(Note: This chapter’s timeline starts from the day the game officially launched)

Emma’s POV:

“What would you like your character name to be?” The cool, female voice asked in the empty hall.

“Emma” I answered, I wasn’t going to change my name even though it was the norm for players to change their names in games.

“Emma it is. Please select your starting village.”

“Random.” Starting location doesn’t matter much anyways… I think...

“Very well. You will be started off at a random location inside the game. Enjoy!”

With that, a flash of light covered me and I was dumped in the middle of an immense crowd of players!

DAMMIT! So many bodies pressing against me! I can barely move! This is no way to treat a lady! I really should have paid more attention to picking out a secluded starting point!

Wiggling, pushing, poking and prodding my way through the sea of bodies, I finally managed to enter an empty alley.

Taking a moment to breath, I thought about what my first experience was in the game and I felt a smile coming to my face. Even though I had just been through what most girls would call as hell, going through all those bodies to get away didn’t bother me much, because of a simple reason: I was ignored!

No one had spared a second glance towards me, no one had made way for me, no one had looked at me with eyes full of greed, completely ignored! This is what I had wanted from the game after all!

I was absolutely tired of people always treating me differently just because my father was a director of Cyber Illusions. All throughout my life people had always wanted to get close to me because of my money, and not because of who I am as a person.

I know I have average looks, nothing that would make boys fall over me like they did with some other girls, yet despite this I was generally the girl that every guy was after. Not because of my looks or my personality, but just to get their grubby hands on my parent’s wealth.

The girls were no different, giving me fake compliments and laughing at my lame jokes like they were hilarious, just so I would help them with their monetary problems. Countless times I had been asked to ‘gift’ them make-up, jewelry, clothes etc.

It was fine when I was younger, as young children don’t really have much of an idea of the power of wealth, but during the later stages of middle-school it all started changing. People I had considered as best friends just kept asking me for more and more things. At first I gave it to them without much thought, but their demands just never ended, and when I finally started saying no, they insulted me for being stingy and stopped being my friends!

By the time I got into High school, I had learned how to cope with all this greediness: Just don’t talk to anyone! No matter who it was, sooner or later after learning how rich I was got the look in their eyes which I detested the most: greed.

And so I became known as the “Cold, heartless bitch” by everyone in my High school, whereas my parents knew me as a sweet, innocent child that was always smiling. It really felt that I had two different personalities…

When dad told me about how they were going to be launching a VR game with 99% realism, I was overjoyed! He also wanted me to participate in the Beta but I said no, Beta Testers always got attention and I wanted to do absolutely everything possible to stay away from the public eye and play the game normally. Finally I would be able to interact with others who knew nothing about me or my parent’s wealth. Finally I would be able to meet some ‘real’ friends!

This is the reason why I was so happy about being ignored instead of being treated specially. With a big grin on my face, I turned around and went away from the crowd of players deeper into the alley, hoping for some quests on the other side that others didn’t know about yet.

Soon enough, I found a simple quest about cleaning a storeroom from an old guy on the other side of the alley and I happily accepted. Anything for Exp!

What surprised me the most was how real the NPCs were! I knew the game would be 99% realistic but never would I have imagined the AI system to be this advanced. It was so real that there was even an option to distinguish players from NPCs by displaying a cursor point over each player in sight. I naturally turned this option on to make it easier for me to distinguish between players and NPCSs.

The next few days I stayed inside the starting village and kept doing quests, waiting for the immense crowd to thin out as players would soon leave the beginner area for higher-levelled areas. I also went around collecting information about the world inside the game.

The village I started out in was called Albia, situated in the Kingdom of Modor. The kingdom was in the Treadean Continent, which was ruled over by three major powers: Modor in the center, Verith Empire to the East and the Dwarven Kingdom of Goldhan towards the West. Modor had a hostile relationship with Verith while the dwarves just kept to themselves deep inside the Western mountain ranges.

The game world was known as Frion and just like Earth it had 5 oceans and 7 continents, although the world itself was twice the size of Earth! Making it impossible for players to explore everything quickly.

After a few days of doing meager quests the crowd finally started to thin out as players started moving away from Albia. Excited to finally start my adventure, I finally left the confines of the village and went towards the fields. There, I started hunting the bunnies with the dagger everyone got.

It was hard at first as the bunnies were quite quick, but after levelling up to 3 and putting most points into Agility I found it much easier to hunt them.

I was just thinking about going up a step to try my luck against foxes when a couple approached me and said, “Hello stranger. Would you like to party with us so we can hunt foxes?”

I looked over at them and both seemed to be of Asian heritage, the girl had long, red hair with black eyes while the guy had blue hair that reached below his eyes and he had to constantly push them out of the way. They were both smiling politely and seemed like nice people despite the somewhat bizarre appearance.

Thinking it was a good idea to party up, I said “Sure. My name is Emma, pleased to meet you.”

“Pleasure is ours. I am James, and this is my sister Jessie.” said the guy with a bow which was immediately followed by the sister as she bowed low too.

I was just thinking how nice these guys were when it hit me… Jessie… Long red hair… James… Blue hair that reached his eyes… Oh God!

Perhaps he noticed the look on my face, as James chuckled and said, “We just thought it would be fun to play as these characters. Of Course we also need a pet cat to go with the whole image but that can wait for now.”

I started laughing and immediately both the crazy brother and sister duo joined in too. This was going to be fun!

The next few hours went by quickly, and I had a lot of fun with the siblings. They seemed like genuinely nice people, but they did have completely different personalities!

James, who was going on with the whole character persona, always laughed maniacally whenever we defeated a rabbit or a fox. On the other hand, Jessie couldn’t be further away from the cartoon character. She would always shield her eyes whenever we hunted bunnies, whispering “I’m so sorry poor poor bunnies.” It was hilarious!

They were both from Japan, and were completely shocked to hear that I was living in the USA. Apparently they didn’t know about the universal language system, and just thought that they were in the Japanese server and everyone around was speaking Japanese. They had a very impressed look when I explained the details to them.

We soon outgrew the beginner fields and started off for the forest after having our gear repaired. The gear only consisted of 3 beginner daggers so it wasn’t too expensive.

As soon as we entered the forest, we were confronted with a wolf. It was really scary as it looked absolutely real! We had an extremely hard time coping up with the wolf’s speed, but we managed somehow. Even Jessie started slashing with her dagger, although she was still hesitant and barely did any damage.

After a few more hours of hunting wolves, we had each reached level 10 and decided to move towards the nearest city to get our class change. Curious as to which class they were going to select, I asked the siblings about their preferences.

“Obviously, I’m going to be a swordsman! In the frontlines, fighting for my survival and wreaking havoc to all enemies! Muahahahahaha!”

“Umm… I don’t much like fighting so I thought I would be a healer.”

Totally predictable, no need to even mention who said what! Then James asked which class I would choose and I immediately answered, “Assassin!” That’s right, hiding in the shadows, completely ignored by everyone until the last moment! That’s why I had always put my stat points from levelling up into Agility and Dexterity.

Which reminded me, I hadn’t distributed the stat points after reaching level 10! I immediately opened up my status screen and did what needed to be done, then looked at it to see my progress.

Name:EmmaClass:WandererLevel:10Title(s):NoneRace:HumanGender:FemaleHealth:210Mana:140Health Regenration:0.14/secondMana regeneration:0.16/secondStrength:21Inteligence:14Stamina:14Wisdom:16Dexterity:41Agility:44Fame:0Luck:0

Yup, looks good! High agility and dexterity, just a little into strength to boost my health and a bit of intelligence and Wisdom, totally the stats of an assassin! Dismissing the screen, I looked up to find James and Jessie both looking at me with curiosity.

“What?” I asked, puzzled.

“Why would you want to be an assassin of all things? And why did you say the class name with such an evil smile on your face?!” Asked Jessie with a bit of fear in her eyes.

Oh God! They probably think I am some kind of mad girl with a murder fetish! Damn!

“It’s not like that. I just think it would be fun to play as an assassin as they are very fast and umm… I can’t really move very fast in the real world.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry! Don’t worry, play as an assassin and run around and be free!” Jessie said, with a sad look in her eyes and then she ran up to me and hugged me! Wha…. What’s going on?

I looked at James and saw that he also had a sad look in his eyes. What? Something happened? I looked around but there was nothing sad at all…

Then it dawned on me… CRAP! They probably think I’m some kind of cripple in real life! That isn’t the truth! I just said the lie about not being able to move fast to avoid saying my true reason! Crap crap crap crap!

Jessie was still hugging me tightly! Dammit! Oh well… damage is already done… I’ll just try to contain it…

“Thank you very much for understanding. But please don’t tell this to anyone else as it’s my private life…” I felt bad lying to the sweet siblings, but it’s better they don’t know the truth about me or my wealth. I am going to enjoy being with the first friends I have made since middle school! The later they know about my wealth, the longer they will stay friends with me. As soon as they find out, it will only result in them looking at me as some kind of ATM card…

“Yes yes! Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone!” Jessie said while James nodded behind him.

Well, at least they won’t spread the fake tales of me being some kind of cripple or anything…

With that being done with, we once again set off for the nearby city: Yloria. We soon arrived and split up at the gate, agreeing to meet up again in an hour.

Walking into the city alone, I had to take a moment to take in the sight. The village had all been small houses, with a single general store, blacksmith, tailor and a small inn. The city was the complete opposite!

15 foot high black stone walls surrounded it with the only entrance visible being the gate. Watch towers could be seen after every 30 or so feet with archers and mages barely visible on top of them.

I turned around and faced towards the interior of the city, and it was covered with people! Fruit and vegetable stands, food stalls, merchant stalls and stores of every kind imaginable lined the streets, with people busily moving here and there. The noise was incredible too, shouts and calls came from all stalls while people loudly haggled over prices.

The buildings were all made of stone and were huge compared with the tiny houses of the village. Neat, paved roads wide enough for 2 carriages to easily pass by each other were separating the lines of the buildings.

All in all, the sheer size and grandeur of the city of Yloria took my breath away!

I went ahead and asked a couple of NPCs for directions to the Assassin’s guild and soon I was in front of a rather inconspicuous black building set at the Western corner of the city, completely away from sight.

I went in, somewhat scared, and immediately a black robed guy materialized out of nowhere in front of me! “State your business.” He said in a cold, lifeless voice.

Shivering just a bit with fear, I replied, “I wanted to change my class to an assassin and was told that this was the assassins guild….”

The robed man nodded, waved his hand a bit and said, “There you go. Now leave.” He then vanished into thin air again! I was going to try and see where he had disappeared off to when a bunch of system messages filled my vision.

Congratulations! You now have the class: Assassin

Congratulations! By aquiring your class, you have gained a new skill: Stealth

You will now be able to move around like a shadow, completely invisible to others.

As a class bonus, you can use this skill without the use of any mana.Beginner level 1 (0%)Active

Congratulations!By aquiring your class, you have gained a new skill: Backstab

You will strike down enemies without them even knowing of your presence!

25% extra damage of weapon if used on unsuspecting enemies.If use in conjuction with stealth, does a further 25% extra damage.

As a class bonus, you can use this skill without the use of any mana.Beginner level 1 (0%)Active

Congratulations!By aquiring the class: Assassin, you have gained the class-specific skill: Dual-dagger wielding

You can now equip daggers on both hands and do equal damage from both without any penalties.Passive

Cool! I am an assassin now woohooo! And I even got the new skills! Stealth is what I was after all along!

Now, I already have the beginner dagger, I need a new one to dual-wield.

“Why are you still here? Want to die?” A cold, lifeless voice said from thin air and I jumped about a foot! I had completely forgotten I was still inside the assassin’s guild! Apologizing, I hastily turned around and ran out. That guy is scary!

Shaking off the feeling of fear once I got back to the center of the city, I decided I needed to get a set of black clothes to match my assassin look! I went to a nearby tailor and looked around. My inventory had a balance of 1 silver, 43 copper. Needless to say it wasn’t anywhere near enough to afford even the most basic of leather equipment.

Smiling to myself at not being able to afford something for the first time in my life, I just bought a basic travelling set that had absolutely no stats at all and simply dyed it completely black and immediately put it on. I knew I had nowhere near enough money to buy a new dagger right now so I simply walked back towards the gate.

I arrived at the gate but Jessie and James weren’t there yet, so I started browsing the forums. It’s so good that you can even access the internet from within the game! I browsed through the forums for some information about the assassin class, but didn’t find anything that I didn’t already know…. wait! What’s this…?

A forum post stated about the drops of the boss monster: Alpha Wolf. Among the drops stated was a dagger that sometimes dropped! This is it! I should be able to get my dagger from this boss!

By the time I discovered the post, Jessie and James had returned. They seemed a bit impressed by my new black attire, but I was more then shocked to see them carrying a healer staff and a sword respectively!

“Where did you get those weapons?”

“What the sword and my staff? They are basic weapons given when you change your class, everyone gets them. Why? Didn’t you get one?” asked Jessie with a puzzled look.

“No I did not get one!” I answered through gritted teeth. Why didn’t that damn guy give me what he should have?! He basically just got rid of me! If only I wasn’t so utterly terrified of him I swear I would have gone and have a word with him!

Shaking my head to get rid of the anger, I told them quickly about how I was thinking of going after the Alpha Wolf which dropped a dagger so that I could dual-wield! Hearing Dual-wield, James immediately opened his mouth to speak.

“Ah that’s right. Assassins can dual wield daggers! Here, take my beginner dagger. I obviously don’t need it anymore and it’s so worthless that no one would even buy it! You can at least dual-wield it till you get the one from the boss.”

I immediately equipped the dagger while giving James a heartfelt thanks. These siblings really are good people… Hope they stay friends with me…

“Okay then, I think we should look for a few more players now, after all we just got out class and are still low levelled. No way will we be able to take on the boss wolf on our own.” Said James. I had to agree, we were still level 10 while the boss was level 20. Furthermore, we had just gotten our classes and were still inexperienced with them.

We started searching and soon enough we had found 3 players who also wanted to hunt the boss. There was an African guy named Marcus, an archer, an Arab by the name of Ali who was a fire mage and an American by the name of Paul, who was also a swordsman.

I have to say, it was quite wonderful meeting so many different people from all over the world. Where else would you find an opportunity such as this to interact with so many different cultures without any communication barriers whatsoever!

Anyways, we quickly left the city and returned to the forest riddled with wolves. There, we all spread out a bit and started practising on the wolves to get familiar with our class. I kept using stealth and going behind the wolves to try and do a backstab on them. It worked wonderfully and soon enough I was able to get used to my class and I loved it!

I kept using stealth even while we were simply walking, as the feeling of being invisible was just too wonderful for me!

Lost in my own world, I barely even noticed when we reached a clearing and everyone ahead of me stopped. Stopping myself just in the nick of time from bumping into Jessie in front of me, I looked into the clearing and saw a huge wolf in the middle of the clearing. The words Alpha Wolf were clearly visible on top of his head. Wow, I never imagined this guy would be this scary!

We all stepped into the clearing and the Alpha turned its huge head to look at us menacingly! I gulped, but before any of us could do anything a group of 6 players also entered the clearing from the other side.

“Oho! What do we have here? A bunch of noobs want to attack the boss and take it away from us? That won’t happen now would it? We came here first, no get lost newbies if you know what’s good for you!” an arrogant looking guy with blonde hair said while leading his party closer to the Alpha.

James, hotheaded as always, was about to respond before the Alpha suddenly stood up. It looked at one party and then the next, clearly displeased about being disturbed. It then lifted his head and howled, loudly!

We all immediately entered battle stances and got ready for whatever was coming. Soon we all heard a low rumbling sound, coupled with the sounds of leaves rustling and twigs snapping, and the sounds were coming from all around us! Panicking, I looked all around while activating stealth on instinct.

The sound grew louder and louder until suddenly wolves jumped out from all around us into the clearing! About 60-70 wolves came crashing into the clearing and started attacking us!

Everyone immediately retaliated, and I was no different. I started using stealth and backstab repeatedly, as it was the only thing I knew. I also relied on my agility stat to help me out but it was really difficult! I used stealth again after backstabbing a wolf and decided to take a bit of a breather and looked around me.

IDIOTS!

All 11 of the other players were going at each other instead of fighting the wolves and the Alpha! They should work together to get us out of this mess! The Boss respawns in just 20 minutes! There’s no use to fighting! But alas, no one else seemed to have the slightest bit of logic in them as they continued battling each other and the wolves simultaneously.

I gritted my teeth in anger and just kept on attacking the wolves. I was determined to at least get out of this alive and for that I had to get rid of as many wolves as possible! I kept fighting the wolves for another couple of minutes while ignoring the idiot players all around me. I looked up again after dealing yet another backstab to a wolf and found out that I was the only player left, everyone else had killed each other off!

Utterly annoyed by everyone’s behavior, I activated stealth and sneaked away past the few wolves that were remaining. I reached the edge of the clearing and looked towards it again. The Alpha was surveying its surroundings while panting, and the wolves around him kept a wary eye out too.

I decided to wait here a bit till the wolves would disappear, and then I would somehow sneak in and get the gear that those idiot friends of mine had dropped when they got killed. I thought it was going to be a long wait, but barely 2 minutes had passed before a young guy calmly walked into the clearing.

He was about 5 feet, ten inches tall, had short hair and dark brown eyes just like mine. But two things about his appearance were completely insane! One, he was still wearing his beginner gear. And two, he had no weapon! And yet he was calmly walking towards a boss monster surrounded by his minions!

The wolves all bared their fangs and ran towards the guy, and I thought it was probably going to be over for this new player. But what happened next was completely mind-boggling! The guy suddenly started moving extremely fast! And threw punches killing the wolves with one hit each! In barely 30 seconds he had killed off all the wolves with his bare hands!

Still in a daze, I saw as the Alpha now started attacking the guy. But even the Alpha wasn’t able to hit him as he dodged its extremely fast movements and punched straight at the boss without even the slightest hint of fear! This is simply too crazy!!

Apparently pleased with his punch landing, the guy stopped moving with a smile on his face, giving the Alpha plenty of time to turn and bite him straight in the ass! Instead of laughing, I just felt relieved. Whew, all that display earlier was probably just a fluke. No one can possibly go toe-to-toe against a boss without even a weapon!

But my thoughts were quickly shattered by what transpired next. It seemed that it was just a lapse of judgement from the guy’s part which enabled the Alpha to attack him. He turned into a blur again and started moving even faster then the Alpha! Dodging, observing, attacking, all with bare hands against a boss!

After some time, the boss finally went into the critical state and its paws turned red! But the guy didn’t seem too bothered with anything. Even when the Alpha got faster and managed to hit the guy, he simply responded by running straight at the Alpha while dodging a paw and jumping straight at it, kicking it right in the jaw! And just like that, the Alpha died!

A player had just soloed a boss monster without any weapons!

I was in such a daze that I barely registered the dagger that the Alpha dropped, but right now who cares about a stupid dagger?? All I was concentrating on was the guy in front of me. Just who is this handsome fellow…?

Eh… why did I add the handsome part??

I shook my head and concentrated back towards the boy, who had just seen all the loot lying about the clearing that had been dropped by the players. My heart sank, surely it would be the same again, greed will take over as it always does and this guy will happily take all the loot and leave…

But the guy surprised me yet again!

“Hey! Anyone there? I saw you guys fighting earlier, you seem to have dropped your loot. Come pick it up!” he asked, with a soft and calming voice.

Did I hear that right…? Is someone giving up all this loot to its rightful owners…? Impossible! It must be a trick!

“Come on guys this is all your loot. I’m not here to PK so don’t worry and just take everything. If you don’t come out soon I will have to take everything and leave…” the guy called out again.

I was still of the belief that this was all a trick, but his eyes passed over where I was standing still with stealth on and when I saw into those dark brown eyes that had no hint of dishonesty in them, something stirred within me.

Before I could even stop myself, I deactivated stealth and called out, “Thank you. I will be taking the loot my friends dropped, the rest is yours.”

I hope this isn’t all a trick, and I hope me and this guy can become friends… and perhaps something more… I thought as my eyes met his and my heart started thumping madly….

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Author's note: My apologies for the long delay. My classes schedule changed this week, and Monday-Wednesday I now get home at around 10pm, and I am too tired by then to write anything. Schedule of chapters will probably be affected as I won't be able to write much during these 3 days each week.

Anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter. I wrote it while half-asleep as I was determined to get a chapter out today, so if there are any mistakes please do let me know! My sleepiness also probably affected the sloppy tables I made...

Also, thank you very much for all the support you guys have shown towards me so far! :)

PS: Shout-out to baby Emma from F.R.I.E.N.D.S., my favorite Tv-series! Just imagine this as Emma all grown up :P

PS(2): After Nurse joy, Team Rocket has now made its entry! :P