Chapter 1 - Part 1

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   I gazed into the distance as I saw the silver-lined clouds drift onto the massive floating chunks of land that hovered hundreds of meters above the ground. Many of those islands were a kilometre in diameter while the smaller versions that floated around them were only a few hundred or so meters across. Majority of them has a flat top and has a small forest or a grass field.

  I was on one of those large floating islands, standing right beside a massive corpse of a newly killed red dragon.

  "We got quite a huge catch this time!" a tall, muscular man with a huge crossbow on his back said with a smirk on his face.

  He patted the dragon with his hand before looking at me.

  "We're so lucky to have you. There aren't a lot of {Tempest Mages} because almost no one liked the {Wind Mage's} magic due to it being so weak, even as a support character. Honestly, even when people found out how powerful the buffs that the sub-classes of {Wind Mages} had, no one would want to spend thousands of gold just to switch affinities."

  After that, he began to dissect the dragon to get the valuable parts.

  "It's not like I wanted to be a {Wind Mage} at the beginning of when I started the game." I replied to the man, who's name was ReGrelan64, "I was originally thinking of becoming a {Fire Mage}, but I lost to a bet with one of our guild's Administrators. Now I'm stuck as a {Wind Mage} forever."

  "Oh, that sucks." He said nonchalantly as he continued to slice the scales off the dragon, "Not that it matters. Thanks to your magic, we were able to fly using your wind magic into one of these floating islands. The only other way to get onto these massive floating rocks are to get onto one of those trained wyverns from the city."

  "Yeah, those wyverns would've costed us a fortune just to get one." A feminine voice came out from behind the corpse of the dragon.

  The girl, LilyIsla, or Lily for short, was in charge of collecting the spinal spikes on the back of the dragon. This required her to cut open the back of the dragon and hack the spike until it breaks off. That's why when she came out to see us, her small, lithe body was covered in blood.

  "Come one, Kieta, you should always look at the positive side of life!" Lily merrily told me with the sweetest smile I've ever seen all day.

  "You know, that would've held a lot more meaning if it weren't for the fact that you're covered in blood while holding a bloody cleaver." I said as I passed a clean rag onto her.

  Lily caught it and began to wipe her face. Once she was done, she passed the rag back to me and began to walk towards the nearest tree. After that, she sat down and began to rest.

  "Phew, collecting materials sucks. I'm supposed to be a weak mage, not a warrior! Why do I have to help?" She complained.

  "Now look who's looking at the positive side of life." I sighed as I began to walk towards another person, who was checking the scales on what was supposed to be the dragon's tail. "How's the condition on the scales of the tail, Rufold?"

    The young man didn't say anything at first, but after scratching his brown hair, he finally looked at me with a dull gaze.

  "Due to a certain {Pyro Mage} being and idiot and blowing off the tail instead of the stomach..." XxRutherFolderxX, or Rufold, said as he showed me the destroyed scale segments.

  "Hey! I heard that!" Lily shouted to us from the tree.

  "It's a complete loss." Rufold continued, completely ignoring Lily.

  "I had a feeling..." I sighed as I saw the charred remains of what we thought to be something extremely fire resistant. It just goes to show how powerful the explosion Lily created and how terrifying it would be to be shot by one, if she could actually shoot it accurately.

  After that, I began to help ReGrelan64 collect the valuable parts of the dragon. Since his inventory was getting full, I decided to use mine as well. The reason why I didn't in the first place was because I was about to log out soon and I didn't think the amount of space the dragon would take would be this much. That's why I decided to just leave them in the guild bank later on and have the others sell them for me.

  About an hour or so has passed when we've finally stored everything valuable that the dragon had. All what was left were some spilt blood and a couple of scales that were too small or broken to sell. Other than that, we took everything from the bones to the skin.

  Once everything was all set, I began to tell everyone what to do next.

  "Alright, our work here is done. Now, everyone go to the edge of the cliff."

  "Right... and why are we going to do that?" ReGrelan64 asked me in suspicion. "Can't you just use your flying magic thing again?"

  "We will jump off, what else is there to do?" I answered back. "And as for the magic thing, I can't use it again today."

  "Eeh? Why can't you use it again?"

  "The cooldown time for that still hasn't ended yet because I recently just got the spell." I answered back, "Thanks to that, I would have to wait another two hours before being able to do it again. Instead, I'll just use my levitating magic."

  "Oh, well, are you sure this levitating magic will work. If we die, we'll lose a lot of things, you know." He replied.

  "I do know it will work. Now stop complaining and go." I told him.

  "Come on, just go and do it, you pussy!" Lily urged him as she tried to push him towards the edge. However, being a 'weak' mage that she is, she couldn't even make ReGrelan64 budge an inch.

  "Fine." ReGrelan64 reluctantly agreed, realising that he is making things unnecessarily difficult. Apparently, he was afraid of falling, but I didn't know of it at the time since this was the first time we've ever partied together.

  We began to slowly walk towards the edge of the floating islands. Once we reached it, ReGrelan64 looked down below and then stared back at me. 

  "You know, maybe we should wait until the cooldown for your flying magic ends." He hoarsely said to us.

  "You know we can't wait that long because I have to log out soon." I reminded him.

  Sighing, I looked at Rufold and we both nodded together. After that, we began to slowly walk back.

  "But, I mean. We can always-" ReGrelan64 started to say, but before he finished, me and Rufold ran towards him and body checked him right off the edge.

  "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" ReGreland64 screamed at the top of his lungs as he flailed all over the place, "WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!!!"

  Due to the momentum of, both Rufold and I fell along with him. Seeing how everyone jumped off, Lily realised that she was left out and was the only one left on the floating island.

  "Hey, don't leave me!" Lily yelled as she jumped down with us.

  As we were falling, the cold wind slapped my face over and over again as I forced to keep my eyes open. Dry eyes honestly hurts so I blinked as fast as possible so that I could keep my eyes moist while checking out to see how far off we were to the ground. Though, it was pretty hard to concentrate when a large, muscly guy kept on flailing around and crying as if he was about to die, even though this is just a video game.

  After about twenty seconds, we were about to approach, I shouted a warning to everyone.

  "Guys, stay within a hundred meters around me! If you wander away, once I activate levitate, It won't affect you and you'll just plummet into the ground and die!"

  After I uttered those warnings, everyone tried to be as close to me as possible.

  We continued to fall down at terminal velocity towards the grassy plain below us when I finally invoked the activation for the levitation magic. Soon after, we quickly began to decelerate until we were barely falling at all.

  After slowly floating down a hundred meters, we finally touched the ground. I brushed my robe and looked at everyone. They all had messy hair and some parts of their clothing or armor were misplaced, but other than that, they were fine-ish.

  "That was so much fun!" Lily exclaimed as she tidied her long, messy auburn hair, "Let's do it again!"

  "Yeah, sure." I replied without looking at her, "Is everyone else okay?"

  "Yeah..." Rufold answered back while rubbing his forehead.

  "Ugh..." ReGrelan64 managed to say before gagging.

  I stayed silent as I looked at the lost causes and then looked towards a small town in the distance.

  "Come one, guys, we're almost to the town. Once we teleport to the capital city, we can just take a break. You guys can sell the stuff later." I persuaded them as.

  It took a while to make ReGreLand64 to walk with us as he was too busy hurling in the background. But after he was done and we began walking, we finally reached the small town. There were a small amount of other players within the vicinity, but there wasn't as many as it used to be.

  We then walked toward the center of the town, which was a small park. In the middle of the stone park was a monument made with four pillars. Once in a while, the center of the monument would begin to glow and then some people would walk out.

  The four of us walked onto the center of the monument once the other people got out. After that, a blue window popped right in front of us.

    "Caldoronia!" All four of us yelled in sync.

    After that, light began to envelop all of us. Consequently, I began to feel weightless and then, everything began to fade into white.

    About ten seconds later, the whiteness began to fade away. It was soon replaced with huge, tall marble buildings. Majority of them are over ten stories high and arched bridges connected them from up high.

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    On the ground were many people and demi-humans, just standing and looking up. Whether they were NPCs or players, they were only looking at one specific place. And that was where four huge screen projections that were floating in the air was located.

    Within the screens played out two opposing armies, the demons against the combined army of both players and NPC, fighting each other in a massive battle. Massive catapults hurled flaming boulders onto a dark wall that seemed to be made with obsidian as siege towers stood tall besides the parts walls that weren't targeted by the catapults. Explosions made from magic attacks were everywhere as both sides spared nothing to annihilate one another.

    "Do you think our guild is doing fine on the raid?" Lily asked us as another massive explosion happened on one of the screens.

    "They should be. I mean everyone from our guild that participated in the [Grand Raid] are the elite of elites. Our guild, the『Freedom Hope』, is one of the top guilds in the entire world for a reason, you know." ReGrelan64 reassured Lily, "Also, we have a role to play in this as well. Since we're too under-levelled to join the raid, we are in charged of getting supplies like potions for them."

    "Yeah, going into a large-scale raid without health potions is like breathing toxic air without a gas mask. You'll die eventually." I said, "They may have healers, but their magic has a fairly long cooldown, plus they also have limited mana. With all the people getting injured, it's good to have a backup plan just in case the healer dies or becomes useless."

    "Wow, kinda harsh, but it's true. That's why we have to work hard." Rufold stated, "Though, after the ordeal we had. I kinda wanna rest for a bit."

    "Yeah, me too." ReGrelan64 sighed as he looked at me with dead eyes.

    I shrugged it off and then faced them.

    "The club room is about to close so I have to go. I'll leave all the materials I've collected in the guild bank and then log out. Can you guys sell them for me and then buy the supplies?" I asked them.

    "Sure." Rufold replied, "It must suck not owning your own VR headset. Thanks to that, you're under levelled and can't join in the last [Grand Raid] of Atlas Commander."

    "I know, if I owned my own, I might've capped this character. Though, with the money I have, I'm just happy the school is letting me use their headset and game." I sighed, "Anyways, I'm off."

    "Yeah, see ya." Rufold said his farewells.

    "See you tomorrow, if the raid hasn't finished." Lily smiled. "You are going to party with us tomorrow again, right?"

    "No promises." I replied.

    ReGrelan64 didn't say anything and just stared at me with his dead eyes.

    Like before, I shrugged it off and began to walk towards the massive cathedral-looking building that was adjacent to the warp monument. When I went inside, players were chatting together as they looked at the screen projection that was playing the same thing that was outside. From the look of things, they've finally broke through the ninth of the ten obsidian walls of the Demon Lord's fortress.

    The raid is probably gonna end soon and the entire process of taking over nine of the ten walls took six months, both in game and real life.

    The VRMMORPG that I'm playing, Atlas Commander, or AC, is about to close it's servers. This is because the company who made AC, Sandstorm, is about to release a completely new VRMMORPG, Parallel Online. Since the company can only host one super server at a time, they decided to close AC to make way for Parallel Online.

    Apparently, Parallel Online's world is at least a ten times larger than AC. To put things into perspective, if you were to stretch out Earth into a map, you could fit at least twelve Earths onto the world of AC. That would mean that Parallel Online's world's surface area would be a hundred and twenty times larger than Earth itself.

    It may seem large, but with billions of people playing not from just earth, but space stations and settlements on other planets, it's only natural that Sandstorm would want a large area where people could explore to their heart's content.

    There are also many other features to the game that people are being hyped about, but due to me busy grinding materials to help my guild members win the [Grand Raid], I haven't had the time to research them. As for my time in real life, I'm either procrastinating or watching the live streams of players in the midst of the raid.

    I walked down the path that led to a counter where a beautiful female guild receptionist was standing and helping adventurers.

    "Hello, young adventurer, what would you like to do today?" She asked me in an alluring voice.

    "I would like to enter the guild room of『Freedom Hope』, please." I answered back nonchalantly. Even though the young woman in front of me was very hot and something a fifteen year old kid like me would love to be with, she is just a programmed NPC. Nothing more and nothing less.

    "Oh? Well, can I see your guild card, please?" She asked me.

    With that, I swiped my hands in front of me from right to left. Then, a menu opened with six different buttons to choose from.

CharacterInventory FriendsGuild QuestOptions

    I chose the Guild button in which another window replaced the menu before. The window showed our guild's insignia, a side view of the dove with a blue sun on the background, and a list of the members that are in the guild. On the bottom showed another button with the words "Guild Card" on it.

    I pressed it and after that, something began to glow in front of me. I put my hand underneath it as it began to materialise into a small card. Once it stopped glowing, it fell onto the palm of my hands.

    "Here." I said as I handed the card to the receptionist.

    She began to inspect it to see whether it was real or fake, which was unnecessary considering I got it from the actual guild menu. But, it adds to the authenticity of the game so I don't really mind it.

    "Alright, Sir. Please stand on the warp stone to the right." She said as she gave back my guild card.

    I opened up my menu to despawn it and then walked towards the supposed warp stone that was placed to the right of the receptionist's counter. After that, like what happened to the warp monument outside, my vision started to go white and then it faded down again.

    Once the warp was done, I was transported to our guild room. It consisted of three floors. On the first floor was a large hall on where most people from the guild would meet. There were tables and a bar with an NPC on the left of the room and the guild bank was on the right.

    The second floor consisted of a hundred rooms on where members could sleep in if they couldn't find a suitable hotel a player home. Within the rooms are three beds and one washroom. There wasn't anything else as it was only meant to be a place to sleep in.

    The third and final room is the Guild Master's office and rooms for the Administrators. This is where most of the top secret plans for the guild are held, obviously. I've never been there before as Administrators and the Guild Master can only go there.

    I placed all the loot I got from the red dragon onto the guild bank, which was just a large gold and platinum chest. After I placed all the scales and bones that I got from it, I closed the chest and began to gaze around the empty building.

    The guild building was normally always full, but now it's empty. During the start of the raid six months ago, everyone was either busy trying to level up to be able to join the raid, or if their level is too low, helping the vanguards which consists the Guild Leader, the Admins, and the Officers of the guild get ready.

    As you should've known already, I'm one of those who helped them as my level is way too low to be able to be much of help in the raid. Right now, the lowest level a person should be to be able to enter the [Grand Raid] without getting killed by the miasma alone is Level 400. I'm only Level 248.

    This, as I stated before, was because I don't own my own VR headset and the game. I could only play three hours a day. if I'm lucky, I could do four during weekends. If you're a die hard fan of MMORPGs, you should know that three to four hours a day is not going to get you very far, especially when using a trash character.

    But I made due and managed to reach my level with some help of my only actual friend both in game and real life. However, since he is one of the Admins, he could only help me when he was at break.

    Well, it doesn't really matter anymore since all our accounts are gonna be deleted due to the shutting down of the server.

    After finishing that thought, I opened up the menu again and pressed options. There, three more buttons popped up.

[table]SettingsCharacter SelectLog Out[table]

    I hovered my fingers above Log Out and pressed it.

    Subsequently, my vision started to black out and I was put back into the starting menu of AC.

    On the top of the screen, it showed two huge words that said the name of the game, ATLAS COMMANDER. On the background was a projection of the battle that was taking place between the two opposing sides. Before all this, what was shown in the background was a serene overview of the world, Atlas. It showed many crystal clear lakes and rives and many lush forests along with massive human and non-human cities.

    "I guess it really is the end of this world." I said as a massive explosion occurred and destroyed one of the siege towers, killing many players and NPCs alike.

    Knowing that I'm gonna get in trouble if I don't get out of the school soon, I logged out of the VR headset and returned back to reality.

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Author's Note: Woot! I finally got the tables working. It may be a bit wonky, but I'm learning. Anyways, here's the first chapter, hope you guys like it! If you find any spelling errors or grammar mistakes, just post it.