As the lights of dispersed, I saw Lucas pale as pale as an empty whiskey glass. Silly Lucas! To calm him down, I smiled at him and waved. If it wasn’t for the pointy ears, I wouldn’t see a difference between his body in reality and here. But what would a military-hardened body do for a mage? Poor Lucas.

“Lucas! I will try my best, so don’t worry.” My female voice surprised me, but I ignored it and walked towards him. “I’ll carry you!”

He backpedaled with a slightly blushing face and said, “Are you sure?” Real. It all felt so real. It was no wonder people settled in virtual worlds for god. The commie tax maybe wasn’t that bad. He glared at me for a while, but then added, “I mean, this is all cumbersome for you, isn’t it?”

“Nah, at first I was angry, sure,” I said with a wistful smile, my voice carrying a hint of nostalgia. “But my heart melted with my first kill. There’s something exhilarating about the rush of adrenaline while you kill things.” I paused for a moment. “Although, I don’t know how to play Priest. Like at all.” I let out a chuckle and shrugged.

“Hmm,” Lucas said, and raised his staff to cast a spell, so I was watching him closely. Maybe he’ll be the master mage and we’ll duo clear the dungeons? He noticed my stare, and blushed, “Glad to hear that, John.”

“Call me Princess.”

“What? Why?!” He froze in his attempt and the mana just fizzled away; what a waste.

“Isn’t it obvious? That’s my name now,” I said and shrugged again. “As you said, I must stick with it. So, call me either Princess or Charlie. To be honest, both sounds unfamiliar, but I guess other people will know me by those names.”

Instead of answering me, he tried to create another spell, but that wasn’t how Lucy did her spells at all. I stepped in with my expertise and advice. “What are you doing, you dork? Haven’t you read the guide? You need to draw the runes as fast as possible, fill them with mana and shout!” During my testing years, I saw a myriad of mages, so at least I knew how it should look like and his moves for sure weren’t like that.

He snorted when I hurt his pride and immediately challenged me. “Do you think I don’t know that? Try it, if you are so full of yourself! You should have at least one spell!”

With three confident gestures, I opened a spell window and examined the rune for a healing spell, which consisted only of a few simple lines. “Easy, watch me closely!” Nathan prepared a video of an animated person performing the spell underneath, so I watched it closely.

“This will be a breeze.” I clutched my staff and mentally tapped into my mana, or at least something I imagined flowing inside me. A wave of warm feeling hit-and-surprised me; it differed from the warrior’s mana. Maybe that was because I used to play only at 65% of pain? Despite the surprise, I continued to pour mana as I drew the contours.

After I drew the second wavelet, something went very wrong, and the mana just disappeared. As the spell fizzled, I slightly tumbled backwards and reddened.

“Haha! I told you! You are only human.” He was laughing with such an annoying voice that I pouted at him. “Heh! Human like me, Charlie!”

“Hmpf! I slew the most difficult boss; if I could have a sword, I would be a master. The warrior is not dependent on mana,” I complained.

There had to be a solution. As always, I turned to Lucy, my old QA colleague, who was an excellent paladin. During our break talks, she told me it helped her to imagine the symbols first, and then the system guided her hand. Lucas was looking at me like as if he had never seen a girl, and abruptly interrupted my thoughts. “Charlie, I must tell you something.”

“Can it wait?” I dismissed him. “I think I remembered something that’ll help! The game must have a guiding system.”

He nodded and sighed, although I almost didn’t register that, because I focused on the picture of the symbol. For five minutes. She said that I have to stare at the rune until I engraved it into my brain. Not helping, Lucy!

When I decided that was enough, I grasped my poor stick and focused on the rune. With one deep breath, I glanced forwards and… Yes! A faint outline appeared in the air, and I poured mana into it, while gently following its contours. It failed. Again and again.

After about a fifth or sixth fail, I lost it, and ran around the meadow and was smashing everything in sight with my glorious stick. Its powerful blows connected with everything in sight, even the maddeningly chuckling Lucas. I silenced his laughter as my weapon collided with his skull.

Oh god, please help me!

Somewhere dark, current simulation.

Jeffrey was sitting behind a computer screen in his room. John would say he looked like a fifteen-year-old punk in a brown coat, but he would be wrong. Jeffrey turned only 12 this year.

“John disappeared, as you expected, sir,” someone on his left said, shrouded in dark. “The assassin broke into his old simulation, and it’s only a matter of time before he finds clues about him and kills him. Sir, are you sure to trust this person?”

“Yes. In the last main simulation, I was so close to the seed that I could discern the simulation hash of this one; one of infinite possibilities. They thought they can stop me by giving me almost zero time before the game, but they were wrong. John will be the hero instead of me. I’ll stay in the shadows, like other shareholders. No more busily running around the space stations three years after everyone started.”

“But why him?” The man walked into the light of the screen and gesticulated with his wrinkled hands. “Sir, you could have chosen anyone who was a hero already. After the death of two of your competitors, there were more open positions among the heroes.”

“We tried that and failed. He is the key to win the game; to get us the seed. I hope he has his own ship already.”

“Sir, this time the game is a fantasy, like the third, but the setting is different.”

“Oh? Interesting. I haven’t been following the news. Perhaps… Others might not be so resourceful. Although we must wait a while, then we’ll contact him.”

My hand flowed through the air, and the rune glowed with a golden light. “Heal!” I yelled when I finished and directed the energy to Lucas. With a flourish, a golden mist drifted towards him on its own, but I had to focus until the magic reached him.

Lucas glanced at the light with an awe. “It worked! That was… beautiful,” he said with a weak smile.

“Yeah! Let me help you!” I ran towards him and seized his hand. “Do you have the rune in your mind? I mean that can you imagine it?”

He absentmindedly stared into my eyes, and only responded after I pinched his cheek. “Yeah, I think I can.”

“Focus, I know I am a girl, but it’s still me, and your weak answer is not enough!” My glare forced him to open the menu, and he briefly glanced at the rune. That lasted only a few seconds before he turned his back to me.

“Lucas?” My stare scared him, and he turned silent as a barrel. Ha, my presence is still intimidating. “Great! Then you need to focus on that rune intensively, and the outline should appear shortly. Lucas, I will never let you down. I might not have the valor of a warrior, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be useless.”

He uttered something with a sigh and focused on the spell, and I joined the spell-practice. After a few more attempts, he was still failing most of the time, but I decided that was enough, because there was no time to waste time like this. Well, the spells depleted our mana, so we had to sit and wait.

“The game is fun this way, isn’t it?” I said and looked up, where the trees joined and blocked a sky, creating a delightful shade. “You need to work hard, but the game will reward your efforts!” Lucas was silently sitting on the ground, and I caught him glaring at my boobs. Damn, is this the new normal?

I hadn’t commented on it, and let a slight breeze tousle my hair. After a while, he shook his head and said, “No, it’s insane. Why is it so hard? I don’t understand. Isn’t the point of games to be fun?”

“Blame the evil creator, Nathan. Although, I disagree with you. This is amazing! What’s the fun without a challenge? The system was lenient for warriors and let me do those crazy things. I could jump a few meters high; I could smash a wall!” A grin spread on my face as I remembered the exploit where I broke in a vault with a single punch. “Aren’t you excited to see what the magic will look like? I can’t wait for our first boss fight. The technique will be detrimental. The godly mages will cast spells faster, you know? Work on that.”

“I understand. The game feels… real.” He rose and touched trees around us with his staff. The clang response sounded exactly the same as it would in our reality. Simulation. Whatever. “It feels more real than the reality, where the painful memories are. I want to say that this is the future, this game might be the answer. I think the people who will oppose that idea would just disappear. Vanish without a trace. No, it already happened. Charlie! The truth is-”

He surprised me with his predictions, so I stopped him with my hand and said, “Lucas, please stop. I understand.” He was on the point - everything was on their way to happen like that. ‘People will vanish without a trace’. Was that how he died? Did he poke where he shouldn’t have? “Hey Lucas, do you know the ring of smiling people? I heard they are-”

He rose, his face contorted in horror, and clutched the frayed edge of my pitiful excuse for a robe. “Where the hell did you hear that? Did you read something at my place?” He shook me like he was trying to wake me up from a bad dream, but thankfully, his strength wasn’t high. “This is not something you can take lightly! These people can harm you!”

I slipped from his grapple and walked backwards. “I heard of them from one punk at the bar. He told me to contact them. Well, if I want to know more about the simulations.”

“Of course, at the bar.” He threw his hands into the air. “Where else would you? Don’t. If you hold your life dear, don’t.”

“All right! Damn Nathan, I was only asking!”

“Even asking is dangerous and people are dying. Forget about them. I want to…” his voice became weak and his eyes watered. Then, he quickly changed the topic and said, “You desperately wanted to play the game, right? You look so energetic, happy. Usually, you are like this only after the fourth beer.”

I blushed, because he was right. After I entered the game, I was not like myself. I felt so different, like my entire brain was changing, but that was nonsense, right? It was probably because the punk gave me a chance to live once more.

I jumped up and measured the sun. We had to go before the nightfall. “Lucas, focus on what’s important. We are poor level one noobs; we need a plan.”

“So? What’s the grand scheme? Aren’t you the expert?” He stood rooted and didn’t look like he wanted to go anywhere.

“Hmpf!” I grasped his hand and ran. “Onwards! My job was to find bugs, so let’s do exactly that. Why should we level as regular players? Let’s exploit!”