'Level 7 huh. 5 exp away from level 8.'
Obcisor was happy with his progress. He believed himself to be one of the faster ones. Even if he wasn't, he didn't care. He was satisfied with his progress.
'5 more exp.. Maybe I should just go and kill some more rabbit.' He thought to himself. Just as he thought that though, he heard a loud 'Ding' sound. He expected to see a notification floating in front of him, but there wasn't any.
Instead far away in the sky were large golden words forming a sentence.
<'Path of Glory' will be shutting down for scheduled maintenance in 2 hours>
< Maintenance will be over on July 15, 00:00>
< Thank you>
"Maintenance huh. Must be for the new expansion or what not they had advertised this morning. Guess its time to leave."
Obcisor opened the menu and clicked 'Log Out'.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Adler stepped out of the capsule. He felt a little disoriented as he got out. He looked at the time and saw that it was nearly midnight. So he went to hid bed and fell asleep.
On the next day, Adler woke up around noon the next morning. He freshened up and got out of his room. He was very hungry by this point.
Agnes was in the living room watching some news. Both the siblings were there as well. It seemed they were quite bored now that 'Path of Glory' had gone on a maintenance break for the whole day.
Agnes saw Adler walk in to the living room and said, "It looked like you needed some sleep so I didn't bother waking you up for lunch, Uncle."
"That's fine. Don't you have to go to work?" he asked
"Oh no. I don't have work on Tuesdays and Saturdays."
Agnes made a droid bring him some food, which he ate while watching the Hovi.
"Did you have fun, uncle?" Mikaela asked expectantly.
"Yes. It was quite fun. It was a shame I had to log out due to the maintenance."
"Right!! My guild was just about to do a dungeon run, when that notice came up. We weren't even allowed to enter the dungeon."
" You got to finish the tutorial at least right, uncle?" Michael asked
"Yeah, I completed the tutorials. That was a fun experience. Except the getting beat part. That hurt quite a bit."
Hearing that, Mikaela said, "I heard somewhere that that specific part of the tutorial is for calibrating your sync rate with the capsule. Instead of just setting the sync rate to a random number, it calibrates to your requirement. If you could feel getting hurt, you probably have more that 70% sync rate. "
Adler didn't really understand what that meant, but went along with it.
"I learned about the different classes but don't know how to change to one." He asked
"The game will tell you what to do. It will even recommend some for you. Just wait until you are level 10. Though that might take a while, those damned rabbits are hard to kill." Mikaela said with a slightly frustrated face. She must've really hated those rabbits.
" Is that so. By the way, the game said it would start at 00:00. What time zone is that at?" he asked.
"What's a time zone?" Mikaela asked cocking her head sideway. Michael also gave a confused look.
Agnes was the only one who knew what he was talking about so she answered, "Um uncle, there are no more time zones. Its just the same time for all over the world. "
"Isn't that inconvenient? What, so sun rises at 4 PM for Asia? Don't the people there complain?" he asked jokingly
Agnes replied in a serious voice, "There are no more people in Asia. In fact, there are no more people anywhere else aside from North America. Its all just farmland looked after using robots."
"What?" Adler was shocked to hear this. "What happened, did everyone all over the world die?"
"No. But it came close to it. " she thought for a bit and asked, "Were you still around when the old countries collapsed?"
"Yes. The United Federation was formed just 2 years before I went into the timed dungeon." He answered.
" Well, you see. Once mother and the 4 heroes entered the timed dungeon to stop the Demon King's invasion, numerous dungeon breaks started happening all over the world. The United federation barely stopped the monsters with the help of brave hunters. While humanity survived, they lost over 6 billion lives until they found peace."
'6 Billion.' He appalled. That was 75% of the total population at that time.
Agnes continued, "After the dungeon breaks were handled, humanity was too scattered to survive another such attack. So to solve this problem, The great migration project was started, wherein the United Federation transferred all the people from all over the world to North America, and used the rest of the planet for resources. All of the food we eat is grown in the other continents using robots."
"Once everyone was in the same continent, the UF saw no benefit in different Time zones, and changed it to be the same time all over the continent. That was over 60 years ago."
"I see."
Damn. One question about a time zone opened flood gates to history knowledge that he needed to know, but didn't know if he deserved to.
He didn't do anything for the world. His sister and their group did their best.
They fought the Four Horsemen. He had only killed them after they had returned wounded. He didn't deserve those glory. His sister did. Those brave hunters that lay down their lives for Humanity to survive, they deserved those glory.
He was just a man who hid away in a dungeon, while the world overcame an apocalypse and survived.
'No. Focus. You did good. You absolutely helped. You killed the majority of the Demon King's army, including the Demon king. If not for you, the Demon King might have already destroyed the world in his revenge. You deserve this as much as anyone else.' He berated himself for even starting to think of himself the way he did way back then .
He didn't want to go to that place again. The place of mind that came after he slipped. That place of mind where he felt like a failure after he left his life and got stuck in the dungeon.
He left his home behind. He left the dangers behind. And in them, he left his sister behind, alone. Not knowing the outcome of any of those things, it had made him feel like a failure. He couldn't stay alone by himself, if he did all these thoughts of pain and horror would come devour him.
There were times he wanted to just end it all. To just give up. To just let the monster's attack hit him. To just let a demonlings consume him. That was a 'him', that the 'him' of now hated very much.
"Are you alright, Uncle." Michael asked seeing his blank look.
He smiled and said, "I'm fine." He wasn't lying. He really was fine.
He didn't want to be the him from that time. but that wasn't a problem anymore. He knew he could never be that person even if he wanted to.
He could let himself slip as much as he wanted and he still wouldn't be in that place anymore. Only humans felt those feelings, only humans could feel like a failure. Only humans could go to that place.
Him? He wasn't a human anymore.
For you don't stay a hundred years with the monsters and not come out as one.