Author's Note: I'M BACK!!!

An easy guide to the story (tells you what it means if I put things in bolded brackets, and stuff like that).

Spoiler :

EASY GUIDE TO THE STORY

(* *) means author's note (which I generally use to make comments as inside the story chapters).

[ ] refers to a skill or ability that is used. Right now there are no different markers for passive and active skills

'things in italics' Things in italics with the little apostrophe marks are someone's actual thoughts

***** If the asterisks form a small line and the next sentences start a line or 2 below it, it means either:

A) A change of viewpoint

OR

B) A time-skip

(which basically means stuff happened in-between 2 events, but I'm skipping over it to get

to whatever is happening in the present)

------------------------ Dashed lines in bold refer to where the chapter starts and/or stops

I'll add more if I do more things.

An easy guide to the different measurements (for people that are familiar with the metric system, and vice versa)

Spoiler :

GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS

10 feet is around 3 meters

1 mile is a little more than 1.5 kilometers

I'll add more if I find out more

Characters:

Spoiler :

Wahshi: The Main Character. Real name Raes Bastion, framed for a crime he didn't commit and separated from his daughter while he was sent to prison for 20 years. What he wants to do now is earn enough money through the Virtual Reality game so that he can start searching for the daughter he lost, and maybe a little revenge on the way there against the people that framed him. Was recently betrayed by his former fellow travelers and killed by a dragon. He somehow managed to survive ANOTHER trip through the Mist of Souls. Currently an unspecified (no class). Currently level 1.

PREVIOUSLY:

Spoiler :

PREVIOUSLY:

Wahshi was betrayed by Zhang and his party, and died at the hands of the "Elder Dragon". He revived at the Mist of Souls, where he then proceeded to rush out of there, at the cost of immense amounts of pain. And several pounds of flesh.

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I was flat on my back with my eyes closed, just enjoying the sensation of being able to exist without pain. My lips twitched in a small, upwards direction.

It was almost like a smile.

A shadow loomed over me, and I opened my eyes.

A familiar face with worried green eyes hung over me, trying to figure out if I was alright.

I slowly stood up, and Gaia backed away to give me some room.

A smile grew on my face as I looked at the dark-skinned girl that could’ve passed for a nine-year old.

“GAIA!!” I said in a happy, shout-like voice.

She giggled like it was the funniest thing in the world.

“MR. WASHY!!”

I mentally face-palmed.

‘It hasn’t even been a day, but she already forgot that my name isn’t Washy.’

“Grrr! It hasn’t even been a day, but you already forgot how to say this here monster’s name?!” I growled in pretend anger.

“Don’t you know what kind of monster I am?”

She looked at me, her light green eyes wide open with curiosity. She leaned forward a little, like she couldn’t wait to hear what I was about to say.

“I’M THE HUGGING MONSTER!!! I HUG ALL THE LITTLE GIRLS WHO FORGET MY NAME, AND I NEVER, EVER LET THEM GO!! ROAR!” (*Yes, Wahshi really did say “roar”*).

She turned around and screamed in pretend fear as I playfully chased her around and around the area. We ran up the hill, around the tree (many times before she ran somewhere else), back down the hill, up the hill again, around and around we went.

As we played around, the burning in my eyes that had started when Zhang, Misa and Alexa had left me to die by the Dragon, had finally died down.

Gaia went to “hide” behind the trunk of the giant tree again. As soon as she was out of sight, tears started to flow down my face.

‘Talia, is this what it would’ve been like if I was around to watch you grow up?’

Images of Talia came unbidden to the front of my mind. The old memory played back, crystal clear even after all these years.

I had her only for a day, but it had been the best day of my life. When I saw her little baby face, everything I knew about the world had changed. Before, it had all been about me living my life. Even after I’d married Sarah, I knew my life had changed, but I’d never felt as big of a shift until that day when I held my baby girl for the first time in my life.

My world had shifted, and my life wasn’t just about me anymore. It wasn’t even about my wife and I. It was about us, as a family. I knew Sarah felt the same way as I did, from the way I saw her look at Talia for the first time after giving birth to her.

After I had handed her to my wife, we had looked down at our newborn daughter. She’d inherited my wife’s dark, tan skin and black hair. She’d gotten my eyes though. My jovial, brown eyes. She’d looked up at the world in wonder, while my wife and I had looked down at her in glowing joy.

Before I knew it, there was nothing left in me. Whatever anger, hatred or happiness I’d had before that moment was gone. The only thing left was an overwhelming sense of loss and sadness. I’d been stripped down to what I really was on the inside.

A broken, middle-aged man that pined for the daughter he’d only known for a day.

“…Mr. Washy?” A voice cautiously asked.

It snapped me out of my dark path in memory lane. Gaia had somehow ended up right in front of me without me even noticing. It just goes to show how out of it I had really been.

Her eyes peered up at me in worry, her white dress with floral designs unnaturally still despite the small breeze that I felt on my skin.

I shook my head to clear it of all my thoughts, and I gave a small smile to the 9 year old girl that was concerned for (from her perspective) an old man like me.

“I’m fine Gaia. It’s nothing. Really.”

Doubt filled her eyes. “Reeeeeally?”

I crouched down to look at her eye-to-eye. “Really.”

She squinted at me. “Reeeeeally, really?”

A small laugh escaped from my lips. “Now you’re just being silly.”

I made a slow, exaggerated swipe at her face, and then clenched my hand in a fist, but with my thumb between my middle and index finger, like I’d just taken something from her.

“I got your nose!!”

She giggled. “No you don’t, silly. It’s right here!”

She pointed at her nose.

“Aw, looks like I can’t fool you!” I said.

She just laughed. Seeing her like that was as if the world had gotten just a little bit brighter than before.

When she’d finally stopped laughing, she looked at me like she was thinking about something. Whatever it was, after a couple seconds she must’ve decided on something, because she grabbed my hand and started pulling me after her. I slowly stood up and let her take me to wherever it was that she wanted to take me.

“Come on Mr. Wahshi! I wanna show you something!”

Her hand clutching mine, she dragged behind her as she walked excitedly to a very familiar looking place. I was almost too busy mentally high-fiving myself when I’d heard her actually say my name right, to notice where we were at.

A big pond full of sparkling, blue water underneath the shade of the giant tree.

Luckily, I’d stopped before getting anywhere near the pond this time. Gaia let go of my hand and ran closer to the water. She turned her body sideways so that her right side was towards me, and her left side was towards the pond.

With her right hand, she waved me over, obviously trying to get me to go closer to the pool of water.

I squinted and gave her a playful, suspicious look.

“You’re not going to push me in again, are you?”

She fidgeted in place under my playfully suspicious stare. “Umm…. No?”

I arched an eyebrow. “You know, that doesn’t sound very convincing to me.”

Gaia gave me a confused look. I thought at first that she wasn’t sure why I wouldn’t trust her, but the next sentence that I heard her say made me almost fall over in a comical fashion.

“Umm… What does ‘convincing’ mean?”

‘Forget it! Let’s just get this over with. I’m too tired to try and explain what something means to a kid right now.’

“Forget it. It’s not important right now.” I told her as I walked over to the pond.

As soon as I got there, she gestured out to the open water. Suddenly, the water began glowing.

An icy sheen spread out from the middle of the pond, until the entire pool of water had a thin layer of ice on top of its calm waters.

On that smooth, icy surface scenes began playing out. It was almost exactly like live TV!

The frozen pond was showing what was happening in the rest of the game!

Shocked, I slowly turned my head towards Gaia. “Were you… using this to see what I was doing the entire time I wasn’t here in this place?”

Gaia nodded her head excitedly. “Mmhm! I saw most of it anyway. I wanted to ask you something…”

‘If she’s seen almost everything I’ve done, then what possible question could she have?’ That’s what ran through my head as soon as I heard her words.

She looked like she was about to burst if she didn’t answer the question! I nodded my head. “Sure, go ahead and ask.”

She had a momentary look of relief before the question finally burst out. “Why didn’t you do anything almost the whole time you were with those mean people?!! It was like you had your thumb up your butt or something!”

If there was a limit to the number of times I could be shocked in one gaming session, I clearly hadn’t reached it yet.

Once again, I was shocked. I was also completely speechless. Of course, I already knew the answer to that, but how was I supposed to say it out loud to a little girl that was looking at me like I was Superman?!

If it had been anyone else, I definitely would have said it. ‘How the H*LL was I supposed to DO ANYTHING!! I was in a forest with things that could’ve killed me by SNEEZING! That, coupled with the fact that I was with people that would’ve KILLED me easily if they thought that I was a Player, AND I was only LEVEL 1 FOR GOD’S SAKE!! I’D LIKE TO SEE ANYONE ELSE DO BETTER!!!’

Of course, since it was Gaia that asked, and since she was looking at me as if I was Superman and had just decided to stop saving the world to take a lunch break, then obviously I couldn’t say anything. How could I?

Just admit that I was too weak to actually do anything at the time? Just admit that there were times when I’d been scared sh*tless? NEVER!! My pride would never let me do that! Let alone myself, I don’t think any man would admit that to a little girl that saw him as her hero!

“Who taught you that phrase young lady?! Saying that somebody had a thumb up their butt is a very rude thing to say!” That’s what I ended up saying. When you can’t answer something to a kid, redirect the conversation back to them and hope they forget what their original question was! Especially when it has to be a split-second answer like what happened just now!

Gaia looked down and fidgeted, with her hands behind her back. “I don’t know….”

“Gaia…” I said in an authoritative voice.

“Well… my new friend told me about it…. He said he learned it at his home.”

‘Wait, WHAT?! Another Player was here? When was this? I’ve got to find out as much as I can.’

Not missing a beat, I asked her, “SO… who’s your new friend Gaia? How old is he?”

Her cheeks turned a slight tinge of red at my questions. ‘Oh my god, is she blushing? Does she actually like him?! You can’t even play this game until you’re a legal adult!! I’M GONNA BEAT THIS FREAKING PEDOPHILE INTO THE GROUND!!!’

She paused for a moment, but then started telling me about her new “friend”. “His name is Ouranos and he’s REALLY fun to play with!! He’s my age too!! And when I told him about how bored I was up here all the time, he showed me how to watch the cool stuff on the pond! And then…. And then…..”

It was like the floodgates had burst open. Once she started talking about this new friend of hers, it was like she couldn’t stop! I was too busy piece together as much info as I could about this new “friend” of hers that seems to have appeared almost as soon as I was gone. But there was one thing I had to check first…

“Gaia, do you know how old I am?”

She paused in the middle of her flood of praises for her new friend and looked at me. “Mister Wahshi, you don’t even know how old you are? That’s weird!! You’re 39 years, 2 months and 28 days old!”

‘Ok, so there’s no possibility that she could be wrong when she said that the person was the same age as her. If she can figure all that out about me from a single look, then she can definitely tell how old people are.’

But a person as old as Gaia was? How was that even possible? The game wouldn’t let anyone under legal age…. wait… how old was Gaia?!

Shaking my head, I realized that the last question was probably something I shouldn’t ask. If she was an AI, then chances are that to her, she’d been here for longer than I’d been alive!

Well, the facts were simple.

A) He’s as old as Gaia.

B) His name is Ouranos.

Yep, that settles it. The person is clearly an NPC like Gaia. Actually, since they’re both names from Greek Myth, wouldn’t that mean that they were destined to be together?

Well, one thing’s for sure. It is definitely another kid that Gaia has a crush on. And not a perverted adult that preys on little kids. Since it’s just a case of childish romance, then everything should be fine. After all, since their names are both from the same Myth, then it’s probably a scripted event that the game company made, right?

At that point, I decided to wash my hands of the matter. I would definitely kill a pedophilic adult that tried to get into Gaia’s good graces, but another kid the same age was fine.

‘Although if I see him, I should probably scare him a little so that I can make sure that he treats Gaia right.’

An image that was playing on the icy pond caught my eye. I turned to look at it, and immediately felt a burning sensation in my eyes. Although my hatred wasn’t so bad that it felt like it was eating me alive like it was before, I had more than enough to want to kill the people that showed up in the scene that I was watching.

But first, I calmed myself down. After all, there was a kid watching me. I felt a cool reprieve from the burning in my eyes as soon as I managed to get my emotions under control. Turning back to Gaia, I held out my pinky finger.

“Gaia, you have to promise me that from now on, you won’t use this to spy on me alright? Pinky promise?”

She puffed her cheeks and turned her head away. “No!”

“Gaia, I’m your friend right?”

She turned her head back to me and slowly nodded.

“Then will you please do this for me as a friend?”

I looked her in the eyes as I said it, and tried to show her how important this was to me. This was immensely important. The things I was going to do next… I didn’t want her to have to see that side of me.

Some people might call it selfish, but I wanted her to keep that image of me as a superhero. I’d try to preserve that as long as I could.

She furrowed her eyebrows in an angrily cute manner while she tried to think about what she should do. Finally, she stuck her pinky finger out and wrapped around mine reluctantly.

“Fine!!”

There was more than a little bit of anger and reluctance in that tone, but I’d accept it. It was a pretty big thing that I’d asked of her after all.

We shook our pinkies and sealed the promise. After that, she looked at me.

“I’m going to go to bed. Don’t even try to wake me up!!”

With that, she ran towards the giant tree and dived head-first into it. Before I could do anything to save her from what looked like a huge head injury, she disappeared by melding with the tree.

I think it’s finally happened. I’ve done it.

I’ve hit the limit for the number of times a person can be surprised in a day. When she disappeared into her “bed”, I just blinked. There were times when the game felt more like another world.

And then there were times like this, where crazy things happened that reminded me that this was all just a game. Like girls that could disappear after diving head-first into a tree could actually exist in real life.

Shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all, I turned my attention back to scenes playing out on the ice.

Before anything else, I had to do more research on these people.

Especially if I was going to be able to have their limbs ripped off one by one.

********

Ice shattered and the world spun. Suddenly, I was diving head-first towards the ground, an expansive forest as far as the eye could see was what was awaiting me at the bottom of my fall. If I survived.

As I got closer and closer to the tree cover, the individual details of each tree became clearer.

‘I have to time this right. It has to be EXACT.’

Right at the point where I felt like I could make out the individual patterns of the leaves, I snapped.

My body broke through the tree cover and fell fast all the way to the ground and slammed into it. Parts of me lay scattered everywhere.

As Mist.

I snapped back together, and out of the mist came a man that was fully corporeal. Someone that looked like he was in his early 50’s. A man in a white, sleeveless, short scholar’s robe. A man with irises blacker than his pupils.

ME.

In front of me were a flood of new notices from the system. I let out a dark, devilish grin at one in particular though.

[table]PROVIDENCE OF THE HIGHER SPIRITSAll new travelers to this world are protected by the higher spirits upon their death. This lasts until they finally become a power in their own right (LEVEL 10 AND HIGHER).

• No loss of possessions upon death

• No loss of experience upon death[table]

‘With this, and my ability which lets me skip the ‘Ghost’ period after death, I AM INVINCIBLE!!’