Mature Content Warning: This story contains scenes of graphic violence and foul language. I do not intend to make this story 'Ero' though if the MC ends up with a love interest in the future, I will change that.

Author's Note: This story is a test concept for something I plan to publish. As such, it will only update when I have made a decision on what to add for each chapter. There will be no regular update schedule, though after one of my other stories finishes, this will probably update more often.

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Have you ever wondered about how games really work? Do the characters really only exist as data displayed visually on a screen? When the hero wins and the credits roll, does the world truly cease to exist? Most people would say yes. The game is nothing more than a story and stories end. What if it did not end, though?

If you are willing to go down a rabbit hole of those dimensions, consider what would happen if the story was real from the beginning and the hero was you? Sometimes a game is more than a game, and sometimes the one being played is the player.

I had to learn that the hard way.

~*~

Chapter 1

~*~

Life has a funny way of screwing with people. Scott Jacobs knew this on an intimate level. In fact, he had just been reminded of that fact. In his hand he clutched a letter from his fiance, or according to the message he had received, his former fiance.

In his other hand he held his cell-phone in a death grip. For the fifth time in the last hour he had tried to contact the former love of his life to talk about the situation. Once again he was forced to leave a message. “Look Sarah, will you please pick up the phone? Talk to me!”

Scott heard the disconnect tone then sighed. She was not answering. He had tried to call her repeatedly since he had been discharged from the service two weeks prior. He had served honorably for seven years before he had met Sarah. Three years and a lengthy deployment to Afghanistan had passed since then, and all had seemed well.

Scott had returned home from his tour of duty two months ago, and set about preparing to return to civilian life. During a four day pass he had gone to visit her. He had proposed and she tearfully accepted.

Sarah had constantly told him how proud she was of him, how much she loved him. Her only complaint was that he had been deployed for a year and a half during their relationship. She had asked him one night, pleaded with him, to not renew his service when his current term came to an end. Things would be perfect if they could be together constantly.

The crumbled letter dropped from his hand and Scott leaned heavily against the wall. He could rejoin the army if he wanted, but he would have to go through the recruiting office again. There would be physicals and paperwork and honestly he did not know if he wanted to rejoin at the moment. His head was not in the right place, right now.

Suddenly, his depressed mood was interrupted by the song stylings of the band, Buck Cherry. The song Crazy Bitch began to play with a sense of urgency. Scott quickly answered his phone and said, “Sarah!”

“Yes, it’s me.” Her tone sent a chill down his spine. She had sounded so cold, so aloof.

“What’s going on? Why haven’t you answered me? You know why I’ve been calling, right?” Scott did his best to hold his emotions in check, but this was the first time his supposed fiance had answered him since he had received that letter.

“Yeah, look... I’m sorry, alright? I know I’m the one who asked you to quit the service, but I...”

“Quit? My tour ended, I just didn’t re-enlist since we wanted to start a family.”

“Yeah, I know... but, I ...” She started to mumble and Scott had to strain to hear what she was trying to say. However, he heard someone else loud and clear.

“Sarah, who the fuck is that on the phone?” asked a loud and obviously masculine voice.

“Hey, I’m trying to talk here Jake. You said you’d stay out of it!”

“Stay out of it my ass! Tell that asshole to get the fuck over it already. You have a real man now.”

Scott heard everything that the loud-mouthed fool said, but he could not believe it.

Sarah had already gotten together with someone else? What kind of bullshit was that?

“Scott... I-I’m sorry but, well I found someone else while you were gone, Ok?”

“While I was gone? You were dating someone else while I was deployed?” He could have understood that, even if he would have wished to have been told sooner.

“No... not while you were deployed. When you went back to base ... well, I went out and celebrated with my sister and friends because we got engaged... and I got a little drunk.”

Scott could feel his heart sinking with every word that she spoke. What was this shit? Why would she call off their engagement like this?

“I cheated on you... I got drunk and there was this soldier.... about to be deployed in a few weeks and... well, you know I have a soft spot for soldiers... and I was drunk ... and..” She started to sob loudly.

He knew that he had to say something, and he had many choice words to speak. However, he was raised better than to scream at an emotionally distraught person, no matter what they had done to him. “Sarah... I would have been mad, but we could have worked that out... why do this...?”

She mumbled something that set his teeth on edge. “I... did you say you were pregnant?”

“Y-yes...it’s his.”

“It’s his? How do you know for sure? We weren’t exactly keeping our distance the day before.”

“Well, we were always so careful and I had taken precautions and we used protection...but... Jake...when I... I was drunk and...wasn’t thinking.”

So, that was the case, huh? Sarah got drunk and cheated on him with another soldier without using protection. Scott immediately said, “Even so, we can work this out. Hell, he’s deploying in a few weeks! You’ll need someone in your life who can actually be there!”

Jake started cursing in the back ground, he sounded like a real winner. Sarah, however, said something that completely broke Scott’s heart. “Yeah, I know... but I can’t do that to him. He’ll be over there putting his life on the line... thinking about how the mother of his child is with someone else.”

Scott was dumb founded for a moment. She was seriously saying something like that?

“We spent three years together, planned a life together, and now because of one drunken night you want to throw that away?”

“Please Scott... please understand!”

Finally, his upbringing was overcome by anger and frustration. Outraged about the whole situation; the fears and frustration of the last few weeks culminated in an outburst that he would later regret. “I understand! You think more of that Jodi mother fucker than you do of the man you wanted to marry! That guy fucking used you to get his dick wet and now he’s manipulating you. You think his garbage ass will take care of you when he comes back? You’ll be knocked up, and have a kid to take care of by yourself because of that piece of shit!”

Jake started hollering in the background and the voice on the other end of the line changed to his. “Listen here asshole. Sarah’s mine now! She has a real man. You call her again and I’ll beat your ass.”

“You think this is over because you say it is? Your ridiculous ass will be gone for months, if not a year or more. You know damned well that you’re just trying to secure some pussy for when you come home on leave you opportunistic little shit.”

“Whatever loser, I’ve got your girl. She made her choice and she’s back where she belongs. Give it up and go fuck yourself.” This thought-provoking and intelligent conversation continued for several minutes before Jake finally hung up the phone.

Scott took care of a few things in order to calm down. After he composed himself he gave his former mother-in-law-to-be a call. “Hey, Mrs. Fine? Can I talk to you?”

“Scott.. yeah, I guess we can talk. You should know, though, that I’m keeping out of Sarah’s business.”

“I understand, I just want to know what’s going on properly. She finally told me what had happened, but I can’t understand why she would choose what she chose.”

A soft sigh emanated from the phone and Sarah’s mother said, “I don’t get it either. She goes out and gets drunk then sleeps with her old boyfriend.”

“Wait, old boyfriend? She acted like they had never met before!”

“Oh, I’ve said something that I shouldn’t. Oh...”

“It’s ok! I just need to know why my fiance decided to ditch me after a few weeks. Till I got this letter from her we had been making serious plans.”

“Fine, if she gets mad at me... it’s fine. Look, Scott, Jake had been after her for months. He had moved away from town and came back about four or five months ago. The only reason they broke up in the first place was because he’d had to move back when they were in school.”

Scott listened quietly as Mrs. Fine continued her story. Jake had joined the army a year prior, then gotten stationed at Fort Bragg after his training. He kept trying to get in touch with her, and despite her insistence that she was with someone, he didn’t take no for an answer.

“So, he found out about the engagement from Erica’s boyfriend, one of his friends, and went to the dance. Well, you know what happened after that.”

A few seconds passed before Scott said, “What kind of guy is he?”

“Well, he’s a hot head but he isn’t really a bad guy. He actually proposed to her back in high school, but I didn’t allow it because she was so young. So, I feel a little responsible for them breaking up.”

Now he understood why she didn’t want to be involved. What normal mother would stand for her daughter to ditch someone who’d been good to her for years, just because she had gotten pregnant by someone else during a one night stand? She did not hate the guy and she felt guilty about the situation.

He spoke to Mrs. Fine for a few more minutes then hung up the phone. This situation, he could not really call it fair. It felt like something that you could only see on a poorly scripted day time soap opera. “So... really, one night of drunken fooling around was all it took, huh?”

Defeated, he sat down on the couch. He held up his phone and looked at the background photo. It was him and Sarah at one of those goofy photo booths. Their faces were pressed together and they made silly little kissy faces at the camera.

The memory overcame him like a rogue wave crashing on an unsuspecting shore. He felt as though he were about to choke for a moment, then slowly tears began to trickle down his cheeks.

Scott tossed the phone away without a care for where it would land then stretched out on the couch. He was angry, pissed to tell the truth. The last few years had been thrown aside, cast away like they were nothing. “It never fails, does it?”

Thoughts of all the relationships he’d had in the past began to filter through his consciousness. A kaleidoscope of female faces; women of various sizes, shapes, and hues; arose within his memory. Why had all of those relationships ended? Was it something that he did? Was he the one who was at fault?

He could not legitimately see how he was at fault during this break-up but some of the others were due to his issues. When he was younger he lacked ambition. It was not till he joined the army at age nineteen that he finally found some semblance of direction.

He could easily believe that his overall lack of focus had caused his relationships to flounder in those earlier years. Even after joining the army, he did not become Mr. Ambition overnight.

During his stint in the army he had been forced to move a few times. More than one promising relationship had petered out despite the desire to remain together long distance.

Looking back at his relationships he actually managed to laugh a little. “Strange, it was the strippers that stuck with me the longest.”

Sarah was a good example. He’d met her at a Metallica concert, but found out that she worked as a dancer later. Strangely, she was an example of another stereotype. She had been dancing to pay her way through college. Sarah Fine had been a stripper by night and a med student by day.

Scott remembered the stupid little perverted joke that he had told her; a thing that he was sure had won her heart. Sarah was studying to become an oral surgeon. Tears ran down his cheeks as he remembered saying, “You’re going to be an oral surgeon? Great! I love a woman with an oral fixation.”

He closed his eyes tightly then whispered, “Ms. Fine, you have the whitest teeth I ever came across.” His body shook lightly and the choking sensation started again.

Somehow, despite his cheesy lines and perverted humor, she had fallen for him. He had found love in the strip club.

In the end though, it had not been enough. Copious amounts of alcohol had given him a chance to be with someone wonderful, and copious amounts had helped to take her away.

He had never been much of a drinker, but the night that they had first gotten together had been the same night he had finally gotten to the point of being drunk. Now, it seemed that life had gone full-circle.

Time passed, minutes turned to hours and hours became days. A little over three months passed and he still was uncertain of what to do.

Scott had once again returned to a place in his life where he had neither purpose nor direction. He did not live near any of his relatives. His only friends were still in the army and several states away as well. He had moved back here officially two days before Sarah had dumped him. Had she told him the truth to begin with and made it a clean break, he would have had more options. Now he was starting to run low on money.

He had gone out job hunting after the first week, but it was just after the holidays and businesses were laying-off workers instead of hiring. Every day it seemed like he would have to return to the army if he wanted to have a career. It would not be a bad choice, but it felt like the wrong choice.

The army would be the safe answer, and if things became truly bad he would take that road. Right now though, he wanted something different, anything different. He had been a soldier for ten years and in the end he had wound up right where he had started. This, in his mind at least, was his last chance to have something in his life before he reached a point of no return.

“I’m tired of working for other people, trying to please someone for a pay check.”

It was true. Throughout his life he had been tasked with doing what other people said.

In the end, he even viewed his relationships like that. Sarah had told him to please understand. What he really wanted to do was take a tire iron to Jake’s skull. In the end, he would do the first, but not the second. He had been asked not to and he was too well-trained at being told what to do to go against her wishes.

He had to admit, despite his emotional issues at the moment, it was good to at least know what kind of person she was now. If he had married her and something like this had happened, it would have been an incredibly bad deal for everyone. During moments of clarity, he would wonder if he had gotten off easy.

Scott sighed softly and directed his on-screen avatar to attack a Strung-Out Hippie. During the last few weeks he had taken to playing free games online to alleviate his boredom and take his mind off his troubles. When he was not job hunting, or sobbing in the shower like a sad little douche, he was online playing games.

The Strung-out Hippie exclaimed, “Harsh!” then faded away. Scott had defeated it without much trouble. That was one of the problems with games. The enemies were often poorly coded and easily beaten. Due to Scott’s single-minded focus there was no real challenge, just a constant devastation of the Hippie population.

A little window popped up congratulating him on defeating the Strung-Out Hippies. “What, that was the highest level?”

He sighed then shook his head. Games like this really did not do it for him. He needed something real, something great, in his life.

“Would you like to play another game?”

Scott nearly clicked “No” but something stopped him. Whether it was the realization that he had nothing else going on, or simple curiosity, he did not know. He clicked yes.

The same list of games that he had seen every day popped up. He had already played through several of them. Only the ones that required an initial purchase remained untried.

He promptly clicked the little ‘X’ in the corner of the screen and started to stand up. A new window popped up asking, “Do you really want to exit without playing another game?”

He clicked accept, and the message screen disappeared. However, a short survey popped up immediately after. “Really? This is garbage. I don’t want to play your stupid games anymore!”

Scott started to decline the survey, but he saw an option that would allow him to tell them exactly why he did not wish to play any more of their games. “Fine, you want my opinion? You’ll get it!”

He immediately wrote deeply detailed reasons for his dislike of their games. He mentioned he idiotic enemy AI. The simplistic controls are fine, but there was no depth in the stories. He even explained why he thought many of the main characters were cookie cutter stereotypes. Finally, he pointed out the fact that even their supposed ‘hardest’ game with a touted one hundred hours of game play had been so ridiculously easy that he completed it in eight hours.

The opinion was submitted then he shut down his browser and went to eat a late night snack. Afterwards he tried to go to sleep but he could not manage to relax enough.

Scott looked up at the ceiling for the better part of an hour before getting up and going back to his computer.

He decided to check his e-mail, not that anyone really wrote to him at the moment, and noticed that the game company had sent a reply about his opinion. “I wonder what auto-responder bot is saying tonight.”

Fully expecting to see a form letter thanking him for his opinion, Scott was surprised to see a lengthy response. He read through it and realized that it was not an auto-response at all. “So, you want me to try a new game? It’s bold, innovative, and nothing else like it exists?”

Scott shrugged. That sort of talk was common when trying to sell something. He clicked on the link and read through the description of the new game. He read through the information then blinked. “New and innovative? This thing sounds like something form the nineties.”

It had an interesting advancement system, but he did not believe the screen shots for one moment. “Seriously, these screenshots...they look like a real-life and anime mash-up.”

There was no way 3-D technology of that scale existed. Each screen shot showed an image more akin to looking through a window at a vibrantly colored world than viewing a photograph. The few characters shown were extremely detailed, and absurdly pretty, but had fanciful hair styles and clothing reminiscent of an anime themed role-playing game.

“Oh god, yes. Where do I insert my credit card?” Scott’s sarcasm was well-founded. There was no way that this was a legitimate game. At most they were showing still photos from a game trailer and not actual gameplay footage. That was a shady business tactic as far as he was concerned.

He read the sales-pitch for the game out loud. “Are you tired of human limitations? Do you long to live a life of adventure and danger? Try Origin A.R.S. Leave your old life behind, forever!”

A soft sad little laugh escaped his lips. He liked the way that sounded, but without a few real screen shots he would not be willing to play the game. Still... he was quite bored. He decided to read through more of the game’s information.

“Should I even bother with this? It seems like it might be fun... and I could definitely use some fun, but...” Scott had a moral dilemma to face. He currently had no job. He only had about six thousand dollars left from his savings. The army had provided everything that he needed when it came to food and housing, and he had easily managed to save several hundred dollars a month for the last two years.

Recently, he had planned to use that as a down payment for a house. Now, well it had seen him through the last few months.

What could it hurt, really? He could play it for a month then give it up if he did not find work. He had already decided that if he could not get a job in the civilian world, he would return to the army when his money was stretched too thin.

Scott’s main problem after making his decision was trying to choose between physical or magical combat. He wanted to do both! Who wouldn’t? There were items that you could purchase or find in game that were known as Lore Crystals. You could equip them while fighting and learn new skills outside of your basic skill set, within certain limits.

He looked through the starting class options; the game was old school in that respect. It was class based. “Hmm, sorcerer?”

The sorcerer was a type of monk, as strange as that seemed. You were granted sorcery and unarmed combat as basic skills, and could learn abilities from both skill trees without the need to purchase lore crystals to gain new abilities.

There were other hybrid class options such as an actual Monk, a Paladin, or a Dark Knight. They did not speak to him quite as much. The Dark Knight class had the destructive power that he liked, but it required a certain level of blood thirst that he was not comfortable with.

The Paladin and Monk classes were basically fighting healers. Those were good choices, but he could gain the skills of any of those classes through lore crystals. Though, he would not gain the level-based class abilities unique to each of those classes. He could gain the ability to fight in heavy armor, for instance. However, he would never have the ability to completely remove the agility burden for wearing it like a Dark Knight or Paladin. He could learn abilities that reduce the burden considerably, but not remove it altogether.

Scott rubbed his chin. The game was heavily level-based. Stats updated randomly when you gained a level, like an older RPG. That was annoying, but at least those lore crystals sounded like they could allow for intense customization.

“The sorcerer class has innate fast cast ability, but I won’t be able to develop magic past the seventh spell-circle unless I can find lore crystals for those spells.” It was a tradeoff for being a hybrid class and innate casting ability.

He would not need to chant his spells; they would work more like special attacks for martial artists in an anime or fighting game. A Dark Mage could gain the innate casting ability through a lore crystal, but it is not a skill specific to their class. It was a perk of the sorcerer class.

A Dark Mage could learn spells up to the twelfth spell-circle just by choosing them when they gain class levels. They had to chant their spells unless they gained the innate casting ability, and even then they would not be able to innately cast spells beyond the seventh spell-circle. A sorcerer would be able to innate cast up to level twelve spells, if he could learn them. The ultimate grade level thirteen spells still needed to be chanted, however, regardless of class perks.

The unarmed combat talents included attack and defense bonuses among other things. He would not be able to do as much damage per attack as a weapon wielder, at least not initially, but he would be able to attack rapidly. Over time, his ability to turn four times his strength into raw attack power, and four times his agility into defense power, would come in handy.

He also realized that he would not need to buy expensive equipment early on since his body would be the weapon. “I could spend more money on potions and other things...”

It did not take long for Scott to become completely enamored of the talent-set he was thinking about. The sorcerer seemed like the kind of class that operated like some sort of Kung Fu wizard.

The customization options were quite varied as well. If he wanted to be a sort of Dark Knight style character, he could run around in heavy armor and wield a massive weapon while innate casting level twelve spells. The agility penalty might be worth that since a Dark Knight is incapable of learning any spells past the seventh level, it was an actual restriction. They did get unique class based attack skills, though.

He made his decisions then registered for the game. After logging his choices he discovered that he had to use his real name as his character name. He stared at the screen stupidly for a moment. What kind of garbage was that! How could they expect people to use their real-world name inside a game?

Scott nearly cancelled everything, but the concept of the game had intrigued him. It was strangely interesting due to its restrictions. Most games wanted to give players as many options as possible, let them do everything equally well in time. This one wanted you to define your character in the beginning then allow you to customize that baseline.

Further, customization required a lot of time, effort, and possibly money. When the registration screen asked if he wished to start playing immediately he clicked, “Yes.”

What happened next surprised him greatly. The screen changed to an image of a golden pentacle super-imposed over a starry background. A voice called from the depths of his laptop speakers, “You who have been chosen. If you would leave your world behind and become a Champion of Origin, place your hand upon the holy seal of light.”

Scott laughed. That was an interesting welcome screen to say the least. He smirked at the goofy nature of the opening, however. He did not have a touch screen computer, but in the spirit of fun he placed his hand on the symbol anyway. “I wonder if it has a timer for people who don’t have touch scree...”

He was cut off abruptly by a sudden flare of light and a sensation of overwhelming heat. A massive arc of electrical current erupted out of his screen then coursed through his body. He blacked out from the sudden pain and shock.

When he awoke from his forced slumber Scott opened his eyes but did not believe what he saw. “What... is this?”

He sat up and looked around. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but flowers.

The colors and scents that assaulted his eyes and nose were far beyond anything he had experienced before. Further, there was a soft and soothing instrumental song that seemed to be playing all-around him.

“Well... damn.”