What a fucking asshole.

His in-game name was [Steel Slice], and he was the spoiled son of a rich family. Out of sheer luck, as if being born into a CEO's family wasn't enough, he managed to roll an epic class in Eclipse Online called the [Barbarian King]. 

The man on his side was [Rock Head], who was [Steel Slice]’s bodyguard in real life and companion in game. [Rock Head] was a berserker, another rare class. 

Both men benefited from high base stats due to their good classes. Together, they were unstoppable against beginners. 

I panicked and tried to equip my [Dimension Ripper] gloves on my left hand. 

Due to level restriction, you cannot equip this item. 

"Dimension Room!"

You cannot enter the dimension room while in combat. 

"Summon Meat Shield!"

Meat Shield is taking a nap and doesn’t wish to be summoned. Summon failed. 

I had nothing to defend myself with. Nothing else I can do— I curled my hands into fists and assumed a boxing stance.

“Ha! Let’s kill this loser.”

Steel Slice laughed as he saw me shout incomprehensibly. There I was, a grown man with a chuunibyou complex, shouting random skill names into the air. He swung his mace at me as I punched. 

Thwack!

My physical defense and strength were nonexistent. If only I wasn’t such a useless class. If only I wasn't fighting a [Barbarian King] and [Berserker], the fight could’ve gone a different way. But the reality was that wishful thinking wasn't going to make my physical stat growths any higher, and the fight turned into a one sided slaughter. A minute in and I was on the ground, being kicked and slammed by maces. The pain was real. 

Actually, stats alone weren't enough to save me either. 

Some people would erroneously see my class as "min-maxed", a term that originated in dungeons and dragons and later expanded to other stat heavy RPGs. However, Eclipse was not a game where you could just press two buttons and spin down dungeons full of mobs with your mathematically optimized invincible character. Min-maxing meant nothing in this game, because relying purely on stats in a realistic virtual MMO was a surefire way to get yourself killed.

Execution and physical movement were needed to excel in PvP here. It was similar to the difference between kiting with an archer character in a regular video game, and actually running and turning backwards to fire arrows. The difference in complexity between two mouse clicks and a button press versus actually performing the physical action was massive.

My vision turned gray as my health hit zero.

“Hahahah, he dropped 15 silver.  This is such easy farming.” 

I now had a 3rd person view of my dead body, as the world was in gray and fading. A 10 second counter was on the top right of my screen.

Steel Slice looted my body and walked off towards another new arrival. 

“Oh? A cute girl? Let's be friends. Did you know my father is the CEO of S corporation?”

Those bastards, they were even monopolizing the female players! 

I swore to get revenge on them. 

———

You have died.

You have lost a level. 

Because you are not a PKer, your chance for dropping an item is low. 

You did not drop any items.

You will respawn in 24 hours, at 3:40 AM. 

You will now log out.

“Fuck!”

I hopped out of my capsule and mimed throwing my headset at the floor, although I couldn’t actually throw it because it costed 2000 dollars. But I was absolutely furious.

“Steel Slice! Rock Head! I will remember your names and kill you!”

A 24 hour penalty…

Eclipse Online’s servers were time constrained to offer a fair gameplay experience to all players. Normally in MMOs, whoever had the most time to grind would eventually take the lead. That was unfair to people who had jobs, school, or other commitments. 

The solution to this was to limit gameplay to 8 hours per day. Due to advances in technology, players would be able to sleep while gaming and feel completely refreshed the next morning, so most gamers played during their sleep. 

Players could also bank hours they didn’t use, so that they could use them any time later. This created a fair environment which eliminated the advantage grinders with a lot of time on their hands had in other MMOs. 

This was how Eclipse could get 1.6 billion players to play on launch. It was easily accessible, and did not interfere with normal life. In addition, time passed slower in Eclipse, so players could experience their real lives and then adventure for a long time in Eclipse in their free time each day.

24 hours was a substantial penalty. It meant that you lost 8 hours of play time and progress in the game world. 

In addition, dying carried separate penalties depending on whether or not a player is a frequent PKer, and other factors. 

I headed to the kitchen and opened the fridge, and took out some leftover rice and two eggs. With a bit of theatrical aggressiveness, I cooked the rice with eggs, taking my anger out on the eggs in the pan with my spatula . 

Currently, I work as an accountant at a large firm, but I don’t make much money compared to how expensive it is to rent in the city. Money was tight because I inherited a large debt from my father’s failed business ventures, after my parents passed away from a car accident a few years ago. 

It would be nice if I could make a lot of money from Eclipse, pay off my family’s debt, buy an apartment, and find a girlfriend. But for now, that was wishful thinking.

I spent the night fuming about getting killed by Steel Slice.  The next day at work was business as usual, and I left the office at 6:30pm. After taking care of some errands and watching some TV, I stepped in the capsule at midnight, only to be greeted by a lock out notification. Locked out until 3:40 AM because of my death. What an inconvenience. With nothing left to do, I closed my eyes and waited until the death lock-out expired. 

======

You have respawned at the nearest town.

“Buying a beginner sword!”

“Looking for a healer for our party!”

The town center was bustling with activity. Only a day passed, but players were already becoming much more familiar with the game. I felt something appear on my shoulder.

“Welcome back master~”

Several people stopped and looked. 

“Wow, he already has a pet.”

“Must be his unique skill.”

“But look at his equipment, he must’ve gotten robbed or something.”

“What a noob.”

A single day of progress made a huge difference in perception. What was considered normal beginner gear just yesterday was now an indication of a bad player. I shrugged off the comments and talked to Meat Shield.

“Thanks for leaving me to die.”

“I was taking a nap~”

“Useless cat. Don't take naps when your owner is in danger.”

“I’m going to take a nap again~”

Meat Shield left just as quickly as she appeared. 

The cat was vaguely reminiscent of an ex girlfriend of mine. I bit my tongue and moved on.

My first mission was to explore the town and gather information. My class Dimension Thief started with abnormally low stats compared to other classes. Even the basic thief started with stats in the mid 30s. My stats made me unable to hunt even level 2 boars, which were a low level monster that many combat classes were grinding to get started. 

I checked my status. I was still level 1 even after the death. 

Getting to level 3 to equip [Dimension Ripper] was my new challenge. 

“Curse you, Steel Slice!”

A user logged in right next to me. His name was [Books], a young man with red hair. 

“You were killed by him too?” I asked him, sensing an immediate camaraderie. 

Books looked at me with comically sad eyes and grabbed both my shoulders. 

“We are brothers in misfortune, brother Spoon. Let us team up and exact revenge on that asshole and his bald minion.”

It wasn’t a bad offer. I extended a handshake.

“Let’s do it, brother in misfortune.”

“So, what’s your class?”

I wasn’t about to tell him that I had a unique legendary class. 

“I’m a rare class, Dimension Thief. What about you?”

“I’m a unique rare class, Merchant of Avarice.”

I groaned. He chose a merchant class. I was intending on piggy backing on him for a few levels, but even that seemed out of the question now. Other people might be impressed by the fact that he got a unique class, but I didn’t think the heroic prospects for a merchant class were high. 

Books grinned. 

“Dimension Thief, huh. So what’s your unique skill?”

“I can summon a cat…”

“…”

Meat Shield popped back out onto my shoulder.

“Is this your new friend, master~”

“Shut up. Dumb cat.”

Books laughed. 

“She’s cute. Anyway, my unique skill is [Charm]. It gives me 10% more attractiveness when speaking to women.”

“…”

“…”

“Didn't think I'd ever be able to say this, but that’s even more useless than my cat.”

We walked around and gathered more information. With our skills and classes, nobody wanted us in their party, so we had to find a non-combat quest to give us experience to level up. We also learned that people were reluctant to share information about their unique skills, for various reasons. 

After much searching, Books ended up finding a joint quest.

And so, I spent my first full day in Eclipse washing dishes with Books. Not exactly the glamorous adventuring lifestyle I was expecting from the launch week of Eclipse Online.

The next day, we met at the same place and continued to wash dishes. The work was absolutely grueling and time consuming, but we didn’t find any better alternatives. Meat Shield dipped in and out to laugh at our plight. She was currently sitting next to the sink, napping. 

I did get to know Books a bit better though. He was a recent college grad who also lived in Seoul. Currently he was working as a waiter and applying for other jobs. His hair wasn’t actually red in real life, but he enjoyed being a free spirit in game. He was a friendly and trustworthy guy, and we bonded considerably over hours and hours of menial labor. His goal was to be rich as possible, which is why the system might have given him a chance at his class. 

Ding ding. 

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up. 

Books had his same cheery grin.

“We did it Spoon!”

“Yes we did.”

What an accomplishment. I wish I was being sarcastic, but the reality of the situation was that earning any kind of experience in my current sorry state was a huge accomplishment.