[AWW, YOU DIED. AND YOU TRIED SO HARD, PLAYER. I WAS REALLY ROOTING FOR YOU!]

Eye twitching, Wick spits on the ground and walks back out of the temple for the third time in less than an hour. He shoulders his way past a pair of players lingering right on the front steps, in the middle in some kind of posturing standoff. They curse him int eh world chat, Wick flips them off over his shoulder and then doesn’t give those losers another thought.

The artificial sunlight doesn’t feel very artificial; bright and cheery, reflecting on the high rooftops and very nearly blinding him. The temple is located at the highest point of this particular starting city—from here, he’s got a picturesque view of the entire town, and more besides.

Mountains reach high in the distance, the tips obscured by heavy clouds, fields and meadows vanishing over the horizons, with only the very top of forests visible beyond that, so tiny they appear little more than dark bushes, if anything at all. There is an ocean to one side, roads swirling through the wilds, blimps flying higher than even the mountaintops.

And even in the daylight, he can see fourteen of the twenty-nine moons in the sky, big and small alike.

It looks, actually, infuriatingly like the trailers.

Clicking his tongue [DO YOU NEED TO DRINK MORE WATER? I READ HUMANS NEED TO DRINK LOTS OF WATER.], Wick stalks down the steps, feet heavy thanks to the load of armor he’s covered head-to-toe in. Every step rattles his whole body, the perils of realism taken a bit too far in his humble opinion, but man did people get annoying about it when he tastefully expressed his opinion on the forums. Ugh.

Below the temple grounds is the market district, and even at barely seven in the morning it’s bustling. He gets knocked into four times on his first meter crossing, his head jostled in his scorching warm helmet, his own breath sounding like a death knoll. The cacophony of sounds around him is a crescendo, an ever-reaching attempt at a man-made hurricane, and Wick grimaces in the protection of his armor and finally does away with his facsimile of manners and just starts shoving people out of the way.

[THAT MERCHANT IS SELLING WATER. WHY ARE YOU STILL WALKING? YOU NEED WATER! HUMANS NEED WATER, PLAYER!]

Rolling his eyes, Wick pushes a child NPC out of his way and then goes back and kicks her NPC puppy too, just for good measure.

While the kid’s weeping, his Reputation goes up again.

This game is pure lunacy.

[..・ヾ(。＞＜)シ]

Flipping off thin air, Wick sulks. The quest is going—well, it’s not going, is sort of the thing. Not at all. Hours of searching and hacking and slashing and literal pain because realism (ugh) and he hasn’t even found the boss yet, still languishing in the map’s first area. Every time he steps on the ground he gets mobbed by the hamsters and smothered to death as thousands of them jump him at once.

And every death is another level lost, one more setback on the road to stardom.

[DON’T BE DISCOURAGED! THIS IS A HARD QUEST! I BELIEVE IN YOU!]

“Oh for fucks sake,” Wick mutters, spotting an enterprising merchant NPC heading his way in the throng of people. Spinning on his heel twice (the momentum of the heavy armor carries him through an extra swirl) Wick blatantly walks off in another direction. He doesn’t need another sword, or shield, or arrow and he doesn’t have any money, besides.

Wick isn’t actually very good at this game.

Even before this quest, he was only level fourteen. He’s still in the starting city, and he hasn’t even gotten a job yet. He’s still not entirely sure just what a job is, or why everybody on the game’s forum makes such a big deal of it. Why does it matter if he’s a clergyman when he’s already a cleric? Why would he need to be a swordsman if he’s already a warrior? Trying to make sense of it just leaves him scratching his head and making weird faces to himself, kind of like when he tried to figure out how he burned water trying to cook instant ramen. Four times. In a row. While his mother laughed at him from the couch.

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…It’s possible that starting his gaming career with MMOs, and this one in particular, was a bad choice. Maybe he should have just settled with single-player games.

But fuck it; he’s here now and he’s not giving up.

Obviously.

Because the game cost seventy bucks.

[THAT’S THE SPIRIT. DON’T GIVE UP! ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶]

Rolling his eyes, Wick at last muscles his way out of the market, the world instantly simmering into something much quieter, much easier to stand. The sensory overload fraying at his nerves diminished, Wick rubs his eyes and speeds up. When he doesn’t have to evade someone every other step, he makes much greater time toward the city gate closest to his quest destination. Of course, it is supremely annoying that every time he dies he has to redo this journey —after all, it’s a ten minute walk even at his greatest speed.

It involves crossing a train-track running right through the middle of the city, making his way over rooftops to evade a gang war playing out in a certain section (and by the way, every step he takes on the roofs wear out the roofs’ durability because of the weight of his armor, and there are several section which have already collapsed from his repeated traversing and when he crosses around them now the owners curse him out), heckling a cop trying to purchase some alcohol in a dirty alley (admittedly that one’s just for fun) and then going back several streets because he lost track of himself on the little map in the corner of his eyes.

[YOU’LL BE THERE SOON! HANG IN THERE!]

“Shut up,” Wick grouches at the game’s support system that’s supposed to help newbies. It’s… well, on the one hand it is very obviously reading his mind which. Yeah. Sketchy stuff. And on the other hand, it’s just got a damn weird personality which honestly? Also sketchy stuff.

[RUDE. (￣︿￣)]

“Oh, did I hurt your feelings? I’m so sorry,” Wick drawls, finally stepping out of the city and into the bright sunlight undanted by things like walls and gates. It burns his retinas in the short period of time it takes him to successfully raise his hand over his squinting eyes, the guards by the open gate greeting him fondly instead of helping him, calling out things like “Good luck on your quest!” “I’ve got a chicken pie with your name on it!” “That armor sure is shiny!” and “You look very cool with the sun behind you!”

Kiss-asses.

[SAY THANK YOU, PLAYER! THEY’RE YOUR FRIENDS AND THEY BELIEVE IN YOU! (◠‿◠✿)]

Hand on his sword, Wick stalks away without answering them, forcing the line of NPCs and players waiting to get into the city to part lest he walk all over them, and spits out, “I’m not thanking some nobody NPCs, beach-” [ARE YOU CALLING ME A B-?] “Shut up, beach, I have a kid, I’m not saying bullshit like that anymore. I’ve grown as a person. I have evolved. I have done character development.”

A fellow player winces when he gets too close evidently having overhead, and he does the eye to the gesture at them, making sure they know where they stand. While they’re busy squeaking out a feeble sorry and cowering, Wick has already walked away, sauntering into the sunlight like a boss.

[GASP. YOU’RE RIGHT. I OVERREACTED, SORRY PLAYER. WE’RE FRIENDS, AND I SHOULD HAVE MORE FAITH IN YOU. I SHALL REFLECT ON THIS MOMENT ￢o(￣-￣ﾒ) AND DO SOME CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OF MY OWN. ￢o(￣-￣ﾒ)]

“You do that,” Wick agrees, crossing into the cover of trees on the winding gravel road that leads to the hamster infested area. The forest is dark, and huge, with towering trees leaning in all possible directions, roots that are as wide as him digging through the earth, scattered sunlight punching through the leaves by pure willpower, and the path he’s following is very nearly swallowed up by roots and weeds, flowers by the side of the road along with broken wheels and carts and shields and arrows nobody ever bothered to collect.

“Bullshit,” Wick murmurs when he fails at grabbing a sword looking mighty fine. None of the things damaged but probably still worth some coin appear to be touchable, which is a stark difference to the city where every other thing breaks in his hands and he has to sit through yet another five minute long lecture from the owner about the meaning of life, and taking care of that which care for you, and watch his Reputation go up yet again.

Parting the last bit of foliage blocking his way, his eyes narrow and a glare settles onto his expression. The hamster infested field lies right ahead, the farmer that gave him this damned quest a bit to the left in a tiny cottage, and Wick clenches his fist and spits on the cursed ground, spotting one of those infernal hamsters that have been the object of his doom far too many times.

Then he summons up the retro camera from his inventory, the ancient kind of thing used hundreds of years ago with the flaps of fabric attached that he has to hide his face in, armor protesting every moment, and he fiddles with the settings until he remembers how it works. It requires utmost precision to get the zoom just right and with every blurry image his patience dies just a little bit more.

But he promised his kid some cute pictures from the game, and so he sucks it up like a real man.