Author’s note:

There were multiple complaints about the time travel coming out of nowhere.

Just read Nolo’s comment at http://royalroadl.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=56614&page=2

He pretty much guessed everything from that chapter.

I had a whole chapter telling everyone it’s going to happen, not to mention multiple author’s notes saying so.

This chapter is timeline B where Ajax didn’t die. This is the main timeline that I would be writing chapters for.

Chapter 61- Reality

***July 5th, 965 A.F. (Night)***

***Mechanna***

***Ajax McGuire**

“But that’s impossible!”

With both of us sitting on the edge of the dungeon, I told Wyn everything, about my life as a human before the upgrade, how I was reborn as a goblin, and then I have respawned once again as a dwarf. She used her magic to heal me while I was telling the story, so I was as good as new. Still the magic didn’t treat my mental exhaustion. I would love to get this over with as soon as possible, so I skipped a lot of details in my story.

“Well, here I am. Mr. Impossible, at your service.”

“It was proven by some scientists a few century ago that A.I. cannot become self-aware! They worked on that question for thousands of years!”

“You don’t believe my story, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t… I mean I do. It’s complicated. I know you are not lying. That’s a fact.”

“How do you know I am not just making up an outrageous story just to get out of trouble for hacking?”

“Well, as a GM, I have a polygraph function available to me. It measures your brainwave to see if you are lying.”

“You are a GM? Why did you have that fight with me then? Couldn’t you just delete me or something?”

“That’s how I found out you were different. I tried to use a command to teleport you out of the dungeon when we didn’t see you at the entrance.”

“You couldn’t teleport me out of the dungeon? Then how did you teleport me to the dungeon in the first place?”

“I don’t know. If I have to guess, anything that sets a specific target doesn’t work on you. If that’s the case, it would explain why the area teleport worked on you. Anyway, when the commands didn’t work, I thought you used a hack to block my admin power. Since none of my commands worked on you, I thought that I would try to stop you by killing your avatar off and put you in indefinite respawn timer.”

I shiver at the thought of spending an eternity in the empty void. I would have turned insane. Lucky I managed to defend myself against Wyn. I sat in awkward silence for a moment to collect my thoughts. Finally, after a minute or so, I decided to break the ice with another question.

“Old rule, my turn to ask a question… what is outside like?”

“Pardon?”

“You know, the outside world. What is life in the reality like?”

She hesitated a little before answering me. I don’t know if it is because she has a hard time finding words to describe the real world or if she is not willing to tell me the truth.

“You know the world that you lived in before when you were human?”

“Ya?”

“That world was designed as a copy of what happened in the real world, except the reality is a lot more technologically advanced. If I have to guess, if another thousand years passed, the human world would catch up technologically with the reality.”

“Interesting.”

“Of course, all the advancements in the human world was sped up quite a bit by us. It took us at least twenty thousand years to develop everything.”

“You keep saying 'the human world.' Can I assume that the reality is not populated by humans?”

“Very astute of you. Yes, there are no humans or any other race in the reality, just elves. My turn to ask. Since you asked about life, it is only poetic for me to ask about death. You have died multiple times already. What is it like to die?”

“Kind of a morbid question is it? Why are you asking?”

“All elves are curious about death. This world wasn’t a game at first, you know. A friend of Fin had a crazy idea. She asked a simple question. What would life be like if everyone can only live for a certain amount of time? She ended up asking Fin to create a similar world where everyone have a life expectancy. It was a simulation to test out the idea of life expectancy. ”

“Wait you can’t mean…”

“Yes, elves are immortal. We still can die from accidents, though.”

“I see…”

“anyway, things happened, and before you know it, it became a game for everyone.”

“Ok, so you want to know about death. Let’s see… how should I put it?”

I paused to recall all two times I have died. It was hard to explain it in words. After a long consideration, I finally could give a decent answer about death.

“I can tell you that both of the times, death gave me a different feeling. The first time I died, it was an accident. I didn’t feel anything really. By the time I realized I had died, all I felt was apathy towards my death. The second time, however, was much more intense. I was overwhelmed by fear.”

“Fear?”

“Yes. Not fear of death itself, since I knew I would be respawned. It was the fear that you will never get to spend time with the ones you love ever again. I would have given anything to spend another second with the one I loved.”

I take another deep sigh as it was my turn to ask a question. This is the most important question of all, one which the answer will change everything.

“My turn. Now that you know everything about me, what do you want to do?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. Never in my dreams, I could imagine something like a self-aware A.I. could be created like this.”

“If you don’t mind, can I throw in my two cents in here?”

“Yes?”

“If possible, can you just leave me alone? I know this is just a game to you. I can’t refute that. But to me, this is my life. All of this...”

I stood up from the ledge and dusted my pants. After that, I spread my arms out and turned around slowly for a bit of dramatic posing.

“...This is the reality for me. I have no other place to go. I can’t log out of here.I know that I probably have no rights whatsoever. So, this is just my selfish, sincere request. Please, just leave me alone. Let me live my own life.”

“I… I don’t know if I can promise you that. I am a GM. It’s my job to report things like this to my manager. Not to mention, this is a discovery of a millennium.”

“I don’t need you to promise me anything right now. Take your time. However, if you can’t do what I have asked, whatever you decide to do, please at very least tell me in advance so I make arrangements with my family? I don’t want to disappear on them suddenly and leave them worried. Can you at least promise me that?”

Wyn looked up in surprise and stayed silent for a couple of seconds. However, she doesn’t seem to be focused on thinking about the question on hand. After a while, she finally spoke to me once again.

“I am sorry, but this will have to wait for another time. Fin just messaged me, and she is waiting for us. She is getting a bit impatient. I will teleport everything to the capital for now.”

Wyn started glowing and soon, everything was enveloped in the bright white light.