A translated conversation between an Administrator and player K. in the character creation room. Redacted date and time.

“What do you want?”

“I want to know what you are... a god, a spirit, an alien, or are you a piece of technology?”

“Because it's you, we'll answer to the best of our ability. You see, player K., we are neither god nor spirit. We are not an alien as you humans understand, though we are alien to your universe. And while we mimic some aspects of your technology we are more related to magic, though we’re also, not magic at all.”

*A disbelieving huff* “So, what does that make you? Some kind of magical but not magic unicorn prancing around, spreading a message of peace?”

*A deep reverberating chuckle* “We have no body, no form. We do not need those as we exist on a higher level than you perceive. We have no words to describe to you exactly what we are. The best we can do is explain that we are the ultimate precept of the concept of peace. And our only goal is to spread a peaceful state across the multiverse and multi-realm to improve the quality of life of all sentient beings.”

“But why do it? Do you benefit from it being peaceful? Does a peaceful world give you power so you can take over other worlds?”

“Do you live in such a harsh reality that you cannot imagine that joy, love, and compassion can exist irrevocably and without an ulterior motive?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“We did. It was you who didn't listen.”

The grunt rat I’d missed stabbed his trident toward my chest. I reacted on reflex, hitting his weapon away from me and stepping to the side. My hand ached from the impact. The other rat didn’t stay idle. It lunged at me. I used my other sword to bash its weapon, but this time I didn’t use enough force. It grazed my shoulder.

The other rat swung at me as if it carried a bat. I ducked under the blow and plunged both swords into its furry stomach. It screeched and reeled back but I knew something was missing from my attack.

Huh? What happened to my Add Air? Oh shit! It must have counted that miss earlier as an attack and used up my spell.

I stepped back as the other rat I hadn’t damaged charged forward. I used both swords to move its fork aside and stepped around the creature. When it had its back to me, I cross slashed into its spine. My blades dug so deep I could see the hint of a white bone before blood gushed out of the wound.

It yelled and turned around. Crap! Now I was flanked.

I tried to keep my eye on both of them at the same time, but it was too hard. Instead, I focused on the one in front of me and listened to the footsteps of the one behind me. I hoped it would work.

They stilled as if waiting. I blew on my swords to add air damage to them and waited for them to attack. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and into my eye. I blinked.

A footstep shuffled behind me. I dodged to the side. The rat in front of me jabbed forward catching my shoulder and chest with its prongs. The weapon lodged there. Pain lanced through my chest and blood seeped into my wool sweater.

“Fuck!”

As the creature tried to pull its trident from my body, I used its crappy position to stab my swords straight into its beady black eyes. This time, they passed through brain tissue and hit the back of its skull with a thud. It shrieked before its scream eerily cut out.

The grunt’s body slid from my blades, collapsing to the floor. The damn trident finally dislodged causing me to lose a few more points of precious health.

Exhausted, I turned to face my remaining opponent. The rat was already on me, weapon jabbing forward. I hefted my sword up. The scrape of metal on metal rang through the air as I blocked the attack and shoved the creature back.

It squeaked at me in anger, and I smirked.

“Just you and me now, sunshine.”

It murmured unintelligible ratspeak. We circled. I blew on my swords again and burned mana. The dirty rat thought I would be distracted by my casting and lunged forward. I sidestepped the attack, but it must have seen my dodge coming and swung its weapon at me. I slashed both swords at the back of its meaty neck. It hit my side, without stabbing into me. I defiantly felt a bruise form.

I hit! My swords dug into its flesh and severed its spinal cord. The blades lodged into its throat, and I used the momentum of the body’s collapse to pull them free.

I let out a sigh of relief, just before two pinpricks dropped my health to less than half. With a pivot in my step, I turned around and sliced open the neck of one of the two mining rats who’d attacked me. It dropped easily.

The rest of the worker rats bolted to some safer area deeper in the cave system that I couldn’t see and hadn’t been to. I assumed that these two miners were sacrificing themselves to save their buddies. Well, if this guy wanted to be my eighth kill, I would gladly let it.

It held its pickaxe high above its head and jumped toward me. I rammed the side of my sword into its wood shaft and dodged to the side. As it passed me, I slashed at its ribcage but caught only air.

“Fuckin’ seriously!”

It let out a battle cry as it turned to try for another shot. I jumped at it and cut its head off like using kitchen shears on the heads of asparagus.

I turned to try and get the last two rats I needed so Lore would actually help me in battle, but the rest of the workers had escaped.

“Crap.”

A slow clap echoed from behind me. Lore stepped out of the entryway and glided over to me.

I grinned. “Not bad huh?”

“Better but still shitty,” he said as he stepped over a rat corpse.

I frowned.

“It's nothing that a lot of practice won’t cure. And speaking of cures.” He held his arms as if holding a bow and arrow again, chanted without sound and healed me back up to full.

I stared at the blood on my chest that disappeared along with the rips and stains that littered my attire.

“It’s not gone,” he said.

“What’s not gone?”

“The damage to your clothes. You’ll see it in the decreased durability, but they’ll appear completely fine until they disintegrate when it hits zero.”

That was when the bodies suddenly combusted. I quickly spun away from them and walked several steps forward, so I didn’t have to look or feel the flames burn their way through the enemies I butchered. But I could still hear the fire raging like a wind tunnel. I clenched my hands into fists so Lore wouldn’t see them shake.

This was going to be a chore if I had to go through this every single time. Fortunately, it was a stationary flame. I could handle stationary flames... Barely. I mean, just the other day I stopped outside a local coffee shop that had those gas heaters that looked like flames licked up the sides, and I was able to pass by them with only a minor panic to my step.

My heart thundered in my chest. Just then the PPVS decided to distract me with its prompts that I didn’t get while in battle.

[Congratulations! Through hard work and real-world experience, you’ve managed to level your Dual Sword Wielding combat skill to Level 2! You will now find it 1 percent easier to hit your opponent!]

[Congratulations! Through using your invisibility spell wisely, you have leveled it to 2. This spell now costs 4 mana every 2 seconds, doubling the time you can use it!]

[Congratulations! Through using your Add Air spell so many successful times in battle against superior opponents you have leveled it to 2. This spell now does 11 Air Damage plus your Magic Modifier.]

I forgot all about my fear and whooped.

“What?”

I turned towards him, just as a few strange leaf-shaped metal items flew into my inventory.

“I just leveled a combat skill and two spells.”

He smiled. “Ah. I remember how easy it was to level skills and spells in the beginning.”

I stuck my tongue out at him like a petulant child and grinned at my good fortune.

“It won’t last you know.”

“Whatever,” I said while walking across the cavern towards the tunnel where the workers escaped through. “I’m at eight rats. I just need two more, and then you’ll be forced to tell me all about your zero XP situation.”

“I’m not sure we should count those workers. They were too easy for you to kill.”

“I mean sure, we could do it that way, but then that enforcer rat should tote’s count as four rats.”

He chuckled. “Let’s keep it as is.”

We both stealthily walked down winding corridors until we reached the bottom of an incline. I crouched down and hugged the wall peering into this large room. Gigantic pillars held up a dark ceiling. They’d been carved into rats with armor and crowns, holding weapons of various types. At the far end of the cavern was a circular stone door with room for a key in the center. To the side of the door, two grunt rats guarded a chest as if it held a great treasure.

Since I wanted to level up my spells evenly, aside from Add Fire (seriously, fuck Add Fire), I decided to switch to Add Water for this next fight. I crossed my swords in front of me and air kissed them, while burning mana. My blades shimmered with moisture as I waited for my mana to increase back up to full.

I didn’t have confidence that I could cross the room in twenty-two seconds so, continuing to hug the wall and keeping low, I crept towards the two rats using the shadows and my darkish clothing to hide my presence. When I was two thirds through the room, I cast Invisibility and charged the closest grunt. I plunged my blades into its chest. Its pain-filled screech echoed through the room as metal scented blood dripped down my swords.

The creature went limp, and I pulled my weapons from its still body. The other rat jabbed its trident towards me. I batted it away and ducked under it to bury my blades in its chest. It jumped back at the last moment causing me to miss.

“You fucker!”

It squeaked its triumph over me. Or at least that’s what I assumed it did because it definitely looked too smug. I air kissed my crossed blades again and cast Add Water. My blood covered weapons cleaned themselves. I would have to remember that when I wasn’t in the middle of a fight. The rat lunged toward me, probably thinking I’d been distracted. I stepped to the side and aimed both swords at its eyes. It turned its head at the last moment causing me to slice its cute pink ears off. And woah! That was a lot of blood for just their ears!

It screeched horrendously, nearly causing me to cover my ears. Since I was a believer in kicking enemies while they were down, I used its pain-filled distraction to slash at its neck, slicing an artery. Droplets of its blood landed on my cheeks, and I could see that it was losing a few extra hit points from all of its bleeding but it still wasn’t down yet.

It swung its trident like a bat. I dunked. My rib cracked and heard a scream. My throat grew hoarse. Oh, that was my scream.

Burning anger ran through me, and I slashed at it in quick succession with both swords, hitting first the right shoulder and carving two paths across its furry chest, then across its stomach. Its intestines sprawled across the polished stone floor. I completely murdered the grunt rat.

Knowing what would come next, I turned my back to my opponents and walked towards where Lore waited in the passage.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I murmured.

“You’re fine. And you did well.”

“It feels like it's getting realer. Is this getting realer?”

“Um. I don’t have a clue what you mean.”

I sighed. It figured he wouldn’t. “Whatever. You owe me an explanation for those ten rats, now spill.”

“First, let’s go collect the treasure. There is that very appealing chest those rats were guarding.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You can talk and loot at the same time.”

“Fine, fine.”

I turned back to see the last of the flames die down. A few coins, teeth and metal leaves flew towards Lore and me, splitting between us at the last minute.

He hooked a thump under his neck circlet and pulled on it. “You see this collar?”

“Yeah,” I said, infusing the word with my confusion. “What? Is it an epic item that grants you great power in exchange for not earning XP?”

He snorted. “If only. No, it’s an artifact created by an Adept Artificer. It’s called a Prisoner’s collar and essentially makes me a slave, despite the PPVS’s protests that slavery doesn’t exist in the sim.”

“You’re going to have to back up there. What does a prisoner’s collar do, exactly?”

“It restricts where I can go, limits my level, limits my class, tells me what combat spells and skills I can learn, and forces me to pay a large percentage of the passive marks I earn to the Ravenborn clan who are my jailors. It makes it so I can’t fight back against them even when they attack me.” His voice deepened. “It allows them to temporarily let a third party be my jailor and do what they want with me.”

I didn’t say anything because his words and tone hinted at more horrors concealed in the game than I never suspected, especially between elves. I mean, elves were supposed to be perfect, that’s why people liked them. But then again, Crimea had already explained that in this world, they were anything but perfect, letting the desires out here that they couldn’t fulfill in their real world.

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip. “I take it, that it also restricts how much XP you can earn?”

He nodded. “About the only thing it can’t restrict are the non-combat skills I can learn and how high I can go on those.”

“How high are those?”

He smirked. “My highest is dodge at 76.”

“Isn’t that a combat skill?”

He grimaced. “Since its only purpose is evasion and blocking and my jailor allowed it. After that one, it’s blend and charm, both at 72.”

My ears perked up at that. “I take it you also have seduction in there somewhere?”

“Oh yes.” His knowing smile was that of Lucifer’s. It spoke of all the pleasurable things he could do to me in the bedroom. I nearly soaked my panties.

“I’m just going to assume it’s in the high 60s,” I said briskly and pretended to ignore him.

He chuckled sending more shivers my way. Fucking seductive bards!

“Assume what you like.”

“Chest! We have a chest to open!” I said, my voice far too high and telling. I shuffled back towards where I murdered the rats and opened the box. A stone key rested within. I frowned.

“It’s a little too obvious isn’t it?”

“How else are we supposed to move forward?”

With a shrug, I grabbed the key and jammed it into the lock. Click. The cavern rumbled, sending bits of the ceiling down upon us. The circular stone door slowly opened with a grinding noise.

In the shadowed room beyond the doorway, a massive body with glowing red eyes waited. It took a step forward. Lore and I stumbled back a few steps. The monster, who appeared to be a giant, muscular armored rat dunked its head to pass into our room where it stood at what I assumed was twelve feet high.

“What the actual fuck!”