The King's Avatar: The Starting

Special Duty: Night Shift

Chapter 3 – Special Duty: Night Shift

Win?

Lucy was dumbfounded for a moment. The word that flashed on the screen, Honor, was the Arena’s victory symbol meaning “K.O.”.

Only, she had only left for how long? 40 seconds? 50 seconds? Lucy lifted her wrist and looked down at her watch. It definitely hasn’t been a minute yet. But the result? The opponent I had lost to 52 times in a row was defeated in less than a minute?

Lucy even forgot to rush up and snatch back her account. She wanted to see if this person could duel again for her to examine properly. But in the end, she saw that the person had already logged-out of the game. He stretched out his arms as if he weren’t too interested in the computer and glanced around left and right. Turning his head, he saw Lucy looking at him with wide eyes and hurriedly explained: “You hadn’t logged out yet and when I sat down, the fight had already started. Don’t worry, I helped you win!”

“How long have you used it?” Lucy asked.

“40 seconds!” Natsu said.

Lucy’s mouth dropped open when he said somewhat regretfully: “My hands were frozen cold or else 30 seconds would’ve been enough.”

30 seconds… 30 seconds to beat the opponent that I lost to 52 times in a row? Who is this person?

Could it be a professional gamer from the Excellent Era Team? Lucy suddenly thought. She knew that the Excellent Era Club wasn’t too far away from the Internet Cafe . But she thought again. I would have recognized him if he was from the Excellent Era Team! Unless it’s that expert that never shows his face, Natsu.

Natsu! Lucy became excited as soon as she thought of the name, but thinking how low-profile this expert was, he probably wouldn’t admit to it if she asked him directly. After hesitating for a bit, Lucy suddenly thought of something and quickly ran back to the reception desk.

“Who registered as Area 3 Number 47’s guest?” Lucy asked the girl at the counter.

“Natsu.” the girl said.

“Natsu… Natsu? It really is him!” Lucy excitedly thought. It looked like she really had uncovered his hidden identity! This showed that he really was Natsu. If she hadn’t seen the name Natsu written, then she wouldn’t have believed it.

“Heh heh heh…” Lucy’s laugh could only be called sinister. She had been prepared to use everything she owned to get his signature. Natsu’s signature, ah! Who had it? No one!

Just as she was thinking this, the receptionist girl said without thinking: “He even forgot his ID card.”

“ID card?” Lucy stared blankly after hearing this. Only then did she realize that she had turned crazy from excitement. Internet Cafe registration had a system for identifying customers. An ID card had to be shown. How could someone use a fake ID?

“Where is it? Let me take a look.” Lucy looked at the ID card in the girl’s hand. Sure enough, Natsu was written on it. Natsu.

After finding out that he was the low-profile expert she admired, although she was curious about this person’s strength, her interest had already largely grown. Lucy happily returned to Area 3 Number 47 and handed over Natsu’s ID card: “You forgot to take your ID card.”

“Oh, thanks.” Natsu immediately answered, “Do you work in the Internet Cafe?”

“Yeah, I’m the boss.”

“Oh? The boss, that’s good. I just saw on the Internet Cafe’s homepage, "Is your Internet Cafe hiring?” Natsu asked.

“Ah… yes… ” Lucy didn’t think that this person would suddenly ask this. She had just been thinking about comparing notes with this person. This would be the perfect excuse to.

“I looked at it and felt that I matched all of the qualifications. Work and pay aren’t a problem. How about it?” Consider it for a moment, boss.” Natsu said.

“Oh, then you have to beat me in a duel in Honor.” Lucy said.

“What? There was what condition?” Natsu turned around to check.

“You don’t need to look for it. I’m adding it.” Lucy said.

Natsu stared blankly. Only now did he realize that his prior victory was too professional. This beautiful boss was curious about his strength, but… Natsu jokingly laughed, shaking his head: “I can beat you.”

“How?” Lucy was startled.

“Because I don’t have an account that can beat yours.” Natsu said.

“Account… what level is it? What equipment?” Lucy asked.

“No levels, no equipment.” Natsu said.

“How?” Lucy didn’t believe it. He had defeated the opponent she couldn’t beat in 40 seconds. If this type of person didn’t have a leveled account, then how did he practice to this level of skill?

“I gave away my original account.” Natsu could only say this.

“Oh, so it’s like this… how generous.” Lucy sighed with sorrow. This person’s strength was powerful, his account definitely wouldn’t be weak. Powerful accounts were extremely valuable. Gifting it away so easily was very valiant.

“Yeah, too generous.” Natsu forced a smile. The account he had given away was the Battle God One Summer. To only use the word “generous” to describe him was truthfully too petty.

“Is it to get ready to play on the new server?” Lucy asked.

“New server?” Natsu stared blankly and suddenly glanced at the date.

The next day was Honor’s tenth anniversary. Honor, starting from the second anniversary onwards, would open a new server on every anniversary. The registration for the tenth server had already started three months ago. Old players who weren’t satisfied with the old server would prepare to enter Honor again looking forward to this day.

Now, Honor’s tenth server was opening. The distant One Summer was an account in Honor’s first server. Later, in Honor’s fifth expansion, a lot of experts obtained the qualifications to complete the Challenge skill becoming the first ones possessing access to all servers.

Now One Summer has already exchanged owners. His career as a professional gamer in Honor also left with it, but he coincidentally met up with the start of the new server. Natsu’s mind stirred. Ten years of memories suddenly flashed through his mind.

“New server?” Natsu mumbled.

“I remember that at the start of a new server, you can transfer to it right?” Natsu suddenly asked Lucy.

“Only Level 1 accounts can.” Lucy said.

“Let me try.” Natsu fished out an account card from his pocket and quickly applied for a server transfer on the Honor home page. Lucy looked at the account card amazed: “Isn’t this a first-edition card?”

“It is.” Natsu smiled. Honor had a new edition every year. A first-edition card would be from almost ten years ago.

Lucy looked at Natsu astonished: “How long have you been playing Honor?” Cards weren’t living objects. People were. Even if a card had been around for ten years, it didn’t mean a person had been.

“Almost ten years.” Natsu answered, confirming that he and the card were one.

Lucy had thought that she, with five years of gaming, was already considered a veteran. She wouldn’t have thought that the guy in front of her had a full double her experience. Ten years. That was Honor’s first group of players. To continue playing up until now yet still having interest in entering a new server, what type of drive was this?

While thinking this, the home page had already displayed “Server Transfer Successful”.

“Done.” Natsu pulled out the account card. He once again recalled the little details contained with this first-edition card.

“Are you saying you want to become a network manager?” Lucy suddenly brought up this matter.

“Yes.”

“Which one are you looking at?” Lucy asked.

“The night shift one.” Natsu said.

“Oh, are you fine with that?” Lucy was surprised. The night shift went on from 10PM to 6AM. The monthly income was greater than others by three hundred, but very few applied. After all, not many people were willing to have day and night reversed everyday. As a result, everyone had to take turns completing the task. If there truly was someone who took on the special night shift task, then everyone would be relieved.

“No problem, no problem. I like working at night.” Natsu said.

Lucy carefully sized up this person in front of her. His hair looked as if it hadn’t been taken care of in at least half a month. His face didn’t look too healthy. Although it was white and clear, it was that sort of sickly pale. His two eyes gazed at her lifelessly. She had seen this appearance many times. The youths that frequently visited her Internet Cafe often look like this. The guy in front of her didn’t look too young, but was unexpectedly also so dejected and disdained.

Disdain was disdained. As long as he wanted to be a full-time night cat, then Lucy would welcome him. What’s more, she was also curious about the strength of this person with ten years of gaming experience . She clapped her hands on the spot: “Okay, then you’re hired.”

“Thank you very much boss.”

“Look at the terms carefully. It’ll be in accordance with those.” Lucy said.

“No problem.”

“Then good, come with me!” Lucy handled matters crisply. After hiring Natsu, she immediately ordered him as an employee to tidy up a pile of keyboards and move them to the second floor for storage.

Lucy’s Internet Cafe was called “Happy Internet Club”, considered a fairly high-class Internet Cafe. There were two floors and over one thousand computers. The second floor was somewhat small, but was clearly luxurious — a high-class area. And the inside was a paradise hiding two small inner rooms and a storage room. Natsu busily moved keyboards up and down, having already inspected this small room. The recruitment page wrote: Food and shelter included. Natsu had just left the club and hadn’t yet thought of the next step. Food and shelter, these sort of conditions, would give him time to settle down and think about what to do next. Only then did he feel interested in taking a position at the Internet Cafe.

At first glance, this small room was probably the “shelter”. Although the decoration was simple, it was clean and tidy. Natsu was very satisfied with it. He continued pondering as he arranged the keyboards that he brought up.

“Good, that’s where you’ll be sleeping.” Seeing that Natsu had finished the work, she pointed towards the small bed crammed into the storage room.

“What?” Natsu stared blankly. He imagined that he would be sleeping in that bright and clean room. Even the drawing room sofa would be good. Here… Natsu lifted his head to look. On the west wall of the small storage room was a tiny window that directly faced the streetlights. When the storage room lights were closed, dusky light immediately shone through the tiny window as if it were haunted.

“Eh, it’s a little lacking. Just put up with it for now… In reality, my Internet Cafe isn’t lacking people. With you, we don’t have too many. Without you, we don’t have too few. The recruitment fliers you saw are fairly old.” Lucy said.

“Oh, so it’s like this! No problem no problem. This is pretty good.” Natsu declared at once. His approving attitude made Lucy feel very apologetic. This small storage room truly wasn’t a place for living.

“In your free time, you can go on the computer and play. It’s not a problem, employees don’t have to pay.” Lucy said.

“Boss, you’re also very generous!”

“Cough, as if I cared about a single computer among a thousand!” Lucy said.

“How is the flow of customers ordinarily?” Natsu asked.

“Not bad. Enough for me to be satisfied.” Lucy said. “Of course, there won’t be as many in the night shift. Most of them are students from the nearby university pulling all-nighters. There’s really not much to say. You’ll see when it’s time.”

“Got it.”

“In order for you to adapt to the workplace, how about starting today? I also want to observe and see your ability to work all night.” Lucy said.

“No problem. My energy’s at full capacity.” Natsu gave her two big thumbs-up showing that working all night was his specialty.

“Okay then. Let’s go down. I’ll treat you to a midnight snack.” Lucy said.

“Oh? To eat what?”

“There’s not much at this time. There should be a small restaurant nearby that hasn’t closed yet. Go look and buy a few dishes to bring back. I don’t eat celery.” Lucy said as she fished out two hundred dollars from her pocket and slipped them to Natsu

“It’s raining though!” Natsu said.

“It’s just across the road. How much rain would get on you? Hurry up.” Lucy said.

Natsu had no other choice. He crossed the road and bought a few midnight snacks. He had just been hired but had already been ordered in quick succession. But he wasn’t feeling depressed at all. After speaking with her for only a bit, they were no longer strangers. This sort of natural friendliness made him feel comfortable. Natsu suddenly realized. Even after all this, he had never asked for his boss’s name.