Darrell Matthew (introduced in chapter 7), let out a chuckle as he relinquished control of the Kobold King.

Thinking back to his death as a bunny rabbit, Darrel thought to himself, “That evens up the score, 1 point each ”.

Sure it was a grudge that only he was keep track of, and sure he just pissed off 2,000 players and made some poor kid the most hated person on the internet. He just hated to lose.

Darrell had been called into his supervisor’s office a few hours prior. Having a world event happen so quickly, Mr. Red wanted to make sure that all went smoothly.

What Mr. Red probably didn’t account for, was the fact that his definition of “smoothly” was probably a touch different then his bosses. Darrell’s definition of “smoothly” was artificially taking control of the Kobold King and tweaking some of his parameters. By tweaking he meant removing all cooldowns and increasing movement speed by 100%.

He wasn’t stupid though, he made sure to slip in a personal program he had developed to “accidently” remove all recording features for the 35 seconds it took for him to wipe out all of the players. He didn’t want some pesky steamer getting him in trouble.

Could his bosses look at the official archives of the fight? Sure. But, were they lazy as hell, why yes, yes they were. So as long as some wannabe youtuber didn’t show up saying “this game is impossible, WTF is this” with evidence of him directly interfering to settle a one-sided grudge, and creating a PR nightmare, he was golden.

But, he wasn’t a total dick. When the village was destroyed, he made sure that all of the components his new nemesis would need to ascend, were still there. Now, whether or not he found them, who was to say.

—————————————

With an entire morning to take my mind off of the soul crushing events of the previous night, I was feeling a bit more optimistic.

That is, until half way through the day when I saw some viral video where some famous person trash talking my virtual self.

“You know Bob, that’s a great question, “ famous actor continued, “ I would be pissed off if I had been one of those people. Just trying to have fun and play my newfound game, when some noob comes and screws everything up.”

“I heard reports that the infamous Gray Rain was somehow a Undead/Sorcerer combination. What are your thoughts on that?” Bob asked.

“The questionnaire that determines your class/race combination is quite extensive. As I’m sure you’ve heard, the psychologist who developed the questionnaire won the Nobel Prize 3 years ago for his study of human behavior and the inner psyche.” The famous actor said.

“So what are you saying?” Bob pressed him further.

“I’m saying that his character is a **cked up class/race combination because the person is a **cked up person.” The actor said matter-of-factly.

“And I’m sure there are about 1999 other people who agree with you. Before we break to commercial lets ask our viewers out there what they think. Would you…”

I turned off the broadcast at that moment. “I wonder if there is a hardware store around here, I really need to buy a shovel.” I thought to myself.

When I logged in I was still dead and although the world was gray, it seemed to be overwhelmingly gloomy. Sheesh, even the world knows we screwed. Err... I guess I screwed up.

I trudged the short distance to my body and resurrected. Back down to lvl 1, oh joy.

Unsurprisingly, [The Banner of Command] was no longer in my inventory.

I looked at my inbox: 5602 unread messages. Damn, people are savage. I quickly deleted all of my messages before my mind began cannibalizing the tattered remains of my self-worth.

I turned around to gaze at the magnificent castle, but saw only the shattered ruins of my failure.

Quest update: Difficulty level of "DO something! (A rank)" has changed to "DO something! (S rank)"

"Goodie," I mumbled outloud.

I quickly pulled up the user interface and filtered the results for my starting area. The average level of the sorcerers in my area had plummeted from 4-->2.

"Shit" I face-palmed myself.

Even though I had been thoroughly rejected, I couldn't help but be curious. I pulled up the top 100 list. While at one time being the top ranked player due to the massive experience boost. Pepper Flame was knocked down to 15th when the Kobold King ever so nicely whirl-winded her back to back.

Which reminded me. Something was seriously wrong with that Kobold King. Not just the fact that he was way stronger than he should of been, but also due to the fact that he killed me last. I'm not sure if it was because I started the world event, but it's almost like it was personal.

"I wonder if revenge is something that can be programmed, or maybe their AI is so advanced it is replicating human emotions..." My thoughts continued, "Because it sure as hell felt personal to me... maybe it's karma for killing that bunny..."

Before I could continue down the train of thought, a level 1 boar walked by. I walked calmly over towards it. The boar noticed me and began to charge. I activated arcane punch and one-shot it.

I picked up the 2 copper and slowly trudged back towards the hills.

Homeless and friendless, a villain to the masses. My name a scourge upon the land.

After the 60 second cooldown was up for my ring I walked towards another boar. One purple infused punch, and 1 copper coin later I stood up with my back a little straighter.

"I'm just going to do what I can." I said to the boar corpse that I was leaving behind.

Within a few minutes I had dispatched a handful of boars. What an exhilarating rush! Is this what players have been experiencing up to this point? Actually being able to play the game! My God!

I was practically skipping between victims when suddenly, a surge of brilliance hit me like a lightning bolt. "Oh My God!" I shouted.

I ran as fast as my rotting legs could carry me to the nearest boar. This time, instead of punching him, I had a better idea, "SHORYUKEN!" I shouted at the top of my lungs while upper cutting the boar. Perhaps the most glorious moment of my life.

I sprinted to find my next victim, forgetting to loot the body of my recently slain foe. In essence, I was no longer playing dreamscape, I was now playing "Street Fighter". And for those 3 glorious hours, time melted away as it's suppose to when playing video games.

By that time I had worked up a virtual sweat, (not sure how zombies sweat) so I decided to relax under a tree while the virtual sun set over the horizon. I had successfully managed to avoid ever single player while acquiring a nice bit of pocket change. Sometime during my escapade, I had reached level 2. This time I didn't allocate my stat points and elected to wait.

I mulled over my options.

Agility was an interesting choice and still not out of the question, but I'm not sure how good it will be down the road.

Intelligence was the most obvious choice because it made my magic stronger, but increasing my mana pool was pointless.

Strength would be good, if I could equip any weapon other than a book.

Finally, defense would turn me into a useless tank without any aggro generating capabilities.

"Hmm, I'll give it some more time. As long as I can successfully one-shot the boars there is no need to hurry." I thought.

The ensuing darkness made my non-existent zombie heart beat faster. During the night, there are additional monsters that will slither out of their holes. Things like wolves, snakes, giant spiders etc.. Monsters that elicit an extreme emotional response, fear.

A howl far off into the forest pierced through the silence. I held my breathe in my deteriorated lungs. To my relief there was a shrill that followed. The wolf, or more likely wolves, seem to have across a boar.

I took this as my cue to promptly go in the opposite direction. Lost in my own thoughts, it wasn't long until my feet took me back to the starting village. Or what was left of it at least. Rubble and splinters marked the abandoned location of the merchants. The charred remains of beautiful places no longer to be inhabited, set a somber tone.

To avoid being seen, and possibly stoned by the other players, I quickly walked on the outskirts of the town.

"All the NPC's are gone" I heard a figure say.

"Yeah, they all left through the portal towards the capital." The other replied

"Lucky for them."

"Yeah, if I ever get my hands on that dumbass who caused all this, I'm going to wring his neck!"

A cold bead of sweat dripped down my neck.

"Hey man, it's ok. No need to let it ruin the game."

"... Yeah…I guess you're right.”

“Why don’t we turn that frustration into monster slaying power! Want to try to hunt some of the spiders near the eastern forest?"

"Sure, although that sounds quite terrifying."

"Don't worry, I'll protect you haha."

Dang, what an awesome friend.

I came back to my senses and began trudging when to my surprise I saw, Pepper Flame.