Game’s Dogma

Drako Yau had realised long ago that his class was not restricted to any specific type of armour.

Typical classes had restrictions when it came to armour. Warrior classes could only equip heavy armour, hunter classes could only equip light armour, while mage and cleric classes could equip cloth armour. The exception would be clerics who progressed into paladins; they could wear heavy armour as well.

However, he was a monster who could equip all three types of armour. In other words, he only had to care about their attributes.

‘Hm?’ His eyes flashed upon coming across an epic heavy armour.

‘Level 10 equipment, Unbreakable Armour. Forged by the dwarves, they named the piece “Unbreakable”, and it was the favourite armour of humankind at the time. Even after countless years, the armour remains as sturdy as always and shows no signs of deteriorating. The name “Unbreakable” is still passed down through generations even in this era.’

Its defence was a whopping five times more than that of other common Level 10 equipment, but its price was just as spectacular. Drako Yau couldn’t help but swear at it.

Four hundred thousand gold coins.

He then checked his own balance to find that he had a measly 10,000 coins, most of which came from killing Zephyrwolf and his party members. Of course, because the game was connected to the actual world, it was possible to purchase gold coins with actual currency. One dollar could be exchanged for around four gold coins, meaning that the armour cost a hefty sum of 100,000 dollars.

While he wasn’t short on money, spending over a hundred thousand dollars on a transitional piece of equipment simply wasn’t worth it.

After swiftly browsing through the catalogue of items, he ended up purchasing four pieces of uncommon equipment that should last him through the transition period. More importantly, they were all relatively cheap items which he could immediately equip. He couldn’t equip Unbreakable Armour even if he bought it, which was a massive waste of money and time. Its price would have gone down a lot by the time he reached Level 10.

‘Hoh?’ Just as he was randomly scrolling the screen out of boredom, he noticed a special accessory in the miscellaneous column which brought a grin to his face.

In games, many players were dissatisfied with how their equipment looked, which was why the outfit system came into existence. Most outfit items had very underwhelming effects, such as marginal buffs of adding 2 points to Strength. Yet, these supposedly useless outfit items were extremely popular among players, and the reason was obviously because of their appearances.

It was human nature to strive for beauty and perfection, especially so for female players. For example, some female players chose to play as warriors, but to have girls wear stupidly heavy armour was… somewhat unattractive. With the outfit system, however, outfit items would replace the appearance of equipment and hide the bulky armour.

Many outfit items cannot be obtained by killing normal monsters and were only obtainable by either killing bosses or spending actual money on outfit gachas. Plenty of cash-rich kids from wealthy families would spend tens of thousands of dollars just on outfits.

The item Drako Yau was looking at right now was an outfit item for the head slot.

‘Mask of the Hidden Dragon: It was rumoured to be an item that belonged to the legendary military strategist nicknamed the “Hidden Dragon”, who wore this mask while commanding his armies and controlling the tide of battle from behind. It hid his presence from the assassins sent to kill him, thus allowing him to escape death. It is an extremely rare treasure.

Effect: Hides all attributes from others.’ 

‘One million gold coins.’

Drako Yau purchased it with cash without the slightest hesitation.

It cost him 250,000 dollars, but his heart wasn’t aching at all because it was a godly item which could save his life, especially when he was currently wanted by an entire guild.

Zephyrwolf was just a small fry to be honest. From what he had heard from the old geezer, he would be stuck in this game for a long while during his search for the exit. If so, there would eventually be moments when he had to do something scandalous. He could kill someone while wearing the mask, then take it off and change his equipment afterwards. Who would be able to tell that he was the culprit?

After receiving the mask, Drako Yau fiddled with it merrily. The mask was fiery red, and there was a dragon pattern that gave off a warm, white glow on the forehead. The moment he put it on, the dragon pattern shone a bright light, and it felt like he was carrying an additional thing on him. That probably meant the mask’s effect was already active.

Unbeknownst to Drako Yau, the moment he bought the mask, countless glasswares were shattered by the many wealthy players in the twenty Eastern and Western Cities. While they were rich, they all hesitated to spend 250,000 dollars on a single outfit item. That amount was enough for purchasing a few cars in real life after all. It was that brief moment of hesitation that allowed Drako Yau to beat them to the punch.

Drako Yau equipped the four uncommon items, and adding Dawnlight which he had gotten from Hades to the list, he now had five pieces of uncommon equipment. He was miles away from the level of rich brats, but it still made him an elite among regular players.

He smirked as he toyed around with a piece of equipment in his hands.

‘Level 10 rare equipment: Bear Hide Gauntlets. Made with hides of the giant black bears that reside deep within the forests, it has excellent defence and can deal additional damage to enemies when using punch attacks.’

This rare equipment had dropped together with Sasaki’s Fine Steel Longsword when Drako Yau had killed Zephyrwolf back then. It was also one of the reasons why Zephyrwolf wanted to kill him no matter what it took.

A notification popped up in Zephyrwolf’s system interface, and he was furious upon reading it.

‘You have received a friend request from Dragonspear. Accept?’

He immediately clicked accept and yelled in the private chat room, ‘You punk, return the gauntlet to me and I’ll let you live!’

Drako Yau only replied with a composed text message. ‘Let’s make a deal.’

Zephyrwolf was the exact opposite of the calm Drako Yau. ‘Deal? Yeah a deal, sure! Your life and levels for my gauntlet!’

Drako Yau, despite being provoked by Zephyrwolf, remained unfazed. Using the speech-to-text function instead of voice messages, he replied, ‘You’re the one who died. I suggest that you fix that attitude of yours, or else there’s no need for us to discuss any further.’

Zephyrwolf looked at the slightly threatening text message in disbelief. He held back his rage and said, ‘What do you want?’

Drako Yau nodded and muttered to himself, ‘Now that’s a good boy… Holy crap, don’t turn that into text!’

In Zephyrwolf’s chat room, he could only see the word ‘Now’.

‘Now what! Are you messing around with me!’ Zephyrwolf howled.

‘Ahem.’ Still bothered by the blunder he almost made, he made a mental note to himself that he had to be careful with this speech-to-text system. ‘Buy a Level 5 gauntlet, any rarity apart from common will do. The attributes are up to you, you’ll regret it if you buy me a piece of trash anyways. Send it to me through mail, and I’ll return your Bear Hide Gauntlet the same way if I’m satisfied.’

Zephyrwolf flat-out refused the proposal. ‘Impossible! Ya think I’m a noob? What if you don’t send the gauntlet back to me after I send you yours? Also, a Level 5 uncommon gauntlet for a Level 10 rare one? Either you’re mad or I’m dumb! We can trade if we meet in person!’

Drako Yau’s text message popped up in the chat room again. ‘You’re the one who thinks I’m a noob. Trade in person? Won’t dozens of your guild members ambush me? Also, why do I have to scam you? The world’s a big one. I’m the one who has the gauntlet, and even if I sell it, what can you do about it? Anyways, your gauntlet is in my possession right now. You can make a bet with just a Level 5 uncommon gauntlet, why not?’

Zephyrwolf remained silent, plunging into deep thought at the message.