44

At the Center of Everything

As they passed through the gate of the outermost wall, the city sprawled before them, a marvel of carved stone buildings and staircases. Like a spiral rising to a point, smaller walls arranged in ever-higher rings sectioned off hundreds of facilities that stood taller and taller until reaching the central tower that overlooked the city. The road of white bricks was mostly empty aside from the occasional merchant NAP, sitting with a towering backpack of items and looking rather bummed about apparent the lack of business.

You have discovered a new area!

You have gained experience! (+721)

NOSTDAL

There weren’t as many players roaming about, as most of them were either participating in the raid defense or watching from the ramparts. They were lined up at the top of the enormously high wall encompassing the city, conversing with each other as they watched the battle. Every so often an explosion shook the ground, rattled the balcony supports, and made everyone sway. Rian could still hear the commotion from here, the indistinct roaring of thousands of creatures.

It suddenly occurred to him that being inside a city under siege was probably the last place he wanted to be, but the anti-damage field from the nullshard was still present. He supposed for that reason none of the spectators were particularly worried about their balcony collapsing.

Kat led him down the street to a tavern, one of the few wooden structures among the endless marble buildings. A sign above it read, The Roaming Raven.

It hadn’t even occurred to him that there were taverns or bars in this world. He’d been expecting to go right into the second job advancement.

Were they seriously about to get drunk before advancing?

It didn’t sound like a good idea, but Kat was already going on ahead.

When they entered, welcoming them was a stout, red-haired barkeeper NPC. The rest of the tavern was mostly empty aside from two other players—from the guilds Kaizan and Jjang—sitting alone at different tables and watching the raid defense from floating portal windows.

As Kat approached the bar, she turned to Rian and said, “You’re old enough to drink, right?”

Flushing at the fact that he had to think about it for a moment—he’d kind of skipped being twenty and all—he quickly nodded.

Kat ordered a porter. The barkeep slid a foamy mug of dark beer to her, and she flipped him a coin.

Rian stepped nearer to the counter. “I’ll take a, uh…” Shit, what do I— “I’d like one alcohol, please.”

Kat nearly spat out her drink mid-sip. Some of it landed on the counter and dried instantly.

At Kat’s suggestion, he ordered an ale. The cost was a mere one gold—thanks to the companionship level between the barkeep and Kat.

When Rian took a sip, he was expecting it to be bitter, but any sense of it was buried under the taste of liquid bread. It was sweet, surprisingly. After a few more sips Rian found himself becoming a bit woozy.

It felt a bit comfortable, but it wasn’t anything special. He supposed the System was limiting what he could feel. Reproducing the effects of alcohol like this wasn’t all that amazing, as the technology had existed for a while in the service of rehabilitating alcoholics and attacking other forms of drug abuse. Banning substances through legislation had never really worked, and it turned out that advanced VR tech had made the notion of ingesting substances obsolete altogether. There was no point when the same effect could be delivered by stimulating the brain via headset.

The effects of virtual intoxication were just as scary, though. There were black-market and dark-web headsets out there that could accurately induce the effects of certain drugs—brain damage and all. That had been a major component in the laws surrounding gaming headsets being unable to directly affect the users’ brains, of which Mirage had been one of the foremost cases.

Rian was sure that had been a disappointing day for the majority of MMO producers: the day their dreams ended of directly flooding players’ brains with dopamine to get them hooked.

As he sat with Kat, they talked about the game, its development history, the top-ranking PVPers that Kat had run into in the early days, the small details they’d noticed and some of the peculiarities of the lore. They lost themselves in conversation for what felt like hours—about the game, about gaming itself.

When it came down to it, they shared a connection that only their kind knew: that nothing made them happier than losing themselves, when everything else fell away and the only reality that mattered was the challenge at hand. Time would seem to vanish, and even their single-minded focus would become in itself a kind of game: to see how long they could maintain their concentration and enter flow.

The coveted flow state.

There was truly nothing better. No sense of self or ego or worry, just a goal within reach and everything coming together to achieve it, one step after the other, letting the process take over oneself and allowing the mind to perform unimpeded by anything at all.

And yet, as they talked, Rian sensed that Kat felt guilty sometimes about how much time she’d spent here. Not at the bar, but in the game itself.

No matter how long their nostalgic, caffeine-laden gaming marathons could last, they still had to come up for air at some point. They still had to return to their real lives at the end of the day, and that was perhaps the saddest part of it. She supposed to him that she’d be a lot happier if she could stay here forever. She’d already made the game her life, in a way. Taking that extra step didn’t sound so bad.

Rian almost contradicted her. But when it came down to it, he was pretty happy with the way things were going. Even if it had only been two days or so since he’d become stuck here, the initial distress had begun to wear off. He was gaining confidence in his ability to handle what this world was throwing at him, and it was starting to seem like he wasn’t in as much danger as he’d originally thought. To’ve gotten to subclass level so quickly, he was sure that everything was going to work out.

His old life seemed like a distant dream. He’d never really been all that close to his extended family, and although he was certain they’d miss him and that they would grieve when the news finally got out, it was oddly comforting to know that they’d eventually move on without him. And if someone recognized him here, he could simply deny it, chalk it up to coincidence. Even if the GMs eventually came around to answer that ticket he’d put in at the start, he had a feeling that everything would be just fine.

He really was freed from everything. The future seemed bright for once, and Rian found himself holding onto that notion, that first glimpse of light. It had been a little rough at the start, what with the whole being torn away from home and becoming stuck inside a game world, but that amount of upheaval would’ve left anyone a little traumatized.

Maybe it was the virtual alcohol, but Rian felt like he’d reached a turning point in his outlook. He found himself more and more okay with the idea of leaving everything behind, that he could lose himself in the systems here seemingly forever. The best part of it, of course, was that he could experience it all alongside someone like Kat.

As Kat had a few more drinks, she explained that in real life she was twenty-five and married to a doctor who basically threw money at her to make her as happy as possible. Her husband couldn’t see her very often due to his extremely busy schedule, and since she didn’t have to work or anything, she just played Mirage all day. Her life had already become the game.

That took Rian aback somewhat, but he felt as if he should’ve seen this coming. Her almost manic disposition toward the game—her eagerness, her dedication—was hiding another side of herself.

He agreed with her, anyway. He’d used gaming as a way to distract himself just like anyone else—from his life, from his mother’s condition. Though things had changed quite a bit since then.

Kat even joked about making him her surrogate husband, with an ironic in-game marriage ceremony and all, and Rian had to laugh. They’d only known each other for a few days. But he still couldn’t discount the possibility, if things kept up like this.

“I’ve been having a lot of fun, Cob,” Kat said, smiling. “That’s the truth of it. That’s what matters. I’d been planning on starting this new character for a long time, but to be honest, helping you along has been the best part of it. I don’t really care about climbing PVP ranks as much as this—just having fun with some friends.”

She smacked her forehead and set down her drink. “Oh, god,” she said, “I’m doing it again. I do this every time.”

“Do…what, exactly?” Rian said.

“Have a few drinks and end up spilling my life story to someone.” Chuckling, she shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to unload all this onto you.”

“No, no,” he said. “I get it. I just—”

He felt like this was the part where he was meant to do the same in return, but…

No, he wasn’t going to bring it up. Not yet, and especially not in a public place like this, even if most of the players were out watching the raid. It felt like the equivalent of exposing the Mark on his shoulder—the threat of ending his journey short.

“What about you?” Kat said, smiling faintly, her eyes half-closed. “What’s your story?”

Dammit. She just had to go and ask that.

“Eh, there’s not much to me, really,” Rian said, looking away. “I’m just okay at games, I guess.” The barkeep, polishing a glass with a cloth, raised an eyebrow at him.

“This again, huh?” Kat said. “You really have the potential to become one of the best, I think. I know I keep saying that, but from what I’ve seen, you haven’t built up a bunch of bad habits to overcome like the people who’ve been playing a long time. Like me.”

Rian blinked. “But you’ve got, what, a whole year of experience in this game? You make it sound like you’re not the outrageously skilled one, here.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s always easier to see the flaws in other people than in yourself.” She took a deep breath through her nose, sighed. “A bad foundation means you always have to start over and relearn everything, no matter how far you climb. Finding someone who’s got a clean slate to start with and the talent to back it up is a lot rarer than you think.”

“I mean, I don’t think I’m all that special.” Rian lifted his mug to take another sip.

“Well, on the bright side,” Kat said, turning her mug in place on the counter, “this doesn’t happen to anyone except the people I feel a real connection with, so I guess you’re at least somewhat special after all.”

Kat’s trust in you has increased!

Companionship Level Up! (Lv. 2→3)

Kat is now a Confidant!

[!] The Companionship System: Confidant

While partying together, companions of this level will receive +8% EXP and +4 to all stats; stamina usage is reduced by 15%. Once per 24 hours, you can revive a Confidant who has fallen in combat.

He double-taked at that last perk. That on-demand revive would be extraordinarily useful, especially for him if it meant the Cognitive Mirror wouldn’t reload his consciousness.

Glancing up at the same notification, Kat said, “And I know it goes without saying—because the System can’t actually lie—but I really mean it.”

Her smile warmed him a little, though he wasn’t sure if it was the beer or his feelings for her. The wooziness was starting to feel a bit much.

How the hell am I supposed to do the advancement like this?

Rian stood up, and the feeling vanished instantly.

“The feeling’s gone?” he said. For a moment he thought he’d have to learn a drunken boxing style or something.

“Oh, yeah,” Kat said. “It’s coded to stop once you stand up.” Standing, she raised her glass. “To advancement!” She threw the empty mug to the floor.

The barkeep winced at the sound of glass breaking and then rolled his eyes. Like a magic trick, he produced a colorless tesseract from out of the cloth he’d been using to clean a mug. The glass cube shattered silently in his palm. As if in exchange, the shards of the broken mug clinked as they began to shake upon the floor and rose into the air. Piece by piece, the cracks vanishing, the mug reassembled itself anew on the counter.

The barkeep held out his hand, and Kat tossed him another tesseract as if it were just a matter of business.

When Rian turned to stand, he saw Corvis seated beside one of the adventurers at a table. Frowning, Corvis watched the unsuspecting player set down their mug of beer, and then—with their attention focused on a window displaying the progression of the raid outside—Corvis gently pushed the mug off the table like a cat.

Startled at the sound of glass breaking, the adventurer glanced around, then shrugged with his palms in disbelief upon finding his drink spilled. Corvis grinned, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“Oh, come on,” the barkeep muttered.

“I swear, it fell on its own!” the adventurer pleaded.

Rian followed Kat out the door. Outside, the roads in the city were still mostly empty.

Kat gave him directions on where to go for his job advancement. It was in the same location for everybody, meaning they’d have to enter different instances apart from each other. They agreed to meet up again once they were done, and then they headed in opposite directions down the street.

In silence apart from the distant sounds of the raid, Rian stopped when he heard the tavern’s doors open behind him. It was Corvis, stepping through.

He folded his hands behind his back, looked expectantly at Rian, and said, “Well?”