Fred removed the headset that obstructed his vision and saw the familiar ceiling. He placed it beside the pillow and stood up. The man needed a glass of water.
As he went towards the kitchen, he noticed he was not sweaty. Well, a tiny bit, but not as much as he was in the game. He walked a lot in the game, too. His head was completely full of experiences, as if he had just read a heavy book. But this was different—the experiences were his; it was just unusual that his body displayed no physical signs of them.
Fred recalled the last time he logged out—the moment that he died. The cold sweat broke over his body, but that was after he logged out. The game had little influence over his body, only his mind. He felt that was a useful bit of information.
He felt hungry, too. He hadn't eaten since lunch, and it was nearly 19:00. He decided to make dinner, but as he looked into the fridge, a rather scary thought floated around his head: it was so full of memories; what if those memories would fade away simply because his physical body simply had no evidence of those ever happening?
He remembered Rosalie's sandwich; it was so tasty, and he did not want to lose its taste. He quickly dressed up and went outside, heading towards a supermarket. Fred knew he wasn't going to reproduce the taste, but simply trying to would give him an opportunity to recall the taste, and perhaps that would help him remember it for longer. It was not like there was any other real choice; his fridge was empty.
The supermarket did not have such excellent bread; dried tomatoes were only available in dry packaging. Nevertheless, he returned home and managed to get close. It was not as delicious as Rosalie's, but it reminded him of Rosalie's sandwich, and that in and of itself made the real world sandwich tastier.
After stuffing his belly, Fred went towards his computer. He typed "accelerate dungeon" into the search engine and clicked on the first result. It was the game's official webpage.
> Dungeon kits are available for as much as
Fred stopped reading; he was shocked. Then, after a few seconds, he shook his head. He realized the page was not meant for him; it was for other developers who could get their intellectual property, characters, and stories into the game. He scrolled down and saw a few big entertainment studios as their partners. Fred closed the page; he was not that rich. But it was nice to know he might one day see—no, experience his favorite shows in the extreme realism that the game offered.
He searched for the "accelerate catgirl" next. He found a few forum posts. People asked where they could see a catgirl. Someone mentioned the dungeon Easter egg but did not spoil the details. Someone else mentioned seeing one in a cafe in the capital city. The last search result caught his attention the most. It was a petition to include fox girls. With at least a thousand signatures. There was an official reaction too:
> The catgirls you see are the Easter eggs left by one of our core developers, who, as you can guess, was obsessed with them. We are sorry (not really) that they were not obsessed with fox girls.
>
> Fortunately for all you fluffy ear fans, we are working on an update to enable animal races along with the general framework to allow player transformations. Fox girls are, of course, included. These will be available in both dungeons and the world itself. The current timeline is four years—Accelerate! time, of course.
Although incomplete, the reply seemed to satisfy the petitioners. Four years in Accelerate! were not that long… Fred realized he was wasting his time.
Even if there were some juicy details, he would rather experience them in the game itself. What's the point of reading about the game if he could simply play it? At an accelerated rate, no less.
Fred went to bed and put on the headset. Moments later, he was back in the game. He was alone at the dungeon entrance. He felt the same way he just felt in real life—his stomach was full and his body was moderately clean.
Nevertheless, Fred did feel a bit guilty about playing alone, without his party. On the other hand, he was sure they would not mind seeing him get a bit stronger either. He was supposed to be their sword fighter.
He quickly traveled to the guild building. It was early morning, still dark, yet the guild was full of people. The acceleration was rather low too, at 17x.
Fred looked at the people and finally found a muscular guy, a rank-C adventurer. His name was John, and his delta was 127. He came to him and simply asked,
"Hey, I am a bit new; can you help me out?"
"Sure, what's your problem?" He smiled back, happy to be of help.
"Well, I tried to use the longsword and could not."
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"Make sense. It's easy to see you're not the longsword guy." He briefly laughed.
"Why?!"
"Well, have you seen yourself in the mirror? The game copies your physical body, and you don't look like someone who can swing heavy weights around." John carefully explained, trying not to insult Fred.
Despite John's efforts, Fred still felt intimidated and slightly sad. He did not have a perfect or even good looking body; it was simply the truth. His mind wondered into dark places—what if his party did not like him and simply hired him because he knew about the dungeon?
"How do I get better then?" He finally asked.
"You lift. You go to the gym. It takes time, but the game offers no shortcuts." John sighed; it was too obvious of an answer.
"Is there a gym around here?" Fred asked, although he already knew what the guy meant.
"Yes, but, well, and your form will reset if you die or log out. It's still useful if you want to do some stretches before a big fight. I meant the gym for your real body."
"Oh." Fred sighed.
"And, well, while you train, maybe try out katanas; they are lighter yet do a lot of damage. Also, you can learn martial arts, and you can do this in-game. Also, uhm, I know a guy who is a rank higher than me, and he's more fat than you are. I don't know how he got there, though. " John tried to cheer up, with some success.
"Thank you." Fred thanked him and sat down on the bench. To do some thinking.
First thing, he remembered Bjorn's words when he offered Fred to join the party. The words themselves were not important, but Fred clearly remembered them being said before Fred told them about the dungeon. Which meant the party did not invite him solely so they could boost their ranks. It really eased his insecurity. It did not remove it completely, and the man still felt full in the stomach, and it was not just food being digested.
In the next few minutes, he was torn. The shoulder angel told him to go to the gym regularly, as that would have tons of other benefits as well. The shoulder devil told him to ignore the angel and simply learn the martial arts.
Before settling upon a decision, his middle wandered into the previous topic. He realized he should be grateful; after all, his party accepted him for who he is, and they had so much fun together. His mind also remembered Rosalie and her sandwich, and in that moment, he reached a solution: to get some tasty gifts for his new friends.
He pulled up the menu and found Rosalie. She was offline. He wrote her a message, but he did not expect her to reply. Fred stood up and went outside.
The problem was that he did not know where Rosalie's bakery was. But he needed a challenge, and this challenge was good enough. He asked around if people knew of a bakery. They knew of a few. The first bakery was near the guild's building, but they did not make sandwiches, so Fred was not even there.
The second bakery was on the outskirts, and a seasoned player told him they sold amazing sandwiches. That one seemed to fit the bill. It was in the hidden area of his map, so Fred had to walk there. With a surprising amount of unexplained determination, Fred walked for two hours and finally reached the place.
> Location discovered: Fallen Star Bakery
Not only did it have its own quick travel point, but it also had a menu item number four named Sunny Tomato. And they had a few too. Rosalie was not here, but there was an NPC at the counter.
"Hi, is Rosalie around?"
"No, but she will likely come back in two weeks." The older man replied.
Fred sighed. In some ways, this game sucked. He looked through the glass, but he did not see any sandwiches. Bread products, pastries, cheeses, and big chunks of smoked meat.
"You make sandwiches, right?" Fred asked, and the man nodded.
He peeked at the menu again and noticed a slight problem. A sandwich costs five coins, and he only had eight. The dungeon quest he did did nothing to thicken his pocket. And he needed at least three sandwiches to surprise his teammates. He could not repeat the rat quest either; the reward was only given once.
"Hey, do you know any around here?" Fred asked the NPC.
"Well. You can fetch some mushrooms for me; we pay one gold for two mushrooms. Here's how it looks, and I can point you on the map where to find them."
NPC pointed to one of the buckets on the counter; it had strange looking bright orange mushrooms.
"It's called Delicious Milk Cap; you can find it in the northern parts of the continent."
Fred immediately sighed again. He pulled up his map, and the entire northern area was completely black. It would take him a long time to get there. A strange feeling flooded Fred. It is the kind of itchy and anxious feeling one feels when nothing goes their way. As if he already burned through all his luck today. Maybe that was actually the case—he did spend so many hours in the game, and it was late outside the game too.
"Any other quests? Preferably with catgirls?" Fred asked with a slightly hopeless voice.
"A cat girl, you say? We have a cat right here in the bakery! She's right behind you."
Fred turned out with a certain spark and sighed afterwards. There was a cat girl. A girl cat. An actual female cat was sitting on the special cat sofa on the windowsill.
"That's not a catgirl." Fred said to himself.
But the cat raised his ear and opened her left eye, as if she heard Fred's complaint. Fred felt a bit uneasy. The cat did look pretty. Long, dark gray fur, maybe even purple if looked at from the right angle, with patches of white under the chin and paws. He moved closer, trying to headpat the cat, but the cat hissed. The cat then stared specifically at the leather chair in the corner, not too far from the cat.
"You want me to sit there?" He asked the cat.
The cat did not answer; there was no nod or anything like that. Fred moved to the chair and sat down; it looked comfortable anyway. Maybe the cat was right; a five minute break was all that he needed.
The sleepiness began to overtake him. The chair was so warm and comfortable. His legs were tired and sore from all the walking, and this was just perfect. It's like the cat knew all this.
Just out of curiosity, Fred pulled up the menu and peeked at the cat. She had no delta variable, so she was not a real player. But something else caught his attention. The cat had a mana bar. A big blue bar was right under the health bar. Fred was surprised; it was the first time he had ever seen a mana bar. In this game, at least. Maybe it was a bug? The cat did not look like an enemy he would need to fight.
He noticed something else. The cat's name was simply "Kitty," but she also did have a title underneath the name. A funny one too:
"Owner of the Bakery"
Fred wondered if that was an inside joke or another Easter egg…