"Not a problem." Maria started up the vehicle and quickly drove out of the parking lot.
While Maria was speeding down the road, she and Arthur were talking about various things, such as what she was doing in the game and how they were progressing.
"So what have you been up to?" Maria asked. She slowed down the car because she thought she saw a police vehicle in the distance. "I haven't seen you around since the thieves guild."
"I'm just in the next city over." Arthur responded, "I just finished off the class quests for the rangers guild."
"You've joined another one?" Maria asked with a confused expression. "Are you going to use even it?"
"I might, I'm not sure just yet. Honestly, I just grabbed it for the bonus stats." Arthur responded, "I'll be doing the wizard college's class quest later too for the intelligence bonus."
"Does that mean you've done all the other class quests in the previous towns?" She asked. "Actually, what other class quests are there?"
"I haven't bothered doing the cleric quest at the temple yet. It sounded like a pain, and I needed more agility, so I skipped over to the next town." Arthur explained, "As for beginner classes, from what I know from the alpha there are six beginner class quests; fighter, thief, ranger, wizard, cleric and bard. Those quests provide bonuses for strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence, wisdom and charisma, respectively."
"What about constitution or vitality?" She asked, "There aren't any beginner quests for those?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Those six should be the only beginner classes if nothing changed from the alpha. Although there may be other quests that give bonus stats or other class souls, but they wouldn't be beginner classes." He continued explaining.
"I see." She mumbled to herself, before asking another question. "What does a bard do?"
"Bards are sort of like magic users, but they use their magic through words or music. They're sort of like magical performers." Arthur tried explaining it, "They're kind of like a jack of all trades support class. There are plenty of playstyles to choose, but basically they've got buffs and debuffs, I think there was some mention of illusions too, and they're pretty good at lying to people."
"I watched some of the devs mess around with the class, but I couldn't really get the hang of it." Arthur said, "I can't play any instruments that well, and I'm dreadful at coming up with lies on the spot."
"Interesting. Do you think there are any violins in that world?" She asked, her eyes were gleaming with curiosity.
"I don't see why not." Arthur answered her. "But they're probably expensive."
She seemed excited for some reason. But for some reason, all Arthur could think of was that he didn't remember seeing a violin in her room.
The two talked for a little while longer, until they finally turned the corner onto the road in front of Arthur's house. Maria pointed out that the government vehicles were all gone, which Arthur expected. Maria pulled over at the curb and allowed Arthur to exit the car.
"I'll see you next week, send me a message if you need a lift again." She waved at Arthur while preparing to drive off again.
"Sure thing. Thanks." Arthur responded. "Have fun with Holly tomorrow!"
Maria coughed and turned to face Arthur, she seemed confused.
"You two were talking about going shopping at the tea party." Arthur explained.
"How do you remember that?" She asked, seemingly flustered.
"It was like three days ago, why wouldn't I?" Arthur answered with a slight smirk on his face. He found her reaction somewhat interesting. "Have fun, and tell her I said hello."
A few moments later Maria waved and drove off. Arthur made his way inside the house and went to his room.
Arthur went through his daily routine, he watered his plants, worked out for a little while and decided to play some games. A couple hours passed, and while he was playing a game he heard a knock on his bedroom door.
"Come in." He shouted, still partially concentrated on the game.
Anna walked into his room and placed a one hundred dollar note on the table beside him.
"What's this for?" He asked, while ignoring his game and turning to face her.
"The bet." She responded, and only then did Arthur realise what the money was for.
"Take your money back, I was just trying to cheer you up." Arthur sighed, turning back to his game only to realise he had been killed.
"Keep it." Anna insisted. "A bet's a bet."
Anna walked out of the room, but not before telling him that food was almost ready. Arthur turned back to his game, only to find that he was being insulted by his teammates for suddenly going inactive and dying.
A few minutes later, Arthur went downstairs to eat dinner. Although he found that it was just him and Anna at the table.
"Father isn't going to be home that often for a while." Anna explained. "It seems that the government contract they ended up agreeing on is going to take a lot of overtime."
"There's also the other issues he has to take care of, like the repairs, and the reparations for those who were hurt." She continued. "I'm worried that the stress is going to hurt his heart again."
Arthur watched as his sister sat there trying to hold back tears, she was barely picking at her food.
"That's why he's got Donovan and Doctor Hudson by his side, isn't it?" Arthur tried comforting her, "It will become much easier once the main hurdles dealt with. And the government are paying for everything, aren't they?"
"Yeah." She said in a soft voice.
"So eat your food, you've got a shift tomorrow, don't you?" He said, "You'll only worry father more if you collapse on the job because you didn't take care of yourself."
After the two finished eating, Arthur ordered her to go to her room and get some sleep, telling her that he would deal with the dishes. She tried to complain but surprisingly, Arthur had actually won.
Tired from the day's ordeal, he finished his nighttime routine before he went to bed early.
He couldn't sleep at first, he was thinking about what happened with Gaia earlier. He had finally been caught, although at the same time he didn't really bother hiding anything.
It wasn't like he was cheating, and there was nothing that Gaia could do to accuse him of cheating. As far as she was concerned, Arthur was just overly skilled and knowledgeable, that was the reason why he was labelled as an anomaly.
Because no modifications were found in his capsule, he wouldn't have been listed as a cheater. So when the game developers go to check the game's data logs, something that hadn't yet been set up properly due to the sudden emergency move, they'd probably find his account ID in an exceptions list and grow curious.
But besides being able to modify the world's rules to a basic degree and submit request for larger modifications from Gaia, the developers didn't really have much control over the game world.
Of course they did have full control over modifying Gaia herself, as she was just an AI. But doing so would go against the purpose of the project in the first place.
Overall, the most information that Arthur believed the developers would get is that his performance was beyond expectation and as such he was classified as an exception by Gaia. This was something that they had already approached him for at the start of week two, back when Gaia had shown interest in him and his performance. The devs brought it up in small talk before the briefing, but it was more interest and praise than suspicion.
Overall, he wasn't expecting much suspicion next time either, but there wasn't much they could do to him regardless even if they were suspicious. So there was really no point in hiding his abilities in the first place, all it would do is ruin his fun.
At most, all he had to be cautious of were the whims of a curious AI, and that terrified him the most. He had already seen the results of her slight curiosity during the tutorial, he wasn't sure what she would do if she considered him an enigma.
The rest of the week flew past rather quickly, his father appeared only a few times that week, and even so it was mostly just to eat before going back to work or just because he really wanted to sleep in his own bed. Although their conversations were brief, the topic of school was eventually brought up. It was only a few months until his last year of high school would begin.
It seemed like the stress at work had died down quite a bit, as Donovan began getting enough free time to return to his self-assigned duties as Arthur's chauffeur.
Once Saturday came, Donovan drove Arthur back to the facility and dropped him off, promising he would be there to pick him up when the session ended.
Arthur walked to the building, he noticed the large crowd that were sitting around the place. It was only going to get more crowded as more groups were allowed in over time.
Within the crowd, Arthur spotted a few familiar faces that he had yet to interact with in this timeline, as well as a few that he had briefly run into, such as a familiar looking short girl standing around two other girls.
Arthur finally spotted Maria and Acai, as well as the roleplayer group standing around talking.
"Oh, old plant guy is here." Alvira was the first one to notice Arthur approach, interrupting the conversation once more.
"Hey guys." Arthur greeted everyone before turning to Maria. "Hey Maria, you never responded to my messages. How was your date?"
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