My name is Ryu Fujimoto, right now I'm playing an MMORPG game called The New Era. It's some fancy game with a weird twist, as the title implies it’s a new Era, right? Well not yet anyway, it's going to be a new era which is the base of the "gimmick" I suppose. We are the future! We decide the outcome! The craftsmanship, the dungeons, the future children and NPC's!

It's all a load of bullshit if you ask me though. Some horse wash marketing gimmick that some bigwigs in a company decided to sell you on, just so their fat pockets could get just that much fatter. Surprised a fucking button flying off an old man's pants hasn’t killed anyone as they eat that shit up.

“In the news today, fat man killed CEO Robert Rundal in what reports say, as the fastest button ever recorded, others say the sound was the equivalent of a bullet.” I chuckled to myself silently.

“A baseball speed measuring device clocked it at 120 miles per hour, can you fucking believe it Steve?” ahhh, enough messing around I guess.

All I really care about is biding my time, I have no job, friends, and I'm out of school. I'm 26 years old and don't have a single foothold in society. Impressive, I know. Trust me, there's no need to compliment me, I’m fully aware of my awesome.

The only reason I'm able to play these games and just exist is thanks to my amazing mother. She never once complained about my lack of motivation, how lazy I was, or that I'm basically a leech to her anymore, maybe she stopped caring? It couldn’t be though, my apartment was always paid on time by her, food always delivered. In fact, maybe she cared too much. I’ve just taken her for granted and turned into a sack of shit.

She is truly a kind and amazing woman. Holding my hand to my heart as I thanked her from my soul. Maybe I should just man up and get a job sometime.

I currently live in a single room apartment, just doing my thing as time flys by. I'm smoking a cigarette and tap the ashes into a stupid ash tray I ordered that’s plastic with sharp teeth all around the edges.

It's supposed to be a dragon's mouth but looks utterly retarded once I inspected it up close. It's more like a sharp circle more so than a dragon, but I decided not to care, it holds old nasty ash.

It's not like I would've cleaned or cared for it more if it was more dragon like. Much like me, it's just a wasted space. Its only job deemed to hold the poison that I administer to myself on a daily basis.  

Now I'm coughing up a fit thinking of pointless things, may as well grind in my game a bit more, not like there's much else I can do anyway. The sound of frantic typing filled the air as my login information was put in. My computer hummed to life, my monitor lit up. I was there.

Smack,  A large strong green humanoid shaped creature swung a huge battle axe down that’s chipped in multiple places, clearly seeing many battles in its time, adding on to the chips as it slid against an iron shield crackling away slowly to the clearly stronger made material.  

Without a moment's notice the prey of this green thing retaliated at the chance. A warm wet sensation came over it along with dripping sounds, right where a human's heart would be, now lay a dagger deep enough to penetrate it.

The monsters heartbeats thumped sporadically with blood oozing out the new wound along with the rhythm of its heart struggling.

Blood gurgled down its throat in a vicious manner, and screams echoed only to be masked by the thick blood, causeing even more bubbles to gurgle in his throat.

He attacked the human that invaded his little orc village, what did he do to deserve this death? This clan was different from other orcs, they never attacked the unsuspected, they never pillaged! They hunted animals, lived off the land, just like the humans! Why! The orc screamed that word as his dying breath.

I heard a death sound I've never heard before by this strange orc, it sounded like "Why", maybe it was my imagination, uncertain and being a little weirded out I took my headphones off and inspected them, somehow thinking I would find god knows what on them. A bug? An alien sucking my intelligence away? I don’t know, luckily it was nothing, maybe it was my imagination.

I've killed many orcs in this game and it's always been some stupid gurgle or them screaming vengeance for their clan in the afterlife, but never a simple question of why though. I even started asking myself the same question. Why did I kill that orc?

The answer immediately came to my head in response, loot, experience and progression. It's part of the game after all! If some NPC wants 5 orc ears and gives me some gold, experience and a pat on the back, then I won’t question it. Now's not the time for moral questions of zeros and ones anyway.

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Just simple data on my hard drive and if I feel guilty for that one orc, then I have a lot of backed up guilt considering I'm level 99. I didn’t get this close to max level picking apples in a cute little orchard, handing them out like a sweet old granny either.

I picked up the axe the orc had, it caught my attention the moment I saw it hit my shield. When it hit me, I had a chance to see it very close on my monitor in the cinematic battle, the blade was chipped it several places almost like teeth.  

I started to wonder if that meant it had increased damage, or maybe some weird effect like cutting into something would saw into it as well as cut? I quickly inspected the item using the in game interface.

"Peace Chieftain Dergu's Aged Might"

"This chieftain's axe has seen many battles, and is chipped in several places. This unique chipping over decades of battle has turned into a signature of the weapon with the strong metal still clinging to life. This axe has twice the chance to cause severe bleeding compared to other weapons of similar type, due to the brutal and jagged nature of its blade. This bleeding effect is also harder to heal considering the odd shaped wound it leaves"

Wow, was the only word that I could mutter to myself as my cigarette fell from my lips. Yes, it was that amazing. Upon further inspection the stats were completely insane, at least twice as strong as my main sword that I spend 200 gold on! This wasn't even considering its special effect! Well fuck me, I feel the need of a refund inkling up my skin.

I had to stop myself and think for a moment. What was this zone I was in again? I looked to the top right corner of my monitor above where my map was. The zone name "Dergu the Unorthodox's Clan" sat there in a pretty black rectangle.  

This zone and clan belonged to the orc I just killed? He was nothing though, extremely weak compared to other orc clan leaders. I sat and pondered to myself why he was so weak but had such a strong weapon.  

After a while I finally came to one conclusion. Considering the prefix peaceful in this weapon's name and unorthodox as his title name, he probably wasn't a warmonger, or at least hasn’t seen too many harsh battles.  The fact no one could inspect the weapon was probably because who would kill a peaceful  orc village. A small twang of pain overcame my heart, well, I guess I would it seems.

After a little more time passed I didn’t really even care now, already started, may as well finish. I just mindlessly went ahead and killed the rest of the orcs using the very same axe their chieftain dropped. Maybe they have some more loot thats been hidden from the world.

I doubted it though considering I already killed the boss. At the very least they offer me some more experience for my last two levels to a hundred. The sunlight hit my eyes with a strong flash from my window, I didn’t quite realize how long it took to kill this village, it was actually pretty big. Nothing worthwhile loot wise though, much to my dissapointment.

I yawned quite loud, and then reached over for my mouse to log out and shut my computer down. It was time for a nice long all morning sleepathon. My eyes slowly closed shut as the flashes of battle entered my vision. This frequently happens with me, I kinda go over everything I just did.

I can’t seem to help it either, maybe I really am hopelessly addicted to this fucking game. I craved to be the very best, I wanted to be level 100. I wanted to feel power. That's exactly why I game the way I do, for power. I’m powerless in the real world I have, and can’t find the motivation to fix it, but here, in that world right there, power can be gained.

Power can be gained, not by luck of the cards, not by being born into a rich family and having your life set for you from the moment a foot comes out the wound, not by working hard only to have your dreams shattered before your eyes. No, power in that word is consistent, I will never lose a level, only forward. I can die safely and come back victorious, I am stronger completely of my own hard work and skill, no external things. That feeling, was am extremely good one.

If an obstacle is too challenging, a dungeon too rough, then I just work hard, I die, a lot, but I also level up. I get better weapons, I can change the situation with the power of my own two hands. Well mostly fingers, throw in a few mouse clicks, a couple of feet scratches, some food to keep me going and we got ourselves a party in the making.

Rolling around in my bed, I couldn’t help but sense an odd feeling of foreboding. It felt like something was hovering over me, watching me with the predator eyes of a cat. I decided to jolt up from my bed to look around. Being able to see because of the fresh sunlight peeping through the window, the room was completely empty.

Flashes of the game entered my mind again as I slowly entered the polyester's warmth and feel against my skin. It was absolutely lovely, the warm embrace of the blankets were slowly fighting me for my consciousness. Should I let them win, or relish more in the thoughts of what I did in the game. That fucking axe though, seriously.

I’m giving up, oh warm blankets of the night, please kick my ass and take me into a deep slumber so I may fully be recharged for more gaming. This was the closest I was getting for religion, worshiping my blankets. My blankets are my goddess. My blankets shall forever be my goddess. I think they listen to me too, because my eyes feel heavy, the room fading before me, swirling around in a dizzy manner.. Wait.. that is far from normal!

Almost falling asleep, I heard a whisper, but couldn’t quite catch it. Is this fucking sleep paralysis? I couldn’t move, there was something behind me, without a doubt. Something was watching me, something is getting closer. My god, no, turn around, you can fucking do it, move you muscles right now, do it, you must you have to please for the love of god. Please blanket goddess! I’m sorry about the occasional stains, but please.