𝑜𝗏xt.𝗇t
In a hazy, mist-filled world, Jesse stood in the kitchen, pouring misty cereal into a misty bowl. The world around him was gray, dark, and lonely. He was the only person in existence.
As he picked up the misty silverware, he took the bowl from the misty countertop and approached the misty table, which only had one chair.
At that moment, the floor in front of him sank to the ground, and stairs, leading to empty darkness, opened up. Jesse didn’t notice in time and slipped on the stairs, suddenly falling into the dark pit. His scream resounded in the darkness, but the echo didn’t reach anyone’s ears.
The stairs disappeared, and the misty floor fixed itself.
Jesse was nowhere to be seen.
…
“Ah!” A sudden scream pierced through the air. A silver-haired girl sat up in horror, cold sweat drenching her beautiful face. She touched her chest, feeling her pounding heartbeat.
“A-A dream?” Alice tossed the blanket away and sat on the bed’s edge. She wore a beautiful light blue nightgown, which truly highlighted her famed beauty. Her face, however, looked frightened.
“Just a dream… a dream.” She laid back down, her head soon touching the soft pillow. She closed her eyes, trying to get more sleep to have enough energy for the following day.
However, she was not able to fall asleep, and she kept thinking about the strange dream she had. In the end, she again sat up and glanced at the VR headset on top of her drawer.
She grabbed it, laid back on the bed, and placed it gently around her head.
‘Ambrose, hmm…’ She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was standing in a room with a large window looking out over the city.
…
“Argh…” Jesse opened his eyes and held his left hand in pain. He sat up, groggily opened his eyes, and saw that his bandage was slightly covered in blood. “Great, what now…”
He stood up and went to his bag to take out another roll of bandages. After removing the old bandages, he noticed that his knuckles were bleeding for some reason. There were still some signs of his injuries, and a few stitches had come out, causing the hand to bleed.
Jesse changed the bandages and returned to bed. He pinched the middle of his brow and yawned. He felt like sleeping for a little longer.
He picked up his phone and saw that the time was a little bit past 4 a.m.
After seeing the time, he immediately decided to catch some more sleep. But then, he noticed something very odd. His notification bar showed 99+ new messages. It made him think that he was still dreaming.
“What the hell?” Jesse rubbed his eyes, but the messages were still there. He checked where the notifications came from and noticed that they were from the Martial Online forums. It made his heart race, as there was only one post he had created.
He removed his Crow Cave post immediately after selling the information to Prince. Therefore, he had barely received any until now.
Jesse went straight to the forums to check the notifications.
His hands, holding the phone, began shaking as numbers flashed past his vision. He checked the current highest auction bid.
[Highest Bid – Rach: 14,500 crowns]
The second highest bid was 10,000 crowns. Rach decided to deliver a finishing blow with his bid, and no one had tried to bid higher in the past hour.
“Insane…” Jesse let out a loud laugh and went to the bathroom to wash his face. After he returned to his bed, he grabbed the phone and accepted the bid. He then sent a message to Rach, telling him the location of the dojo.
“You can come check out the dojo… Once you finish payment, I will… give you the key.” Jesse finished writing the message and then closed the phone. He was confident that Rach was still sleeping and that it would take him a few hours to reply.
“I underestimated the value, or this Rach guy is filthy rich.” Jesse scratched his hair and laid back on the bed. He grabbed the VR headset and put it around his head. He doubted he could continue sleeping after that.
Therefore, he wanted to spend the last remaining hours in his dojo.
…
Ding!
“Hmm, what now?” Ambrose didn’t even have time to get up from his dojo room’s bed when another notification popped up in his vision.
[Friend Request Received!]
“Huh?” Ambrose pressed the notification.
[Serenity]
[Accept the friend request?]
[Y/N]
“Serenity? Alice…” Ambrose hovered his finger in front of the yes button, but quickly made the friend request disappear from his vision and laid back on the bed.
“What does she want?” Ambrose pinched on his glabella. “I didn’t know it was possible to add friends. Maybe I really should check the help guide…”
He tried pushing the friend request to the back of his mind, as he didn’t want to think about it right now. Shortly afterwards, he got tired of lying around and returned to the downstairs, where he started doing short training against the training dummy.
Since the trained dummy didn’t come with the dojo, he planned on taking it away with him.
“At least the smell is gone.” Ambrose thought out loud while slashing his sword across the wooden chest.
After a short while, he grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He felt more refreshed after pouring his frustration into the attacks. The training dummy had more dents than before, and it was only a matter of time before he needed to purchase another one.
He then returned to the training dummy and tossed it into his inventory. He didn’t want to end up in an argument with the guy named Rach, in case he believed the training dummy to be part of the dojo’s equipment.
It didn’t hurt to be careful about such a delicate matter.
Even if Rach didn’t treat the 14,500 crowns with importance, Ambrose did very much so. That much money would ease many of his troubles.
Ambrose stepped out of the dojo, sat on the steps, and inhaled the fresh air. At moments like this, he truly could appreciate the beauty of the world.
Creak—the wooden gate opened, and a stunning-looking young man with blond hair walked in with black sunglasses on his eyes. He looked around the dilapidated dojo and the weed-ridden yard. Then, lastly, his gaze landed on the black-haired youth.
At first, he curled his lips almost mockingly, but when he looked at him deeper and saw his broad shoulders and almost perfect physique, he forced a more genuine smile and took off his sunglasses.
“My name is Rach. You must be Ambrose.” Rach said and put his hand forth for a handshake.
“Welcome.” Ambrose stood up and shook his hand.
After removing his hand from the handshake, Rach cleaned his hand with a napkin and looked at the dilapidated dojo with a thoughtful look.
“It is in worse condition than I thought.”
“I can spare enough silver to get this whole place fixed.” Ambrose suggested. He didn’t care about silver as much as about crowns. Therefore, he had already planned to give them the silver for dojo repairs.
“That won’t be necessary.” Rach said and opened his interface to check the time. He then turned to Ambrose and said. “I already sent the money to you. You may go check, I will wait here.”
“Huh?” Ambrose didn’t expect him to care so little about money. ‘Is he just confident that if I scam him, I will live to regret it?’
He pressed the logout button, returned to real life quickly, and checked the bank account via phone. Amazing numbers showed up. He hadn’t ever felt as rich as he did now.
He let out a stunned laugh and quickly rushed back to the game.
After he re-appeared in the dojo room, he rushed downstairs and saw Rach leaning against the entrance, looking at the rising sun, which colored the sky red as if the sky were on fire.
“Give me the key, and the transaction will be finished.” Rach smiled, turned to Ambrose, and put his hand out.
“Ah, sure.” Ambrose took out the silver brass key from inventory and handed it to Rach.
Rach looked at the key and then smiled. “Thank you. Now, please leave my property.”
Corner of Ambrose’s lips twitched, but he forced himself to hide his irritation. He bowed and left through the open wooden gate. He looked over his right shoulder at his former dojo and walked away with a cold expression.