By the time I woke up in the real world, my game pod only had fifteen minutes remaining out of the ten hours I’d rented. Time always passed fast in the game.

  That was the most successful ten hours of my life, I noted. Two raids with Veyra. Close to twenty thousand dollars in profit. I’d never seen money like that in my life.

  The session also left me exhausted. My eyelids genuinely felt heavy, and a yawn came out involuntarily. Collapsing into bed would have been heavenly. Thankfully, the tiredness wasn’t the soul-crushing depressive tiredness. Quite the opposite. I wanted to hug a pillow and just smile until I fell asleep.

  Sadly, I was homeless. I still needed to figure out where I could crash out for the night.

  And even before that, I’d probably need to deal with a certain someone that I’d killed in game.

  Sure enough, when I pushed open the lid of the game pod, rising from the coffin, the bulky man known as Eve’s boyfriend was already tapping his finger at the counter, upset. He was a tad smaller than in game, but he was still more than large. Not quite a steroid user, but very close. Eve stood next to him, now out of her workwear and in her usual sweater. Her coworker, a man in his early thirties, ran the cafe behind the counter.

  Perhaps I could just sneak out. I sighed and moved to grab the cardboard box of my belongings in the game pod’s locker. I yawned again, moving sluggishly.

  “Hey, homeless asshole,” someone said next to me.

  Goddammit. “Hello, hello…” I said.

  Sullivan stared at me, as if that alone would scare me into submission. He crossed his arms and leaned against a nearby game-pod. I could already smell sweat from his unwashed shirt.

  I tilted my head, and that added a scowl to his posture. He asked, “Do I need to ask you for my gear back, or do I need to beat the shit out of you?”

  “Which piece did you drop?” I asked.

  “My axe,” he said.

  “Oh yeah,” I said, nodding. “You’ll find that at the auction house tomorrow. It’ll probably go for a few thousand gold with all the enhancements and all.”

  “You betraying piece of shit!” Sullivan growled and raised a first.

  Oh, he was trying to punch me.

  The fist came slowly, much slower than his axe-swings with the assisted [Swing] system. All I needed was some basic footwork, and I slid out of the way with the box still occupying both of my hands.

  Sullivan stumbled a few steps as his fist missed—a miss which seemed to genuinely surprise him. He lifted it again and threw another attempt, and I dodged the same exact way: by quite simply stepping out of the way.

  The store clerk and Eve were both yelling. “Sull, stop!” she tried to say.

  He wasn’t listening, face red. He full-on charged me for a tackle next, both arms held up to grab me.

  This time, I actually had to predict his movements a little and use some effort to dodge his attack. I got out of the way, and his fists crashed against the game pod I’d just been in.

  “Hey!” the store clerk bellowed. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Sullivan bit his lip, fists clenched. “This fucker just betrayed me.”

  “Then log back in and hunt him down in-game!” the clerk said sternly. “Or do I need to call the cops?”

  A staring competition ensued. The clerk seemed to be winning, as Sullivan spat at the ground and placed his hands in his pockets. He gave me one last stare. “You’re dead, know that.”

  He then walked out. His exit appeared calm at first, until he kicked a trash can by the door. He exited and slammed it shut. Everyone watched silently.

  “Uh-huh,” I said with a yawn. “You’ve got interesting taste in boyfriends these days, Eve.”

  Her face was red, eyes pointing at the ground. “Sorry… I couldn’t keep my promise. And thanks again. For letting me escape.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” I said unenthusiastically. “I think I’ll have to escape this place, though. What would you say is the best 24/7 game cafe these days? I’ll live at one until I find an apartment.”

  “It’s, um… If you want…” Eve tried to say. “You can stay at my place for the night. ”

  I raised my eyebrow at that. “Really?”

  “Don’t get me wrong!” she said much more clearly. “I’m not going to live with you or anything like that. I’ll just help you get back on your feet.”

  “I’m pretty sure Sullivan will kill you if he figures out where I am,” I said.

  “Whatever, I’m breaking up with him,” she said. “He’s been like that constantly. It gets tiring.”

  My head perked up ever so slightly. I remembered being upset to hear that she had a boyfriend just earlier today. Yet, for some reason… I didn’t have a similar reaction now. I mean, Eve was good-looking, and she played Wonderwind. But how would I put it?

  Was I just tired? Why didn’t I feel excited about that anymore?

  Well, she’s still a friend, I thought, even though she had just betrayed me… It’s not like she implied she wanted anything.

  “Well, if you’re inviting me, I guess I’ll come,” I said, mostly because going with her would be the quickest way to get to bed. “Thanks.”

  She smiled and said, “My car is outside. Do you need anything to eat first?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  She was already heading out. I followed with my cardboard box, and I figured I must have looked rather goofy. My hands were getting tired already. Even though my instincts were still fast in real life thanks to training in Wonderwind, I wasn’t strong.

  “I’d prefer to just crash out for the night,” I said. “You know, been up for thirty hours and all that.”

  She laughed and unlocked the doors to an old grey beater Corolla with a dented passenger door parked in the employee parking spot. The sky was dark, but it looked like the sun was about to rise.

  “I don’t have work tomorrow, so it’s fine if you screw up my sleeping schedule a bit,” Eve said, and we got into her car.

  I almost fell asleep right there and then, but I shook my head awake. “Your guild was livestreaming the fight, right?” I asked.

  “Maddie was,” Eve said, though I had no idea who that was. “His stream has been pretty popular lately. Around a hundred views every day.”

  “Maybe the clip is up already, then,” I said, and I pulled up the forums on my phone. This time, I had to scroll a bit more to find the clip. It wasn’t on the front page yet, but eventually, I found a post with a few thousand upvotes called, “Are these guys cheaters or just completely cracked???”

  By Greenwitch, 1257 upvotes: “The hell? What’s up with Assassin and Veyra today? They’ve been setting some insane plays.”

  Reply by Pounder16, 2457 upvotes: “Lol, already a fanboy.”

  Reply by Greywind, 2167 upvotes: “That backline nuke was sexy, though, holyyy.”

  I agreed with that one, and I watched the clip again. It was in their tank player’s PoV. He captured Veyra’s trick fairly well, her absolutely beautiful one-shotting of Cupcake Crew’s backline.

  Eve was watching it from the side of her eye. “Wait, that’s what she did? She was above us?”

  “She’s incredible, isn’t she?” I said with a huge grin on my face. “That has to be one of the best plays I’ve ever seen.”

  Eve didn’t look as impressed. I kept watching the clip, until my turn came. In the tank’s pov, it looked like I was just running away, until [Shadow Dash] flashed, and everyone suddenly died as I dashed from target to target. I had to slow down the clip to really see what I’d even done. Honestly, I was impressed by how fast my movements looked to outsiders.

  The comments were even more confused.

  By Sixteenthirty, 1853 upvotes: “What the hell did Assassin even do? Everyone just died?”

  Reply by Pounder16, 847 upvotes: “Looks like some sort of finisher skill?”

  Reply by Greenwitch, 193 downvotes: “No, that’s clearly Shadow Dash, is it not? That’s the same animation. And Assassin has used it a lot before. Maybe he has an item that resets dash cooldowns with player kills?”

  Reply by Lowsky125, 981 upvotes: “Hell no, that couldn’t have been Shadow Dash. I have an alt as the assassin class. That ability is the clunkiest piece of shit ability in the game. It never goes where you want to. At best, the skill can be used as a mediocre escape tool, and even then it’ll probably send you straight to death. So even if Assassin had something to reset the cooldown, he’d need to be god himself to one-shot anyone like that. There’s just no way.”

  Eve was glancing at my phone again as I assessed the clip. “So how did you do that? You just one-shot everyone.”

  “That Greenwitch guy has the correct answer if you look at the forums,” I said, still grinning. “It’s all skill and practice, really.”

  She gave me a look.

  I kept reading the remaining popular comments. There were a few more interesting ones.

  By Lowsky125, 578 upvotes: “And what about the cheating allegation? I think it has merit. That mage’s playstyle and casting is very similar to SevenStrife’s if anyone remembers her.”

  By Pounder16, 690 upvotes, “Honestly, I see the resemblance. There’s a chance these two are cheaters, I guess. But the anticheat is good these days.”

  I paused at that. Cheating was generally considered impossible these days, making cheating allegations rare. Even if someone managed to hack the game’s code, the AI anti-cheat was very good at surveying players that used exploits.

  The last big cheating scandal I could remember involved a player called SevenStrife. She used to be a top one hundred mage player and a member of Celestial Order. She was seemingly a genuine prodigy, though nobody knew her real life identity. She was at least on par with FireBrand, the long-standing top 1 mage player.

  Until four years ago, SevenStrife was mysteriously banned from the game. The developers from Wind Virtual Games announced that her account had been terminated for what they called “repeated violations of the terms of service.” The community already suspected her of cheating, and she was banned.

  Are we seriously being compared to cheaters… I thought with a sigh. I guess that was a compliment in its own way.

  We arrived at Eve’s apartment fifteen minutes later, where I took a shower and promptly crashed into bed.

  ***

  Veyra immediately tasted something disgusting in her throat when Wonderwind kicked her out of the game. Her stomach felt like it was full of acid threatening to either burn through or escape out.

  Sadly, that was normal. She felt like she always did in the real world. Absolutely awful.

  That was hardly her biggest issue right now. Her game pod forced log-out had barely given her any warning, claiming it had detected an imminent risk of vomiting. As always, it just detected Veyra’s body being her body. She wasn’t going to vomit right now.

  Worse, she’d died. She didn’t have time to find a safe location.

  Where’s my phone? she thought, checking her pockets, but found them empty. Pushing the pod’s door open, she saw that her phone was on her couch. She’d forgotten to place it in her pockets after hastily asking Mitch to carry her to the pod.

  To get it, she’d need to get out. On her own…

  Well, she was already timed out for two hours. By then, her evening assistant would come. She had no reason to stay in her game pod. She pulled herself out of the pod until her weight toppled over, and she fell onto the cushions outside her pod.

  Which gear piece did I lose… was the question as she reached for her phone. There was a chance she could bargain to get the items back, but she wouldn’t place her trust on that. She’d already betrayed Assassin… Aiden once, destroying his quest. It would only make sense for him to block her now, after he got a massive haul of items from her.

  My rings and accessories can go, they’re crap, Veyra thought, and she pulled up her character sheet on her phone.

  The staff was missing.

  Her heart dropped.

  Legacy Of The Portal Mage.

  Her legendary staff.

  The item that literally made her build work.

  That’s what had dropped. It was missing. Gone. The staff she’d loved more than herself for over two years now, perfecting its abilities. One unlucky chance, and it was gone. She’d need to respec her build entirely. Without her staff, her time and frost mage combo was absolute trash. Her spells wouldn’t do any damage at all.

  A lump formed in her throat, constricting her breathing. She sniffled, eyes getting teary.

  It’s just a game… she thought through her whimpers.

  A game that was her entire life.

  She felt utterly worthless as she whimpered on her living room floor.

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