‘Dear ****

We have received your message and we understand you might have worries about the new role you are undertaking but you do not need to worry about not being familiar with the game.

We expect you to go into the game without any information and that is part of the reason why we purposely withheld information in the job description and the application process.

We are happy with your reports of your experience with the game so far. They have enlightened us of the problems with our game and we hope you can continue to simply play the game as you would any other game and tell us about your experience.

Kind Regards,

Nova Development Team’

After reading the email he had received from the developers, Lei felt himself somewhat happy to know that they thought his reports useful. They called it reports but for him they were just a diary of his experience with the game so far, it was not detailed or in depth but instead rather casually written. They had told him that these reports should be sent to them every couple of days but said it could be about anything as long as it was about his experience with the game.

He had submitted his first report yesterday after he died in the game from falling off the edge of the cliff, since he had not much time left to play he logged off and took some time to write it.

‘I guess, I should get back to the game now’ Lei glanced towards the headset and the chair at the corner of his bedroom. Before any play session because of the intuitive and natural involvement with the game, time flew by so Lei always before starting the game took care of any psychological needs. The game would also pop up alerts once a while to remind people to take breaks.

‘Okay, since i have eaten and done all that other stuff. I can play now’

After logging back into the game, Lei could instantly hear the loud sound of splashing water. He found himself unsurprisingly at the bottom of the cliff and looking towards where he had fallen off he could only shudder at the height of the fall.

‘Thank god! This is a game!’ He joked and laughed out loud.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

‘Plop’

He stepped back and noticed that there was a steady stream of water moving downwards. There was not much Lei could make out, it was rather dark as the tall bushy trees stopped much sunlight from reaching the ground.

Lei looked towards where the water was streaming down but could not make out anything special but in the end decided to follow it.

There was a different mood to the forest in its darkness now, it was felt to him eerily because every sound was drowned out by the nearby waterfall. In addition, the humidity in the air created a strange muggy atmosphere that made it feel like it was difficult to breath. It felt to Lei strangely real in how the area created a sense of him being actually present in this environment and not just within it in a game area.

*plop* plop*

Slowly, Lei made his way with the flowing stream that was only an inch or so deep but it was gaining momentum.

‘Another thing!’ Lei thought in his mind, he could actually feel the flow of the water through his shoes. It covered his shoes and he could feel its cool touch and movement in his skin. His steps grew heavier as his shoes grew wetter and his brown leather boots gripped on to the skin of his foot like glue.

‘I should take these off’ Lei stopped to take off his boots that were at this point only a hindrance. After taking it off, it disappeared like an actual item but he could feel an added weight to his backpack.

‘Oh this feels great’ The feel of the water on the bare foot alongside the small rocks it carried massaged Lei foot in a therapeutic way.

After walking further down the stream gained further speed, and Lei noticed that there was a sudden two meter drop. He jumped down and continued following the stream whilst at the same time noticing how the sound of splashing water of the waterfall grew more and more distant.

It was a distinct landmark that he thought to use to position himself. He was not aware of where the stream headed but he was curious even though it probably would just feed into the same river as the waterfall.

‘Thanks to that monster, I lost the position of the village!’ He grumbled in dissatisfaction, after all there was no map to speak of in the game or any game compass system, so there was no easy way to tell the direction to head so he could only guess his current position in regards to the river.

‘What are these’ All of the sudden strange floating lights appeared all around him. There were not many to begin with but as he kept walking along the stream they multiplied.

‘Are those fireflies?” Lei questioned. They lit up his surroundings in various colours and he could not help but look away and stare at them. It entranced him and he could not look away from the wonderful and beautiful floating lights.

He stopped suddenly when he felt that the level of the water had risen above his ankles.

‘What is this?’ Lei unrelanctly looked away from the fireflies.

The stream had become a pond and at the centre of it there was a strange shine, it was only a few meters away from Lei.

‘I don't like walking like this anymore…’ Lei grimaced, it was not deep or anything but having water reach past his shin made him somewhat uncomfortable because the thought of something weird and dangerous grasping onto his foot was always at the back of his mind.

Nonetheless, he was interested in whatever it was that gave a shiny gleam not far from him. He thought it could be perhaps a treasure of some sort. After all he could not help but think that this somewhat dark and mysterious pond and the surrounding fireflies gave off a mysterious atmosphere that screamed to him. ‘important stuff’

Lei still cautiously approached because, in his mind he thought this could also be another trap of some kind. The glimmer did not move as he grew closer so he became more assured that this was something interesting and not some kind of useless stuff, or at least he hoped.