Marcus was a small-time criminal - there was no crime of his to pay for anymore, as he had gone through his sentence already, but jail changes a man.

And now, he felt as if the world was collapsing around him.

He had never been stabbed. After all, the worst he ever did was to beat up a store clerk and run for it. And it wasn’t a bad beat-up either - he just punched the guy a couple times. That is, he also took the money he had, but…

The fact is, he never had been stabbed before. Or stabbed anyone. What to say about killing others with his own hands and teeth, spilling their blood around as if it was a fountain.

Another World was too much for him.

The times weren’t as puritan as ours. VR tech had been around for a long time, so gruesome and gore-filled VR games were the norm on the 18+ category, not the opposite.

Still, from going from merely “seeing” gore to “seeing”, “sensing”, “tasting”, “hearing” and “smelling” … it was too much of an impact.

Besides, being on that meth-like body for so long had given him some cravings as well.

He wasn’t clueless about light drugs, such as alcohol, weed and the eventual “street-stuff” no one knew exactly what was.

But he had always kept himself away from the heavy stuff. He knew it would break him.

So, now, as he was again inside his human body, all he could sense was a sense of being dense. He was slow. His body was slow, his mind was slow. There was no rush. No sense of being much smarter than he usually was.

Of course, all of this was an illusion. Anyone who could see his actions and mental skill before and after login on Another World would see how much faster his mind was on his body, and how much saner as well.

Still, as even he knew that, he now craved something. He craved that sensation. That perpetual rush.

Anyone on his situation would. He was a homeless small thief. His life was as bland, disgraceful and tasteless as it could be. His memories of the past… it would be better not to comment on that.

No friends, no money, no street cred, not even a ceiling above his head so he can sleep without fearing the rain.

That rush was too good. He needed more of the stuff. He simply did.

And he wasn’t the only one.

Amongst the 500-ish new employees, around 40% of them had been located to rather usual occupations and experiences. They would be government officials NPCs, guild leaders and so on.

Even if some of them felt a little shaken on their bases as they experienced the world as elves or fairies, that wasn’t that much. At most, it would be like sniffing glue or puffing weed for the first time.

But the other 60%.... well, Marcus was amongst them, even if his case was a bit on the extreme edge of things.

Being in a non-human body was already an experience which could rock someone’s’ world, what to say about those poor guys who were even worse than him?

Seraphim, Dragon King, Demon Lord, Demi-God… those guys had experienced things too complex and intense for their brains to deal with, even if the intensity of the experience had been reduced as much as possible.

So, Marcus was paying attention to what the purple-jacket man in front of him was saying.

His name was dr.Hudderson - engineer, psychologist, and virtual drug dependence and independence researcher.

- So, as I was saying, this is the situation with you guys for now. As I said before, anti-addiction research using VR has been at a stand-still for a few decades now, as we couldn’t make much progress beyond neurostimulation. But with Another World tech, we can give another step beyond. So, here I am, offering this opportunity for you all. Even if it seems bad, I can assure you, as someone who has personally tested not only all of the jobs and bodies you guys had been on, but also on their maximum intensity, that I can ride you of all this damage they caused to you. I can give you guys your sense of freedom back, and make it so you won’t have any addiction at all.

- Damn you all… - Marcus could only swallow his anger as he lowly groaned. Testing the product on guys like this one - wasn’t this the same as given money to a millionaire?

They should be in jail, not giving them compensation!

But something inside him would make him swallow all anger. It was the crave. More of the stuff. And for free?

Something inside him wanted to laugh. Laugh a lot.

- Squeam will obviously pay for all of this. Also, for those who decide to stay with us, your salaries will be increase thirty-fold for those with light symptoms, sixty for those with moderate symptoms, and increased a hundred-and-fifty-fold for those with sever symptoms.

Technically speaking Squeam hardly could be sued for what they did. There was no law about making your mind travel to another world, and that was what they claimed to be doing - not experimenting on them.

In a sense, if they tried to sue Squeam, them the company would try its best to explore every nook and cranny on the legislation, appealing to ridiculous claims such as this - that they weren’t really giving them a job, but, rather, offering to pay them to explore virtual places with their minds.

Another World Project didn’t even need to be stored on any servers on earth. It wasn’t, technically, part of the internet. It was its own separate mental space, something totally new and which legislation didn’t have any basis to judge.

It may seem like pushing things too far with these kinds of excuses, but Samanta - the woman-secretary in front of them, which was also who said Squeam would pay for everything - made it very clear before dr.Hudderson began explaining what happened to them.

They didn’t have many options.

They could accept a mental damage compensation from Squeam and get out with around a couple million dollars each, become very well-paid guinea pigs for the company, or try their luck with an almost vain attempt at suing such a huge company.

However, the salaries they were offering to them were a much better option than any of the other two - as going out of the project would give them only from a year to a few years of salary, and suing would take ten or twenty years to bear fruit - if it did so someday.

- Hello guys.

The next one to come to stage was Shabe Newell himself.

At least the boss had the dignity to show up in person. Booing and heavy shouts of anger soon ensued. Shabe took it on with a downcast expression, his face visibly heavy.