"The train will be stopping at the next station."
Glenn listened to the announcer as he stood in the middle of a crowded train. His hand was on the metal bar, gripping it to stop himself from stumbling due to the constant shaking of the vehicle.
Glenn was a middle aged man with his nine to five desk job. His life was composed of nothing but paperwork and train rides back and forth, over and over. He couldn't lie to himself, he was tired of it.
"Goo goo gaa gaa," a child that was held by its mother stared at Glenn and smiled at him. The man smiled back, entertaining the child seeing the mother was distracted as she watched a livestream on her phone.
"In ten minutes, the latest patch for God's Omen will be released," the woman on the phone said. "Everyone, brace yourselves for this new patch. It's the God's Omen version 18.0, Into Another World!"
Before Glenn could listen more, the train came to an abrupt pause. This caused the passengers to knock over each other, some even landing on the ground. Glenn slammed his foot on the metal floor of the train to stop himself from knocking over.
"Dear passengers, please get off of the train immediately."
The announcer's voice was panicked. She sounded like she was out of breath, as though she was running. Glenn sighed and listened to what she ordered. He followed the crowd out of the train and out of the tunnel that they were in.
He didn't expect much from the sudden stop. It could only be just another fault in their system, but his insticts were telling him differently. Being a man that does not believe in superstitions, Glenn shoved the thoughts away.
When the end of the tunnel was near, everyone ran for it. It was dim outside for some reason, but it could only be a storm or a typhoon.
They got outside only for their eyes to widened as they looked up. The once vast blue skies was replaced with a landscape of land and mountains. The worst part of it was that the land was crashing towards theirs, falling quicker than they could comprehend.
Glenn couldn't do anything. He could only watch as the earth crash onto their own, generating screams of fear everywhere.
"God's Omen Patch 18.0 is here!"
–
"Welcome back to God's Omen."
A soft female voice spoke in his mind. Glenn's eyes fluttered open. He felt odd for some reason, like his body didn't feel like how it felt before. He sat up and found himself in the middle of a forest along with several more people.
He took a glance at them and that's when he started to panic. They were all wearing medieval garments, ones that were found in most fantasy video games. Glenn looked down on his body and found himself wearing the same thing.
A tonic green shirt, a pair of brown leather pants, gloves and boots, and a worn down cotton robe. On his hand was a wooden staff that looked like it was infested with termites by its worn down state. Glenn shook his head and realized that this was a familiar setting.
He recollected his memories and remembered the thrill he got from playing God's Omen for the first time. It was a newly released game and he was one of the first players, then it became a massive video game that was played by almost a quarter of the entire population.
Glenn even made it to the first pro-league of the game but his team was disbanded not long after because of their conflict of interest.
"All players," Glenn woke up from his thoughts when a voice of an old man spoke from the center of the clearing they woke up on. They approached the man and listened to what he has to say. "Welcome to God's Omen, this is now your world and your goal here is to survive and thrive."
"Thrive? But how? Where is this? Take me back!"
"I want to see my wife. What are you doing?"
"Who are you? Why are we here?"
…
The players started to create a commotion, angering the old man. "Silence!" The old man slammed his iron staff on the ground, creating a wave of shock that knocked back everyone around him.
"This is not your world anymore," the old man spoke. "You are now Adventurers and your primary goal is to become stronger so that you can defeat the strongest dark beings of this world and bring peace to the Land. When you defeat the Lord of Darkness and his Nine Vassals, then you will return to your world."
"First, you have to open your interface…"
The old man gave them more instructions, but they were all familiar to Glenn. He knew the ins and outs of this game as a veteran. The only issue with him now was how to execute these in real life.
Being in front of a keyboard was different from being in front of an actual beast. His experience in playing the game would come in handy, that's not a question, but this was a completely different situation. Glenn still needed to learn more about this world before he start.
The old man instructed all the Adventurers to stay in a town nearby. Just like in the game, were given 500 initial gold coins to spend while they were in town. They could earn more gold coins by killing beasts and selling their meat and other valuable parts like hide and claws.
As Glenn followed the crowd, he decided to open his interface just like how the old man said. "Interface on."
A blue screen appeared in front of Glenn. Judging by how the people around him did not react when the blue screen appeared, he was the only one who could see it. This interface was on an individual level, a screen that only the player could see and read the content.
Glenn noticed that his previous level, attributes, and even skills were the same as when he left the game. He was in his old account. In his interface was his inventory, and his items and equipment were all there.
If Glenn would equip his level 90 items, it could create chaos, so he opted not to. He still has to act like he's new to the world like everyone else.
He looked around and watched the scared expressions of the people around him. It was odd because not one of them reacted when they were transported to the game. God's Omen was a massively popular game that had two hundred million active players.
Since the game had been running for almost twenty-five years, the number of players only increased as time went by. Yet not one of the almost thirty people around Glenn talked about it.
They were all clueless, which irked Glenn, so he decided to ask one of them. "Have you played God's Omen before?"
It was a woman with the same items as him, so this woman was a healer too. Glenn decided to approach her since healers were the ones who are mostly calm and relaxed.
"What's that?" the woman asked. "I haven't heard of that game."
Glenn stopped from his tracks, letting the woman follow the group while he stayed behind the crowd. His face was scrunched until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He immediately reacted by pointing his staff on the person. It was a man who looked like he was an assassin. "Calm down, bro. I'm not your enemy. I heard your conversation with the girl, and I think not all of us remembered God's Omen."
Glenn was confused. "But everyone knows that game. If they haven't played it, at least they would know it by its name."
The assassin sighed. "I'm John Feind, Level 90 Assassin. My account had been active since the first patch twenty-five years ago. I recognized my friend over there and he played with me, he joined the game on the second patch but his memories of the game seemed to be wiped out."
The revelation shocked Glenn. His eyes widened in disbelief, "Only the players from the first patch remembers the game."
John nodded with a bitter smile. "I guess that's how things are right now."
John tapped Glenn's shoulder before following the crowd. The latter watched as the people walked away when a question popped in his mind.
"Wait," Glenn paused from his tracks. "Where are all the women and children?"