Dante crawled away from the capsule, phantom pains withering his guts. “Fucking hell. 50% pain my ass. Shit hurt like...” Like having multiple metal shards piercing his body. 

It was pretty accurate, he’ll give them that. The pain was less, but 50% of the unimaginable pain of death was still a lot of pain, and at the very least most people only went through it once. 

Not for Dante. No matter how many times it takes he’ll murder Nog, that dirty bastard. He lost the duel yet still killed Skan.

“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!” He smashed his fist against the ground. Dante felt the wood give away as much as his bones did, but that did little for his frustrations. He died before he was within spitting distance of Nog. It wasn't even close.

Real-life or game, Dante still couldn’t protect anyone. He didn’t know Skan for long, and he was artificial intelligence, but it still hurt. He liked that old man--he didn’t let his age get him. He was so skilled that Dante couldn’t even judge how good he was, but most of all he wasn’t as much as an asshole as everyone was.

Something hopped on top of him, licking and then biting at his cheeks.

Dante chuckled. It was heavy and desperate, but he couldn’t help but smile. “Hey Feisty. I’m trying, but I’m not very good at this, am I?”

Feisty began scratching at his skin, but Dante didn’t mind.

He had thick skin, and in two hours, he can get back at it. He stood up, stretched, and fetched his laptop to his side. He needed information. He wasn’t particularly good at finding the right stuff, but he could at least tr—

And of course. Carl’s message covered the screen the moment he opened it.

Good morning, young boss.

Jarckal had prohibited out-side assistance, but he never mentioned anything about insider assistance.

I’ve taken the prerogative and contracted a passionate acquaintance of mine. This companion will regularly update the program with the latest information. Feel free to request specific information. I'm sure you two will get along very well,

I wish you the best in conquering the world,

Carl

The information laid out to him was…overwhelming. There was information regarding combat, loot, experience, skills, quests, and scenarios in a comic like format. There were pictures with boxes explaining each one. This guy got character. Putting aside how someone was able to put this in less than...Dante looked at the clock. An hour had passed.

Dante scrolled through the comic. The first picture was a vicious orc wrestling with a six-headed serpent. Combat is real-life simulation. There were no damage numbers, HP, STM, or mana bars. Game physics matched reality. No aim assistance or artificially induced artificial mental stability, is present-- fear, hate, and anger will not be deafened. This applies to all emotions.

Dante’s played shooters before so he could understand what that meant. It’s kinda like hardcore mode. There was no HUD or a map in the corner. That makes sense why there were no HP or STM bars either.

The next was Death-rates.

The pannels' lines were made with human skulls drawn in red. 58% was the number inside it. It was the number of people that died since the game began. The percentages kept going up, so it was somehow updated via real time. The beast skulls were 55%.

Well, I guess I’m just avera—

The next box had even more skulls. Orcs did not farewell. 72%. It was such absurd that the panel had laughing emojis around it.

Ugh. Dante wasn’t sure whether to be happy that everyone sucks like him, or worried that everyone sucks like him. Sure the boar was one hell of a tough beast, and Dante was lucky to have Skan and Pistil to poke its eyes and...well, deal the majority of the damage, but it didn't explain such a high number. 

Dante and the rest died because of Waldo orcs, something that was probably a unique situation. It didn't explain why everyone else died.

The next part was about loot. The comic showed a goblin throwing up gold coins. Killing monsters does not automatically grant experience or loot. The corpse of the monsters' must be “looted” for that to happen. After completing a one-second channel over the corpse the experience will be allocated to the 5 highest contributors. The body will also vanish and leave loot in its place.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

That explained why the orc didn’t want them to loot the monsters. The NPCS wanted the corpse, not the drops themselves.

No monster has dropped equipment, but each one dropped some sort of crafting material. There are no parties or allocated drops.

The word blacksmith was highlighted in bold. Cash signs were placed around it.

Feisty was making noise in the kitchen, though Dante couldn’t leave this report half-way. This information was more important than the dishes she was knocking around. Why didn’t the game just tell them this?

The next image was a bag with a sword, a bow, and a machine gun inside it.

The inventory system worked off of strength. The total item weight couldn’t exceed 4 multiplied by Strength in pounds or have the number of items be higher than the Strength stat.

With Dante’s 14 Strength, that meant—

A multiplication table was right below that section. Asshole. Dante wasn’t that bad at math. He could carry 54 pounds in total with 14 spots, which explained why he couldn’t put the boar inside his inventory.

I mean, can't you just—

The next image showed the same orc chopping the limbs of a bear.

Dante gulped. Yup, that's one way to do it.

Another section covered experience and skills. Leveling up is slow but impactful. It took 40 minutes for the first level up to occur. Considering this was just the early levels, it is theorized that the pace will be dreadfully slow.

This is where it got interesting—the ridiculous amount of bright colors, exclamation marks, and notes sprayed around a large fireball thought so, at least. Leaked information stated that upon level up most races were able to choose a single skill that was unique to them. Completely unique. The options would be given based on the temperament and behavior of the character. Not much else was known, but some people thought this was the game’s class system.

The next part was a list regarding ranks. The following is an estimation of the ranking system. 

S: Batman

A: Superman

B: Fantasy General

D: Fantasy Warrior

E: Super Soldier 

F: Trained Human

G: Average Human

So a goblin is as strong as a human. That was discomforting. The difference between an average human and someone that is trained is of course enormous, but where the ranking system stopped makign sense was E. What did Super Soldier mean? Maybe Captain Amerca strong? 

Nog was an E. He was physically strong, sure, but what made him unbeatable was the magic he used. Or Ki. 

The A and S ranking was obviously a joke. 

The final two parts were sparse. It only mentioned that sometimes “scenarios” would occur if the conditions are met. Something like a challenging fight or a puzzle that needs to be solved. Not much else was known so far. The most important part, the Guild Wars, was not present in the report. 

Dante clutched his teeth. It’s what happened to us. Skan had apparently cleared it, but what was the point if he was going to die for it? Hell, the fight from the start was unfair. Skan a level lower and without a weapon, and that wasn’t even the issue. That power he used was ridiculous. Unfortunately, Ki was not covered by the report.

Dante shut down the laptop and leaned back on the sofa. He rubbed his eyes, exhaustion already seeping in.

He didn’t think this would be easy—anything Jarckal had a hand in was never easy, but this was way out of his comfort zone. The three-space capsule kept reminding him of that. If every challenge Jarckal planed for him was exhaustingly difficult, then doing it solo when it was meant to be done with Sai and Kristina was just impossible.

I shouldn’t have answered impulsively. Dante was too angry and prideful to think clearly then. Sai was practically his right-hand man in addition to the majority of his brain. Plus, out of all of them, Kristina was the one that handled most of the technical stuff. He could beat those two pipsqueaks in a fistfight though that hardly helped here. Dante never had to take into account people exploding with power in his fist fights.

Shit. Now that he thought about it, going into VR made Dante obsolete. 

Crafting. Resources. Hunts. This game wasn’t as direct as he hoped it was. Being strong wasn’t enough. He needed brains and experience, and he had neither of those.

Feisty came back to him. He picked her up, placing her on his shoulders. “Did you finish making trouble back there?” He scratched the bottom of her chin. She hooked her paws around his finger and nibbled on it with her tiny teeth. It was cute and felt nice, and that only made Dante sadder. “I wish...they were here.”

“Dinner’s done, Dante. Can you set up the plates?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a min—" Dante turned around to find a small Asian dude tossing salt in a pot. He had a bowl of black hair, fluffy penguin pajamas, an oversized sweatshirt that he had no business wearing, and a sly smile that got on the nerves. Those were the prime ingredients that made a Sai. The eyepatch he had on his left side did not belong there. “Hey, when did you get here?”

“When the game went online. Figured you would leave the door open,” Sai said. The smell of the pot finally reached Dante’s nose. “Did you not see or hear me?”

“Eggplant sauce with brisket?” Dante said slowly, politely ignoring his astute observation. Before he knew it he found himself hovering over the pot. The aroma washed over his face.

“Plus carrots. Can’t leave the carrots,” he said, taking the pot away from Dante. “Get the plates already. Did the cat eat?”

“Yes and yes sir,” Dante said. He sat Feisty on the counter as he fetched the plates. “Her name’s Feisty.”

“And the eating utensils,” Sai said, shaking his head.

“What, can’t eat rice’n meat sauce with your hands?”

“You would eat out of the pot, if I let you.” Sai stopped pouring the rice and gave him the look. It was the one thing Dante had not missed about him. His missing eye made it worse. “You’ve done that before, haven’t you?” he said, his voice full of disappointment.

“You don’t know that!” Of course Dante had drunk out of the pot, but that doesn’t mean Sai can just assume it. Dante poured the rice with a few muffled complaints as Sai dropped the sauce and a good portion of meat on top of it. As usual, Dante’s portion was double Sai’s. “Still 120 pounds?”

“As always, and will forever be,” he said, sitting down with a tiny glare. “You lost weight, though.”

Dante shrugged. He pulled the seat and sat across him. “Just the fat. Still just about double your weight. I am now a mean killi—”

“That died in just an hour to boar?” Sai said, raising his eyebrows as he began eating.

“Oh,” Dante said, suddenly losing his appetite. “How did you know?”

“I asked Bin, of course. Didn’t need to, though, considering you undoubtedly picked them silly orcs. Who did you think made that report?” Sai said, still managing to smile with a full mouth.

Dante nearly choked on his food. “But you don’t draw! Those panels were—”

“It’s been two months, hon,” Sai said, pointing at Dante with his spoon. “People change. They pick up new skills. Learn new stuff.”

“No…” Dante said in between swallowing his mouthfuls. He lifted the plate up, practically just tossing the stuff down his throat. “People that never drew before don’t suddenly become able to draw, cook a mean meal, and create a report about a game that’s just came out in less than an hour.”

“Well, it’s not like I did nothing the past miserable months,” Sai said, looking down. “Try not to get caught trying to beat people to death, okay?”

Dante swallowed, both because he had food in his mouth and the fact that Sai knew what Dante wanted to do. It’s not like he wanted to kill the guy—Dante just wanted to hit him until he stopped moving for a long, long time. His life for your eye isn't even worth it.

“I said not go get caught, not to not do it!” Sai said, tossing his spoon at Dante.

As Broken Realms can attest, Dante didn’t have the best reaction skills, but it would also attest that Sai’s strength wasn’t the best either. Dante caught it in his hand and used it to scoop more food into his mouth. How is your eye? How would Dante ask that question? A knife went through it, obviously. It wasn't working. What time of reply would Sai gi--

Sai shook his head. “I have another eye. I learned my lesson, and so did you. You get into fights with guys bigger than you, I’ll handle the consequences. It works best that way, and don’t eat the plate please, we’ll get Kristina after you take a shower.”

Dante smiled with a mouthful. He gulped down everything else and just about skipped towards the bathroom. Sai reading people’s minds wasn’t comfortable a lot of times, but sometimes it saved Dante a lot of anxiety. Sai rarely lied to Dante. If he wasn't bitter about it, then Dante couldn't pity him for it. The guilt will stay, of course, but it was a selfish one. It was going to serve as a reminder to take better of his friends.

With that issue out of his hair, Dante turned his attention to a different matter. He was an observant man—Dante noticed how Sai had his best bowl hair on. That was another reason Dante was happy to see Kristina. The fact that Sai could also-

“I do not have a crush on her!” Sai yelled as Dante slammed the door.

Ah, never mind about his honesty. That was the tone of a lying man.