Merlin walked around the dungeon while looking for any loot drops he may have missed. After a few minutes of searching he eventually gave up, assuming he had found everything. He made his way back through the tunnel he came from, eventually reaching the room he started the fire in.

As he walked into the room, he saw black wispy soot gently raining down to the cave floor. This scene brought back memories of the previous timeline, the soot was reminiscent of his black feathers, even dissolving into dust upon contact.

Merlin covered his face as he walked through the cave. He quickened his pace as he made his way through the various twisting tunnels, until eventually there was faint sunlight creeping in from around the corner.

He turned the corner and was finally met with the cave mouth. Merlin brushed off the soot that had landed on him as he walked towards the village. He travelled through the forest for a moment, not seeing anything or anyone until he escaped the treeline and entered the wild hare’s spawning grounds.

As he walked through the field on his way to the village, he noticed that there were less players farming the wild hares now. It seemed they had finally moved on to bigger quests, most had probably started fighting goblins in the forest.

Merlin started walking towards the barracks as soon as he reached the village, he passed by a couple players who seemed to be wandering around looking for quests, talking to every NPC they saw. A few moments later he arrived at the barracks.

As he entered the barracks, he saw that there was only a handful of players left fighting the training dummies, even the most stubborn and egotistical of the players had either learnt their place and conformed or gave up and abandoned the quest. Merlin approached General Perakeles, who turned to face him.

“I see you were successful with your mission.” General Perakeles spoke up as a wide smile formed on his face. “My soldiers are ready to move out, we thank you for your service.”

As the general finished talking, a notification widow appeared before Merlin.

「Congratulations, you are now level 2.」

The quest was finally over, Merlin excused himself before rushing out of the barracks, there wasn’t much time left until the servers closed for the day. He intended on farming shield kills on the wild hares until the server closed. He ran towards the field, when he arrived he immediately started farming the hares, making sure to finish every kill with his shield. A short while later, he received a notification informing him that his title ranked up.

「Congratulations, your title, “The Best Defence. (Beginner)” has been upgraded to, “The Best Defence. (Novice)”」

He checked the stats of his new title, a window appeared.

┌───────────────────

[The Best Defence. (Novice)]

It takes hits, but sometimes it hits back.

• Shield Damage: +10%

Upgrade Requirements: Shield Kills (0/50)

└───────────────────

Merlin continued farming wild hares for the next few minutes, already adding twenty-three kills to his new title. He was about to continue when a red notification box appeared before him.

┌───────────────────

[Message from the devs!]

The server will shut down in five minutes, please find a safe place and log out.

The server will forcibly disconnect those who do not log out in time.

Thank you.

└───────────────────

Merlin started running towards the village, he looked around to see most people had begun doing the same. When he reached the village border he uttered the command, “System logout.”

Merlin received a prompt asking him if he would like to logout, to which he responded with yes.

The world around him started to fade out, until he was floating in a black void. A couple moments passed, and the black void was suddenly overtaken with the familiar endless white room, the virtual hub.

Merlin lifted his arm that was now covered with holographic glowing buttons, he touched a red button that had the generic power symbol. As he did, a prompt appeared before him in a holographic window, asking if he was sure he wanted to log out, he pressed the button that said yes.

The white room faded away, bringing back the black void, until suddenly he felt a jolt in his body. The stimulating jolt from the capsule woke him up from his trance, and all of a sudden he was overwhelmed with the sudden emergence of sound. The whirring of machines, the muffled sounds of people talking, it took him a few seconds to adjust to the noise after spending so much time in a void.

The capsule Arthur was in slowly shifted to an upright position before the capsule door opened. The bright lights stung his eyes as he exited the machine, it felt as though he had just woken up, feeling somewhat groggy.

Slowly several machines started moving one after the other, opening up to release the people inside. Eventually the entire group had left their capsules, although some had to be forcibly ejected after the five minutes had passed.

Some of the slower beta testers experienced what happens when a machine experiences power outage while there is still a user in it. As described in the safety briefing they received prior to entering the virtual capsule, they experienced a hypnogogic jerk. Better known as the unpleasant falling sensation that jerks you awake while you’re trying to sleep.

Everyone was rounded up and lead back over to the briefing room. On their walk to the briefing room, Arthur noticed several people giving him strange looks, although one person stood out. Typhoeus’ real body, a tall, robust young man with tanned skin and short bleach blond hair, a striking difference to his in-game avatar, was giving him a look of respect, rather than contempt or envy like those around him.

As they entered the briefing room, everyone took a seat as one of the developers stood up and began speaking. He began talking about several of their findings, the biggest issue was people struggling to communicate with NPCs, players having a hard time figuring out how to communicate with shopkeepers, purchase items and get quests.

After a lengthy lecture about other issues, the second most important issue being the pain synchronisation, they had instead started talking about player achievements.

“Within the first session, one person has already managed to get arrested.” The developer stared at one person in particular who lowered their head in shame. “I’m not going to mention for what, but your character will be bailed out next session, further crimes won’t be forgiven and you’ll have to experience the entire prison sentence before you’re released.”

“Next up, there have been a total of sixty-three total player deaths, all of them but one were caused by goblins, the last one was caused by fall damage.” The developer flipped the page, and began reading a couple more facts out, before getting to the current leaderboard.

“Coming in at third place, at level one with one soul, and the only person who kept the scythe in the tutorial, Typhoeus.” The developer flipped the page, pulling up another character stat sheet. “Coming in at second place, also level one, the only user currently with two souls, Snowbunny.”

The developer flipped the page once more, however he didn’t read it out right away, seemingly surprised by what he had seen. “Four titles?!” He couldn’t help but blurt out, but quickly regained his composure. “Coming in at first place, a level two user who has already killed a boss by himself, and is also the only player to befriend a cat, Merlin.”

Upon hearing that name, several heads turned towards Arthur, he could also feel rows of eyes staring daggers at him from behind. Shortly after everyone was given the time for tomorrow’s session before being dismissed. Some people decided to stick around, while others left immediately.

As Arthur was getting ready to leave, two people approached him, Typhoeus was one of them, while the other was a young woman with long blond hair and bright blue eyes. Arthur was already familiar with who this was, but it seemed like she was about to introduce herself.

“Hey hey, you’re Merlin, right?” She was rather chipper, “I’m Maria, or Snowbunny, nice to meet you!”

He returned her greeting, “Nice to meet you, my name is Arthur. But yes, my name is Merlin in-game.”

“Oh, nice, I see what you did there.” Maria giggled hearing Arthur’s real name.

Typhoeus then took the chance to speak up. “Hey, thanks for the advice earlier. I’m Acai, or Typhoeus.”

Arthur smiled hearing this, it seemed he figured out his way of becoming friends with Typhoeus once more, but unexpectedly had also picked up Snowbunny. Not that he was complaining, she was a talented player and would help greatly in the future.

The unlikely trio spent the next few minutes having a friendly conversation, Arthur even told Maria where his best friend Fluffernutter hung out. Maria had mentioned that the three would be friendly rivals, and that she would catch up to Arthur in no time. Taking it as a challenge, he told her that she should turn combat assistance off, as it would benefit her greatly in the long run.

The conversation ended shortly after, with the three adding each other on social media as they made their way out of the facility together. Arthur said his goodbyes before splitting from the group. He noticed Donovan was already here waiting for him in the car.