The information Fermen dropped captured Arthur’s interest completely. “Vanished? How did they vanish?”
The sudden twist in the story was something he half expected. After all, if wars were waged amongst all kinds of races for these Shards, it meant their original owners were no more. However, it was still unexplainable how Gods can vanish.
‘Aren’t Gods supposed to be invincible?’ He thought to himself. “Did they get killed?”
Looking at Fermen, he realized that the Angel wasn’t focused on his words. Instead, she continued. “After they vanished, all races in the Divine Realm tried to get their hands on these Shards. War infested every corner of the Divine Realm and death became the sole constant people believed in.” She said.
“…” Arthur pursed his lips.
“Thousands of years later, the world had regained its peace with some of these shards were obtained by the strongest creatures. But, that could perhaps end anytime now. The greed of those who seek power is limitless and there are still shards out there with no owner.”
“… I assume that’s where we enter the equation. The players, I mean.” Arthur replied. Everything the Angel had said seemed to point in one single direction.
“Whatever you desire to do, Player Arthur, it is all up to you. However, bear in mind that each action has its consequences, and those consequences could be dire. The Divine Realm is as mystical as it is dangerous.”
The words Fermen said sounded more like a piece of advice rather than a Lore explanation. That naturally surprised Arthur since he didn’t expect to hear the Angel give him anything more than that. She didn’t even answer the questions he had. Still, he smiled and nodded his head.
“I will keep that in mind.” He said.
The Angel didn’t give any visible reaction to his words and simply lifted her hand again. “The explanation is over. I shall transport you to the ‘First Step’ region now. I wish you a long journey, Player Arthur.” She said.
“Wait a second!” However, Arthur called for her, only for the Angel to ignore him and snap her fingers. For a moment, nothing happened and then, Arthur’s body started slowly descending as Fermen watched him.
The speed of his descent was slow at first, but then quickly increased. In a matter of seconds, Arthur was flying down at an incredible speed, like a shooting star.
“WOAAAH!! I’m not a fan of heights!!” As he was falling, he threw his arms everywhere as a natural reaction. But, he eventually calmed down and realized that he was right above what seemed to be a small village in the middle of a vast forest.
Eventually, he made contact with the ground. However, surprisingly, there was no huge explosion or even a powerful impact. Instead, Arthur was gently put on the ground like a mother carrying her child.
Standing up, the boy looked at the sky with amazement in his eyes. ‘That was crazy!! What kind of powers does she have I wonder.’ He thought to himself as he finally looked down.
However, the sky above him was now empty with no traces of that Angel left. So, he quickly lost interest and finally shifted his gaze to the place where he landed. The village was quite beautiful, with stone roads that stretched as far as the eye could see, coiling around the small buildings.
He could see some villagers moving around, going about their day as if no one had just fallen from the sky right in the middle of the village. However, what surprised Arthur even more was how realistic everything looked. From the people to the buildings to the dirt on the side of the road.
Everything looked so real that if he didn’t know this was a game world, he would’ve never guessed that it wasn’t. “They have actually done it. A Full Immersion, fully realistic game. This is the future!!” Laughing to himself, Arthur was about to finally check the very first thing an RPG player would check.
However, before he could do that, someone suddenly fell to the ground next to him. The boy flinched as he looked at the newcomer. Then, not that long after, another one descended on his left. Then, another one, and another one.
In quick succession, dozens and dozens of new players descended to the ground all around him. Meanwhile, Arthur watched with amazement. The numbers were rapidly increasing and filling the entire plaza.
“What was that?!”
“I almost had a heart attack.”
“He could’ve warned me before that!”
He heard annoyed grumbling from the players around him. They also quickly and curiously started examining one another.
‘They have health bars above their heads.’ He thought to himself. Right above each player’s head, there was a red health bar. But, there was no name and no level, just a health bar.’
It didn’t take long for people to start talking to each other.
“It seems the rumors were true, huh.” One player said.
“You didn’t know? It seems not everyone is playing on the same server. The number of players is too huge to do that. That is why there are at most millions of players playing in this server like us.” He explained.
‘Oh, different servers? I guess that makes a lot of sense.’
Even with their technological advancement, trying to shove billions of players into one single server is impossible. No server could handle that level of traffic.
“But, still, why are there only a few hundred people here? Where are the rest?”
“Look guys, open your main menu!” One girl suddenly exclaimed as she looked at the air in front of her with a surprised look.
Saying that, everyone naturally did what she asked, including Arthur. He assumed the way to open the menu was to simply think of the word and that seemed to be the case.
[Profile]
[Map]
[Inventory]
[Log Out]
“Oh! there is a map.” Arthur muttered as he tapped on it. Almost immediately, a bigger window opened in front of him. In it, he saw a huge map, most of it made out of grey color, obstructing many areas. To the side of it was a set of detailed coordination indicators. The only spot that wasn’t obstructed was the place where his ‘Player Marker’ was.
It showed a color, highly detailed map of the village which turned out to be surprisingly big. When Arthur focused on the village, something else popped up right above the village map.
[First Step Village #487]
“Oh!” Immediately, he understood everything. “It’s not a single village. There are many villages like this one. Probably scattered around this entire region?”
This concept wasn’t foreign. Beginner villages are usually more than one as the number of players can’t fit in one small village. It seemed Arthur landed in the First Step Village number 487.
‘Which means there are at least 487 villages. If each one takes one to two thousand players, that’s close to one million players!’
Then it hit him. If there are that many villages or even more, then how big was the First Step Region?
Just trying to briefly imagine what made Arthur’s head hurt and the map didn’t show him the entire region yet, probably pushing him to explore in order for the map to be revealed. The others seemed to realize that too as Arthur noticed the excitement in their eyes.
‘Fermen didn’t lie when she said nobody reached the end of this Realm yet. Even what is supposed to be a beginner’s region, is probably unimaginably huge!’ Without realizing it, the boy had a wide grin on his face.
“All for me to explore.” He licked his lips.
After that, Arthur closed the map and looked at the rest of the options in the main menu. There was surprisingly no settings menu for some reason. So, he decided to check the first one, his profile. He wanted to know what kind of stuff he was working with, and perhaps find out even more about how this world’s system worked.
After all, the class selection was but a small dot in a huge pond and if they were this thorough with the world design, then he was certain the system was going to be perfect.
[Name: Arthur]
[Gender: Male]
[Level: 1]
[Main Class: Blood Monarch (Locked) 1/10]
[Rank: SSS]
[Secondary Classes: None]
[Main Abilities: Blood Eater (Level 1)/ Blood Claw (Level 1)]
[Secondary Abilities: None.]
[Stats:
Health: 12
Strength: 12
Agility: 8
Stamina: 10
Mind: 12
Presence: 13]
[Bonus Points: 5]
