"Brother… Is this really alright?" Meilin peeked at Liam who was busily cooking a feast for the both of them using their one-top stove.
"Of course, it is. Both of us are still growing and we need a lot of nutrients."
It was only a small studio apartment so she could clearly see her brother humming and sweating while he cooked a variety of dishes with a smile on his face.
The smell was so delicious that she was not even able to focus on her homework. Since when did her brother learn to cook like this?
With almost a visible drool on her face, the little girl stood up and walked over to Liam. "Brother, what about school? You haven't gone to school for the last two days?"
"School ah? Ha Ha Ha."
Liam wanted to laugh out loud and say how useless the educational institutions were about to become, but instead, he just ruffled his sister's head with a smile.
"Your brother is dumb. So I will count on Mei Mei to study well and help me in the future."
"Ahh… Ah… Don't say that brother." The little girl pouted, puffing her cheeks.
The two siblings then joked around and chatted for a while before digging into the feast. It had been a while since Liam was able to enjoy meals like this.
He lived like a mongrel in his last life. He was weak to provide for his sister and in the end, he was also not able to save her when terrible things happened.
He would never let all those things repeat this time around. A cold glint appeared and then disappeared, his lips curling into a smile again.
The duo chatted and laughed for a while, after which Meilin went back to her homework and Liam sat next to her staring outside the single window of their apartment.
There were still 6 more hours to go. The patch and the override of the current video games with "Evolution Online" would happen this evening at 4 pm sharp!
Liam gazed at the game capsule which now occupied half of their living room space.
Though the inevitable future still terrified him a little, he also couldn't help but feel a vague excitement and anticipation coursing through his veins.
He had already sort of formed a plan as to how he would go about everything, so without much to do, he kept an alarm for 3.30 pm and decided to take a small nap.
But unfortunately, he was far too excited to fall asleep and the sun was beating down with a vengeance.
Though they were on the ground floor, they still felt the burn of the summer heat. Liam clicked his tongue and he got up and took out a couple of ice cream sticks from the freezer.
He gave one to Meilin and sucked on the other one for a bit. He saw his hard-working little sister immediately go back to her studies even when eating the ice cream.
He couldn't help but smile. "If you are working hard this much… then I guess it is about time I begin as well…"
Liam had initially wanted to start everything when the patch began, giving him a little breather but since his hard-working sister was putting him to shame, he decided to do some stretching at least.
Removing all clothes from his body except for his boxer shorts, he began doing a unique series of exercises.
His body was still a bag of skin and bones as he had only been eating well for the past couple of days, so all his stances ended up being very wobbly and awkward.
However, in just a few minutes, he steadied even those wobbly postures and easily brought his body under his control.
Sweat trickled down his thin body in rivers scaring the living daylights out of the little girl.
"Brother! You are going to break something! Ahhh…" Meilin shouted out, seeing him twist his body into various shapes and forms like a pretzel.
First of all, her brother looked like a skeleton doing exercises, and secondly, what the hell was with these completely random poses?
And when he did the one pose that she could recognize, it still scared her because Liam was standing upside down supporting his entire body with just his index finger.
Despite getting worried looks from his sister, Liam continued with his workout for another half an hour before finally melting into a child's pose and relaxing a bit.
In the blink of an eye, it was already 3.50 pm and Liam knew that it was time. "Mei Mei come here." He waved his hand and called his little sister.
"The door is locked now. Don't open it for anyone even if they knock. Don't go out. Don't go to school tomorrow."
"There is food in the fridge in case you are hungry. If you are bored just watch tv. Do some jumping around or dancing once in a while. Don't continuously just be sitting."
"You should also not touch the game capsule. Be a good girl and sit here and wait for brother, alright?" Liam ruffled her hair and carefully instructed her.
He knew that his sister worshiped him and never once failed to listen to him which was why he trusted the little girl and didn't rent another apartment for the game capsule.
After giving her a few more Dos and Don'ts, he then quickly popped into the capsule, opening it and closing it after him.
Inside was pitch black which was good because otherwise the players would be overwhelmed with a feeling of claustrophobia.
The capsule was designed in such a way that the players felt as if they were floating in nothingness, at least until the game was logged into.
Once they log in, their entire consciousness would be in the game and they wouldn't feel anything related to the capsule their body was lying in.
There was still a couple of minutes for 4 pm and so Liam logged into the Blood Battle game. All he needed to do was say 'Log In' and he was in.
Almost immediately, a bloody sword, thick red blood dripping from the edges, appeared in front of him, his consciousness already pulled away into the virtual reality.
"Welcome to Blood Battle. This…"
A robotic male voice started announcing but before it even finished the first line, the voice cracked, the image distorted and the bloody sword completely disappeared.
Instead, in the pitch-black space, a small gift box appeared and Beethoven's Fur Elise started loudly playing.
"This is it." Liam clenched his fists, his breathing ragged and his heart racing by the second. As he hadn't seen this opening part before, he curiously wondered what the gift box was.
The small handle on the side of the gift box started slowly unwinding and in five seconds, the darkness surrounding him cracked and shattered, dropping like pieces of black stained mirror around him.
The gift box, the music, and the darkness completely disappeared and Liam found himself standing or rather floating in the very familiar vast bluish-purple sky.
He could even already feel the breeze that whooshed past him.
