[1ST POV INITIALLIZE]
After deep contemplating, I found out that the flow of time also seems different than usual between the game and real life, I felt like I spent several hours in the game but only one hour had passed in real life, when normally the game hour and reality would be the same.
-The flow of time is strange than usual..... Does the fourth dimension really exist? And TWOD is a realm in that dimension?- I pondered to myself with knitting eyebrows.
I took a deep breath to not overthink everything and hopefully, the world government would explain this bizarre experience since many victims also might lose their consciousness forever and be unable to wake up from their vegetative state.
Even though I felt guilty for being able to escape from death in the game when thousands of rankers caught up in the explosion, I also felt grateful for being able to move and maintain my consciousness.
Additionally I hoped the cowboy man, the woman ranker equipped with the shield, and Lasiv as well as her companion made it out alive as well.
Thinking about it too much right now wouldn't change anything that happens, it only leads to info hazard where the more I think, the more it would hurt my well-being.
Nonetheless, the world would be a different place after people were aware of the dangers of the VR games and if they realized the AI in the game was able to justify their actions and fully conscious of it, it would also pose a threat to androids in real life as well, fortunately that currently Android in real life built their city in the underground of this planet and rarely interact with humanity on the surface.
At that moment, I heard a notification from my tablet and I tapped on it to see my best friend from school sending a message in the group chat consisting of one more of my friends, the three of us created this group chat for various reasons such as our band and party in the TWOD.
[Group Chat: Renegade3
-New message-
Intellectual_Octopus (Shan): Einsamer, I saw you were online during the explosion that took place in the Eternia City, is everything okay?]
He caught up to the news so quickly, not to mention he had never waking up this early morning, this dude probably hadn't slept an entire night doing his research about different mythology and interests for an entire night to notice I was online, but how could he notice I was online despite not log in TWOD?
Should I tell him the truth or keep it to myself?
[Group Chat: Renegade 3
-Replied-
Lonely_Rock (Einsamer): Yes, everything is okay. I was able to log out before the explosion occurred.]
Shan was a very intelligent and intuitive person and also excelled at hand-to-hand combat, on top of that he was more popular with the girls than I am due to his introverted yet confident nature.
[-Replied-
Intellectual_Octopus (Shan): Don't lie to me, I know you logged in to buy a grade A artifact that is on limited sale and I can see your online status the entire time but my location was at Noctis City.]
Wait, so he has been online from the moment I entered the market? In any case, I thought telling him the truth would be better and it also compromised our mutual trust since he shared many secrets with me in the past and he was the only male friend I trusted the most at this moment.
Just as I was about to type a response to him on the blue display hovered before me, suddenly he sent me another message.
[Intellectual_Octopus (Shan): I don't know what happened to you, but you must not let anyone know that you were online.]
[-Replied-
Lonely_Rock (Einsamer): I am thankful that you understand my situation but can I know why I shouldn't let anyone know about it?]
I was aware of his concern for my safety, considering the world government's potential efforts to locate and assimilate me. Nevertheless, I requested further clarification from him to gain a better understanding of his perspective.
[Intellectual_Octopus: Okay, so you are really surviving that explosion.....]
Damn! This dude was testing me. However, I planned to tell him as well. Therefore I let it slide.
He then took a few seconds to type a long text as I remained silent not responding to his message, suddenly I heard a notification and concentrated my attention on reading his new message.
[ Intellectual_Octopus: I think the world government will try to find the remaining survivors after the server shuts down to integrate more information, so keep your mouth shut and don't worry about our conversation, I created a digital barrier exclusively for this message app just for the three of us. So no one is going to know that you are in the Eternia city during that time, except me, of course.]
Yep, except you and a few other rankers as well as Lasiv and her companion who knows what happened, but I couldn't say that since even though he was my best friend, I still felt like there were so many things I couldn't share with him out of fear of betrayal.
[Lonely_Rock (Einsamer): You have reasonable advice, I will do as you said.]
[Intellectual_Octopus (Shan): No worry about it, just focus on our mid-term exam today, also we have a live session in the Vibrant city, I hope Stella is also coming, even though things between her and Setsuna don't seem that good lately.]
I know he was a smart person but to think he already knew that I was amongst the survivors of the explosion was just incredible, I wonder just how he came to that conclusion so quickly.
He was truly a sneaky octopus; at times, I couldn't comprehend what was going on in his high IQ brain and how many times he had manipulated me to extract information. But since we were a best friend and I trust in him the most, I had to let it slide since there were so many important information about Lasiv, the fourth dimension etc that I didn't share to him as well.
Our band also had a live session in the evening so I needed to bring my guitar along to school as well. Hopefully, my mind could calm down and everything went back to normal without any abnormal change in my ordinary life.
As always, I just needed to shut my eyes and mouth and pretend nothing happened. It was one of my talent, that was how I kept my balance in life up until now.
[Lonely_Rock (Einsamer): All right, I will make sure to bring my electric guitar along, and one more thing, what if Setsuna wakes up and reads our message?]
[Intellectual _Octopus (Shan): I will delete the messages that we have right now and she often wakes up late "lol" no worry about it]
I unconsciously lightly chuckled at his text which slightly reduced the tension I had at that moment.
[Lonely_Rock (Einsamer): Lol]
[Group chat: Renegade3
Intellectual _Octopus has deleted today's chat history]
Immediately all the messages that we had for several minutes suddenly disappeared without a trace and only one message left from yesterday could be seen coming from my female friend whose name was Setsuna Hono, she said goodnight to everyone with a GIF of a sleeping black cat on a pillow.
I rubbed my eyes and once again took a deep breath to take a breath from the overwhelming experience repeating inside my head, the demon lord, the pain that I felt in the game felt so real as well.
All of this seemed out of the ordinary like I was living in a sci-fi novel, even science hadn't reached this far yet to make the AI in the game to be fully self-conscious, at first I thought they were just acting out a script and following a certain pattern that made them looks similar to human but after what the elf girl told me, I realized I was wrong all along.
And not to mention the pain I felt, how could pain be inflicted in a dream when the game put us into a dream-like state, everything that happened in the game wouldn't affect the body of real life yet it happened.
But I was glad that I didn't lose my arms in real life when I lost it in the game.
After a short while, I got up from the chair and walked to grab the small backpack hanging on the wall attached to a hanger, and then I also picked up a nearby bendable Gibson Les Pual electric guitar as the strings would loosen and tightening itself base on the adjustments, and put it into my backpack.
In the backpack only consist of a pen and physical music notebook since in this century, the student didn't force to take a note on their physical book anymore and instead, all the lesson would be store in their tablet including taking notes.
With the backpack worn on my back, I moved toward the exit, then I put my hand on an aluminum door with a scanning device to it as it briefly scanned the Bio-Data-Chip implanted in my hand.
Afterward, I heard a clicking sound signaling the door was unlocked so I opened the door and took my first steps toward the red carpet floor before my room.
As I stepped out of my room, I entered the passage hall, greeted by a breathtaking sight. A colossal window, reminiscent of the grandeur of Roman architecture, stretched before me, framing a magnificent view. Through the vast expanse of the window, a towering cathedral revealed itself, pointing towards the golden sky signaling the arrival of dawn with an astonishing height of 100 meters. Its majestic spires pierced the sky, casting intricate shadows that danced across the cathedral's ornate facade.
Immediately there were many juvenile who looked at me, some with envious and curious gazed, while a few looked at me with lustful eyes, this was disgusting...
"Damn, no matter how I look at him, he seems like an Android than human."
"Looking at his blonde hair and smooth fair skin, I don't mind dating the same sex anymore."
"What the fuck? Are you secretly gay? Get the fuck out of me."
"Haha, I am joking. But isn't he always alone? Maybe we should strike a conversation with him."
"If he is a blonde girl, I might try get close to him. But I am not interested in the same sex, I am not gay like you."
"But aren't you guys curious, just because he is born with blonde hair, that Blondie think we are not at the same level as him? Does he thinks he is a prince or something?"
These weirdos, couldn't they just mind their business...
Now stood facing the window of the passage that was aligned with bedrooms, lived by the same male orphan as me and since this was a male dorm, I immediately spotted one of my guy friends who wasn't very close to me but once in a while, we would strike a conversation with each other.
I heard his footsteps approaching this way as I scanned the device attached to my door handle by placing my palm on it and immediately I heard a beeping sound indicating the door was locked.
Here came the preacher, I wish I could have a teleport skills instead of dealing with casual talk.
His height was slightly below me, he had short neatly combed, slick-back black hair, and was wearing a white shirt with black trousers carrying a book in his hand, his name was Ethane.
"Good morning, fellow Divine light follower. Are you going to have breakfast at the dining hall?" Ethane said with an energetic voice.
Surprisingly, today he didn't talk about the gospel. He often stuck with me for an entire morning just to explain the miracle of the divine light that blesses humanity throughout history.
He probably wasn't aware of the news about the explosion that occurred in the game yet since he was just a bronze ranker, it means he never took the game seriously and would rather spend his time in real life preaching about the Divine light.
"Yes, I am going there," I responded in a stern voice.
Ethane smiled joyfully and said "Be grateful for the Divine light, for he is the most merciful and gives you the body to breathe and experience life. But do not forget that we are a light and a part of him, so my friend as a fellow Divine light, you must be grateful to him."
I smiled half-heartedly to him and he smiled back at me then pat my back and walked past me toward the exit of the dorm.
To be honest, I didn't believe in such a thing. I knew every religion got debunked hard after science breakthrough and the revelation of the end of time never came to pass. But the only biggest religious right now that still exists was the Divine light, claiming that god didn't intervene with mortals but rather shared his light with us and allowed us to have his power to create and destroy, and in a sense, we were a god of our own experiencing life.
This resonated with so many people and there were many selves claimed prophets at the early stage of the emerging Divine light church, but in the face of science and the unstoppable force of rationalism, all the self-claimed prophets were living a loneliness life filled with madness and mocking but they still held on to their belief and you could found all of this self-claimed prophet Infront of the Cathedral preaching and debating.
It was bothering me honestly, I just smiled at them whenever they tried to convince me to move on with my life.
Then there were also people who claimed to be the light of savior (Yatia) or servant of the heavenly law Goddess (Yallareon), preaching that they were the true God that shared the Divine light with all mortals.
In the end, all of these self-claimed saviors or prophets and worshippers of God were just a bunch of control freaks, it was better to ignore their attempt to convince me rather than waste my energy debating with them and also I had nowhere to go either beside the Cathedral. But who am I to judge? God might exist, but he had nothing to do with my life so I wouldn't think too much about it.