Corn’s hair was streaked with grey, his skin was dry and his muscles were screaming in pain. If one looked closely he had a slight beer belly. More importantly two fingers were missing and his wound was still spurting blood. He tried shaking it hoping the flesh would heal itself.

“Use this cloth, tie it up and we’ll get it stitched after work,” said the old man.

“No, it’s supposed to heal by itself,” argued Corn, shaking his hand even more vigorously.

“I keep telling you when your lives are assigned, you lose your infantile immortality. Your flesh won’t magically heal, your limbs won’t just grow back. I know the pain is disturbing but try to bear it.”

“Why would the pain disturb me?”

“Hmmm,” wondered the old man thinking about Corn’s violent battle with the giants, “but if you lose too much blood you’ll just die all over again. You are a middle aged man now, you are already half dead. You’ll take way more time to heal than if you are younger. Just bandage it.”

A siren rang. Finally, their eighteen hour shift was over. Line joined them next to the bus, completely infuriated.

“What were you thinking, trying to collect your lives here? At a construction site?”

As they sat on the bus both Line and the old man repeatedly grilled Corn. They told him that every single individual when they turned eighteen was an adult. As an adult each person could start training with Stats and was awarded race counters and life counters. Five lives, that was how much each person was awarded. And Corn just lost two.

Corn tried arguing back that lives weren’t all that important: as long as he didn’t die too often it wouldn’t matter. The other two quickly shut him up. They explained it was a matter of life span. It didn’t matter whether you died or not each life counter would only last ten years. Maximum. Losing two lives meant shaving off twenty years off his life. And getting new life counters, yeah menial grunts like them could forget about any of that.

Both of them implored him to go to the Guard or any other government office to make arrangements for his race counters. In fact, they insisted going with him right now.

So, they entered a building called Ministry of Counters. Unlike the Stat Temple, the building was modern. It was made of a clunky combination of brick, steel and glass and was lit up brightly. Once again, they stood in a long queue and when they reached the desk, Corn was issued a purple colored badge. All he had to do was show the badge when the race counters came to him. He would be under the protection of the Ministry.

“If it was that easy, why don’t they just tell everyone to go to the Ministry?” asked Corn.

“Everyone does. Only people like you aren’t aware of it. After all it’s a matter of life and death who would risk it,” retorted Line.

“Let me see, what other vitally important information are you missing? Yes, you must always, always respect Players. Never offend them,” advised the old man.

“Come on, even I know that.”

“Look around, can you tell how many Players are here? How do you even identify them?” asked Line.

Corn hesitated. They were walking along a busy street thronging with all kinds of people. Because this boulevard connected various Ministry buildings, the people walking around were finely dressed surrounded by guards and slaves. Instead of vehicles the road was dominated by people riding large tamed animals. His experience of Players were often in isolated areas where they were worshipped by all those around them.

“Rich and powerful. They must be incredibly luxurious. They have powerful weapons, soldiers guarding them and ride powerful mounts.” He was thinking about all the times he had seen Players.

“They’re officially called Beasts, but yes you’re partially right. I’ve heard there are ranks within Players too, not all of them are at the level of FreakKing or even the Lady that rescued us. But the one thing that is distinctive for all of them are their eyes.”

Corn looked around at all the eyes around him. Most of them were staring at him. They were all kinds of colours and patterns of eyes.

“Notice that most of the rich ones are wearing glasses. They have different shapes and designs but they always cover their eyes. “

The old man was right and Corn found they were all staring at him as they walked past.

“You see, just like Players have their own Screens and don’t have to go to screen booths like us, they also can see the status screens of everybody else around them. Because nobles and lower ranks who are rich want this ability, they wear special glasses. These glasses are pretty expensive but Players can hide their status screens from others. So if you can wear glasses anyone without a status screen is a Player and if you can’t afford glasses anyone rich without glasses is a Player. That’s a good rule of thumb to live by.”

“Of course those bastards can see more from your status screens than you yourself can access. It makes no fucking sense,” added Line.

“More?” asked both Corn and the old man.

“Yeah your history: what quests you’ve accepted, your previous rankings and even your friend list.”

“I never knew that,” said the old man.

Corn looked down at his bracelet. He could feel the creature squirming. He had to scan his bracelet at the Ministry and had to release the bug to exit the building. Just watching it squirm annoyed him, so he crushed it and looked back up.

Immediately, a red haired woman lifted her glasses and blew him a kiss. An ice elf attired in regimental uniform saluted at him. A Player whipping a chained zebra stopped to give a weak nod and went back to whipping the Beast. The old man remained oblivious but both Line and Corn were shocked. Disdain and contempt at their inferior ranks turned to respect. In a second.

For a second Line wondered if their attention was aimed at him, until he realised it was directed at Corn. He gave Corn a look. Corn looked back equally puzzled. What had he done to change- he paused.

The creature.

He slowly released his grip on the creature. Like clockwork, the people around him slowly went back to ignoring him. Line was more baffled. Had everyone just gone mad?

Corn’s instinct was to crush the bug on his arm but he hesitated. In his experience, when people behaved nicely to him only pain followed. Despite the irritation caused by the bug, he let it squirm freely.

The moment they reached the other part of town, devoid of any nobility, Corn crushed the bug on the bracelet. He sighed in relief.

After ensuring that Corn bandaged his bleeding hand, everyone went to bed

Everyone except Corn.

Using the money Line had lent, Corn went back to the Stat Temple. Despite all his restraint he managed to pluck two stitches the tree nymph had sewn, increasingly annoyed his flesh didn’t just heal itself. He met the same Stat Priestess on the stairs. Removing the hood of her emerald green robe, she looked at him in surprise.

“That was fast. We just opened. By now I thought you would have given up.”

Corn held out his bloody hand. The Stat Priestess sighed.

She walked over and held his hand. The bandages burst in to flames and his flesh healed, the blood vanished and his fingers grew back.

“H-How did you do that?” stuttered Corn in pure amazement.

She simply glided the glowing cube from the desk and dropped it in his hand.

And so Corn continued solving the puzzle for four hours.

He had to return grudgingly back to his dorms to start his next shift. By the time he reached, everyone had already boarded the bus, so he ran to join them. The supervisor stopped him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m in the same group as them,” Corn replied; pointing to the old man who was sitting next to the window and stifling a yawn.

“You’re late.”

“Only by a few seconds. If I could join them,” he stopped when he saw the vampire take out a pair of black sun glasses. Immediately he released the bug on his arm.

The vampire took out a phone and said, “CornWall, fire him.”

“Why did you do that?” he shouted.

“You were late.”

“Only by a few seconds and y-you stole one of my life counters. It would be nice if you could repay the favour.”

“You have proof of this?” interrupted the supervisor.

“No, but-“

“Then get lost, your services are no longer required,” shoving Corn out of the bus.

The bus moved out of sight. Corn sat dejected on the pavement for two seconds before standing up again. He went back inside to get his wages paid.

A streak of light whizzed in the sky. Twelve black unicorns landed on the pavement. A woman surrounded by her eleven guards alighted and entered the building. Inside Corn was arguing with the receptionist but the moment she entered the two of them swallowed their words. A Player.

“LightSnow, where is he?” she asked.

“You are here for the elf,” blurted out Corn, in surprise.

“Always address deities as Esteemed Goddess, not personally with words like you or them. What are you waiting for? Kneel!” shouted one of her guards.

Corn got on his knees and bowed his head. Even as a freed man he still had to behave like a slave. He almost crushed the bug in rage but held himself in check.

The receptionist stared dumbly for a minute until one of the guards brought out a whip. Immediately he crashed to his knees.

She motioned to the guards. “Please, stand up,” she said to the two of them.

Both kneeled in position.

“Where is he?”

“Esteemed Goddess, he has work on a construction site, he should be traveling there via bus,” answered Corn.

She turned to one of her guards, “Track him and bring him back.” She then looked at the receptionist, “Remove him from your guild quest.”

The spectre crawled on his knees to the reach the screen and started tapping on it.

A minute after the guard left, the door was pushed open by a panting elf. “Katrina,” he screamed and ran up to the Player and leapt into her arms. She smiled jubilantly and hugged him back crooning softly, “I missed you so much.”

“Same here,” he sighed and bowed his head in embarrassment at all the people looking at him embrace her. He stood next to her, giddy with joy. She put her arm around his waist. Instantly, he blushed and looked down.

“Tell me what happened,” she asked LightSnow. With big eyes, he explained in detail how they got stuck in a guild war and were attacked by the undead. The only reason, he explained, that he was still standing was because of Corn. Yes, the guy kneeling in front of them. The language he used to describe Corn would have made the same Corn blush as red as a beetroot if he knew how. Corn: the slayer of the undead; the chivalrous knight who rescued the poor prince from monsters. He heroically tamed the very same monsters to ride safely away from the undead horde.

The receptionist looked at Corn in surprise. The Player looked equally surprised. “Thank you, he is very precious to me,” she said looking adoringly at the elf. “As a show of gratitude, you are welcome to enter my outer harem whenever you want. Just look for the Black Rose guild,” she said pointing to the crest on one of her guards. All of them were flabbergasted.

Without waiting for a reply she walked out followed by her guards. The last guard clenched his teeth and whispered slowly, “You ugly prick. You are not even worthy of her attention. If you so much as dare to accept…”He moved his thumb across his throat. Then he walked out.

Both the receptionist and Corn were left kneeling there.

“I still want my money back,” said Corn.

“You’re still not going to get it.”

“I could accept that offer.”

“Please, that guy will kill you.”

“Not before the Player kills you first.”

And so with great reluctance the spectre handed over the screen to transfer Corn’s wages. Corn, with nothing else to do, headed straight back to the Stat Temple.