Chapter 0068

[System]: How do you like being dead?

Leviene read the question from the System with bewilderment. She did call the overall controller of the world the System when she joked with Sylphie and Erica previously, yet she didn’t expect to right.

[Leviene]: It sucks. I don’t want to die anymore.

Leviene didn’t lie or cut the System any slack. Death in the game sucks. First there was the pain. It seems the pain receptors in her brain was reduced down to 10% because she can take a beating and keep on kicking. If she was to take the same beating back on Earth, she’d be sent to the hospital.

Leviene remembered when she was doing her clinic als in the ER, the paramedics wheeled in a girl crying for morphine because she accidentally shot herself in the leg. Nobody in the ER bought her story. The neighborhood is rife with gangs and drugs. Patients coming in with gunshot wounds all the time.

At the time Leviene was sympathetic to the girl’s plight. Still, she had to follow doctor's orders. No morphine. Percocet was given at regular intervals. The police knew when to come and interrogate the girl too, right before she was supposed to get her next dose of painkillers. They asked Leviene not to interrupt them until they were done. Ah those wily police. They work within the law but still know how to work around the rules.

As for the sensation or in this case, desensitization, the experienced gamer attributed it to game mechanics. Who would tank if they were forced to experiences pain in the same magnitude as they would back on Earth? No one except a masochist take one the job!

As it is right now, the pain is tolerable for Leviene…

There is pain. Tanks rush into to tank. Everytime they fight they experience pain. Only an M likes…

No!

Leviene isn’t going on that train of thought!

[System]: There must be consequences for failure.

[Leviene]: Can death be considered failure in the game?

[System]: Death is the greatest failure in real life.

Leviene never thought of death in this manner. If there is life, then there must be death. Death is a natural part of life.

The best scenario of death is when an old person reminiscing on the life they lived and close their eyes to sleep and never wake up. That’s the way Leviene wants to go.

[System]: The other penalties aren’t as bad or as good as the experiences of dying. It makes players realize there are consequences best avoided.

[Leviene]: But dying is a part of attempting new content. You fight the boss, learn from your mistakes, fight the boss again, rinse repeat, get loot. The sensation of death isn’t needed at all. In fact, you should eliminate the pain altogether.

[System]: If there is no pain, will one learn from their mistakes?

[Leviene]: Probably not.

Leviene knew she capitulate too easily. She wasn’t trying to change the eliminate the pain mechanics or death penalty in the game. She was having a philosophical conversation with an alien mind.

Actually, she was bored.

When she died, her consciousness was transported to an endless black room. She’d wandered for what seems like eternity but didn’t go anywhere. If this was a room, she encountered no walls.

She finally understands how prisoners sent to solitary confinement felt, however this is worse. At least in solitary confinement, the prisoners can feel the walls. Leviene feels nothing. It is as if she was floating in the endless void.

So was happy there was someone to talk to even if that someone is the System.She finally understands how prisoners sent to solitary confinement felt, however this is worse.

[Leviene]: Hey just wait a darn second. What are the other penalties for dying?

[System]: 10% experiences, reduced by ½ a percent each time a person dies within a certain time frame, with a minimum of 1%. For this area, the time frame is a year.

[Leviene]: You are saying that my first death in the new year cost me 10% of my experiences? My second death will cost me 9.5% of my experience and my third death would cost me 9% of my experiences until I die enough so that each death will cost me 1%?

[System]: Yes.

[Leviene]: You goddamn thief! Give me back my experiences. Do you know how much grinding I have to do to get the 10%?! It isn’t much now, but at higher levels that 10% can be months of hard work!

[System]: Your priorities greatly differ from the norm.

[Leviene]: Hell yeah. I can be rez if I die or maybe do a corpse run. If I lose experience points, I have to put in who knows how many hours to get back to where I was!

[System]: You prefer momentary pain over prolong pain.

[Leviene]: Yeah! I’d rather get it over with.

[System]: Even with your penchant for farming?

[Leviene]: Farming shows an immediate payment for efforts put in.

[System]: You can pay gold to get half the experience you lost back.

[Leviene]: That’s even worse! My money!

To a money grubber, not that Leviene would admit she is a money grubber, paying for what you don’t need is a crime. Paying for a penalty that is not your fault wounds the soul. Each copper coin not used for a worthwhile purpose pains Leviene.

This mentality causes her to hate depreciations, especially in cars, and fashion. If it isn’t in season or in fashion or whatever you call it, then it get sent to the discounted rack. $100 worth of clothes isn’t worth $100 three months later. It is like people are throwing away money!

Leviene’s strange mentality also leads her to maintain a healthy weight. Too thin, gotta spend money on clothes. Too fat, gotta spend money on clothes. Contrary to how she feels about her avatar, Leviene isn’t vain about her appearances.

[Leviene]: Btw, why am I here? Don’t I have to do a corpse run?

[System]: No. You get teleported to the nearest graveyard once your body decompose, which is a day, or someone resurrects you.

[Leviene]: It doesn’t explain why I am here.

[System]: This is the waiting area.

[Leviene]: Oh some kind of lobby for the dead. After 24 hours or a rez performed on you, you are free to go.

[System]: Something like that.

[Leviene]: So when can I leave....

Leviene felt an intense tug pulling at her, like she was being sucked into a black hole or getting a swirly in the toilet. For the record, there were never any swirlies in her life. The few times anyone tried to anything with her, they have a predetermined meeting with either the Y’s or Sylphie.

[System]: Goodbye.