Waking up in his comfortable bed, Sam was confused for a moment, as he didn’t know exactly where he was. Through the fog of wakefulness, he saw the medieval interior of the Green Stump inn and seemed to hear the gentle snore of Lucky, then between one blink and the next his sight cleared, and he was back in his room, simple white walls looking back at him.

’Right. Post-VR confusion… gotta be careful about that…’

Shaking his head as he clambered out of his bed, cursing himself for not taking his socks off, Sam headed for the bathroom.

After finishing with his ablutions, he plodded to the kitchen, scavenged some breakfast, then back to his office and, with a heavy thud, sat down before his computer.

With one hand he was eating the cereal that was more sugar than breakfast, and with the other, he was browsing the net.

Now, more than ever, he could see the evidence that he was in a different world. News about countries that he had never heard of in place of well-known countries in his previous life. Historical figures quoted that Sam had no idea who they were, and so on.

Following the celebrity news was already a lost cause, but at least he wanted to make sure he was on the up and up with the general going ons of the world. The other Sam’s memories of this time were rather sparse, as he was fully concentrating on playing games and ‘making it big’.

He checked his investments, made sure that the bills were still paid and nothing snuck up on him, then answered the messages he got on Shadowlands, and posted several more prepared guides and secrets, knowing very well that soon all of them would be worthless with the ascension of Magic Unbound.

He chuckled as he read a few posts below his guides, praising him for the information. Apparently, he had quickly risen to fame amidst the gamers.

“Maybe I could make use of that in the game…” he murmured, then changed to viewing the news about the aforementioned game.

Magic Unbound apparently was exploding.

He trawled through websites praising the game or critiquing it, people making videos of it, though thankfully it wasn’t at a level that would attract everyone on it but, it was hard not to see

Soon, the peaceful nature of the game would cease to be, but not yet.

Finishing his meal, he stood up from the desk and headed back to the kitchen. He had dishes to wash, then a walk to take.

Dressing up to keep the cold away, he stepped out of his warm apartment, locked the door behind him, then began walking towards the lift.

On the way, Sam nodded to one of his neighbors, a woman who, thanks to the incredible amount of warm clothing, was only showing her face.

A few minutes later, he was in a park, the cold wind chilling him, but he didn’t care.

The fresh air was enough to kick-start his brain…

Returning to the game, Sam was met with Lucky looking at him soulfully, paws on the bed, legs on the ground, and whining a little.

Cursing himself for forgetting to leave the wolf out for some food, he immediately produced some meat and water, then spent a few minutes petting the eating wolf, apologizing.

“Sorry, Lucky. I promise it won’t happen again.”

‘Holy mackerel, can’t wait for the synchronization…’

After making sure that Lucky wouldn’t starve, he checked over his clothing, making sure it was extra clean and a little higher quality than usual. After all, he was going to be talking to ‘important’ people…

Leaving the room, he greeted the smiling owner of the inn, accepted the breakfast, scarfed it down, then headed out into the big wide world.

Today’s task was reporting the demise of the bandit group, without letting the people know that he had retrieved all that treasure.

Walking towards the headquarters of the town guard, Sam straightened his clothes, made sure that Lucky was clean, then, without waiting for anybody to call him, stepped through the gate that separated the grounds where the guards practiced from the rest of the town.

The guard at the gate gave him a look, but as Sam had no weapons visible, and was dressed in high-quality clothing that he had liberated from the bandits, but let him through with a respectful nod.

Stepping inside of the guard headquarters, he snagged the nearest person who looked like they knew what was going on.

“Excuse me! Could you tell me where can I find the Captain?”

The man, dressed in a sharp guard uniform, raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever for… sir?”

Sam just gave him a simple smile.

“I’ve news for him. It’s somewhat important.”

“Right,” came the skeptical answer. “May I ask what this news is about?”

“The location of the hideout of the Greenwood bandits.”

There was a moment of silence as the guard processed the information, but his clearly skeptical look instantly cleared up, and nodded.

“All right, sir. I’ll take you to him.”

“Thank you,” replied Sam, smile still on his face.

It only took a few minutes for the two of them to navigate the guard headquarters and arrive at the Captain’s office. The unnamed guard knocked on the door, then, without waiting for a reply, opened the door and ushered Sam in, closing the door behind them.

“Captain,” the man saluted to the older guard sitting behind the desk, working on some kind of documents. “This person claims to know the location of the bandit’s hideout!”

When Sam stepped through the door, the Captain, an elderly gentleman, with short black hair peppered with gray, lithe but powerful build looked disinterested in him, but the moment the words left the mouth of his guide, he sat up straighter, his intense gaze honing on in Sam.

“Is what Samous said true, good sir?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam answered simply. After all the fewer words he spoke, the better the chance he would get away with the treasure.

The Captain spent an entire minute scrutinizing Sam, while his guide stood respectfully to the side, before speaking up again.

“All right. Take a seat and tell me everything.” There was enough authority in the older man’s voice that if Sam would have been a weaker person, he would have spilled everything. But instead, he smiled at the guard captain, took the offered seat, and began speaking.

“Well, Captain, sir, it started with one of the guards. I can’t remember his name, but he was always napping or sleeping.”

“Gregory?”

“Must be, I think the bandits called him Greg…”

“What?”

“Well, sir, it was like this: He offered me a chance to go out and cull the wolfs and when I was hunting them I came across…”

Sam put everything into weaving a tale of heroism as he came across the bandits, followed them (definitely out of civic duty), and infiltrated bravely their hideout. Then he described how he came across the bandit leader, how they fought and how hard it was, but in the end, he succeeded. Only to be thwarted by the dead body rising once again, this time controlled by a foul spirit.

Then came the tale of his daring escape, activating the bandit’s self-destruct, and burying them under a mountain’s worth of rubble.

An hour later, he had a parched throat, and while the guard captain was still watching him with his intense gaze, the man who guided him to the office was silently gushing about how brave and heroic he was.

“Then I came back, collapsed into my bed, then as soon as I woke up and came here,” he finished lamely.

There was another silence, and this time to time it was broken by the captain suddenly standing up and slapping both of his hands on his desk, rattling it and causing a few things to fall off. Sam recoiled, and was about to strike the captain, when the aforementioned man grinned, and pointed one hand at him.

“Samous! See! We all need men like this one in the town’s guard! The bravery! The heroics! The duty!” By the end of the small speech, the guard captain was almost yelling.

“Yes, Sir!” yelled his guide, with a fervor that was hard to believe.

The guard captain put his hand down on the desk and leaned slightly over it, looking directly into Sam’s eyes with a grin.

“Well done, young man! Well done!” Sam had to scoot a little backward, as the man was so loud. “Tell me, young man! What do you want for this brave deed? Tell me and I’ll make it a reality!”

Sam gulped a little at the fervor he could hear from the man’s voice, but in the end, he managed to get over his shock and smiled.

“No need, sir. I just did my duty.”

There was a moment of silence, and Sam feared he said something wrong, when the captain, followed by the other man in the room, practically began to cry.

“Samous! Listen to this! How heroic! What a dutiful man! I simply can’t believe it!”

“I’m amazed. What a man!”

Sam just shook his head and stood up from his surprisingly comfortable chair.

“Then I’ll take my leave…”

The captain nodded, still yelling at Samous about duty and going above and beyond.

“Go with my blessing, brave sir! Know that your bravery will be known by everybody!”

Sam spent a nanosecond thinking about telling him that it wasn’t necessary, but in the end, he decided it was a lost cause. Instead, he bowed slightly, then as fast as possible to not to seem disrespectful, he fled the room.

As he basically power walked out of the guard headquarters, he ignored the painfully pitying looks the other guards were giving him.

Then, as he left the compound, he closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, and when he opened them, there was a notification window before him.

[Quest ‘Hunt the wolves!’ completed!]

[You followed the directions that your ‘acquaintance’ gave you and found more than wolves. Through some quick thinking and luck, you managed to subdue the bandits and bring back news of their demise. Soon the entirety of the Greenwood will know your name.]

[Reward: Increased reputation in Greenwood]

Sam dismissed the screen and, without looking back at the compound, from where he could almost hear the captain and his aide yelling, headed back to his room in the inn.

He didn’t even care that he didn’t get anything as a reward for the quest. Probably the game decided that the treasure and items he got away with were enough remunerations for his trouble.

After a small snack and bathroom break in the real world, he was once again in his room at the inn, with Lucky down with Sarah, who wanted to play with the cute wolf. Seeing as he would be otherwise occupied, he didn’t mind it.

Closing the door, making sure that every gap was covered, then closed the curtains, and sat down on the ground to minimize anyone from seeing anything.

The first thing he did was to retrieve the chest containing the money and valuables.

Going through the chests he found thousands of silvers, more than enough bronze coins, and almost two thousand gold coins. Not the biggest amount of money, but at the beginning of the game, before the inflation and the inclusion of real money? He was loaded.

That wasn’t mentioning the jewelry, which sadly Sam couldn’t really sell, as there were ways to recognize where it came from even if it had no identifying mark, and he didn’t need that kind of question at the moment.

Then came the other stuff, leaving the magical artifacts for last.

The armors that he had just simply swept into the bag of holding were all unenchanted, and sadly all used. To Sam, remembering back how they were displayed, the armors in the vault were there not because they were worth a lot, but because they reminded the spirit of somebody, they had killed.

Though after going through everything for a second time to make sure he didn’t miss anything, he found that one of the boots was slightly enchanted.

Taking it into his hand, he examined said boots.

[Leather Boots (Enchanted): High-quality leather boots, enchanted with some manner of enchantment.]

‘Very informative, game…’ he thought, then took off his own shoes, and tried on the boots.

Standing in them, he couldn’t help but sigh in pleasure. They were really comfortable…

Looking at the boots again, the information window changed accordingly.

[Leather Boots (Enchanted): High-quality leather boots, enchanted with Comfort enchantment.]

Happy with his find, he took out a smaller bag of holding and put all the armors for later use or sale.

Then he turned his attention toward the crates.

A few contained alcohol in carefully packaged bottles.

Another tea and spices.

One was simply full of sugar.

One contained rolls of materials; silk, cotton, and more.

Then came a crate that had him almost salivating.

A crate was full of books.

Carefully going through them, he separated the fiction books from the non-fiction, hoping that he would get lucky. Then when he was almost done sorting the books found what he was looking for.

Three books mixed in with the other.

Retrieving them, he carefully laid them on the bed before examining them.

They looked just like other books, but to his magical senses, when he focused on them, they were filled with gentle mana.

The first one was colored beige with black writing on it, called The light of our lives.

Observing it, he received a notification.

[Congratulations you’ve found a skill book!]

[The light of our lives: teaches the basic illumination magic, Light Ball, and how to use it.]

Turning his gaze to the other two, he began reading the notifications that popped up.

[The sanctity of the body: teaches the basic defensive magic, Magic Armor, and how to use it.]

[See what there is to see: teaches one of the basic magical arts, Mana Sight, and how to use it.]

“Well, two out of three, is not bad…” he murmured as he began to pack up the crates, holding the products once again in a separate smaller bag. The Magic Armor spell book went into his inventory, but for the other two, he simply took them up one by one and slowly channeled his magic into them.

Both books began to glow then slowly dispersed into motes of light that fell onto the bed, while slowly vanishing. Instead, he was greeted by two new notification screens.

[Congratulations, you learned the spell, Light Ball!]

[Light Ball: 0/10 (0%) (Active) A simple spell that allows you to conjure a ball of light to illuminate your surroundings.]

[Congratulations, you learned the spell, Mage Sight!]

[Mage Sight: 0/10 (0%) (Active) A spell that allows you to visually observe the currents of magic.]

Happy with his gains, Sam finally turned towards the artifact he looted from the bandit’s vault.

There were half a dozen bags of holdings, a few enchanted canteens and flasks, a blanket that warmed up upon channeling mana into it, and a telescope enchanted for seeing very far away.

He also found almost a dozen knick-knacks, like music boxes, things that whirled or flashed in different colors.

‘Probably toys for… children. Oh…’

Despite being in a game, the realization that those bandits killed children still managed to sadden him enough that not even the enormous loot in front of him could cheer him up.

He quietly packed up the items that were left out, making sure that toys were separate, then unlocked his room, and left to find Lucky.

He needed some fluffy time to cheer up.