Harrington blinks. “A freediver?”
“Freediving is a form of underwater diving that doesn’t rely on the use of a breathing apparatus,” Scott explains. “It’s purely breath-holding until resurfacing.”
Harrington looks more impressed now. A grin breaks out of his features as he looks at Scott with a new interest in his eyes. “For such a skinny guy, I never expected you to have such a great skill. I guess those slim muscles you have aren’t for show.”
Scott starts taking off his vest, ignoring the older man’s quip.
“Then can you tell me how long you can breathe underwater?” Harrington inquires.
“My best record months ago was 8 minutes.”
“Is that plenty for you?”
“It is. That is, if I can find your sword within that time.” At this moment, Scott has already taken off his shirt. He carefully lays his glass sword on the ground and glances at Harrington. “I should take a test dive first, right?”
Harrington nods approvingly. “Yeah. You should try it out first.”
Scott nods back, then dives into the water.
When he submerges, he notices two things.
One: it feels exactly like he’s diving underwater, minus the pain and the constricting airway. He’s even actually breathing through his nose as if the water is air instead. His vision is also astoundingly clear; he doesn’t even need goggles. However, it seems that he cannot open his mouth.
Two: there’s a timer hologram before his eyes, indicating that he has 7 minutes and 50 seconds left before he becomes an automatic KO.
That’s reassuring, Scott muses to himself as he swims around, trying to get a feel of the waters and its surroundings. The sun’s rays slip through and scatter around the waters, revealing thousands of colourful fishes, underwater plants, and small rocks amidst sand. He silently admires the handiwork of the developers of this game.
Everything is very realistic, and the fact that players like me can feel things except pain in this game is a huge plus.
I think I can understand now why most of the population is addicted to this game.
Deciding that his test dive is over, Scott resurfaces, swimming to shore.
Harrington kneels before him. “So how did it go?”
Scott brushes his wet hair out of his face, feeling a bit pleased. “My time in the water is close to 8 minutes.”
Harrington grins. “Excellent. You’re the perfect person for this quest!”
Scott nods, his mind focusing on the mission. “What does your sword look like?”
“Actually, they’re two swords that join into one,” Harrington clarifies. “It’s called an X-Blade. If you use one sword, it halves the power. However, if you use both, it increases all your stats. It’s my prized possession.”
“Were the two swords separated when it fell into the lake?” Scott asks.
Harrington shakes his head. “No. When nobody is using it, it automatically forms an ‘X’ and it cannot be separated unless its owner wields it.”
Sounds like a really cool sword, Scott thinks to himself. This old man might be really high-levelled.
He may be an NPC, but I wonder what’ll happen if I ask him to train me.
Scott dives back into the water.
This time, he goes deeper. He searches the surroundings and lifts up the big rocks that he sees. After five minutes of futile search, he resurfaces before his timer runs out.
Harrington watches from the sides as this young man he only met today resurfaces from the water multiple times. He knows that this quest isn’t exactly easy. However, this mission he gave is going to be very beneficial to beginner players. If they succeed, they’d earn tons of EXP from the get-go, and they’d even earn a Hellfire Fragment for their efforts.
If all four fragments are together, it’ll form into a Hellfire orb, one of the most powerful mid-level Guardians in the game.
Lake Nadis is very wide. Harrington surmises that it’ll take the boy the whole day to to find the sword, especially if it’s in the deepest depths of the lake. However, beginners are also allowed to back out of a quest whenever they want. It just depends on what demerits they’d get if they do so.
Harrington sits down on the grass as he continues to wait, staring up at the sky. He thinks of a boy with black hair and red eyes.
…I wonder what that young lad is up to now?

***

When Scott finally finds the sword, it’s already nighttime.
Having borrowed a waterproof flashlight from Harrington to help him navigate through the darkness, he spots the so-called X-Blade lying about thirty meters down, perched on numerous small rocks. With three minutes left on his timer, Scott grabs the hilts of the two swords and proceeds to swim upwards with all his might despite the heaviness of the water pulling him down.
When he resurfaces from the lake, he throws the two swords on the grassy ground and pulls himself up.
Harrington is there before him, holding a dry towel.
“You may not feel pain, but you can feel disturbances, like feeling cold,” he tells Scott, handing him the material. “You exhausted?”
Scott gladly accepts the towel, drying his hair first. “Thanks. I am, but only my physical body. My mind’s still as clear as ever. It’s like…” Scott pauses thoughtfully. “…playing a video game.”
Harrington nods. “You’re correct, Scott. The pain you can’t feel is mostly from battles. However, you can still feel the impact from every blow you receive. You can feel the heaviness when you fall to the ground and the exhaustion when you climb up mountains. You can feel the cold, you can feel the blistering heat… everything. You’ll feel uncomfortable, but you’ll never feel physical pain here, just like you’d never get frostbite and hypothermia. However, the cold will discomfort the hell out of you if you don’t cover up immediately.”
Scott stares at him for a moment as if registering the important explanation in his mind. “I see,” he drawls.
Harrington takes in every feature of this young boy’s face, noting his clear skin and reddish-brown hair. His appearance is quite pleasing to the eye, but there is a weariness there, like there’s no life behind those jaded eyes.
He’s not like the other excited players I’ve encountered in this game.