Legendary Twilight Farmer

Chapter 00: Prologue: How Did I Ever Get Into This Mess?!

Picture this scene.

A scene where someone with noble and heroic deeds was congratulated upon and treated with respect. Where he would return home full of warmth with an embrace from his loved one and everyone else revered him. No matter the level of fame and wealth, he would always get by and never to be discouraged by the hardship that fell upon his laps. Where he could laugh and join in the neighbours and strangers abound, sharing his tales of valour from the battlefield.

If anyone were to come up to me and said that those things existed to my face, I would punch him senseless, beat him like a dog, and end his misery with a strike to his gonads.

Life was too cruel for me. Even saying it cruel was an understatement of what had happened to me. From my young age, I had given everything; my family, my life and my soul for the country and its people. I had been in the Special Force since the age of 19, where guys my age went to college, had a girlfriend or two and partied all day long. I slogged in the mud, yelled in my face by the drill sergeant, and my sleeping companion was my SOFR-52 rifle. In between being fired upon, blown away or endured mind-breaking torture.

Yet, at 29 years of age, where do I end up?

Nowhere. Yes, that was right. Nowhere.

I struggled to see what would life hold for me now.

“Oi! Don’t forget to pay your fucking rent, cripple!”

The landlady’s voice suddenly interrupted me. I was looking through my old belongings and decided to throw it away at the garbage bin nearby the house I was renting. Well, it was one of the room that I rented anyway.

“I’ll pay you when I have the money!” I shouted back at her, turning my wheelchair towards the house.

“You said that 4 fucking months ago!” The landlady, Mrs Green was always foul-mouthed. Anytime she opened that hole of hers, that four-letter word would always appear.

“If it’s not because you’re a fucking cripple, I would have thrown you fucking out of the fucking house a long time ago!” She cursed right through her porch. Those who looked around was either chuckling at the exchange between us or were whispering insults behind my back. These women who gathered there were the neighbourhood onion-bitches. They were the type that went around from one house to another just to hear and spread gossip. And I was sure that my name would always be on their lips.

“Bryan! Don’t tell that I did not fucking warned you. You better pay this month, or else I’ll throw you and your items out!”

“Heh. Don’t need you throw it for me. I’ll gladly do it myself, bitch!”

She slammed the door hard as one of her potted plants fell onto one of her friends on the porch. I could not help but to snicker, seeing how much those bitches gathered around and annoyed me.

Oh, and I was annoyed over everything. The honking of the car, dogs chasing each other, the children running around and…

Suddenly, the front door was opened yet again. “Oi, fucking cripple. Someone has been looking for you!”

“Tell him I’m not here!”

“And what do you take me for? Your fucking mom? Tell him yourself!”

Ughh…

It was those guys again. I better get moving or else would end up in the wrong end of the garbage dump if I was not careful. Loan sharks were not to be messed around, especially when it was about returning due monies owed. And I owed them a lot.

I quickly returned to the house, took a quick bath and got myself dressed even quicker. I could not even bother to clean up my room after all the mess I’d done looking for my old belongings to be thrown away. I needed to make a fast getaway before I was caught by those people.

15 minutes later, I ended up at a nearby convenience store. I worked here as a part-time store-boy for the night shift. This was my newest job after I had been fired from my previous job as store-boy for a liquor store. They accused me of stealing the liquor and drinking on the job which I vehemently denied. I drank a lot of booze, I knew that, but never once I stole from them. Whatever booze I drank, I paid for it. But of course, being in a prejudiced community like this, especially towards a no good cripple like me, was not going to win me my case. Or anyone to my defense, either.

“So, you work here now?” From the door of the convenience store, came the most dreaded person I’d ever wanted to meet. I tried to avoid him like a plague.

“She told me that you work here now.” That bitch of a landlady. She should just keep her mouth shut. “Hey, Bryan. You know why I’m here, right?”

The tall and clean-shaven man, who was dressed in a full suit, with a matching hat on top of a very well combed hair, was the loan shark. He was also the local Mafia Big-Brother of this place.

“I don’t have the money if that is what you want.”

“Tch. Tch. It ain’t nice of you to go back on your words you know.”

“What else can I do if I don’t have the money?” I was disgusted and I was not hiding it from him.

“You know, for a cripple, you sure have guts.” Well, that was the only thing I had left. Guts. But guts alone could’t feed me. My meagre saving was depleted before I knew it and for months, I had to rely on borrowed money from these loan sharks.

“You owed us 5 million dollars and you are not going to pay it, I presumed.”

“What?! I just took from you guys about 100 grand for my medical fees. Nothing more!” I was so surprised that it took me a few moments before I brought myself and faced him directly.

“So you say. 50% interest rate on the principal amount over 5 years. And of course the fees of finding you and late payment fees all are included too, you know.”

“You bastard! It’s not even 5 years!”

“And you had not paid us a cent since you took the money from us.”

If I was abled, I could KO-ed this guy in an instant. But as someone who relied on his wheelchair most of the time, I could hardly move fast enough to even do anything. Not much more than just waving a punch from this pathetic position anyway.

“You know, the Boss is quite annoyed with you. Not only you did not pay us back, but you did not give us respect. Respect, man. The Boss really hates when people don’t give him the respect, you know.”

“So, what now? What does he want? I have no money and nothing you do to me can make me return your money. I’m dead broke as it is, right now.”

“That’s the Boss’s to decide. All you need is to come with me, properly. Unless of course, you want the store to end up like the previous one you worked. It’s… chaotic. And personally, I don’t like it when I have to dirty my hands.”

Threatening to destroy the place where I worked with. Perhaps that was the reason why I was fired. The loan sharks threatened the owner and he had to get rid of me before anything happened to their store. Not that it would stop these fools from destroying anything.

“So, if I go with you, you’ll not harm the owners and destroy this shop?”

“You got my words for it. So, coming with us, Bryan?”

“Do I look like I have a choice?”

*****

“So, the fools return all but empty-handed.” The Boss of the Mafia group looked at me as he smoked his cigars. All around him were bodyguards, with no less than 20 of them surrounding us.

“20 people, all for me? I’m honoured, Al Caputa.”

“Oh, sharp eyes. And a sharper tongue too.” He gave out a grin that would send anyone a certain deathly reminder how cruel and evil this man could be. “I heard you had made yourself a little elusive for my boys, Bryan.”

“Had to do whatever it needed to survive.”

“Good. You needed that, you know. For what’s coming next to you.” He puffed out a smoke directly to my face. Trying to unnerve me, but this was nothing more than sham threat at best.

“What do you mean?”

“Hahaha. Ohh Bryan…” He gave out an eerie laugh that filled this dark and small room. Everyone else followed suit. “My boy, Bryan. You know why we can’t kill you?”

I stared at him without answering.

“ ‘Cause you are this country’s hero. Can’t have the army or government looking into our business if we did one of you boys, right?” He then signalled his men to my side.

“Well, Bryan. Nice meeting you. I’m sure you will find my boys, a little more pleasant…”

Two of his men grabbed me from the back and pulled me up from my wheelchair. Now, if I were to fight them here, I would not only waste my time and energy, but I would end up much worse than what would be coming next for me. Oh, and I knew really well what was coming for me. “Bryan, I’ll make you a bet. If you survive, consider our loan to you has been restructured.”

“So, I just survive then?”

“That’s what I like about you, Bryan. You don’t fear death. Yeah, you just need to survive.”

“And if I did, what about my loan.” I smirked.

“Oh, your loan still need to be paid. Money ain’t grow from trees, but to applaud your tenacity, we will give you more time to pay.”

“No interest?” Trying to win a favour against all the odds. That got him to laugh at best.

“Hahaha. Now, don’t waste my time, Bryan. You know too well that I don’t do business that way. You pay us what you owed to us until now. The only thing is, you have more time to find it, that’s all.”

“So, nothing change then?”

“Think of it as you will. Now, please excuse me. I got a dinner date with my wife and daughter, tonight.”

As soon as Don Caputa left the room, the whole 20 of those bodyguards gathered around me. This was going to be a very long night for me. I bit my lips as I braced for the first punch that came my way.

*****

“Oi, cripple. If you want to fucking die, don’t die at my place!”

That was the first word I heard after I woke up. As I strained to open my eyes, I found myself in the familiar surroundings of my own room. I remembered that I was beaten badly by Don Caputa’s men. I was still conscious, albeit momentarily when I picked up my phone and call Mrs Green. But of course, being Mrs Green, she was unmoved and unsympathetic of my suffering.

So, for me to see her the first thing I woke up was quite a surprise.

“M-Mrs Green?” I touched my forehead and sure enough, there were bandages on it. In fact, my whole body was in bandages.

“You are lucky that I used to work as a nurse. Fucking kid getting all beaten up like that!”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“Sorry? Sorry, my arse. Now you owe me four fucking months of rent and bandages fee!”

I slumped down my shoulder. People keep asking money from me, left and right. If I was to just die, would it not be better, though?

“But honestly, you are one fucking tough cripple. Like a fucking cockroach that you are. If you can endure those injuries, I’m fucking sure you would do well, if you get your head straight.”

Mrs Green said to me as she left my room and slammed the door. She was a foul-mouthed, un-classy, a brute and annoying bitch to be with, but at least she saved my life when I least expected it. I did not know why I called her that time, but I was kind of glad that I did. I checked upon my injury and found out that I had 6 broken ribs, my left arm was broken, bruises all over the places and needed 16 stitches on my head. Well, not too bad for an injury. My legs were spared though seeing that it might be useless for those men to hit me there. I was expecting worse, but then again, I was like what Mrs Green said to me, a cockroach.

Cockroach survived the earth for more than 100 million, you goddammit.

I would get over my injuries fast, though. My body had been primed to receive abuse upon abuse given to me. Injuries, like I had now, was just a child’s play. Painful yeah, but not fatal. Part of being in the Special Force, I had been trained to surpass certain human pain threshold. The reason why I fell unconscious was my head was knock over a few times. The concussion was what made me lost myself back then.

Well, I would take 3-4 weeks of rest to heal myself properly. But, I would definitely lose my job at the convenience store. Not that I was bothered with the meagre pay, but getting fired too often was not to my liking. I struggled to get to bed when I suddenly realized something.

My wheelchair!

Goddammit. I might have lost it back then. Now, how I would move around? Feeling frustrated, I threw the nearest item I could get hold on towards the door. I grabbed a DVD case and as I nearly threw it, the animation on the cover suddenly made me held myself for a good while.

“Ohh… So, that’s where you are.”

The DVD case was empty, except for a serial number that I had used for an online game. It was called Last Illusion XX Online, or LIXXO for short.

When I became a paraplegic the first time, 4 years ago in an accident, I spend most of my time playing games. I was diagnosed with PTSD and playing games were the only way I could overcome my trauma, somehow. And play I did. However, being a poor sod that I was, I could only get myself one game. And that game was Last Illusion XX Online.

It sure brought me back some memories. Feeling a little better now, I decided to start my PC.

I was not always the brightest guy in tech, so I asked one of the neighbourhood kid here to build me one from scratch. Nothing fancy but it could run me a few games. Though it could barely run even a web browser now, LIXXO was a game that would run smoothly on the PC.

LIXXO at the time of release, 15 years ago was one of its kind MMORPG. Though I had managed to play it just 4 years ago, nonetheless I was sure I had clocked monstrous hours playing. My play style was simple. Train hard, play hard. But in its simplicity, I really enjoyed it.

I was a loner. I did not belong to any group, clan or guild. Nor I participate in anything that involved more than 2 people. Siege war? Heh. If you want a real war, I would show you the real war. Siege wars were for pussies and weaklings gathering together trying to show off their skills for orgasmic online fulfilment. Clan or guild war? Not interested. PvP was for losers. Events? Sure, from time to time, but I was always alone. I had my reason to be, anyway.

My sole objective was to explore and hunt. Travel everywhere that I could travel and hunt anything that was created. That was my bread and butter. My soul nourishment. And I would do anything it takes.

300 hours hunting for monsters without sleep? Check. I’d done much worse than this.

Fighting over-levelled monster that could kill me in one hit? Check.

Raise my level in record time? Check.

Solo-ing a dungeon or instances that needed at minimum 4 people or more? Easy and check.

LIXXO was my life. Unfortunately, until 6 months ago, the company that ran and maintained LIXXO had merged with another. Though LIXXO had some players left, it was far cry from 5 million users it once had. And what was more, the rage now was the Virtual Reality System. VRMMORPG they called it. And the pinnacle of it was the game called Noble Path Online. A game that was now in its final beta-test. Even with a beta-test, the number of registered user exceeded 20 million!

Boasting state of the art Artificial Intelligence or AI system where all the NPCs could converse and act like a living and breathing person, a world that was so vast, with thousands of skills and best of all, it had no class. Who you wanted to be was up to you. Doesn’t like to be a fighter? Be a healer, then. Hate striking from the back? Be a melee. Hate using physical? Well, take your stand and shoot your fireballs.

But alas, a massive game such as this spoke of one thing; money.

The only thing that I didn’t have was money. At the going rate, it would cost me 200 dollars for a monthly subscription. At least 400 dollars for a minimum required VR gear and a PC system that support the game. All in all, the game was for people who had money.

*Beep* Beep*

Ahh, the nostalgic sound of the loading screen.

I entered my character screen and all that equipment I had made me teary eyed a little. It was rarest of the rare; Dragonborn Sword obtained by killing the Red Dragon, the ultimate monster and with a drop rate of less than 0.00001%. Next, was the Full Heaven…”

“Your connection to the server has been lost”