Second World

Afterwards, he checked the whole building, making sure there were no unusual things. He couldn't let down his guard despite the radar not showing any nearby hostiles. After making sure nothing was wrong. He rearranged some sofas in the second floor to form a makeshift bed. With a curtain as blanket, he laid it down on the sofas. He was tired, but couldn't close his eyes for a long while. He couldn't dispel the worry that something might happened while he was asleep.

Now that he had stopped running around, he could think about the events of the day. It was unbelievable how everything had changed so fast. Today he was expecting to enjoy a new game that had been hyped by every gaming industries. Well, in a way, he was indeed playing it now, but he wouldn't say that he was enjoying it. Not with the uncertainties of death. Will the death in this world be real death? Temporary? Or maybe it was even the ticket back to real world? There was no sure way to find out other than getting die once, but he was not brave enough to try to find out.

Let's treat it as real thing and just try to get stronger in order to survive, he thought to himself.

He saw several red dots appearing and disappearing on his radar, but none went near his place. After a good long while, he finally managed to force himself to close his eyes, and slept.

When he woke up, it was still dark. He looked around and for a moment was at a loss of where he was. After disoriented for a moment, the screen on his monocle reminded him of everything that had happened yesterday. There were several red dots in his radar.

"And here I am hoping that all of that was a dream," he mumbled to himself.

He stretched out and studied the radar again, the red dots were moving around but didn't seem to be aware of his presence.

Oh? My health is full, he thought when he saw the HP bar on the screen. Yesterday before he slept he still had some health missing. The one bread he had eaten did not fully fill up his HP bar. So sleeping could recover health? He took note of this point so he could use it to reduce the amount of consumables he spent, after all, they were limited.

What time was it? Outside was still dark, he fished out his phone from the storage bag.

04.20 AM.

His phone's clock was still working despite being a junk item, which was reassuring. At least he didn't need to throw away his phone for being of no use.

It was still early in the morning, but it made sense as he slept very early the night before. It was also good to have an early start, he would have a long walk to reach the outside of town. He took out a bread to have breakfast, but stopped himself. It was a waste to eat this bread when HP was full. He put it back again. He would just go look for another bakery or marketplaces to get some consumable junks to satisfy his hunger.

He did some exercise to loosen his body. He was taught martial arts by his grandfather when he was young, but it's not like he was an expert, he was just doing it for hobby. This hobby proved to be very helpful when he played VR games. He knew most of the top VR gamers were mostly highly skilled martial experts. Almost every game workshop employed martial art instructors to develop their players. He considered joining these workshops once but he decided against it. There were too much restrictions, he played games for fun.

Finished with his exercise, he took a bath. Thankfully, the water supply system was still working. He conveniently stored all his clothes, armor, and weapons inside his virtual storage bag. Once he finished his bath and cleaned his body with a towel he found in a closet, he re-equipped all his equipment. He threw the towel inside his storage bag, might not find one again when he did another bath, so might just as well keep it. After all, he had an extra large bag which had even more space, so he could afford to put all these junks inside.

He looked at the radar. There were three red dots around. One was nearby his position while the other two was grouped together at the edge.

Let's take out this solo straggler, he opened the rolling door and unsheathed his weapons.

He proceeded to take them out as planned, then continued on grinding the monsters while making his way North. He met another two level 2 Skeleton Thugs on the way. He took them out as well, one of them dropped 1 copper coin, which increase the total of his coin collection to 3. He didn't know whether he should be happy about it or not, since there was no merchant to use these coins on. He also found a supermarket on his way, in which he found another 3 breads, 3 snacks which in the item description was called junk food, and another 1 Energy drink. The junk food recovered 3 HP every second for 10 seconds, which made the total recovered points same as bread, only took longer time. He ate one of the breads to recover the HP he had lost along the way and to satisfy his hunger, then threw the rests of the consumables he found into his storage bag.

He spent the entire morning and afternoon on the journey, and made it to level 3 for his Fighter class, while his Magician was at 89% to level 2. He kept the free attribute and skill points for later use. He didn't get any new skill for reaching level 3. Although he didn't feel tired, as his stamina bar refilled after a short rest, he still felt mental fatigue from the long walk and constant battles. In previous VR games, he could spend entire day and night grinding, but that was him using his digitalized persona in the VR world, while his real body was immobile in the real world. Now with his real body, he felt the need to find a place for a long rest after a whole day of journey. Not to mention as well, it was getting dark, and he would have problem fighting monsters without sufficient lighting.

As he was searching for an area with low monster population, he noticed a two-storey house which had its lighting on. All of the buildings he had passed all had their lightings off despite still had power, hence this house with lighting on made a conspicuous sighting. He advanced towards the house carefully and observed his radar. There were a few red dots in the surrounding and a blue dot in the area where the house should be at.

What's a blue dot? That's a new one, he wondered.

He stopped in front of a window and monitored the inside of the house discreetly. The inside of the window was boarded and its glass was blurry, but he thought he could see movements inside. He tried to peek through the glass and through the gaps of the boards behind it, he thought he probably saw a human shape figure.

Could it be another person? Red dots represented the monsters which attacked on sight. Blue or green should represent friendlies, right? At least, that's the way with classic games. After evaluating for a bit, he decided to take the risk. He went to the door and knock on it.