Green Hill's Moon felt that his luck has hit rock bottom recently.
Not only was he fired by his boss in the real world, he had not received a single reply from the companies that he had sent his resumes to for a month straight, like rocks sinking into the ocean depths. If this kept up, he was going to be broke.
Sitting on the floor in front of his gaming cabin, Green Hill's Moon poured out his remaining wealth and counted. There was no mistake, he was left with 39.50 yuan. In this day and age, with a minimal expenditure rate of 40 yuan each day, he gnawed on steamed buns everyday for a single week. This was Green Hill's Moon being extremely frugal. If he were to eat like he used to, he would probably have to go out into the streets to beg after three days.
"Oh my god, the heavens really want me dead!" As Green Hill's Moon let out a wail and leaned on the gaming cabin, endless grief welled up from within him when he looked at the well-polished casing of the gaming cabin. F**K Your sister! If only he had bought the gaming cabin with the lowest settings, it would've only cost about 20,000 yuan at most. Why did he have to take out all of his savings and buy a high-end gaming cabin that cost 100,000 yuan?! He was a swine, a damned swine through and through.
Thinking back to what his teacher had said when he had just graduated: Leave some room for yourself, don't close off all your paths. Back then, he had silently mocked his teacher for his cautiousness. At that time, he believed that it is only by cornering oneself would one rise from the ashes and accomplish great things. That was what it meant to be a youth, but what about now?
He had accomplished the 'cornering' part, but he had yet to 'rise from the ashes' at all.
After griping for a while, Green Hill's Moon decided to log onto the game. He wanted to see if there was a response to the message that he posted.
Green Hill's Moon had to admit, he was neither a person that knew how to earn money nor a person who knew how to save money. This situation had not changed one bit inside the game. So...in short, Green Hill's Moon was a pauper through and through in the game as well.
He looked at the pitiful amount of gold coins he had on him from the quest rewards and felt that he was really too poor. Closing his inventory, Green Hill's Moon went to the Mercenary Guild out of habit to see if any potential employers bit the hook for the information he posted.
The Mercenary Guild was a recently updated addition to the game, it was a place where a player could give quests. The quests found here were of a wider variety compared to those provided by NPCs. The quests could be as insignificant as errand tasks such as foraging or delivering a message to important ones such as a SSS-Grade quest like dragon slaying. The players were only required to pay a minimal amount of gold to the system and they would be able to post their quests in the Mercenary Guild. Of course, if the quests were to be successfully completed, aside from receiving the gold and items from the player as a reward, their reputation within the Mercenary Guild would increase, and if the player's reputation reached a certain standing, they would be able to purchase equipment and items unique to the Mercenary Guild.
Completion of quests brought rewards. Of course, failure of quests would also bring penalties.
For example, reimbursing the player who posted the quest for a tenth of the quest reward or a deduction of reputation within the Mercenary Guild, or a temporary ban from accepting quests within the Mercenary Guild. In short, one would receive penalties that would result in severe inconveniences.
The reason for that was because a player could only post a single quest at one time. If someone were to recklessly accept quests and not complete them, it would cause massive losses for the players who posted the quests. Therefore, this penalty system was introduced to protect the interests of each player as well as to prevent the market from being affected by the actions of malicious players.
Of course, this rule also prevented another scenario from happening: What would occur if one is really unable to complete the quest? If that happened, then the players who failed to complete the quest would have to blame it on their luck and choose one of the three penalties mentioned.
Coincidentally, Green Hill's Moon was not only down on his luck in the real world, misfortune followed him into the virtual world as well. He was extremely invested in the Mercenary Guild, repeatedly completing a series of quests posted there and earning a small sum of money. After that, he, along with a group of players accepted a large quest to deal with a wild boss that was considered hard to take down. The boss wasn't really difficult, but Green Hill's Moon only had himself to blame for his poor luck; he had actually joined up with a group of idiots to finish this quest.
In the end, the quest that was supposed to be totally manageable failed and every player had a large amount of gold deducted by the system. Not only did the penalty cause Green Hill's Moon to lose everything he had earned in the past few days, he had to pay extra so that he would be able to pay the amount required. He had worked extremely hard for the past few days to be able to have what he had right now.
Green Hill's Moon learned from his mistake after that incident. He didn't dare to randomly form a group to complete difficult quests anymore, selecting simple errand quests instead and earning a meager income. Right now, his biggest wish was to earn 1000 gold coins as soon as possible and exchange it for real world currency to tide him over this difficult period. (The gold exchange system in Fate was 1000 gold coins to 1000 yuan in real world currency.)
Granted, while he was accepting errand quests, Green Hill's Moon had also posted a request for a quest. Quest requests were a unique feature in the Mercenary Guild; it didn't involve players posting quests nor did it involve looking for quests. What it did was post a player's particulars to attract players that were undertaking a quest to add them as a party member. Not only was the failure risk absent for this method, the player would also be able to obtain a sizable income as well. It was a benefit welcomed by poor players.
However, Green Hill's Moon's level and equipment were ordinary; even his profession was extremely common. These factors resulted in no one looking for him ever since he had posted a quest request. As time went by, Green Hill's Moon had accepted his fate: he could only try his best, relying on the Mercenary Guild to earn a thousand gold coins, not expecting anyone to come and reveal his cards. (In Fate, card revealing is a term used when a player was asked to complete a quest.)
Today, after logging on, Green Hill's Moon went to the Mercenary Guild out of habit to accept quests that were within his ability to complete, subconsciously ignoring the quest request that he had put out. To Green Hill's Moon, that was something that no one would ever choose to accept, even if he religiously updated his credentials on a daily basis.
Every player was allowed to accept quests from up to 5 players. Green Hill's Moon selected 5 simple quests from the same area that he was able to complete before deciding to depart. Just at that moment, he received a system announcement.
It was a foreign announcement, one that Green Hill's Moon had never heard of before. Similarly, the contents of that very same announcement was responsible for causing Green Hill's Moon's astonishment.
"Your quest request has been selected by an anonymous player. According to the system rules, the player will contact you within 24 hours. Good luck."
W-what? Someone like him was actually selected? Today wasn't April Fool's Day, right? Green Hill's Moon looked at the azure sky in disbelief.
"Come to the Quest Hall entrance at Red Lake City in one hour." Just as he was in a daze, he received an anonymous message...