Second World Online

The little bell in the corner of my status window rang just as Mira vanished in a blue shimmer on the bed beside me. I turned to the number blinking in the corner of my vision.

[System Warning: Session duration has reached 04:00:00. The daily limit set by the medical team has been reached. Immediate log out is recommended.]

Four hours. The limit Doctor Karin had set for me, and the only rule I had never dared to bargain over, ever since she looked at me from behind her glasses with an expression that made even the directors of Chronos Tech lower their heads. She didn’t shout. She simply said, in the calmest tone I had ever heard, that a recovering body cannot collect on promises that haven’t been paid. Since then I had obeyed this schedule more strictly than I ever obeyed my old archery training schedule.

Truthfully, I still wanted to sit a while longer in that windowless room, between the thick purple curtains and the scent of the inn’s old wood. Too many things were turning over in my head. The lake without ripples, the church that rejected monsters, and the sky that was too clear two nights in a row. But no puzzle mattered more than a promise to someone waiting in the real world with a tray in her hands.

I checked my inventory one more time, making sure the bow and musket were stored neatly, then pressed the exit button.

My vision went white, and the other world welcomed me with the soft hiss of the capsule lid.

The air in the room felt cool and clean, with a faint antiseptic smell I had memorized like the smell of my own home. My body was heavy, but not in a painful way. In the past, a session this long would have left me with throbbing dizziness and knees trembling like a newborn foal. Now there was only a slight ache in my back and shoulders, as if after one long practice session on the field. I sat up slowly, waiting for the blood to flow through my whole body, and smiled a little, realizing how rare this feeling was. A healthy kind of tired.

Orange light pushed through the gap in the curtains. It was already evening.

The small screen on the side of the capsule showed a summary of my body in neat rows of numbers. Stable heartbeat. Normal temperature. Adequate hydration. At the bottom was a short message line from Doctor Karin’s team, which I read while moving my toes.

Rest at least two hours before the next session. Eat regularly. Don’t forget your medicine.

“Yes, yes,” I muttered to the screen, which of course didn’t reply.

I climbed out of the capsule, stretched my arms, then walked slowly to the sofa near the window. From there I could see the backyard, wrapped in twilight, and the treetops swaying gently in the evening wind. I stared at the sky above them for quite a while. Blue fading into orange, with a few thin clouds hanging like torn cotton.

I had lost count of how many times in the past two days I’d stared at the sky like this. A bad habit, or maybe a new one.

The door was knocked on three times, softly, with the same pause each time. I didn’t need to ask who it was.

“Come in.”

Mira entered, balancing a large tray in both hands. Her long black hair was loosely tied back, and a plain apron covered her house dress. Her cheeks were a little redder than usual, whether from the heat of the kitchen or leftover excitement from the game world. Her dark brown eyes, without the reddish glint of night, swept over me from head to toe, inspecting me like a nurse who had never truly gone off duty.

“Young Master came out of the capsule ten minutes ago and hasn’t bathed yet,” she said, not as a question.

“How do you know I came out ten minutes ago?”

“The capsule alarm sounds in the control room, and my tablet vibrates too.” She set the tray on the small table in front of the sofa, then pointed gently toward the bathroom. “Wash your face first. The food won’t run away.”

I obeyed, and for the next few minutes I stood at the sink, letting cold water wash away the leftover drowsiness. In the mirror, the face looking back appeared fuller than it had a few months ago. The cheeks were no longer hollow, and the lips were no longer pale as paper. Still far from the archer I used to be, but closer than I had ever imagined.

When I came back, the aroma of warm ginger broth filled the room.

The tray was full. A bowl of clear ginger chicken soup with carrot slices carved into little flowers. Steamed white rice gleaming in a porcelain bowl. Steamed fish wrapped in citrus leaves, stir-fried greens still giving off steam, and a glass of orange juice with a thin lemon slice on its rim. In the corner of the tray sat a small plastic box with compartments, each labeled with a day and hour in handwriting I recognized as Doctor Karin’s.

“You cooked all this by yourself?” I asked as I sat down.

“While waiting for Young Master to come out.” Mira knelt at the side of the table and handed me a spoon. “I logged out two hours early. Slept one hour, cooked for one hour. Efficient, isn’t it? I learned from someone.”

“That person must be very annoying.”

“Very. But I like him.”

I laughed softly and took the first sip of broth. The warmth of ginger flowed down from my throat to my stomach, and for a moment I closed my eyes. It tasted exactly like the soup that used to keep me company during childhood fevers. Just the right saltiness, deep savoriness, and a little spicy sting of ginger that made my chest feel open.

Mira watched me without blinking, hands folded in her lap like a student waiting for exam results.

“How is it?”

“In the game, your soup gives Mood +5.” I opened my eyes. “Here, I think the number is more than fifty.”

Her face instantly flushed to her ears. “Young Master always talks like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re calculating something, but what’s inside is praise.”

“That’s my love language.”

“I know,” she whispered, and lowered her head to hide a smile.

I ate quietly for a while. Now and then Mira nudged the rice bowl closer or poured water without being asked. I tried to protest when she moved to feed me a piece of fish directly, and she looked at me with the most innocent face I’d ever seen.

“I’m only helping.”

“I have hands.”

“Doctor Karin instructed that Young Master eat until it’s all gone. My job is to make sure that happens.”

“You’re my girlfriend, not a nutrition supervisor.”

“Both,” she answered firmly, then lifted a piece of fish on the tip of her chopsticks.

I gave up and opened my mouth.

When the soup bowl was half empty, Mira picked up the compartmented plastic box. She checked the labels one by one, matched them against a slip of notes in her apron pocket, then poured the contents of one compartment into my palm.

“The round white one, after the fifth mouthful of rice. The yellow capsule, right now with water. This one…” She paused, frowning at her notes. “This one was removed from the list last week. Doctor Karin replaced it with a vitamin.”

I looked at the three small pills in my hand. There was a time when the amount of my medicine was enough to fill my entire palm, and every morning I swallowed them like swallowing a sentence. Now the list was shrinking bit by bit, like a forest slowly opening up to the light. Doctor Karin had never promised anything, and I knew the word “remission” didn’t mean “finished.” But every pill crossed off the list felt like one small step away from the edge of a cliff.

“Young Master?”

“I’m fine,” I said, and swallowed the pills one by one under Mira’s unblinking gaze. “Just thinking that this list keeps getting shorter.”

“And it will get shorter still.” She said it with such certainty, as if it were an unbargainable law of physics. Then she took my hand briefly and squeezed it. No other words were needed.

The silence lasted about three seconds.

BANG!

The bedroom door flew open with a force that threatened its hinges, and a girl with tangled hair burst in, hugging a bag of cassava chips.

“BROTHER RIAN!”

Alya. Her face was red, her eyes sparkled as if she had just seen a pile of treasure, and her pajama shirt was on with the collar inside out. She must have come out of her capsule only minutes ago, and she had clearly run from her room without a glance at a mirror.

“I heard from Sis Mira that you’d come out of…” Her words cut off when her eyes landed on the tray. “Wow, dinner! Sis Mira, I get a share, right?”

“I’ve prepared your portion in the kitchen,” Mira answered patiently.

“But the one here looks tastier.” Alya’s hand had already snatched a slice of steamed fish from my bowl.

Smack! Mira’s chopsticks landed on the back of her hand without a flicker of hesitation.

“Ouch! Sis Mira has gotten so fierce since she became…” Alya stopped and narrowed her eyes. She looked at Mira, then at me, then at Mira again, with the expression of a detective who has just found the final clue. “Don’t think I don’t know.”

“Know about what?” I asked flatly.

“The white Chronos Tech truck parked in front of our house two days ago. People in uniforms carrying a big box into the guest room. Sis Mira suddenly got sleepy and disappeared from the kitchen.” She brandished a cassava chip as if pointing with a sword. “I’m not a kid, Brother. Sis Mira plays SWO too, doesn’t she?”

Mira froze with the chopsticks still in her grip. She turned to me with a pleading look.

I sighed. This secret wasn’t going to last long anyway, and honestly I had imagined Alya’s reaction when she found out. It turned out reality was far noisier than my imagination.

“Yes,” I answered. “Father arranged the capsule.”

“KYAAAA!”

The shriek made the juice glass on the tray tremble. Alya leapt and hugged Mira from the side with enough enthusiasm to nearly spill the entire soup bowl into my lap. “Sis Mira! Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?! We could have played together! I can teach you everything! I can…” She let go and shook Mira’s shoulders. “What’s your character’s name? What race? What level? I’m sending a friend request right now!”

Mira stammered, her face turning red. She glanced at me once more, and I raised one eyebrow to signal that the decision was hers.

“The name is… still a secret,” she said at last, in a small but firm voice. “I want to introduce myself in person, not through a friend list.”

“Huh? Why?”

“A surprise,” I added before Alya could dig deeper. “You’ll meet her. Just not tonight.”

Alya puffed out her cheeks until she looked like a squirrel hoarding nuts. “What race, at least?”

“A race that’s strong at night,” Mira answered carefully.

“That’s not an answer! That’s half a hint!”

“Better than no hint at all,” I retorted, and Alya stuck her tongue out at me. A few seconds later, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor between me and Mira, helping herself without permission to a flower-shaped carrot from my bowl. This time Mira let her.

“Fine, I’ll wait.” Alya chewed the carrot with a loud crunch. “But in exchange, you have to listen to my story. These two days I’ve been hunting nonstop with Rara, Azalea, and Yuna. You have no idea what happened!”

“Of course we have no idea,” I said. “You haven’t told us yet.”

“That’s why I’m going to tell you!”

And she did, in the way only someone too excited to hold back a single word could. Both her hands flew in every direction, depicting each scene; now and then she stood up to act out the moves, and the cassava chips in her bag were down to half within five minutes.

Her party had gone down to the Sun-Scorched Savanna on the east side, targeting a herd of Ironbeak Ostriches whose levels were far above theirs. Yuna held off the sweeping beaks with her dragon-scale shield, Azalea bound the giant birds’ legs with roots that burst from the ground, and Rara held the front line with healing spells that never broke for even a second. Alya herself waited in back with her three blazing tails, waiting for an opening.

“Then I had an idea,” she said, eyes ablaze. “Remember your wind magic that can extend range? I thought, if I mixed it with my fire, it would become a much longer jet of flame!”

“And?” I asked, my premonition already sour.

“And one of my tails got scorched.”

I covered my face with my palm. Mira bit her lip to hold back laughter.

“But the result was amazing!” Alya defended herself quickly. “The fire really did spray far, and one ostrich went down on the spot! Although… yes, my tail smelled burnt all day and Rara had to use healing three times.”

“Experimenting mid-battle is the most dangerous habit a player can have,” I said in a teacher’s tone.

“That’s coming from the Brother who blew a rifle up in his own face and died.”

I opened my mouth to defend myself and realized no sentence could win that argument. Mira coughed beside me, clearly struggling against a laugh fighting to get out.

“That was a controlled incident,” I muttered at last.

“You died, Brother.”

“In a safe zone. The penalty was light.”

“That’s not a defense!”

Shaking my head, I picked up the juice glass and drank so I wouldn’t have to answer again. Alya grinned smugly, then continued her story. Her level was now 33, she said, and Rara was nearly touching thirty-one. Yuna had found a spare shield from an ostrich drop and could hardly stop hugging it. Azalea admitted she was starting to be able to make branching roots without moving from her spot. The four of them had even celebrated their victory at The Wandering Boar with food that, according to Alya, was “almost as good as Sis Mira’s cooking, but don’t tell the cook.”

I listened to it all with a smile I couldn’t hide. There was something calming in watching my sister tell stories like this, as if the entire world consisted only of bright colors and small victories. A few months ago, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to watch a scene like this from behind my bedroom window. Now I sat beside her, hearing it firsthand, with a soup bowl in my lap.

“But,” said Alya, and her voice suddenly shrank. She bent her knees and hugged them. “It felt lonely without you.”

My spoon stopped in midair.

“These two days I kept checking the friend list,” she continued softly, without looking at me. “Syl’s name was always gray. Rara said maybe you were busy with a long quest, and Yuna said maybe you were busy looking after someone. Now I know who that someone is.” She glanced at Mira briefly, and a small smile appeared at the corner of her lips, not a jealous smile but the smile of someone who finally understood. “I’m not angry, really. I just… miss hunting with you.”

I put down the spoon and patted the top of her head twice. Her hair was messy and warm, like a cat that had just woken up.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been too caught up in my own business. My quest is still halfway done, and Mira needed guidance from the start. But that’s no excuse for leaving you alone.”

“I’m not alone. There’s Rara, Azalea, and Yuna…”

“I mean, without your brother.”

Alya turned. Her eyes were a little teary, but she quickly wiped them with the back of her hand as if it were sweat. “So, tomorrow? We hunt together?”

I thought for a moment. Daytime in the game world was when Mira couldn’t fight. But daytime was the best time for Alya and her party, and I myself wasn’t done with the remaining fifteen percent of the sub-quest at the church.

“Tomorrow in-game daytime,” I decided. “I’ll join your party for a few hours, then return to my own business at night. You can choose the hunting ground.”

“YES!” Alya thrust a fist into the air, then immediately turned to Mira. “Sis Mira, you come too!”

“I…” Mira hesitated, her fingers toying with the hem of her apron. “I’m not very strong in battle during the day. But I can cook.”

“Cook?” Alya’s eyes widened. “Cooking that gives buffs?”

“Only level six so far. But my soup gives Mood +5…”

“MOOD PLUS FIVE?!” The second scream in ten minutes nearly spilled my juice. “That’s better than most of the food at Red Dragon! Sis Mira, you have to be our party’s cook! I’ll give you half of everything we hunt! No, all of it! No, I’ll pay you wages! Wait, how much is a pot of soup?”

“Alya,” Mira interrupted with a small laugh, “we can work that out later.”

I leaned back on the sofa, watching the two girls I cherished most in this world argue about the price of soup as if it were the most important matter on earth. And for a while, I didn’t have to think about the lake, the temple, or the starless sky.

But of course, old habits die hard.

“Alya,” I called when her voice quieted. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Anything, as long as it’s related to tomorrow.”

“Have you ever paid attention to the weather in the game? I mean, is there a pattern to when it rains or when the sky is fully overcast?”

Alya furrowed her brow and scratched her cheek. “Hmm, the weather in SWO does change, you know. Three days ago in Gale-Wind City it was windy and rainy all day, and the windmills spun really fast. But in the Savanna yesterday it was clear all the time, until we were all roasting. Rara says every region has its own ‘mood.’ Sometimes rain all day, sometimes clear for days.” She eyed me suspiciously. “Why are you suddenly asking about the weather, Brother?”

“Just curious.”

“That’s your least convincing answer in the last ten years.”

Beside me, Mira hid a smile by lowering her head, pretending to tidy the medicine box. She knew exactly why I’d asked. Alya didn’t, and for now, I wanted to keep the puzzle to myself a little longer before sharing it.

“I just want to know whether the weather can be predicted,” I said again. “It might be useful for the quest.”

“Brother and his quests.” Alya sighed as loudly as a teenager can, then stood up and picked the remaining chips off the floor. “I’m going to eat in the kitchen. Sis Mira, that portion you said was mine, it has the steamed rice and fish too, right?”

“It does. And don’t take from the Young Master’s plate.”

“No promises!” She dashed out with light steps, but at the doorway she turned back and looked at me with a smile that made her fox eyes almost visible even in her human form. “Tomorrow daytime, Brother. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t forget.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

The door closed. The sound of her footsteps receded down the corridor, followed by a faint shout that sounded like “SIS MIRA PLEASE REHEAT THE SOUP AGAIN!” and then silence.

Mira let out a long sigh with a smile she couldn’t hide. “Miss Alya is always like a strong wind.”

“And always leaves the room a mess,” I replied, gazing at the chip crumbs on the carpet.

“Let me clean it.”

“Later. Sit for a moment.”

Mira hesitated, then sat beside me on the sofa, close enough that our shoulders touched. I finished the rest of the soup without hurry, and she let me, without feeding me, without scolding, simply leaning back calmly while watching the evening light slowly dim outside the window.

“Young Master,” she said after a while.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for bringing me to that world.”

I set the empty bowl on the tray and took her hand. “You’re the one who was brave enough to ask.”

“But without Young Master, I would never have known what it’s like to play a VR game.” She giggled softly.

I had no answer for that, so I just held her hand tighter.

Outside the window, the sun finally touched the line of rooftops in the distance. The thin clouds turned from orange to pink, then to grayish purple, and one by one the first stars began to appear in the east.

For some reason, I watched that sky longer than I needed to, as if there were a message not yet fully read somewhere between the clouds and the light.