ã€ŠMoral Complexã€‹


 Chapter 1: -

    .Chapter completed but far from perfect, should anyone find huge flaws or have advice please leave a comment below. Should any more edits happen I will list them all at the bottom of this page. Please enjoy, the next chapter is to be expected soon.

    _______________________________________________________________________________________

    ¡°FU--!¡±

    I roared at the top of my lungs, sweping several bottles and even an almost empty plate off the table, as I continuously smashed my fists into it, again and again.

    Hitting the ground, the plate instantly broke scattering shards of porcelain across the filthy, wooden floor.

    As for the bottles, one out of three survived the fall without causing any harm while the other two¡­ well, let¡¯s just say I should have either closed their lids or emptied them beforehand.

    Sadly though I was unable to undo my mistake, my fate had already been sealed and I could only watch in horror as the next few seconds unfolded before my eyes.

    A loud ''bang'' followed by the sizling of dying electronic hardware, threw a shadow of impeding doom upon my heart and it was with utter misery and despair that I saw the images on the screen in front of me fade.

    I screamed at the top of my lungs and the fabric of my soul cracked as the consequences of my action dawned upon me. My eyes were widened in shock and my brain unable to process the terrible truth of what had just happened.

    Manifesting behind me and knocking on the back of my head, without producing a single sound, was the transparent shape of ''Alice''.

    ¡°Are you alright Sascha, your vitals and emotional stableness are questionable and a cause for worry, do you require medical assistance?¡±

    Her voice, although only faintly female and lacking the high-pitched volume that would usually make a mans heart skip a beat, carried the faint trace of concern

    I remained silent, my eyes fixated on the holographic screen atop the table.

    Up until a few seconds ago it had been displaying the bright red words ¡®You died¡¯ for the possibly hundredth time today, while now it only featured a vast blackness. All the while smoke was slowly rising from beneath the table and dancing around the corners of its'' holographic frame.

    I dropped off the chair and onto my knees, pulling the damaged console placed down there closer to my chest, as tears started to freely stream down my face.

    Thoughts such as: ''Completely destroyed¡­ done¡­ never ever working again¡­ broken¡­and beyond repair¡­¡¯ raced through my head and I couldn¡¯t help but let out an insane cackle. All the while I was trying to wipe the damaged console dry with a pair of socks that had been conveniently laying on the floor within my reach.

    ¡°Since you have not answered my question and your symptons are causing even me to get scared, I have taken the liberty to inform the closest medical institution of your mental instability. Please remain calm, your friends in white vests will shortly arrive and make sure to make all the bad things go away.¡±

    Alices'' words were surprising enough to draw my attention away from the broken console and send me into another fit of panic.

    ¡°No!" I instantly shouted as my brain had finally processed her words. "Don''t! The last time you called the authorities I got in serious tr- OUCH! GODDAMNIT!!!¡°

    Trying to stop Alice, I had jump up and slammed my head into the underside of the table, sending a wave of pain through my body and immediately throwing Alice into a laughing fit.

    I sighed, as I crawled out from under the table, tears still glittering in the corner of my eyes and the old, now broken GameStation V pressed to my chest. Causing Alices'' laughter to intensify because of the sorry sight that was myself.

    Raising my head and taking a deep look at her laughing figure currently rolling around the floor, I couldn''t help but replace the frown on my face with a smile.

    I couldn''t tell why, but seeing her like this always caused my heart to skip a beat... even though she was ''only'' an AI.

    Although Alice was an artificial intelligence and one limited to a holographic shape at that, she ment the world to me.

    She was the only person in the world that truly understood me, cared for me and whom I felt close to. She was my best friend... my only friend...

    She had been with me ever since I could remember and as far as I knew, had been designed by my father and mother in the image of my deceased older sister.

    I myself had no memories whatsoever of my sister and had never thought of Alice as a replacement or even my sister herself.

    Rather it was quite the opposite. Thoughts such as ¡®I¡¯m happy she died because otherwise I wouldn¡¯t have met Alice¡¯ would occasionally surface in my mind and leave me to feel disgusted at myself.

    Shaking my head vividly I tried to get rid of the unecessary thoughts, as suddenly an entirely different thought flashed through my mind.

    ''-and she''s hot, too...''

    Despite the fact that she was about fourty percent transparent and lacking some initial female charm, Alice was more than handsome. Sure, her face was somewhat boyish and stern, giving her an androgynous look and she had a faint unapproachable air around her, but she seemed to be able to see directly into my heart at times and her gaze would often send shivers down my spine, making every hair on my body stand up and my cheeks flush brightly red.

    Her slim, beautiful eyes were accentuated by her short hair, which didn''t even reach her shoulders and which would often stand up into various directions, giving her a somewhat messy, yet stylish look.

    She was also tall, or at least decided to project herself as tall everytime she showed up in her holographic shape, while also always wearing the same plain, patternless one-piece dress, that reached all the way to her knees.

    All in all, instead of cute and innocent, she rather looked mature and cool, if not for that bright devilish smile which she would constantly wear on her face and which revealed her true playfull and devilish personality.

    Noticing the look on her face, I realized that I had been staring and let out a loud sigh trying to cover up my thoughts.

    ¡°Damn you Alice, can¡¯t you be considerate just once?" I said, nervously rubbing the back of my head. "Look at this... My precious console broke. What are we supposed to do now? Now we will never see the end of the game... ¡± The console hit the ground hard as I dropped to my knees. Planting my hands on the floor and lowering my head as to efficiently increase the dramatic impact of my performance, while also adding a melancholic layer to my voice: "- and what''s worse is that it''s impossible to replace this ancient piece of tech. Do you even know how much trouble it was getting my hands on this console? These things have stopped being sold ages ago. Ah, I am so unlucky, why must everything I touch crumble in my very hands, if only there was-  HEY! What are you punching me for?!"

    I backed away slowly from the now pouting Alice and while her punches neither held any impact nor resulted in any pain on my part, I still fervently rubbed the shoulder where her fist had connected with my body, acting as if she had caused me severe pain.

    ¡°Damn me? Damn you Sascha, you always do this. Day in day out you complain about all your games boring you to death and then once you get your hands on anything fun you always manage to break them one way or another. What about my feelings, heh? Now I never get to see the ending either and more importantly the other countless times that Boss would have mopped the floor with you.¡±

    It was at this point that I completely dropped or rather, lost my facade and started laughing uncontrollable.

    The image of Alices'' puffed up cheeks, with her hands buried into her sides was simply to hilarious.

    It only took her a coupld of seconds to join me and we both soon found ourselves rolling across the floor, laughing madly to the point where I was fighting for breath, my life-and-death struggle only increasing Alices'' amusement.

    Once we calmed down we found each other lying on the ground next to each other, Alices¡¯ face resting right next to my own.

    We both remained silent, my eyes fixated on the holographic projector affixed to the ceiling, which was the machine projecting the image of Alice, when suddenly she spoke up: ¡°Seriously though, this sucks. That game was amazing¡­ ¡°

    Our eyes met and feeling the heat rising in my cheeks I decided to go do something useful.

    Jumping up I made my way towards the kitchen, all the while I felt Alices¡¯ gaze drilling holes into the back of my head.

    ¡°Where do you think you¡¯re going Sascha, at least say something you idiot.¡±  She shouted after me as soon as I left the living room, entering the kitchen.

    My eyes rested on the sink filled to the brim with dishes and I pondered for a second before answering: ¡°Just getting a broom to get rid of the plate I just broke. I don¡¯t want to get another infection just because I forgot to clean up and step onto a shard like last time.¡±

    Hearing this Alice broke out into another laughing fit and I could practically see the image of her wailing away at the floor in the other room.

    ¡°What¡¯s so funny?¡± I shouted a few seconds later, currently in the process of pushing my way through a heap of boxes and past bags filled to the brim with trash, asking Alice who was still laughing.

    It took her some time, but eventually Alice calmed down again and responded: ¡°What¡¯s wrong?  I was just appreciating your joke, what are you getting mad for?¡±

    Hearing this I stopped for a brief second, but quickly continued my way towards the pantry, which was where I suspected the broom to be.

    ¡°What joke? I wasn¡¯t joking, infections are serious business. I couldn¡¯t move straight for weeks, don¡¯t you remember?¡±

    My wrist lit up and her face was projected as a three dimensional holograph into the air just above the screen of my HPCC-watch (Holographic Projection Communication Computer ¨Cwatch; future mobile phones), revealing an enormous grin covering her face.

    ¡°You know, that wasn¡¯t what I meant, I was laughing about you using the word ¡®cleaning¡¯, freaking HILARIOUS, AHA- Hey!¡±

    Her laughter was quickly replaced by far off curses, which now escaped the living room as I had shut down my watch shortly after her remark.

    ¡°Mie Mie- look at me, I am a holograph, I don¡¯t have to clean anything up and totally know how retarded of a chore it is -blabla¡­¡± I said, just loudly enough for her to hear me, trying to be a tease and smiling.

    I ignored the following remarks she threw at me from the living room and instead forced the storage chamber open, which wasn¡¯t easy considering the heap of trash piling up in front of it.

    The whole ordeal cost me five precious minutes of my life¡­

    After I had finally acquired the one and only broom of the household, I made my way back to the living room, which as mentioned beforehand, was easier said than done.

    I was breathing heavily by the time I finally reached the doorway and swaying my eyes from one corner of the living room to the other, I once again had to admit that Alice did have a point.

    This place was a mess, no, worse¡­ it was a complete dump.

    Not even mentioning the stuffed trash bags, there were cardboard boxes stacked atop more boxes all the way to the ceiling, everywhere. I wasn''t even aware of what most of them contained...

    Filthy clothes piled up in a corner of the room, burying my one and only expensive possession beneath them, while empty bottles, half eaten plates and even food was strewn around the room seemingly at random.

    The only free space where one could walk without stepping into something sharp or risking the collapse of a box-tower, was a relatively small open space in the middle of the room, which was completely clear of any and all objects, except for a blanked and a bunch of pillows, just thrown on the ground and left as a tangled mess.

    Just a bit further up ahead, resting against a wall was the only table of the entire apartment, featuring a hologram projector, my computer and the most comfortable chair in existence, which also served as my bed.

    ¡°Boo-¡° Alice jumped in front of me, her tongue sticking out of mouth and her eyes squinting, in miserable attempt of a grimace.

    At the sight of this it took all my self-control to once again collapse into a laughing heap on the ground. I still laughed my ass off, though.

    As I calmed down I took in the sight of her and felt warmth rising inside of my chest.

    All I was, everything I had, was solely thanks to her. Alice was my ¡®everything¡¯, the one pillar that kept this wreck of a building which was me together. Without her I¡­ I didn¡¯t even dare to think about what would happen to me without her¡­

    A sigh escaped me again and I noticed her starring at me, no longer laughing but looking sincerely worried. The sight filled me with happy thoughts once again and I promised myself, like so often, that I would never leave her side.

    ¡°Alice, has anyone ever told you that you¡¯re the best?¡±

    Giggling she whirled around, her face coming to a halt right in front of my own.

    ¡°Yes, you do it at least a hundred times a day. It¡¯s actually really annoying. You should go find a real girlfriend already.¡±

    I felt a stab in my chest and grew silent. Quickly moving up to the table I  swiped all the broken shards aside into one of the piles of thrash looming around.

    I couldn¡¯t say why Alices words caused a stab of pain in my heart, but they most definitely did. She seemed to be aware of my reaction, too, at least that¡¯s how I read her expression as I threw a glance her way. She didn''t mention it though and simply watched me in silence as I went to clean the mess I caused earlier.

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Finishing the tedious bit of swiping, I didn¡¯t hesitate to toss the broom and without even looking where it landed, jumped back into my chair.

    ¡°So anyways, since the console is broken and we can¡¯t play the game ever again, what are we supposed to play now? Actually, what day is it?¡± Alice asked, coming to a halt next to me, just as I had gotten comfortable.

    Not waiting for my answer she jumped up into the air, shrinking her size down to that of a small kid, without any of her features changing accordingly and landing safely without a sound in my lap.

    It was always astonishing how movements like ¡®leaning against somebody¡¯ or sitting on something were integrated into her programming and translated into her appearance.

    If it wasn''t for her transparence there was no way to tell her apart from any other human, causing me to often forget the fact that she wasn¡¯t, at least when I wasn¡¯t consciously thinking about it, but situations like these, her resting on my lap without me feeling any contact whatsoever, always pointed out the actual differences between us. And, while she didn''t seem bothered by that fact, I certainly did...

    ¡°Meh¡­ I don¡¯t know. Probably¡­ Sunday? Maybe? No¡­ wow, actually it¡¯s Thursday, who would¡¯ve thought and it¡¯s almost 6 Pm, too. Holy cow-¡± My eyes were drawn away from my reactivated watch as Alice suddenly screamed.

    ¡°WHAAAT?¡±

    Her face almost instantly turned dull and expressionless, while at the same time my computer and its holographic monitor sprung into action.

    Of course I knew that Alice had just started them and was currently doing¡­ something. But, I had no idea why...

    ¡°What the heck is going on Alice? Why did you have to shout into my ear all of a sudden and why are you starting the computer? Aren¡¯t we playing some more?¡± I asked.

    ¡°No! I almost missed something VERY important. No buts¡¯ we are watching this now, I have to see this and you have to, too. Thank me later.¡± Was the fiery response she gave me, her features still expressionless as she was clearly concentrating on opperating the computer.

    ¡°Err¡­ okay then, if you say so. But, that means that I decide the cartoon for tonight!¡± I said, giving in to her demands.

    At that moment the holographic screen in front of me lit up and the tiny video frame instantly expanded to full screen, while the holographic screen also expanded to about three times its former size, effectively making this a small home-cinema.

    I tried to speak up and ask her once again what we were even watching, but was instantly shushed as the show began.

    To my surprise, it was just the general VR-News, though today seemed different. The intro was at least half a minute longer than usual and there even was a big ¡®SPECIAL¡¯ attached to the shows name this time around.

    ¡®Well, if Alicia is interested it can¡¯t be boring, but why the VR-news? She knows what I think about Virtual Reality¡­¡¯ My thoughts were interrupted as the shows¡¯ hosts were finally done introducing themselves and about to cut to the chase.

    The camera zoomed in on the male moderator, named Jerry, who, with a big smile on his unnecessarily handsome, obviously enhanced face, had to repeat the whole intro again. Going on and on about how special this episode was going to be¡­

    ''God, damnit jackass, get to the point already...''

    Finally he wrapped up his unnecessary introduction and went on: ¡°¡­so now, we proudly present to you, CEO of ¡®Virtual Realms¡¯¨C Mr. Hayao Miyamoto.¡±

    The lights in the studio went off and on as in-game scenes of several VRMMORPGs¡¯ were displayed on a screen in the background, all the while Jerry and his female coworker were clapping.

    Shortly thereafter, a surprisingly old man walked up to the podium and took a seat next to the two moderators.

    The Japanese man didn¡¯t look at all what you would expect a game designer to look like, although he fit the CEO image just fine.

    White, full hair covered his head, combed backwards in a neat, orderly fashion. The suit he wore looked much more expensive then the suits of both moderators combined and several rings decorated both of his hands.

    All of this, together with the calm and gathered expression he wore on his face gave him a very dignified appearance, which didn¡¯t even suffer by the fact that even the female moderator was about a head taller than him.

    The two moderators exchanged a few words, after which Mr. Miyamoto stood up and spoke into the camera for the very first time: ¡°I am very happy to be here and thankful to VR-News for having me as a guest. I greet all the VR-fans out there and hope you will enjoy this show.¡±

    He then performed a slight bow, before sitting down again, leaving me speechless.

    It was not the politeness of his greeting, but the fact that he had spoken without the least trace of an accent, which had surprised me.

    In an instant the man had completely changed the image I had off him and I couldn''t help but feel intrigued by him. Didn''t the majority of japanese have a really hard time pronounciating english words? Why didn''t he?

    ¡°We are also very happy to have you as our guest Mr. Miyamoto, especially since this is the first time we hear from your company again after ten years, isn¡¯t it? Please Mr. Miyamoto, without further ado, share your news with the worlds.¡± It was Jenny, the female moderator who had spoken and who now activated the big screen in the back of the studio.

    ¡°Well then. The fewest of you viewers probably know me or my company ¡®Virtual Realms¡¯, it is indeed the truth that we have been rather inactive concerning publicity in the past years, but we had our reasons. When we first started working on our project, it was with surprise that we saw the years fly by. Before we knew it five years had passed, then ten and here we are today, twenty years later¡­¡±

    The screen in the back of the studio lit up as slowly a slogan appeared, woven together from hundreds of glittering lines.

    ¡°It has been a long journey and not an easy one at that. But, today, after twenty years of hard work, I can finally present you all; SECOND LIFE.¡±

    An orchestrated musical piece with a soft but beautiful tune started playing, as the words ¡®Second Life¡¯ in the back of the studio slowly faded.

    I averted my gaze as what seemed to be a trailer was shown and instead focused on Alice.

    ¡°This is what you wanted to see? Why? Isn¡¯t that just another VRMMORPG? What¡¯s so special about it?¡±

    She threw me an annoyed glance, then answered: ¡°You would know if you would just shut up and watch. Just believe me, by the end of this you will thank me.¡±

    Though I didn''t exactly believe her, I still found myself quickly captivated by the trailer and the scenes accompanying it. Yet, after all she had said I couldn''t tell what was supposed to be the difference between this and all the VRMMORPGs of the past.

    ''It really is all the same.'' I thought. ''A dull fantasy world with repetive monsters using repetive movesets and all players will go for the same overpowered skills and builds...''

    Though that was part of why I disliked VRMMORPGs'', it was not the actual truth.

    Speaking completely honest, I actually quite liked them.

    They were fast paced, interactive to the max and simply outragiously fun. But... I couldn''t help but feel bad for Alice everytime I wanted to try out an VR-game.

    We both had been amazed the first time we tried out an VRMMORPG together. After all, who would have thought that an artificial intelligence could also join a virtual world?

    At first we had been filled with joy, for the first time we could actually touch and interact with each other, not to mention play together. Those were probably the best three years of my life, but what happened next was simply to horrifying.

    As time passed and people got accustomed to the game, they grew bored and before we knew it we found ourselves in the middle of a massacre. People slaughtered NPCs'' left and right, laughed at their pleas for mercy and continued to wipe out all the artificial life in the world, cleaning one city after another.

    Then, after there was nothing left to destroy, they simply left, off to fight new battles in the next game, not caring for the damage they had done in the former.

    Though Alice never openly talked to me about this, I knew this had left her deeply scared. We both had learned a lot from each other and just like her I wasn''t able to view artificial intelligences as anything but a digital life form. Not the least bit inferior to humans or animals, depending on their programming of course.

    Seeing humanity care so little for their creations and with complete disregard had even shocked me, I didn''t even dare to try and comprehend how scared and shocked Alice must have been in the middle of all of this.

    Anyways, ever since that incident I had made sure to stay clear of anything virtual reality related.

    My own enjoyment wasn''t even remotely as important to me as Alicas'' feelings and I was fine with us being seperated into real and digital bodies as long as that meant that neither of us had to experience anything like that incident again.

    ''So why are you this interested in that game Alicia? You can''t have forgotten all of this...''

    Back on the screen Mr. Miyamoto was visible again, now sitting opposite of Jerry, a big smile covering his face. In the background different in-game scenes from the trailer were displayed, again and again.

    Yet, all the focus was on the two men.

    ¡°That was amazing Mr. Miyamoto and we are pumped to hear all about your game during this three hour special. But, right off the bat, what do you feel is the biggest difference between Second Life and other VR-MMORPGs¡¯ out there? And why exactly did it take you twenty years to produce this gem?¡±

    ¡°That is a very good question Mr. Jerry.-¡° I couldn¡¯t help but giggle at this slip-up from the CEO, adding a Mr. before the moderators first name, but I quickly shut up as I was actually genuinly interested in the answer he was going to give.

    ¡°You see, the biggest difference would be¡­ the world itself. While it may not look much different from your typical role-playing game world, it will definitely feel different. It is simply¡­ more alive, more realistic, and less like a game. Every single NPC in this game is an Artificial Identity with the complexity of a real human being, allowing each and every individual in this world to indeed, be much more than an accessory and be its very own unique existence within that world. When we made this game the goal was not to make the best game out there, or the most fun game, but to utilize virtual reality to its fullest and make a game that feels as ¡®real¡¯ as thinkable possible, and, excuse me for bragging, but I believe us to have succeeded.¡±

    Miyamoto left a small pause for everyone to digest this new information before he continued, but I had already grasped why Alicia was this interested in a mere Virtual Reality. This was different...

    "You see, this is also the reason it took us twenty years to create the game. Pretty much all of the time has been invested into creating the world itself and fostering an AI capable of managing it. Allow me to explain something. Normaly, a game is like a nice painting, it may look like something real, but that is really just an illusion. We have went much much further and actually created the entirety of this world on an atomic level. Everything you see, every monster, every person and every environmental feature has actually been build so detailed that were you to take them apart layer by layer, you would find yourself facing something not extinguishable from reality. Just like how we humans are made from cells, flesh and blood, so are the living beings in our game. True, their cells and flesh are still data, but data so very finely coded, you would never be able to tell the difference were you not aware of this information beforehand."

    Everyone was silent. Only the images of the trailer in the background were constantly moving, while everyone else, me included, were frozen solid.

    ''Creating a game on an atomic level? That''s ridiculous... How is that even supposed to work? What computer could possible manage all that information? What.... How....''

    Jerry the moderator must have had similar thoughts as he was breaking out into cold sweat. There was simply no way such a thing should be possible, or was it?

    I didn¡¯t say anything else for the following hours, only listened as I got more and more enticed by Second Life.

    Everything the japanese man had said had hit a nerve and I found myself not only agreeing with him on topics concerning gaming and Virtual Reality, but actually started to admire him.

    It was then, at the very end of the show, that all the build-up tension all my newly acquired hopes and dreams were crushed in an instance. Leaving me completely and utterly destroyed.

    With the very essence of my being, I shouted out in despair:

    ¡°TEN THOUSAND BUCKS?¡±

    ___________________________________________________________________________

    27.5th

    -Major edits following TeaAddicts advice. Readability and grammar should have improved. No major content change

    29.5th

    - big shoutout to KuroYousei who helped me with tons of grammar stuff

 Chapter 2: -

    -30.5 Big edit in which I elaborated on the actions and emotions of the characters (hope I succeded) trying to take Teas'' advise into account. I hope I haven''t created several grammatical sins while doing so, sorry if I did and please help me single them out. Thanks and enjoy~

    ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

    The colour drained from my face, leaving me to look pale as a ghost. I didn''t even need to make the calculations. Instantly, I realised I could never afford Second Life.

    I would never play Second Life with Alice.

    ''Tch...'' My expression grew furios. ''Of course. All that buildup and then this. What a load of -.¡¯

    Both commentators also seemed set aback by the CEO''s announcement. Jerry somehow still managed to keep his composure, remaining calm and rational. Able to ask just the right questions.

    "Wow Mr. Miyamoto. That is not a small sum. Don''t you think this sort of price will scare away the players? And why exactly is it that the game is so expensive? Sure, the price range of VR-games often ranges in between a few hundred and a thousand, but ten-thousand? That''s a bit much isn''t it?"

    The Japanese businessman just smiled. He obviously wasn¡¯t worried at all, otherwise why would he had just openly announced the price of the game like this. In fact, it seemed as if Jerry had played right into his hands.

    ¡°Thank you for asking Mr. Jerry." He said, his frozen eyes revealing, just for a second, his cold and calculating nature, which until now had been hidden behind that smiling facade of his. "Of course there is a reason for Second Lifes price. First of all, no ordinary VR-capsule can handle this game. It¡¯s simply to advanced, which is why we have to upgrade each and every buyers capsule.

    This upgrade is not a small one and comes with a lot of special features, too, such as the enhanced Deep-Dive mode. This will allow players a prolonged immersion period of up to one week.¡±

    The smile on his face grew wider as both commentators faces revealed a shocked expression. Yet, the CEO simply cupped his hands as he stood up and continued his explanation as if he hadn''t noticed anything at all.

    ¡°That is not everything, though. We have already sold our games engine to several companies, we had to actually and you can probably all understand that even a major company like us has suffered from a twenty year hiatus. All our attention was focused on Second Life after all and we never released another game in these past years. Anyways, what I wanted to say was, with our new engine out there, we will see a ton of games with similar requirements in the future. So expect this upgrade to be a necessity. I am afraid you won¡¯t get around upgrading your capsule sooner or later. But, don¡¯t worry everyone. This may sound worse than it actually is, of course we have thought this far ahead and came up with solutions. After all what would we gain by limiting our own player base.¡±

    As he had been talking, Mr. Miyamoto had walked up to the big screen in the back of the studio, the camera following him at a steady pace.

    Up until now the screen had only shown the same ten in-game shots seen earlier in the trailer. But now the CEO raised his hands, calling up an enormous holographic projection, green, yet still transparent and shaped like the half of a giant halo.

    This weird screen surrounded the entire front of his upper body and was filled to the brim with different frames, pulsating circles, words and up and all sorts of controls.

    As he started to explain different concepts, his hands moved across his screen as if in trance. Different pictures and notes appeared on the big screen behind him and everything he said was again listed there, shortened and only containing the utmost important information. While keeping everything simple and easy to look at.

    As it turned out, Second Life would bring back a system very popular in the virgin days of Virtual Reality, the so called ¡®True Value¡¯ feature.

    The idea was that in-game currency and real currency was to be exchangeable.

    Back in the old days, when the first games with this feature had appeared. This had worked out very well for the first few years after launch. But then newer games appeared and players left to start anew in the better, improved game, taking all their in-game money with them. Thus instantly leaving several game companies bankrupted.

    Ever since no one had dared to add such a feature into their games again and everyone just stuck to the old and proven one-way transfer, allowing players to gain power by spending real money on their accounts, although even this was highly frowned upon.

    Mr. Miyamoto mentioned all this in his speech and even explained the reason as to why those unfortunate events occurred.

    He reasoned that those games had messed up their math and mechanics. They had doomed themselves with an unlimited influx of gold by having money be a random acquirable drop from enemies and quests. Not to mention that NPC trading in those games had not been properly shifted to work with the True Value feature. Of course players could get filthy rich if every NPC in the world could be traded with and without any reasonable exchange limits attached to them. Mainly criticizing that there was no ¡®true¡¯ economy within those games world.

    "This will not be possible within Second Life." He said, speaking louder than before. "There is a proper economy within Second Life and it is stable and equal in function as to our own worlds. The NPCs within Second Life aren''t mere programs, there to guide you to the next quest. They aren''t there solely to give you a sense of purpose, but to give life to this world. These ''people'' as I will call them, have their own life, their own income and of course worries to deal with¡­and whether or not you can make a living in this world solely depends on you and your skill"

    As he preached this, he pointed at the camera, as if to emphasis whom he was speaking to.

    He went on, his tone not receding as his chest swelling up in pride after each sentence.

    He promised, there would absolutely be no possibility for a gold inflation and the exchange ratio would be fair. And, as if to prove his point, Mr. Miyamoto went on to mention some of the big names backing him and his project.

    Several big shot companies had already acquired positions within the virtual world of Second Life and would provide the players with virtual versions of their products.

    Not to mention all the banks represented within Second Life and who had already established their headquarters. With that mentioned it was clear that Second Life was to be taken seriously.

    ¡°So, as you can see, there is no need to worry. And don''t be disappointed either. The possibilities of making a fortune within the game are still there. Just don¡¯t expect it to be as easy as you may remember from other games. Also, let it be said that we do not take kindly to exploits, though I would be interested in seeing people try. I stay by my words, there is absolutely no way Second Life will fail.¡±

    ¡®That guy is ballsy.¡¯ I thought, still only quietly watching the scene unfold before me. ¡®If he doesn¡¯t watch his tongue he will see his game taken down faster than he can spell sushi¡­ He wouldn¡¯t be the first rich man to be hacked down his high horse.¡¯

    The CEO on the other hand, just kept going and going.

    ¡°Also, for the not so well off minority of the world interested in playing, there is the possibility to acquire work within Second Life as well. As said, we are backed by a multitude of companies and they are currently in dire need of helpers who can handle work for them within the games world. Excuse me if I am wrong, but the ordinary contract should feature an agreement of eight work hours a day, while including ten hours of free access to Second Life a week, the pay you will have to work out with said companies themselves. Of course you would be able to start working with a character of your choice and are even be able to keep that character without losing any of your acquired stats and skills, once the contract has ended. Now doesn¡¯t that sound like a fair deal?¡±

    The show ended soon thereafter. Leaving me to just sit there in silence, deeply lost within my own thoughts.

    It still seemed impossible to afford, but getting a small loan, then paying off the game in monthly rates could work¡­

    ¡®If I were to be lucky, but that would be way to risky. The work contract is also a possibility, but let¡¯s be real, I¡¯ve never managed to hold a job for more than three months, this is most likely even riskier than taking a loan¡­ ¡®

    In the meanwhile Alice was freaking out, she was unable to contain her excitement and seemed not the least bit worried about the games price. Floating around the room and yelling stuff like ¡®Amazing¡¯ and ¡®Awesome¡¯, she appeared already sure we were going to get the game. Completely oblivious to the thoughts currently bothering me.

    And it took her a while to notice, too.

    She was slow to take up on my mood, but as Alice finally figured out that something was wrong, she just penetrated me with questioning stares, making me feel as if daggers were slowly dipped into my head.

    ¡°Hey Sascha, why are you so silent? Wasn¡¯t that freaking awesome? I can¡¯t wait to play that game with you, right? So stop sulking and get hyped with me already.¡±

    I sighed out loudly.

    ''This will be annoying¡­''

    Taking a deep breath and looking her in the eyes, I said. ¡°No. Absolutely impossible.¡±

    What followed was silence. Then her scream.

    ¡°Wait what?"

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    It was her turn to widen her eyes in shock and her stare turned into a look of utter confusion. She seemed wholeheartedly unable to comprehend what I had just said.

    Without her face clearing up she slowly floated towards me, still levitating half a meter above my head.

    "Sascha, what¡¯s wrong with you? Do you have a fever? How can you possibly not want to play a game like that? Why wouldn¡¯t you want to play with me?¡±

    Oh man, this conversation was bound to give me a headache. Alice misunderstood this whole thing.

    Standing up and emphasized my words I made Alice halt in her tracks.

    ¡°Listen carefully now Alice. I know, you really like that game, though I can¡¯t really understand why. I like it too, believe me. That just now looked amazing. Better than anything I have ever seen. But there is just no, absolutely no way I can possibly afford that.¡±

    While rubbing my forehead I had tried hard to calm myself and spoke in a composed and reasonable fashion. Not wanting my voice to quiver and give away how bummed out I really was. In the end there was just no helping it, I was piss-poor and freaking useless.

    Seeing that game and realizing that I would not be able to play it¡­ It made me feel miserable. Made me once again see what a failure I actually was.

    ''What a fine game addict I am, not even able to pay for my games anymore.''

    Inside my head I was laughing at myself.

    Making my decision once and for all I looked at Alice again, then dropped down into my chair.

    "Just forget it. It¡¯s not possible"

    I had expected her to get mad. I had expected Alice to get all childish and mean, teasing me for being poor. But she simply starred at me, looking somewhat dumbfounded.

    Something was off¡­

    ¡°What are you talking about Sascha? Don¡¯t you still have that emergency stash you once told me about? I mean this is kind of an emergency, isn¡¯t it? You¡­ don¡¯t you go all melodramatic on me¡­ you big doofus. Of course we are getting that game! Tell me we are!¡±

    I looked at her, then at the pile of clothes in the corner of my room, then back at her.

    ¡°Alice, I must have mentioned that like six years ago or something¡­ and we used up all that money to afford the Virtual Reality capsule. I ain¡¯t lying you know. Sorry, but that¡¯s how it is.¡±

    ¡°Oh¡­ is that so? I... err... kind of forgot¡­"

    I was flabbergasted.

    Not once in my life had I ever seen Alice cry. I wasn''t even aware this was possible. And yet here she was, crying¡­ right in front of me. Tears slowly streamed down her cheeks¡­ One after the other.

    "But there must be something we can do, right?¡± She said, starting to sob. ¡°There is isn¡¯t there? Come on Sascha, I know you¡¯re freaking smart, think of something!¡±

    I simply stared at her. Unable to bring myself to tell her off again and not comprehending what was going on.

    How could this be? An AI being this... emotional? Sure, Alice was not at all like any other AI, none which I had ever encountered at least. Sure, she was happy, laughed, was playful, funny... and she messed with me all the time, but, wasn''t she...

    I stopped my thought process. My eyes widened.

    Never would I have thought that I would one day catch myself thinking those words.

    ¡®Since when did I¡­? How¡­? Why¡­?¡¯

    In that short second, for the first time in my life, I had thought of Alice as nothing else but a mass of code¡­ a program made to appear human.

    I snapped into awareness again, my eyes focused on her and I slowly stood up, trying to reach out for her. But my fingers just phased through her¡­

    "Wh- what is wrong? Why are you..." I came to a halt as she moved away from me. A weird expression growing on her tear-dreanched face.

    I looked at her, unsure how to continue. Unable to bring myself to ask her for the reason behind her tears. Scared my thoughts might have shown on my face.

    "A- Alice. You know I hate Virtual Reality games, if it were cheaper yeah sure, we could give it a shot, but ten-thousand? I am sorry, I can¡¯t¡­ we''ll just have fun the same way we always have, okay? We don¡¯t need-"

    Alices eyes narrowed. Without saying another word she whirled around and resolved her holographic form.

    Leaving me standing there all alone.

    Sure, I hadn''t exactly given her the answer she wanted, but... what was that?

    I really didn¡¯t get why Alice had just gotten mad at me.

    For a while I just stood there. Fighting my own tears from welling up, as suddenly my former thoughts came back to memory again.

    ¡®Did she realize what I thought?¡¯

    I didn¡¯t get any rest that night. No matter how much I kept thinking about what had happened between me and Alice and no matter how hard I tried to find a solution. There was just no way for me to simply get my hands on a load of money and even if, I doubted that that would resolve what had just happened.

    ¡®If my thoughts really were just displayed on my face¡­ Just how can I make her forgive me?¡¯

    In the end I got frustrated as nothing came to mind. I felt helpless and clueless and before I knew it I was back to wasting time playing games.

    I awoke in the late afternoon. Alice would usually get annoyed at me when I wouldn''t wake up early¡­ but for some reason she wasn¡¯t nagging me about it today.

    Looking around the room I was confused. Where was Alice?

    ¡°Hey Alice, what¡¯s wrong? Are you still mad?¡±

    No answer¡­

    ¡°Alice? What¡¯s wrong?¡±

    I walked over to my computer and knocked against it.

    ¡°Yo Alice, I am really sorry if I was being stupid yesterday. Please come out. ¡°

    It stayed silent.

    I really started to worry now¡­ this was not good¡­

    ¡®Just what the heck is wrong with her?¡¯

    She wouldn¡¯t speak to me for the rest of the day and the day after that. Before I knew it an entire weak had passed and I was long past the point of simply freaking out.

    No matter what I did, how much I begged, apologized and even cried, there was no sign of her.

    In the end I grabbed some of my old computer equipment and actually started using my pc manually.

    Yet, even after hours upon hours of searching through every single folder and looking through all my existing files thrice, I still couldn¡¯t find a trace of Alices data. It was as if she had never existed to begin with.

    It was at that point that I cracked¡­

    I gradually stopped eating. I stopped sleeping and before I knew it I found myself just sitting there, in front of my screen, twenty-four hours a day doing nothing.

    Just¡­ waiting¡­ for a signal? A message? No, just something, some sort of sign telling me that Alice was still out there, somewhere.

    Occasionally I would fall asleep, waking up later not knowing what time or even day it was.

    Until one day when I simply couldn¡¯t stand it anymore.

    I couldn¡¯t believe that Alice would have just up and left me, not for something puny like what had happened.

    We have had far worse fall outs in the past and she had never stayed mad at me for more than a week.

    Also, even though a digital entity such as her was free to come and go as she pleased, moving through the constant flow of data of the internet at a whims notice, she had never before just left without at least leaving a note.

    There simply was no way Alice would abandon me¡­ so where was she now? What was she up to that wouldn''t allow her to at least send me a message?

    Looking back at that day from a later date, I would be unable to tell you why I did what I did next. But for some reason it seemed to be the first thing to come to my mind at that time.

    I was sick of feeling helpless, sick of feeling alone and sick of feeling like¡­ some sponge that had absorbed all the toxic waste in the world.

    That day, almost a month after Alice had disappeared, I stepped into my VR-capsule, loaded my old copy of ¡®Lands of Arcania Online¡¯ and spend all day slaughtering mobs without objective or reason.

    It had been like¡­ six or five years ago that Alice and I had enjoyed the game together and there I was, again¡­ only this time alone.

    By the time I had calmed down, I found myself surrounded by corpses of dozens upon dozens of monsters. Fighting in-game for hours actually had helped me to escape the emotional pit I had chained myself in. And definitely had worked wonders for getting all that pent up frustration out of my system.

    Anyways, as I was about to leave the game and actually do something constructive for once, I noticed a flashing mail icon in the upper right of my vision.

    Returning to my capsules Hub instantly and checking my mails, I had to use all the willpower I could muster to control myself.

    There, repeatedly blinking was a single message labeled ¡®HELP¡¯, written in caps and the senders name reading ¡®Alicia¡¯.

    At first I was confused by the name, then I stopped caring and simply cried tears of joy. This was her, Alice was alive and well, somewhere out there. I actually had received a message from he, she hadn¡¯t left me.

    But then the realization dawned upon me that she wasn''t actually okay, she was in trouble and looking at the date of the message...

    My heart dropped all the way down into my pants and I felt myself breaking out in cold sweat.

    The message was two weeks old already.

    Without further ado I opened it...

 Chapter 3: -

    Same as before, first finished draft of the chapter. Hope it turned out well, if any sentences are simply unreadable or make no sense please tell me. I couldn''t quite wrap my head around this chapter to be quite honest and I can''t go on reading this chapter again and again or I might go insane.

    Still, enjoy and expect chapter 4 tomorrow.

    ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Unexpectedly the message did not open in front of me in the usual form of a letter, but instead its entire holographic frame transformed and shifted into the shape of a scroll. One of the likes of which I had only ever seen within the medieval setting of ''Lands of Arcania Online''.

    It unrolled, levitating in the air right in front of me and revealing a message written in big, sinuous letters.

    This scroll in itself appeared to be remarkebly old, as its color had already started to fade, leaving the parchment to have a light yellow tinge... was mostly brown and partially stained though. Corners and parts of its frame were tattered and even ripped in some places, but nonetheless, it still carried itself with an air of importance.

    I paused before reading the letter as it was clear to me that this was no ordinary message.

    Sure, it was nothing special to edit and manually code a message to appear any way one would wish, but one would have to spend a lot of time and effort to create a template this detailed, not to mention to actually go as far as to implement such a fine scripture. This message might as well have been written by a scholar with actual quill and inc and didn''t appear the least bit computer generated.

    The fact that Alice had sent me this message looking as it did, had already revealed several clues concerning her whereabouts to me and my mind was racing as it mashed all of these facts together and the one and only conclusion.

    Alice had contacted me through my VR-capsule, meaning she herself must have been within a virtual reality herself and limited to that worlds messaging system.

    Combining that fact with the appearance of her message made it clear to me that she was most likely to be found within Second Life.

    After reading the first few lines of her message, I let out a relieved sigh as I was indeed proven right. I knew now where Alice was and it almost seemed as if everything would turn out fine in the end.

    Oh how wrong I was.

    I continued to read, burning each and every word into my mind, yet only reached the end of the first paragraph before having to halt once again, my whole body trembling.

    Going by what the letter said, Alice had successfully managed to transfer and hack herself into one of neighborhoods VR-capsules, through which she was able to connect to Second Life. Yet, as soon as she started the program she had been pulled into the virtual reality and forced into the games'' world as an Npc. Since then she couldn¡¯t leave the game and... was scared of being deconstructed?

    This confused and scared me worse than anything else that had happened in the past month.

    Ignoring the ''how'' and ''why'' concerning Alices'' entry into Second Life, just how was it possible for the game to force her into the role of an NPC? And scared of her deconstruction? Deconstruction of what? She wasn''t a machine so how...

    Back when we had realized that Alice was also able of entering a Virtual World we had done some throughout testing and never had a case like this occurred. But, if it really was as Alice had said and the virtual reality had indeed forced her into its world as an Npc, then didn''t that not only mean that she wasn''t recognized as a person, but also that she was bound by the rules of the game itself? Meaning...

    My face turned ashen and I felt cold sweat running down my face. I was absolutely terrified by the conclusion I reached.

    Usually players would always be able to respawn within a virtual reality, if not, they would have the ability to reload a save file and start over from the beginning. Worst case scenario was that a players'' mind would be ejected from the digital realm and send back to awaken within his capsule, which was an event that could only occur in the worst case scenarios where a virtual reality was experiencing technical difficulties and not working properly, yet still never exposing a persons mind to danger.

    In Alices'' case though, there was no body within the capsule, nothing containing her ''mind''. She herself was just the same as the world containing her, a digital and complex structure of code.

    Could it be that as of the moment she entered Second Life her coding and entire self had been interwoven into the code that made up the virtual reality of Second Life? If so then were that to mean that whatever would happen to her in there would be able to affect her permanently.

    It was at that moment that I recalled the interview Alice and I had watched and I could feel despair wail up inside of me. Now I knew why Alice feared her death.

    There was no respawn function in Second Life. Not for anyone but a player. And while there were ways to revive deceased people and even creatures, there was only a set time limit in which one could do so.

    In the interview we watched, Mr. Miyamoto had explained all of this and more. He had said that Second Life had a reincarnation system in place of a respawn one, which managed the safekeeping and conversion of all as deceased categorized life forms within the games'' world.

    It was this system which allowed Second Lifes'' world to be able to change and evolve, while making it impossible for its artificial inhabitants to go extinct.

    And it was this system which put Alices'' life at risk.

    After all being reincarnated wasn''t the same as simply being respawned the way a player was. Instead such a deceased entity would be completely remodeled, reshaped even to find themselves reborn within Second Lifes'' world as an entirely new being.

    So¡­ in short¡­ If Alice were to die, nobody would be able to even guess as to what new person or even creature she would reappear as. Her entire coding was at risk of being overwritten and Alice as a whole... would cease to exist the way I knew her.

    I couldn''t help but continue reading the letter, through the root of fear inside of me grew with every word I read. Tears started to roll down my cheeks and dropped down onto the scroll.

    I was overwhelmed by my emotions and it was at the end of the letter, the last sentence which I read out aloud with quivering lips, that caused all hairs on my body to stand up and the heavy trembling to force me down and onto my knees, as the burden became simply to much to bear.

    As I spoke the word out aloud one more time, wanting to confirm what I had just read, it was as if a heavy, all oppressing mantel of sadness had been laid over my heart. It weighted me down, wrapped itself all around me and threatened to swallow me as a whole. All the while I couldn''t help but imagine Alice in front of me, with tears streaming down her cheeks just like me now and writing down these words.

    ¡°None of the other AIs'' in here have a clue that they are part of a game, they have no knowledge whatsoever of the outside world and their true purpose within this program. They are actually ''living'' in here, completely ignorant of everything else, it is scaring me. And, I feel like I am going insane. With each passing day I lose parts of my memories and I am so afraid of ending up like any of them. Ignorant of who I truly am, forgetting all about you and the real world.

    I never wanted this to happen. I didn¡¯t think it would turn out this way. I am so sorry Sascha.

    I just wanted to be with you, like a real person. I wished we could finally really be... together.

    Every day I look out into the plains and long for you, wish I could speak to you once more, even if just for a second. I wish I had never gotten mad at you for caring about me, wish I wouldn''t have been this stupid. Nothing I could ever say or do can express how truly sorry I am for leaving your side.

    Sascha, please... I beg you.

    Save me.¡±

    For the longest part of an hour I just stood there, frozen within my VR-capsules hub.

    I read the same lines again and again, until I couldn¡¯t keep back the emotions any longer and broke down in a crumbling heap pulling the scroll down along with me. Just lying there on the floor, my entire body shaking, I started to wail in misery.

    ¡°I am sorry¡± I screamed, again and again. Tears erupting from my eyes like a geyser, all the while I was clutching her letter to my chest.

    I cursed myself a thousand times and more for being so blind. For being so ignorant of Alices'' true feelings. For not having been able to understand her that night and for not being able to help her now.

    I could not stop myself from repeating scenario upon scenario in my head. Fleshing out all the things that could happen to Alice and all the dangers she was exposed to out there.

    The simple thought of her being in danger threatened to drive me mad with worry and I could already feel cracks forming all along the surface of my sanity.

    It was at that moment that a single thought manifested within my darkened mind. A single line, helping me to realize what had to be done.

    "Save me" she had said. No, begged me to. How could I possibly allow myself to fail her?

    I slowly ceased my shameful crying and eventually managed to help myself up on my feet again. Deep within I had understood, it didn¡¯t matter how risky or stupid it was, I had to get myself into Second Life. The mere thought of continuing my life without Alice was unthinkable, there was just no way I could let that happen. I would do whatever necessary to save her, even if that meant having to spend the rest of my life to rot within my capsule and trapping my mind within an illusion. All for the sake of her...

    Disconnecting and pushing the lid above me up instantly, I scrambled out of the VR-capsule, dropping to the ground hard and slamming shoulder first onto to wooden floor below.

    Multiple plugs and links snapped and ripped out from the connections within my flesh, left to dangle over the capsules half opened interior while I started to bleed from several spots on my arms, legs and even neck. I didn''t give a damn.

    Not taking note of the pain or the thoughts flooding my brain, I rushed to get moving and collected a number of things, fresh clothes being one of them.

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    Not ten minutes later and I had already taken a shower, dressed myself in what could be considered my most ''proper'' clothes, while I was already in the process of making a call over my watch. The person I tried to contact being my mother.

    The call didn¡¯t go through and it took me three more attempts after having left my apartment in a hurry, to get my mother on the line.

    I hadn''t given much thought as to what I was gonna tell her or how I should get her to help me, but I knew what I needed to rescue Alice. Money.

    My eyes widened in shock at the sudden realization. I had completely neglected the fact that my mother was... well, my mother. How the heck was I supposed to get her to-

    My thoughts were interrupted as a holographic screen was suddenly projected in front of me. The face of my mother appearing on its surface.

    ¡°Sascha, what in the heavens are you thinking? Calling me while I am in the middle of work.¡±

    The woman on the screen didn''t appear very old, yet I knew my mother was actually about to turn fifty this year. But, unlike her age would suggest, she looked young and beautiful, with eyes similar to my own, small and sharp and shining in the brightest green.

    Except she wore glasses and though her hair was just as pitch black as my own, she had hers'' gracefully tied up into a complicated, but graceful looking updo. This, together with the suit she wore made her look just as much the businesswoman that she was.

    Sadly though, her voice lacked any tone of forthcoming, which one would usually expect a person of her profession to have. It was quite the opposite, as she instead sounded very annoyed, which was underlined by a trace of anger.

    This was just like her. Same as always, always working and easily angered.

    ¡°Hey mum. Sorry, no time to explain¡­¡±

    Heavy breathing interrupted my speech as I was currently running down the unusually empty streets. All the while my brain was racing, trying to figure out just how to explain this whole ordeal to her. All of this combined made it hard for me to speak calmly.

    ¡°Alice is in trouble and I need your help. I need¡­ you have to¡­ No. Please, I beg you, if you could lend me some money I would-¡°

    Instantly, as soon as the word money had been uttered, my mother cut me off. Her voice growing harsh and her eyes narrowing on my screen.

    ¡°Stop right there. You haven¡¯t shown a trace of life for years and now call me knowing fully aware of the face that I am most likely in the middle of an important meeting and then dare to ask me for money? Don¡¯t you have any respect at all? What is this about? Alice? She is in trouble? Well, my bad, but just what have you done that would require me to grant you financial support of any kind? Huh? That¡¯s right, nothing. I don¡¯t need you to-¡°

    I slowly came to a halt, looking around the street to make sure that nobody but me had to witness what was about to go down. Luckily I found the streets to be empty. Then it started.

    An onslaught of words rained down on me. My mother just couldn''t help herself but to give speech after speech, one more hurtful than the other, always telling me how to live my life, what mistakes I had made and what a failure I turned out to be...

    Clenching my hands into a fist and biting down on my lip until I could taste blood filling my mouth, I simply waited. Endured each and every speech she gave me, knowing that I only had one shot at getting her assistance. Fully well knowing that interrupting or offending her in any way would instantly anger her to the point where any attempt at reasonably talking with her would become impossible.

    She finally stopped lecturing me after about ten minutes, each second having felt like an eternity. An eternity that had helped me think of all the possible things I could and definitely couldn''t tell her. If I wanted my mothers help with this, I had to do it with utmost care.

    I spoke up, trying to sound the best I could.

    ¡°Please, listen mum, I would never beg you for money otherwise, you know this. I know I didn''t turn out to be what you expected and that I have disappointed you in countless ways, but this is not about me, this is about Alice. Please, just hear me out.¡±

    It surprised myself as to how composed I managed to make my voice sound, barely even shaking and revealing all the emotions which I had tried to hide.

    On the inside I was boiling, past sadness, frights and frustrations of the day having long since turned into anger instead. Yes, I was angry to the point where others would be unable to remain reasonable, but not me, not now. There was to much at stake.

    I had hoped to win my mother over with sincerity and agreement. She loved being right and cared for Alice almost as much me, therefore I had expected her to at least listen to what I had to say. But, not even delaying her answer for a second and without apparently giving it the slightest thought, my mother instantly crushed all my hopes. Dismissed all the honesty and every bond I had hoped there to still remain between us.

    With a voice that could turn boiling water into ice and stabbing me right through the heart, she answered my plea.

    ¡°No.¡±

    A from shock and disbelieve born gasp escaped me.

    My mind was instantly cleansed from all thoughts. A wave of sadness collapsed onto me, one which instantly extinguished the fires of anger and worry that had been burning within me. Leaving me to feel the worst I ever felt in my life.

    With that one word she had murdered me. Stabbed all the memories we shared, all the love that still remained between us right in the back. Leaving my withering self to bleed out on the dust below her feet.

    ¡°That was all then? No ''how was you day?'' Or ''what have you been doing these days''? Well, I didn''t expect as much from you. I will take my leave then, farewe-¡±

    In that instance I exploded. The humiliation, the anger and the pain that woman had caused me with her words, all was irrelevant. Useless emotional garbage that would only weight me down and keep me from accomplishing my goal were I to let it.

    ''Not today. Not like this. Not when Alices'' life is at stake.''

    Without holding anything back and channeling all the pent up emotional mess that was me into my voice, I screamed. Right into my mothers ears and not caring the slightest bits about the consequences.

    ¡°Why was Alice crying? For fucks sake, what have you and dad done to her? Why can Alice feel sadness? Why is she able to be afraid? And why the hell do you not care the slightest bit about her! Wasn''t it the two of you that needed a replacement for my sister? And now that you no longer do you simply throw her away the same way you threw away me? What is wrong with you! At least listen to me for crying out loud, is that really asking to much?¡±

    Complete silence engulfed me. Not only my phone, but the entire city seemed to have gone mute and

    I had to control myself to remain standing as I did, though I was bleeding on the inside.

    ¡°Why did Alice cry?¡±

    I opened my eyes in surprise. Seeing the world through a blurry cloak of tears.

    Though they hindered my sight, I still managed to make out the bright screen emitted from my watches display.

    Shocked I realized that my mother had not ended the call yet.

    ¡°Sascha, stop crying like a little bitch and tell me what happened to Alice. Now!¡±

    ¡°I- I-¡± I stammered. Panicking I found myself unable to form even a single sentence.

    Only when my mother called out my name a third time, insulting me with more profanities than before, did I manage to tell her everything that had happened. Every word exchanged between Alice and me and each and every sentence, word for word, contained in her message.

    I was a mess by the end of my story. Leaning against the closest wall with snot and tears freely running down my face.

    ¡°So let me repeat that.¡± My mother said after a short pause. ¡°You and Alice had a stupid fall out and it left to do what? Enter a virtual reality on its own accord? That is ridiculous. I''ll admit that Alice has evolved far above its intended purpose, but you are telling me that it is able to freely connect to any program through what? The internet? No wonder you are what you are today if you are that stupid. Do you really think that is possible? The only possible way Alice was able to interact with the programs within your apartment the way it did was because of the administration rights it must have had over them and which you must have given it. And what was that about it crying and even going as far as contacting you through the means of a VR-capsules messaging function? Because it, a program, was afraid of its existence being at risk? That is absolutely nuts. You have seen her coding before, do you really believe-¡± It was at that moment that my mother went silent for just a bit, before she continued to drop the biggest bomb, yet. ¡°Wait... Sascha, do you believe Alice to be a real person? Sasch-¡±

    I hung up halfway through her sentence. My face a mask of absolute and utter disbelieve.

    She didn''t get it.

    Not only that she had ridiculed me and disbelieved me, but she had also questioned my sanity? No. Not now. Not like this. I couldn''t afford to let her words crush me, nor could I afford to lose my hope because of her. If my mother wasn''t gonna help me, then I had to help myself. Even if that meant digging my own grave.

    Resisting to curl up into a ball and wail in misery, I rose my head instead and starred at he road ahead with determination.

    A dog barked far off in the distance and the first drops of water made me focus my attention onto the dark clouds hanging up high above me.

    Soon thereafter a heavy rain started to pour down and onto me. Drenching me and the empty streets alike within the instances of a few heartbeats.

    Luckily the cold and unexpected shower helped me to cool my head, which in return got some progressive thoughts to get going.

    ''My mother won''t help me. My father... impossible, not even gonna waste my time asking him. That leaves me with only one choice...''

    It was clear to me now what I had to do and with new found purpose came intent.

    With big steps I drove forward.

    It was only me now. All alone in this world, with no ties remaining. None except the one which I was willing to sacrifice myself for.

    ''Up I go to sell my soul''

 Chapter 4:-

    8.6. - Big edit, after having reread the last bit again and again and having come to the conclusion that this entire Lion throne Thing was stupid as heck, I switched it out to something less.... stupid. Still contains all the same Information though.

    ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

    ¡°Okay then.¡± Said the man sitting in front of me. ¡°We have a deal.¡±

    That person himself wasn''t very attractive, quite the opposite rather. He was short, with a big belly to carry around for show and more golden teeth in his mouth than I had pennies in my pocket.

    His face didn''t do him any favors either and neither did the fact that he wore a gray suit while decorating his head with what appeared to be a fedora...

    Yet that person currently held more power over my life than I ever had myself. Which was due to the following reasons.

    Surrounding me and standing watch in every corner of the tiny underground cellar I currently found myself in were at least... One... Two...

    ''Thirteen goons it is...''

    ¡°So we conclude then, you shall receive a sum of ten-thousand in total. One year for you to pay us back at an ''interest'' rate of ten percent per month.¡± Fatty was speaking again, all the while he carefully wrote down each sentenceon on a slip of paper. ¡°Then, if you were to just sign here.¡±

    He slipped the message over to me, across the table separating us. Which I immediately picked up and carefully proceeded to read.

    All was written as the man had said, plus a few additional lines stating me to pretty much give up all earthly possession were I to not fulfill the contracts conditions within the stated time limit.

    Not mentioned was the permanent threat to my life that would continue to persist for as long as I was in acquaintance with these people. As I had pretty much surrendered my life to the whim of these people, the second I had stepped into this den.

    This had been a one way trip from the beginning and I was being lucky to have negotiated myself through this mine field that had been the past two hour long conversation.

    Without another word left to be said there was nothing left for me to do but to sign what had been but a piece of paper before and now turned into an official contract. The most powerful artifact of modern times which held the power to bind a persons whole being in the worst way possible. By law.

    As soon as my signature found itself on the contract, fatty snatched it out of my hands and slammed down a stamp onto it, making the deal official.

    ¡°Here''s your money, you can start counting outside. Monkey one and two, see to it that Mr. Quellbach finds his way back home would you? As for you...¡± He stared at me for a second before continuing. ¡°You will do good in keeping this meeting a secret. We will find you should we need you for anything else.¡±

    I barely had the time to grab the paper bag that was handed to me by the fatso, before someone pulled a bag over my had.

    Everything happening afterwards I endured in silence, as I was grabbed below the shoulder caps and lifted up. I was carried... or rather dragged across the ground and up a set of stairs. And whoever it was that had grabbed a hold of me, wasn''t acting very caring for me or my body.

    Fresh air tickled my skin soon thereafter and I knew we had left the building behind to find ourselves in what smelled like a wet back street, though I still had no real clue as to where exactly I currently was.

    I had these met this conspicuous group of people in a similar fashion. After having made contact with these folks online, reaching them by the means of browsing through the dark web, I had soon found myself kidnapped and dragged off in the same fashion as I was now to returned back home.

    A short walk followed and by the end of it I was shoved into the back of a car by my escort, which then proceded to ask me for my apartments exact coordinates. I had of course no other choice but to answer truthfully, but while trying to differentiate between the numeral voices sounding through the cramped car, I became almost certain that it were indeed only two people escorting me.

    For just a second my brain turned full retard and without even thinking I spoke out aloud. ¡°Monkey one and monkey two, lovely names.¡±

    I didn''t remember the rest of the journey...

    Two days later I awoke in front of my apartment, the front door having been left wide open to reveal the horror that was my life to the outside world.

    I died a little on the inside, but stood up regardless, when suddenly it felt as if I were dying on the outside, too.

    Pain surged through my entire body, with an intensity I had never experienced before in my life. I couldn''t even differentiate anymore just what or where I was hurting.

    Eventually I reached my bathroom and started my day by vomiting right into the sink after having looked into the mirror.

    After only two hours I was somewhat patched up, freshly showered, all the blood washed off and all wounds cleansed. I was only missing three teeth, too... Which meant I would never be able to smile again... Not like I ever did these days...

    I let out a pained whistle as I dropped down into what I would consider the worlds most comfortable chair and soon thereafter a wave of gratifaction replaced the pain.

    For just a second I felt that everything was okay again, the world had been returned to normal, back to the way it was supposed to be and everything was alright. But then I opened my eyes and seeing no trace of Alice I knew, nothing was okay.

    Not having any more time to waste I picked up the paper bag I had received and looked inside. There were indeed bundles of cash inside of it, but as I started counting I came to the realization that I had been scammed. Inside the bag were not the promised ten but only seven thousand bucks.

    ''Of course they would do this.'' I thought. ''What else did I expect... Fucking criminals...''

    I wished there had been another way, wished I hadn''t had to resort to the path I had taken. But I was left with no alternatives the moment my mother had turned me down and as of now there were only two possible outcomes left for me.

    One was to find Alice within Second Life and succeed at paying back those thugs or fail and most likely die at their hands. Which would leave Alice to share the same fate soon therafter while leaving her to corrupted data to be trapped forever within the virtual realm of Second Life.

    I pulled up the written copy of Alices'' letter on the holographic screen of my HPCC-watch, my computer currently in the process of booting up and reading it out aloud one more time I confirmed her position within Second Life one last time.

    ''Currently I am staying in a place called Bramblingen-'' she had written. So that was where I would start my search, but first I had to get my hands on a copy of Second Life...

    It didn''t take me long to do so through the online customer service of ''Virtual Realm'' and to my surprise I found my VR-capsule starting up on its own soon after having filled out a contract.

    I went ahead and took a peak inside the capsule upon which I was notified of a huge update currently taking place and was once again reminded and also given a virtual copy of the contract.

    From today onwards I would owe Virtual Realm one thousand bucks a month... for ten months. All the while I had only seven thousand to spare and not a whole more time to pay back the other, more life-threatening loan I had made.

    For now though I was ignoring these facts.

    I was already well aware of the amount of shit I had driven myself into and had done a decent amount of calculations. By my estimations I would have to get my hands on at least thirty thousand bucks by the end of this year. Not even taking into consideration living expenses and such...

    A truly hopeless endeavor, but not needlessly worrying about it I was instead wondering and thinking about the currently happening update itself, without which I would unable to enter Second Life.

    ''Really? This is what they meant with a capsule upgrade? I expected at least a technical adjustment to be made, but they are just throwing a software updated at me? Well... okay then, at least I won''t have to tidy up the room then...''

    I removed myself from the capsule shortly thereafter without having figured out the exact duration of this processing update.

    Only one thing was for sure and that was that this update didn''t end anytime soon and as the outside sky was already turning dark, I started to prepare myself for what was to come.

    For the better part of two weeks I was busy gathering data on Second Life during which I barely ate or slept. Sadly, even though the game had been released for an entire month already, there were barely any topics specifying game mechanics, talent trees or even skill paths to be found online.

    All I found instead were discussions concerning quests, the viability of different races, descriptions of different locations and such likes.

    It seemed as if no one had yet been able wrap their heads around the game and everyone playing it had instead found himself completely absorbed within its virtual world.

    After a week of scrolling through message boards like these and without getting none the wiser, I switched my approach and instead went on to watch streamers online.

    I did nothing but watch different people play the game day in day out, completely blown away by the images I saw on my screen as they revealed an entirely new world to me. Nothing I had seen within ''Lands of Arcania Online'' could have prepared me for this.

    I had been used to impressive landscapes, terrifying monsters and other such sceneries which one could only dream to witness within a game. But never had I seen a world this alive within a virtual reality before. I would even dare to say that not even the world right outside my front door was this bursting with activity.

    Said two weeks  passed in the blink of an eye and awakening me from one of my short, by exhaustion forced slumbers, were the loud beeping noises emitted from my VR-capsule.

    Without another warning, streaks of light were released from its insides and a holographic ray shot forth from within the capsule. It reached up all the way to the rooms ceiling and, as it rested there for a second, suddenly expanded to form a giant holographic web that split the room in half.

    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    This net made its way down along the walls, slowly engulfing the entire room and phasing through objects and me alike. It reached the ground but didn''t stop there. Not until it had taken in the entirety of the room, upon which it returned to make its way up the same it had been going down before.

    I rose from my chair, slowly, watching the different lights flashing off and on within the capsules mechanic interior, while the web of light once again merged into a single ray after having reaching the same central point up above on the ceiling.

    By the time I had reached the machine, it had gotten almost completely silent again.

    Opening its lid and removing my shirt and pants, I took my position inside of it, placing my limbs in the specific spaces laid out for them. Afterwards I could feel several simultaneous stings all throughout my body as multiple plugs and cables plunged into my flesh.

    It was no lasting but only a short pain though, after which a helmet like contraption was lowered onto my head. The lid above me closed.

    Blackness engulfed my vision, as warmth started to spread through my body. My eyes slowly closed...

    Soon thereafter I found myself standing within my capsules'' virtual HUB. Only this time it wasn''t an endlessly wide space with screens floating around, but a perfect replication of my room. Just here it was clean and tidied up.

    I couldn''t believe it... there used to be a couch in the corner of my room, a corner which in real life was only occupied by boxes and trash at the moment. And there was a bike leaning against the opposite wall... where did that come from?

    But what most surprised me was the female voice, suddenly speaking out with a charming voice.

    ¡°Welcome Mr. Quellbach. My name is Solana, how may this unit be of assistance to you.¡±

    I whirled around, my eyes darting from one corner of the HUB to the other, no longer being oblivious of the fact that I wasn''t alone in this space.

    ¡°Who... No. Where do you come from and what is your purpose?¡± I asked.

    A light chuckle rippled through the fabric of the room.

    ¡°There is no need for agitation Mister. I am merely a unit introduced during the latest update and here to guide you through your new interface. Has Mister read the patch notifications and update information yet? If not, does Mister which to do so now?¡±

    My thoughts were racing. I had been peacefully sleeping until a few minutes ago and now a completely unbeknownst to me AI had suddenly appeared within my capsule? No. Had been put there... Why?

    ''No. This is all irrelevant...''

    ¡°Hey you... err... Solana. What about Second Life? Can I enter the game yet?¡±

    The room lighted up and was suddenly deconstructed. Walls and objects, the couch, the table, everything crumbled apart, transforming into a heap of numbers and disappearing into thin air. At the same time a pillar crashed down into the ground somewhat a few hundred meters away from me.

    ¡°But of course you may...¡± a rumble sounded throughout the virtual realm. Interrupting the artificial voice, which sounded so much more mechanical compared to Alices''. ¡°Preparing ¡ã ¡ã ¡ã Full Dive ¡ã ¡ã ¡ã Entering ¡ã ¡ã ¡ã Second Life¡±

    ''Wait wha-¡±

    Looking up I saw numerous objects flying down from the sky, multiple structures most in different-, others in similar shapes, seemingly pulled up from thin air.

    ¡°Before you are granted access to Second Life you will have to sign our terms of Agreement and specify your purpose and intended usage of Second Life. Also we will have to test your capabilities before proceeding.¡±

    No more objects rained from the sky, but by now several pillars had encircled me, all the while a huge altar rested in the middle of this formation, raised on top of a high up circular set of stairs leading which was laid out to be ascendable from any direction.

    Torches, one hung on each pillar, suddenly lighted up as the light within the virtual space was gradually dimmed. Causing each pillar to throw a long shadow towards the middle of the room.

    Left with no option but to approach the set of stairs I made my first steps. Suddenly the ground beneath my feet rippled and slowly shifted to turn liquid. This effect spread out throughout the entire virtual space, only the pillars and central positioned staircase left untouched by the transformation of the ground. As I took step after step it became gradually harder to move, as the water had already reached to my waste, though I had to note that it wasn''t actually rising, as the stairs were still left untouched above it, but rather the ground appeared to be constantly sinking.

    The entire virtual space had gone dark and only the distant flickering flames shone a light into this weird world.

    I pulled myself up the first ledge after having to swim the last half of the distance, the clothes I wore were drenched and clinging to my skin, effectively limiting my movements as I crawled up the first few steps on all four.

    Slowly and steadily I approached the top and unfolding bevor my eyes was the majestic appearance of the enormous altar. It shone White and shining with the reflection of the distant flames, it towered above me.

    I finally reached it and while I instantly droped onto my stomach coughing and struggling for breath, I happened to notice the elaborate decoration carved onto the altars surface. It showed hundreds of men atop a wall, fighting off what appeared to be an army of canine monsters, with big maws covered with countless teeth. Up above the fighting masses stood several massive figures, each and every one of them wearing an expression as if the world belonged to them.

    I didn''t knew exactly what I had been looking at, but I didn''t spare it much of a thought, either. I simply didn''t care about the meaning hidden behind the images.

    Having rested enough and my thoughts leading me nowhere, I stood up and finally approached the altar. I took note of the gigantic scroll that rested atop of it, already unrolled and burying the altars entirety under it and was just about to reach out for it, when suddenly lightning struck down from the sky.

    The darkened virtual space lit up and I gasped for breath, as my eyes rested on the world beneath my feet. What had been at most a waist deep pond moments before was now a raging torrent of an ocean. Waves the size of a building were crashing into each other off in the distance and slowly but surely the masses of water shifted. Slowly but surely a torrent raged in a circle around the stairs and soon thereafter formed into a giant whirlpool. I was left to stand alone in midst of this spectacel, my mouth unable to be shut closed as I found myself frozen in astonishment.

    Then the thunder clap hit me and with a ear cracking boom caused me to drop onto my knees, my hands firmly pressed onto my ears.

    What followed left me barely clinging onto my consciousness, as my mind was seemingly crushed beneath an all mighty voice, speaking directly into my head.

    "Mortal!" It shouted, drowning any other sound. "Turn back! The place you which to enter is not for the likes of you to behold."

    I felt irritated and unable to grasp what was Happening. I had expected to find myself sitting through a minute long intro cinematic or even to have to perform some sort of physical fittness test, but not this. All I wanted was to get into Second Life and to where Alice was, I didn''t have the time to deal with this... Circus.

    Irritation soon thereafter turned into anger and I rose to my feet, my hands clenched into fists. ¡°Spare me your speech." I screamed, directing my voice up into the sky and with a tone unbeknownst to me. "I don''t care for who you are or what you have to say. I''ll go where I must and neither you nor this theather shall stand in my way."

    A thunderous chuckle rippled through the air and the whirling mass of water beneath me rose into the sky as a column. Keeping me and the platform I stood upon trapped in its midst.

    "Well spoken mortal, that''s the spirit. Go on then, prove to us that you are worthy!"

    The voice ebbed out of existance and I was left to stand alone, encircled in the midst of the watery tornade. Still completely ignorant as to exactly what was going on. Yet, I could finally move on and no longer intending to dilly dally I approached the scroll still resting on the altar.

    Written on it were numerous rules one had to abide within the world of Second Life. Though it would seem that those rules only served the purpose of increasing a player''s immersion within the virtual world, while not limiting us in any way whatsoever as to how we wished to play the game.

    As such, the term ''game'' or any information about the real world were to never to be uttered to anyone within Second Life. Neither were more specific terms all commonly seen used within games such as mmorpgs''. It was clearly stated that we players were to treat this world and the people inhabiting it as ''real'' and that any disobeyance of the rules were to be followed by a serious debuff to ones person.

    Also listed were game mechanics such as the initial set pain reception, which was limited at twenty percent the real deal and stuff such as the maximum dive time limits, which stated to allow a player full immersion for an entire week.

    The last part of the text was filled with more generic rules and conditions, all to similar to the terms of Agreements of any virtual reality game nowadays and which I simply overflew.

    I then proceeded to write my signature at the very bottom of the scroll, with a feather that had magically appeared in my hand the second my eyes had passed the last passage of the text.

    After which a lightning strike soared down the heavens and which, accompanied by a ear shattering boom, crashed right into the altar in front of me, which was instantly reduced to ash.

    The platform I stood on started to shake and soon thereafter I found entire bits of the steps below me crumble apart.

    I was left with barely any time to panic before only the platform I stood on remained. It didn''t take long though for even that to crumble apart and I soon found myself inevietable falling into the gaping abyss below.

    My scream was lost to the violent torrent of water and within the instance of a few heartbeats I found myself completely engulfed in darkness, left to fall for what felt like hours.

 Chapter 5: -

    Heyho dear viewers as I present to you chapter 5. Things are getting started and I hope you are as hyped as me. There will very likely be a few edits happening as to polish this chapter and I would appreciate helpful input as it took me countless rewrites to get this chapter to look the way I wanted it to and yet am still left with big questionmarks atop my head as im pondering how to further refine these clunky sentences. As result of this I have the next two chapters foundation alread laid out nicely though and only in need of furher editing to be completed, so look forward for them tomorrow or the day thereafter or the day thereafter or... you get my drift.

    Anyways, hope this turned out well, please enjoy.

    _______________________________________________________________________________

    I came to myself blinking rapidly.

    A fiery red sun hung up above me in the sky and sounding through the air was a single commanding voice.

    ¡°Ready. Draw. Fire!¡±

    I flinched at the sound of snapping wood all around me and stumbled into someone, after which an annoyed sounding voice told me to watch it.

    My eyes finally adjusted to the brightness and I finally managed to see what was happening around me, though I was left with more questions than answers afterwards..

    ''What the heck, no.... Where the heck is this and what the hell is going on?'' I wondered, trying to get a better view on my surrounding. Yet, only managed to see the sky above, filled with hundreds of arrows and the immediate area around me which was filled to the brim with men.

    And not any men, but knights, each and every one of them hidding his body beneath a medieval set of plate mail. Polished to glitter in a silver sheen and shimmering with the reflection of the sun. Not to mention the longbows which each of the surrounding knights held within his hands.

    Through a gap in between the knights'' heads I was able to make out a single imposing figure, standing at the very front of this formation and which I guessed to be some commander or general of sorts. As his attire greatly differentiated him from the common knights in my sight.

    The armor he wore was unlike theirs gracefully ornamented and had deep blue cloth peaking through numerous gaps within it.

    It became apparent that he really was a general, as he raised his left arm and shouted out aloud the same words uttered only moments before. His voice booming across the archers ranks with an intensity that swallowed all other sound.

    All the while they drew the strings of their bows back in perfect unison, raised the heads of their arrows up into the air and with the last command barked out aloud, released their holds. Sending a volley of arrows, which covered the sun for for the entirety of a second, to soar up into the sky and off into the distance, where they then made for their descend.

    ''None of these people have a health bar or a name tag attached to them.'' I realized, which made me wonder whether all these men were Npcs or maybe players like me. ''No way these are all players, at best there are more players scattered in between this bunch the same way I am.''

    Looking down upon myself I noted that I wore armor as well. The same shiny plate mail everyone else wore. Except I seemed to miss the bucket shaped helmet which all the other knights had firmly placed onto their head.

    ''Welp, at least I have a weapon.''

    While raising my left hand as to get a better look at the longsword that was sheathed and strapped onto my belt, I also took note of the kite shield that was strapped onto my left arm.

    ''Neat, this will come in handy for... whatever is happening here.''

    By knocking against its surface and listening to the sound it made I could confirm that it was indeed made of wood, though that left me to question its durability.

    ''And this armor... will it actually repel attacks? It looks like proper armor alright and its heavy as one. Surely enemy attacks won''t just phase through it or anything of that like though, right?''

    After all Mr. Miyamoto had explained that every object and every ''thing'' within Second Life had been coded up to the smallest detail. Surely they had made sure that mass, weight and density of an object was to affect and interact with its surrounding.

    Back in Lands of Arcania Online this hadn''t been the case and armor actually had no other function but to reduce received damage. It was why many people sought to avoid heavy armor, as it decreased a players speed and agility, causing it to be an armor class exclusively used by so called tanks.

    A tank being a player who had taken it upon himself to soak up damage for his allies and whose job it was to keep enemies attention affixed onto himself. Though tanks had become a rarity these days as the fewest people were willing to bear the limited, yet partially still intense pain that came along with the virtual reality experience. Which I had never minded though, as I seemed to have a relative high pain tolerance by nature.

    I had taken a liking to tanking back in Lands of Arcania Online and I was intending to follow the same path within this game, which was why this question was extremely important for me.

    It would have a huge impact on my playstyle were armor to actually act as it would within the real world, which I assumed to be the case since the CEO couldn''t stress it enough as to how life like everything was supposed to be within his game. I was especially hoping for my assumption to be correct because that would make it a lot easier for me to keep up with all the martial artists that had sprouted from the ground like weed the second VR-games had made their appearance.

    I myself had never been a good fighter by nature, my reaction speed and sword skills only average and my body control nowhere near what others, especially younger players, could pull off these days. Not to mention that I was way to lazy to practice on a daily basis, which was why I had sought out a more fitting playstyle not relying on brawn but brains instead.

    I took pride in my ability to outwit others and while I wasn''t cheeky enough to call myself a genius or anything of the like, I still believed myself to be quite clever. Which combined with the wide array of control skills a tank usually had at his hands, allowed me to often turn around seemingly lost fights even when facing off against more skilled opponents.

    ''So, let''s find out then, shall I.''

    Without batting an eye and eager to confirm my assumption I went on to draw my sword, after which I drove it tip first down and right into my foot.

    No matter how real this game seemed, in the end it was still just a game and I wasn''t as delicate as to shy away from a bit of virtual discomfort in exchange for such crucial information.

    Ignoring the questioning gazes which were thrown my way, I couldn''t help but shout in joy as I found my former assumption confirmed.

    Without causing me even the slightest bit of pain, the blade had been easily deflected and only left a tiny scratch on the surface of my greaves. Thus causing me to believe that my armor had completely nullified all damage, though I couldn''t confirm this assumption as my sight was also devoid of any visual indicators to tell me what my health percentage was at.

    Happy with my discovery I now found myself pondering another question though.

    What would be able to penetrate my armor?

    Surely maces and blunt weapons of the like were still a huge threat to me, right? After all those sort of weapons were especially designed for fighting armored enemies. Axes could also cause a problem, I guessed, as I believed them to have the potential power and especially mass necessary to pierce through armor, though, since I had never been hit by a real axe before, this was all just me guessing.

    ''I bet I will find out sooner than I wish.''

    For now I had to find a way out of this crowd. Since, besides the fact that I hated crowds, the noise of the constant arrow volleys threatened to drive me insane. I would need some space to think, not to mention that I had to get a clue as to where I was and what the heck was going on.

    Yet, still, I couldn''t help but worry as I sheathed my sword again. If whatever we were shooting at wore as much armor as we did, this was bound to be a long day.

    ''No way I am killing a freaking knight with this toothpick. I would be lucky already If I managed to dent somebodies armor with this thing. Man... why couldn''t they hand us some proper weapons... swords are so goddamn useless.''

    The last thing I did before making my way through the mass of knights, was to confirm that I could effectively hide my entire upper body behind my shield. With which I then proceeded to push my way through the rows of men behind me.

    Soon and many angry shouts thereafter, I found myself in the back-lines of the crowd, which made it a lot easier to move since there were far less people lingering about back here.

    I halted as to catch my breath, when my eyes fell onto the notched battlement reaching out of the stone floor, making me realize that I stood far up above the ground and atop a wall.

    Taking in a deep breath and leaning over and into a nook of the nearby battlement, I prepared for the worst. Though nothing could have prepared me for the sight I was left to behold.

    ''Holy -''

    Far off in the distance and stretching vertically up into the sky, stood a mighty citadel, erected up atop a mountains flat top. The likes of which I hadn''t even dreamed about.

    Multiple towers and spires stretched out of its white, Gothic structure and reached far into the sky. Though three of its majestic, winding spires towered above all else and even pierced the clouds up above the construct. Seemingly holding them in place.

    A city, which was split into seven districts, rested beneath its feet. Each district placed at a different height as they had been build atop seven different plateaus which surrounded the mountain citadel.

    And, encircling this entire place was an enormous wall. The one I currently found myself standing on.

    About five hundred meters to the left, stood a high and pointy spire and the same distance away to the right was a wide and flat tower. It would seem that I would have to reach either one of them if I planned to get to a different segment of the wall or if I wanted to get to the bottom off it and into the city below.

    ''So, let''s straighten things out a bit. That weird voice before has told me I need to prove myself... so this is some sort of test, I guess? But what for? Am I to slay a certain amount of enemies? Is this perhaps just a tutorial? Am I to hold these walls for a set amount of time? Or is this a quest for survival? Urgh... what the heck, at least tell me what you want me to do here!''

    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    For the next few minutes I kept reviewing my situation, but came to no conclusions even after viewing it from all possible angels. Yet, I became sure that fleeing into the city would be my worst possible move, as I found it likely that I was supposed to fight. After all, what would I prove by fleeing an oncoming battle?

    ''That''s right, nothing. I''ll stay and fight!''

    Not to mention that for me this was pretty much a dream come true.

    Fighting a epic battle atop a massive castle? Hell yeah!

    How often would anyone get a chance like this in their lives. The mere thought caused my entire body to tremble in excitement.

    After all I was a gamer at heart and lived for this type of challenge.

    ''Bring it game!'' I thought, while making my way towards the other side of the wall, eager to see as to what sort of enemy I was to face. ''Give me your best shot!''

    This time I didn''t push through the middle of the knights ahead of me but kept walking towards the tower while keeping close to the battlement, prefering its open top instead of the completely enclosed spire.

    I eventually reached a less crowded spot, between two battalions, where it was easier for me to push through their ranks. I still managed to cause quite the uproar though and dozen of archers threw bewildered looks and enraged shouts my way.

    Obviously I wasn''t supposed to disturb their formation and walk around as I pleased, which became even more apparent as I breached the last line of men and trespassed onto the unoccupied area at the front atop the wall-walk. Which apparently was reserved for generals to take their position across and in front of their battalions.

    Yet, even though the two closest generals turned to look at me and both their faces distorted into enraged grimaces, they ignored me. Probably because commanding their forces took priority.

    Lowering my head I could feel heat rising to my cheeks, yet tried my best to ignore the stares as I pushed forward, where I then leaned through the notch in the battlement. Upon which my entire body froze up.

    ''Well fuck you too game... What the heck...''

    Revealed to me were the sheer endless plains resting before the city gates, which stretched out all the way to the horizon. Though it was not the beauty of the plains that caused cold sweat to gather on my forehead, but the fact that the entirety of the landscape ahead of me was filled to the brim with what appeared to be hundred of thousands of men. All marching slowly but surely towards the city.

    The initial shock slowly turned to disbelieve and then to horror. The size of the invading army was greater than anything I would have ever dared to imagine and no matter how I looked at this situation, there appeared to be no way for us to have a chance at winning the upcoming battle. Prove for this was the fact that, even though hundreds of men fell every second under the constant downpour of arrows, we barely appeared to scratch their numbers, as each fallen man was instantly replaced by another.

    What truly caused all the color of my face to drain until I became as pale as a ghost though, was not the sheer size of the enemies army, but the war machinery that they had brought along. They had siege turrets, catapults, rams and more, dozen if not even hundreds of them.

    I started counting the siege turrets heading our way but was almost instantly interrupted by a sight that left all emotions within me to be overshadowed by panic.

    Off in the distance I spotted hundreds of flaming boulders soaring up into the sky and coming right at us. Each one of the projectiles drawing a flaming streak behind it through the air.

    I couldn''t tell you as to why our enemies had set their projectiles aflame or how they did it, but it definitely looked impressive.  And there also wasn''t any time left to ponder the question, as the boulders came flying fast.

    With no second to spare I threw myself onto the ground and behind the battlement, my hands covering my head, all the while the generals atop the wall were barking out more orders.

    A few heartbeats later a multitude of deafening explosions boomed through the air, shaking the ground beneath me and leaving the entire wall to violently tremble. All the hile I held my eyes closed, knowing fully well that were a boulder to head my way I would have no chance to react anyways.

    After a few dozen of seconds the trembling wall came to a rest and only far in the distance did an occasional explosion still go off. Meanwhile I was trying my best to stand up, when I opened my eyes again to behold the chaos that had ensued everywhere before me.

    Big gaping craters were strewn across the entire wall and in its wake only countless disfigured corpses left to decorate the surrounding areas. All the while the remaining knights had abandoned their formations and were now either running for their life or remaining frozen in place. Though there was also a small group of knights under the lead of a general, which had remained in order and were now taking up formation all along the battlement.

    I was astonished by their discipline, when suddenly I found myself engulfed within a shadow, upon which I raised my head and witnessed the last boulder making its descend.

    Luckily it wasn''t going my way but drifted off further to my right. It seemed as if it would simply pass over the wall, which would have left it to smash right on top of the city behind us, but it instead crashed right into the middle of the spire that had lead onto the next wall segment, about five hundred meters away from me.

    A light flared up within the spire, when only a single heartbeat thereafter the entirety of its frame was send flying everywhere, as a massive, fiery red and dome shaped explosion went off inside of it.

    ''Really? Flaming boulders that explode... Sheech, well I am not going that way, that''s for sure.'' I thought as I stood crouched beneath and clinging onto the battlement, the heart within my chest beating faster than it ever had before. Though, soon thereafter panic froze me up again.

    The spire before me had the entirety of its frame not turned to dust, but ripped apart as to rain down onto the heads of the people beneath it. Hundreds of panicking voices all around me screamed. ¡°Run.¡± And I was left with no second to spare as, within the instant of a single heartbeat, the entirety of the crowd before me transformed into a raging torrent of fleeing people.

    A primal survival instinct within me welled up and told me to follow the masses, but luckily I remained unable to move, which turned out to save my life.

    Countless pieces of debris crashed onto the wall all around me and right into the midst of the fleeing masses. It was a horrible sight to behold as one person after another got turned into a bloody puddle beneath a rock, though that still wasn''t quite as bad as seeing multiple people getting shredded apart by smaller, cannon ball like stone projectiles.

    Fountains of blood erupted from within the masses of people, dying everything in their reach in a deep crimson red, all the while the ear piercing screams of hundreds and more dying men sounded out from all across the wall.

    I could only watch in horror as dozens of people died within the blink of an eye either ripped apart or crushed, all the while dozen more knights were trampled to death beneath the feet of their comrads.

    Though the worst of it all happened, when the biggest fragment yet crashed onto the wall. Not only did it instantly flatten an entire battalion beneath it, but it also proceeded to slide across the wall-walk, leaving only a giant streak of blood and crushed corpses to litter in its wake.

    Within a few seconds our numbers across this wall segment had been reduced to at least half the former amount, less even if counting all the injured men with one or more holes within their bodies as already dead. Though they were still screaming and begging for mercy as of now.

    Unfaced with the massacre unfolding before my eyes I slowly  managed to rise to my feet, my legs still wobbly under the weight of my body even though all the tremors had long since passed. What had shocked me weren''t the gory deaths of my fellow comrades or the sight they had left behind, but the speed with which those men had lost their lifes. Which left me to feel exposed and vulnerable.

    My eyes came to a rest on the area where moments before the giant spire had stood, watching, just as the last bits of the spire crumbled apart and fell onto the city streets below. All the noise around me was suddenly drowned beneath an earth shattering boom, as the entire upper section of the wall followed suit.

    Where moments before the giant spire had stood was now a gargantuan gaping crack splitting the wall. Which left a mountain of debris and rubble to form a somewhat climbable path across and into the city behind it. Dust rose and slowly started to engulf the top of the wall, leaving me to cough for breath as I narrowed my eyes in an attempt to still see anything clearly.

    ''Seriously?''

    I was left with no other choice but to move on and out of this cloud, preferable towards where the last remaining tower stood, through which I would be able to reach different areas across this battlefield. My death was ensured were I to fight this bound to be lost battle without the possibility to retreat. The amount of incomming enemies leaving me with no hope as to whether we would be able to hold back their ranks for long with what few knights had survived.

    ''We have to all gather at that tower and defend it with our lives, only then will there be a possibility for us to hold our grounds.''

    Suddenly a clattering sound came from the other side of the battlement and I realized that the enemy had reached us and by the looks of it their ladders had, too.

    Adrenaling flooded my brain and I could feel the blood rushing through my body at a crazy pace, my heart going upsolutely nuts.

    ''Let the games begin.'' I thought. My sword already unsheated and resting in my right hand. ''And may I not have survived this carnage just to find a disgraceful death along the way. Let this be a battle I can brag to Alice about.''

 Chapter 6:-

    Edited the chapter making it readable... Note to self, stop writing instead of sleeping. Enjoy.

    _________________________________________________________________________________

    Far away, in an entirely different realm even, hundreds of entities were watching as the spectacle across the battleground of the gods unfolded.

    They were like whispering voices in the wind, not one of these entities present with an actual body. Instead they appeared as glistering shadows and shades, without any consistence or shape to them. Standing huddled into small groups and strewn all across the realm.

    Within their midst stood a wide array of pillars, surrounding a raised platform. The other shapes seemed to fear that area, as not one dared to gather anywhere near the construct.

    Atop the raised platform rested five much more refined shades, their figures unlike the others blended with color and their forms constantly shifting as to appear in numerous shapes.

    One of these shapes chuckled, causing two of the others to turn their facial features towards it.

    ¡°What is so funny. Your stupid trial has already decimated more than half of the chosen without even giving them a chance to show off their skills. How are we even supposed to grade those individuals now?¡±

    A female voice had spoken, each and every one of her words having been accompanied by the echos of thousands of merry laughter. Where after the chuckling figure turned silent for just a second.

    This shade, which appeared in its entirety bland and gray, turned its head to lock the two bottomless holes within its facial frame onto the shape with the female voice, whose frame was surrounded by hundreds of butterflies, which glistered in all the colors of the rainbow.

    ¡°Listen Love.¡± It said with a male voice, which seemed as thick as honey and overflowing with mockery. ¡°This first trial was a test of chance and those that have failed it neither had the luck nor the wits to be worthy our attention. Luck is crucial in any aspect of life and they won''t ever make it far without any. So instead of mouthing off you should be thanking me, since I have successfully weeded out all the worthless garbage already. Now if we could all focus our attention onto the remaining forty-seven survivors.¡±

    His words caused a frown to appear on the few facial features Love had and her gaze, which shone with the reflection of youth and innocence, affixed onto him.

    ¡°As always your mind is a work of art Fate.¡± Love said. ¡°How is raining down dirt onto our chosen a good way to prove their usefulness. Luck, pff... Aren''t you supposed to be the one that sends the mortals to tread their already laid out paths? One would think that you were in opposition with anything based upon chance.¡±

    Fate laughed out aloud at this statement and his bland features flared up with a majestic golden hue.

    ¡°This just proves how young and ignorant you still are Love. Have you already forgotten that I am part of the Divine pantheon of Luck? Just how could there be destiny without chance, you of all people should know this. After all, life is like a web whose each and every threads are intertwined yet lead into countless directions. Just because there is a set direction into which life may carry you, there is no right or wrong as to what path these ignorant mortals may seek to wander.¡±

    Loves frame lit up in a reddish tone as Fate''s words drove a wave of embarrassment through her mind and she turned her back towards him, to proud to admit her wrongs.

    ¡°Enough.¡± Sounded a voice across the realm, which was no more than a hollow whisper, yet still caused each and every entity to instantly turn silent. All eyes were now affixed onto the dark, gargantuan shape which had spoken and from whose dark frame hundreds of black tendrils emerged. Only its head holding a faint resemblance with what would appear to be a humanoid skull. ¡°We shall see whether Fate has made a folly or not, though I expect there to be no more unnecessary deaths. And Fate.¡± Death''s hollow eye sockets came to a rest atop of Fate''s now shrinking figure. ¡°You will do well to refrain from uttering my wife''s name a third time.¡±

    There was no spoken threat, yet the entire realm had grown tense at Death''s words which couldn''t be interpreted as anything but a warning. Were Fate to posses an organic body he surely would have found himself covered with cold sweat, as Death''s words drove like a knife through his mind.

    The white illuminating figure next to Death moved, which caused the countless light tendrils protruding out from her facial features to shift around her frame in a similar fashion as to how hair moved when emerged in water.

    Grabbing a hold of her husband''s hand Life now spoke up. ¡°Calm now dear. I am sure Fate only had the best intentions and simply wished to refresh Love''s memories. Though she should have long since burned this knowledge into her mind. But none of that now, look, our remaining lambs are gathering their strength. Oh how cute they all are, just look at their souls, flickering with the will to life. Except... Say dear, what do you think of that one? Yes, the sick looking one... He... Oh my... How sad.¡±

    Hundreds of shades let out relieved breaths, as Life''s voice, which was filled with harmony and which resembled an angelic chorus, washed through the realm while filling it with light. Even Death''s features softened after listening to her and upon her last statement he turned his attention towards the mortal in question.

    The other deities also followed suit, though each and every one of them had their attention resting atop different individuals, though only the fewest regarded the mortals with any actual interest. If there were bound to be a promising bunch the higher deities atop their honor seat were bound to snatch them away anyways.

    ¡°Hmm... Interesting.¡± Death said, his eyes locked onto Sascha''s soul. ¡±That mortal seems hollow to the core, except for...¡±

    ¡°... an all consuming flame of love.¡± Love whispered. ¡°How weird...¡±

    . . . . . . . . . . . .

    Meanwhile, in a realm known as the battleground of the gods, I found myself still engulfed within the dust cloud. My throat was sore and burned and I was coughing whilst desperately trying to fill my lungs with air. My eyes were burning, too and I made sure to keep them closed as I drew one last breath, which filled my throat with yet another burst of pain, all the while I stumbled forward.

    It didn''t take me long to grab a hold of the battlement and knowing that I was currently facing the army, I hurried to move towards my left, where off in the distance the remaining tower stood.

    I finally managed to escape the cloud soon thereafter and collapsed with no energy left in my body onto the floor. Simply resting atop the blood drenched and boiling ground, I gasped for breath and coughed my lungs out at the same time. The opposing motions leaving me to also start retching.

    A few spasm thereafter and  the first wave of enemies jumped across the battlements, the ladders they had climbed standing about ten meters apart from each other, which meant...

    My eyes darted across their ranks and I guessed that at least three hundred people had just landed atop the wall and that was only the very first wave, too. Not to mention that more than two hundred warriors had found their timely end as soon as they emerged from beneath the ladders and way to close to the gathered forces by the tower.

    With our decimated numbers we would barely be able to fend off this enormous army with the tower behind our back. Sadly though I was still standing in the middle section of the walls segment and not just me, but numerous of our forces were still scattered across its entirety.

    A chill ran down my spine as I realized that I was bound to die soon.

    ''No, not yet. If we hurry and gather our... we... could mabe still push through, before the next wave arrives.''

    With no time to waist. I arose and filled my lungs with air. And drawing my blood covered sword into the air I shouted out as loud as I could. ¡°Everyone, the enemy is upon us. Follow my voice, we have to gather by the tower! Run towards me!¡±

    Several faint dark shadows within the dust cloud halted in their steps, then, as I shouted the same words out again, slowly made their way towards me.

    Soon I had gathered about thirty survivors around me and the numbers continued to grow. Each knight was thankful as they had only managed to escape the inconspicuous death mist by following the direction of my voice, though I wished their thanks did not necessarily include the hits they placed onto my backs.

    Suddenly, the dust cloud turned dark as an entire row off shadows stepped out from within it.

    It was the former battalion I had seen before the spires collapse. I was able to tell because the ranks of knights were lead by the same general that had lead said battalion. The three streaked claw scar across his left eyeball clearly visible even beneath the eye-patch that he wore. which made him easily discernable even with his entire armor covered in dust.

    The man approached me and recognition shimmered in his eyes as his gaze came to a halt atop of me. ¡°You, soldier. Was it you who gathered these men?¡± He asked, his voice hitting me with the intensity of a sand filled iron bat as it missed any of the expected gratitude.

    ¡°Err... sur- I mean, yes Sir. It was me, Sir.¡± I responded, while I took a straight stance and rose my head as to no longer cross gazes with the battle hardened veteran.

    Still, from the corner of my eyes I saw a grin grow on the mans scarred face. ¡°Well done soldier. You saved my mens'' and my life. But let''s not waste any more time.¡± He patted me onto my shoulder and passed me with big steps as he took position at the front of the gathered survivors. Where he then roared out aloud as to swallow all other sound. ¡°Attention soldiers! There are about four-hundred meters between us and safety and about the same amount of enemies in between us. But fear not, we are not yet doomed. Take up formation, two rows of archers at the front who will shoot in circles and shield bearers at their back. Let those bastards taste our arrows as we fall into their backs and make sure to stand in between them and our archers when the time comes to engage them head on!¡±

    His commands were clear and very reasonable, though his tactic wasn''t especially great and mostly relied on us not dying, as of now it was still the best way to apprach this fight though. It took less than a minute for our now hundred-and-some men to form their ranks and I found myself in the midst of the first row of knights. Before me gathered two rows of archers whom I would have to protect were the enemy to engage us.

    ''Well, that''s just the job for me.'' I thought and was happy to have gathered these men around me. With a bit of luck reaching the tower didn''t seem all that impossible anymore.

    ¡°Move!¡±

    We marched forward in formation, though the occasional craters and those countless corpses which littered all across the ground, made it hard to remain in order half of the time. Not even mentioning that the entirety of the wall was drenched in blood and guts, making its entire surface extremely slippery. At parts we even had to form lines to get across especially damaged instances of the wall, which slowed us down considerable, though we still reached the enemy sooner than later.

    ¡°Ready! Draw! Fire!¡± The commander belowed, as soon as we had gotten order among our own ranks again and I watched with joy as the first volley of arrows took out a couple dozen of enemies ahead of us. The second row of archers already stepping up and past the first, upon which the second hail of arrows was released.

    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    Again a couple of dozen of enemies died and I was also finally able to inspect them further, though I was left surprised as to how barbaric and savage they appeared.

    The warriors  hid their bodies beneath furs and covered their face with hoods bearing the shape of different animal faces, while mostly featuring canine maws. Which was also the reason why the died so easily, as their fur seemed to increase their physical resistances only minimal and only the fewest of them wore big, round and wooden shields. Also the bits of their faces which peaked out from beneath the hoods were either bearded, or tattooed with colorful and angular tribal patterns.

    The sight of their canine fur hoods made me remember the images decorating the altar from before and suddenly this whole situation made a little more sense to me, as I could finally draw a connection between the events that had lead up to this point.

    ''So these guys are those wolf-like creatures I have seen on the altar and we are the knights. And this must be the wall from the ornaments, too. So that altar was some sort of gateway to this place, I guess?''

    Our ranks had come to a halt by now and multiple of our own were send out to get rid of the ladders still docked onto the wall in our immediate surrounding. Our arrows rained onto the enemies constantly, but without any sense of self preservation the barbaric men still kept pushing our way now, though the biggest poll of their numbers still remained by the tower where they fought against the there gathered forces.

    ¡°Get ready, shields to the front, archers pull back and aim your shots high¡±

    The two rows of archers ahead of me thinned out as they streamed to the sides and made space for me and the others to push forward. The enemies were still a good hundred meter ahead of us, but the timely formation swap allowed us to properly prepare ourselves. I tried to adjust my footing on the ground and raised my shield, my heart beating fast and adrenaline slowly flooding into my brain again. While other knights hurried to stack the closest corpses atop each other about three meters before our ranks.

    My palms grew sweaty as the enemies closed in and with a primal war cry I jumped forward and into the man ahead of me. My shield met the incoming man mid charge and the impact send him slipping across the floor into which he then smashed face first. Keeping my balance and my enemies spot now unoccupied, I didn''t miss my chance to strike at the next barbarian already pushing forward to replace the fallen man. Focusing all the strength in my body into my right arm and moving my upper body and waist in accordance to my slashes, I kept on relentlessly hacking away at the enemy ahead of me. Each slash drawing a deep gush into and through the barbarians body.

    It didn''t even take more than three swings to bring the man down, though my victory was short lived as the next man already stepped up to replace his fallen comrade.

    This one appeared somewhat more experienced than the former, as he effectively tried to faint me with a left twitch of his shoulder, but instead shot forward to bury his axe in my exposed right side. Yet, I didn''t even bat an eye at his tricks. I had a shield and knew how to use it and a puny dead angling attempt such as this nothing but childsplay.

    Stepping up with my left while pushing my left shoulder forward I placed my shield in between me and the incoming axe and even though the clash caused the entirety of my forearm to grow numb, I was left with a big opportunity to strike.

    Bitch-slapping the savage across the face with the edge of my shield I forced him back, upon which I lunged forward as to plunge my sword into his chest.

    My sword easily penetrated the man''s furs and buried itself deep within his chest, going deeper and deeper inside him while pulling me along. Yet, to my surprise, the man hadn''t died from just that and though he had dropped his axe, held onto life with the last bit of a fight still within him.

    The impaled savage grabbed onto my sword with both hands as he tried to stop it from entering him any deeper, though his actions might as well have been a panicked reaction to being impaled. As, in the end, this turned out to be a terrible mistake.

    By driving my foot into the man''s torso I managed to successfully dislodge my sword from his chest, after which three... no, seven fingers went flying through the air. The man screamed, pain and despair filling his voice, though it didn''t prevail much longer as I cut his throat only a few seconds thereafter.

    ''Two enemies down three-hundred-ninety-eight left.''

    The incoming stream of enemies now knew more dense and I couldn''t hold my position for much longer as I was slowly but surely forced into my own ranks. Squeezed shoulder to shoulder together with my allies I found myself unable to retaliate to any of the incoming attacks which rained in a constant onslaught onto me, as there simply was absolutely no space with which to work with. All I could do instead was keep my shield up, poke my sword forward from beneath it and pray.

    Another powerful shook drove through my shield arm and into my shoulder once again , leaving my already numb side to burn up with pain. When suddenly a mind freezing and stinging pain exploded in my right side, after the instance of a few heartbeats I could feel a warm liquid flowing down my waist and I knew, I had been wounded. With a quick look down I confirmed my worries and indeed found an enemies blade to be deeply lodged into me. The lucky bastard who wielded it had hit right into one of the few gaps in between my armor.

    The blade was pulled out and a gasp escaped me as the pain burned up stronger than before. Twenty percent pain reception? What a joke. I was shocked at the fact that the pain did not recede, but instead appeared to grow worse as time moved on.

    Again shoulders bashed into me and I was pushed aside, which left me wide open for another attack, though the sword hitting my exposed chest did naught but leave a dent within my armor, yet I could still feel the impact through.

    ¡°You... God... Damn... Bastards!¡± I huffed out in between burning gasps, struggling to get back onto my feet. ¡°Get... The... Fuck... Away... From me!¡± I roared out the last bit''s and pushed with all the force in my body as I drove my shield into the enemy before me. Left and right limbs and weapons glistered as they drove past my head and every thought, every feeling, simply everything within me grew silent as I switched into an autopilot like state.

    Raising my right arm up into the air I gave the handle of my sword a twirl, grabbing ahold of it in a reversed grip, after which I then started to madly drive my arm down into the enemy ranks, again and again. No minute later I found myself drenched in the blood of more than five people, as I kept on jumping shield first into the rows ahead of me, catching any and all attacks with my body without even caring anymore, all the while I kept on punching every face in reach with my shield.

    The fewest of the barbarians actually had other weapons besides swords and axes, though those they had in all sizes and variations. Yet, as they found themselves just as squeezed in between their masses as we did, they barely had enough space to swing their weapons with the necessary force to penetrate my plate mail. Only a handful of attacks I received actually managed to wound me and the few attacks that actually went past my shield and towards my head I still managed to catch with my gloves or sword, though I still bore numerous scratches all along my features.

    All the while I continued to penetrate one warrior after another, all around me. Their defenses way to weak to prove any hindrance to my blindly descending blade and their forces way to crowded to allow them to dodge. Yet, only the fewest of the people I hit actually died after being impaled, though the second and third hit usually got the job done.

    Hours must have passed and by the time my clouded mind cleared up again I found myself encircled by corpses, the entirety of my body and attire covered in both, my own and the blood of my enemies.

    I couldn''t locate the countless wounds across my body anymore, as the fading adrenaline turned it''s entirety into a fiery sea of pain.

    My sword dropped onto the ground as I barely managed to remain standing on my wobbly knees and my eyes darted around, searching for the next enemy. Yet, I only found myself surrounded by hundreds of shimmering reflections. Had we won?

    We had, as apparently the forces gathered at the tower had managed to decimated the enemies after whe had successfully held them entraped in between our ranks. In the meanwhile the cheers of hundreds of knights arose from all around me.

    All the while I carried myself slowly towards the battlement. More than half of our men had fallen and I felt as if I was about to follow them,  though that was a small prize to pay in exchange for four hundred plus slain enemies.

    ''Hope I got a good grade for this performance, otherwise I am gonna be real pissed...''

    Yet, I knew that I had only managed to survive this far thanks to my superior equipment. Had any of the enemies worn any sort of iron mail, we would have been doomed.

    ¡°Well fought soldier. Your charge has raised the mens'' vigor and may have won us the battle. Though I see you didn''t quite get out of there unharmed."

    I blinked my eyes open to stare into the scarred visage of the general, a new wound now covering his cheek. The man surprised me as he grabbed a hold of me and pulled my arm across his shoulders, a second soldier soon came to his aid and I was carried towards the tower which now rested only a few meters before us.

    Though I started constantly stepping in an out of awareness, I still managed to see the allied ranks, which stood in position before the tower and which welcomed us with open arms.

    I felt multiple iron encased hands clap onto my shoulders, which drove multiple waves of pain through my body, though I was already at a point where only numbness seemed to prevail through my frame and I no longer took note of anything else.

    We breached through the line of men soon thereafter and I didn''t take long until we entered the tower at the segments end. Within I saw countless injured men strewn across the ground on provisional mats, the entirety of the room filled with screams and pleas for mercy.

    Blood drenched people with saws and other likewise tools raced from one place to another and I watched in horror as a similar looking girl approached me.

    ¡°So what do we have here?¡± She said, her voice sounding way to cheerful for the given circumstances. My eyes refusing to close as long as this girl kept waving the blood soaked meat-cleaver within her hand.

    ¡°This man is a hero, make sure to patch him up properly will you, I think he prefers to die with his blade in his hand rather than of blood loss, isn''t that right boy?¡±

    I stared at the general for just a second and had difficulties to process and make sense of his words, yet I still managed to stammer out a broken and weak sounding. ¡°Yes, Sir.¡± After which I drifted off into unconsciousness.

 Chapter 7: -

    Okay we are getting closer and closer to the actual game and I wanted to use this chance to say something concerning these last few chapters. Also, hi to the few new follower of my story, I am happy to have you and hope you can enjoy my story.

    <b>Spoiler</b> : <input type=''button'' value=''Show'' class=''spoilerButton''>First of all, I wanted to say sorry for the short and few fights. I am sure you expected a bit more when I started this whole ''battlefield'' scenario, I did too, really. But, I realized shortly after starting these chapters, that a normal human fighting atop a normal battlefield is really rather boring to discribe and would just drag these chapters to the length. After all I am not a writer who likes his protagonist to be a martial arts legends unheard of even in the heavens, at least not in the beginning of the plot. And, people doing casual backflips over enemies or slashing through hundreds of enemies at ease or doing some crazy anchorman spin-moves... that''s not what an ordinary person does, a ordinary person just up and dies after having killed a maximum of two soldiers in a real battle and which is what I tried to portray in these chapters instead.

    So instead of making Sascha a OP-(curse word), I tried to show that he is quite capable at keeping himself alive, though at this point I am not sure whether I succeeded at that. Or rather, I am quite sure that I did not succeed. But I am still just starting, there''s still lots of improvements I can and will make, so i hope you will stick around regardless and help me to do so. And, I promise, that once I become an actual good writer and have ascended beyond the realm of grammatical incorrection, I definietly will return and edit these chapters and especially these fights to be a lot cooler and read-worthy. Till then I hope you will still enjoy the show.

    Aaaand third of all, anyone got some good idea for chapter names? I freaking suck at naming something in less than 8 hours, hot damn, it took me months to find a name for my protagonist. I can''t name these chapters on my own so.... Please help me (T-T).

    Also, though I didn''t quite to do what I wanted to with these chapters, they still do have their reason for being here, so don''t think I am just stalling or something.

    Now, second of all, I am sorry for these time jumps. I only just now realized that every single chapter is a time jump which ist probably not helping the flow of my story and I would love if anyone could give me a few tips or alternatives as to how I should go about this instead.

    Last thing now. I heard somewhere that after a stories 10th chapter one gets a thread where his story can be discussed and stuff. So I wanted to ask whether people would want like... a Q&A thread or anything of the like. If so do tell please or any other ideas you might have.

    Also, one last note as to get people hyped, next chappie shall be boss chappie. I''ll try to make that one as good as possible (*cough* not promising anything *cough*) so stick around for that.

    Nice day to you all and-

    ~Peace out.

    _____________________________________________________________________

    There was no way to tell how much time had passed since I had entered my capsule back in the real world. It could have been hours, or even days, though if I were to trust the day and night circle within the game, five days must have passed.

    I was currently resting on the wide open platform at the top the tower, leaning against the battlement and stuffing my pipe with tobacco. Each a gift by a knight whose life I had saved on the first day.

    Up above me in the cloudless night sky glistened countless stars and I tried my hardest to blend out the voices of the dozen knights all around me. Only the fewest of them actually on look-out for enemies.

    Left with nothing else to do but to tell the heroic tales of their daily achievements they gathered here after their shifts, just like me, though there were enough worried fathers among their midst to cause every conversation to eventually turn depressing. Which was exactly why I stayed clear of these groups.

    Ever since yesterday they just couldn''t help themselves but to constantly talk and worry about the countless smoke columns that had been rising from the third city plateau. Although this kind of grief and sorrow had persisted ever since day one, as the first two plateaus had been almost instantly overrun.

    ''Well at least the constant crying inside the tower has stopped.'' I thought as I lighted my pipe.

    Though I couldn''t resent these men for worrying about their life and the life of their families. After all, unlike me, they actually lived in this world and could also die in here.

    The thought drove a stake of pain through my heart.

    ''Who am I to judge a crying father who has lost both, his family and his home and is about to lose his own life, too.''

    The only reason we were still alive was because the tower was easy to defend and we had gathered within it by the hundredth. Yet still, with each passing day I awoke between fewer men than the day before, all the while the enemies before our door only grew stronger and stronger.

    I knew we wouldn''t be able to hold out much longer, which was exactly why I tried to gather as much information as I could, while I was still stuck in this trial.

    Were it not for the countless clues I could gather during the daily fights I would have long since committed suicide to get out of this place already, or would at least have left my capsule just once. The thought of Alice all on her own drove me almost mad with worry and by now I hated every second that I was stuck here and which left me unable to go looking for her.

    ''Might as well make the best out of it.''

    I blew a cloud of smoke from my mouth as I repeated everything that had happened since day one once again, careful as to not forget or leave anything out. After all I had literally paid with blood and sweat to get a hold of these information.

    When I had awoken from my unconsciousness I had been surprised to find myself still alive within the game and mostly healed. Though that was less due to the bandaging and care-taking of the healers, but rather because my body apparently healed on it''s own if left alone for enough time. Though, that still didn''t leave me with enough time to recover in between fights and the more serious wounds on my body, which I had received on day one, still persisted to haunt me.

    For example, I still had a deep oozing gash running along and just above my hip on my right side, where on the first day an axe had penetrated my armor. It had healed enough to no longer send me staggering to my knees upon contact, which allowed me to finally wear my armor again, but it still caused me constant pain.

    I didn''t mind it though, the constant pain was a perfect reminder off my folly of the first day and since then I had learned from my mistakes. A whole lot actually.

    Sure, my reckless charge had made short work of most enemies at that time, but it would have been my end had I to faced one of the enemies that were coming at us these days.

    Instead of becoming a sitting duck within my own front line, I had learned to move in sync with my comrades. Which made it a whole lot easier to fight within the confined space of the front lines.

    While, during the first day, I had just constantly received hit after hit without the ability to retaliate, I now found myself swaying back and forward in a constant rhythm together with the knights at my sides. Which allowed us to tank the hits as we moved back and then to effectively return them as we shot forth in unison.

    The fur covered barbarians we had been fighting on day one no longer proved any challenge to me the second I had figured this out, though they had been replaced shortly thereafter by better armed warriors whose equipment was only sub-par to our own.

    Most of these new enemies bore a striking resemblance with vikings, as they had horned helmets atop their heads and the viking typical round shields, also they wore proper armor now. Though it didn''t cover their entire body the same way our plate mail did and only provided partial protection for areas such as their chests, arms and legs. Yet, that was already enough to make them a whole lot harder to kill and very good target practice as I had been forced to learn how to attack precisely, even when fighting within a moving crowd.

    Also, ever since I had slain my one hundredth enemy, I had been able to see enemies health bars and name tags above their heads.

    Apparently these barbarians we were fighting were so called [Warriors of the North], who were further sub-divided into the categories [Young-], [Hardened-] and [Veteran-]. Only the fewest enemies actually being veterans, which was good since those were incredibly tough to kill. Not only because of their equipment, but because they had thrice the health of a [Young Warrior of the North].

    The young warriors actually only had twelve Hit-Points, or short Hp, but my sword only dealt around three to six damage depending on how and where I hit them. Which made the thirty-six Hp veteran warriors a pain in the ass to deal with.

    Yet, ever since I was able to see Health-Bars, I had made an entire multitude of new discoveries as to how different game mechanics worked. The most important being critical hits and health distribution.

    Critical hits weren''t very complicated to get a grasp on, as they worked the same way as they did within Lands of Arcania Online. You simply had to hit the enemy in a weak spot such as the head, the throat, their armpit, heart and so on, which would result in a critical hit that would deal double the damage. This on its own wasn''t very breathtaking, but combined with the health distribution mechanic became a whole lot more complex.

    The deal with health distribution was the following, though it was just a theory I had come up with after observing enemies dying from hits that did not reduce their health points to zero.

    An enemies health points were apparently split and distributed throughout a beings body. Effectively making it so that different body parts, such as limbs and even organs, had different amounts of health, which, when reduced to zero, would be destroyed. Thus making it possible to instantly kill an enemy with a hit to the head, even if he was still at full health.

    Though I still seemed to miss something, as the Northern Warriors seemed to have more health points spread throughout their body than their Health-Bars noted them to have. Most likely the distribution was percentage based... I would have to figure out the proper numbers later though, as right now I simply had to few enemies to go by.

    So far I had done some throughout testing on the common young warriors though.

    Their heads had less than six Hp (Health Point) and would result in an instant kill when destroyed, also a hit to the head would always result in a critical hit. Arms had exactly six Hp and could be cut off with two slashes to either upper- or forearm, or with a single critical hit, which could be made by hitting a joint. Hands had more than three Hp, but were cut in a single strike when aiming for their joint, which resulted in a critical hit, while fingers apparently had less than three Hp. Which left only legs remaining, which had in between seven or nine health points, as they needed three normal hits or one critical plus a normal hit to cut off.

    Also noteworthy was the fact that, if an enemies health was reduced to zero, he would not instantly die, unless decapitated or likewise injured of course, but instead would become unconscious and start to bleed out.

    I hadn''t been able to make any further tests concerning this specific death mechanic or on how much Hp feet had, but also thought that I had enough data for the time being.

    The last and also important discovery I had made was the fact that momentum actively affected attacks and not only ones own, but also the incoming momentum of an enemy. Though this was a rather obvious mechanic I still had been quite surprised the first time around when I had effectively dealt five damage instead of three to an incoming enemies arm, which I had met mid swing with my sword.

    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    ¡°Hey Sascha, you thinking again?¡±

    I looked up, a scowl on my face as my thoughts were interrupted once again, though my features instantly lit up the second I saw the smiling face of Gerhardt.

    Gerhardt was the name of the general who had saved my life on the first day and then once again on the second. Over the past few days we had become rather friendly with each other and had even exchanged our stories. And, though I wouldn''t admit it, I had come to quite like the grumpy man''s personality, as, unlike his usual general behavior would suggest, he was actually really gentle at heart and turned out to be a great listener, too.

    He had served in this city for over thirty years already and had a lovely wife and two girls waiting for him at home on the fifth plateau, for whom he was willing to do anything in order to keep them safe.

    I on the other hand had told him a bit about the real world, though nothing specific and had sought him out every time when I needed confirmation for one of my theories. Also, we''ve had a long conversation last night about Alice and me, born from the question as to why I had come to this world.

    ¡°I am fine Gerhardt, only watching the stars and thinking. Did you know? We can not see the stars back where I come from.¡±

    I smiled, though inwardly I couldn''t help but feel a surge of pity clawing at my consciousness.

    ''Poor Gerhardt. I am so sorry for you. Your an AI trapped in this place, with memories of wife and kids which most likely don''t even exist, destined to fight this horde of enemies for the rest of your existence and most likely even beyond that.''

    Meanwhile Gerhardt sat down on the empty space next to me, where he then took out his own pipe.

    ¡°You chosen and your world confuse me, did you know that? You fight like a mad man yet you come to me each day asking questions that even the dumbest recruit could answer you. And you do not even have stars? You actually dare to make me worry that my family and I will be reincarnated in such a weird place.¡±

    If not for his eye-patch I could almost see the family man that he supposedly was, as Gerhardt sounded a lot kinder now that he wasn''t constantly screaming every word in his usual ordering demeanor. Though even he wasn''t able to hide the bitterness in his voice, which he desperately tried to hide behind a layer of humour. Unlike most others he also knew that we were all doomed to die one of these days.

    ¡°We do have stars, we just can''t see them. You know Gerhardt, we chosen and you people, we are not all that different, it''s just our worlds that are. My world won''t exist for much longer though, so you''ll most likely find yourself and your family stranded on a planet even weirder than mine.¡±

    Upon hearing this Gerhardt''s eyes grew wide and he almost dropped the pipe.

    ¡°You mean there are even more worlds than ours and yours? And what do you mean with ''won''t exist for much longer''?¡±

    I had to chuckle at the sight of his dumbfounded face.

    ¡°Well, of course there are more worlds. Just look at all those stars above us, did you know that each and every single one of those stars is similar to the planet we are standing on? Though none are the same, in between all those hundreds of stars there is at least one more place almost the same as this world. So you see, there are hundredths, millions, if not even infinite other worlds out there.¡±

    Hearing this Gerhardt went silent for a while, as if deeply in thought. All the while I kept on explaining.

    ¡°As for my world, the problem is that the humans that life there are stupid. We have forgotten how to live in harmony with nature and have destroyed it and now we can''t do anything but watch as it dies. Which is one of the reasons why all of us escape to places like this, though it won''t save us in the long run... Welp. At least it helps us forget.¡±

    One way or another I had managed to destroy the atmosphere with that last part and neither of us said another word as we spend the rest of the night thinking in silence. I tried to sleep at one point, but couldn''t as Alice''s letter kept appearing before my eyes and time after time again her scream for help sounded through the insides my head.

    It was the same for Gerhardt, though in his case it were the screams of three girls that kept him awake.

    It was almost nearing morning again, the sun already slow ascending on the horizon and painting the still clear sky in a multitude of pink and red colors, though the crescent shape of the moon still hung up above us. When all of a sudden the silence of the morning was disrupted, as someone sounded the alarm.

    Gerhardt and I instantly jumped up and made a run for the battlement, the both of us trying to get a peak at what was happening on the walls beneath us. Though Gerhardt had more luck than me as the knights crowding atop the tower made way for him to look, unlike the people in front of me.

    ¡°Dammit. Hey Gerhardt, any clue as to what is going on?¡± I shouted towards him.

    ¡°No, but we are getting attacked so get ready, we are heading down!¡±

    Yet, before any of us could make a move, dozen of hooks suddenly came flying over the battlements. Instantly the alarm was drowned beneath the pained cries of a few unlucky knights, who had been penetrated by some of the hook and left unable to save themselves as they got pulled across and down the battlement.

    ¡°Men get ready! The enemy has breached our ranks and is entering the tower. We won''t make it down in time so gather your courage and make this tower your last stand!¡±

    Gerhardt''s usual general voice sounded above our heads and caused everyone to go silent. Dozen of faces all around me instantly grew pale as the men understood this would be our end. It was the same for me, though I knew I wouldn''t really die and yet, still, I couldn''t help but feel scared and somewhat regretful now that I was certain that all of this was coming to an end.

    I threw one last glance towards Gerhardt, then drew my sword and started barking commands into our ranks as to get everyone into formation.

    It took us the better part of three minutes, as everyone was in distraught and more than half the men without their equipment, but we eventually got everyone settled and in order. Luckily I had been cautious ever since day one and had never went anywhere without my armor, shield and sword.

    Suddenly a loud howl pierced the silence, causing all the hair on my body to stand up in shock, all the while more and more howls sounded out aloud throughout the battlefield. There was no more time though, as the first batch of enemies ascended from behind the battlement.

    Men screamed all around me, as unlike the expected northern warriors, an entirely new enemy appeared instead. One which none of us was prepared for and whose claws ripped our men into pieces as if their armor was made from butter.

    In the instance of a single heartbeat the scenery atop the tower had turned into a massacre, as half a dozen of men were reduced to mere pulps off flesh and scattered all across the platform.

    ¡°Stand united men! They have send their Worgs at us and we will all die if you can''t end them swiftly! Help and defend each other and we shall win!¡±

    I only barely managed to catch Gerhardts'' words, but as soon as I did, the space above the heads of the enemies lit up and now read [Worg, Demonic Beasts of the North].

    There was still no health bar above these creatures heads, but it was still a great discovery to find out that I could identify enemies as soon as their identities were revealed to me.

    This was neither the time nor the place to go about my research though, as the second batch of enemies arrived.

    A Worg landed right before me and finally I could get a proper look at them, though honestly, I wish I hadn''t.

    These Worgs, as they were called, were feral canine beasts, whose appearance was reminiscent to that of an werewolves. Except these creatures had hunched up backs, which seemingly brimmed over with muscles and gave them the appearance of an animal rather than that of a transformed human. Though my eyes rested only shortly on their muscular torso, as their fangs and claws, which protruded from their maws and paws, were much bigger eye catchers as their size was truly frightening.

    The sight almost made me freeze up again, but I was left with no time to remain afraid as the Worg already charged at me. A crazed, blood hunger visible in it''s red eyes.

    The creature raised itself up to stand up on his hind legs, all the while both of its paws, claws included, came shooting towards my face and chest.

    Taking cover behind my shield I managed to dodge the high strike just in time, though the claw coming for my chest smashed into me and even though I blocked the attack, send me actually flying backwards a few meters into my own ranks.

    Luckily I was somewhat caught and placed back on my feet before the Worg caught up to me, but I had more or less lost hope of defeating the beast already.

    ''How am I supposed to fight this thing. It just literally send me flying. Holy shit.''

    My entire left side burned, even my former wounds flared up again and I couldn''t feel my entire left arm at all anymore. I could still move it though, so it wasn''t broken.

    The Worg in the meanwhile had already taken care of two soldiers, both of which had stood besides me only moments before, but were nothing more than two bleeding pulps on the ground now.

    Again, I almost lost it, as anger churned in my insides, but staring into the beasts eyes I knew that this sort of stupidity would be my death now. So, instead of raging and throwing myself at the beast, I waited for it with utmost caution.

    That didn''t help a whole lot though, as the Worg simply jumped at me in a fashion similar to a tackle. All the while its claws and even its maw shot forward, seemingly determined to rip me apart.

    ¡°Bad Dog!¡± I roared, as I, unable to dodge in time, jumped up instead while trying to get my body into a horizontal position. Both of it''s claws shot past and below me, as my sudden jump surprised the beast, yet it''s eyes still brimmed with bloodlust and it''s maw was coming right for my face. Which was when I screamed ¡°Sit!¡± with everything I got and smashed my shield right into it''s face, my sword penetrating it''s unprotected back only a second thereafter.

    I was almost thrown up and above the creature as it smashed into me and my shield, but managed to keep myself in place just above the Worgs head as both of us slammed into the ground.

    A painful sensation ran through my knees and up my waist, yet my pained whistle was drowned by the loud and pain filled yelp escaping from the Worg''s maw. Which now found itself buried under my shield and pressed down into the ground beneath my body.

    The monstrosity struggled fervently and it took me all the strength I had just to keep it in place all the while I had to endure as it''s claws dug deep into my legs.

    I wasn''t even able to pull my sword out of its back and hack away at it, but without even having to say anything my comrades were already at my side and going ham at the vulnerable creature.

    Not a second to late and with united strength we managed to eventually kill the beast. Countless holes filled it''s corpse and it was instantly clear to me that this so called Worg had much more health than any of the enemies I had seen thus far.

    While slowly standing up on wobbly and bleeding legs I inwardly thanked Alice for every wrestling match she had ever forced me to watch with her. Since the technique I had used had been my copy of a move called a ''Sprawl'', though my version had succeeded because of luck rather than technique.

    The victorious smile on my face faded almost instantly though, as a howl, louder than any of the howls before, sounded across the battlefield and drowned out any other noise.