{Notice}

  [Operation Denied.]

  “Erase shock,” I muttered.

  {Notice}

  [Operation Denied.]

  “Erase shock.”

  {Notice}

  [Operation Denied.]

  “ERASE SHOCK!” I screamed, squeezing my head.

  My request was completely ignored.

  No matter how hard or how long I’d try, I couldn’t put myself back together.

  The taste of blood remained in my mouth. Perhaps I’d split a cheek open. Perhaps I’d broken a tooth. Perhaps I was going insane.

  I just wanted to feel something.

  Everything moved out of focus, like a dirty window.

  I knew people stepped past me, casting worried glances to the others beside them, but I couldn’t pick out the features of their faces. I couldn’t fully grasp where I was. I knew the floor beneath me was stone, but which kinds? Was it cobbled, or flat? Why did the texture confuse me? Which part of the street was I in? Had I walked away from the Bestiary, or was I just outside it?

  Perhaps Sern would talk to me if I waited long enough.

  I looked up, watching the shifting city. Pathways branched from the central road. They split further, like the capillary offshoots within a dungeon. And if this was a dungeon, the players were the monsters.

  My hand clenched up a little.

  And I took a breath in.

  Then out.

  What was I thinking? What am I doing?

  Movement. A little exercise would be good for me, as long as I was doing something.

  I bumped through the crowd with no particular direction for the better part of an hour.

  But my mood only soured.

  A few lives ago, my entire party survived an attack from a three-star core on the tutorial area. After that, Dena killed them, so I killed her, a fourth area player, over and over again, gaining hundreds of bonuses.

  Since then, have I won a single encounter? Was I any really stronger than before?

  Why? What was wrong with me?

  Before, I could go and do as I pleased. Sometimes there would be danger, or serious consequences, but I’d never had such a monstrous cycle of failure.

  If I died back then, I would have gotten, learned, or gained something to make me far stronger on the next go around. But, no matter how many times I died, I wasn’t able to solve my core problems.

  How do I keep people I love alive?

  How do I provide for their needs?

  How do I get stronger while doing it?

  Would that even be enough?

  Maybe I should start over. Not just this life, but…everything. I got too attached to Sern too fast.

  Is she even that good of a person, to put this much effort into saving her life? Who cares, really?

  Why pretend I can fix her problem? I’m not superhuman.

  Besides, Asiel could fix whatever. She already basically beat the game, right? Getting Sern from point A to point B would be a piece of cake.

  And if not her, then there’s plenty of other players more than capable of bring her home. I’ll just explain that it’s a hard quest, get somebody from the fourth area, and they’ll have it wrapped up in a day or two.

  No.

  No, that wasn’t quite right.

  If there are so many stronger people, why don’t they help her?

  For all I know, her quest might restart when completed. Was this a pointless cycle all along?

  Does it matter?

  Really, I mean?

  Does anything I do matter?

  If not, who cares? I’ll save whoever I feel like. I’ll act however I please. That’s not being rude, or mean, or selfish. That’s how you play the game. I’ll do good once I get to the real world.

  Besides, Npcs aren’t players. When the game is finished, and all the players leave, they’ll be left behind. There’s no point trying to save anybody.

  They never had a chance to begin with.

  Great.

  I don’t know what I’m doing.

  I don’t know what I’m thinking.

  I don’t know what I’m doing or thinking and I’m losing my mind and the only person who would actually understand a cycle of grief now hates me, and I hate her, and nothing matters cause we’ll all be dead in a million billion years.

  Great. Fine.

  Why care about her anyway? She admits not only to being evil, but to luring and killing players.

  I tried to save her. I failed.

  So why can’t I stop caring?

  Idiot. She never hurt you, did she? She only cared about everybody, and now all the people she ever loved are dead because you had to pick a fight with a slaver.

  Nice going, me.

  I stumbled into a building.

  Sern has nothing. Worse than nothing. She’s a child, with a child’s emotions and fears, and also immortality. She cannot process or understand the scale of the universe’s hatred toward her. Her mind is broken, much like my own.

  What right do I have to be upset? I have everything. Absolutely everything, beyond what any other player, monster, or being has in this universe. I should relish my gifts with every waking moment.

  But I don't. I’m an angry, bubbling, babbly crackpot blowing steam until I feel better.

  I should go back and apologize. Sincerely apologize, and maybe, just maybe she…she…

  Oh, who cares? Nothing I do matters anyway.

  I pushed open the doors to the bar, slumping down at one of the stools. It was, as always, ridiculously loud. A little noise would be good for me. With any luck, I’d get out of my thick head.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The bartender gave me a look.

  “What do you want?” He asked.

  “Beer,” I sighed, tossing coins on his counter. “A lot of it.”

  He frowned. “We don’t serve beer.”

  I glanced at him, then at the shirtless Npcs running around a table, picking up chairs and bashing them against each other.

  “...You’re joking.”

  He shook his head. “We only serve root beer. Believe it or not, those folks just do that, all on their own. They get a kick out of it, you see.”

  I dropped my head into my hands.

  “What kind of a bar is this?”

  “Oh there isn’t alcohol in the game,” the bartender stated. “Just part of system code 101, detailing parameters to keep this game fun for all ages.”

  He handed me a slip of paper, listing over a hundred items in a tiny font.

  “Swearing, nudity, intercourse, excessive blood—” I crumpled it up in my hand. “Guess that explains a lot.”

  “One root beer?” He asked.

  “Yeah.”

  The drink wasn’t fizzy, and it had the sweet, buttery taste of honey, instead of the sickly gauze I’d been expecting, like in earth soda.

  Earth soda. How do I know twenty something brands of pop I’ve never tasted? Or how to talk, for that matter?

  What language are we speaking? English? I don’t remember learning that.

  I…I don’t remember anything.

  Nothing.

  No wonder I can’t do anything worthwhile.

  Perhaps I didn’t have much reason to live in my other life either. Perhaps this game was supposed to be an escape of sorts, and then something went wrong.

  I ought to treat it like a game.

  Do what I want as I please.

  And what I want to do is help people.

  But I can’t save anybody.

  I-I just can’t do this. I can’t do this.

  This isn’t going to end, is it? I’m just going to run into one insurmountable hurdle after the next.

  Perhaps this game was designed to hurt me. I seem to be more important than your average payer. I’m special. And I suffer more than I should.

  So, if this game is made to hurt me, I’ll stop it.

  I’ll stop it by killing myself.

  There’s got to be some kind of indefinite stun or softlock I could set up.

  Yes, a new quest. One to end my own life before anybody else got hurt. Sern would like that.

  Splinters shot through my glass, leaking root beer onto the counter. The bartender gave me a look, before getting me a new mug.

  Sern wouldn’t want me dead. Because she’s a good person who genuinely cares about the people around her. I know that. Or I think I know that. I know nothing. But I'm an idiot, so who cares what I know?

  Why can’t I make a coherent choice!?

  If I’m going to give up and die, fine! Maybe I’ll keep trying instead. What difference would it make!? So why can’t I just…why…

  Why can’t I just play like a normal person? I almost hate to think of wasting powers like mine, but if I could live like my friends live, and die like they died, would that be so bad. Even if the story ends poorly, at least it will end. But to have it go on and on, endlessly, that’s worse, isn’t it?

  That’s it. I would die. The world would either find a way to fix itself, or it would end. Perhaps I would wake up, to find this was all a dream. Nothing ever truly mattered in the first place. Or I would be another dead human, and this wouldn’t ever have truly mattered in the first place.

  A poor ending is better than none at all.

  A poor ending is better.

  I sensed the frozen death message within my mind, all the way in the second area. My mind had tensed around it, like a vice, so it was taking a bit of effort to unfreeze—

  I jolted, finding a warm hand clamped onto my shoulder.

  “Wow! HA! My friend! What are the chances?” Dexten laughed. He looked me in the eyes with a sparkling bright smile that gradually faded. “Hey. You good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Really?”

  I took a breath, wiping glass from my hands.

  “No. Pull up a seat.”

  “Time traveling issues?” He asked. Dexten glanced around the room. “Hey…where’s your daughter?”

  “Not my daughter,” I said. “She hates me. I guess.”

  Dexten winced. “Ah. What happened?”

  “I…Urgot…the slaver down the road killed all the children in his store to send a message to me.”

  “She died?” Dexten asked.

  “No, he let Sern live. I guess that was part of his revenge too, since she had to see her loved ones die. She’s…not in a good place right now.”

  Dexten leaned forward.

  “Where’s Mall?” I asked. “You two are always together.”

  “Oh I wanted to see you,” Dexten said. “We always found each other in bars, so I just wandered around.”

  “And you found me on your first guess?”

  “Seventh, actually,” he chuckled. “All these places look the same. I assume the rest of your party died too?”

  “No, Rose and Junior are good.” I sighed. “They’re in a little apartment with a month of food set up. But I guess it’s not that safe without a player around. There’s a cult or something in the area.”

  I sipped my drink. “Maybe they’re already dead.”

  Butterflies flipped through my stomach, unsure whether I ought to be sad.

  The next thing I knew, Dexten was reaching over with a hand against my forehead. “What happened to you? Are you sick?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” I said. “But not really. You know how to check somebody’s stats, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Dexten stated. He muttered something, and a floating book appeared, crackling with blue light. “But there’s a lot of second area afflictions that my perception wouldn’t be able to pierce through. Like blight, for instance, which makes you confused, distant, hotter, and wilty.”

  “Isn’t that a plant thing?”

  Dexten shrugged. “That’s what the encyclopedia has.”

  “And that is—”

  “---union spell that contains all knowledge in the game,” he finished. “Very handy. Hey, weren’t you getting union training?”

  I buried my head in my hands. “No. I failed an exam. And that I got another master but he was a Core, so…”

  “So you’re not sick, but you’re a total wreck,” Dexten sighed. “Talk to me.”

  So I did. I told him everything that happened from my fight with Dena up to Urgot’s scheme and, eventually, all through the shouting match between me and Sern.

  “I don’t know anything,” I sighed. “And the things I know are basically always wrong, so, yeah.”

  “I don’t think you’re wrong so much as you’re too weak,” Dexten said.

  “I know,” I said. “But I’m not strong enough to get into the union, without that…I don’t get stronger. As I recall my testing was…sub-par.”

  “Then get stronger, or mooch off somebody who already knows everything,” my friend chuckled. “That’s what I do.”

  “That isn’t…” I clenched my jaw. “I can’t do that. It’s impossible.”

  “There’s no shortcut,” Dexten admitted. “Not to anything, no matter how many powers you have. But I’m pretty sure it’s not impossible. Try again. And for goodness sake, have some fun, man,” he said, punching me in the shoulder. “This game was meant to be enjoyed.”

  “It’s a flawed mess,” I grumbled.

  “Meat and gristle,” Dexten chuckled. “There’s always a little of both. Swallow what you can and spit the rest.”

  I took a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. “I don’t think you understand.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And why not?”

  “It’s…it’s Sern,” I said. “I don’t care what she’s done. She’s a good kid. I know that much, and I’ll figure the rest out later. Right now, I need to keep her—and all the other slaves—safe. But it’s physically impossible for me to take care of a hundred children! I’d need—”

  “Me.”

  I blinked. “Come again?”

  “I’ll take care of her,” Dexten said. “It might be safest if we just buy her, and other slaves you’ve grown attached to, which would cause new ones to spawn in at Urgot’s emporium, so, yes, it’s not a perfect solution, especially not in terms of actually stopping slavery as a business. That said, if it gives you the consciousness to go out and do your own thing, which would stop slavery in the long run, then I don’t see why not.”

  “You’d do that?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I mean if—right after I respawned—you’d just take Sern, Rose, Axel, and Junior all into your care.”

  “Well, I’d want to take all the kiddoes,” he chuckled. “Assuming you could find a way to purchase them. I’d hate to leave somebody behind just because you haven’t really gotten to know them yet.”

  I looked him in the eye. “You mean it?”

  “Yes,” Dexten said.

  “For a stranger?” I asked. “It’s a timeloop.”

  “For my best friend, time traveling or no time traveling.” He grinned like a lunatic.

  “You know you’re going to forget this, right?” I sighed.

  “Just trust me on this one. I’ll figure it out.”

  I watched him.

  Then his eyes went wide. “Hey…you’re…you’re bleeding. Is that supposed to happen?”

  I held a hand to my lips, where black blood ran down. “No worries. I just unfroze the screen.”

  Dexten blinked. “You good?”

  “Yeah,” I said, with a smile. “I think I’m going to be alright.”

  A sudden warmth filled my chest.

  My eyes rolled back and my dead corpse hit the floor.

  // {Notice} //

  Hi! Hope you enjoyed a fantasy story. But as much fun as a fantasy is, there’s things in the real world beyond what writing can fix. That’s where you come in.

  Want to fight human trafficking? Whether you’ve got money or time there are two organizations I wholly recommend.

  Race Day — Thirty

  Donate - Venture