Ninjutsu Online

The First Quest and Slaying Some Rats

The dorm that I was asked to clean was seven floors, and in the time I used in getting to the top. Floor, I’ve found out that each floor had no less than fifteen rooms. I really was considering turning back and giving up my starting position within the Kiryū clan, but it is what it is, and I really had to push forward.

Since I had to clean the entire dorm, my plan is to start from the roof, and work all the way down, which is what I’m about to go now. As soon as I reach the roof, I unfurled the scroll that the Vice-Head had given to me, apparently the scroll served as my inventory, and currently it only had ten slots, and four of those slots were already filled with my cleaning tools. There was a puff of smoke and the cleaning tools appeared besides me. Guess it was time to work.

Since I was starting from the roof, all I had to was sweep the accumulated dust over the edge of the building, there was a tap on top of the roof, and I intend to let the water run from it until the entire roof is covered, then I’ll sweep the water off the edge too. That would make it a little bit more faster than mopping, anyway let’s get down to it.

1 HOUR LATER

{You have worked for one hour under the sweltering heat. +1 to strength and physique}

That was how long it took me to clean the entire roof, it was bit faster than I expected, but I was already covered with dust from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. Either way I’ve learnt something very valuable from this clan quest. And that was the fact that it was possible to gain extra attribute points based on how hard you’ve been working.

Which sort of made me understand why all of my stats were one when I first started the game, looks like it is up to the player to train his stats up. Which is to say just leveling up is not enough, there are ways to train and improve your base stats, giving you a better foundation than other players. It was a great discovery, and it seemed to add more wind to my sails, so I left the roof and started cleaning the rooms on the seventh floor.

The rooms were a bit tricky, because the windows, furniture and the ceiling all had various and intense forms of dirt and cobwebs. Some of the rooms even had kitchen utensils, and maybe cleaning all those things were not a part of my job description, but I couldn’t leave anything out of place, I was too meticulous for that(or at least I like to think so). It was only until after I’ve finished cleaning six rooms on the seventh floor that I received an alert again.

{You’ve Worked Hard for three hours under harsh conditions. +1 to strength, Physique, Agility and mind}

I would have been freaking tired by now if not for the increase in base attributes since I started. Also I knew I had some extra attributes, but after I discovered that I could gain attributes from working, I wanted to see how much I could gain, and how strong I could become before finally adding the attribute points right where they need to be. Either way I think I’ve hit my stride, and so without anything else to draw my attention away, I cleaned the dorms as hard as I could, and without problems, until I reached the fourth floor.

*SWING!* *BANG!* *SHRIIEEEK!*

{You have slain ONE HOUSE RAT, +1 exp.}

If it was only one house rat or just a few then I wouldn’t be having as much problem as I’m having, but with each subsequent room I passed their numbers multiplied, and by the time I got to the second floor, there was no place that I could escape the rats. And to make matters worse, for some reason the railing on the second floor balcony was made of concrete, which means the method of sweeping them off the building wouldn’t work. It was really annoying as I couldn’t think of a way to get rid of them without being bitten to death.

*Drip!* *Drip!* *Splash!*

Water was still dripping from the top floors that I had cleaned, and it was then it hit me. The system wouldn’t give a newbie a quest without a way to resolve it. I just had to use Hercules's method and drown the rats, much in the same way he washed a heap of horse s**t by diverting the flow of a river. There were two entrances to the second floor, both staircases with doors made of metal, I can flood the entire floor and the rats along with it.

Thankfully the rats only agro when you attack them, so the first thing I have to do is move every furniture or appliance that might get spoilt by my idea of flooding the floor. I was asked to clean the dorms, not destroy the things that were in it, and quite frankly I didn’t want t a short circuited microwave to be the reason why I failed this quest. I looked up to the sky, the sun was already dipping down the horizon, and I was already feeling really hungry, but I just had to do this first.

So I began moving all of the furniture and appliances to the third floor that had already been cleaned and cleared of any rats. Half way through my heavy lifting I collapsed on the ground and couldn’t even move, for a moment I was confused until.

{You’re starving! -200% to all stats until food has been eaten.}

That was a bummer, but the answer to that came almost immediately. One of the players who had focused on some other task came up to where I was sprawled on the third floor and gave me a somewhat stale looking bread. For a moment all I could see was the food in front of me, so I ignored her and tore it to pieces while she looked on in surprise.

“The Vice Head had shared lunch and dinner packages for everyone a few hours ago, you didn’t get yours because you were so focused on your quests. I don’t know what’s your deal, but you should take it easy, after all it’s just a game.” The player said to me as she left a scroll besides me, and went back down. I looked in the direction where she had disappeared and spoke after her, though I’m not sure she heard.

“For me, this is more than just a game……lives are at stake.”

With that said and done, I picked myself up and stored the scroll in the back pocket of my simple cotton clothes. And then I kept on moving the furniture out for another hour and a half, before finally I could implement the final phases of my plan. Within that hour and a half, I had gotten a +1 increase in my strength, Physique and mind stats, however the changes were too small to be noted. But none the less I let it rain, or rather flow.

After clogging every drain on the second floor, I opened every faucet and tap and let the water pour out. Almost and hour later, well into the night, the water had risen to my knees. But it was not going above that, and while a significant amount of rats had died, so much so that I had gained two levels and a +1 to all my stats, there were still a lot more that learnt to swim within that short amount of time. And once again I was stumped with no idea how to move forwards. And then quite literally a light bulb went on above my head, giving me the final strike in my war against the rats.

There was electricity running throughout the entire dorm, however every switch and socket was off, and by now most of the water were already above the socket level, but the only thing stopping electricity from being conducted through the water and frying those rats to a crisp, was the switches being off. So I had to turn them on, but if I did that right now, then I’ll be condemning myself with the rats.

I left the entrance of the second floor, and ran around and through the dorm until I was able to locate the circuit breaker for the entire building. I switched it off, completely depriving the building of light, and under the surprised look from the rest the players who had made camp around the giant tree we saw when we logged in, I ran back into the building and turned the nearest switch on. But just in case I turned on the switches in 8 of the fifteen rooms, whilst wading through water and floating piles upon piles of rats, both living and dead. I got out of the building, back to the circuit breaker and switched it on again.

*BZZZZRRRRR* *Spark!* *Pshhhhh!*

{You have slain an entire clan of rats, including the small queen and King. You are now an enemy to rats everywhere.}

{You have reached level 4. +1 to all stats/ Jutsu points deviated until jutsus have been learnt.}

Well that was disappointing, to be honest I expected more of a reward than what I got, but I guess it is what it is. Now I have to rid the entire building of rats, drain the water and make sure there’s no damage to the building's electrical system, and then finished cleaning the dorm. As if this couldn’t get anymore boring.