Vidal sobbed tears of joy. He covered an emotional scrunched-up face with a hand.
Wrapped in a black cloak, he stood tall on the six-thousand-foot summit of a snowy mountain. A wind raged, mercilessly hurling hail into his face repeatedly. Gigantic shadows of the clouds and the mountain cast themselves upon the landscape, and sunlight shone on the spires of local churches scattered in the little valley towns.
He inhaled, taking in the freezing, crisp air, and exhaled. Visibility at the summit stretched to one hundred miles but Vidal could see further due to his incredibly high perception stat. Intuitively, he zoomed in and saw the acute details of the towns before him, allowing him to even see the glass windows of every building.
What evoked the strong emotion wasn't the breathtaking view before him. He had no concern for aesthetics.
It was the source of life.
Real life.
For one decade and a half, Vidal had been forced to live with NPCs. He had nothing against the "humans". In fact, he had contacted the creators using Contestant Support just to praise them on how extremely well coded they were. The bots consisted of nearly all of the jigsaw pieces required to make a perfect human, even displaying compassion and empathy at the right times. And the art design? Absolutely gorgeous. Exquisite graphics. Without a doubt, The Half-Dead Game was the best video game Vidal had ever played.
He wiped away tears, letting go of his face to reveal an innocent-looking boy. One eye was red and the other was blue. His facial features were small, compact and seen as cute by many NPCs he had encountered. Dishelved curly brown hair hid underneath his large cloak.
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Vidal went to The Half-Dead Game profile and looked at his stats and skills. For hours, he thought about how he would allocate his stats later on in the evening.
Every so often, he muttered half-finished thoughts. "If I improve my strength stat enough, maybe I can wield... Vitality is enough for now... I'll max out perception but then... got to be able to store more mana too...although..."
Eventually, Vidal grinned. He reflected on the past and grinned wider.
He was born in a bustling desert city called Autento where the weather averaged 40 degrees celsius and high-level quests for adventurers were plentiful. There were countless dungeons to explore. It was the type of place that magic users were guaranteed to thrive in and Vidal believed it was the best place to reincarnate for the game. He got lucky.
At age seven, Vidal killed his NPC "parents" to see how many XP points he could gain-- which was a decent amount at the time-- and from then on he slaughtered anyone who he thought was worth killing. There was a huge bounty on his head and every gold-ranked adventurer wanted a piece of him.
So far, the game had been brilliant... but the single-player mode was starting to get stale.
Vidal opened up The Half-Dead Game tab titled Radar:
Searching for contestants within a 30-mile radius…
Please wait…
20 contestants detected.
Two obsidian axes materialised in the air, dropping into Viddal's hands. While dashing down the mountain, he zoomed in on another player who seemed to be conversing with an NPC in the valley below. Positioned only three quarters down the mountain, he hurled one of the axes with a grunt. The weapon spiralled rapidly, travelling for almost two miles until the head of the axe cut straight through the player's body, cleanly cutting them in half.
Congratulations! You have killed Kay Eydis! (100K XP Bonus received.)
Your ranking has changed. Please see the leaderboard tab for more.
Congratulations! You have levelled up.
Wolves howled in the background and Vidal smirked, accelerating with every step he took. His eyes were already locked onto another target.
"Now we're talking," he said. "I've always loved multiplayer games."