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Chapter 11: Meeting in Real Life

The shop owner, Sila, and Varee all looked at Sila’s stone arm with curiosity.

“What’s happening? Mister Sila?” asked Varee since she couldn’t hear the system explanation like him.

“It’s this damn arm, it’s sealed again, and the skills related to it got deleted too,” Sila answered with a gloomy expression.

“Then, should we go to the grocery shop? The owner of that shop can use Unseal,” suggested Varee.

“No need. I can use that skill too. It’s just that the system told me I can only unseal it when seven days have passed.”

Upon hearing Sila’s word, Varee felt a little surprise. That’s because Unseal was a skill that very few people possessed and was highly desired by various guilds. The reason was due to the Unseal skill of the groceries shop’s owner was only able to unseal items up to C Grade. If someone wanted to unseal a higher Grade’s item, they would have to search for players or NPCs that had the Unseal skill with higher skill level.

‘Well, the system said so, but I can just try,’ thought Sila.

“Unseal.”

At the end of his word, a system sound could be heard inside his head.

[The level of Unseal skill has risen to 16 … 17 ... 18.]

Sila’s arm could be freely moved again, however, its shape wasn’t the same. It looked like a normal human arm carving with red ciphers.

He took a look at its information in his system window, but the explanation was still the same.

Sila explained what happened to Varee and the weapon shop’s owner. After discussing, they decided that he could only wait for seven days. Sila and Varee later excused themselves. (Sila also asked for the weapon shop’s owner name. His name was Bronze.) As for the current appearance of Sila’s arm, Varee used a bandage to wrap it for the time being.

Now, they were heading towards a hotel after wasting time in the weapon shop.

***

The hotel in the Town of Beginning resembled a Chinese tavern made of bamboo that could be seen in an old movie. Its first floor, a lobby, also looked exactly like that of the restaurant.

Varee stopped at a reception and talked with the employee. The employee looked at Sila briefly and then gave Varee a key.

Sila secretly argued in his mind: Why the hell was this tavern created from bamboo have to use a key to open the door? The designer of this game must really be a strange one.

“Follow me,” Varee said to Sila and led him to the stairs. Sila went after her without noticing the eyes filled with envy from the many players around there.

Varee used the key and entered room 303, which was as weird as Sila imagined: as there really was a keyhole on that bamboo door.

In the room made of bamboo, there was a queen-size bed that looked very comfortable. The room was very wide; there was a mini bar, refrigerator, sofa, and a separate bathroom and kitchen within. A mini Jacuzzi tub and a shower could also be found in the bathroom, while there were few kitchen utensils and small gas stove in the kitchen.

“Huh? Why did you get in too?” Sila asked Varee since she still didn’t leave the room.

“Why can’t I? This is a room for a couple. By the way, don’t ask for too much; just get into the bed,” said Varee with an expressionless face.

“G-Get into the bed?” Sila was blushing.

“Yes, get into the bed and log out already. Did you think I’d let you be alone? No way. I’ll be in trouble if you flee... Oh, I almost forgot.”

The system sound rang inside Sila’s head.

[Player Varee would like to be your friend. Will you accept?]

Sila frowned slightly. “You would like to be my friend?”

“Don’t think about it too much, there is no special meaning behind it. It’s just that if we are friends, I will be able to see your online status in the friends list, and it will be easier for us to contact each other.”

Sila recognized that there was no harm in accepting, so he pressed the accept button.

When Sila laid down on the bed, the system sound alarmed again.

[Do you want to log out?]

Sila said yes. Then, a digital number of ‘Ten’ flashed in front of his eyes; and when the number reached ‘Zero’, Sila’s body was gone.

***

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Sila woke up in a strange glass capsule, which later opened itself to let Sila out. Sila stepped out of the capsule and looked around. The room was dim, but he could see the surrounding quite well since he had just woken up. He found that he was still in the same hospital room, with this glass capsule as the only new object that hadn’t been here before.

After that, the light in the room was lit up. Sila could see Rashane lying on a sofa. It seemed that he hadn’t gone back home for a long time. As the light flashed, Rashane woke up. He looked at Sila and smiled happily.

“Oh, Sila, you are out finally! I was so worried that you might not know how to log out since you said you haven’t played a virtual reality game before,” asked Rashane with a worried tone.

Actually, for using a brain scanner, it would force the user to log out if it detected that the user’s body was in a dangerous state. However, since Sila’s body wasn’t in normal condition, Rashane feared that the system might miscalculate the physical condition of Sila’s body.

Sila felt guilty. He had always been in the game and hadn’t thought about the person outside worrying about him.

“Well, how come you decided to stay online for a full four days?” asked Rashane.

Sila told everything that he had encountered in the game to Rashane. Rashane was shocked when he knew Sila had adjusted his painfulness level to a real life degree. However, when he heard that Sila had already met Varee, he felt delighted that Varee could find Sila.

Soon, Rashane’s mobile phone rang up, following which he then went out of the room to answer the call.

Sila felt he had nothing to do. Therefore, he thought he should try his best to get out of the hospital as soon as possible. He pushed himself out of the bed and felt a slight pain. It was somehow discomforting for him since he hadn’t walked for so long, but if he was walking slowly then it wasn’t not a big problem.

He tried to walk to the physiotherapy room while avoiding the nurses along the way.

It was nighttime, so there was no one in the physiotherapy room. Therefore, Sila slowly used an equipment there alone.

In fact, Sila’s external wounds were completely healed. However, since he didn’t come to rehab and always avoided meeting with a physiotherapist, it was hard for him to walk normally.

Well, soon, he began to get used to his condition and could now walk faster.

“…You’re here,” a woman’s voice rang out.

Sila turned his head to look. Unfortunately, since he moved his neck too fast, the pain instantly came to him. He lifted his hand to touch his painful neck, but that just made the situation worse. Without his hand to support his weak body, he then collapsed.

Luckily, the woman quickly rushed forward and supported him in time.

“Thank you,” Sila said to her, and when he took a good look at her face, he felt that this person looked familiar, “Varee?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” replied Varee.

“Why are you here?” Sila asked and tried to grab a rail to support his own body again. Varee saw that and backed off a step.

“I was talking with my dad on the phone, asking whether you have logged out or not. But when he returned to your room, you have disappeared. Sheesh, he was making a big ruckus, so I came to help him searching for you since I was nearby.”

“I just came to rehab by myself, so that I won’t bother your father for the medical bills more than this.”

Varee was slightly surprised. She wasn’t serious when she told him about her dad being responsible for Sila’s medical bills, but now Sila was very serious about it and tried his best to get out of the hospital as soon as he could. This made Varee made aware of Sila’s personality more while feeling a bit guilty at the same time.

“But if you overwork your body and injure yourself again, the one who will worry the most will be my dad, you know?” Varee scolded him.

Sila didn’t mind Varee much and began to walk slowly between the railing again. Varee saw that and didn’t say anything. She kept watching until Sila wanted to go back to his room.

Sila tried to walk by himself. Nevertheless, seeing him staggering, Varee came to support him.

Sila looked at Varee, and she said, “It’s to help you go back to your room faster. I want to go home already.” Eventually, Sila let her help.

When Sila arrived at the room, he could see Doctor Panhathai talking with Rashane with worried looks on their faces. Then, both of them noticed Sila and hurriedly helped reinvigorate him. Varee stepped back and let them support Sila to the bed.

Afterward, Sila had to listen to the doctor’s complaints about him disappearing without telling anyone for a long time.

Then, the doctor left the room, with Rashane following her since he had something he wanted to discuss with her. Thus, now, there was only Sila and Varee inside the room.

Varee opened the food box that she had brought with her and placed it in front of Sila.

“Eat it. My dad told me to buy it for you.”

Then, Varee started to feed Sila; it was shocking for him.

“Hey. I’m not a disabled person, you know? I can eat it myself,” Sila told Varee.

“Tell me those words again after you can lift your hand up,” said Varee.

Sila tried to lift his hand up. Surprisingly, he really couldn’t. His strength was all gone.

Varee pointed at a glass capsule and began to explain.

“This is a life-supporting capsule. Since you didn’t take nutrient pills and stayed very long inside the game my dad bought this machine and set it up for you. It causes a person inside the virtual reality world to go into a semi-hibernation state. However, even with that, you’re still considered in danger since you lack food and drinks for many days. Usually, people need to take a quick rest after they get out of this machine, however, you instead went to rehab alone, so your body used up all your remaining energy… Now you can understand why doctor and everyone was so worried about you when you went missing, right?”

Hearing this, Sila now could understand why people had been making a big ruckus even though he’d been missing only for a short while.

“Now, open your mouth,” said Varee.

With that, Sila had to open his mouth unwillingly and was forced to eat. Varee was feeding him extremely fast. It was so fast that at times Sila couldn’t even swallow his food in time.

When Rashane had finished talking with the doctor, he opened the door of Sila’s room slightly, but immediately paused after seeing Varee feeding Sila.

Rashane thought, ‘Are they this close already?’

The doctor wondered why Rashane opened the door but didn’t step inside, so she took a peek and witnessed the scene. Seeing what’s happening, Panhathai pulled Rashane out, closed the door lightly, and then said with a smile on her face, “We should leave the youngsters alone.”

“Good idea, I didn’t want to interrupt them too,” said Rashane.

The doctor blushed slightly, “Well, we should find something to eat too. I know one restaurant that’s very ro-”

“Oh, I’m fine. I’ve eaten already. Now I think I should go back to finish my accumulated tasks. They must be piling a lot since I left for many days. Goodbye.”

Rashane said this without a slight understanding of a woman’s heart.

“-mantic... huh? Oh, I see. Then, Good luck, sir.”

Unfortunately, she hadn’t even finished her sentence yet Rashane had already gone.

The female doctor sighed with regret.

***

Then, Varee left after finishing to feed Sila. Good grief, many people would see that her action was a sweet and romantic one. But for Sila, he instead thought that, today, he finally knew the goose’s torment of being cruelly force-fed to later turn into a delicious Foie Gras. He defined Varee’s action as cramming, not feeding.

Varee surprised a little when she heard from the doctor that her father had already gone back, so she quickly but politely said goodbye to the doctor before she left.

Well, she didn’t forget to give Sila a bottle full of weird candies. She said that these were nutrient pills that her father had told her to give to him. She then explained to Sila that he should take one tablet per 12 hours that he planned to be in the game, but not over 14 pills, a.k.a. 7 days in real life, since that would be too long.

Now Sila was alone in the room. He looked at the clock and found that it was almost 10 p.m.

Since sleeping and playing the virtual reality game were not much different, Sila decided to log in again.

He ate one pill and found that it had a strawberry flavor to it. It didn’t dissolve in his mouth so he decided to swallow it.

‘This should be okay now, right?’

Afterward, Sila equipped the brain scanner before lying down on the bed. He also pressed a button within the glass capsule to close it, and finally returned to the world of Monster Soul.