She looked up too late, realising her error.

Like Esko had done, I smashed into my opponent, my shield barely holding up with the massive hole it sustained. We went to the ground, Claire yelping in shock and me groaning in pain. She reached for her dagger, stuck beneath her.

{The Glass Cannon} lay in the dirt just beside us. I stretched, snagging it and holding it over her.

“Stop! My dad is sick!”

I hesitated. “What does that change?”

My spear inched closer to the vulnerable space between her helmet and body armour.

“He’s sick, I have to get the money to help him.”

She was turning the fight into an ethical battle. I jammed my foot on her wrist as it creeped under her belt, yearning for the dagger.

“How much?! How much are the Asterians supposedly giving you?!”

I’d never felt this level of stress. At any moment, she could activate some kind of ability that I didn’t know about. Something that could throw me to the other side of the arena, where I’d suffer one last arrow as Bill’s Yard was forgone.

“Fifty thousand. Dad can’t work, Mom is caring for him, I’m the only one who can make ends meet.”

“Sell this armour then. You’ll scrounge up some cash real quick doing that. I know where you’ve gotten it from.”

“It’s stolen. It won’t sell for anything — the Asterians told me I can’t keep it anyway. Ollie, please. I need this, it’s the only way.”

The smouldering scent of the town still floated through the air, all these days later.

I couldn’t sacrifice it for her.

“I’m sorry, Claire.”

[Spear Charge]

I closed my eyes and jammed my spear into her neck. No matter the armour, she couldn’t survive a powered-up hit like that.

It was done. I stood up as her character disintegrated, feeling like I’d killed more than just a [Huntress]. If she couldn’t get the money, I’d have killed her father, too. Over a pixelated town.

Quest Completed!

‘Liberate the Yard’

Reward(s)

+400,000 EXP

+50 Friendship (Bill’s Yard citizens)

Title: Bard of the Yard

Item: Bill’s Sunhat

Level up notifications filled my vision, temporarily blinding me. The system seemed to think they were more important than traditional notifications, because I couldn’t minimise them to the corner.

The final number resting on my screen was 55.

Fifty-five. I’d levelled up thirty-five times from one quest. I checked my Stats screen, a smile reaching across my face as I found 78 stat points ready to attribute, and 11 skill tokens. The smile fell from my face as the final thrust haunted me.

The crowd was silent, and I quickly discovered why. Masses of Asterian soldiers were disintegrating too, as though I’d defeated them all in one fell swoop. The player's gear was replaced by whatever they’d worn beforehand, most of them in the bland, low-level gear that was typical of Bill’s Yard. They stood dumbfounded, some angry, though most just happy to get on with the game and their lives.

I didn’t receive any EXP as the Asterians crumbled, though my appetite for such things was well and truly sated for the day. I turned away from Claire as the last vestiges of her character disappeared. If she bothered respawning immediately, it’d be somewhere out in the dustbowl, forced to come to terms with her loss.

Thinking about her made me want to curl up in a corner and stare at a wall. For the first time, I was forced to see B&B as more than just a game, more than just a career even. For some, it was a lifeline — one of the few ways they could lift themselves from a poverty-stricken existence.

When she’d revealed herself as an Asterian earlier, I’d hated her. I thought she betrayed me and the Yard just for the fun of it — manipulating me into that dungeon to help her with her quest of ruination. Now that I knew the stakes, I wished that were the truth.

I forced myself to dawdle out from the plaza. The houses were still burnt, and repairs would be a long process, but it was undoubtedly going to be a great source of EXP for everyone. In fact, having completed the Six-Month Event, the quest completion EXP from here on out would be incomprehensibly larger than it was beforehand.

The krad, too.

Before I disconnected, I wanted to see Otto and Bill. Like Dale had told me forever ago, by having an extra 50 Friendship with everyone, I’d be worshipped everywhere I went.

Once people had their porches back, they might even sit there waving when I walked by.

“Oliver!”

I looked to my right, where Braith and Marge were hustling over, bundles of bread in their arms.

“You won?” Braith asked. It was probably hard to tell, given the sight of my damaged character before them. A portion of those 78 stat points would have to go into Vitality, or else I’d never be able to walk off a hit and look cool doing it.

“I did. The Asterians are gone, although the players who sided with them are still around. We might have some trouble with them, I dunno.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Marge shoved a loaf of sourdough in my arms and embraced me, smearing tears on my face. The game’s AI was too convincing — they needed to turn it down a notch or else I’d start crying, too. Hell, I felt like it after stabbing my crush in the neck.

Something told me that Claire wouldn’t be hitting me up to go hunting anytime soon. If I wanted to battle more [Dark Naga], I’d have to do it on my own.

“I’m going to Otto’s to tell everyone the good news, would you like to come?”

“That’s them just over there, isn’t it?”

Sure enough, a throng of citizens were waltzing down the main street, kicking up dust behind their flock. Their forms were lit by torches as the night set in. Bill led, hustling along on his sore leg as though it didn’t bother him in the slightest. His hat was folded between his hands, the two frayed sides meeting each other in the middle. I remembered when he gave me that first quest, and I’d decided I wouldn’t place that hat on my head even if the world was going to come crashing down. So much for that.

I went to meet them, accepting {Bill’s Sunhat} like a crowned king.

“You’re a bluddy marvel!” called Lily

“That’ll show those blasted Ash-tery-annes!” Young Barney threw in.

“Any left? I’ll cane ‘em!”

The list went on as everyone put in their good word. I accepted their thanks as best as I could, nodding along and smiling.

At last, with my social battery completely and utterly depleted, I disconnected.

--Disconnecting, please wait—

The room was silent. Cold.

I lay still for a moment, only removing my nodes before crashing back down to breathe for a moment. The real world beckoned, and I knew everything would be different from this point onwards.

The reporters probably knew the result of the fight already, and I’d be back in the papers. Guild recruiters would have my ‘file’ come across their desks, and if they could withstand the fact that I was from Bill’s Yard rather than the Elthen Fields, I’d soon have their representatives on my doorstep.

And Claire would hate me for it.

Her name was on the original article, so she’d get the reporters, too. But she was the loser, and that’s not who writes the history books. All I could hope was that a decent guild would put two and two together and decide that she must be a reasonably talented player to come out of that Naga’s dungeon alive.

I cleared my mind of all the drama and went downstairs. Esko was gone, but Mom and Dale were still up, mulling around whilst the clock ticked closer to midnight. I went in and lay down on the couch, yawning.

“I did it.”

Mom celebrated, whooping and throwing a tea towel at me. I hadn’t seen her so happy since before the break-in, and for that, I was thankful.

“And there’s something else I didn’t tell you guys. I won’t bother with the context, but I’ll just say that winning that fight earned me four-hundred thousand EXP. Not a bad reward for a fledgling player.”

Even Dale was impressed with those numbers. “Pretty good haul. Of course, Em and I could get a million EXP in like, ten minutes.”

Mom scoffed and threw an apple at him, which bounced off his belly. “Bull-shiiet, Dale! I’m surprised you even remember what EXP is! It’s been that long since you’ve earnt any.”

He snorted. “Maybe. Good job though, kiddo. That’s a damn good result — the training paid off.”

“It did. I actually used one of Esko’s tricks to win the fight. After I got shot twice.”

My Yurt was vibrating in my pocket like an alarm clock, the result of the fight already finding its way out to the general public. I went to my pinned chats and basked in Duri and Annette’s praise.

A: [Our advice worked! We expect a cut of the winnings.]

O: [3 divided by 0 = 0, I’m afraid. Unless you want a sweaty old sun hat with +4 Armour.]

D: [That’s all they gave you? No wonder people wanna be in the Fields]

O: [Shit-ton of EXP, too.]

I put the Yurt away, confident I’d catch up with them in real life pretty soon. Perhaps even with Joey, too.

“So what happens now? You just go back to whatever you were doing before? What were you doing? I feel like we haven’t talked shop since you started,” Mom asked.

“Yeah, well, I’m in a fair bit of debt, so that’s cool. I’m going to help fix up the town, then get going with a courier business to earn some krad.”

“A courier? Aren’t you, like, the most fearsome fighter in the whole place? My little boy is all grown up.”

“Ha. I dunno. S’pose I need some time to think about stuff. There’s still like…the entire year left.”

“Fair.”

We watched Olympic re-runs for the next couple hours, talking trash on whichever players lost. It was fun to laugh at someone whose cobalt-plated, titanium-tipped, magically enhanced Sword of Doom only did approximately three gazillion damage. Dale offered me a beer, to which Mom gave him a very sharp look before she relented.

“Just one, and give him a shitty one so he doesn’t like it.”

“I’m a poor ex-B&B player, Em. They’re all shitty cos they’re all cheap.”

Sure enough, the drink he handed me — a ‘Barcep Lager’ — tasted like mushy wet bread. I finished it because I didn’t want it to go to waste, but yikes. Dale could hold on to that one in the future.

I stayed awake for a while, even after I went to bed. It would’ve been at least two in the morning, but despite the exhausting weekend, I was content to just lay on my pillow and think.

Part of me was eager to read the newspaper in the morning, to see my name in flashing lights. The other part wanted to escape to the forest like Esko, at least until the year finished and I could join a guild or a raid team with Duri and Annette.

Level 55 would be enough, right? I could coast all year.

‘Coasting’ with almost nineteen-grand in debt didn’t sound like a good idea. Realising that I was dipping back into the territory of ‘serious thoughts,’ I hurriedly clamped my eyes shut and gave in to sleep.

I awoke about ten hours later. To be honest, I could’ve kept sleeping and just committed to a dinnertime wake-up, but I was worried people might think I was dead.

The first thing I did — after downing a glass of orange juice which was way too acidic — was read the News. Mom had left a paper copy on the table and a cute card saying, ‘Well Done!’, so I knew it was going to be a decent article.

A Glass Spear and A Dream: The Yard’s Underdog

Last night, the graduate zone of Bill’s Yard underwent an upheaval as Oliver ‘Underdog’ Matanor took on a representative of the Asterian Army in a one-on-one battle.

The Government-scheduled fight was enacted to put an end to the Six-Month Event that Oliver and an accomplice, Claire Pranutal triggered by completing a specific, hidden dungeon.

The fight was extremely close, with Oliver prevailing using a last-second tactic that players at the event described as a ‘masterstroke.’

Neither Oliver nor his parents / guardians have commented on the events of the past few days, however we expect Government correspondence on this matter.

Written by Jill Pearl (0384 712 890)

Jill was back at it, taking a break from her regularly scheduled pet articles. I read the good bits again, cringing at the terrible nickname they’d given me, and heavily doubting that anyone called my near-death Hail Mary a ‘masterstroke.’

It reeked of a newspaper just trying to get me to interview with them, but I’d let them have their fun.

I drew a smiley face on Mom’s card and then went about my day, happy to have nothing urgent in my schedule. I heard shoes squeaking up the path, and I assumed Dale and Mom were home.

There was a rap at the door.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

Not Mom, not Dale. A reporter?

I went and opened the door, and before me stood a man in a pinstripe suit. He wore thick sunglasses on his crooked nose, and a gold tooth peeked through when he smiled. His hair was slicked back and showed grey at the roots.

“My son! How ya doin?”