Upon entering the lecture hall, the students momentarily quieten upon seeing Yulia’s botched face.

Her lipstick makeup was lazily done leaving edges on either side and her concealer was overdone giving her a slightly orange tinge to her skin.

Though, this did not hide the black skin from underneath her eyes; the tiredness of one who has had little to no sleep for a while now.

The chatter soon resumes after her entrance, as in University, to look like such is not uncommon.

Spotting a familiar figure waving to her, she starts walking the opposite direction.

She quickly finds a seat next to an acquaintance and exhaustedly melds into her chair. Ramira, the girl next to her, pays her little attention before she pushes up her square glasses and resumes writing notes.

Yulia’s eyes only barely close when a loud swishing noise of cloth on wood races towards her.

Groaning slightly, she opens her eyes to see Marcus, with his spiky brown hair, wiggle his eyebrows in excitement

“Soo-”

“Go away” She replies instantly, cutting off all means of conversation between the two

Marcus stands up, walks out of the row and then walks back in, sitting down in the same seat

“Now tell m-”

“I said go away” She once again cuts him off angrily

“I have, and I came back again” His voice is cheeky, the voice of a prankster one could say.

“Go away to the ends of the earth and never come back”

Satisfied with her details, she closes her eyes.

*Scribble*

Curious, she opens her eyes and sees that Marcus had written something on a piece of paper, placed it on the wood table, that stretches along the whole row, and inched towards it

“It’s the end of the earth” He gives her a cheeky grin

Marcus is one of those beings that eventually get what they want through wearing out whoever opposes them.

“Ugh fine, ONE question” Finally giving in because she is too tired to play word games with him.

He muses for a few seconds before he gives his iconic cheeky grin

“What exactly did you do this week in LEO?”

Groaning, she regrets giving him the chance of one question, because only he could ask such a vague yet annoyingly precise question.

Thinking about it for a minute or so, she thinks on how to get back at him.

Grinning, she finds her answer

“I puked, I worked. I puked, I worked. I puked, I worked. I puked, I worked. I puked, I worked. I puked, I worked. I puked, I puked. All of this repeated four times”

“The hell have you been doing?” He exclaims worriedly

“You already had your question. So. Go. Away”

“Tch, well damn you got me” The lecturer enters the hall “I’ll have to ask you another time then Daaarling” He gives a last cheeky grin before disappearing off to his own seat

The class quiets down and the lecturer begins his lecture.

Yulia however, doesn’t bother listening to him and slowly drifts off into slumber.

*Crack*

Snapping her eyes open she jumps out of her seat to the merriment of others.

Breathing raggedly, she grips onto the table with her sweaty palms and she clenches her stomach and throat in effort to keep the rising vomit down.

The lecturer, noticing Yulia’s behaviour briefly, continues with his lecture.

After a minute or so, she calms down enough to sit back down on her seat and gulps down whatever acidic substance that got into her mouth before closing her eyes in an effort to sleep once more.

“Hey Yulia, you alright?” Ramira’s soft voice penetrates the darkness that was about to overwhelm her.

Opening one eye, she looks at Ramira, who is looking concernedly at her.

“I am…alright. Just a bad week”

“Ok, would you like a grape to make it better?” Ramira opens a small box, which is filled with grapes, and moves it towards her

“N-”

*Grumble*

Her stomach grumbles and with that, she can’t really deny food.

Grabbing a grape she pops it in her mouth and bites into it creating a small squishing sound

“BLaaaaaaargh!”

“WOAH”

The whole lecture hall erupts into a frenzy of activity as Ramira bursts out of her chair, protecting her laptop from the vomit with her own petite body, while everyone else jumps up and look surprised at what is happening.

“Somebody take her to the nurse. NOW” The lecturer shouts after quickly recovering.

The shout brought people out of their daze and some boys near Yulia grabbed onto her and helped her out of the room. Some girls helped Ramira, who is drenched, go to the bathroom to clean up.

Once she was out, the lecturer cancelled the rest of the lecture and let everyone escape the pungent smelling room.

Soon the class dispersed and the room was empty.

…

*Clack*

Locking her door, Yulia stumbled to her bed and collapsed, shivering but not from the cold.

She had just been to the nurse, which just told her to eat more since her body had a reaction to eating food after not doing so for long.

The nurse didn’t even ask her about the circumstances behind it. This is a shame in the case of Yulia since she has been traumatized to the point of eliciting a vomital response.

However this was also because Yulia didn’t want to talk about her trauma, she didn’t want to think about it at all.

To her, it was a daily horror; waking up to see it over and over again. Nothing she could do to stop it, nothing at all. Even closing her eyes would only cause a vivid image of it if she heard the noise.

But the worst part was; she was getting use to it. She was expecting the daily cracks and the horrifying squishes and however horrifying they were, they only elicited physical responses. She was feeling less horrified of it now; only a feeling of disgust remained in the most part.

Trying to distract herself, she turns on the television which she thankfully brought up from home

[And now ladies and gentlemen, we have our famous duo; Larry and Barry talking all about Legenda Eternium Online, or better known to you game lovers out there; LEO.

Heeeey there folks, Larry ready for action!

And Barry’s ready to co-cast

Well well well, Barry, you really didn’t sound very enthusiastic there

Good you picked up on that Larry, because I’m not

Care to tell our lovely viewers out there why?

Well, Aa you’d suspect, I’ve been playing LEO since it first came out; last week.

Ooh, so do we get an insider on how things are going?

Well of course. The game is fantastically real in so many ways and that is also the slight pain.

A pain in it being real Barry? You mean physical pain?

No no no. there is some of that but it is quite miniscule, thankfully. The pain I’m talking about is the fact that you have to

work for your class.

Oh! That sounds quite interesting indeed as if I recall correctly, in MMO’s one would get their basic class quite easily no? Please do go on Barry.

You are correct Larry. However in LEO, to get a basic class you need to complete a specific route. A good example of this would be my Warrior class.

Oho, going for a musclehead are you Barry?

Larry, please don’t get on the wrong side of us lovely meatshields, or you won’t have any.

Haha, duly noted.

Anyways, each class path has three stages; the first being the trainee stage; where you’re taught basic skills and live the life of your class which incorporates you into your class’ society. As a warrior, you become a rookie who trains in the training hall all day. Not the most exciting of lives I must say Larry.

Well, that is unlike you Barry; you do get excited over everything.

Now what aare you saying Larry, I didn’t get excited that time a bus ran over my foot

You’re telling me you didn’t look at me and yell ‘HEY LARRY LOOOK!! LOOOK!’

Ok ok…I confess it was a ‘oh my god this happened!’ moment. Aaanyways. After passing the first level through dedication you go onto the apprentice level. This is the stage where you will focus on training rather than incorporating yourself into the class’ society and will be given class specific quests. For us Warriors it was basic subjugation quests.

Ooh, so what stage are you at?

I am still going through the first stage, since it takes a lot of time to make those mean trainers of ours happy. For all you warriors out there, I feel for you brothers and sisters of mine.

Ok, enough with the sentimentality. Tell us more about this second and third stage.

Well, at the end of the second stage, you will be given the option to choose the warrior class, however if you deny it, you can work to the third stage.

Oh, don’t leave us on a cliffhanger here Barry.

The third stage is when you do different quests to get a more specific, or rare class. Only one man has gotten through to the third level as of yet and it is the perfectly named Spartacus.

Perfectly named you say?

Spartacus was able to get to the third stage within 3 in game weeks, which as a remind to you folks is a bit over five real life days since the time ratio is 4:1. Also, just yesterday in fact was he able to become the Gladiator Class.

Gladiator? Wow, I do see the perfect naming of the avatar there Barry.

Yes, after reaching the third stage, he went to the coliseum to fight and after multiple victories became a gladiator.

Well if all he did was go to the coliseum, couldn’t anyone just go there and do it?

A good point Larry, yes they can. However I’m actually learning how to swing a sword going the normal path so skipping the first two stages is actually a bad idea for most.

I see, so it’s possible but the first and second stages are training to allow people to gain necessary skills and knowledge to be able to use their class efficiently.

Precisely. This is also one of the reasons why the new player restriction doesn’t end till level fifteen.

Yes I was quite estranged by that Barry.

You see Larry, I am still level ten and for the people I know who are coming close to finishing the second stage are barely level thirteen. So the new player restriction allows us to learn without too much worry about the consequences of failing through trial.

I see. So Barry, let us move on to Crafting.

Ah Crafting. I pers-]

Turning the TV off, Yulia finally feels a lot less shaky, albeit quite hungry.

Making a quick sandwich for herself, she has a little think about her current path.

She is only at the first stage of her path but the way it is going, she is not sure when it will end for her.

Sighing slightly, she finishes her sandwich and looks towards the large chrome capsule that resides in the center of her room.

Time to log back in.

…

Her eyes opening to the dim light of the room, Yisra immediately sees Moren and that man doing something in the middle of the room.

Before she has time to react and move away, she sees the glint of a butcher’s knife as it slices down through an outstretched finger.

*Bang*

Banging his fist on the floor while only a small amount of noise comes from his gagged mouth, the man isolates another of his fingers.

“BLaaaargh”

Moren stops the knife and looks up to see Yisra bent double retching out her insides once again.

“Oh Yisra, you were gone all day. We were starting to think you ran away” Moren talks lightheartedly even though he’s holding a bloodied knife.

She retches a few more times before no more comes out.

“What…what are you doing?” She weakly gasps out

“Well, since we can’t crack his bones any longer, not even with the two of us, he decided to move onto regeneration” Moren states ‘matter of factly’.

Yisra, stumbles across the room and to the door

“At least find another room to do it in please” She says weakly before she disappears out the room”

Moren feels more than a twinge of pity for her, since he knows that she can’t handle the sight well.

Evidence of that is the now permanent slightly acidic smell that encompasses the room from daily vomiting of Yisra, and sometimes Moren.

Moren is a bit more used to it since he has been the helper for the month.

To him, this month has been a strange yet oddly fulfilling one.

Every morning, he would break every bone in the man’s body. Then every twenty minutes he would come back to the room and break the man’s bones once again. However there was once a day where he would go with the man to pray to their respective goddesses.

Because of this, Moren got quite used to the sound and feeling of breaking bones, and he also noticed that he felt quite a bit stronger than before.

However about a week ago, he was not able to break the bones alone anymore and the man had to help break himself.

Hearing the man’s muffled screams as well as constant tears down his eyes, Moren had questioned the man’s sanity. But his him for going through with the constant pain made Moren continue helping.

Then, this morning, both were unable to break any of the man’s bones. So the man decided to move onto regeneration of limbs.

This is why Moren had a bucket next to him; he had filled it a couple of times with his vomit at the sight of blood and a partially limbless man.

He is still getting use to it, however for some reason he feels oddly calm when doing this. It is only after he is finished that his body fully realizes and reacts.

Slicing off a few more fingers the man’s beating of his fists on the floor causes the finger bones to crack.

Moren has a deep respect for this man who is willing to suffer this much pain for his own ambitions.

*Knock Knock*

“Come in”

Bishop Yan walks in and upon seeing the duo doing the usual, although altered in a gruesome way, shakes his head at the two.

The two stop what they’re doing and kneel down in the growing pool of blood

“You two are terrors to the whole Cathedral. However, I come here on a slightly different note”

“What is it brother Yan?” Moren asks confused as to why they are being talked to

“You both have been skipping duties and in your case” He looks at the man “You have not ever shown up”

“We are truly sorry about that Brother Yan”

“Yes, I know, however you have no need to be sorry. In fact, you have made some strange progress which I do not disagree is worth the time”

“Hmm?” Moren looks confusedly at Yan

“It is difficult to break his bones now is it not? Well that alone shows the fruit of your labour”

“Thank you Brother Yan, but may I ask why this has to do with you coming here? Are you here to berate us or to congratulate us?”

“In a way both. Firstly I am here to berate you for skipping on your duties and I am here to tell you that you will not need to do them anymore”

“What do you mean by that?” Both look incredulously at Yan

“Simple, I have told Danfey and Chad that you are both to be exempt from normal duties and are allowed free reign as disciples”

Moren’s face lights up in glee since he knows that this means his boring duties are gone. Though he stops himself with jumping from joy at the odd reward

“However you are given the task of helping him as much as you are able to do. Also do not forget the ceremony in three months time. Even as the Bishop of this place, I cannot permanently keep you as special disciples so you must pass the ceremony and become brothers or be excommunicated from the cathedral”

With that, Bishop Yan left the room, wrinkling his nose slightly as he exits.

Moren and the man are both on the spot looking wide-eyed to the ceiling, both for slightly different reasons.

Ungagging himself the man looks at Moren

“What do we have to do for the ceremony?”

“In the ceremony, we disciples are put to court with all the brothers of the Cathedral present. Then they will personally judge whether we are able to become fellow brothers or whether we are to be excommunicated”

“But that’s basically a popularity contest” The man’s eyes widen further as he realizes the significance of his words

“Yes, hence why we will be excommunicated in three months time” Moren let the words hang in the air, looming over both like an executioners axe.

“B-but there must be another way to be accepted”

“None that I know”

Both look to the blood covered floor.

“Then we will find a way” The man looks determinedly at Moren “For I’m sure there are brothers who others did not like throughout history, so they must have found a way, a loophole”

“But that is them and we are in a different age”

“We are yes, but I believe we still have a chance”

“What makes you believe that?”

“Why did he tell us that we must pass the ceremony before being excommunicated?”

“Because it is tradition”

“That is true, but tells us who passes and who does not?”

“The brothers”

“No…it is the gods and goddesses who determine our worthiness in being in this church” A deeper voice comes through the opening door, revealing it to come from Jacob, the other disciple who lives in this room.

Both the man and Moren look in shock at Jacob at what he is saying.

"How do you know that Jacob?" Moren asks curiously

"Well if you ever went to a talk by Brother Paul you would've heard him say it"

Both quickly accept that as truth and gain a new light of hope in their eyes.

“I was going to say we have the bishop on our side already, but that too I suppose” The man scratches the back of his head as he chuckles.

“So, we are supposed to hope our goddesses send a divine signal in our ceremony?” Moren asks Jacob with a raised eyebrow

“Well, Aegi certainly cannot be displeased with him” He points at the man “Because, I’ve witnessed him praying daily. Well praying is a light word for what you do”

All three of them nod at that. One of the reasons why the brothers don’t really like them is because when they go pray, the man shows his progress to Aegi, with Moren’s help of course. A traumatizing experience to present brothers’ faith and stomachs.

“So all we need to do is continue as we are?” Both ask Jacob simultaneously

“Well that seems like the case, nothing more you two can do to catch your goddesses’ eyes”

With that, Jacob goes to his bed and lies down to sleep

“Though, could you please keep the noise to a minimum while I’m trying to get to sleep? A couple of minutes after and you can go back to whatever you’re doing”

Both of them consent to that, and quickly bandage the man’s cut fingers, which both forgot to do and thus caused quite a blood loss in the man.

Looking quite pale, the man takes a quick nap on his bed while Moren makes his way to the exit of the Cathedral.

Kneeling on the forty second step towards the dying sun, he gives a quick prayer before heading back inside.

Going to the washroom, he picks up a filled bucket of water and a mop.

Returning to the room, the floor in the middle of the room is cleaned up within a short period of time.

Checking that Jacob is asleep, Moren wakes the man up, prepares bandages on the side and makes sure he has his vomit

bucket closeby.

Grabbing the butcher’s knife, he aims towards the isolated index finger.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quick update today :D I guess i had the brains to do it today yaaay

Also, ot all you lovely people who comment (even if it is like thanks for chap) :* :* :* Kisses to alllllll of you :D