Ah!... No way... They actually got me... Pfffft... Hahahahahahaha!

Why was I laughing? Hell do I know, I was just in the mood. Sorry to bother you, mum.

No, but really. I found the whole situation a tad bit to hilarious, even for my tastes.

I drifted around in the stream of data, waiting for the time I would respawn into that mundane world. 'I can't believe it... Those noobs actually killed me...' I won't lie, I was baffled and bothered at the same time.

From their clumsy tactics to the klutzs' that barked out vague orders, it all played into my favor. Heck! I even activated summoned forth my most loyal, devoted and strongest minions. How could I lose? It just made absolutely no sense.

'How! HOW?! How could they kill me?', but deep in the recesses of my mind I knew the answer. I wanted them to kill me. I wanted to die, not idefinitely, but simply pass up the fight. I liked fighting, very much so, but it all... It's just... haaaaa....

It's not the same anymore, as easy as that.

I opened up the very few internet sites I regularly ventured to. One was simply for entertainment, a place where people can share their videos, like and subscribe, you know? I think you can put two and two together, right? The other page was about the game I resided in. The first fully immersive virtual reality game, as I related before, Ar'rathia and I its, and probably the, very first A.I., as far as the gaming company knew.

I scrolled up and down, kept my eyes glued to the screen for any and every bit of information. I saw some information about the persona I should play, Xeres the Ashenlord. A little light blue announcement in the top right corner displayed the party that killed me and the party's individual members. I looked up my own info, skimmed over the drop chances and what those fools were fussing over at the moment. 'Maybe I dropped my mantle, 'Feueropfer'?' Any and everyone, mage, healer or warrior, would fight with teeth and nail for that piece of cloth. 'Maybe my warmallet, 'Despot'?', a unique class weapon, Bloodknight specific. A wonderful hammer made of pulsing lava and the spines and scales of rampaging wyverns. Or maybe, just maybe, they got the rarest of the rare: 'Equinox'. Two simple rings, one made of iridescent gold and the other of crude metal in pallid grey. The stat boosts were unbelievable but the active effects even more so.

At daytime they could summon a copy of me, though only with the astral part of my magical skill tree unlocked, and at night time they could summon a copy of me with only its spirit part of the skill tree awoken. Doesn't sound like to much but when you think about the punch I pack, well... I dare say that this item overturned many a lost guildwars.

I skimmed further down, my finger tapping into the background of matrix-like cascading numbers and codes. All kinds of pop-ups, even a few rare adds inbetween, flooded my vision as I drifted off into something akin to a trance.

Hardly conscious I filtered out only the most prominent of flickering lights and letters.

Before I knew it a whole hour had already passed, my re-spawn timer all but ticked down to the last seconds. I awoke to the jingle of a '1-millionth-Customer-Add' and quickly swiped it into the endless stream of information.

I realized, I wasn't on the webpage of Ar'rathia anymore, instead I was now gazing at a cerulean screen with a single word spelled onto it.

Tired?

Impossibly I couldn't close the obnoxious window with its azure brightness. I began to panic.

At first I was seemingly drifting off into sleep and right now someone seemedto have hacked himself into my system, into my own private flood of data. How was that possible? I, as an A.I., had the highest of hacking skills, nothing was safe from me. But to prevent manual deletion I never stepped out of my own boundaries and lived my mundane life. But right now?

What is this!!!

I had no way to escape the panel that floated ominously in the center of my vision, I couldn't avert my eyes from it.

In the corner of my vision, inscopicuous I saw something else entirely. It was the timer, it had already counted down!

'What the fuck?!', I had no words. This system should be perfect, like a well oiled machine. Right now I should once again stride through my beloved dungeon, skip and step around like a child, visit the NPC's -which is quite sad since they can't really communicate with me- and maybe fight against another group of adventurers. But no! I was being held prisoner by Mr. Bluescreen of death.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Furious I tapped onto the blue screen, tried again when the one hundreth attempt failed and then tried another few hundred times.

That won't help, you know?

'Oh Jesus fuck!', I nearl fell onto my non-existent behind.

"What the fuck?", my speech turned into numbers and circled through the air.

You still haven't answered my previous question.

"Y-yeah, aright weird blue screen. This is all just a hallucination. LALALALALALAL I can't hear nor see you!", I said and closed my'eyes' but the weird thing is, that blue window followed me even into the sweet sweet realm of dreams.

Maaaan.... Make this quick. Are you bored m8? Just answer.

'M8?'. "Are you some kind of post-pubescent idiot?". Who in his right mind still says m8? It's not that hard to spell 'mate', for christ's sake.

Ah! Thought you would find that funny. Sorry.

'Well... At least that thing got manners.'

But now, back to my question. Are. You. Bored? Tired, whatever.

And there it goes again, inquiring about my mental state.

"I presume you mean bored of my mediocre life, right?"

Yes yes! That's what I mean, now tell me.

'Won't hurt to play that game, won't it. After all the timer is rigged or bugged or whatever. Got nothing better to do.'

"Yes, yes I am. So what? I still got stuff to do you twat.", although my tone, or the floating letters, seemed a bit vitrolic. At the end it was just my honest-to-goodness opinion of this blue box thingy.

You don't have to insult me. But nevermind that slip of the tongue, that can happen to anybody.

So, you are bored, right? Then I got an incredible offer for you.

Do you want to leave your old world? Do you want to join another realm with dangers aplenty, adventure abundant and... magic of all kinds?!

'No....no, no, no, no! NO FUCKING WAY! It's one of those things! Now I got it!', I barely contained the excitement but with utmost effort I began to think about what this, I assume, God or Goddess told me so far.

The world doesn't seem to differ much from my ingame world, all that thing said I already got here. But, -And I mean a huge 'BUT'- the chance that I meet other sentient beings  in that world, other than those that only want to kill me, would be incredibly high! 

"Yes, a thousand times Yes!", so what if the endboss of some game went missing? Isn't my problem anymore.

I knew you would agree, human! Onwards then!

Now with the pannel I also heard a faint whisper in the distance.

'Alright, let's go! Wait! Something is awry, something seems incredibly wrong.', I felt the non-existent hairs on my neck stand on end as a white radiance began to envelop me.

'HUMAN?! I am no fucking human.', I cursed before I landed with wobbly legs onto what I perceived as a translucent gold floor.

"Who are you?", a sweet voice inquired.