Chapter 4 - Consuming The Apple

[Upon consumption a player's stats will go back to the beginning. All items, weapons, skills, and abilities acquired by the player will be stripped off, and said player will return to level one]

Chen stared at the information for a while which enabled him to recall something from Pete's memories.

"Retrieve item to reality," He voiced out.

"Yes," Immediately after Pete replied a bright light enveloped the apple.

Trooin!

It disappeared into light particles from his grip.

Chen sighed in relief after that happened and observed his environment for signs of life.

There was no one around the vicinity.

The apple of reset disappearance meant it had been transferred to the real world.

The mistake Pete made five months ago after getting an item that could be taken to the real world was, that he didn't hide it.

If no one had known, he wouldn't have been ambushed.

'I'll have to come back later to investigate why I'm able to pass the boundary... for now, I need to test out whether the fruit works,' Chen said internally.

"Log out!" Chen called out after checking around his surroundings for a few more seconds.

"LOGGING PLAYER PETE OUT!"

After the robotic female voice was heard, Chen disappeared from his standing point.

--

Chen opened his eyes and found himself back inside the pod.

The pod opened up slowly causing a small mist to escape from within and spread into the surroundings.

Chen removed the helmet and sat up.

in his right hand was a purplish fruit coated in a mysterious glow.

Chen had an excited look on his face upon seeing the fruit.

"The apple of reset," He raised the fruit and stared at it.

"How is this even possible?" Even though Chen had already seen the part of Pete's memories when he brought an item from the game into the real world, he still couldn't fathom how such a thing was possible.

According to Pete's memories, the developers of the game never explained how they made such a thing possible. The most mysterious part was no one knew who the developers were or which company they belonged to.

The game just suddenly appeared in the market with rumors flying around about how people were able to increase their strength in reality through the game and also bring items from there into the real world.

Before this, VR MMORPGs existed and different types competed against each other in the market but immediately this one appeared, people dumped the previous VR MMORPGs for Overworld.

Right now people went about with superhuman abilities, performing feats that are supposed to only be possible in fantasy movies and games.

"Just what type of world is this?" Chen clicked his tongue with a look of astonishment.

Chen decided to throw all that to the back of his mind in the meantime and brought the fruit closer to his lips.

"I hope this works," Chen muttered and proceeded to take a bite of the apple.

Crunch!

Immediately he swallowed the first bite he felt an indescribable rush of refreshment circulate through his internals.

It was like tasting a mint rush but in this case, his tongue wasn't the one doing the job, it was his entire body.

The apple had a spicy kind of taste that he just couldn't fathom yet it was delicious in a unique way.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

Chen couldn't stop munching on it.

In a few seconds he had finished it but he didn't feel any different within his body.

'Am I not supposed to feel different?' He wondered internally while stepping out of the pod.

Immediately he stepped out of the pod completely a wave of headache assaulted him again.

"Arrgghh!" This time it was more intense than earlier when his head was being filled with Pete's memories.

"INITIATING OVERWORLD SYSTEM INTO PLAYER!"

He heard this robotic voice in his head before seeing a blue panel appear in front of him.

'What in the world is going on?' Chen held his head in pain as he noticed the blue panel.

Immediately the percentage went up by one Chen an intense rumbling in his head.

It felt like his skull was being cracked open.

"Arrgghh!" He screamed out in pain before he fell to the floor and passed out.

----

Two hours later Chen awoke to find himself laying on the floor in his room.

Although his body was laying on the floor he felt his back was slightly elevated and his head was leaning on something soft.

His blurry eyes cleared up and he saw a beautiful face staring at him from above with a look of worry.

"Big brother you're awake," Her face showed relief as she spoke.

"Hnm? Remi?" Chen noticed that the back of his head was currently resting on both her laps and a small towel was placed on his forehead.

She held his face and caressed his cheeks with care, "What happened to big brother? I heard the sound of something falling to the floor from the living room. I decided to check and I found big brother laying on the floor,"

Chen was mesmerized by the look of concern and care she showed him. Even though Pete and Remi were siblings, he was sure he had never seen such a strong bond between family before.

"Umm, I had a splitting headache but don't worry I'm okay now," Chen said with a smile.

"What time is it now?" He asked.

"Hmm, it should be around thirty minutes past eight," Remi replied.

"What?" Chen immediately sat up while exclaiming.

"Nightshift starts by nine pm, I'm going to be late," Chen quickly jumped up before Remi could reply and ran to the bathroom to freshen up.

Remi looked around with an expression of confusion.

'Big brother has been very energetic today what's going on?' She stood up while wondering.

She looked around his room and noticed the immersion pod was opened.

'Big brother still plays this?'

-

About ten minutes later Chen was done showering and changing into his work outfit.

He wore his usual green sweater and brown trousers. Both clothes had faded colors making him look like a street beggar.

'With these handsome looks, he could have easily been a male prostitute... I'm sure Pete would have made a lot of money from that unless there is no prostitution in this world,' Chen was a businessman so he always examined things from a marketable aspect.

He believed Chen would have amassed quite a fortune if he decided to do this but he understood what kind of person Pete was and the fact that his morals would prevent him from doing such a thing.

'We're so different... I could venture into any kind of business regardless of morals so long as it's lucrative,' Whenever Chen recalled some part of Pete's memories he would sigh.

Pete was such an upright person but he was sometimes a shrewd businessman back where he came from.

There were times when he had to make decisions that weren't so upright.

It was like joining two different personalities now that he was within Pete's body.

Chen bid his sister goodbye before leaving home.

He walked through the dark streets where only a few people could be seen loitering around.

Their apartment happened to be located in a rural part of the city known as Typhoon city.

Typhoon city was one of the most corrupted and crime-infested cities in the world.

This part of the city mostly had small bungalow typed structures.

Local goons and the likes practically colonized the city. Overworld made it even worse after people started bringing abilities into the real world.

It was chaotic at first and people practically used those abilities to commit tons of atrocities until a group, known as the regulators appeared.