Toot~
Rina put her phone down with a giggle.
Ren, who was still driving, chuckled and said, "She's still as energetic as always huh."
"Yup, and she still curses so much too. She even deleted my number!"
The couple chuckled and the atmosphere in the car became nostalgic.
Talking to the person who was their comrade and had gone through thick and thin with them made them reminisce of the past.
They couldn't help but become a little excited. After all, they had a peaceful life since the war ended. A kind of life that they were not used to and had never been able to adapt to.
Because deep inside, they missed the adrenaline that the war gave them.
***
In Zen's private ward…
Zen just took off the gaining helmet and yawned in happiness.
He stood up to brush his teeth and wash his face with a smile that had been always present on his lips lately.
It had been a few days since he found out that he was cured.
The only thing that he was disappointed about was the fact that his family still did not know that his condition was already cured.
It was because his parents had not come to the hospital at all and his little sister was always in the game whenever he logged off.
'I'm dying to see the surprised expressions on their faces!'
Zen thought regretfully as he did his morning routine.
After a while, he came back to his bed and sat on it.
"Sir Zen are you awake?"
"Yes, wait a minute!"
"Take your time, sir."
Hearing the voice of his nurse, Zen hurriedly picked up the ends of the medical apparatuses and attached them to his body.
"You may come in!"
The door opened, followed by a nurse who was holding a cart with two trays of food on it. He placed it one on the bedside table and the other on the table near the sofa where Sera was sleeping with the gaming helmet on her head before asking, "Do you still need something, sir?"
After thinking for a moment, Zen said, "No, thank you for your hard work."
The nurse smiled and thanked him before leaving.
"Sigh… it was a close call…"
Zen became relieved and ate happily. Normally, he would wait for Sera to get up, but because it was unknown when she would exit the game, he ate first.
'Tsk… teacher's bread and milk tastes better than these."
Although Zen was not picky with food, he could not help but have this thought.
Since he specifically requested before that he wanted to eat food that was tasty, he did not have to suffer eating tasteless foods like before.
He remembered the taste of the bread and milk that his teacher always gave him. Although they looked simple, their taste was out of this world.
After he finished eating, Zen placed the empty tray on the bedside table and felt the changes in his body.
In the past few days, all he did in the game was to train and train nonstop.
He focused on the attributes of his body such as Strength, Constitution, Agility and Dexterity which resulted in a huge boost in his body.
Zen even felt that he could easily crush metal with his hand now.
He soon shook his head, placing his attention on something else and picking up his phone to browse the internet.
A lot of things had also happened in the past few days in the real world. The uproar that the game Free World caused had not subsided at all.
The players that played the game each also increased, reaching tens of millions.
There were also a lot of rich families that were buying from those who were fortunate enough to own the gaming helmets and offered at least tens of times its original price, some even reaching hundreds of times.
The game also became popular world wide. Even those who were skeptical at first soon turned regretful that they did not buy the gaming helmet.
Thus, many people had no choice but to wait for a while to be able to buy their own.
Fortunately, the available gaming helmets increased each day, which relieved them because they would not have to wait for too long.
Some voiced out their suspicions about the game because of the fact that it can accomodate a large amount of people in an open world setting.
Even the past virtual games were only able to accomodate tens of thousand at most per server.
However, these suspicions were drowned by the hype that was caused by the game.
As Zen continued to look for information about the game, he noticed a post that was titled "Talent Rankings".
Because of the fact that he did not gain any talent when he made his character, he felt some bias against those who did.
Feeling his pettiness, Zen clicked on the post and read.
After reading for a while and not finding any noticeable information, he closed the post and continued scrolling.
He saw many random posts about the game.
Some talked about how realistic it is, some talked about how hard it was to level up and many more.
Through browsing, Zen learned a couple of things about the game.
He learned that the person with the highest known level was only level 13.
As he thought about this, Zen's face became strange.
'Huh? It's been almost a week since tha game launched and this would equate to almost two weeks in the game. Why is their level so low?'
Fortunately, after scrolling a few times he found a post that answered this question.
It turned out that it was because most players were not used to the setting of the game and were still exploring it.
He learned that the game was way different than any other virtual reality game. The reason for this was because other games have some kind of a guide or tutorial for the player to get started.
However, in Free World, it was as if the players were thrown into another world.
A whole new world without giving them any knowledge or advantage besides the fact that they can understand the language of the natives that made it easy for them to communicate.
However, this hyper-realistic-ness of the game did not drive any players away. On the contrary, it even made it more attractive.
It was even dubbed as "another reality", a league way above virtual reality.