(THUMP, THUMP)
Eizit's eyes widely opened, he was alive. Of course he was, he had died, but in Spiegel people had 9 lives...
"Ah god... What a way of losing my first life, smashed by a mace."
He sighed, there was still a good part on having died, it was that now he could have access to his first star. In Spiegel, magic is absorbed from the power of the stars.
The more you die, the thinner your soul restriction becomes, and the more you can grasp on the power of the stars.
People in Spiegel started off with no stars, but after dying once, they awakened their first star. For Eizit, that moment was right now.
An UI appeared in front of him
[Congratulations! You have died once.
Your Soul Restriction has been reduced and therefore you can now access the power of one star]
[Randomly Generating the user's first star]
This was the most tense moment of Eizit's second life, the star he gained could determine whether he could live a life as a strong guy and gain a name for himself or would die trying to protect another stranger...
[You have been aligned with a Star]
"Let's see what we got! Open UI"
[Opening UI]
[Spiegel World™ - Character UI
Name - Eizit
Age - 17
Current Stars - 1
Current Life - 2nd
Star 1 - Boom Boom
(More Info Currently Locked)]
"What the fuck does Boom Boom mean? What kind of a joke name is that? Boom boom? Really? Did God have no better idea for my star's name...?"
Well, Boom Boom it was, it seemed. The star had something to do with explosions, that was for sure. Eizit was about to check out what it did when he heard a voice in the distance.
"You sneaky little rat! You survived that!?"
[Engaging Combat in 3 Seconds]
[3...]
[2...]
"LOG OFF"
[Logging Off Spiegel]
[Thank you for Playing!]
...
Eveything went black, Eizit sighed, he had managed to avoid fighting that Berserker guy again, thank god, he didn't want to lose his second life so early. The Berserker was probably on his third or fourth death, based on how powerful he was.
A light appeared over Eizit as it slowly became wider and wider, the walls of the neurological link capsule opening, he stood up and stretched his body. Getting off the machine with a jump.
"That was a cool first gaming session, it sucks to die though... It felt so real, who would have thought they could simulate real life's feelings so good"
***
A long time ago, before Eizit wasn't even born, there existed a world with an average level of technology. Big cities with tall skyscrapers, Internet, cars, virtual reality, etc. However, as time passed, the technology advanced to a higher level, creating floating cities and flying cars, creating robots that helped humans in their daily tasks and, lastly, developing a digital world named Spiegel.
It was a fantasy world with beautiful creatures, magic and an RPG like UI.
Nonetheless, the game wasn't really popular at first, due to it lacking an actual plotline. Spiegel was just like an open-world with no objectives for the players other than to just live there and become stronger.
Something was off about the game though, people playing the game had 9 lives, and that made it so you would revive in a random location after dying. However, if your lives reached 0, not only would you die in Spiegel, but also in Hansha, the futuristic world.
That was something that made the game almost get deleted, the risk of dying was too important to be allowed.
After a lot of judges and juries handling the case, the company managed to keep the game on, and the game kept running just fine.
Because of the fact that everything felt so real in Spiegel, people actually tried having children there. And weirdly enough it... Worked?
1 year after the release people started having children in Spiegel, the kids there were called digital humans. These kids were specially pretty as the appearance of people in Spiegel was customizable in character creation.
Regarding exiting Spiegel world, digital humans actually could, which would make their bodies be created upon leaving Spiegel for the first time. An investigation was started regarding why people could have kids in Spiegel, but the case ended up being closed after some people died unexpectedly without any clue as to why. Due to these deaths happening in Spiegel, the high tech for crimes used in Hansha was not accessible. Truly fishy.
As of now, 100 years after the first baby was born in Spiegel, all investigations regarding the reason why Spiegel feels so real have been dismissed due to unexplainable deaths... Which could be a proof of something big being behind it.
***
Eizit had been playing Spiegel for just 1 month, and therefore he was still amazed by the incredible quality of it. He walked outside of the room with the machine, on the left side was the living room and on the right side was the kitchen. Eizit went directly to his room, walking just straight, and once entering he laid down on his bed.
He started thinking about what the old man had told him, the question regarding whether or not he'd sacrifice his last life to protect someone else. After dying once to protect someone he could no longer ignore the question.
Would he still do it after experiencing the pain of dying once? Would he still do it after experiencing that pain another 7 times? Would he still sacrifice himself even if that meant dying forever?
He thought he wouldn't, but was unsure. He knew pretty well that the urge to help that girl was unstoppable, and that is the reason he died. Perhaps he couldn't control it in the future either, and if that kept on, he'd die.
"The Hero Syndrome huh...?"
He mumbled to himself, remembering what his rational thinking had told him, that what made him run forward and protect an stranger was called the Hero Syndrome. He had never heard of such things, probably people in Hansha didn't care to actually sacrifice themselves in the name of others.
He took another deep breath, trying to convince himself that he isn't as stupid as to sacrifice his life for someone else again... But then, he remembered what he had said: "(...) if I could choose to not do it, I would do it again"
People say that when you are on the edge of death, it is when your real self comes out, and perhaps that was the case here. It was pretty possible that Eizit's true self was just that, a sacrificial bitch. It could be cool, but it was surely stupid, why would anyone give up their life for others?
Eizit took yet another deep breath, these thoughts were gonna drive him crazy. Did he actually do the right thing? That was the thing that he asked himself the most. It was true he did it to save someone else, but did he do it genuinely for that person? After all, he knew he wouldn't die for real and that he would become stronger after dying, so he wondered if he did it because of dumb kindness or sharp egoism, to aid someone or to become stronger.
He grinned his teeth, he didn't want to think that he did it for an egoistic reason, but he was a person that used to judge themselves too often. And therefore, he couldn't help but tell himself he did stuff for egoism, because he thought he was not a good guy, but a bad one... Hopefully he manages to prove himself wrong someday.
Eizit would start to fall asleep, but he left out a scream, not too loud... "AHHHH". He rapidly stood up, walked out of his bedroom into the machine room, he jumped over it and closed it. He needed to know what his star did.
[Welcome to Spiegel]
[Logging in...]