It was a dimly lit room; the interior was nicely designed, the windows were tall, and the bright moonlight was entering inside through them, making the white glimmering stripes on the ground.
Pained groans filled the chamber as a slightly obese man clad in expensive branded clothing mercilessly beat a young man who appeared barely past twenty.
His voice erupted through the chamber. "The deadline for your rent passed days ago!" Tiny droplets of saliva flew from his mouth as he shouted, veins bulging on his forehead.
"And now you’re asking for more time? Again?" Then he drove another punch into the young man’s stomach before roughly grabbing his wallet from the floor.
Without waiting for even a slight second, he pulled out the crumpled notes from inside and started counting them one by one.
A look of disgust crossed his face. "Eight hundred dollars?"
He scoffed for a slight second and then pushed the money into his pocket.
"You’re still short by a thousand. I want the rest by next week."
An evil smirk appeared on his face as he continued. "And if you can’t pay it, then don’t blame me for what I’ll do next."
The moment he said that, he turned towards the door and finally left through there.
The young boy was still lying on the floor, groaning as his muscles were aching all over his body.
In the background, a slight humming sound of the TV was echoing across the room.
[Mr Hayes, before Elysia Online launched, many experts claimed that a fully immersive open-reality game was still decades away.]
She paused for a brief second; her attention drifted towards Hayes as she continued.
[Yet today, Elysia Online has become the most discussed product on the planet. Did you ever imagine it would reach this level of success?
The moment that voice echoed in his ears, the television’s sound vanished in an instant, fading from the surroundings as though it had never existed at all.
Suddenly, an unexpected thought appeared inside his mind. ’I poured everything I had into this game, chasing the false promises those people fed us.’
’I thought I could earn even a little, just enough to survive... but instead, it dragged me into this pitiful state.’
Then, he used every bit of remaining strength inside of him to push himself back up.
Blood was trailing down his cheeks from his head; some of it flowed through his eyes, which made his vision blurry.
His gaze swept across the room; it felt as if he were looking for something. His gaze fell upon the rope, its coarse fibres seeming to whisper of escape.
The fan above creaked under the weight of silence as he reached for it.
He dragged a stool beneath the fan and stepped onto it. His trembling hands tightened the rope around his neck.
For a moment, he stood there in silence. Tears started to well up inside his eyes, but then he kicked the stool away.
The same young man was sitting on his bed, thinking about the same incident which happened a few hours ago.
A small yet tiring sigh left through his mouth. "Such a sad way to meet your end," he muttered, his gaze fixed on the rope still hanging from the ceiling.
He simply rose from the bed, making his way towards the opposite corner of the room where a dressing table stood.
The surface was cluttered with scattered belongings, a mess of items piled together without order, reflecting the unusualness of his life.
But it didn’t matter enough to him, because his attention was settled on a crumpled note buried beneath the clutter.
He leant down towards it gently, his grip wrapped across the paper as he picked it up.
There were some dust particles placed onto it. In order to remove them, he took a deep breath and then exhaled.
As the dust drifted away from the paper, the words etched upon it slowly came into clear view.
"I bought the Elysia Online Helmet because I thought it was my chance... my chance to escape poverty, to finally become rich. Everyone said this game could change lives, that rare classes would bring fortune and fame. I believed them. I staked everything on that promise."
But as the note came to an end, a strange continuation followed. He had poured out everything he felt after playing the game, every raw thought and emotion etched onto the paper as if it were his final confession.
The moment old Emil logged into the game, he noticed that the surroundings were as good as they stated. Players were all over the place; some were hunting, some were purchasing stuff from the shops, and some were forming parties to hunt for a dungeon.
It all looked fascinating to him until he opened his status screen.
[Name: Ragnar]
[Race: Human (Basic)]
[Class: Summoner (Mythical)]
The instant his eyes fell upon the summoner class paired with the human race, they widened in shock.
His knees weakened beneath him as though the weight of that revelation were too much to bear. The next instant, he collapsed onto the ground as he clenched his hair tightly.
"S-Summoner? It’s the worst class in the game... I became a mythical being, but in this class?"
The rules of this game were simple: no matter what the rarity of your class is, it doesn’t matter as long as the class is considered bad.
Because of the classes that aren’t up to the expectations of people, those classes never gained any meaningful evolution.
Their abilities remained similar, offering no significant change, no matter how far one progressed.
Guilds offered fortunes to players with rare classes such as Necromancer, Battle Sage, Paladin, and Healers, and even unusual classes such as mages received more than other classes, but who would want a trash summoner?
Emil hadn’t wished for some overpowered class, yet even a simple knight would have been enough.
At least then, he could have passed through the guild’s entry trials without being cast aside.
He knew that he would not get accepted into any existing guild, but still, he tried contacting every single one of them.
Some didn’t even bother replying at all. And the few who did... their words carried nothing but denial, leaving him with no answer, no hope, only rejection.
His current state was born from that very event. The despair had been far too heavy for him to bear, and in the end, it drove him to take the final step, one that led to his death.
Without reading any further, he closed the note as a faint twitch appeared on his lips as he scratched the back of his head. "So, in the end, this is the path that you chose?"
The moment those words left his mouth, he stood there to bid the last farewell to Emil.
Silence fell over the room, his eyes suddenly closed as a thought appeared inside his mind. ’It’s been hours since I found myself trapped in this body. God knows how, and all the while, this boy has been fighting battles of his own.’
He opened his eyes, and his gaze swept across the window as he noticed that the place Emil lived in wasn’t normal either.
Outside, the view was a mess. Through the window, ragged old buildings streaked with mould loomed in silence. They looked like apartments, yet not a single soul seemed to live within them.
"People in this world are actually crazy."
"Some took loans to purchase this game, and some spent their inheritance for this... just like the previous owner of this body."
A small sigh left through his mouth as he continued. "This game is nothing more than a ’conspiracy’. It gives fake hopes to the poor and another medium to the rich to get even ’richer’."