"You want us to fight that!?" A tall pale elf with jet black hair yells in my direction.
"Yeah! Of course!" I give him a toothy grin in response. I reach into the pack at my side and pull out a flask containing a shimmery purple blue liquid.
"I have to agree with Qu- I mean Ephemera on this one. The boss literally gave us five warnings!" a girl with pink hair, matching cat ears, and light green eyes yells. "I don't want to lose my account and my gear!"
"Well, guess we better not mess up then," I say, shortly before tossing the flask in the direction of our opponent.
This is the story of how my fellow party members and I killed the final boss of a VRMMO and accidentally sent everyone playing to another world.
—-
"We should break up," my boyfriend of three years suddenly said while we were in the middle of eating.
It caused me to nearly choke on the egg sandwich I had been eating. I hit my chest a few times and coughed. "I'm sorry," I finally said once I was certain I wasn't going to choke. "I thought I heard you say you wanted to break up?"
His dark brown eyes darted around the room. He usually did this when he was nervous.
"I-I did," He replied.
"Is it someone from that stupid game you've been playing?"
His eyes cast down towards the table.
I sighed and crossed my arms across my chest and leaned back against my chair. I'd honestly be lying if I said that I wasn't expecting this. Lately Scott had been very distant. He spent all of his free time in some VRMMO that had come out a few months before. A majority of the time when I asked to hang out he would tell me he had an important meeting with his guild. And when we did hang out, he would spend most of the time on his phone. I should've expected something fishy was up when he insisted we hang out at his house.
"Is it a girl? I thought you hated when girls played games," I hissed.
"...yes," he mumbled.
"That's pretty funny because when you found out I played games, you told me you didn't like girls who played games. I even stopped playing because of it," I laughed, before getting to my feet.
The brown haired boy in front of me bit his lip.
"Have the two of you met in person before? How do you know it's just not some guy pretending to be a girl? Or is it a guy you're in love with? I'd almost rather prefer that."
He didn't reply to this, but I could tell by this silence that they had met.
"Ah, he's been cheating on me," I thought for a mere moment before starting towards the door.
"F-Florence w-wait!" Scott stammered getting to his feet.
"For what?" I screamed, not facing him. "So you can offer some half ass apology for wasting the last three years of my life? Forget it. Fuck off and delete my number from your phone."
I stomped towards the door, grabbing my bag on the way out.
I glanced at the mirror by the front door. My freckled face was red probably from anger or embarrassment. There were no tears coming from my plain brown eyes, which was a good sign. I wasn't going to waste any over Scott. My orange hair was in its usual messy high ponytail. Scott had asked to hang out so suddenly so I rushed over after I was finished with work. Good thing I didn't take the time to pretty myself up before I came over or I probably would've been even angrier at the whole situation.
I stepped through his front door and slammed the door shut behind me.
"Why did I go out with him in the first place?" I thought angrily as I stomped down the apartment hallway.
"Ah, that's right…" Because after 17 years of no one showing even an ounce of interest in me because I was too much of a tomboy or I because I had a foul mouth, when Scott had confessed to me after school one day, I was desperate to think that he actually did like me.
And hey, maybe he had. Maybe after he started playing that VRMMO he realized there were much nicer and prettier girls he could snag. It's not like I was ugly or anything. Well, people did say that I had "sanpaku eyes". So I naturally looked kinda peeved all the time. I was taller than him so maybe that was a factor too. I wasn't mean to him though. He was probably the one person I was desperate to be the nicest to. When he told me he didn't like when girls played games, I immediately stopped playing them. That's how desperate I was.
"A lot of good it did though."
I headed straight home after I left his apartment. I walked. It wasn't too far from where I lived and where I worked, plus it was the city and I wasn't keen on sitting in a taxi for longer than it would take to walk.
I was completely lost in thought as I walked home.
I couldn't help but think about how Scott and his new mysterious lover had been going out behind my back for who knows how long. Seriously, what did Scott see in some damn pixel avatar that made him want to possibly cheat on me? I should tell his mother. Or not, that might be too much.
I decided to open my social media feeds. It hadn't even been an hour since the conversation, but Scott had sent me a message saying "Sorry it ended up like this". I almost wanted to chuck my phone into the sewer grates and just get a new one. I must've hit something because the next thing I knew I was on his page.
And right there on his front page was the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on. She was short and skinny. She had a voluptuous chest. Her brown hair was long and curled. Her face was devoid of any blemishes. Her pink lips were full. She wore a cute pink dress and some jewelry to accent it.
"What the hell? She's so pretty!" I thought, gripping my phone tightly in disbelief. "She looks kinda familiar though…"
No wonder he had cheated on me. A girl like that showing up would make just about anyone wanna be with her. Hell, even I wanted to at least be her friend. Though that probably wouldn't fly. Scott would probably think I was up to some low key revenge to get him back.
"-iss."
"Miss?"
A sudden voice calling out to me caused me to snap out of my thoughts. I found myself standing in front of what I could only describe as a male god in the flesh. Well, a male god that had been slashed across the nose with something. He had a scar across his nose and both cheeks. Still though, he was probably the most handsome person I had ever seen in my life. Scar or no scar. He had bright green eyes and black hair that was short and slicked back. He had freckles too, but his were actually the attractive kind. He wore a white dress shirt and a black vest over it. His slacks matched the black vest.
"What do you want?" I said, stepping back when I realized I was much too close to him.
He gave me a slight smile before speaking. To be honest, he looked as if he didn't want to talk to me. "We are holding a lottery right now where you can win three copies of the new VRMMO Exordium Online."
"Fuck that game," I thought.
"Yeah? What do I have to do to enter?" I asked.
The man motioned to a table to the left of us. On it was a small little octagonal lottery machine. Next to it was a sign that had what color ball won what prize.
GRAND PRIZE [GOLD] - THREE COPIES OF EXORDIUM ONLINE [COMPLETE WITH HEAD MONITOR]
2ND PLACE [SILVER] - TWO COPIES OF EXORDIUM ONLINE [COMPLETE WITH HEAD MONITOR]
3RD PLACE [BRONZE] - ONE COPY OF EXORDIUM ONLINE [COMPLETE WITH HEAD MONITOR]
WHITE BALL - FREE RANDOM SSR ITEM IN EXORDIUM
"Gold for the grand prize of 3 copies of Exordium Online?" I repeated.
"Yes. So would you like to play?" He asked.
There was no way in hell I would win any of the prizes, but there was no harm in trying. If I did happen to win one I could just give it to one of my younger siblings.
"Why not," I shrugged, taking my spot in front of the table.
The green eyed man motioned for me to grab the lever.
"After you grab it, turn it as many times as you want," he said, "The ball will fall out on its own."
I grabbed a hold of the white knob and then began to spin it a few times before stopping. The machine made a weird clicking noise.
"It's supposed to do that, right?"
I closed my eyes tightly shut. I heard the ball drop into the metal pan.
"Well, well, well," the green eyed man said, "Looks like the gods smile upon you."
I opened my eyes and looked at the lottery machine.
There it was.
The golden ball.
"Congratulations on winning the grand prize!" The green eyed man clapped enthusiastically.