Like a sack of potatoes, I let myself fall into my favorite recliner. It protested but I didn’t give it any of my limited attention. Whoever said manual labor kept your spirit young never built a whole IKEA collection over the weekend at seventy-four years old. It had drained me. My fingers ached, my back ached, my knee caps ached. Or rather I did not think I had a part in my body that did not ache.

Norma offered to take me to one of the standard recovery pots in the neighborhood that were for public use. Free as long as you had insurance. But to both our surprise I could not fit in. Obese oldies had their own pod’s. Which costs about ten times more than you would wish to pay for such a thing. As the risk of breaking it was high, insurance companies did not cover such cost. Dejected but resolute to not give these capitalist pigs what they wanted I rejected her offer to pay and asked her to drive me home instead. We fat oldies had our pride to consider.

Now, it was time to do what I dreamed of all week. Going back into my favorite new world.

I picked up the helmet right beside me on an unpacked box of DVD’s which may or may not have been older than both my children. Let’s say the porn was better in that era. Less... Weird. When people tried to come up with new things, chances were someone stumbled on something borderline disgusting. Yet fascinating to watch. After almost eighty years it's hard to imagine we watched missionary with a lot of bush at the beginning. How we ended up like this would take a full study into the depths of the industry.

I got the helmet of the box with a slight groan and placed it on my head like a top hat. For a moment I waited for the next interruption but none came. It was dead quiet inside my house, the only real noise coming from my neighbor re-watching Die Hard 3. I didn’t mind, he was old like me. I walked funny and was fat, he was almost deaf and had a parrot named steve.

I gave the helmet a little push and it went over my ears, filling my vision. A flash of light, the sound of ventilation jumping on, and three simple words I had gotten used to by now, greeted me. “Welcome, Old Bastard.”

As the world shifted from darkness into the glass elevator I greeted Little human. Then pressed one of the two buttons that had made my shortlist up till now. Which were the pizza place I had yet to order from and the place were my best friend hibernated. I deleted the other four to stay efficient. Knowing I would never bother to try them all.

The elevator jerked into motion, as I stared through the glass. Like a veteran digitizer, I didn’t even flinch when it went from zero to what felt like the speed of sound.

The Metropole was shifting beneath me, moving bit by bit, while I sped past at an incredible speed. Neon lights flickering between buildings. Skyscrapers sticking out at random. Some of them weird as fuck, others static and domineering. Parks filled with strange shit. There was even a river but I had no clue what it was hosting.

I had heard Rey say there was a special part where they had rebuild the old Pokemon maps into one giant world of its own. This included actual real digital Pokemon inside the Japanese wonderland. It was a free place to visit and stroll around. Only poke-balls cost money. Still, they went over the counter like hot maid posters at an anime convention. The place it held within the digitized world and its community were almost as big as T.E.A.M. Its competitive scene could be even bigger. My life's commitment, passed in entertainment value by digital monsters fighting each other. It would be the wet dream of some of my old friends. Friends that were dead or left me behind after they got a family.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Almost there Old bastard, there is a queue at the moment due to a recent update. Would you like to know the details?” Little human chimed, destroying my musings and getting me back to digital reality.

I turned to look at it “Is there anything worth noting for my current situation?” I asked, unsure how you could update an entire world without discussing if such updates were desired by its inhabitants. What if they one day decided that artificial plastic grass should be an option. Like the horror was not enough forty years ago. Cold sweat went past my back in my confortable chair.

“Some prices have changed, but nothing you are using Old bastard. They lowered the requirements for a player-manager to hire other players into their club. They have introduced an inheritance function where a family member can inherit the club after death. This function will come available after, again, meeting certain requirements.” As Little human finished we arrived at the old and rusted gate I was now familiar with. The entrance point of T.E.A.M.

Interesting changes. I didn’t even know you could hire other players. I guess it would be rather improbable for only one person to lead an entire club. even more so when they are as big as some of the clubs in the Celestial league. Something to keep in mind. I had yet to build anything, so I think I could still manage.

Walking through the gate, which had opened once I paid them with my hard earned savings, my plot of land greeted me once again.

Grass still brown and sparse, muddy clay everywhere. The shed old and filled with holes sat in the middle and was the only building in sight. A huge pile of trees in the distance at the northern edge of the forest. Where I had chopped down trees, new trees now grew at great speed. Not natural but very handy.

I first picked up my basic ax, the fourth, and then went to the treeline. A plan had formed in my mind and I needed to make beams. The kind that went into the ground. For this, I needed long, straight pieces of some material. It would also be preferable if this material was the same diameter throughout its length.

I wanted to make a small fence to mark where the field would be. Nothing complicated to start off with, I thought. Concrete and steel would do for the job. It would last longer and be strong. But I came to find out they were also way above my budget. One steel pipe, about six centimeters in diameter and two meters high would cost me seventy-five dollars. The hollow variant. The materials and equipment needed to make concrete and secure the steel pipe into the ground? Fifty dollars per pipe more. For one that might not be much. But I need to go around a football field. Thus way over budget when you needed one pipe per five meters for two hundred plus meters. This did not include another steel pipe connecting the two pipes in the ground. Or some kind of holding device that kept it all in place. A simple fence was becoming a huge drain on my limited finances, and for lack of a better word, it was getting fucky.

So I needed the cheaper alternative. Wood. Square poles of wood build on top of each other like a ‘T’ formation. Three pieces meeting each other on every junction. It was the simplest way I could think of that resembled a fence. One tree was a consistent ten meters in height. I could get four square poles out of each if I made them all six centimeters wide. This meant I could get twenty, two meter, poles for in the ground. Plus eight five meter long poles for on top. This while only paying for the table saw. A fucking bargain compared to the alternative.

I only needed to use three trees for the two-meter poles and seven more for the five-meter ones. Only ten trees and I would even have spare parts for any fuck-ups or repair work. Only needed to chop up a few trees. Like any other day, except now I had a realistic short-term goal in mind. It felt good, like a refreshing rain after a warm day. That guy wasn’t half wrong about manual labor making your spirit young.