Emrys wakes up in a hospital bed with bandages around his head.
A nurse sees he’s awake and calls the doctor to examine him. After the examination, the doctor tells him he doesn’t seem to have any major problems other than getting knocked out from a minor concussion when the flowerpot hit his head. As it turns out, despite having spent what felt like a month or so in that instance, only a few hours passed in reality. Since his injury isn’t severe, he’s discharged.
As he’s headed back home, he hears a ding and a notification pops up in front of him, reminding him to check the rewards he gained from the previous instance. He brushes it off, waiting until he’s back home to open the panel. Coral jumps about immediately on the blue screen.
It chirps, “Congratulations on surviving your first instance! For each instance you survive, you will gain rewards, and some extension to your life, depending on the level of the instance and your rank. The higher the level of an instance and the higher your rank, the better quality rewards you can obtain.”
Emrys frowns, puzzled. “Extension to my life?”
Coral tilts its head, puzzled by his puzzlement. “Yes, you died before all this and accepted a life-extending contract with the Abandoned World. Completing instances extends your life as a reward.”
Emrys’s eyes widen in shock. “I truly died?”
Coral nods. “Players in the Abandoned World are all people who have died and been offered this contract. If you don’t complete the instances, your contract would become null, and you’d die. Wasn’t this explained to you before you accepted the contract?”
Emrys processes this, thoughtful. He does recall a presence, a voice asking if he wished to live after a flower pot knocked him out. But he never answered yes or no. Or maybe he did, subconsciously.
Emrys asks, “How long is the life extension?”
“That varies as it is included as part of your rewards,” Coral explains. “For most new players or those with lower ranks completing lower-level instances, they usually gain about a week of time before they have to go into another instance. You can check the rewards you obtained here. Since the instance you just completed was a very high level, you can expect even better rewards!”
A window opens labelled “Rewards”, listing his gains:
* You obtained 4,000 EXP!
* You ranked up!
* * Your rank: Novice → Apprentice
* * Card slot +1
* You ranked up!
* * Your rank: Apprentice → Adept
* * Card slot +1
* You obtained 20 SP!
* You obtained 20,000g!
* You retained ‘Dimensional Storage’!
* * Converted to passive ability card.
* * Quality: R
* * Description: Adds one extra card slot to your instance inventory.
* You obtained 1 ‘Surprise gift for new players’!
* Time until next instance: 3 weeks
“These rewards are great!” Coral exclaims and begins explaining each reward. “You earned enough experience points to rank up twice, which also increased the amount of cards you can bring into an instance from one slot to three. You also now have 20 skill points; these can be used to level up your cards.”
At Emrys’s blank stare, Coral explains, “When you entered your first instance, you were given a starting ability.” Coral opens up the Regeneration ability card. “These abilities come in the form of cards which you can equip to bring into an instance. You got a passive ability card to start off, but you can also get active abilities, weapons, or even allies in the future. Cards are difficult to obtain though, so the fact that you retained a card from your first instance is very lucky!”
“Let’s see.” Coral opens the retained card.
* Dimensional Storage (lvl 1):
* * Quality: R
* * Type: Passive ability card
* * Description: Adds one extra card slot to your instance inventory.
“When you have this card equipped, you gain one extra card slot!”
Emrys asks, “Isn’t that the same as not having the card equipped?”
“Yes,” Coral agrees awkwardly, “but with enough skill points you can level up the card and gain more card slots, which is the equivalent of ranking up!”
Coral then opens up his stats. “Player ranks range from Novice to Elite. Starting at one card slot, for each rank increase, you gain another slot, increasing the number of cards you can equip to bring into an instance.”
Coral then opens the ‘Surprise gift,’ and it reveals a guaranteed draw for a random SR ability card. “This is actually rather unprecedented for a new player to get three cards right from the start,” Coral says. “Would you like to draw your new card now?”
Emrys nods. On the screen, cards flicker through until it stops and reveals his draw.
Treasure Hunter (lvl 1):
* Quality: SR
* Type: Passive ability
* Description: Slightly increases the chance of finding useful items.
“So this reward is considered good?” Emrys asks, his tone neutral.
Coral hesitates before responding, “…In fact, regardless of the luck-based rewards, you can still purchase high quality items with the gold you’ve earned. Maybe there are active abilities or weapons on sale. Would you like to browse the system store?”
Emrys shakes his head and closes the terminal, his expression unreadable. He then collapses into his bed and falls asleep straight away, exhausted.
—
For the next few weeks, Emrys goes about his days as usual, and he can almost forget about the harrowing adventure he had gone on. But there are a few changes to his life that confirm it truly happened. The most obvious change being Coral, who pops up on a panel to talk whenever he addresses it.
Maybe he can brush that off as going insane, since no one else can see Coral or the panel except him, but there’s also his undeniable increase in stamina. After his level rose, he feels a lot more energized than before. Even his colleagues and the cafe owner comment that he’s looking healthier these days.
I’m just glad I don’t get fatigued so easily anymore. Emrys thinks, looking at his hand pensively, testing his strength with a few squeezes of his fist. It looks like participating in the Abandoned World gives players a lot of energy, or in their terms, ‘EXP’.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
During off-peak hours at the cafe, Emrys finds solace in reading. Titles like "The History of the Decline and Fall of Empires," "The Departure of the Gods," and "Mythology and Legends" fill his reading list.
One afternoon, as Emrys is engrossed in a particularly detailed account of ancient rituals, one of his coworkers, Autumn, notices his stack of books and raises an eyebrow.
“Hey, studying for history class or something?” she asks curiously.
Emrys looks up, momentarily startled out of his reading. “No, I’m not a student. Just interested in history,” he replies, offering a small smile.
“You’re not a student?” Autumn asks in surprise. “Are you saving up for college?”
Emrys shakes his head, smiling awkwardly.
Autumn decides not to push the subject, peering at the cover of one of the books. “Ancient civilizations, huh? I do find that more interesting than modern history.”
Emrys hums, his smile fading slightly as he looks back at his book. Autumn shrugs and goes back to her tasks, leaving Emrys to his thoughts.
Sometimes, when he’s bored at home, Emrys opens the blue panel and explores the interface, slowly learning the UI with Coral’s assistance so he doesn’t have to call on it for questions every time.
After asking Coral several questions about instances and the Abandoned World, Coral finally suggests he unlock the Player Forum. It costs some gold—the Abandoned World’s currency—but Emrys has more than enough so he unlocks both the Player Forum and the Marketplace.
In the Player Forum, a sprawling network of threads and posts open before him. The layout is straightforward yet comprehensive, divided into several key sections to help navigate the wealth of information available.
Emrys skims through some of the sections. The most popular threads features the hottest topics being discussed, with titles like ‘Top 10 Survival Tips’, ‘Most Feared Bosses’, and ‘Legendary Gear Acquisitions’. Emrys sees that posts with the most likes and comments are prominently displayed, making it easy to catch up on the hottest discussions.
The section labelled ‘Recent Posts’ presents a constantly updating feed of the latest posts from players from all over. Emrys sees posts ranging from questions, theories, and updates on recent personal achievements like ranking up.
Emys continues to read and scroll through random posts, slowly learning more about the Abandoned World. As Coral mentioned before, the higher the level of an instance and the higher your rank, the better quality rewards you can obtain. Instance difficulty is categorized based on player mortality rate, the easiest category being Novice, then Intermediate, Advanced, Master, Legendary, and finally, Wipeout. Players can check their terminal during an instance to check its difficulty. As for Player ranks, they are based on the amount of EXP gained, starting from Novice, then Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, and Elite.
With a higher rank, players are also given more privileges; alongside better quality rewards, they have more say in what instances they enter. Generally, players will enter instances with a difficulty that matches their rank, but Expert or higher ranked players can choose higher or lower difficulty instances.
“Coral, can you help me find posts about the instance I completed?” Emrys asks.
After being called, Coral pops out, energetic as usual. “Of course! Just so you know, there is also a search engine right here, if you ever have a specific topic you’d like to search for,” Coral says, pointing to the search engine. “Or you can write a post yourself.”
Emrys laughs awkwardly. “Umm, I’m good for now. I’m not very good with tech, so this is all really new for me.”
“That’s alright! That’s why I’m here,” Coral says. “You can ask me for guidance with your terminal at any time, and whenever you feel like learning how to do something yourself, I can teach you that too!”
“Thanks, Coral.”
“No problem. Here are the results for the Wipeout instance, nicknamed by players as, ‘the Battle Royale’. Most instances don’t have a title, but this is a well-known Wipeout instance, since it can often be completed by being the last survivor,” Coral explains. “Players theorize there are many Wipeout instances they don’t know about since there are survivors to tell the tale.”
“So are there?” Emrys asks as he scrolls through the results. There aren’t very many results, but the instance does have one megathread, which he taps on.
“I can’t say,” Coral says.
“Is there a reason you can’t say?” Emrys asks.
“Yes! Because I don’t know either,” Coral answers with a bright smile. “And even if I did, I doubt I’d have the authority to give out that information. My only role is to guide players through our user interface.”
“Hmm,” Emrys responds halfheartedly.
Emrys skims through survivors’ accounts on the instance, most of them describing things he already knows, but altogether he gathers that the Wipeout instance is infamous for being unusually large in scale. Where most instances might pull in 5-10 players, who can choose to work together or not, this instance pulls in hundreds of players, pitting them against each other directly. Not only that, all cards except passive ability cards are made unavailable in this instance. Players can only rely on gods’ graces for abilities.
He comes across a survivor who gives a detailed account on each of the gods and the ability they give, except the Goddess of the Moon, Tiur, who didn’t grace any of the players, so the player claims they’re better off currying favor with the other gods. But from this, Emrys finally knows which god he spoke to in that instance—the Goddess of the Moon, Tiur.
He reads on. The player had teamed up with a large group and they gathered a lot of information from the instance’s setting together, also gaining a large assortment of abilities in the first phase. Their group managed to make it inside the temple, but that’s not where it ended. Inside the temple is a third phase, where they must face thirteen trials from the gods.
"The temple itself is not the place where the gods reside. Instead, you have to begin the third phase, and it is only when you complete the third phase that you truly reach the place where the gods reside. Unfortunately, we did not even make it through the first trial.
The third phase consists of thirteen trials. Twelve of the trials are given by each of the twelve gods, and I assume the thirteenth would be a trial from all of them together. The first trial was given by Nethune, the God of Water. His trial preyed on our fears, and wiped out my whole team, while I, by pure luck, was the last survivor. This allowed me to complete the instance and transport out before I succumbed to my death.
All this to say, the task of reaching the place where the gods reside is basically impossible. The only way to complete this instance is to be the last survivor.”
Emrys closes the post. That was the only account about the inside of the temple.
Switching to a section labelled ‘Tips for New Players’, Emrys found a thread titled ‘Navigating the Abandoned World: A Beginner’s Guide’:
"To new players: prioritize upgrading your abilities and equipment early on. Participate in low-level instances to build experience and gather resources. Don’t rush into high-risk instances until you’re well-prepared. Usually, you’ll be pulled into instances that match your rank, but if you don’t want to risk it, I highly recommend buying as much of this item as you have the gold for: Instance Selector.
Another item often in hot demand is the Pair Entry. With it, you can pair up with other players to tackle instances together for increased safety and success! There are plenty of players who work as mercenaries for hire to help you survive instances. But make sure you truly trust the person you pair up with. There are plenty of scammers out there. And finally, use the Marketplace wisely to trade and upgrade your gear efficiently!"
After exploring several different threads, Emrys finally closes the forum and opens his own status board.
With Coral’s help, he figures out how to level and equip cards. He uses all his SP points on his Regeneration ability card, leveling it from 1 to 3.
Near the end of the three weeks, Emrys finally decides to purchase a sword for himself from the system store, using most of his gold.
* You purchased 1 Soulrender longsword!
* * Quality: SR
* * Description: Absorbs the life force of enemies, healing the wielder with each successful strike.
* * Weapon card added to inventory.
—
He gets a notification from Coral, reminding him that he’ll be sent to his next instance soon.
Coral asks, “Are you ready for your next instance?”
Emrys looks at his hand and clenches it. “Yes. I’m ready.”