... Death...
... What is death?...
As far as I heard, when the body becomes incapable of supporting or maintaining a soul, the soul leaves the body, and that is called Death.
Then the soul goes to Heaven or gets reborn, or it goes to Hell.
In there, the soul meets Yama, who judges you in the court, where Chitra Gupta, the registrar of the dead, takes out your black history, and points out your crimes you committed in your whole life.
You can defend yourself, but I bet that won't make your f*cked-up situation any better.
Then depending on your negative Karma, you get the punishment, like, being dry-fried, human Kababed, nailed, whipped, etc, etc...
... I think I went off topic for a sec, but anyway, that is death as far as I heard from my grandma...
So, why?...
Why?...
... Why the f*ck am I here?!
"Holy Sh*t."
"Ash! You can't say that! That's a bad word!"
"Meh." Anyway, instead of dying and going to hell, I ended up getting time-traveled to the past like in some fantasy novel. Now I find my middle-aged self in my 5-year-old body.
Yup, now I am a god damm kindergartener! What the absolute hell!!
"Children! Break's over, let's go, let's go~"
Dammit!!
"Wake up, Ash. Class time." A little girl said nudging my shoulder, while I was lying on the grass in the shade of a tree.
"Sigh, whatever." Let's get this kindergarten staff over with...
.
.
.
"Now children, which one of you will tell me, what iiiiiss... 4+7?!"
"""..."""
"... Eleven?"
"Wow! Asher is so smart!"
Dammit.
.
.
.
"Bye, Ash!"
"...Bye, Amy."
-VROOM...
Now, let's talk about what the fuck is going on before the school bus reaches home.
I died... Well, let me elaborate,
I died fighting a B-ranked monster. Not even by that monster but by its D-rank minion! We went into a dungeon and my whole party got obliterated! And that d*ck head party leader, b*tch can't even command properly! He was supposed to be a B-rank hunter! F*ck him.
...What's that? What do I mean by these monsters, ranks, and dungeon staff like in some overused fantasy manhwa? Yup, tell me about it.
If someone had told this sh*t to me in my thirties that, in the future, a dungeon break will happen on Earth out of nowhere, and the same monsters that looked exactly like the monsters in a popular game at that time would come out and wreck havoc on the whole world, than yes, I too will think dude got some wiring problem in his head.
But believe me or not, it f*cking happened goddammit. I died when I was 42 years old. And all these points to that damn full dive game! Xernea F*cking Online!!
Xernea Online was a DMMORPG (Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) developed in America by a man named Kenjiro Tsubaki and his team. This game won back-to-back awards after awards for many years being the best game at the time.
Despite being a game with the same old medieval fantasy swords and magic setting, compared to the other famous games, this was a whole new different beast.
It has NPCs with advanced AI, and graphics that leave no comparison to real life. I mean people get rich while playing this game! You can retrieve real-life money from it! So fun, right?!... No! It was a nightmare for the casual players!
It was a hardcore game where you win something, and in the next second, lose everything. This game was filled with scammers, PKer parties, and the big guilds dominating the red Zones.
Later on, it became so bad that being a new or solo player was equivalent to suicide. A solo player just can't set foot on the PVP zones, or he will get gang-banged by every big guild or PKer party.
But there is a catch. You can f*cking disregard all of this sh*t if you can just get the thing that every, I mean every player in this game wants. Guess what?...
Overwhelming Power, Baiby!!
Yup, this game has no power cap. Yes, you can only level up to 100, but that's why the equipment is for, right? You can go Dungeon diving, fight Bosses, and get high-grade equipment or resources to build one.
Some time ago, there was a video getting viral of the [Ranked 42] player in the World Rankings, who annihilated a six-man high-level party of PKers alone. It was funny how unfair it was to a new player compared to the players who played this game from the beginning.
Well, that's what casual playing is for I guess. After all, I, myself was a casual player despite giving most of my time to the game...
But then, in the year 2068, the game that dominated the rankings for 9 years, shut down its servers. Because it started to affect some productive work in real life. Many companies went bankrupt because of the lack of employees.
I mean, if you can earn money just by adventuring alone, then why the f*ck would you go and do another boring job like a slave?
At least that's what Kenjiro reasoned in the press conference when he declared the shutdown. But, is it really the case?
Because that day, as soon as the shutdown clock reached 00:00:00, boy oh boy, sh*t went down to the depths of hell. The first dungeon appeared and threw out hundreds of monsters from it.
Kenjiro Tsubaki went missing, the game became reality, Status screens appeared in front of the masses, magic and martial skills became real, high-level players became a hierarchy of society and low-level players ate dust. Those, who did not play the game had to start from the beginning, from level 1.
Tsubaki was praised by a handful of high-level players and cursed by the masses. I bet even if he was not missing, he would be found in someone's basement tortured to death.
Or he might be a god, who prepared Earth for the coming catastrophe, who knows? At least that was the Reddit theory.
-SCREECH...
[Asher Williams]
The AI voice rang out from the com interrupting the info dump. Well, here I am.
"Bye, Asher!"
"Bye, Rudy."
-VROOM...
"Sigh, it's about to get awkward now, isn't it?" I muttered as I moved towards the closed door of my childhood home.
-BUDUMP, BUDUMP...
I can hear my heart beat racing like Speed vs Eddie Hall. I can only pray it ends up like Eddie Hall before I meet my family!
They were all there, weren't they? My mother, my two-toothed baby sister, and my grandma... Dad must be at work so he's not home yet I think. F*ck, f*ck, what do I do? What do I do?...
'What do I do to not cry my eyes out?!' I thought as my finger hovered above the doorbell. Sigh, here goes nothing...
-TNEEET!
"It's open!" Mom's voice came, which I think is from the kitchen.
-KREEK...
I opened the door and silently closed it behind me as I took off the shoes.
But then, from the corner of my eyes, I saw the world's most adorable thing (no one can change my mind) running towards me with a pittar-pattar sound!
"Barda!~" Holy sh*t it talks!!
"Beckie!" I exclaimed not knowing whether to cry or laugh.
I went down on my knees and spread my hands to give my one-and-a-half-year-old baby sister a much-needed desperate hug.
"Hehehe~, Wecom!~"
'Goddammit, don't cry! don't cry!'
"Don't run like that, ok? You'll hurt yourself." I said with worry, hiding my weeping soul, as I swooped her up and walked.
"I run!" The little angel exclaimed pouting as I sat her down on the sofa.
"If you don't run, I'll bring you thiiiiiiiiss.. Many chocolates!" I said like a child while spreading my hands as far as I could.
"Wow! Real?!" I can literally see stars in her eyes! Oh god, what is that blob of cuteness?!
"Of course! I'm your big brother, after all!" I said matter-of-factly, posing like high-nosed Superman-
"..."
But then, from the kitchen door, I saw a middle-aged aged beautiful woman, my mother... holy hell she's young! Or was I just older?... Don't cry, don't cry dammit!!
"Go play with Grandma, Beckie. Let brother get fresh, ok?~" Mom said with a gentle smile as she took up Beckie in her arms.
"Oki!~"
I just watched my mom, cradling the home's happy fluff in silence. No! Hold back your tears, control your emotions. I don't know how my face might look right now, but I bet it's completely blank, with no emotions. I perfected the blank face to deal with those scammers after all!
"Stop smiling like your grandma and go freshen up. Food's ready."
"...Ok." Tch, child face mistake.
---
A/N: Come on, add it to the library... Or not. I don't know, I'm too lazy for this sht.
Been trying to find a good gaming webnovel, all I find is harem, Chinese, garbage, or straight-up porn. Don't know, this one might turn up garbage too.