On the surface, hidden from the light, avoiding the sun behind the clouds, a man in his mid-twenties with silvery hair stood in the midst of huge and countless craters, wearing light but high-quality armor and wielding an elegant black-red sword.
The atmosphere was gloomy. The man was sweating profusely and breathing rapidly, so much so that he looked extremely tired, as if all his energy had been drained.
The man took a deep breath, then straightened up slightly and turned his expressionless face somewhere else.
There was another man standing there, sweating profusely, just like him. Although the two men were in a similar condition, one was standing while the other was lying on the ground.
In addition, the man lying on the ground looked more like a demon than a human being with his grayish skin and horns that rose from his forehead to form a crown.
Despite this frightening and powerful appearance, the red blood emanating from his body slowly watered the earth. Then his eyes, which only a few seconds ago had been sparkling with light, slowly began to fade.
The man, still standing unlike his opponent, involuntarily smiled and looked up at the sky. Then he felt a drop fall right in the center of his forehead.
Seconds after the first drop, it started to rain heavily, but the man continued to smile, not caring about getting wet.
The raindrops seeped into the armor, creating a feeling of discomfort, but he turned and looked far away from the battlefield, at the huge, smoking city. Then he raised his sword and shouted as loud as he could.
"I did it!"
The moment he shouted, the image slowly faded to black, and a text appeared on the screen. As the man slowly disappeared from view, the credits slowly started to roll after the message 'Congratulations!'.
"I wonder how long has it been..."
I smiled at the credits that flowed in front of me and got up from my chair with the relief of a weight lifted from my shoulders. I stretched and looked at the clock right next to the computer.
Seven hours huh...
Leaving the credits running on the computer screen as they were, I headed to the kitchen and gulped down the water I had just taken out of the fridge.
Obviously, I was relieved and at peace, because I had come across an unfamiliar ending of a game I had been playing for a long time, but unfortunately, the same could not be said for my body which had been in the same position for seven hours straight...
I poured another glass of water down my throat and went back to my room and sat down in my chair. The credits were still rolling, the names of the producers and animators coming up.
I memorized these names a long time ago, I've seen this scene so many times that I know exactly when it will end: one minute and forty-seven seconds.
Shortly after I sat down in the chair, I counted down from three and the credits ended just as I reached zero. The main screen of the game appeared and I was back in control. So I leaned forward slightly, went into the stats section of the main menu, and looked at my profile.
<<------------------------------
-Aerual Complex-
-6132 Hours Total Game Time
-5118 Hours of Solo Play Time
-1014 Hours of Online Play Time
-Total 132 Story Ends
-Completed Achievements: %100
-Preferred End: Karma Ending
------------------------------>>
I finally managed to get the achievements up to one hundred percent... In just three years, after two hundred and fifty-six days of playing this game, not counting the intervals, I actually finished this game.
This game, "The Lands of Lunerra", stole a huge amount of my time, but I did it...
I smiled again as the memories began to flash through my mind.
When the game first came out, I was seventeen years old, a normal high school senior, I didn't have many friends and I had an ordinary life. I was nothing more than an orphaned kid just hanging out on my own, a simple person who spent all day studying for the university exam...
When I finally passed the exam and was accepted to a very good university with a scholarship, I was introduced to this game thanks to an advertisement I came across while watching a video on the internet.
After days of exam stress, I was quite surprised to see an advertisement for a game whose graphics were not based on realism but on 'fantastic animation'. I still remember my curiosity and excitement when I first saw the advertisement...
I was excited to see such a good game, even though the graphics were in the style of fantasy animation. Because as an eighteen-year-old, fresh out of high school, I was hungry for entertainment.
So after working during the summer vacation and buying myself a good computer, I bought and downloaded the game without thinking too much about it.
The game was exactly as advertised, so there was no rip-off. Of course, it was too early to make such a judgment since I still didn't know the story or the quality of the game, but the 'Story Mode' option that greeted me when I entered the main menu of this game, which managed to attract me with its name and graphics, made me smile involuntarily.
In a time when online games have almost completely taken over the industry, I never warmed up to the 'grind' mechanics and the cycle of completing the same tasks and similar activities.
That's why I always found it more fun to play games that told me brand new stories and gave me pleasure as I 'lived' these stories. I was one of those gamers, which is rare in our time...
I already knew that The Lands of Lunerra had a story mode, but still, with the excitement of a child eating cake for the first time, I clicked the 'play' button. Thus, I started a game that would take two hundred and fifty-six days out of my life in just three years.
The game was set on a different planet. Different kingdoms, different lands, and a completely different world... But on this planet, which is almost the same technologically advanced as our world, one day suddenly all living things fainted and fell asleep.
As all the people fell asleep, accidents plagued the world, and when they woke up, they were greeted by great suffering, but it was nothing yet. Because they had encountered creatures they had never seen on Lunerra.
Creatures that were thought to have appeared out of nowhere had caused great trouble for humanity. Countless people lost their lives because of them, but then people gained skills by acquiring a system similar to today's games. Using this system, they fought the creatures and became stronger, and so on... The story briefly begins eighty years after the 'awakening' of the planet.
Our character was an orphan boy whose parents were killed by someone. It's such a cliché when I think about it. A main character type that can be found in almost every fantasy-based entertainment source and a basic scenario that most people are probably tired of seeing...
But that didn't stop me from playing the game. Because I was drawn to the choices I could make by controlling the main character, the countless paths I could choose to walk with him, and the many endings I could get at the end of the story.
As a result, I finished the game at least once with all the classes, completed quests for all the side characters, realized again and again how detailed the game was, and each time I encountered something for the first time, I was even more excited. With each new ending I finally reached, I literally fell in love with the game.
Being able to communicate with almost all the NPCs in the game, befriending them, forming groups with them, and going on adventures with them was a great satisfaction for me, who didn't have many friends in real life. But no matter how many times I finished the game, my stats always showed ninety-eight percent of the achievements.
So I got ambitious, and after almost a hundred and twenty-one hours of work, now, I've actually finished this game.
I'm happy. I feel absolutely wonderful, but at the same time, I feel... empty? I think something like that.
What drove me to play this game again and again and again was that every time I came back to it, it managed to show me something new, but now I've reached the absolute end...
Now, what should I do with all this free time?
What can I do?
I really love the game, in fact, I doubt I could play anything better than this in my life, so what choice do I have but to accept it?
I paused, closed my eyes, and forced myself to think like this as much as possible, but I couldn't get rid of this dark, endless emptiness inside me.
Finally, I opened my eyes again, frowned, and sighed deeply.
Damn it, this was bound to happen eventually. After all, no game can generate new things forever, and it was pretty clear that I would end up finishing this game and having nothing left to do.
I shouldn't have gotten so attached to a game.
With emptiness in my heart, I looked at the main menu of the game and closed the game with another sigh. Then I leaned back in my chair and watched the ceiling in silence.
I forced myself to laugh, I tried to be happy, and I thought about what I could achieve for the rest of my life. Who knows, maybe I could even become famous for my achievements.
I started to think about the future. And then suddenly, one by one, every single one of these thoughts was interrupted.
My half-smile turned bleakly sour.
Who am I kidding?
I got into a really good university, and my future is bright, yes, but what else do I have? I have never had a 'real' friend or a lover in my entire life. Have I ever tasted real 'happiness'? Even my parents ran away when I was very young, sending me to an orphanage.
Even though I am only twenty-one, and still considered young by society, I have had a rough road. Looking back, most of the smiles I show people are fake. I was never really loved by anyone and that's why I played this game in the first place.
The best solution I could find was to cure this lack of love in me through interesting stories of two-dimensional characters, but now that's over too.
I stared at the ceiling for a while longer, then yawned slightly and realized that I was quite tired, so another annoying thought entered my mind.
Ah, really... it's Sunday. I have to go to class again tomorrow.
I don't want to go ... I already know what they are telling me, but I still have responsibilities.
I lay down on my bed, closed my eyes and decided to go to sleep, but then I remembered that I had forgotten to turn off the computer. Sighing, I forced my aching joints and tried to turn off the computer without sitting in the chair.
That's when a notification on the screen caught my attention.
My eyebrows raised curiously.
I saw that the notification indicated that I had received an email. Then I saw the subject of the email and the sender and completely froze in my tracks.
Forgetting all my joint pains and fatigue, I quickly sat down in the chair and clicked on the notification.
<<------------------------------
-Sender: lunerra****.info@*****.com
-Receiver: aerualcomplex2****@*****.com
-Subject: Congratulations!
Thank you for following us for three years and continuing to play our game! We can see from our system that you are the most frequent and consistent player!
Although this frequency is a bit daunting for your health, we would like to congratulate you for being the first person to reach 100% achievements! Therefore, as the game's production company, we would like to make you an offer. As long as it is within our power and not too extravagant, we would like to fulfill one of your wishes! Please take this email seriously, because if there is something we can do, we definitely want to help you!
------------------------------>>
I stared at the email for a while, checking and rechecking the sender. But no matter how much I looked, it was definitely an email from the game's production company.
Well... I definitely wasn't expecting this.
I took a deep breath, leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes, and thought.
My wish... They told me they would fulfill my wish, but what do I want from life?
Even though I have an ordinary and monotonous life, I am studying at a prestigious university in a department where I can earn a lot of money in the future. So money is not a problem, and I am not a money-hungry person.
I read the email a few more times and then clicked 'reply'. I thought for a long time about what to write, but when I realized that I couldn't think of anything, I smiled involuntarily.
Why am I thinking? If I think about it, will I really be able to convey my wish to them...? No, I don't think so.
Wİth this thought in my mind, I stopped thinking and started writing down the first thoughts that came to me.
I didn't care if it was irrational or emotional, I just wrote what was in my heart at that moment and then sent my response.
<<------------------------------
I don't want to be an ordinary person.
------------------------------>>
I looked at what I had written, and kept looking, my eyes widening as the silence in the room reached a frightening level.
I... What kind of response did I send to a giant game company?! How could I type these eight words and then hit 'send'...?!
I could feel myself starting to blush with embarrassment, but then I saw a notification pop up at the bottom right of the screen.
They replied to my email pretty quickly...
W-wait a minute...
They answered my email! They read what I sent!
I felt the embarrassment more clearly than I had ever felt before in my entire life, I even started to sweat. But I still clicked on the email reply, I was curious.
<<------------------------------
It sounds like you've had a hard life... Yet we know a solution that will do you good! But for that, we need your approval, are you really tired of the mediocrity of this life?
------------------------------>>