As excited as a kid during Christmas morning, I went to accomplish my mission.

Walking through that enormous forest I followed the map the old lady gave me. It wasn’t a very detailed map but it worked. In a few minutes I found myself in front of the place that was specified in the already mentioned piece of paper.

I was happy but also scared because I knew what fighting one of these Lagvfs was. They were very strong monsters and they also seemed to have a bit of intelligence which makes the fighting harder. It’s also important to remember that even though this is a game, it’s not the same to using a controller.

“Right now I’m using my body and my only weapon is my sword, so I need to have that in mind” I thought.

I also remembered those f*cking words again: “Don’t die.”

That phrase was really ruining the whole experience.

“Why did she have to say that?” Was the only thing I could say at that moment.

After blaming that woman for a while I decided to calm down and started to motivate myself with phrases like “I know how to fight these monsters already” and “everything’s gonna be fine”.

Finally I decided to start.

I saw one Lagvf taking care of his eggs. It was obviously the perfect chance to attack.

I remembered my last fight with one of these; they run to attack the enemy as soon as they see it. If you dodge it then there’s a moment when they get a little disoriented. That seems like the perfect chance to attack but they all have these hard scales in their backs which makes impossible for a sword to pierce it through.

“I have my plan”.

I got closer to the monster trying to get his attention.

He immediately turned around and, as I predicted, attacked.

Instead of dodging the attack I stayed there.

I changed my position to receive the attack. My left leg was stretched and pointing to the monster while the right one was instead shrunk with the knee pointing to the right. The whole balance of my body was resting on my right leg and my two arms were grabbing the sword while trying to point to my objective.

I stayed in that position until the monster was about to reach me.

“One second late and I’ll be dead” I said in low voice.

Right before hitting me, I changed my position. Changing my balance point to the left leg and stretching my arms and sword to the front I pierced through the monster’s soft stomach and almost instantly killed him.

A lot of blood got out of my enemy. As I was drawing the sword a couple of organs of the monster fell out of the body. Even though it was still very gross I didn’t cared a lot. Actually, I was enjoying it. Who knows? Maybe it was because of the excitement of the victory or maybe because I really liked killing something with a sword.

Once I got back to my senses, I ran to the nest of my already-dead enemy and took the eggs that I was previously requested.

I opened the menu to check how many eggs I needed: “3/15”.

“If one lagvf gave me three eggs then I’ll need to kill at least 4 more in order to complete the quest. Let’s get moving.”

Decided to finish my mission I closed the bag filled with eggs and went to look for more monsters.

As soon as I found one, I did the exact same process than before and it worked perfectly. It was a perfect method. One by one they kept falling and falling. I started gaining confidence in my skills and got to a point where I didn’t fear them anymore.

It was easy. Way too easy.

Suddenly two monsters appeared and attacked me at the same time.

They both hastily went for me. Running at full speed they were almost as fast as a leopard.

They were angry, you could know by their faces.

Without any sign of fear or hesitation I faced them. I waited till the very last moment to jump back and dodge their attack.

“They are both running to the point I’m located. With that speed, if those two crashed then the impact would leave them stunned.” That was what I thought and it was exactly what happened.

They were running diagonally to me, one from the left and the other from the right, with one step back it was obvious they would crash.

I didn’t wait for them to recover and slashed them right in the stomach.

Once again, it was my victory.

I already had all the eggs but the ecstasy of killing something alive was way too good to leave it there. I had to kill more.

I went to look for more monsters. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there were a lot.

Without mercy, I kept slashing through those monsters and killing them. The satisfaction, the emotion, everything felt incredible. Even the smell of the corpses lying on the floor felt good. I was going mad.

In the moment where I couldn’t feel more invincible, a lot of monsters encircled me and left me with no chance to escape. It was a dead end.

Once again I experienced true fear.

“Sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t.”

The monsters were really angry and they were not going to leave me alone until they made sure that I was dead.

My breathing changed, my hands trembled, and my mind was going blank. My ability to reason was lost and I had to think of a way to escape. Instead of that I started to curse everybody, everybody except myself.

“Ahhhh! F*ck those developers, f*ck those faggots of the school for letting me escape, and fuck that girl for saying that we can’t die.”

“I HATE YOU ALL!”

After cursing and releasing myself I gave up. There was no way to escape, that was my end. I was just hoping for the death to not be so painful.

I closed my eyes and waited for the moment when suddenly…

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuushhhh”

A sound like one of a flamethrower was heard very close to me.

The temperature raised and my arm got burned by a flame.

I opened my eyes and a giant red dragon was flying above me, just staring at me while all the other monsters were burning in flames.

“You got to be kidding.”

The dragon then growled and moved its wings. He was ready to attack one more time.

“Holy sh********t!”

I started to run with all my strength heading nowhere. I couldn’t think clearly and to make matters worse I slipped with one of the corpses that were in the floor.

I couldn’t concentrate and my only thought was “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die”.

Then, I listened to one soft and sweet female voice coming from behind me.

“Relax, everything is gonna be fine. You’re a smart guy, I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

I looked back but there was no one.

“What the f… Anyway, she’s right. I need to concentrate.”

I started to calm down and to think on a way to escape.

The big red dragon reached me and was ready to fire up.

I checked my surroundings and saw a not-so-small rock in my left.

Without thinking it much I threw it and aimed the monster’s head. I was very good at sports even though I didn’t really like them so I was confident that the rock would hit the target.

Right after throwing it I got up and started running one more time as fast as I could. I didn’t even bother if the rock actually hit the dragon but one thing was for sure and it was that he got distracted.

I headed to a part of the forest where a lot of trees were very close to each other. The dragon was too big to be able to enter the place, so that was my only chance.

The distance was relatively close but it was still hard to get there before the dragon.

It was a race with my life in game.

There was nothing in my mind but the single thought of running.

“I need to get there, I need to get there, I need to get there, I’M GONNA GET THERE!”

With lots of positivism I ran to the safe area. My legs were already very tired but that didn’t stop me. I kept running and running, in that moment I realized something.

“He’s right behind me, I’m not gonna make it like this.”

I kept running but it was too late. The dragon already reached me and was beside me. He was ready to open his mouth and fry me up. In that moment a smile was drawn in my face.

He did exactly what I expected him to do. Then, I executed my plan.

I changed my direction and headed to the tail of the beast. I aimed at it with the sword that I (thanks to God) still had, and got to cut one part of it. The dragon cried because of the pain and I kept running to the densest part of the forest.

There, I found a cave and hid there for the rest of the night.

“Ah… ah… ah” I finally breathed in peace.

I was extremely tired because I’d spent the whole day running, either it was because of the excitement or maybe because of being escaping from the monsters.

“Well… I.. I just want to… leave this place now” I said while my breathing was finally getting back to normal.

“It has been enough “fun” for today. Also I don’t think I’m coming back to here until they have some security measures.”

I opened the menu and saw Maid-chan who was just there, looking at me with the same smiling expression.

My eyes looked at the right, superior corner of the menu to check how much time was left in the Beta.

5 minutes were left until the finishing hour.

“What the f*ck, weren’t they supposed to tell us how much time was left before one hour remaining?”

“Maybe I was just too concentrated in the fight. I’ll just wait here till they get us out of here.”

Those five minutes were going to feel incredibly long since I already wanted to be in home, resting. At least that’s what I thought. So, to distract myself I started to think which games I was going to play the next day.

While thinking in a bunch of different things I fell asleep…

“Hmm… hm…”

I opened my eyes little by little.

“Mom?...”

“Ah.”

“Where am I?”

Suddenly, tons of memories came back to me and I realized where I was.

“Haven’t those 5 minutes already passed?

I checked the menu.

“Hmm, this is weird. The time has already passed but I’m still here…”

I was trembling and starting to sweat.

“Maybe th... they are going to leave us here…”

My breathing was heavy and I almost panicked.

A lot of terrible thoughts crossed my mind and I was really getting scared.

Then I calmed down and remained silent.

I started to analyze the situation in a more logical way.

“C’mon, c’mon, it has to be some kind of mistake.”

“I know! Maybe they were just going to notify us when the time was over and we had to log off ourselves.”

Hoping that was the reason why I wasn’t home yet, I opened the menu and searched for the “Log Off” button that is always at the end of the menu window.

“Hmm, I can’t find it.”

I thought it would be good to ask Maid-chan since she’s there for that kind of problems.

“Maid-chan, are you there?”

“I’m always for you master, what do you need?”

I had already noticed but it wasn’t sure until that time. Maid-chan’s AI is programmed to constantly change her personality. I thought it was very cool and took my time to praise the developers for that detail, even though I was dying in fear at that moment. Maybe I just wanted to distract myself for a while and ignore all the tension I was living.

“Would you tell me how to get out of the game?”

“I’m sorry master but that’s impossible. In fact, I was ordered to show you a video once you asked that.”

“…”

In a matter of seconds the video started playing and a man wearing a whole black suit and a red Kabuki mask appeared.

“Good evening chosen kids. I know that you have a lot of questions so I will be brief in trying to explain to you why you’re here.”

His voice was deep, way too deep to be human. And I wasn’t wrong, it was a computerized voice.

His voice, his clothes and the mask he was wearing, all those facts gave him a mysterious aura and I was frightened.

“Right now we are in the middle of an experiment, a very important one. And you are a key part of it.”

“An experiment…”

“You may be asking right now what you have to do. Well, it’s very simple: survive. That’s the only thing, survive in this hostile virtual world that you are trapped in. If you survive long enough then you’ll probably find a way out, I’m completely sure. Isn’t that easy?”

“So we do are trapped…” I sadly said.

“I think there’s no need to tell you because you know already, but I’m gonna say it anyways; do, not, die. If you die here that’s it. Please be very careful from now on, you are very valuable to us.”

“Not this sh*t again…”

“I also want to give you one last advice. Don’t lose that device in your ears; you’ll really need it if you want to survive.”

“Anyway that’s everything you need to know, I want to wish you luck and I hope you don’t disappoint us. Good bye.”

Everything remained silent after those words.

I didn’t know how to react to such news. I was trapped in that world, not able to see my family until I discovered how to get out of there and to make matters worse, I could easily die.

“Hmm, dying. That could be easier now.”

“Please don’t do it.”

A familiar voice said those words to me. It was the same female voice that helped me calm down while escaping the dragon.

“Ah?”

With a confused expression I turned my head to the right and there she was, a young girl sitting on top of a rock.

She was beautiful, probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if it was her long blonde hair tied in a low ponytail, or her gorgeous green eyes, but something really made me fell in love with her.

Her body type was perfect: she wasn’t too busty but still had nice curves. Her skin tone was white, not white like most Asian people but a little bit darker white. She seemed so fragile.

Finally I noticed her clothing: a short white dress that allowed me to see her legs and feet which were barefoot.

After admiring her in a matter of seconds I asked her who she was.

“If you don’t know who I am then, why should I know myself?”

After hearing such a confusing answer I could not do anything but drop an “hmm” sound and remain silent after that.

“I don’t have a name but you can call me the way you want.”

“Liv…” I said that name in low voice.

“Liv? I like it!”

I didn’t expect her to hear me, I just said that name at random.

Why that name? Who was Liv? Well, because I was alone all the time I created an imaginary character as a kid that would help me whenever I had a problem. She was the image of perfection I had for a girl and for some reason, this lady reminded me of her.

“Then Liv, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help! To be honest I don’t who I am or what is my purpose but for some reason I know everything about you.

Because of that I thought it would be a good idea to help you in this problem you are facing.”

“Thank you, but I don’t think you can help. I’m thinking on killing myself.”

“Please don’t!”

“But what do I do then? I don’t know how to get out of here and until now I’ve survived because of luck, but I think I already ran out of it.”

“What are you saying? You do know how to get out and you have survived because you are very smart. You figured out how to escape from the Dragon and how to kill those monsters.”

“That’s not true! I don’t even know a clue to escape this place!”

“But some old lady back there told you…”

“A lady…”

“Do you remember why you came here in the first place?”

“I was getting some eggs for that lady! And she told me the legend of the castle! “If you win every floor in the castle then your wish will be granted” That’s what she told me!”

“But anyway I’m not strong enough to defeat the castle…”

“But what about the academy? I could get stronger in the academy!”

“Thank you liv!”

I didn’t realize it but she left the place a while ago, and left me alone talking to myself.

“Well that was a bit creepy but it’s not important right now. I have an objective now and nothing’s gonna stop me. The real adventure starts now.”