[Welcome to <Super Wack-A-Gobbo>!]

[First Time User Detected! Would you like to link your UW account for ease of payment?]

"Yes, for sure!"

[Ding! Please have fun gaming at <Phantom>! ^_^/ ]

"Well, thank you."

That is when the darkness rescinded. Josh found himself in a plain of some kind, a very flat one, very lush and comforting. Next to him was a small campfire with a flame that was very close to flickering its last. Above it was a small text box that read: <Defend your Campfire>

Josh could somehow feel his body, but it was a very strange sense of self. It seemed quite…fake. He could feel the breeze on his skin, he could feel the softness of the ground, he could feel the gentle touch of the grass on his ankles. But it all felt lackluster somehow.

Josh quickly pinched himself. Ah, that was it! He barely felt that. All sensations were visibly reduced. Was it a question of budget? Perhaps it was simply for the players not to confuse this with the real world.

On the ground lying in the herb was a single stick and nothing else. A long, brown, and extremely ordinary stick. As soon as Josh picked it up came an announcement.

[Let the game begin!]

What was Josh even supposed to do now? It took a few seconds for a lone goblin to appear in the distance and a while longer for it to come any closer. It looked pretty basic, was empty-handed while swinging its claws, was wearing rags, and was slightly growling as it advanced.

Josh swung the stick as hard as possible, making the goblin's head explode in many gory pieces. Surprisingly the goblin was extremely weak, then again this was only the beginning of the game. Josh kept waiting and sure enough more slow goblins approached at the pace of a snail.

This wouldn't do, at all! There was no way this was the training he was looking for! "Say, game system. Is there any way to speed things up a little?"

[Please select (Score multiplied by X): Normal 1x, Fast 3x, Extreme 5x, Devilish 8x, Hell mode 10x + Added challenge. Note that once a difficulty is selected, it can be lowered but cannot be increased.]

Josh couldn't help but grin. This actually looked great haha. "Activate Hell mode!"

Now, that was more like it! It was still extremely slow, but at least now Josh could see them walking at normal speed. Still, he didn't despair just yet because there were more and more goblins appearing. About a minute later there were already about a hundred slow goblins coming at a once, all with different timing.

As he kept busting skulls, Josh experimented a bit. The actual strength required to kill a goblin was actually extremely low. It seemed like what mattered was rather the motion itself.

Still, Josh played it as if he was in a life and death situation and gave his all behind every strike. He made sure to use the most optimum footing to maximize his power even if it was useless. He didn't want to develop bad habits thanks to this game, that would have been counterproductive.

Josh grinned as he bashed, crushed, destroyed, squashed, pounded, and annihilated the creatures. He was laughing out loud in joy at this point feeling that he could go on forever if it kept going like this.

At some point, weird-looking goblins started spawning. These ones had a small pouch tied to their waist with rocks attached to them. They started throwing these projectiles at Josh, who tested how damage worked here by purposely taking one. That's when he saw an HP bar appearing as it went down by 10%.

Josh figured that later there would be way more goblin throwers. It was best for him to simply dodge, thus what he started doing. He even started taunting the goblins as he side-stepped all the projectiles. They would come in melee range after throwing a few after all. Meanwhile, he kept exploding goblin heads.

That's when it happened. After a few minutes, suddenly appeared a message.

[Game Over! Would you like to play again?]

"What?! There must be a mistake…" That's when Josh noticed it. In the fire pit were more rocks than wood. These throwers hadn't been targeting him at all! He had been so busy killing that he hadn't even noticed.

That sure was interesting! At first glance, it only appeared as a basic game of timing, but there was already a layer of complexity added with the projectiles. That is when a glowing red circle appeared in his vision. It read <IRL notification>.

What was that? Josh promptly exited the game only to come face to face with the random guy he had met at the entrance, the ill-tempered one. Josh raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

"Dumbass, you shouldn't start with this game. It will blow all your savings real fast. It's 2 credits per game. This is meant to be a long endurance game. If you can only last a few minutes, like you just did, you'll go broke in no time. You better start with something else to get used to the VR."

Was he trying to be helpful? The man still looked quite arrogant and patronizing. His tone was clearly oozing with superiority too. Was it his way of apologizing for the earlier events? Still, it was misplaced on Josh.

For Josh, this wasn't simply playing, but training. Of course, the value he attributed to it was thus way higher. It was an investment rather than a simple expenditure.

"Thanks, but I prefer to play this. I'll keep at it until I get better."

"Just goddamn listen! There are so many newbies as stubborn as you! They all end up badly! Whoever recommended this thing to you clearly has a grudge against you! Listen to reason and get the fuck off for your own good!"

Josh couldn't help but feel like that made sense. After all, the clerk had literally just blamed him for "killing" his favorite TV crew. The man had probably meant this as a simple prank, probably expecting Josh to switch game after a few failed attempts.

But…Josh's goals couldn't be understood by these guys for he was a Fallen. For him, time was more precious than credits, way more precious. A man owed him 100 000 credits, but Josh only had 36 days left of his lifespan.

"Again, thanks but no thanks. My money, my choice. Now, go bother someone else. Well, except if you want to make a bet or something haha."

The man seemed to think for a second. Before finally sighing and...

"You know what? How about we bet on your improvement? How about you try and reach the top 5000 of the rankings in 24 hours? I'm only talking about the Super Wack-A-Gobbo rankings by the way."

"Alright, sounds good. How much should we bet then?"

"How about the loser becomes the winner's slave for the remaining duration of the gaming session? Of course, said gaming session will end as soon as the winner physically leaves this place. This arcade is opened 24/7 and not to brag but I can game for at least 2 days at a time!"

As for the rankings, Josh needed to install an app on his UW to see them. A few clicks later he understood what this challenge implied. He had to survive an hour and a half to the goblin legion. Of course, this was on normal difficulty.

For Josh on Hell difficulty that would simply mean surviving 9 minutes. How easy was that! Josh thus showed a very uncertain and unconfident expression as he accepted the bet. He didn't want the man changing his mind at the last second haha.

Thus Josh dived back into the game. He instantly picked Hell mode and started slaughtering. Now that he knew the trick behind the goblin throwers this would obviously be extremely easy …

[Game Over! Would you like to play again?]

Or not…

Very quickly, Josh realized an issue. At first, he tried to block every rock thrown his way. That method initially proved extremely successful but then came an issue. Later on, there were already waves designed in a way that it was humanly impossible to block all of them.

For instance, there would be many goblins throwing stones exactly at the same time but from opposite directions. Or sometimes there would simply be too many melee enemies swarming to allow such anti-projectile defense to be viable.

Josh obviously came up with a few solutions. For one, he could ignore the rocks that wouldn't affect his campfire. But even that proved challenging. This was a game, it was hard to know exactly what was considered the specific hitbox of the campfire.

Furthermore, sometimes a rock would land away from the target but later would get pushed by another one thus rolling in the fire and extinguishing it. The rocks would eventually despawn but Josh had to keep these obscure interactions in mind.

Another issue was the need to remain near the objective to defend it. Josh could easily go out of his way and assassinate the rock throwers before they could do any real damage. Of course, it wasn't that easy. The whole thing was set up in a way that it was doable for a few throwers but impossible at times.

For instance, a few times Josh went to kill a ranged enemy only to realize that his base was getting swarmed by regular goblins. He had to always juggle between leaving his camp to kill enemies and coming back quickly to defend it. Some projectiles he had to ignore and some projectiles he had to block.

The whole thing was a goddamn mess that turned out to be especially challenging! Josh had clearly underestimated it all! Before long he could see tons of…

[Game Over! Would you like to play again?]

[Game Over! Would you like to play again?]

[Game Over! Would you like to play again?]

Etc.

But even then, Josh kept trying and trying. He stopped counting after the number of attempts reached the three digits. Would such a small setback stop him? No way! But that is when came the dreaded red circle <IRL notification>. The 24 hours were up already.

As Josh removed the VR helmet he could see the man he had bet with, adorning a huge grin.

"So? How was it? Did you manage to officially become a SWAG ranker?"

"I…."