"...Huh..."
Rafael woke up in a bed, and the last thing he remembered was just the pain, the world darkening around him and the fucking elves.
He pushed himself upright, pulling at the shirt that wasn’t even his, and just got even more fucking confused.
There was nothing there.
No wound, no blood, not even a scar where the elf’s blade had gone through him.
"What the fuck... is this, where I am?"
The room was small and surprisingly ordinary, though before he could look around any further, he heard footsteps approaching from somewhere beyond the room.
"Don’t panic," he whispered as he stared at the door. "Someone clearly saved me."
The footsteps got closer and closer... until the door opened.
"No way..."
A man stood in the doorway, wearing a loose linen shirt, dark brown trousers, and worn leather boots, the kind of simple clothing Rafael remembered countless NPCs wearing throughout the game.
But there was something he remembered more.
The long black hair, the green eyes and tattoos covering the man’s fingers.
"Tim... you motherfucker!"
Rafael immediately ran and jumped at him.
"Rafael, you dipshit!" Tim shouted as he hugged him back. "You almost fucking died! What the fuck were you even thinking, going to the Elven Lands?!"
Rafael could only laugh, not just because he was alive, but because Tim was actually here, the same person he had thought about almost immediately after arriving in Eldoria.
"In the game, that was the safest place in the entire world, and the elves were friendly to us," Rafael said. "But that bitch fucking stabbed me!"
He ran his hand over his stomach again before realizing something important.
"Wait... how the fuck did you save me?"
Tim smiled.
"The teleportation magic I cast on you when you wanted to use it for another exploit. We never ended up using it, but apparently, the spell was still attached to you."
Rafael stared at him as the pieces came together, but one thing was still missing.
"But that doesn’t warn you when I’m about to die or tell you where I am."
"You got fucking lucky. I couldn’t find you because I deleted you from my friends list, but I remembered the spell and started trying to activate it after I got here. I tried multiple times and nothing happened."
Tim shook his head as he smiled.
"Then suddenly it worked, and you appeared here covered in blood. I still don’t know why it failed before that, but shit, I panicked when I saw you."
Rafael stared at him for a moment.
"So you kept trying some random teleportation spell you put on me months ago, and somehow it eventually pulled me across the fucking world?"
Tim nodded.
"Fuck me..." Rafael looked down at his stomach again."And you healed this?"
"Barely. Elven blades are on another level, and wounds caused by them are fucking difficult to heal. I struggled with yours, but in the end, it worked."
"Carzy as fuck..." Rafael smiled. "What level are you?"
"Five hundred and seven."
"Whoa, that’s nice."
"You’re not shocked?" Tim asked, as Rafael’s reaction wasn’t even close to what he had imagined it would be.
"Shit, I knew you were high-level, so not really." Rafael looked at him. "But it still doesn’t make sense why the elves attacked me when they used to be friendly."
Tim stayed silent for a moment, and there was something weird about the look on his face.
"What?" Rafael asked.
"Uh... I know it’s hard to believe." He grabbed Rafael’s shoulder. "But this is... reality, Rafael. This isn’t a game anymore. We’re trapped... like in anime. I know it’s almost impossible to even process the fact that we—"
"I know we’re trapped," Rafael cut him off. "And to be honest, I’m fucked. I’m level one, and you’re five fucking hundred."
Tim was even more fucking stunned by the fact that... Rafael really didn’t seem to give a single fuck about any of it. Like they weren’t trapped inside a fucking game that had somehow become reality.
"Oh... okay." Tim smiled and laughed. "Anyway..." He quickly changed his whole demeanor toward Rafael. "They used to be friendly because that’s how they were programmed. But they’re not NPCs anymore."
"What do you mean by that?" Rafael asked.
"Everything in this world gained consciousness when the synchronization happened. There are no more codes and commands controlling them. They’re free. And not just the elves, but every creature."
That blew Rafael’s mind a little, and at the same time, several questions came to him, but before he could ask any of them, Tim turned around.
"But before I tell you everything I know, come downstairs and eat."
He didn’t need to say it twice. Rafael immediately followed him while looking around.
Nothing about the house seemed particularly special, with brick walls, wooden floors, simple furniture, and a few paintings hanging here and there. It looked more like a countryside home than something from a fantasy world.
Then they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the dining room, and Rafael immediately froze.
"Holy shit."
The entire table was covered in food.
Roasted meat, bread, cheese, fruit, vegetables, bowls of soup, pastries and several things Rafael didn’t even recognize.
He didn’t waste a single second and immediately walked straight to the table, pulled out a chair, and started eating.
Tim hadn’t even sat down by the time Rafael had already stuffed a chicken leg into his mouth and grabbed some bread with his other hand.
"Slow down."
He ate like a fucking pig, grabbing whatever was close enough and barely finishing one thing before reaching for another.
"H-How do you have all of this?" Rafael asked, still eating everything within reach.
"Everything we owned in the game got synchronized, so I’m basically set for the rest of my life here."
His last words caught Rafel attention. "So you’re not going to fight to get out?"
Tim shook his head.
"Why would I? I had a shitty office job back on Earth, barely any money and nothing worth going back to. Here, I have multiple houses, enough money to last me forever, and I’m powerful enough to protect myself. I’m going to settle down and live my life until I die of old age."
He leaned back in his chair.
"That’s my plan."
For some reason, Tim tensed slightly as he said it, almost as if he expected Rafael to argue with him.
But Rafael didn’t.
"I have the same plan. If anything, my first rule is to trust nobody, because I’m sure it won’t take long before people start creating clans, factions and all that shit. Then all hell breaks loose."
Rafael grabbed another piece of meat.
"And that’s without even knowing what the kingdoms, armies and everyone else in this world are going to do now that they actually have consciousness."
Tim nodded. "I thought the same thing. I don’t even want to imagine what some of the high-level players are going to do."
"Yeah, I—"
Rafael suddenly stopped.
His entire body went stiff as his eyebrows rose and his eyes widened, his mouth still hanging open with half-chewed food inside it.
"Rafael?"
No response.
Then Rafael suddenly spat everything out and shot out of the chair so violently that it fell backward, but before he could even take a step, he dropped to his knees, gagging on the half-eaten food before it finally came free and well it was followed by everything.
All the meat, bread, cheese, and whatever else he had just stuffed into himself ended up across the floor as Tim immediately rushed around the table.
"Rafael!" Tim grabbed him by the shoulders. "What the fuck is happening?!"
Rafael didn’t answer.
He coughed, spat onto the floor, and stayed there for several seconds, breathing heavily.
Then he suddenly looked straight into Tim’s eyes.
"Y-You... said everything."
"What?"
"Everything you... owned." Rafael grabbed Tim by the shoulders and held him in front of him. "When Eldoria synchronized, everything you owned in the game became yours here. Your houses, your items, your food, your money... everything."
"Yeah...?"
Rafael kept staring into Tim’s eyes.
"Everything...?"
Tim slowly nodded.
"Everything."
Rafael stopped breathing for a second.
"Oh my fucking God." Rafael immediately pushed himself up. "It might take weeks or... ah, maybe even months, but we need to get to the Great Forest of Hammon!"
"Wait Rafael—"
He was already out of the dining room, running straight toward the door. He threw it open and ran outside without even looking where he was going.
A good twenty meters later, his foot caught on something.
"Fuck!"
He went straight down, but instead of hitting hard ground, Rafael sank face first into something incredibly soft.
Moss.
A ridiculously thick layer of deep green moss covered the ground beneath him, almost swallowing his hands as he pushed himself up.
And that was when Rafael finally looked around.
The small house stood in the middle of an enormous forest.
Trees as tall as fucking skyscrapers, their trunks several meters wide and their canopies barely letting a single ray of sunlight through.
Then he noticed the huge roots twisting across the ground, covered in moss, vines, mushrooms, and strange flowers Rafael immediately recognized from the game.
For the first time since arriving in Eldoria, the world around him truly looked like the game he remembered....
"Rafael..." Tim’s voice came as he caught up to him. "We’re already in the Great Forest of Hammon."
Rafael looked at the enormous trees around them again.
Then back at Tim.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
The Great Forest of Hammon wasn’t anywhere near the spawn region. It wasn’t even on the same continent, with two entire continents separating the spawn city from this forest.
But the longer he looked at the trees, the vegetation, the moss, and the huge roots twisting across the ground... he just started to smile, his grin growing bigger and bigger.
Then he finally looked back up at Tim with that huge-ass smile on his face.
"I have a... hidden stash."
Tim’s mouth immediately dropped open.
"No fucking way... Does it have...?"
"Yeah." Rafael nodded. "Duplicated items... and bugged ones."