Kiara and I found ourselves surrounded by hordes of monsters of all shapes and sizes.

Nora and Nadir came and knelt beside me. They were covered in numerous wounds and bruises, and Nadir’s nose was bleeding, but nevertheless an expression of satisfaction graced their faces.

“What do you want us to do now?” Nora asked me in a gentle voice.

“Tend to your wounds first and foremost,” I said, “and once it is done, we shall rebuild this town. For it is ours.”

***

Over the next few days, the monsters worked extensively. They rebuilt the broken houses, cleaned the streets of all the blood and disposed of all the corpses. I did not return to my old palace. Instead, I took residence at the castle of the elf king. Most of it had survived the onslaught, and the parts that were damaged were restored. It was a gigantic building with an enchanting appearance, straight out of a fairy tale. There were innumerable rooms all about the lavish structure possessing impeccable collections of antiques, tapestries and artworks. Inside we also found several elves, hiding in nooks. They were exterminated like pests.

The town was now jam packed with multiple monster races. In fact the town was facing overpopulation. I gave the eviluns the option to return to their previous dwellings if they desired. Some of the Skhites and the Hornies departed to the village and the dome, while many of them decided to become the inhabitants of the newly claimed town.

All the inns and houses were occupied by the monsters. New residences too were constructed. The fallen bridge was rebuilt.

The monster tree that was Pook was shifted to the town. Now, the tree truly became a harmless amusement park. Pook offered exciting quests to entertain monsters. The quests were still intricate, which allowed Pook to give good rewards to the monsters, and at the same time he could level up too.

However, there were no players for the monsters to prey on and derive evilese. Thankfully, evil crops provided an effective solution. I ordered great farms to be set up in the town as well in the surrounding forest.

Without players to cause trouble, this was quite straightforward. The only hindrance was a limited number of evil seeds. Our requirements couldn’t be met even after buying seeds from zombies. But thankfully, the monsters had killed so many players during the invasion that they were well fed on evilese. And by the time they felt a hunger again, the many farms would generate enough seeds to meet needs.

For a while, normalcy returned to my life. I admitted to Kiara that there was no returning to the real world for me. She was sad for me, but my sacrifice made her love me even more. She promised she would never abandon me and continued to spend the majority of her time in the game world as before.

I was also the most powerful being perhaps in all of Dharti. There was nothing for me to fear any more. I spent my time leisurely enjoying the fruits of my past labors.

Sometimes I would go with Kiara to the monster tree where we played quests. At night I would make out Kiara. Most days we ate out. Eating was a pointless exercise in the game world, however it was among the best past times. Some of the monsters turned out to be excellent cooks and brought new life to the old restaurants. Just about the only serious activity I carried out was monitoring the performance of the farms.

My life was becoming a little too easy. The town was mine and all monsters were my servants, ready to fulfill my wishes. I began to grasp the importance of problems in a person’s life. A life without problems was a boring life. And despite being surrounded by external pleasures I would be frequently depressed.

The days began to pass by in swift progression. I saw myself becoming an old man and breathing my last in Dharti.

And then one day out of the blue a player, an Armamentalist, visited the town. Initially my monsters tried to kill him, but somehow he convinced them that they could do whatever they wanted after he had met the king of the town. Later a few Skhites recognized him for who he was–the only player in Dharti that was a friend of the eviluns.

The player of course was no other than Sam.

So it happened that I was pleasantly amazed when the guards led my brother into my chamber.

Sam took off his hat and we embraced gleefully. It had been a long time.

“You just surprise me more and more!” Sam said, eyeing my gilded chamber with jealousy.

“And you surprise me more and more, escaping my savage followers and making your way to me,” I told him.

Sam told me that he had been busy in the real world the day of the invasion, and when he had logged back in he was shocked to find himself in a distant place far away. It was here that the respawn stones had fallen. The players had established a compact village. There were talks of reclaiming the town, but Sam assured me I needn’t worry about that for a long time.

“How exactly did you achieve all this?” Sam queried.

I explained the circumstances that had forced me to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Sam held his face with both his hands, his mouth forming an ‘O’. Speech abandoned him and came back only after a couple of minutes.

“You did all that… for a girl?” he said. “You really love her?”

“Yes, I do,” I said, looking away at the speckled clouds in the sky through the window, Kiara’s face flashing in my mind. She was probably at the office at the moment, working at a computer, her mind occasionally drifting to me.

“You realize that you will have to spend your entire life in the game world?” Sam said, “And… and if the creators decide to do away with the game then… then you will be gone too.”

“We’ll see whatever happens,” I told him with a firmness, “there is no point regretting anything. Besides, I brought Kiara to the game world. I am responsible for whatever happens to her here.”

Sam departed the next day. Before he went I called the new races of monsters, and told them that Sam should never be harmed, and that he was my brother and a forever friend of the eviluns, although he was a player.