(Next day, The global forums)
The incident of Dumpy slaying the adventurer group went viral on the global forums, with Dumpy becoming an overnight sensation.
The video was titled "Weird Ninja Frog is TheBoss's Pet?" And it gained over 20 million views in a single day.
Just like Leo when he first saw Dumpy, not many players could understand what kind of a creature he was, as a raging discussion opened up in the comments section about the same, with thousands of players debating Dumpy's identity.
"Is that a frog? Or a human in a frog suit? Because ain't no way a frog just spoke!"
"Man, 'TheBoss' has the coolest pet in the game. My stupid pet mount is a horse and all it can do is gallop–"
"I'm a Beast Tamer class player and I've never seen a pet with this aggressive of a personality. I think 'TheBoss' may be purposefully training it to become a killing machine.
He might be the best player in the game, but what he is doing is animal cruelty"
"Does anyone know what kind of frog that is? I want one for myself—"
"I don't care what kind of frog that is, but it's tone of disrespect towards the other adventurers is unacceptable. It's nothing more than a puny frog yet it dares disrespect the most superior species in the universe, the humans? I will catch it and turn it into frog soup"
(Reply) "Good luck trying to catch and cook the pet of the guy who single handedly defeated thousands of rankers. Sure—That's a really smart thing to do"
Just like every other issue, the internet found themselves divided upon this topic as well, as Dumpy's presence made everyone feel excited about a new dimension of gaming that they had not explored up till now.
Most pets in the game that could be obtained up to this point were only useful for transportation, with the only exception to this norm being a handful of combat pets with limited capabilities, all others were basically glorified mounts and nothing more.
Currently, the belief that most players had towards pets was that the difficulty of training, feeding and raising a pet to be of sufficient strength was an extremely challenging endeavor with the efforts usually not being worth the results that one obtained at the end.
However, now that 'TheBoss' was raising one, this caused many to suddenly feel interested.
Of Course the question on where to get a pet like Dumpy remained and since everyone began asking around for information on how to get one, the internet trolls immediately got to work and began gaslighting the whole server.
"A pet like this frog can only be found by those who can see John Cena"
"Guaranteed pet delivery! Price - Deliver one honest White House public servant in exchange for the pet"
"A pet like this can be obtained from the train station 9 and ¾ by running through the brick wall…..ifukuk"
"Isn't this frog the end boss from Mario? If you want one just offer him a princess to kidnap instead"
Troll comments like these filled the comment section under the video and even gathered hundreds of thousands of likes, as the netizens made fun of those who thought that such unseen before pets could be captured from their nearest lake/swamp.
However, while the common players had such a comic reaction to Dumpy, the elite players of the game had a completely different one.
PinkLotus could not understand why 'TheBoss' would waste time training pets when the Grandmaster realm was so difficult to attain?
For her, as a Master warrior, it was only natural that one would strive for the next major realm now, however, instead of singularly focusing on that goal, Leo seemed to be interested in training pets which was a decision that baffled PinkLotus.
"Why? Why would you waste your time like this? Even after our spar do you still believe I'm nowhere near your strength level and that you still have the luxury to dally around?" PinkLotus wondered, as to her it seemed like Leo was not interested in their rivalry at all.
While she remained obsessed with becoming stronger and defeating him, he did not seem to put her in his eyes at all, which was a frustrating experience for PinkLotus.
"Just you wait….. someday you'll regret wasting this time" PinkLotus muttered under her breath, as she vowed to make Leo regret wasting his time training pets when they faced each other in their next spar.
Meanwhile, Cervantez could also not understand Leo's motivations for training a pet?
Pets were notoriously useless in the world of Terra Nova and unless one obtained a Dragon Egg that had the potential to become the next Black Dragon Drogo, Cervantez saw no reason to train one.
"If it were any other top player who were making this move…. I'd write them off as being stupid.
However, since it's The Boss who is raising this pet, there has to be something more to the story than what meets the eye.
Since day1, 'TheBoss' has been one step ahead of me in this game and since he is raising a pet, there must be a very special reason for it" Cervantez concluded, as unlike the common players who only looked at Dumpy as a unique circus performer. Cervantez gave him the respect he deserved.
Finally, as Leo read the articles that were being published about Dumpy on the forums, he let out a deep sigh as things had seemingly once again gotten out of his control.
In his ideal plan, Leo had hoped to keep Dumpy hidden until they could join the upcoming rebellion war together in a few days. However, an unexpected encounter with adventurers forced Dumpy's presence into the spotlight sooner than Leo had intended.
This unfortunate turn of events meant that Leo could no longer take Dumpy to train in the outskirts of the Barony, as after the video of Dumpy went viral, the area became overrun with players, all hoping to catch a glimpse of Dumpy or challenge him to a fight.
—----
/// A/N - Chapter 1 of 4 for the day. Please thank patron Art for the same. ///