Dr. Richard’s POV:

I still have a hard time believing it.

As a doctor, I am constantly surrounded with death and I am more then used to it. But this… it’s somehow different.

We have had deaths among staff members before, and an acquaintance of mine passed away a few years ago too, but I had just shrugged away these deaths rather quickly. I have no idea why I am feeling so strongly right now…

Nurse Sandra… Why is your death so hard to deal with?

I still remember all those years ago, when I was just starting off in this hospital… the time when I resented her. It was for such a petty reason, I just couldn’t accept the fact that a lowly nurse would know more about dealing with patients then I, a qualified doctor, knew.

It was a really simple thing: experience. Nurse Sandra, who had been working in the hospital for well over 15 years when I started, obviously had much more experience then the fresh-out-of-med-school me.

She kept pointing out the mistakes I made, which made me furious! I thought she was just bragging about how she knew so much more then me, but I later found out that all she was doing was helping me and helping the patients.

Helping the patients as obviously if I did the treatment correctly they would benefit. Helping me so that I won’t get in trouble with my seniors. She did this for everyone, it was in her nature to help. But I couldn’t see this at that time and went about hating her for ‘helping’ me.

It was John who ended up being the reason for us to get closer. The day when we both treated John was the day my hate of nurse Sandra vanished.

After I had punched that asshole of a father (which felt REALLY good by the way) I was in a very weird place mentally. I’m still unsure of what I did after the punch, but what I do know is nurse Sandra was the one who pulled me out of that disturbed place.

She didn’t do much, she simply hugged me while repeating, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.” but somehow that hug felt as if my own mother were hugging me. I felt as if all of my worries and all of my problems were transferred over to her during the hug.

She then reminded me of a certain young boy who still needed medical care while pulling me gently back towards where John was. She calmly helped me throughout the process of treating John and didn’t once comment about how terrible of a job I was doing. I was amazed at how unaffected she was by all of the things we had heard that John had been through.

But the truth I found out later was her care for John far outweighed her disgust for what those parents had done. It was like the most important thing in the whole world for her was to take care of the child no matter what.

Even after we had done all we could for John and were awaiting some test results, she stayed behind to comfort me even though her shift was over. She helped me throughout that long night shift, without ever letting me know how tired she was.

After that day all my hate for nurse Sandra had been replaced by respect.

We became increasingly closer during the next few weeks as we worked closely and diligently to treat John in any way possible. We also became extremely overprotective of John and seldom let anyone else close to him.

I still remember how it was the running joke during those days that we were the new parents of John. But we didn’t care, mostly because all we cared about was getting John better, but also as the joke wasn’t said as a way to make fun of us, rather people used to say it with respect.

I still feel as if I didn’t deserve the respect that they showed me. It’s not as if I didn’t care about John, but to put me in the same status as nurse Sandra was unfair towards her. It wasn’t even possible for me to even come close to show the same amount of love and care that she showed towards John.

Which is why I will never be able to forgive myself for what I did. I know how special John was for nurse Sandra, and I am the reason why the two of them would never be able to meet again.

I still remember how she had pleaded to be let in when we first met John in the virtual world, how she had almost begged me to let her see John even for a moment. And I had said no.

My reason was John might be overwhelmed by meeting so many new people at once. For such a stupid reason, for such an extremely stupid reason, I had made it impossible for a mother to meet her child.

I shook my head, trying to get rid of such thoughts but it didn’t work. I then got up and decided to go for a walk, thinking that might be able to help me out.

I guess my feet automatically took me towards floor three, where I snapped out of my daze. I saw all the nurses around the floor with a dead look in their eyes. Some still had red eyes, clearly they had been crying.

I even spotted the male nurse Tom, who always made a big deal about how he was a ‘real man’ or some nonsense like that, walking while looking around with a lost expression on his face.

All around the floor I saw similar expressions. Expressions which showed sadness. Expressions which showed that the people had no idea what to do.

The usual active environment of the nurses running around treating patients was nowhere to be found. It’s like someone had switched off all of the third floor staff.

I was suddenly reminded of the fact that I wasn’t the only one who nurse Sandra took under her wing. In fact, almost everyone here had been mentored by nurse Sandra at one point in their careers. Many regarded her as a parent figure and she held an immense amount of respect in this floor.

I also remembered how nurse Sandra helped me when I myself was in such a daze back when John first came to the hospital. How she had said, “The only important thing is the fact that the patient in front of you needs help, and you are the only one who can help. Put everything else aside, and focus on helping the patient in front of you and I guarantee both you and the patient will feel better before you know it!”

It had felt so silly at the time that I almost laughed, but those silly words had become a sort of mantra for me nowadays. As I saw the dazed nurses and staff members lingering about, I knew nurse Sandra would have never allowed this to continue. She would have put the patient’s pain in front of her own no matter what.

Making up my mind, I jumped on top of the nurses station, alarming all the nurses, and spoke, “What are you are doing? Are you really feeling sorry for yourself while you are surrounded by so many suffering patients? Will you allow your feelings to get in the way of treating the patients?

Is that what she taught you? Would she have allowed you all to go about neglecting your duties? Would she be happy if she saw this sight?

The answer is no! Miss Sandra was a woman who firmly believed in putting the patients in front of everything else. If you really want to remember her, remember how she used to take care of everyone. If you would like to honour her, do your job well and she will be happy.”

I glared around at everyone’s shocked faces, before getting off the nurses station and slowly walked away. Pushing away the thought of how dramatic this all was, I sincerely hoped that nurse Sandra, wherever she might be, would be proud of me.

And I really do hope that she forgives me, in time…

End of POV

After that speech, the whole third floor was silent.

It took a while for someone to move, and it was like that single person’s movement caused all the tension to break away. Everyone looked around before they began working feverishly. The third floor suddenly erupted with activity as all the staff moved about with renewed vigour.

Over the next few weeks, the third floor gained a reputation as the most hard working floor in the entire hospital. Most people were puzzled as to what could possibly bring about such a drastic change. While the few who knew smiled as they saw the legacy of nurse Sandra being reflected all around them.

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Meanwhile, in a certain virtual room, a young boy was walking around impatiently. Oblivious to all that was going around in the real world around his body, John was just a few minutes away from starting a new life. For the game Conqueror was scheduled to be started in just 10 minutes time.

John’s POV:

Hurry up! Hurry up hurry up hurry up!

Why won’t the game start already??

Haven’t I waited enough?

Although these past few weeks have been extremely informative, they have also been pretty boring. Confined to a single room with nothing to do except find something to do on a single laptop.

I mean, how much can a person really do on one laptop??

Waiting… Waiting…. Waiting…..

Still waiting….

“COME ON ALREADY!”

My extremely loud shout did absolutely nothing. Okay… Okay… calm down calm down.

It’s only a few more minutes… Surely I can wait just a few minutes.

After about 8 lifetimes and non-stop twitching, white light FINALLY surrounded me and I left the room!

Whoopie!

I had asked Mr. Leonard to automatically transfer me into the game as soon as the game servers went online, so as not to waste precious seconds staring at a log-in screen.

As the white light left me, I found myself in the same hall that I was before the beta test, but there was no Mr. Leonard this time. Instead a professional sounding female voice suddenly spoke out of nowhere, “Welcome to Conqueror. Your information states that you participated in the beta test, would you like to keep the old account or start with a new one?”

Searching around for where the voice was coming from, I immediately answered, “I’ll keep the same account but I want to change the name!”

I know I was almost dead-set on changing accounts after the beta test ended, but there were a couple of reasons I didn’t change.

Firstly, even though all beta tester’s accounts would be reset to level 1 along with the stats, the self-generated stats won’t be affected at all! Only the 10 stats per level would be deducted, and because I gained stats through hard work and not levels, my stats won’t be affected!

Secondly, I gained those stats with the help of Miss Margaret. She tirelessly and selflessly helped me, and there was no way I would erase all her hard work in an instant. Plus if I did change my race or appearance, Miss Margaret won’t even recognize me!!

“Very well, what would you like your name to be?”

“Alexander Davis, with Alex as the nickname please.”

This was the name I had decided on. I had spent hours and hours on the internet searching for a good name, with no result. It wasn’t that I didn’t find any good names, it’s that there were simply too many choices

I ended up searching ‘how to name someone’ out of frustration and I found the answer to my worries. It as written that most parents name their kids with some influence from famous historical figures or some influence from the names of their ancestors or loved ones.

I immediately thought of Miss Margaret. Naturally, she was the only person I considered as a ‘loved one’. I remembered her teaching me about famous people of the past, and how her favourite historical figure was a person called ‘Alexander the Great’. I immediately decided Alexander was going to be my name.

As for the last name, that was really simple. Miss Margaret’s last name was Davis.

Thus I decided to name myself Alexander Davis. I don’t know if this is a good name in the eyes of others, but frankly I don’t care. To me, this is a very special name, and it’s the name I will be called as.

“As you wish, Alex. As you are a beta tester, you are also allowed to take one skill with you in your new account; however, this skill will be reset to beginner level 1 with 0% experience. Which skill would you like to take?” The female ghost? asked.

“The cooking skill please.” I answered.

This was a very recent decision of mine. Originally I had intended to take the ‘quick learner’ skill with me as it would have helped me learn skills quicker. But after I realized how much the beta test had changed me, I changed my mind.

I had decided to completely turn off the system guidance for the entire time I played. In order for me to get stronger in the real world, I had to actually work hard to get stronger in the virtual one. If some day I woke up from my coma, I intended to have some sort of platform ready so I won’t be as helpless as I had remained all my life.

Even though I knew my physical body would be weak, I would at least know how to perform tasks mentally and be able to somehow be in a bit of a better position.

If I don’t ever wake up, well, at least I will get to live as ‘real’ a life as possible in the virtual world.

I decided to take the cooking skill because I thought that it would be the most useful one for me. I intended to be able to rely on myself as much as possible and cooking was a good start to live a life of self-sufficiency.

“You have selected the cooking skill. Beta testers aren’t allowed to choose their starting locations to keep it fair for everyone else. You will now be transported to a random starting location. Good luck and have fun!”

With that, the female phantom? sent me off to my new life!

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Author's note: John finally has a new name to call his own, opinions?

I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Thank you very much for reading! :)