I sat on my bed pondering things over, slowly replaying the events in my head. I've come to two possible conclusions. One being I truly have gone completely fucking insane, the other being that I've gone just slightly less insane, which was triggered by some sort of moral guilt, and figments of my imagination were trying to repair itself by talking to me in orc form.

After sitting in my bed for roughly two hours like a bug eyed maniac, I finally decided to eat something and to see first hand the thing that’s been bothering me. I moved over to my computer chair with another ramen noodle cup in my hand, browsed the web for a bit while slurping up my meal, also googled a few causes for possible hallucinations to no avail. Then googled if you could talk to yourself with external forms, but that shit was too deep for me, if that was the case I decided that I’m fucked.

Finally full and satisfied with my would be morning, I opened up “The New Era” with high expectations and fears. I put in all my account information with unhuman like gamer agility, unable to contain these emotions. Clicking the little avatar of my rogue half elf with tremendous anxiety, I waited for the game to load me in.

All around me were bodies of orcs, at least in the hundreds. Blood was splattered all over the battlefield, houses burned and destroyed, children corpses lay limpless where I stood. Everything came back to me from that robotic night of grinding experience. Thinking once again to myself, “What have I done?”.

The New Era boasted pretty amazing scripting and artificial intelligence, each of these NPC’s that I killed had a schedule, a life, a family, and even learned a bit as they lived. Another thing about “The New Era” is that the game’s deaths are pretty unique, and the very reason why these orcs are still here.

It features “Decaying Life 2.2”, the developers call it. Pretty much like normal life, a body doesn't disappear after death, however it doesn't really decay either, which makes me question the name of the feature. Instead of decaying, I’d compare it more to turning undead. The bodies slowly “decay” and after an unknown threshold is passed, they bring themselves back to life.

This can be combated by burning the bodies, completely looting them, or with animals by simply skinning and harvesting the meat. You can also do that with normal humans and other races, even I haven’t stooped to that level though, and there really wasn’t a need either, you could just loot them all and throw away the trash.

It’s not like I can talk about what’s right or wrong though, considering where I stand. If you truly leave the bodies for too long, they do in fact become undead and continue as if life almost didn't change, just stupider, slower, and an uncertain doubt in your mind if that’s really the person you know.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Haunted for eternity until their “souls” are released, they act like themselves, think like themselves to a lesser extent, but have an unexplained hatred for any good factions/races/anything really.

Of course that unexplained reason would be game mechanics in a nutshell. Obviously the undead wouldn’t be having a friendly cup of tea with a paladin. Eventually I decided to act on my plans I thought up of when I was sitting in my bed.

I dragged the bodies of all the orcs from this little clan over to what felt like the center. With them all together I searched through my inventory for an item called a “Fire Spark Rune”. As the name implied, it basically could start a fire with a spark. I didn’t spec at all into anything magic related, so I usually came prepared with all sorts of magical items to help me out.

Using the torn down village huts as fuel for this fire, I set everything on fire without a second thought.

I’ve never actually done this before, I always considered it a waste of time. More time I could’ve been using to level up I thought. Who cares if a little city of mobs becomes undead? Heck some might even say it's better! Those with bad disposition could still use the city like normal.

Even the biggest cities can become repopulated over time with moaning zombies. Truly an amazing feat for the developers. I wondered to myself what this place might become in the future.

You could walk down the road, hear a gurgle and suddenly realize a blacksmith zombie is insulting what you are wearing, beckoning you to peruse his shop.

Watching the fire blaze to new heights, I suddenly had another thought. What was the point of all this bullshit? I just bide my time, I just exist, so why does this even matter? Especially now that I have these stupid feelings called morals for a fucking hard drive all of a sudden. I logged out, completely tired of this shit.

Afterwards I did something that surprised myself. I clicked on a button underneath my half elf, a very big and ominous button called “Delete Character?” With newfound determination I clicked it and all of the following prompts in the blink of my eyes. Maybe I should’ve read a few of those *cough*.

Regardless, what's done is done. Besides, I actually felt good about something for once in a long time. Elzare the evil rouge wood elf, won’t kill anymore, even if they are just fucking zeros and ones.

Maybe I should hold more value for zeros and ones though. What if they become smart enough to really seriously talk? Learn? Friendships.. and children. A small water droplet streamed down my face as the memories of that orc woman and her now lifeless stomach. I’m starting to think maybe my emotions have been dulled from all these lonely years of gaming. Surely that must be a side effect? That must be why I killed that clan, and when finally met in person by someone I killed, I just fucking burst like a damn.