As the sun began to rise, in a mansion in the upscale district of Evermoon City, a young man reached out to turn off his alarm. It was 7 AM, and he should have already finished his morning jog and started getting ready. However, instead of following his usual routine, he had been very busy standing by the window, looking like he lost his soul.
Though he appeared still on the outside, his mind was buzzing with thoughts for the past hour. Questions raced through his head, but none of them provided an answer to the main issue causing his restlessness. With the alarm snapping him out of the reverie, he finally voiced the biggest problem that has been plaguing him.
"I know I died. So how am I alive?" Elliot pondered, his head throbbing.
He was experiencing the most intense headache of his life. He was certain that he had died, without a doubt. It wasn't a dream, illusion, or drug-induced hallucination. He could distinguish those sensations, and this was different. One moment, he was dead, and the next, he was alive. But that wasn't all. The real problem was that he had somehow become ten years younger. Not through any advanced ageing reversal method, but genuinely a decade younger. He already double checked everything: the date, the news, even the damn stock market. The first 2 might have been faked but not the last one. Nobody wanted to lose money just to trick him after all.
Accepting the reality of his situation, Elliot reflected on his past life at 25 and contemplated his next moves.
This world had undergone rapid advancements in science and technology, permeating all aspects of life. These advancements had led to a reliance on large facilities that occupied most available land, forcing people to live in crowded cities. Ironically, the cities needed these facilities to be habitable, so they couldn't be removed. Scientists attempted to downsize them to solve the problem, which worked for a while, but nobody noticed the resulting psychological issues caused by the intense work, lack of space, and the tendency to discard anything deemed unnecessary. The culmination of these problems was a lack of motivation and reduced life expectancy, despite medical advancements that increased potential lifespans to nearly 300 years. Panic ensued, and the government sought solutions.
Their extensive research led to the creation of Virtual Reality Mundus, a virtual world inspired by past books and legends. It proved to be a resounding success, as seen through Elliot's younger brother's involvement in the game.
This particular 'new world' was split into many different Areas, each with their own lore. For example, Daren and his guild ware based in the Medieval Area, inspired by medieval Europe and completed by adding many fantasy elements into the mix. On the other hand Vincent was exploring the Arab Area because, if Elliot remembers as accurately as always, 'Building a harem should be every man's dream'.
All things considering, it is no brainer that the game was extremely popular. At his peak it was quite difficult to find somebody who could afford it and didn't play. Some richer players even turned some of the buildings they owned into gaming centers in order to recruit more people into their guilds. Since they even payed them salaries, those centers were incredibly popular with the public.
As of right now, the game has been online for about 2 months and it has already started getting traction. Despite not playing in his previous life, Elliot has almost singlehandedly maintained the guild that his brother and father were so proud of. If he recalls correctly, in about a month or so, Daren will barge into his office begging him to help him with the guild.
Since he didn't have any managerial capabilities, the entire structure was a mess and he had to invest a lot of money to correct it. This sum was completely insignificant though when compared to the information devision that he had later founded. In fact it was due to those large spendings that his father has later started considering making his younger brother his heir.
"I wander for what reason was I reincarnated for. It's not like I had a miserable life or something. Well, Vince might disagree though", thought Leo.
Thinking of Vincent, he recalled the last exchange they had that night. It's not that he didn't know what his best friend wanted to say. They have been together since kindergarten after all. He just pretended not to notice.
"Fine, you win. I'll listen to you this time", thought Leo, with a light smile on his face.
"Until then though, let's just get ready for work."
About an hour later, he was sitting in a hover car, on his way to work. He was meticulously dressed in a light grey suit and drinking his nutritional pack breakfast while perusing his schedule.
Looking at the tasteless nutritional pack he couldn't help but sigh.
"Never thought I'd miss those flavored packs. When exactly had that whacky scientist released them? Should I give him a nudge?", mussed Leo.
"Forget that, I have much bigger issues than that. What is with this schedule. Are they trying to kill me? So this is the reason I didn't play before. I don't have enough time to even load the game."
"Well, at least one good thing came out of this rebirth. I may not be the most experienced gamer around, but for sure I am best CEO there is."
Thinking up to here, he started writing on the terminal several of the most important and time consuming issues that he had solved in the future 10 year and organised them by the degree of importance into 5 categories, with A being the highest and E the lowest. He decided to create contingency plans for all of them so that his employees could deal with the situations more easily and not disturb him all the time.
After reaching the company, he closed himself in the office and started working. By his estimations it would require about a week of overtime in order to free his schedule and create the contingency plans. This should, in turn, grant him a much lighter workload from now on. After all, those 10 years of experience are not a joke.
Stretching his neck slightly, he started what would later become one of the most nightmare inducing week in the memory of his employees. Thousands of people were working from morning till late at night with barely a few minute of brake and even the assistant robots had to be fixed due to overuse. At the end of it though, what could be considered an entire month worth of work has mostly been competed and, despite not knowing why exactly did the CEO pull such a crazy stunt, they all gleefully took the few days of paid vacation that he generously gave out.
Going home after the few days of madness, he walked into the newly renovated gaming room and stared at the capsule lying quietly in the middle. After telling Vincent that he thought about playing the game, the other didn't even wait for him to finish talking before he assured him that that he will take care of everything. "And took care he did. I really wander who customised this atrocity for him.", wryly thought Leo.
The capsule that should have been white was purple with a starry model. If that was all, it would have been fine, girly but fine. The problem was the lion models scattered all around the outer exterior, mast of which were in different compromising positions. And just in case it wasn't obvious enough who it belonged to, on the right side was written, with the most gaudy font he had ever seen, his name, 'Leo'.
"It seems that he had his fun. No problem. I'll settle the accounts with you Vince."
Having finished admiring his friend's work, he went to sleep. Tomorrow he will start playing Mundus after all, it would not do to be tired.