[ 3 ] Nakhon Gawglai
Translator : Blackhole32 (Raw)
Gawglai City is a big town but its population is not that many. The city was built to support a large number of players when the game is just opened and extended by the advancement of players in the city. When the players have enough ability to immigrant to other lands, they moved out by their will. By the time of real world, this game had been opened for one full year and if compare to the game’s time that flows six times faster than the real world, then it’s already six years in-game.
Gewalin stroll the city with amazement. The architecture designs of this city is similar to medieval Europe style. The city plan is in a shape of a square. Roads are crossed, divided the city in grids. The five meters tall white stone wall was built around the inner city, the twenty meters stone towers was built in the wall’s corners and the large arch gate was built to every side of the wall. The outer city beyond the white stone wall is different from the inner city. The structures in the outer city were mostly built by wood and have only three floors at most differed from the inner city that its buildings are built by bricks and have the floors up to six.
Gewalin carried her super heavy gauntlet while walking around from the center of the city until she reached the western gate with tiredness. The sun is nearly set but she still have no idea where to sleep.
“Big-brother, anywhere can I sleep?” Gewalin decided to ask a guard of the western gate.
“What? oh… resting place, right?” The guard was surprised because it was a long time since someone asked the same question.
“Yes, I want somewhere to sleep. I just played this game and die for the first time. I just happened to be here so I don’t know about this city much”
“I see. You just started so you probably don’t have enough money to sleep at the hotel … you can go ask someone at the town hall, a large building that has the spawn crystal installed in front of it. If you didn’t save your spawn point, then you should better do it as fast as possible. Try to ask at the info staff the temporary resting place for beginners there.
Gewalin remembered a large three meters yellowish orange crystal she saw when she strolled the town, then she nodded and try to wai, but the weight and length of her mechanical gauntlet is making her action seems ridiculous. (TL : ‘wai’ is a Thai greeting in a prayer-like gesture. for more info, please check here)
“Thank you very much”
The guard almost forgot to return a wai. In this era, there’re too few people who will raise their hands and wai to thanking the other for just answer such a little question like this, not to mention that it’s just his duty to answer people and they never felt any obligation to thanking him by a wai. (TL : returning a wai is also important if you don’t want to be impolite)
Gewalin returned to the center of the city with that guard looking at her back with mixed feeling toward her.
The inner city area has its every side length of four kilometers, that’s mean she has to carry her heavy gauntlet, walking back to the center for two kilometers. During her walk, she checked her stamina and found that its draining ratio is not much. She may not tire that much but the weight of her mechanical gauntlet is definitely a burden. That’s mean, this game has separate the stamina and strength apart from each other. Even if she’s not going to tired out, she don’t have much strength to do whatever she want.
On the sides of four meters smooth stone path are full of many stores with similar signs that consist of the symbols relate to what those stores offer such as a symbol of a sword, a bow, an armor, a bottle of potion, a book, a dish of food etc. but people who shopping here is very few, it seemed that this city’s economy is not good.
When she arrived at the center of the city, Gewalin found a spawn crystal that she once passed by it. The crystal’s color is transparent orange with the height of its body about two and a half meters, its sharp-end body was held on a metal base which is supporting the crystal to hold straight. There’s a clear text engrave on the metal base;
“The spawn crystal of Gawglai City”
When Gewalin tried to examine the details of the crystal, a command window appeared for her to confirm and save this crystal as her spawn point and more commands below. She chose the spawn location save command as she still not find the use of other commands. The crystal glowed in light for a short time and another information window appeared in front of her. On the familiar character information window, there’s a text below stamina detail added in.
Current spawn location : Gawglai City
When she saw everything is done, Gewalin walked inside the town hall with a hope to find a resting place for beginner nearby, she’s so done dragging her heavy gauntlet everywhere.
“A temporary resting place for a beginners? … Little miss, this service has already cancelled for a year” a young information staff girl gave Gewalin an unexpected answer.
“But a guard brother at the gate told me to ask you”
The staff silenced for a moment as she remembered something “Oh, this is our fault. We cancelled this service but didn’t inform the guards … please sit here for a moment, little miss. I will ask my boss if there’s anything we can do for you.
She poured a glass of water for Gewalin and vanished in the backdoor hurriedly. A temporary resting place for beginners service of Gawglai City is very popular when the game had just started but when the time passed, the beginners had more money to spend on a cheap hotel easily and the use of beginner’s resting place is reduced by time.
When that happened, the city decided to cancelled this service after prolonged it for five years, only few people would want to sleep in a room with nothing but an uncomfortable bed.
While waiting, Gewalin examined her surrounding. High ceiling is making a perfect combination of luxury and solemn atmosphere. The entire floor is covered with polished marble, revealed its beautiful texture. Various types of exotic plants are decorated in every corner of the room to cover the roughness of the walls corners.
Gewalin grabbed the glass of water and drank with a surprise that the water is still icy cold even when it was left like that for a while. When she examined it closely, she found that there’s a small shiny blue crystal embed in the bottom of the glass. She drank all the water and tried to touch the crystal with her finger. The freezing coldness of the crystal transmitted through her finger to her wrist very quickly.
Gewalin thought this glass is very interesting. This must be a crystal with an ability to transmit coldness and was adapted as a water container to maintain the cold temperature of the water.
“Little miss”
“Yes?” Gewalin returned her attention to the information staff girl that just popped out of nowhere.
“We’re very sorry for this mistake. We’ve decided to compensate this inconvenience with your right of a land”
“A land? wasn’t that too exaggerated? I find it very strange” Gewalin spoke with doubts.
The information staff girl showed an uneasy expression before she whispered near her ear.
“It’s just a twelve square meters land. To tell you the truth, my boss just want to cast aside the problem and just halfheartedly compensate you that way”
“Twelve square meters?”
“Yes, twelve square meters, three by four meters at the border of the city, very close to the forest”
“… Big-sis, I just played this game for three days and have no information at all, can you tell me if having this land has any merit?”
The information staff girl showed a pity expression and tell her the truth.
“For a beginner like little miss, having a land like this is still better than nothing, but if looking its value then I can tell you that it’s nothing remarkable. First of all, the land of twelve square meters is just too small and not many things to do on it. Second, it was a land at the border of the forest, you may be attacked by monsters as the soldiers can’t thorough took care of it. If it’s a player with delicate skills then there’s no problem, but for someone like little miss then it’d be hard to manage. For the third reason, it’s too far from the downtown, you will waste a lot of time to run an errand in the city”
Gewalin listened and think “Is this land empty?”
“There’s a small cottage built on it. It was a house of a poor hunter but he’s not come to renewal his license and he’s lost his right on it”
“And will I have right?”
“You will fully have your right, little miss. You just have to come and renewal your license once a year”
“Then I accepted your offer”
After hearing that, the staff girl showed Gewalin a paper.
“Little miss, please place your palm on a big circle on the bottom here”
Gewalin read the details of her right as an owner and the map of the land, then placed her palm on the circle. When she withdrew her hand, it showed a mark of her hand instead.
“We’ve completed. I will call a coachman to send you there as it’s already getting dark. when you arrived, it’d be already at night time”
“Err, big-sis. Can I have this glass?”
The staff girl looked at the glass in Gewalin’s hand and silenced for a moment.
“Yes you can. That glass is somewhat expensive, but that’s not a problem. I’ll talk with my boss, it seems he doesn’t want to dissatisfy that much” She giggled and accompanied Gewalin to the front of town hall, there’s already a carriage waiting for her.
The carriage brought Gewalin passing through the smooth road then gravel road and then there’s no road anymore. After bouncing across many mounds, the carriage stopped at the foot of a hill.
Gewalin was left in the dark on the side of a little wooden cottage, on the other side was a dark forest, nothing can be seen apart from the dark of the night. Because this place is on high land and the foot of a hill, she can see the entire city.
Gawglai City doesn’t have many lights compared to its size. The stars in the sky shined with shiny lights, countless tiny stars shined like never before seen by her. She can’t resist to sit and gaze for its brilliant light in the dark sky with impress. The sea of sky as many people said should be like this, image like this is a rare slight in the urban which stars was covered by the city’s light.
Delighted by the sea of stars for a while, Gewalin open the door and examine this little cottage with caution, but the darkness inside allowed her to saw only a faint red light on a spot in the room. She closed her eyes to adjust for a while and could see her surrounding with the help of that small red light.
In the room, there’s an empty wooden bed, a table and a chair. Gewalin look for source of the light and quickly understood that this is a fire igniter as its appearance is very similar to that of a lighter. When she picked and examined it, an information window appeared with its super long wall of text, Gewalin was astonished by its high detailed information.
‘Even longer than my own information huh?’ she thought in her mind while reading all of its information. After finished reading, she concluded that this is a tool for ignite the fire made with a kind of ore which could absorb the heat along with magic energy to use as fuel. Other than that are some properties, how to use and cautions.
Gewalin pressed and hold the lever like it was said in the instruction. Maybe it’s because this lighter had been left for a long time, it took some times for the crystal to glows its red light and became yellow as the light is brighter and radiated the heat. Gewalin drew it away as the heat is getting too much that she can’t endure it. In her thought, if this is only for ignite the fire then this lighter wasn’t properly designed, it should limit its range of heat more.
With more light, things in the room was revealed from behind the curtain of darkness. In a corner of the room, there’s a dusty old oil lamp hanging on the wall, another corner are wooden boxes putting on top of each other and a wooden shelf with pots and few kitchen wares. On the floor is a pile of firewood overlapping each other and an iron axe on top of it.
Gewalin used her right hand, which is inside her mechanical gauntlet, remove the oil lamp with difficulties. She thought in her mind that she should try to workout with weight to increase her arm strength, otherwise she could do nothing, just dragging this gauntlet together everywhere is troublesome enough.
Big iron fingers made her carrying the lamb with disorderliness but she could light up the lamp at the end.
That lamp is not an oil lamp like she thought. inside the lamp is a grey ore embed in the metal base and covered by a glass. When she point the lighter inside the hold on the side of the lamp, that grey ore is ignited and emitted soft white light.
The light as bright as neon light made Gewalin saw everything in the room clearly. She grabbed a little kitchen knife from the table and put it inside her bag, got her dried fish from before out and ate it then lay on the hard bed even though she didn’t drank any water as she have none with her.
She compare this to real life, if she does many things like she’d done on this day in real life, she’d be tired and sleeping like dead for sure, but the comfortable sensation she felt now made her thought that something in her life is missing.
Rooster crows woke Gewalin up in the dawn. She thought she was still laying in her room in three hundreds years ago at first, but when she saw unfamiliar ceiling, she realized that she’s still in the game. When she tried to get up from her bed, she almost fell as she forgot that she’s wearing a heavy metal gauntlet. Opened the door, the sky outside is still not yet brighten, golden light covering the sky with scattered cloud, the breeze passed made an pleasant atmosphere.
When she just arrived here, it’s still dark and she couldn’t see her environment much, but in the dawn, there’s more light and she could see things better. According to the land she held, her land is only consisted of her house. But in real place, around her house is a wide empty land with no owner.
It was clear that the old owner had cleared the land tidily. On the other side of the courtyard are some logs aligned together, waiting to be cut down and become a firewood. Beside the logs is a big stump to use as a platform to chop the firewood, the marks of axe shows that this stump was used for a long time.
Gewalin turn her head and look at her little cottage with a feeling in her heart. Now she has her own house, but it was a house in an virtual world online game, made her felt somewhat confused. A feeling of being an owner but not actually an owner mixed with how real she senses made her unable to choose between happiness and awkwardness. If she would be happy then she’d pity herself for joying with something she got in a virtual world but just how many people could resign to their life from things they could really sense like she felt right now? This feeling made her understood how great the Buddhist saint who could resign from the world is.
When she walked to another side of the house, she found a water barrel made from wooden planks tied with metal belt. The water in the barrel is still clear and has no smell. Although she’s curious why a barrel with its cover off, left in the woods for a long time, has nothing fallen into it but she still drink the water with thirstiness anyway.
The sun has rises over the horizon, repelled the obscure atmosphere entirely. The sun’s light, the sign of life, made Gewalin felt alive. She can’t remember how long she never saw the sun in the dawn like this.
Gewalin headed back to the house with a thought ‘Do you think you’re just playing game, but when you entered and found how real this world is, can you still think of it as a game?’ she known herself well that she couldn’t think it the same way and very confident that many people are indifferent than her.
Gewalin sat on a chair and examine her gauntlet thoroughly once again. She just noticed that her gauntlet didn’t cover her hand like she first thought, but it extended her hand and arm instead it was like her hand and arm just transformed into this metal hand. When she tried to extend to arms to the end, her right arm, which is now metal, will have more length than her left arm almost thirty centimeters. She now understood why that time when she light the lamp last night was very difficult, it was because the length and size of the arm is extended and made her incorrectly estimate the distance.
The information window of this mechanical arm showed noting but a blank page like when she examined it back in the dungeon, at least its style of edges is in her taste. She felt she’s an augmented human or a cyborg, which is very cool.
Gewalin looked at herself in a leather armor with her blocky metal arm and laugh, Totally not suited, and her uneven arm even made her looks like a deformed monkey.
She was going to train for more strength at her arm to support the extra weight at first, but when she thought it more thoroughly, she should find foods first. She’s confident that she can easily buy some foods in the city if she had some money, but right now she didn’t actually know how the money in this game looks like. The only option left is to head in the forest and hunt her own food.
After searched her house for a while, she found two water bottles made from bamboo. She opened the metal cap and smelled it. When she confirmed that there’s no strange smell in it, she then filled them with water in the barrel outside and put them in her bag. She was going to carry the bag on her shoulder, but she realized that if she do that, when she has to run for life for another times, the bag carrying on her shoulder would just get in the way and will be very inconvenient.
While putting the water bottles in her bag, she remembered how King get the leather armor out for her before she entered the dungeon. She remembered that he didn’t open his bag like she’s doing but get it from the inventory window of the bag instead, then she tried to do the same thing.
An information window of the bag appeared, but only its name and a little detail, nothing indicated that it has the same function as King’s but when she tried to think about the items stored in the bag, the information window changed in to a five by five grid with the total of twenty-five empty boxes.
Gewalin stopped and thought with surprised, the inventory window in front of her is very similar to the inventory window from the games she played in her computer, which is easy to understand, but what she wondered is what she really put in the bag never showed in the inventory, small and large bottles together with a knife she put last night too.
Gewalin opened her bag with a little concern of her items inside the bag would vanished, but everything is still at where it is. That’s mean the space in the inventory window and the real space in the bag is separated.
Gewalin remembered when she talked with a friend about the realism of many games including how a game character has an ability to carry many items with them is very illogical. She tried to calculate the weight of a medieval European styled long sword which weighted for many kilograms and the game character is carrying more than ten sword of that kind at the same time it’s fight its foes. When thinking about someone who has to carry over than hundreds kilograms with them everywhere the she can’t refuse to not find it strange. The only answer that could possibly explain this is that those characters have a special bag that could reduce the size and weight of whatever items put in it, magical bags, another dimension inventory or something that has a function like that.
The discussion that time was ended with a reason of, if games are too realistic then the entertainment of players would decreased as well. Most people just want to enjoy their game and didn’t want to strained from organizing the items in their inventory. Managing the balance of inventory and possibilities of the game is an important thing developers must thoroughly think.
Gewalin thought seriously, she still didn’t know how different of the method to store her items is, but storing more items means it’s better, she doesn’t had any valuable items to worry over anyway.
All items were moved from inside the bag and put in the inventory. Gewalin thought that these glass bottles should be safer from being shattered inside the inventory rather than really inside the bag.
Gewalin grabbed a big axe with her metal arm. The handle which her initial hand is unable to grab it fully was accomplished by her a big bulky hand. She better proficient this arm as she felt it would be together with her for a long time.
Gewalin decided to go inside the forest on a small path she saw when drank the water from the barrel and look around to find anything that looks like it could made into her food. Compared to the jungle from before, this forest is far more clean. The trees are in normal size, there’s no ferns or any plants that looks ancient. She secretly thought if that jungle has a name, it’d be ‘million years ancient jungle’ or some sort of it.
Many vine ropes she found along the way was cut and rolled in her inventory together and bound in to one for the length over ten meters. Gewalin thanked the inventory system in the game that helped her organize her bag and greatly reduced messiness because when she has too many items in her bag, finding an item in the bottom of the bag would be a difficult and messy, especially in an emergency situation that she has to use things in urgency.
The small path that was covered by grass almost entirely told her that this path was not used for a long time. The path lead deeper into the forest has many stumped trees along the way. After walking a rather thick bamboo forest for a while, the sound of a waterfall could be heard.
Gewalin ran to the source of the sound with joy, only if there’s a waterfall, there’d be river and sea or land animals around there for sure. She’s very confident that she’d never starved now.
When she’s near the humid waterfall, the plants around her changed into small fresh and dense bushes, there’re mosses grew on the corner of the rocks. After the forest, the layers of water lines falling from the cliff appeared, the spraying water reflected the light, making a beautiful rainbow. The high cliff is difficult to climb, there’re bushes grew between the cracks scattered around. Everywhere are full of life and green plants, a slight to found in your everyday. The atmosphere here is just very suitable for rest.
Gewalin stopped looking at the high cliff on her left and look at the lowering cliff on her right. She took a walk at the side of the waterfall’s river, which are water eroded smooth rocks. When she looking downward, she found herself on a ladder-like area of the falls and she happened to be on the middle. The river was cut through the cliff and fallen to another layer which is higher from the river bend below more than hundred meters. Further from the bend is a big river that was formed by many waterfalls like this falls. On the riverbanks are few small houses that can be seen far away, making a tranquil scenery. This is a dream nature landscape of those who want to escape from busy life in the big cities.
Gewalin have a thought and realized that her house is located on very high hill. She wondered how on earth did that carriage from last night managed to sent her there. When she gone back, she has to thoroughly examine the way from her house to Gawglai City.
Gewalin began to think about an important problem. A short and rapidly flows river like this means that if the headwaters didn’t have any still water for fishes to grows, fishing here would be impossible.
A big fish just leapt high in the air pass her face and dove into the water, making a smile to appear on her face. When speculate the falls more thoroughly, she found that there’re fishes fell from the fall periodically and when they fell to the water on her level, the shock from the height, they’re overturned still for a while then gain back their consciousness and swim forward to the layers below.
Gewalin used her vine rope to string three fishes that was smashed to their head to death together, then return to her home without storing them in the inventory. She’s enjoying a feeling of a fisherman who fishes for food and return to their home with fishes in their hands.
When she’s arrived, she began to scale the fishes, pulled the entrails, washed the stomach, cut them in pieces and ready the pot, putting it on fire with the intent to make a fish curry. but she realized that she had no flavoring, there’s only salt in a little baked clay jar.
But Gewalin is not very serious about this matter, tasting real taste of fish from nature is not a bad idea. After waited for water to boiled, put some amount of salt that’s not too salty, then she put in a fish she prepared and closed the cover. The foundation of boiling the fishes is that you have to put fishes in when the water is well boiled, otherwise the curry will be very fishy. Boiled water helps to quickly transform a type of protein, that is the cause of fishy smell, and changes its form to reduce the smell. After that, you could lower the fire at will, some type of fishes are need more times to boil more than the other.
During waiting for the fish to be boiled. Gewalin continued carving other two fishes and apply salt, then let sun’s light to dry the fish, making salty fishes as provisions for later. A nostalgic feeling when she was doing this in her young age while still living on a countryside hit her, given her a smile and nostalgia of old times.
After dried the fishes, there’s still more time until the fish is well boiled, she then examine the path of that carriage used to brought her here. After walking far from the house and the wide plain, she realized that she’s on a cliff with no entrance. If walking to the left then she’ll be ended up on a waterfall river she just left for sure, and she can see an almost perpendicular mountain on her far right with bare eyes. She didn’t know she’s on a cliff because the house is located deeper inside till the cliff was cover by mounds.
Gewalin noticed a small path following the edges of cliff, leading to the high mountain on the right. She thought that it won’t used a lot of time to go and back, at least the fish should be boiled when she was back. Concluded like that, she decided to traverse to the end of that path.
Using only five minutes and she arrived on the edge of the cliff, connected to the mountain that should be call a higher cliff. It seemed that this path would connected to the cliff around the falls. On this joint, she found iron stakes embed inside the rock and left enough space to grab by hands. The stakes was forming a zigzag line downward to the forest below.
She’s sure that this is a path the old owner made. What’s strange is still how on earth did that carriage managed to brought her all the way here, but with more hunger being increased, Gewalin cease her doubts and returned home to eat her fish curry instead. The taste is not very strong but it was harmonized and soft, making her fully delighted with it, thinking that she will enter the city and stroll after she finished this meal.
In a little tavern located on suburb, a young man was enjoy eating his big bread and coffee. He’s a coachman who brought Gewalin to her new home last night.
Yesterday, he was ordered to send a beginner to an abandoned old cottage with not renewal of the license, but he brought her to his old house instead.
The reason is because of the metal gauntlet she’s wearing. For normal people, they won’t pay much attention and seeing it as a normal strange thing, but he knew this well. It is an ancient item named “Mechanical Arm of Borus’s Combat Engineer” A long gauntlet with the ages more than a thousand years made by a combat engineer of ancient dwarf kingdom.
He can’t resisted to laugh at his fate, He used many years to studied the history of the ancient dwarf civilization that are specialized in mechanical technologies and machines to find the location of dwarven treasures and found the myth of this mechanical arm by chance from a part of a diary of a soldier, which has only few pages left.
He used up more years after that to find this mysterious item. When the time passed, from his greediness in treasures became a doubt toward the story and reality instead. He was disheartened for many times and thought he was just assuming it from himself, he maybe decrypted the literature wrong since the beginning. In the end, he resigned and had no strength left to begin his adventure again.
Yesterday, he almost doesn’t believed his eyes that he would saw what he finds in the other’s hand, and know he understood what’s the meaning behind the old idiom “Fantastic items, could be found, could not hoped for” (TL : Literal text “ของวิเศษ พบเจอได้ คาดหวังไม่ได้” I think it’s mean “we can found the story of legendary things anywhere but you couldn’t hoped to find it” but I may be wrong on this one, I’m not familiar with this idiom)
He has to interest to rob a beginner, even though it was something he used all his strength and times to find, because he’s got his important things back, that’s his “Pride and Confident” he’s lost. When his theory was proven to be the truth, he then planed to go out adventuring again.
He decided that this will be the last meal he ate in Gawglai City. From this day onward, he will not step into this city once again if not for the utmost necessaries.
When he finished his meal and went outside the tavern, a grayish black shadow was dashed from to sky and landed on his shoulder with high speed and precision.
A hawk with grey and black feather, its physics is small but its golden sharp eyes is brilliant. It’s rubbed its face to it’s master’s with happiness, it was such a long time it has to circling around the city with bore and eat only to survive day by day. When it heard the calling whistle from its master, it was very delighted to being able to join its master’s journey once again.
“You’ve already sent the letter, right?” He talked with his long absented important partner.
The clever hawk nodded like it knows the language. Although it can’t talk, it can fully understood what its master had said.
“Very good, Mekha … lets go, we shall head to the east” (TL : Mekha means Cloud in Thai)
Clever hawk darted to the sky and encircled around its master to detect the enemies like it used to with full energy, even though there’s no enemies to beware of.
Gewalin reading the letter that was sent by a hawk while sitting at her house with the intend of thoroughly read all details. When finished reading it for the second time, she can clearly make a synopsis .
The story of the metal gauntlet didn’t gave her much idea, she didn’t even know what “Mechanical Arm of Borus’s Combat Engineer” could do apart from the description about it was an of an elite dwarven combat engineer in the past. She can’t resist to wonder that why her arm was lengthen this long, even though she’s not a dwarf. And what if a dwarf wear this? how awkward it could be by that.
The content in the litter is showed her his thanks as she had proven that he was right about this treasure, so he gave her this house to use as she wish and he will go on adventuring again. He also notified her that this house is not legally built and licensed at Gawglai city, so there’re no soldier to patrol and no taxes to pay, just beware of not letting anyone knows is enough.
Gewalin put the letter inside her bag and travel to that horrifying entrance. Using the metal gauntlet she’s unskilled of is very dangerous but she’s confident that it was not out of her reach.
Slow but steady, she finally climbed down the cliff. She followed the narrow and twist path between the rocks with caution. This path lead her to a small stone cave, when she walked toward the end, she found a stair leading to the top.
And on top of this cave, there’s a closed wooden door with a text on it.
[Remind yourself to make sure that there’s no people or monsters outside]
Gewalin leaned her head and look through a small hole on the door to check and found nothing, she then open the door slightly and slide through it. When she turned her face back to the door, she found that the door from outside is made out of stone and blends to textures around it perfectly, ones won’t know even if they looked closely.
When she look from on top the hill, she could see a stone path that could be a common path for the folks. Gewalin came down the hill and mark a symbol on a tree on side of the road to let her know where the secret door is, she then walked toward the city.
[ 3 ] Nakhon Gawglai
Translator : Blackhole32 (Raw)
Gawglai City is a big town but its population is not that many. The city was built to support a large number of players when the game is just opened and extended by the advancement of players in the city. When the players have enough ability to immigrant to other lands, they moved out by their will. By the time of real world, this game had been opened for one full year and if compare to the game’s time that flows six times faster than the real world, then it’s already six years in-game.
Gewalin stroll the city with amazement. The architecture designs of this city is similar to medieval Europe style. The city plan is in a shape of a square. Roads are crossed, divided the city in grids. The five meters tall white stone wall was built around the inner city, the twenty meters stone towers was built in the wall’s corners and the large arch gate was built to every side of the wall. The outer city beyond the white stone wall is different from the inner city. The structures in the outer city were mostly built by wood and have only three floors at most differed from the inner city that its buildings are built by bricks and have the floors up to six.
Gewalin carried her super heavy gauntlet while walking around from the center of the city until she reached the western gate with tiredness. The sun is nearly set but she still have no idea where to sleep.
“Big-brother, anywhere can I sleep?” Gewalin decided to ask a guard of the western gate.
“What? oh… resting place, right?” The guard was surprised because it was a long time since someone asked the same question.
“Yes, I want somewhere to sleep. I just played this game and die for the first time. I just happened to be here so I don’t know about this city much”
“I see. You just started so you probably don’t have enough money to sleep at the hotel … you can go ask someone at the town hall, a large building that has the spawn crystal installed in front of it. If you didn’t save your spawn point, then you should better do it as fast as possible. Try to ask at the info staff the temporary resting place for beginners there.
Gewalin remembered a large three meters yellowish orange crystal she saw when she strolled the town, then she nodded and try to wai, but the weight and length of her mechanical gauntlet is making her action seems ridiculous. (TL : ‘wai’ is a Thai greeting in a prayer-like gesture. for more info, please check here)
“Thank you very much”
The guard almost forgot to return a wai. In this era, there’re too few people who will raise their hands and wai to thanking the other for just answer such a little question like this, not to mention that it’s just his duty to answer people and they never felt any obligation to thanking him by a wai. (TL : returning a wai is also important if you don’t want to be impolite)
Gewalin returned to the center of the city with that guard looking at her back with mixed feeling toward her.
The inner city area has its every side length of four kilometers, that’s mean she has to carry her heavy gauntlet, walking back to the center for two kilometers. During her walk, she checked her stamina and found that its draining ratio is not much. She may not tire that much but the weight of her mechanical gauntlet is definitely a burden. That’s mean, this game has separate the stamina and strength apart from each other. Even if she’s not going to tired out, she don’t have much strength to do whatever she want.
On the sides of four meters smooth stone path are full of many stores with similar signs that consist of the symbols relate to what those stores offer such as a symbol of a sword, a bow, an armor, a bottle of potion, a book, a dish of food etc. but people who shopping here is very few, it seemed that this city’s economy is not good.
When she arrived at the center of the city, Gewalin found a spawn crystal that she once passed by it. The crystal’s color is transparent orange with the height of its body about two and a half meters, its sharp-end body was held on a metal base which is supporting the crystal to hold straight. There’s a clear text engrave on the metal base;
“The spawn crystal of Gawglai City”
When Gewalin tried to examine the details of the crystal, a command window appeared for her to confirm and save this crystal as her spawn point and more commands below. She chose the spawn location save command as she still not find the use of other commands. The crystal glowed in light for a short time and another information window appeared in front of her. On the familiar character information window, there’s a text below stamina detail added in.
Current spawn location : Gawglai City
When she saw everything is done, Gewalin walked inside the town hall with a hope to find a resting place for beginner nearby, she’s so done dragging her heavy gauntlet everywhere.
“A temporary resting place for a beginners? … Little miss, this service has already cancelled for a year” a young information staff girl gave Gewalin an unexpected answer.
“But a guard brother at the gate told me to ask you”
The staff silenced for a moment as she remembered something “Oh, this is our fault. We cancelled this service but didn’t inform the guards … please sit here for a moment, little miss. I will ask my boss if there’s anything we can do for you.
She poured a glass of water for Gewalin and vanished in the backdoor hurriedly. A temporary resting place for beginners service of Gawglai City is very popular when the game had just started but when the time passed, the beginners had more money to spend on a cheap hotel easily and the use of beginner’s resting place is reduced by time.
When that happened, the city decided to cancelled this service after prolonged it for five years, only few people would want to sleep in a room with nothing but an uncomfortable bed.
While waiting, Gewalin examined her surrounding. High ceiling is making a perfect combination of luxury and solemn atmosphere. The entire floor is covered with polished marble, revealed its beautiful texture. Various types of exotic plants are decorated in every corner of the room to cover the roughness of the walls corners.
Gewalin grabbed the glass of water and drank with a surprise that the water is still icy cold even when it was left like that for a while. When she examined it closely, she found that there’s a small shiny blue crystal embed in the bottom of the glass. She drank all the water and tried to touch the crystal with her finger. The freezing coldness of the crystal transmitted through her finger to her wrist very quickly.
Gewalin thought this glass is very interesting. This must be a crystal with an ability to transmit coldness and was adapted as a water container to maintain the cold temperature of the water.
“Little miss”
“Yes?” Gewalin returned her attention to the information staff girl that just popped out of nowhere.
“We’re very sorry for this mistake. We’ve decided to compensate this inconvenience with your right of a land”
“A land? wasn’t that too exaggerated? I find it very strange” Gewalin spoke with doubts.
The information staff girl showed an uneasy expression before she whispered near her ear.
“It’s just a twelve square meters land. To tell you the truth, my boss just want to cast aside the problem and just halfheartedly compensate you that way”
“Twelve square meters?”
“Yes, twelve square meters, three by four meters at the border of the city, very close to the forest”
“… Big-sis, I just played this game for three days and have no information at all, can you tell me if having this land has any merit?”
The information staff girl showed a pity expression and tell her the truth.
“For a beginner like little miss, having a land like this is still better than nothing, but if looking its value then I can tell you that it’s nothing remarkable. First of all, the land of twelve square meters is just too small and not many things to do on it. Second, it was a land at the border of the forest, you may be attacked by monsters as the soldiers can’t thorough took care of it. If it’s a player with delicate skills then there’s no problem, but for someone like little miss then it’d be hard to manage. For the third reason, it’s too far from the downtown, you will waste a lot of time to run an errand in the city”
Gewalin listened and think “Is this land empty?”
“There’s a small cottage built on it. It was a house of a poor hunter but he’s not come to renewal his license and he’s lost his right on it”
“And will I have right?”
“You will fully have your right, little miss. You just have to come and renewal your license once a year”
“Then I accepted your offer”
After hearing that, the staff girl showed Gewalin a paper.
“Little miss, please place your palm on a big circle on the bottom here”
Gewalin read the details of her right as an owner and the map of the land, then placed her palm on the circle. When she withdrew her hand, it showed a mark of her hand instead.
“We’ve completed. I will call a coachman to send you there as it’s already getting dark. when you arrived, it’d be already at night time”
“Err, big-sis. Can I have this glass?”
The staff girl looked at the glass in Gewalin’s hand and silenced for a moment.
“Yes you can. That glass is somewhat expensive, but that’s not a problem. I’ll talk with my boss, it seems he doesn’t want to dissatisfy that much” She giggled and accompanied Gewalin to the front of town hall, there’s already a carriage waiting for her.
The carriage brought Gewalin passing through the smooth road then gravel road and then there’s no road anymore. After bouncing across many mounds, the carriage stopped at the foot of a hill.
Gewalin was left in the dark on the side of a little wooden cottage, on the other side was a dark forest, nothing can be seen apart from the dark of the night. Because this place is on high land and the foot of a hill, she can see the entire city.
Gawglai City doesn’t have many lights compared to its size. The stars in the sky shined with shiny lights, countless tiny stars shined like never before seen by her. She can’t resist to sit and gaze for its brilliant light in the dark sky with impress. The sea of sky as many people said should be like this, image like this is a rare slight in the urban which stars was covered by the city’s light.
Delighted by the sea of stars for a while, Gewalin open the door and examine this little cottage with caution, but the darkness inside allowed her to saw only a faint red light on a spot in the room. She closed her eyes to adjust for a while and could see her surrounding with the help of that small red light.
In the room, there’s an empty wooden bed, a table and a chair. Gewalin look for source of the light and quickly understood that this is a fire igniter as its appearance is very similar to that of a lighter. When she picked and examined it, an information window appeared with its super long wall of text, Gewalin was astonished by its high detailed information.
‘Even longer than my own information huh?’ she thought in her mind while reading all of its information. After finished reading, she concluded that this is a tool for ignite the fire made with a kind of ore which could absorb the heat along with magic energy to use as fuel. Other than that are some properties, how to use and cautions.
Gewalin pressed and hold the lever like it was said in the instruction. Maybe it’s because this lighter had been left for a long time, it took some times for the crystal to glows its red light and became yellow as the light is brighter and radiated the heat. Gewalin drew it away as the heat is getting too much that she can’t endure it. In her thought, if this is only for ignite the fire then this lighter wasn’t properly designed, it should limit its range of heat more.
With more light, things in the room was revealed from behind the curtain of darkness. In a corner of the room, there’s a dusty old oil lamp hanging on the wall, another corner are wooden boxes putting on top of each other and a wooden shelf with pots and few kitchen wares. On the floor is a pile of firewood overlapping each other and an iron axe on top of it.
Gewalin used her right hand, which is inside her mechanical gauntlet, remove the oil lamp with difficulties. She thought in her mind that she should try to workout with weight to increase her arm strength, otherwise she could do nothing, just dragging this gauntlet together everywhere is troublesome enough.
Big iron fingers made her carrying the lamb with disorderliness but she could light up the lamp at the end.
That lamp is not an oil lamp like she thought. inside the lamp is a grey ore embed in the metal base and covered by a glass. When she point the lighter inside the hold on the side of the lamp, that grey ore is ignited and emitted soft white light.
The light as bright as neon light made Gewalin saw everything in the room clearly. She grabbed a little kitchen knife from the table and put it inside her bag, got her dried fish from before out and ate it then lay on the hard bed even though she didn’t drank any water as she have none with her.
She compare this to real life, if she does many things like she’d done on this day in real life, she’d be tired and sleeping like dead for sure, but the comfortable sensation she felt now made her thought that something in her life is missing.
Rooster crows woke Gewalin up in the dawn. She thought she was still laying in her room in three hundreds years ago at first, but when she saw unfamiliar ceiling, she realized that she’s still in the game. When she tried to get up from her bed, she almost fell as she forgot that she’s wearing a heavy metal gauntlet. Opened the door, the sky outside is still not yet brighten, golden light covering the sky with scattered cloud, the breeze passed made an pleasant atmosphere.
When she just arrived here, it’s still dark and she couldn’t see her environment much, but in the dawn, there’s more light and she could see things better. According to the land she held, her land is only consisted of her house. But in real place, around her house is a wide empty land with no owner.
It was clear that the old owner had cleared the land tidily. On the other side of the courtyard are some logs aligned together, waiting to be cut down and become a firewood. Beside the logs is a big stump to use as a platform to chop the firewood, the marks of axe shows that this stump was used for a long time.
Gewalin turn her head and look at her little cottage with a feeling in her heart. Now she has her own house, but it was a house in an virtual world online game, made her felt somewhat confused. A feeling of being an owner but not actually an owner mixed with how real she senses made her unable to choose between happiness and awkwardness. If she would be happy then she’d pity herself for joying with something she got in a virtual world but just how many people could resign to their life from things they could really sense like she felt right now? This feeling made her understood how great the Buddhist saint who could resign from the world is.
When she walked to another side of the house, she found a water barrel made from wooden planks tied with metal belt. The water in the barrel is still clear and has no smell. Although she’s curious why a barrel with its cover off, left in the woods for a long time, has nothing fallen into it but she still drink the water with thirstiness anyway.
The sun has rises over the horizon, repelled the obscure atmosphere entirely. The sun’s light, the sign of life, made Gewalin felt alive. She can’t remember how long she never saw the sun in the dawn like this.
Gewalin headed back to the house with a thought ‘Do you think you’re just playing game, but when you entered and found how real this world is, can you still think of it as a game?’ she known herself well that she couldn’t think it the same way and very confident that many people are indifferent than her.
Gewalin sat on a chair and examine her gauntlet thoroughly once again. She just noticed that her gauntlet didn’t cover her hand like she first thought, but it extended her hand and arm instead it was like her hand and arm just transformed into this metal hand. When she tried to extend to arms to the end, her right arm, which is now metal, will have more length than her left arm almost thirty centimeters. She now understood why that time when she light the lamp last night was very difficult, it was because the length and size of the arm is extended and made her incorrectly estimate the distance.
The information window of this mechanical arm showed noting but a blank page like when she examined it back in the dungeon, at least its style of edges is in her taste. She felt she’s an augmented human or a cyborg, which is very cool.
Gewalin looked at herself in a leather armor with her blocky metal arm and laugh, Totally not suited, and her uneven arm even made her looks like a deformed monkey.
She was going to train for more strength at her arm to support the extra weight at first, but when she thought it more thoroughly, she should find foods first. She’s confident that she can easily buy some foods in the city if she had some money, but right now she didn’t actually know how the money in this game looks like. The only option left is to head in the forest and hunt her own food.
After searched her house for a while, she found two water bottles made from bamboo. She opened the metal cap and smelled it. When she confirmed that there’s no strange smell in it, she then filled them with water in the barrel outside and put them in her bag. She was going to carry the bag on her shoulder, but she realized that if she do that, when she has to run for life for another times, the bag carrying on her shoulder would just get in the way and will be very inconvenient.
While putting the water bottles in her bag, she remembered how King get the leather armor out for her before she entered the dungeon. She remembered that he didn’t open his bag like she’s doing but get it from the inventory window of the bag instead, then she tried to do the same thing.
An information window of the bag appeared, but only its name and a little detail, nothing indicated that it has the same function as King’s but when she tried to think about the items stored in the bag, the information window changed in to a five by five grid with the total of twenty-five empty boxes.
Gewalin stopped and thought with surprised, the inventory window in front of her is very similar to the inventory window from the games she played in her computer, which is easy to understand, but what she wondered is what she really put in the bag never showed in the inventory, small and large bottles together with a knife she put last night too.
Gewalin opened her bag with a little concern of her items inside the bag would vanished, but everything is still at where it is. That’s mean the space in the inventory window and the real space in the bag is separated.
Gewalin remembered when she talked with a friend about the realism of many games including how a game character has an ability to carry many items with them is very illogical. She tried to calculate the weight of a medieval European styled long sword which weighted for many kilograms and the game character is carrying more than ten sword of that kind at the same time it’s fight its foes. When thinking about someone who has to carry over than hundreds kilograms with them everywhere the she can’t refuse to not find it strange. The only answer that could possibly explain this is that those characters have a special bag that could reduce the size and weight of whatever items put in it, magical bags, another dimension inventory or something that has a function like that.
The discussion that time was ended with a reason of, if games are too realistic then the entertainment of players would decreased as well. Most people just want to enjoy their game and didn’t want to strained from organizing the items in their inventory. Managing the balance of inventory and possibilities of the game is an important thing developers must thoroughly think.
Gewalin thought seriously, she still didn’t know how different of the method to store her items is, but storing more items means it’s better, she doesn’t had any valuable items to worry over anyway.
All items were moved from inside the bag and put in the inventory. Gewalin thought that these glass bottles should be safer from being shattered inside the inventory rather than really inside the bag.
Gewalin grabbed a big axe with her metal arm. The handle which her initial hand is unable to grab it fully was accomplished by her a big bulky hand. She better proficient this arm as she felt it would be together with her for a long time.
Gewalin decided to go inside the forest on a small path she saw when drank the water from the barrel and look around to find anything that looks like it could made into her food. Compared to the jungle from before, this forest is far more clean. The trees are in normal size, there’s no ferns or any plants that looks ancient. She secretly thought if that jungle has a name, it’d be ‘million years ancient jungle’ or some sort of it.
Many vine ropes she found along the way was cut and rolled in her inventory together and bound in to one for the length over ten meters. Gewalin thanked the inventory system in the game that helped her organize her bag and greatly reduced messiness because when she has too many items in her bag, finding an item in the bottom of the bag would be a difficult and messy, especially in an emergency situation that she has to use things in urgency.
The small path that was covered by grass almost entirely told her that this path was not used for a long time. The path lead deeper into the forest has many stumped trees along the way. After walking a rather thick bamboo forest for a while, the sound of a waterfall could be heard.
Gewalin ran to the source of the sound with joy, only if there’s a waterfall, there’d be river and sea or land animals around there for sure. She’s very confident that she’d never starved now.
When she’s near the humid waterfall, the plants around her changed into small fresh and dense bushes, there’re mosses grew on the corner of the rocks. After the forest, the layers of water lines falling from the cliff appeared, the spraying water reflected the light, making a beautiful rainbow. The high cliff is difficult to climb, there’re bushes grew between the cracks scattered around. Everywhere are full of life and green plants, a slight to found in your everyday. The atmosphere here is just very suitable for rest.
Gewalin stopped looking at the high cliff on her left and look at the lowering cliff on her right. She took a walk at the side of the waterfall’s river, which are water eroded smooth rocks. When she looking downward, she found herself on a ladder-like area of the falls and she happened to be on the middle. The river was cut through the cliff and fallen to another layer which is higher from the river bend below more than hundred meters. Further from the bend is a big river that was formed by many waterfalls like this falls. On the riverbanks are few small houses that can be seen far away, making a tranquil scenery. This is a dream nature landscape of those who want to escape from busy life in the big cities.
Gewalin have a thought and realized that her house is located on very high hill. She wondered how on earth did that carriage from last night managed to sent her there. When she gone back, she has to thoroughly examine the way from her house to Gawglai City.
Gewalin began to think about an important problem. A short and rapidly flows river like this means that if the headwaters didn’t have any still water for fishes to grows, fishing here would be impossible.
A big fish just leapt high in the air pass her face and dove into the water, making a smile to appear on her face. When speculate the falls more thoroughly, she found that there’re fishes fell from the fall periodically and when they fell to the water on her level, the shock from the height, they’re overturned still for a while then gain back their consciousness and swim forward to the layers below.
Gewalin used her vine rope to string three fishes that was smashed to their head to death together, then return to her home without storing them in the inventory. She’s enjoying a feeling of a fisherman who fishes for food and return to their home with fishes in their hands.
When she’s arrived, she began to scale the fishes, pulled the entrails, washed the stomach, cut them in pieces and ready the pot, putting it on fire with the intent to make a fish curry. but she realized that she had no flavoring, there’s only salt in a little baked clay jar.
But Gewalin is not very serious about this matter, tasting real taste of fish from nature is not a bad idea. After waited for water to boiled, put some amount of salt that’s not too salty, then she put in a fish she prepared and closed the cover. The foundation of boiling the fishes is that you have to put fishes in when the water is well boiled, otherwise the curry will be very fishy. Boiled water helps to quickly transform a type of protein, that is the cause of fishy smell, and changes its form to reduce the smell. After that, you could lower the fire at will, some type of fishes are need more times to boil more than the other.
During waiting for the fish to be boiled. Gewalin continued carving other two fishes and apply salt, then let sun’s light to dry the fish, making salty fishes as provisions for later. A nostalgic feeling when she was doing this in her young age while still living on a countryside hit her, given her a smile and nostalgia of old times.
After dried the fishes, there’s still more time until the fish is well boiled, she then examine the path of that carriage used to brought her here. After walking far from the house and the wide plain, she realized that she’s on a cliff with no entrance. If walking to the left then she’ll be ended up on a waterfall river she just left for sure, and she can see an almost perpendicular mountain on her far right with bare eyes. She didn’t know she’s on a cliff because the house is located deeper inside till the cliff was cover by mounds.
Gewalin noticed a small path following the edges of cliff, leading to the high mountain on the right. She thought that it won’t used a lot of time to go and back, at least the fish should be boiled when she was back. Concluded like that, she decided to traverse to the end of that path.
Using only five minutes and she arrived on the edge of the cliff, connected to the mountain that should be call a higher cliff. It seemed that this path would connected to the cliff around the falls. On this joint, she found iron stakes embed inside the rock and left enough space to grab by hands. The stakes was forming a zigzag line downward to the forest below.
She’s sure that this is a path the old owner made. What’s strange is still how on earth did that carriage managed to brought her all the way here, but with more hunger being increased, Gewalin cease her doubts and returned home to eat her fish curry instead. The taste is not very strong but it was harmonized and soft, making her fully delighted with it, thinking that she will enter the city and stroll after she finished this meal.
In a little tavern located on suburb, a young man was enjoy eating his big bread and coffee. He’s a coachman who brought Gewalin to her new home last night.
Yesterday, he was ordered to send a beginner to an abandoned old cottage with not renewal of the license, but he brought her to his old house instead.
The reason is because of the metal gauntlet she’s wearing. For normal people, they won’t pay much attention and seeing it as a normal strange thing, but he knew this well. It is an ancient item named “Mechanical Arm of Borus’s Combat Engineer” A long gauntlet with the ages more than a thousand years made by a combat engineer of ancient dwarf kingdom.
He can’t resisted to laugh at his fate, He used many years to studied the history of the ancient dwarf civilization that are specialized in mechanical technologies and machines to find the location of dwarven treasures and found the myth of this mechanical arm by chance from a part of a diary of a soldier, which has only few pages left.
He used up more years after that to find this mysterious item. When the time passed, from his greediness in treasures became a doubt toward the story and reality instead. He was disheartened for many times and thought he was just assuming it from himself, he maybe decrypted the literature wrong since the beginning. In the end, he resigned and had no strength left to begin his adventure again.
Yesterday, he almost doesn’t believed his eyes that he would saw what he finds in the other’s hand, and know he understood what’s the meaning behind the old idiom “Fantastic items, could be found, could not hoped for” (TL : Literal text “ของวิเศษ พบเจอได้ คาดหวังไม่ได้” I think it’s mean “we can found the story of legendary things anywhere but you couldn’t hoped to find it” but I may be wrong on this one, I’m not familiar with this idiom)
He has to interest to rob a beginner, even though it was something he used all his strength and times to find, because he’s got his important things back, that’s his “Pride and Confident” he’s lost. When his theory was proven to be the truth, he then planed to go out adventuring again.
He decided that this will be the last meal he ate in Gawglai City. From this day onward, he will not step into this city once again if not for the utmost necessaries.
When he finished his meal and went outside the tavern, a grayish black shadow was dashed from to sky and landed on his shoulder with high speed and precision.
A hawk with grey and black feather, its physics is small but its golden sharp eyes is brilliant. It’s rubbed its face to it’s master’s with happiness, it was such a long time it has to circling around the city with bore and eat only to survive day by day. When it heard the calling whistle from its master, it was very delighted to being able to join its master’s journey once again.
“You’ve already sent the letter, right?” He talked with his long absented important partner.
The clever hawk nodded like it knows the language. Although it can’t talk, it can fully understood what its master had said.
“Very good, Mekha … lets go, we shall head to the east” (TL : Mekha means Cloud in Thai)
Clever hawk darted to the sky and encircled around its master to detect the enemies like it used to with full energy, even though there’s no enemies to beware of.
Gewalin reading the letter that was sent by a hawk while sitting at her house with the intend of thoroughly read all details. When finished reading it for the second time, she can clearly make a synopsis .
The story of the metal gauntlet didn’t gave her much idea, she didn’t even know what “Mechanical Arm of Borus’s Combat Engineer” could do apart from the description about it was an of an elite dwarven combat engineer in the past. She can’t resist to wonder that why her arm was lengthen this long, even though she’s not a dwarf. And what if a dwarf wear this? how awkward it could be by that.
The content in the litter is showed her his thanks as she had proven that he was right about this treasure, so he gave her this house to use as she wish and he will go on adventuring again. He also notified her that this house is not legally built and licensed at Gawglai city, so there’re no soldier to patrol and no taxes to pay, just beware of not letting anyone knows is enough.
Gewalin put the letter inside her bag and travel to that horrifying entrance. Using the metal gauntlet she’s unskilled of is very dangerous but she’s confident that it was not out of her reach.
Slow but steady, she finally climbed down the cliff. She followed the narrow and twist path between the rocks with caution. This path lead her to a small stone cave, when she walked toward the end, she found a stair leading to the top.
And on top of this cave, there’s a closed wooden door with a text on it.
[Remind yourself to make sure that there’s no people or monsters outside]
Gewalin leaned her head and look through a small hole on the door to check and found nothing, she then open the door slightly and slide through it. When she turned her face back to the door, she found that the door from outside is made out of stone and blends to textures around it perfectly, ones won’t know even if they looked closely.
When she look from on top the hill, she could see a stone path that could be a common path for the folks. Gewalin came down the hill and mark a symbol on a tree on side of the road to let her know where the secret door is, she then walked toward the city.
