My small hands shook as I nervously walked from one tree to another, but my mind couldn’t process what happened. The world ended.

Don’t freak out. Please, John, don’t freak out. Something terrible happened, but Lucas can fix it. Didn’t he say that there was ‘unfreeze’ something once in the what color of the moon?

With a long sigh, I sat down and leaned my back against a pine tree. Status. A bluish transparent menu appeared in an instant, and I mentally selected a tab of friends.

No kidding game, my goodness. Founding Lucas wasn’t hard, and I was lucky because he was online and accepted my request.

I panicked and called the character menu.

My heart pulsated faster and faster as the panic attack clouded descended. I loudly breathed in and out and tried not to think about it. Instead, I tried to picture Veronica’s red outfit, but it was useless to even try. Thankfully Lucas’s icon tuned green soon. Wait! It was so fast. Had he logged out at all?

The thing I feared the most happened. Well, I could somehow live with being a girl inside the game. Not like gender was crucial to get enough strength. No, that wasn’t a big problem.

The elephant in the room was the Priest class! How was I supposed to grind if I couldn’t fight? The weak class, a mage, could be a magic swordsman - that was decent.

What about the poor Priest? Priests were the worst combatants of them all; my playstyle was always playing solo. In QA, they paid you a bonus if you found a bug. If more QA testers found one, they would split the bonus.

It felt like my life had slipped through my fingers. My gaze went up to the beautiful forest; it was more real than reality. But then, the reality was fake anyway. Was it even worth it? That punk just should have let his father kill my simulation, and I wouldn’t know anything.

No.

Raising up, I decided on a plan. It wasn’t like I was hopeless, was it? Nathan said that every class was important. It only depended on players. I could be the ultimate priestess in the entire realm! With a resolute step, I forged the path of the battle legend!

The system had to remind me that the first thing every hero needed to do; exhaust himself. Herself, whatever. Ouch! A sharp pain of needles shot from my feet. Wait, what? Why was I barefoot? I checked the [Inventory] and found out that my poor character had only two items.

The words of my guru, Katherine’s old man, sounded in my mind. Imagine a lake without end. Imagine your mind being a calming river flowing through a valley to a lake. I took a full breath and imagined that. Didn’t work.

My beautiful robe didn’t cover shoulders or hands, no sir! It looked like someone took an old bag, made four holes in it and then sew something to cover thighs, but it reached only to the knees. Oh yes, almost naked clothing for girls; that was a new thing for me. Whatever.

Judging by the surrounding trees, I was in a magical forest where the Elven players started. If I remembered correctly, this part was a woodland of dreams, so the plan should be to go north, exploit the Boss and quickly level. No one was around me, which was a good thing. The bad thing was, no one was around me. Priests needed to play with others, no exceptions. Well, perhaps exploiters like me could be one?

Something rustled in the bushes behind me and before I noticed an enemy, a deep pain spread across my feet as something snapped at me!

“Ahhhh!” I couldn’t help but to shriek. This insane Princess person had set the reality filters to 100%! The only way to change it would be to spam the support and wait. Damn Nathan. That’s why it felt so real! A weird mixture of a rabbit and a small bear tried to bite off a chunk of my leg.

“You wish, bastard!” My melodic voice surprised me, but then my warrior instincts kicked in and I destroyed him with my other feet.

Great, this is just great! I firmly gripped my staff and aimed straight for his head. Only the resulting dull, crushing sound was soothing to my pulsating pain.

Yes! I tried various types of smashing until I had a complete victory and the weird, weak monster released me. If I was a warrior, I would just rip the sword through its head for x4 damage and one-shot it.

My good mood only lasted until I read my pitiful stats. Low hp, strength, and stamina. How was I supposed to fight with this nonsense? Whatever.

After a brief rest, my stamina recovered, and I continued my journey to the north. Bearbits were everywhere, almost as if Nathan designed them to level me at least once. My angry kick removed pieces of bark from the pine tree, as I vented my frustration that I had to rest after every fight!

I caught a glance of a thief in the distance as he was fighting at least three Bearbits at once. “That bastard!” More curses escaped my mouth. I was debating to joining him, but he was a stranger. Rather not.

“Bearbits come at me! I am a master of a big stick!” I taunted them with my melodic voice. Two of them jumped on me and I expertly avoided the uglier one and with all my strength decapitated the second one. After the fight, the sweet tone of level up came up.

Wait, a recalling scroll was still a thing? I guess Irwen was still slumbering somewhere. Anyway, I reached a level one at last! Okay, now the game started for real. But first, let’s rest.

***

In the east of the same forest, Lucas was trying his first spell. He glared at a weird Chinese-like symbol in the help window, but as he tried to draw it into the air, the gathered energy just vanished.

What the hell am I doing wrong? This is nonsense! That was the symbol, alright!

When he was in deep consideration of the intricacies of this damn system, he got another message from John. He wanted to form a party. Sure, why not? He accepted the request and sat on a small boulder nearby. His failed attempts depleted all the mana, so it would take a while to replenish it all.

Suddenly, a loud rumbling interrupted the calm, zen-like atmosphere of the quiet forest; it boomed almost as if something heavy crashed on a glass floor. Afterward, the wind whistled violently, and all needles around him rustled.

“What’s going on?” Lucas jumped and scanned the surrounding grass. Just next to his stone was ground marked by a weird circle and inside it, he saw similar symbols like he tried to write before.

A Boss battle, maybe? He pulled his staff closer to his chest and prepared to face anything that would crawl from the magic thing. A few breaths later, a magic filled the circle with a light so bright that he couldn’t see a damn thing inside. When it disappeared, a shock drained all blood from his face.

Instead of Boss, he saw a girl he knew more than well. Her pale blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, and the virtual reality helped her perfectly shaped waist; even her slightly more than average boobs looked bigger, but her legs weren’t even an inch longer than in reality; she would be sad.

She prayed so much to have a smaller nose and longer legs, but Lucas preferred her that way. And it was so cute when she used to be furious because of it in front of the mirror.

Her long, pointy ears, the signature feature of elves, took his breath away. He remembered the nights in the park when they talked about the future and how they will explore this new game world. That was before he made a mistake. That was before he lost it all, before they took her from him.

Her perfect white teeth flashed as she waved at him and his heart ached. He knew she was gone; he knew she won’t come back; he knew this was only an echo. He knew all that, but he couldn’t help but to smile back at his Charlie.

Ah, John, what have I done?