Strange Tales of Rules: Taking Care of Roommate's Girlfriend at the Beginning - Chapter 43 – Rank and rules; lost face

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

Is it wrong to face the perils of Dungeon alone, in a single-member guild blessed by a failed goddess? Maybe.

Is it wrong to dream of playing hero to hapless maidens in Dungeon? Maybe not. After one misguided adventure, Bell quickly discovers that anything can happen in the labyrinth-even chance encounters with beautiful women.

Only problem? He’s the one who winds up the damsel in distress!

A young man sat on a chair and looked out at the ocean. With one wisp of Spirit Qi, he could point anywhere on this vast and expansive world, pointing at any place that didn’t look right.

Someone once became the last one to wield a knife that could decapitate huge dragons and bathed in dragons’ blood. Someone once loved treating others to chicken soup, so he kept nine phoenixes in his backyard.

Someone once sat lazily on the top of mountains as his words flooded river banks, and his qi could hold a million soldiers back. Someone once moved mountains and shifted hills with just one brush, his paintings so captivating it could enchant immortals and deities.

That year, the warmth of spring made the flowers bloom. They were merely an ordinary butcher, a bookworm, a chicken farmer and a poor artist. This is the story of how a Low Level Martial World Continent was transformed into the Ultimate Fantasy Universe.

- Description from Qidian

Childhood sweethearts.
The most popular person in school is my childhood sweetheart.

- Description from Novelupdates