Chapter 3

Reyna-

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but what he did next surprised me. Before I knew what was happening, he moved toward me and attacked. I hadn’t been fast enough when the blade of his sword sliced across the flesh of my arm.

I might be in a game right now, but the pain felt real. In this moment I hated that the headgear stimulated the brain enough to make everything feel real. Gripping my arm, I quickly backed away from him.

“What the hell?” I yelled.

He still didn’t say anything as he lunged at me again. This time I was quick enough to react and quickly moved out of the way. I tried to get my wings to fly me off the ground, but a message popped up saying that my stamina was still recharging.

Frustrated now, I knew that if I wanted to find out what was going on, I was going to need to fight back. Readying my short sword, I prepared to defend myself. I could sense that his level was higher than mine, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t take him on.

With my real-life skills, I was confident that I could handle him. I might not understand what was going on, but it was obvious that if I wanted answers, I was going to have to fight for them. I didn’t know if he didn’t recognize me or if he was intentionally attacking me to get me to leave him alone.

Being stubborn, I blocked his next sword attack and countered it with one of my own. We went head-to-head for a while, but he had the upper hand. Either he knew how to use a sword in real life, or he was more advanced in the game than I thought.

Since he was the one who created this game, I was sure that he could advance faster than anyone. He knew more about the game than anyone. His movements were much faster than mine as well.

No matter what he threw at me though, I countered each of his moves. After a few minutes, he jumped back and put himself at a distance from me. Thinking he was done fighting with me, I lowered my sword.

“I don’t know what your deal is, but…” I tried talking to him again, only to stop when he suddenly shifted his form into a large black wolf, with a red scar that ran diagonally across his face.

I should have known that he would choose a werewolf as a character. Not only that, but he was the Alpha King of Wolves, just like the image that was on the video game cover. It had been his personal design.

Taking a few steps back, I tried to think of what I could do to fight him off. I wasn’t at a high enough level where I could use my fairy’s abilities and a basic short sword wouldn’t be enough. Since he was able to shift, that meant he had activated his character’s abilities already.

With no other choice but to keep dodging, I tried to jump out of the way when he attacked. As expected, I wasn’t fast enough. The pain that sliced through my midsection as he attacked felt excruciating.

Dropping to my knees, I looked up and saw my health bar quickly diminish. My stats weren’t high enough to encounter an attack like that and be able to survive. Just as my health bar shattered, I was forcefully logged out of the game.

Sitting up in bed, I clutched my stomach. Looking down, I was relieved that it hadn’t been real and there wasn’t any blood. I had to remind myself that it was just the game. Reaching up I removed my head gear.

“What was that all about?” I asked myself.

Looking at the time, I realized that the fight had lasted a full two hours. It was already two in the afternoon. Knowing I would respawn near where I died, I put the gear back on and tried logging back in.

Of course, it didn’t allow me to, as it was a safety feature in the game. When a player dies, they must wait an hour before getting back on. Since the game made the player feel everything just as they would in real life, the company didn’t want players to be overstimulated and it cause lasting issues.

Although I wanted answers, I knew I was going to need to wait. Something had not seemed right when I saw Luka. Thinking it was better to wait until I went home, I turned off the headgear and placed it on its charger.

For the next few hours, I focused on work. I didn’t make any report about Luka being in the game. Until I knew what was going on and if it was really him, it was better if I didn’t say anything at all. For all I knew it could be a part of the game.

I knew it wasn’t an NPC I encountered, but now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure if it was a player. There hadn't been a game tag above his head. Most players had an icon above their head while in the game, it displayed their name and if they were in a guild or not.

When it was time to leave, I was the first one out of the office. Normally I stayed an hour after everyone left, but I was impatient to get home. Since encountering Luka, I haven’t been able to focus. I had been tempted to log in at work again, but first I needed to do a bit of altering to my personal headgear.

I could get into a lot of trouble if I were caught. As long as I didn’t do it at work, I should be able to stay under the radar with it. In college, I had been part of a small group of hackers. We hadn’t done anything major, but we did do some minor hacking, like rewriting codes and other things.

In less than thirty minutes, I arrived at my house. It wasn’t much, but it was a decent size. The house was a three-bedroom, two-story house. I grew up in the house and when my mother passed away, she left it to me.

Stumbling to unlock the door, I rushed into the bedroom on the first floor, where I kept my gaming room. Unlike in my office at work, I didn’t have a bed in my gaming room, but I had set up a recliner. Instead of going straight to my recliner, I went to my desk.

My personal headgear was black, instead of white, like in my office. I kept the charger on my desk. Grabbing the headgear, I connected it to my laptop. Opening the hacking software I had on my computer, I made sure that it was secure before proceeding.

In only a few minutes, I managed to rewrite the code that would allow me to log on immediately, even if I died. It wouldn’t alert anyone since it was a simple jailbreak to my headgear. If I were at the office, I wouldn’t be able to log in after dying in the game.

Basically, I was overriding the safety features on my gear, but not on my account. Since my health was in great shape, I wasn’t worried about any issues. My account would still alert me when it was recommended for me to log off.

That also included when my mental state or body was under duress. As soon as I was done altering my device, I unplugged it from my laptop. Moving to my recliner, I laid it back before putting on my device.

Connecting it, I powered it on and was transported back into the game. This time, since I died, I respawned at the edge of the forest. I figured that Luka wouldn’t be in the same place I had last seen him, but I went in that direction anyway.

Just as I suspected, he wasn’t there, so I continued through the forest. I didn’t just run around looking for him, I also battled a variety of monsters so I could quickly level up. There was no guarantee that he was still logged in, so I didn’t see the point in rushing.

Instead of walking or flying, I ran around on my bare feet. It was difficult to ignore the pain of my feet, without shoes and running over rocks and sticks, but I didn’t let it bother me. If I wanted to build up my speed, I needed to build up my stamina as well.

I ran all over the first-level map, keeping away from higher-level monsters that I knew I couldn’t beat yet. I was in the game for two hours and still couldn’t locate Luka. Feeling as if I wouldn’t find him tonight, I made my way toward the town, where I had started from.

Needing to build up my equipment and get money to buy better equipment, I went to the marketplace in the center of town. While I was out, I managed to gather a ton of sellable materials, so when I sold everything, I didn’t need, I had a good amount of game currency.

It would be enough to at least get the next level of equipment. First, I figured I would use the material I had gathered to see if I could make better equipment instead of spending all the money I had. Heading toward the blacksmith, I wondered if there was a way to buy or make shoes on this level.

Lost in thought, I accidentally bumped into someone. “Sorry.” I told them as the player continued walking away. Watching the player, I shook my head at it was like they hadn’t noticed anything.

I was just about to turn around to continue toward my destination when I noticed the player seemed familiar and he didn’t have a name above his head. Remembering Luka didn’t either, I hurried after him.

He was walking fast, so it was hard to keep up. There were also a lot of players around, which meant I had to move through the crowd without running into anyone. When I was out of the thickest part of the crowd, I thought I lost Luka again.

I stopped walking and looked around. Just a few yards away, I saw someone duck behind a tent. Hoping it was Luka, I quickly ran forward. Reaching the tent, I saw there was a small path that went between two tents.

There was a wall behind the tents, so I didn’t have to walk far. Thinking I might have seen wrong, I stopped when I reached the wall and was about to turn around. Before I did, someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me behind one of the tents.

“Hey!” I yelled out of reflex at being grabbed.

A hand came over my mouth and when I tried to pull away, their hold on me tightened. “Don’t make a sound.” A deep male voice whispered in my ear.

Instantly I knew who it was. I knew Luka’s voice anywhere. Nodding my head, I agreed not to make a sound. He didn’t pull his hand away or let go of me. We stood there for a few minutes, but I didn’t mind.

Earlier I had hated how the game made everything seem so real, but now I didn’t mind at all. Even though I haven’t been held like this by him in the past, I still felt like he was really holding me. His skin felt real, warm, and solid.

“Don’t say a word until we are out of town.” He whispers after a while.

Once again, I nodded my head in agreement. He releases his hold on me, but then takes my wrist and starts dragging me behind him. Doing my best to keep up, we moved between the various tents and the wall.

Only when we reached the end of the row of tents, did we get back onto the path that would lead us out of town. Since he seemed inclined to continue dragging me along, even after we left town, I didn’t utter a word. I wasn’t sure where we were going, since based on my calculations we were heading toward the edge of the map on the first level.

Thinking we were going to stop when we reached the edge, I was surprised when he continued walking. The terrain didn’t end, but I pulled up the map to see that we were no longer on the map anymore. Now I didn’t see any reason not to speak.

“Where are we going? We aren’t even on the map anymore.”