The next morning Azrael woke up and went for a jog. Yes, a jog. It was an admittedly short jog, barely ten minutes before he reached his limit, but a jog none the less.

Last night on the mountain he’d looked down on the city and realised something.

The world didn’t care.

As profoundly simple as that was, it had struck him somewhere deep.

Up until that moment he’d secretly been hoping for some help, divine guidance, maybe even a kind smile. But everyone was too wrapped up in their own little lives. Climbing that mountain had been hard, yes, but at the end he was able to peacefully watch the sunset, while people tried to fulfill their busy little lives. He was one of them. One of those people that just went about their day, looking up at the people who made it.

In high school he’d put in the effort to be the best at his class, so he could fulfill his dream job.

He’d put in endless hours and sleepless nights to learn maths, coding and whatever else he needed to become a VR programmer. But people didn’t care about his efforts. They simply labelled him a ‘genius’, because they couldn’t accept that he’d started on the same level as them.

Later, when he was sixteen he’d been hit by a vehicle and been in a coma for a year. To support his medical costs his parents had worked overtime, taking several jobs at once. But nobody cared.

And even then, that money hadn’t been enough and they’d been forced to borrow more from loan sharks.

His coma lasted a year and when he emerged, his family was in debt and his father fell ill from over exertion.

From there everything went downhill, but nobody cared.

He’d been forced to quit school, entering what he knew best, to earn money – gaming. And nobody cared.

His mother’s health also started to deteriorate as she continued to work, in order to help pay off his father’s medical fees and the phenomenal debt.

With both the medical fees increasing, as well as pressure from the loan sharks to repay the ever-increasing debt and interest, things became tough. Not even selling their family home alleviated the pressure for long.

Four years after the beginning of his coma Kade was scouted by a massive VR gaming guild ‘Holy Empire’. They presented him with a contract. There was no way he could decline. He needed that money. And they abused that, but he needed that money.

Even then…

It wasn’t enough.

Half a year later his father was badly injured due to an assault by some hired muscle from the loan sharks. They had arrived, demanding their money. They hadn’t been able to pay as much as they demanded, so they decided to teach his father some ‘manners’.

Azrael returned the favour, sending them to hospital. Unfortunately his father never recovered from the injuries and passed away soon after. But nobody cared. Not the government, not the authorities, no-one.

Then, after his father’s death, his mother drew into herself and he was left with a mentally ill mother and a large amount of debt.

Two years later, he’d just managed to pay off the debt when his mother committed suicide by his father’s grave. And just like that, he was alone.

In his loss he turned the only thing he had left. Gaming. Ten, sixteen, twenty hours a day he buried himself in another world, another reality. The game became his life.

A small scandal later and he was fired from ‘Holy Empire’. Framed and fired he left the gaming world, shamed.

He sold the cheap apartment they’d bought and changed house, moving to the next city and buying a smaller apartment. With that money. That was two years ago and he’d been there ever since.

It was the truth of the world.

Nobody cared.

The only way to get up the mountain called ‘Life’ was through your own effort. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t straight, it wasn’t pretty, and it required persistence. There was no guaranteed sunset, only a whispered promise.

In life, if you wanted something you had to make it yourself, and you had to be strong enough to do it yourself.

If you wanted control, you needed power. It was as simple as that.

If the world didn’t care about him, he just had to become strong enough not to care about the world.

That, he realised, was what bothered him so much when he fought in-game. It wasn’t the killing, it was the lack of control. The fact that he wasn’t strong enough to control the situation. That he wasn’t even strong enough to control himself. He lost control to that primal part inside of him.

He needed to become stronger.

He needed to be stronger.

He firmed his resolve and had a quick shower, before entering the game.

His cave was silent, save for the muted roaring of waterfall outside. His wounds were mostly healed after his time out of the game. Although, his entire left arm was still very stiff and sore. It looked like he wouldn’t be able to use if for a day or two yet. Still, even six days to heal was a lot faster that the required few months or so in real life. Nobody wanted to play with a damaged character, so it made sense from a designer’s point of view, but he was curious about how they justified it. They’d kept everything else realistic so far.

Checking his health and mana he was glad to find that both were topped up to full, although that raised an interesting point about the fact that while he was still ‘wounded’ his HP showed as full.

It meant that HP wasn’t exactly representative of his actual physical condition. He moved around his cave as he mused. Maybe they were on separate bars, where one was his hit points and the other… physical durability? Although what seemed more likely was that his health would fill up, before the rest was used to heal him. What would that be? Overhealth? He realised that he was getting side-tracked. Living alone for two years did that to a guy.

He stretched and wandered over to the cave entrance, looking over the forest. There had to be something there that could make him stronger. He was so caught up in that thought that he failed to notice the dozen or so villagers camping at the bottom of his cave. As he stood there, lost in his musings the village chief threw himself down to the ground, prostrating, followed by the rest of the village.

“Please” He cried “Please, oh mighty Lord of the forest, grant us protection”

Azrael finally noticed them.

“What?”