He gradually opened his eyes, or in better terms, eye. The blinding light pierced through his eye; it stung a little but it was nothing compared to the pain he felt a few seconds ago.

He doesn’t think that he would be the same after experiencing that pain, it was something that would haunt him for eternity. He still felt the dull throbbing of his limbs and his ribcage. It was not painful anymore but it was the evidence of what he went through.

His vision was blurry, he could see rough outlines of people watching over him, but he can’t make them out. He felt a small hand on his face, it was caressing the damaged side of his face with gentleness.

He groaned, he was not in pain anymore, but he felt like his body was a little stiff. Like it was rebuilt again from scratch. It was a pleasant sensation, feeling his muscles relaxed and not strained because of pain or because of the tension they built up when he used them.

“Rhax,” a familiar voice sounded in his ear, it came from the right side, from the biggest outline. “Ser Rhax?” A more high-pitched voice sounded in his ear, but this time it was from his left. Rhax identified it as the owner of the hand that was currently caressing his face.

“Yes?” His voice sounded good to hear again, after being in that Abyss, it even felt good to inhale.

His vision became clearer and clearer by the second, he was able to identify Julia and Olivia, the latter being the one who was caressing his face.

Seeing that he answered, they smiled at him. “You scared us out there, almost thought you would kick the bucket.” Julia said in that gentle but firm way of her.

“You won’t get rid of me that easily, Julia.” He smiled weakly.

“Why would mother want you to die, Ser Rhax?” Olivia asked in that childish naivety.

“Ahhhh.” Rhax didn’t know how to answer, how would explain to Olivia that it was just a joke, and her mother doesn’t want to kill him.

Thankfully Julia came to his rescue. “He was just joking, sweetheart.”

Olivia smiled again and continued caressing his face.

Rhax then noticed another figure to his right, she was standing beside Julia, she was a pretty average woman. She was neither too pretty nor too ugly, but completely average. She had plain dark hair, she wore glasses over her brown eyes. She certainly gave a healer vibe with that green robe she was wearing. She smiled at him. “I’m glad you are alright. Bless Tera.” She made the Sun sign, it was made by touching the thumb and the middle finger to the forehead, both eyes and then the mouth, in that order.

Julia and Olivia did the Sun Sign too, Rhax didn’t, the priestess looked at him questionly. “No offense, Priestess. But I’m not a follower of any God.”

The Priestess seemed to like his response, she nodded and didn’t say anything. Rhax was lucky that the Terran Church was this open minded, because if he was in the wrong place right now and said the same words, then he would have been attacked the moment he uttered them.

Rhax seemed to notice that his body felt lighter, he smiled internally. ‘It seems that I was healed. But..’

“It seems that I have been healed,” Rhax said with a smile, “but it seems that my eye wasn’t so lucky.”

The smile on the Priestess face dimmed, Olivia looked sad. “Unfortunately,” The Priestess said. “I couldn’t heal it; your eye was gouged out and nothing was inside your skull. And it is impossible for the magic in my level to heal it. So, you have to live with one eye for now. It is what Tera wished.” The Priestess cupped her hands in prayer. Olivia and Julia did the same.

‘Damn, this society is really religious, isn’t it?’ Rhax rolled his eyes mentally.

The world is in a medieval setting, so the people still have a lot of superstition. But of course, most of their superstition is actually real. So, they go to the Gods and Goddess for protection and the Churches actually provide protection to the place they are in. That made the society more religious.

It was not a bad thing in its core, but it was concerning. Because if there was a bad person in control of a part of a Church then basically, they would be invincible. Because people think that going against people of the Church is a great sin. Of course, this is not a rule written in stone, but it is pretty common, and it is mostly common in the poorer Kingdoms or regions of the world.

Rhax felt like his body was better now, he could move. So, he moved and sat down, the silent ache in his shoulder was nowhere to be found, which was a great delight.

He looked around him, it was very hard to look around the room with only one eye. As he has to rotate his head on both sides to see. He was in some kind of a sick bay or something like that. He saw that there were other beds with people in them. Some had people with them, some were alone.

He moved his right shoulder a little in a circular motion. Nothing came, no pain, no discomfort. “I think I’m ready to go back. I have work to do.” He said to Julia and Olivia.

They both nodded at him, they seemed to like the idea of going back too. So, with a swift motion, he got down from the bed and stretched a little. While he was stretching his body, he remembered the Abyss and the two Beings pulling him. He felt his limbs go slack and the next second he was on the floor face first, his body was shaking with fear. The sensation of the two Beings pulling on him came back, he thought he heard something scream. It sounded like a dying animal.

His mind was blank, he couldn’t think, the only thing in his mind was one emotion…Fear.

He felt hands holding his thrashing body and holding him in place.

He felt his mind regain control again, he then realized from his dried and sore throat that he was the one screaming.

His body was stopping its madness now that his mind is in control again. His breath was heavy and he could feel the eyes on him. He doesn’t need to search about what happened to him; he knows it very well. It was a PTSD seizure. The pain of getting pulled by two Beings was just too great and his mind couldn’t handle him stretching, because it reminded him of the pulling.

He opened his eye to see who was holding him in place, he was thankful to whomever was sitting on him right now. Because their body was blocking the light and it didn’t attack his eye.

His eye almost popped from the scene in front of him, a man, no, a giant sat on him. He was bearded, his beard was gray in some places, he was muscular, no, scratch that, this man was the definition of jacked. Every muscle in his body was bulging. He had brown hair and blue eyes. He was wearing some Terran robe, but it didn’t look like the Priestess’. There was a kind smile on his face. But Rhax didn’t focus on that, but his attention was captured by the floating blue name above the man’s head.

There was no panel, it was only a name in thin air. Devan, it read.

‘A player.’ That was the first idea Rhax got after seeing the man.

“Hmm,” Rhax started, “can you move?” It was getting a little hard to breathe.

The man, Devan, immediately got up and extended a hand to him, Rhax took it. When he was on his feet a familiar blue screen appeared in front of him.

[The system has detected that the Player has two names, please choose a name from the two to be your display name.

Marcus Rhax

Please choose carefully, the Player cannot change Their name freely after making this choice. To choose, the Player has to focus on the name the Player wants to be their display name]

Rhax didn’t even think, he immediately focused on Rhax. After a second a second panel appeared.

[Congratulations! The Player’s display name now is Rhax!]

He closed it immediately and looked at the man, the man seemed surprised for a second and then he smiled a big smile. He probably didn’t know he was a player because his name wasn’t visible.

Rhax suddenly felt something small crush into him and hug his leg. “Ser Rhax, are you okay? You scared me, I thought you were going to die.” Olivia was crying.

Rhax went down on one knee, Olivia immediately hugged him and tucked her head in his neck. “It is okay, I had a bad dream.” He tried to comfort her. He wasn’t good with children, he didn't have any of his own, even though he was almost 30 years old. And he was a lonely child. So, his experience with kids is almost nonexistent.

“B…but you were awake, how can you dream?” Olivia said, Rhax can still hear her sobbing.

“Sometimes it happens, Olivia. Sometimes it happens.” He then held Olivia in his arm and lifted her, he walked to Julia and gave her Olivia. Olivia was still 6 years old so him carrying her was no big of a deal.

Julia took her daughter and started to comfort her, she looked at Rhax questionly. He only gestured to her that he would tell her at another time.

Having taken care of this, he went to Devan who was waiting. He was chatting with the Priestess. The Priestess seemed done with the conversation and walked away.

“That seemed intense, you alright?” Devan asked in a deep voice.

Rhax was taken back by how deep his voice was. But looking at Devan again, he felt like it was a giving thing. Now that Devan was standing Rhax can tell with certainty that Devan is at least 2 meters tall.

“Yeah, it was nothing.” Rhax responded, he was not going to tell this stranger about what happened to him.

Devan seemed to not believe him, but he nodded anyway. “From the way I see you stare at my name I understand that this is the first time you meet another player?” Devan talked freely, no one was around them, Rhax made sure of that.

“Aye, this is the first time. I never thought that Ethea would keep its old player recognition system. Isn’t it a little too gamey?” Rhax asked, he was honestly confused.

Devan shrugged. “I understand where you come from, but it is important to know who is a player and who is not. Also, it is just a name, believe me I tried to find a hidden function, it doesn’t do anything. It just shows your name to other players.”

After thinking about it, Rhax found the merit in it. If players didn’t know who was a player who was not then a lot of people would be betrayed and robbed.

Rhax decided to ask the question that has been eating at him. “Are you working in the Terran Church?”

Devan nodded and gestured to his robe. “Yes, you see, I want to play as a Paladin, and after researching I found that the Terran Church is the religion I like the most. So, I entered the Church as a possible candidate for being a Paladin. They are training me in battle in and such and in their holy texts. Thus, when I reach level 10, I would ask to undergo the exam of Paladins, if I succeed then they would dub me a Paladin, if I don’t then I can still be a Priest. So, win-win in my opinion. What are you aiming for?”

Rhax wanted to say Warrior, but then he thought, he really thought. From his understanding there is no such thing as a Warrior class, there are Knights, Paladins and many others that specialize in combat. He likes to swing a sword and kill enemies. But what does he want to be?

“I don’t know,” he said, “I have no idea, I will let the future play out and see”