Chapter 2 First Day, First Death… okay, Deaths

  The first thing Kiro noticed was his vision. In real life trying to see was like looking through progressively murkier water. Everything just got darker and darker. But here, everything was bright. The sky was blue, the stone buildings around him were vide shades of gray. Everything was clear.

  Then there were the sounds. After the accident sounds became harder and harder to differentiate, and the loudest scream eventually felt like a dying whisper. Now he could hear the sound of hundreds of voices, the noise of thousands of feet walking around him, music, and laughter.

  Then there was the smell, the feeling of the cobblestones under his feet, the taste of the air on his tongue. Every little sense that he had taken for granted before the accident and had started to lose after were now restored to their full glory in this virtual reality.

  His eyes filled with tears.

  With several loud dings, several system messages popped up in front of him:

  Kiro closed the messages. His body felt powerful, full of energy. Immediately, he started running. Without paying attention to his surroundings, he ran, exhilarated by the simple sensation of his muscles in action.

  He went through the gates of the city and out in the field that surrounded it. There were many little critters, such as rabbits, little foxes and wild dogs but he ignored them all and rushed into the forest.

  In front of him he saw a rock, and without slowing down he jumped over it and continued running. He saw a log and ran on top of it before jumping onto a huge rock. He jumped down and tuck his shoulders in to execute a roll before getting up and continuing to run. He saw a even bigger boulder in the distance and ran up to it. He jumped up, griped a handhold and started to climb it. He had always enjoyed rock climbing before his accident.

  He didn’t stop there, and spent several hours just running, jumping and climbing through the forest, simply enjoying the sensation of his body moving again. It felt as if every step he took purified him a little more of all the anger, despair and hopelessness he had felt as he lay on his hospital bed for days, unable to do anything but feel his body degrading, turning into a prison for his mind.

  After several hours of running around in this manner, he was forced to stop by several message windows.

  Ding!

  With this onslaught of new information, Kiro decided to take a break. He opened his inventory and saw that he had 100 wheat bread. He took one out and ate it. His satiety rose by 10%. He quickly ate two more to fill it.

  Then he decided to open his character window for the first time:

  It had been approximately 3 hours since the game started. In that time, he had already consumed 3 bread. If he kept on consuming them at that rate, he would starve before the end of the beta test.

  He decided to head back.

  On the way he saw a small lake, near the entrance of the forest. This is a game, he thought, maybe I can catch fish?

  He decided to try. With a shout, he ran, jumped, and did a cannonball. The water felt wonderfully cool on his skin. He looked around in the water, trying to see if there were any fishes around.

  He saw a large, dark shape coming towards him at full speed. Before he even had time to register it, he felt a huge pain on his head and chest. His life bar drained before him in the blink of an eye.

  Everything went black, and he was teleported to the starting area. Another window appeared:

  Kiro dismissed the messages with a smile. It wasn’t that he had a fetish towards pain, but after having a taste of what nothingness was like, even the pain of death was preferable.

  He decided to go back to the lake, to discover what killed him.

  He ran back, and dived in. And died again.

  He didn’t give up and tried again, and again, and again…

  Finally, after a dozen deaths, he succeeded on using Identification on it:

  Then he died.

  This time, after reviving he received the following notifications:

  Kiro slowly read the messages. After reading the description of master of death, and incredulous smile spread across his face. That proficiency would become invaluable later on. Right now death had no consequence, but later on the thing that Kiro would regret losing the most would be these two.

  Judging from his run earlier, stats could be regained with a little effort. Likewise, levels and experience could be regained from quests or killing monsters. But skills leveled up by using them and likewise proficiencies leveled up through specific actions.

  For this reason, the Master of Death proficiency was extremely useful. And what better time, Kiro thought with a grin, to level this particular proficiency up than right now, when there would be no consequences to leveling it up.

  For that purpose, he chose a rather high building with walls filled with easy handholds to climb and an empty alleyway beside it, where there would be no one to see him kill himself. He thought that falling to his death would be the fastest, and therefore hopefully the least painful way to die.

  On the roof of the building he looked down, and after a deep breath jumped down head first. Instant death. Back at the revival point, he looked at his Master of Death proficiency and noted that it was at 98.56%.

  So he went to jump again, and again, and again, until his proficiency rose from beginner to intermediate. At intermediate, the proficiency and skill loss was 0.00% and the skill point loss started to diminish. At the beginner level, he needed 3 deaths to level up. After reaching intermediate, it took 5 deaths.

  Somewhere along the way he gained the climbing proficiency (increased strength and dexterity as well as climbing speed) and the falling proficiency (reduced falling and blunt impact damage), which forced him to find a higher building.

  His Master of Death proficiency was at intermediate lvl 2 – 93.23% when he jumped once more to his death. But he got a different message:

  Everything went dark.