just had to worry about the selfies I wanted to share.
There was no time to celebrate. The customary few seconds of pain that games allowed had already passed. Groans continued.
At first, I stood there, unsure what to do.
Vector was making most of the noise due to his broken leg. Trying to help while holding his side, Treetop was obviously in pain himself. Everyone else ran to them. I passed him up and found the man who had been shredded by the boar.
Jogging over to him, he lay in a motionless heap on the ground. I still couldn’t see his Health Bar and the amount of HP he had left. It was only when I neared that I heard his low moan. He was alive.
His legs from the knee down had been so lacerated that I couldn’t recognize them. The bloody scene was too realistic to believe. It wasn’t that there was a lot of blood, but that the blood and gore I saw before me was… accurate.
There didn’t seem to be the traditional numerical system that simulated the damage done by the boar and subtracted it from his total health points. How the health bar was calculated I wasn’t sure. It was like the system perfectly interpreted the boar’s attacks and inflicted the wounds on the man’s anatomy with the same precision. It was more common for a game to overemphasize violence for effect. Without that emphasis, it was more shocking.
My own nausea protested the sight before me. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply and shook off the feeling.
This man was experiencing the fullness of the pain accompanying his wounds. Despite my pity, and desire to help, what could I do?
The club-wielding black man that had rallied us to help joined me. He had a full goatee and the grimace of an older man in his forties. Most of the players I had heard of through the media were all in their early twenties to mid-thirties. It was rarer to see teenagers like Drool and I. It was even rarer to see someone who I guessed was in their mid-forties.
Kneeling down, he forced open one of the man’s eyelids.
“Well, he hasn’t gone into shock.”
“What can I do?” I asked.
He shrugged.
It wasn’t exactly abnormal for athletes to compete in their forties. With modern medicine, it was even possible for someone to compete at the highest levels into their eighties. The drive to compete was more common in younger men and women though.
We tried the typical things that would commonly heal a person in a game. Food and water had no effect. If there was something available in town to help with healing, no one here would know about it.
Cleaning and bandaging the wounds to stop the bleeding was all that we could do.
New faces started to pass by as more players were leaving town. Even though many were kind enough to stop, no passerby had heard anything about how to heal either. We were about to send someone to town to check when Treetop spoke up.
“I think I’m better.”
He was motioning to his ribs. Wait. Regeneration? Or was there actually a time limit to the pain?
Before everyone’s eyes, about a half an hour after the fight, Vector’s leg did something we believed impossible. His leg literally reset itself with a loud pop.
Treetop screamed.
Giving him a jab to the gut, Drool rebuked him for his lack of manliness, but her heart wasn’t in it.
Despite his pain, Vector was soon chuckling hysterically.
Though it would be another five minutes before Treetop and Drool helped him limp back to town, it was an amazing discovery. Freedom allowed us to regenerate, even if it was a much slower recovery than what we were used to.
There was hope for the man that had been left shredded.
When I saw his legs starting to recover, I started to look for an excuse to leave. There were plenty of people here, and there was nothing anyone could do to help but wait. Time was not something I had the liberty to waste.
I doubted I would have much trouble joining up with Vector now. I might even be one step ahead of them athletically, so my odds of becoming a groupie were slight. But there was another option.
As the black guy got to his feet, I offered my hand. "I'm Lucius."
“Kline.”
“Would you be interested in grouping up?”
Kline had been the most impressive player out of everyone. I wasn’t proud enough to pass joining him if he was willing. If my gut was right, joining him was the smartest route to take.
His brow creased as he considered my question. Looking from the group of players recovering to those streaming out of the city gate, he rolled his shoulders. “Sure."
When I tried to recruit the rest of those that had fought the boar, a few insisted on staying and the rest went to town. We were on our own.
There were only a few players left to look after the man as he healed. I had waited until the others had started towards town before I made my move.
“One thing we need to do before we leave.”
Quickly I knelt down and examined the boar we had killed. As I had hoped, a new popup window shot up.
You have discovered the Looting system!
I balled my fists, trying to hold back my excitement.
There was actually a looting system, inventory and all. A gridded window popped up. The beast had dropped a pigtail, 360 lbs. of pork, and two tusks. Thankfully the athletes didn't even think to check. The other gamers hadn't helped so it was bad form for them to request any loot. Gamer fail! It was still foolish of them to have not even examined the boar.
Of the pork, I took about 80 lbs. and a tusk. It was more than my fair share, but as one of the first to rush to help, I could make an argument that I deserved it. No one was there to complain anyways.
It would be a real newbie move not to move my gear into my inventory. I could currently carry one hundred pounds in total. The gridded window was used to organize my inventory. Taking my backpack off, I was able to place it inside and it took up a single slot. As I placed the meat and the tusk inside, they took up a single slot each. With only thirty slots, it would be wise to utilize containers like my backpack as much as I could to save space. This didn’t change the 100 lbs. limit though.