Whatever you do, do not die.

Her words echo in the caverns of his mind as a single moment stretches to eternity.

Plummeting towards certain death, Rando realizes that he is caught between a rock and a hard place. More specifically, a psychopathic child that wants to murder him, and a hoard of beasts eager to devour him, where the former might be more than happy to share his entrails with the other.

Sure, he will not feel any pain as all that will be lost is a mere character in a game, but with the high fidelity of the world rendered right before his eyes, the prospects of watching his own limbs ripped apart by beasts or his head split open by rocks in immaculate detail is appealing neither to him nor Nora, whose squeals of terror turn this eternal moment into an endless agony.

The worst part is that he can see the sunlight realistically refracting from the drops of drool dangling from their mouths. They look famished!

“I’m flattered and all, but,” he gasps, “I don’t intend to be eaten alive by anyone other than a hot babe.”

So he does what any level-headed gamer in his position would do: Frantically mash buttons out of panic until something happens. Right on cue, he watches himself kicking a large incoming rock with both legs, altering his trajectory towards an overgrown branch near the cliff. He grabs onto it for dear life to narrowly escape becoming breakfast. More Shiny Pellets hover and find their way to him, giving him no time to wonder how he managed to pull off such a stunt so skillfully.

He jumps onto a ledge before it explodes in contact with branch, the impact of which causes the ledge to collapse. Sliding downwards uncontrollably, he notices the beasts chasing after him. So he grips his sword tightly in anticipation and jumps, ignoring the Nora’s screams.

The collapsed yet open gate of the fortress catches his eye. The only thing standing in between him and safety is an encirclement of vicious and voracious predators closing in on him.

“You can’t be serious,” Nora tells him.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a strat,” Rando reassures her.

“Logging off is a good strat.”

“Are you serious?” Rando grins ear to ear, “This looks fun as hell!”

“For the love of–! Of all the monsters to pick a fight with!”

As the beasts close in, he charges right at the largest of them: a massive level 40 wolf with five eyes, two horns and a cigar blocking his path. The cigar, particularly, intimidates him, as the wolf huffs. Menacingly.

Another shiny pellet streaks towards him from behind to ensure his body is nicely toasted before the wolf can take a whiff.

Both he and the wolf pounce.

While the wolf readies its debonair claws, Rando holds his sword with each hand on one end as if to show the wolf its own eyes. The sun’s light reflects off the blade and instantly blinds the wolf, and its claws swing past him, shredding through nothing but the belt of his pants now threatening to escape his lower-half with new-found freedom.

Known for ending all its honorable duels in one strike, and therefore known by its peers as the “One Claw Canine,” the wolf swivels on its forelegs to track down whom it now recognizes as the only adversary that escaped its might. Yet, the moment it opens its eyes, the shiny pellet makes contact with the ribs, causing its entire body to spontaneously combust and turn to ash. A mere blink cost it not only its life but also its pride as a gentleman.

Having bested his foe, Rando lands dramatically with his back to the inferno of death.

“Rest in peace, my good sir,” he pays his respects to his charred opponent in cool and dignified manner like stoic samurai before grabbing his loose pants back up to his waist and running for dear life, while Nora giggles in his wake. “I hear you’ve turned that smile upside down.”

A single ping follows his footsteps, but in his rush to safety he pays no heed to the red notification near his skill-tree button.

“What?” Nora’s voice penetrates his concentration. “How did you get a skill upgrade? You aren’t even leveled!”

“Time and place, Nora! Time and place!” He slows down involuntarily, “Ah, shit!”

His stamina meter runs low as he barely reaches the gate, making him unable to run or climb until it refills back up. All of a sudden his concentration also collapses under the weight of his physical exhaustion that did not exist until now, and it surprises him. This only lasts for a brief moment as his exhaustion vanishes instantly upon his realization.

Rando looks at his hands in disbelief and mumbles to himself. “…What the hell was that?”

“Are you waiting for Christmas?!” Nora’s voice snaps the rapt Rando back to reality.

Rando takes a deep breath, watching his stamina bar fill up. He notices the regeneration speed up as he regains his composure and energy, and wonders if the game’s mechanics merely react to his mental state rather than the other way around. Perhaps what he just experienced was nothing more than an unusual coincidence. Nevertheless, he chooses not to share his experience with Nora lest she uses it as an excuse to make him log-off.

With the beasts closing in, he doesn’t wait for total regeneration and crawls across the debris of rocks, metal and wood to latch onto an opening. He climbs right into the opening and runs into the darkness, knowing this may not be sufficient to stop his predators swarming like cockroaches to find a way in.

The inside of the castle is just as dilapidated as the outside, with ceilings crumbling, walls broken, floors strewn with bones and rubble, and nature claiming the castle as its own as vines dangle here and there. Ashes and decay consumed and blackened rows of paintings that once adorned these ornate walls. Only one massive portrait survived, but someone crudely drew a mustache and a monocle on it. What vandals! What savages!

“That’s the portrait of the founder,” Nora explains. “When Sean started the game, the first person to greet him was this founder of La Komenco.”

“Looks like he’s dead now,” Rando ponders, running around to find somewhere to hide. “The vandals seem to have no respect for him either. Whoever’s doing the environment-design for this game knows how to tell a story with just props.”

Rando feels the castle quake periodically. He stops in his tracks. A gigantic silhouette emerges from a corridor with footsteps so heavy the stone cracks like egg-shells underneath. Its snarl welcomes Rando to his doom.

“Listen…” Nora pleads. “Just listen to me for once and log off.”

“It’s probably slow,” Rando reasons. “I can outrun it.”

Rando clutches his pants and runs as far as his stamina-bar allows, backtracking to where he came from. However, the beasts from before quickly make their way through the entrance and the rubble to finally be rewarded with the sight of their prey. They encircle him and block all means of escape, leaving him caught between a rock and a hard place. Or, more specifically, chewed by many jaws or crushed under a giant’s foot.

“Listen to me,” Nora’s voice cracks under fear and desperation. “I won’t fault you for logging off.”

“Yeah? And find myself in their bellies the next time I log in?”

“How about we never do that?”

“Then what about Sean?”

“How do we know we’ll find out anything anyway? I can’t have you risking your life for me over something we don’t even know!”

“Aw, you do love me!”

“I can kick your nuts faster than those beasts can chew them.”

Rando laughs. “The more you tell me not to do something, the more I wanna do it.”

“Gah! Go kill yourself then!” She screams.

“Nora, do you remember that guy who fought of wild dogs on TV by using his shirt as a shield wrapped around his wrist?”

Rando takes off his loose pants and, predictably, uses it as a makeshift shield by wrapping it around his left wrist, prompting Nora to squeak in embarrassment. Perhaps one can even imagine her covering her eyes with her hands too. Even so, Rando dare not take his eyes off the beasts, their dozens of levels and their scary red names.

“Come to think of it,” he asked himself, “If their names are in red and they want to kill me, why did the smiley-guy not have–”

A level 7 beast springs at him, cutting off his thoughts. Its jaws open wide for Rando’s neck, but Rando instinctively puts his wrapped hand forward. The beast’s momentum comes to a halt as its fangs are caught in the jumbled fabric, giving Rando an opening to jab his sword into the beast’s eye, mortally injuring it… but not killing it. Surviving this round gives him enough confidence boost to tackle the next unlucky one to cross him. However, as the next one pounces at him, the first one wrestles his cloth-shield off him, leaving Rando completely vulnerable. He panics. His stomach weakens. With no time to think or breathe, he trusts in his instincts as an annoying troll in online-multiplayer first-person-shooter games with the penchant for accurate melee take-downs. He calculates the beast’s trajectory and swings his sword towards its neck with laser-precision…

…and misses. His eyes widen in shock, and the beast tail-whips across his body, sending him flying against a pillar. He loses 90% of his HP. His body bleeds. He feels a dull pain across his own physical body too; while not significant enough for him worry, it does make him curious. Ignoring the blood dripping from his mouth, and still grinning ear to ear, he keeps his eyes trained on multiple beasts pouncing at him, all at once. He knows he cannot beat them. But he is too used to fighting till his dying breath in every game he’s gotten his hands on.

“Come and get me!” He declares theatrically as their gnashing teeth close in. “It may take some grass touching, but I’ll return and turn your hides inside-out if it’s the last–”

“ENOUGH!”

He suddenly feels an invisible force grab him from behind, as if to pluck his skull from his body. He falls backwards, and his vision goes black. He struggles against it, but the force persists. He feels an odd weight keeping his body pinned down.

“Stop fighting!” He hears Nora’s voice, and instantly calms down.

A weight is lifted from his head, but not his body. His senses return to him. He opens his eyes to see Nora sitting right on top of him, her face contorted between anger and fear. Her glasses are on the brink of falling off her face, and her hair lightly caresses his cheek.

“You’re overthinking this,” Rando tells her sternly.

“Shut up,” she whispers back. “In all your fun, you’ve probably forgotten our deal.”

“I haven’t. Look, I had a plan. I could have lured them right to the big guy, who’d crush them under… ow!!”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” she pinches his cheeks hard to make sure the pain keeps him hooked on her every word. “I’ve seen you gaming. You love to pull this sort of self-destructive mischief for shits and giggles. Fine, but not in this one. I’m not going to just sit back and watch you get hurt.”

However, being a gamer, Rando’s attention-span is that of a mayfly’s. His eyes follow her figure towards her pelvis firmly pinning him down. Though her intention was to keep him from moving, he wonders if she has even realized the implication of this posture. If this were a romcom manga, she could be a certified tsundere archetype who, despite her angry attitude, has an abundance of romantic feelings for the protagonist locked inside her heart. If he reveals this to her, she might get flustered and get off him to say something along the lines, “It’s not like I like you or anything, idiot!”

“What’s with that stupid grin on your face?” She asks him, confused.

“So you like me, don’t you?… Ow!”

She pinches his cheeks again, as her face turns red knowing exactly what he’s trying to say. “This isn’t about you. I’ve signed a contract, remember? What happens when you go comatose? They’ll come knocking for me. What happens to me then? Or the library? …or Sean?”

Rando still feels her sitting on him. “….So, do you like me, or…? Ow!”

With his cheeks pinched yet again, all that’s left is to knead them into dough. It’s quite apparent that Rando is clearly enjoying this.

Nora sighs. “This is getting ridiculous. And exhausting. I’m taking the game and going home.”

“Wait!”

As she is gets off him, Rando instinctively holds her hand and gently pulls her back towards himself. He wouldn’t waste this perfect moment and atmosphere for an action that could tug at any girl’s heartstrings, proving to himself once and for all that he is an ever-charming male-protagonist in a romcom with an acute sense for romance.

But the sudden motion trips her off-balance causing her elbow to land straight for his nose. He yelps aloud in pain.

“What the hell did you do that for?!” She panics. “How much does it hurt?”

“GAAAH!” He cries in pain, holding his nose protectively. “It… It doesn’t hurt at all, d-don’t worry about. You’re as light as a feather.”

She glares at him. Her eyes travel back and forth between him and his grip on her wrist and in contact with her chest.

“Aren’t you embarrassed to be doing this?”

Rando feels his temperature rise, and Nora can see his face turning bright red. Yet, he nonchalantly ignores it by pretending to be serious.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He coughs. “I’m sorry, I was careless, but I’m the best player you have. If anybody can find out about Sean, it’s me. This can’t be done without some risks. Just trust me and the way I play, I know how to beat the odds.”

“Give me a reason to trust you. The way you play traumatizes me.”

“Your heart-beat agrees, yeah.”

She pouts so hard she resembles a duck to him. Jokes about heart-racing and love may write themselves, but Rando decides against it this time. Though still skeptical of this whole dying-in-game ordeal, he cannot in any good conscience keep her always on the edge.

Rando returns to the subject. “Ok, let’s do it your way. Safely. Happy?”

“…If I detect any shenanigans, I’m ripping this off your head again.”

“Deal.”

Despite having said this, Rando finds himself deep in thought about his experiences in the game, which he cannot bring himself to be open about.

Meanwhile, the grip on Nora’s wrist keeps her from getting off. Rando, clueless, wonders if Nora has something more to say to him. The result is them staring awkwardly at each other in silence. Nora pouts in frustration and forces the Dream Vision into his gripping hand, making him instantly aware, quickly letting her go.

She’s too afraid to see just how brutally mangled Rando’s body must be, so she wonders if it’s still possible to respawn him back to the initial location.

But on the screen she finds Rando’s avatar still very much alive, with countless beasts dead at his feet.