He had not seen this kind of item drop before, and the glowing red bubbles were definitely a first. Though, these bubbles were not strange nor new to him, he recognized them from the same game he was developing. Health orbs, randomly dropped by enemies upon death, which could serve as emergency healing while in battle.
He moved his hand over. The orbs were radiating a gentle warmth. He touched the one closer to him with his finger, it was like poking at a balloon filled with warm water. He grabbed the orb and slammed it on his bleeding leg. The orb broke, turned into a fog of energy and was absorbed into both his legs. The bleeding gashes healed in the blink of an eye, and the sores and dull pain in his body was also alleviated by a bit.
Without hesitation, he grabbed the other health orb and slammed it on his chest. The muscle numbing pain on his back almost completely disappeared. Also strange itchiness arose from his back and a few rib bones - they might have cracked or even have been broken from the impact earlier. His face also stopped bleeding.
He took a deep breath before he stood up, walked over to the fur vest and picked it up.
"Tainted Fur Vest: the real fur piece for a man who was obsessed with being a bear to stabilize the entire suit. Its stench attracted unwanted attention, and he went mad from it. Provides chest protection."
It was not a very attractive description. Though, any kind of protective gear he could put on would be a great upgrade than absolutely nothing at all.
The vest itself had no smell, so the explanation would be that the "stench" was not a physical one, perhaps a supernatural one, as it "attracts unwanted attention".
Wu Xiaoming put it on, it was not the most good looking vest. So he checked his character panel - transmogrification was an option in the original game, so he wanted to try.
It worked, the effects of the vest were still on him, providing protection and releasing the invisible stench, yet it just disappeared from his body.
He took another deep breath, then put the sword back into his inventory, took out the morningstar, and proceeded to walk down the stairs towards the ground floor. At least for his current state, he wouldn't mind attracting a few entities his way.
The "stench" was probably way too effective, barely after he stepped out of the staircase, a group of three imps all lunged at him from three different corners. He obliterated one with the morningstar, kicked one into the bathroom, and took the bite from the last one on his shoulder. The sharp teeth did not penetrate the fur vest at all, so he ripped the imp off him and crushed it with his foot without much trouble.
Before he could take a breather, two bear suits with human-shaped dark smoke inside charged at him from a narrow hallway leading to a side room.
"Attack!" Wu Xiaoming focused on the bear suit on the left, while stepping to the right.
The energy blast exploded on the target's bear face. Wu Xiaoming wasted no time before swinging his morningstar at the waist of the bear suit on the right. The fur was much weaker on this suit, and felt like it was just fake fur on top of linen. As the head of the morningstar reached the end of its course, a giant tear was left on the suit. Dark smoke poured out, painful moans and screams of a male voice came from the hole where the human head would be.
The other bear suit turned around and tried to swing its claws at Wu Xiaoming, but was kicked in the back and tumbled on the floor. Wu Xiaoming cut its right leg open with an energy slash, before jumping over and flattened its head and shoulders.
It seemed this was enough to bring down the two bear suits. They deflated as the dark smoke left their interior, accompanied by male cries and moans.
Out of curiosity, Wu Xiaoming went into the hallway, just to find a heavy metal door in front of him. On both sides were two empty rooms with nothing inside, so he simply walked by after examining them.
The metal door was ajar, so he pushed it open. It was not as heavy as he was expecting, but it did creak just like he thought. His reaction was a little conflicted, when he found no hostile creature inside this room. Yet strangely, there were non-building items in this room that seemed out of place - bear suits, a total of five of them, hung on the walls.
He went closer to one suit, and uttered: "Slash!" The suit was cut from the chest position and the lower part just dropped down, small traces of dark smoke arose and dissipated in the air.
"Torn Piece of Bear Suit: made of faux fur, linen and cotton." The description was rather simple, but what was more interesting, was that as the last breath of dark smoke disappeared from this piece, his Spirit Fragment count increased, though not by a lot, only 15.
He proceeded to destroy all other bear suits in the room. All of which let out dark smoke, some more some less. The more dark smoke a suit released, the more Spirit Fragment he earned. All of them had similar descriptions, the only difference among them was the materials: some had polyester, some had plastics, some had silk and some had nylon.
Having found nothing more worthy of exploration in this building, Wu Xiaoming came out of the front door, just in time to be greeted by at least ten pairs of glowing eyes, the tallest of which was no taller than the position of his waist.
"Motherf - " a curse was stuck in Wu Xiaoming's throat, as the horde of imps of different sizes charged at him all at once.
When Wu Xiaoming woke up on the bed inside of Woodside Hotel, his sheets were wet from his sweat, while the time was still early - only 5:30. He decided to take another shower to soothe his spirit. He did exit the dream without dying, though he had to fight almost twenty imps before locking himself inside the bear suit room. The imps all came from the mountains behind the building, and there seemed to be no limit to them. And what was worse, was that they apparently did not drop many Spirit Fragments. By a rough count, having killed almost twenty of them netted him just about 400 Spirit Fragments, and barely a small portion on his experience bar, yet he had to fight a large horde at a time, enduring countless bites from sharp, tiny teeth and claws, not to mention their utterly unpleasant screeches.
There was no point in going back to sleep now. So he just strolled down to the restaurant in the hotel, ready to enjoy their free breakfast.
Current currencies: 9352 Spirit Fragments, 65 Vision Slivers.
He was also now just a little bit over halfway to level 7. As his level got higher, he would need to defeat more creatures in order to keep his leveling pace up.
As he enjoyed the cheap coffee provided by the restaurant, a question popped into his mind: his resolving of the issue with Bradley the ghost golden retriever also earned him some Spirit Fragments, and more importantly, some Vision Slivers, but did it earn him experience at all. It was already good news for him, since this provided a way for him to earn currencies without fighting. But if he could gain experience from deeds like this, solving "quests" from ghosts in real life would be a much worthwhile endeavor.
Wu Xiaoming laid back on his chair, shaking his head at himself. He had been here for only a few days, yet he had somehow grown really accustomed to all the strange things with himself. Maybe being isekai-ed really could do wonders to a person's psyche.
So, what would be next? He was not really sure. The thought of going back to his father's place did not bother him. The previous Wu Xiaoming surely did not resent his family as much as he acted out in front of his "friends", in fact he even harbored a little bit of guilt. Maybe his easy acceptance of the arrangement had something to do with that.
Family. Wu Xiaoming sighed again. It was a slim chance, but he still hoped his "real" family from the other world would be fine after his passing. And Lu Yu, maybe she would find a boyfriend eventually.
Friends. Wu Xiaoming paused at this thought. None of his friends contacted him thus far. Not even a text message. There were at least a few of them, if his latent memory from the previous Wu Xiaoming served. It would possibly be more accurate to call them his "entourage". But still - no contact after this many days, sure was strange.