It sounded like some kind of scam, in all honesty. He had vaguely heard about currency mining in video games. It was when hired players would sit in front of a monitor and do repetitive menial tasks in exchange for things of value within the game, which would then be traded for in-game currency and then sold on the black market for real world money. 

The work was menial, demeaning, and provided very little pay, but Zack was more than familiar with that kind of work. If it meant he could preserve what was left of his body and take the loan shark’s gaze off of his little sister, he was all for it. He pressed the burner phone against his ear in anticipation. 

Ring!

Ring! 

“Hello, this is Royal Road Currency Mining Services speaking! You have called from the new employee hotline. Please state the name of your referral,” a robotic female voice said from the speaker. 

Referral? Ah, the loan shark. 

“Bruce.” 

“Referral recognized. Please confirm the following information. You are– Zachary Abraxas, age nineteen, currently residing at a share house in Hillside, height six-foot four, weight one hundred and eighty four pounds, hair color dark brown, eye color dark brown. Your current employment status is unemployed due to injury. Your current medical record is under recovery for a broken leg.”

“Do you confirm this information? Failure to confirm will terminate your employment application.”

“I confirm.” 

The metallic female voice continued without mercy. “You currently owe one million, nine hundred and seventy thousand zed to your referrer. This debt was generated by Tony Abraxas, deceased, and has been outstanding for seven years.“ 

The female voice read a breakdown of Zack’s status as if he was some kind of cattle to be branded and sold. 

“Do you confirm your debt? Failure to confirm will terminate your employment application.”

“...”

“I confirm.” 

Bzzt.

“Your employment application is now processing.” 

Zack waited nervously as the robotic phone operator put him on hold, with only the sound of his caked blood crackling as he stretched to accompany him in this abandoned parking lot. 

“Employment application accepted.”

“You will receive an employment package at your front door within three to five hours. Thank you for doing business with Royal Road Currency Mining Services.” 

And with that said, the line went dead. 

“-wait, I still have some questions!” Zack exclaimed, but there was no response. 

Cursing at the burner phone, he got up on his feet with the help of his crutches. There was no choice, he’d have to limp back home. The phone operator had mentioned that his employment package would arrive at his front door in a few hours, whatever the hell that meant, and so Zack knew that he had to make his way home somehow. 

Relying on his one good leg, Zack limped his way back towards his share house apartment, knowing full well that the journey would take him more than two hours in his current crippled state. 

The thought of having his kidney harvested, his testicles pickled in a jar for some sick fuck who liked collecting that sort of thing, and his sister sold into prostition made him walk faster, despite his searing pain. 

He reached home after an arduous three hour journey, instantly greeted the moment he stepped into the sharehouse entryway by the smell of mold that always lingered there. His living situation was a far cry from the nice apartments with doormen and elevators where his former classmates lived, and an eyesore compared to the glitzy apartment complexes that lined the harbor where the ultra rich lounged. 

But to Zack, this dilapidated share house was his home. Having a roof over his head was better than nothing, even if it meant sharing the space with rodents scurrying all over the place, and even if the heater didn’t work during the winter and he shivered all night. 

As he got to his room, he saw a neatly boxed package waiting right outside his door. How the delivery service managed to get in without a key, he wasn’t sure, but then again this share house’s security was shoddy at best. 

“Ahahhahahahahah!!!!” hooted a loud voice from the common area.

It was his unemployed deadbeat roommate, who drank beers all day and brought back some of the most questionable women to ever grace his eyes. Zack quietly moved past the common area, only to see a glimpse of a fifty something year old woman with two missing teeth in the arms of his roommate. 

Zack hated his roommate. He never talked to him outside of when there was a rodent problem in the common area. Sometimes, he would find his food in the communal fridge opened and half eaten, which only made his resentment grow. He was just relieved that his roommate hadn’t seen the package before he did. Zack never got packages, and this was one that he certainly did not want his roommate to be poking his nose in out of curiosity. 

Pushing the package box into his room with his crutches, he sat on his miserably small bed that squeaked with his weight, and began to unpack it. It was a medium to small box, about the size of a few large textbooks stacked up together– a bitter reminder to Zack of the education that he never had the chance to continue due to his inherited debt. 

Taking his trusty knife from his table, he cut open the box to reveal a keycard, a letter, and a… jar? 

He picked up the jar filled with liquid to examine its contents, only to immediately recoil in disgust upon realizing what it contained. A singular floating eyeball was submerged in some kind of solution. 

“What the fuck!” Zack yelped, nearly dropping the jar containing the suspended eyeball. What if the authorities came and checked his apartment? Would he get arrested and implicated in some kind of crime? 

But remembering his own plight, he managed to nervously place it to the side carefully, hoping that the letter would give an explanation.

The message on the letter was short and to the point. 

[You have received two key items for your employment.]

[Access Card to Local Office] 

[Biometric Authenticator] 

[Please report to your local office at the address provided on the access card by 5pm tonight.] 

He was momentarily confused by the letter, but via process of elimination, he quickly put together that the eyeball suspended in the jar was supposed to be a biometric authenticator for game login. 

Figured. This operation was getting shadier by the moment, but Zack knew that already going in. He had no choice but to participate. 

He glanced at the clock. Five p.m. Well shit, it was almost time for him to be there! 

Zack grabbed a backpack and quickly stored the jar into it, and then hoisted it over his back, getting back up. Despite his terrible state, there was no time for a shower now. He quickly checked the address on the access card, which was surprisingly close to his home, down a particular alley that he avoided like the plague due to it being ridden with crime. 

But he had no choice. 

Less than ten minutes later, he found himself checking into a surprisingly clean office building, its entrance hidden within the alleyway. 

Tapping through the security with his new access card, he took the elevator up to the fifth floor, where he emerged in a room filled with private cubicles, each containing a game capsule. Nothing fancy like the full body ones, just a regular reclined chair with a capsule headset. 

Zack’s cubicle room was 501, and he quickly found it, walking past a door that was slightly ajar with a foul odor coming from it. As he walked by, he saw a man slumped over his table, a pool of his own piss dripping down his chair. Zack swallowed nervously, ignoring that terrible image as best as he could. 

He stepped into 501 and closed the cubicle door behind him, locking it. After authenticating with the eyeball in the jar and putting on his headset, Zack was greeted with a blue screen. 

[Welcome to the Royal Road.] 

And with that message, so began his half year journey as a currency mining slave. On that day, the most desperate player in the history of the game logged in for the first time.