Second World Online

The next day, I was awakened by a ray of morning sunlight piercing through the gap in my room’s curtains. The sound of the heart rate monitor machine beside my bed was still going beep... beep... beep... but its tempo was now much calmer and more regular compared to the rapid barrage of panicked sounds three days ago.

I took a deep breath. My lungs expanded comfortably. The burning pain in my bone marrow seemed to have been wiped clean, leaving behind a mild soreness and a numb sensation from the lingering painkillers. My body felt much better, as if the storm of acute leukemia that had almost claimed my life was just a passing nightmare.

I turned toward the corner of the room. My Game Capsule stood silently, its standby indicator light flashing blue enticingly.

"My body is getting better... maybe I can go in for a bit to check the auction or just sit in a StoneBrook city tavern," I hoped internally, trying to lift my right hand which still had an IV drip attached.

However, before I could follow through with that intention, the memory of Mira’s pale face and muffled cries, along with my mother’s lengthy scolding via video call last night, immediately stopped my movement. Doctor Karin’s orders were absolute: No Full-Dive activities until my condition is optimal. Diving into a Virtual Reality space that simulates high-level brainwaves could trigger fatal neural exhaustion for my body, which had just undergone a blood transfusion.

I could only let out a long sigh of resignation. "Alright, my Elf body has to rest for one more day at the inn. But I’m not forbidden from simply surfing the regular virtual world, right?"

Moving slowly, I grabbed my smartphone from the nightstand. Its screen lit up, displaying dozens of notifications. Ignoring the unimportant messages, my thumb directly tapped the icon of the Second World Online Official Community Forum application.

If I couldn’t hold my Whispering Ash Recurve Bow today, then at the very least I needed to know how much the Second World had changed over four days.

As soon as the forum’s main page loaded, my eyes were immediately greeted by a sea of headlines, strategy discussions, and highlight videos flooded with hundreds of thousands of upvotes and comments. Three days of absence at the start of a server launch for a game of SWO’s caliber truly left me far behind!

The largest headline pinned by the moderators at the very top of the forum immediately caught all my attention:

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[HOT THREAD] THREE-CLAN ALLIANCE SUCCESSFULLY CONQUERS THE GOBLIN KING! (NORTHERN AREA CLEARED!)

Author: SwordSaint99 | Views: 1.2M | Comments: 45K

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I quickly opened the thread. Inside, there was an epic twenty-minute video recording showing a large-scale battle in a rocky crater that I knew very well. It was the Goblin King’s lair that I had scouted from atop the giant pine tree a few days ago!

Reading the analysis from veterans in the comments section, the conquest was no easy task at all. The Goblin King apparently had a mechanic of summoning minions every time his HP dropped by 20%. It required an alliance of three major clans including Golden Lion, which seemed to have recovered its economy after the materials market tragedy, deploying a total of over two hundred elite-tier players (Levels 15 - 18) to storm the fortress.

"Two hundred players, dozens of dead Main Tankers, and a rotation of Healers who almost ran out of Mana en masse..." I muttered while staring at the phone screen with slightly widened eyes.

Even with an army that large, it took nearly four hours of bloody battle just to whittle the area boss’s HP down to zero. Imagining how I previously thought the lair could be infiltrated stealthily made me chuckle softly. My decision to retreat back then was one hundred percent the right choice.

With the death of the Goblin King, the magical barrier bordering StoneBrook city’s northern region was shattered, opening access to advanced uncharted snowy mountain areas.

I scrolled down my phone screen, looking for information on other areas.

"The Eastern Area Bear Boss is dead. The Northern Area Goblin King is dead. The Western Area Orc Gorge is now a public hunting ground. When will the Southern Area open?!" complained a player in a popular discussion thread.

I read the replies beneath it. Apparently, StoneBrook city’s southern region directly bordered a beach area and the open sea. However, to this second, not a single player had managed to explore that area.

The cause wasn’t a giant boss monster blocking the way, but rather limitations in the game mechanics! The seawater in the southern beach area was designed to have incredibly deadly currents and deep-water monsters that would drag players straight to the ocean floor. No Crafter player had yet managed to find a Blueprint to build a seaworthy ship, and underwater breathing magic systems or aquatic accessories hadn’t been discovered yet. The Southern Area was practically locked away by nature itself.

"Interesting... aquatic areas always hold the best treasures. Maybe I should find out if Whispering Ash wood possesses magical buoyancy properties if carved into a canoe," my crafter brain automatically began formulating wild plans for the future.

The second major news dominating the forum wasn’t related to monster hunting, but rather the server expansion event that had just occurred the day before.

I opened an official thread from the developers, Chronos Tech.

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[OFFICIAL] PATCH 1.1: THE SECOND WAVE HAS ARRIVED! 5,000 NEW PLAYERS ENTER SECOND WORLD ONLINE!

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My eyes quickly read the details of the press release. As promised, the company had opened the second-wave gates for players. If the first wave only had 1,000 players released as testers including myself, Arthur, and Kitsuna consisting of 100 capsule consoles and 900 Eyeglass consoles, this time the number surged insanely.

Chronos Tech released a total of 5,000 new player slots! The hardware was divided into two categories: 500 Capsule Consoles costing tens of thousands of dollars, and 4,500 VR Eye Glass Consoles which were more affordable yet still provided one hundred percent immersion.

What made me click my tongue in admiration was the note at the end of the news: all 5,000 console units were Sold Out globally in a matter of seconds as soon as Chronos Tech’s online store opened!

"Incredible. Five thousand new players suddenly appeared in the StoneBrook town square. No wonder the market prices for wood and metal skyrocketed insanely again. They all surely need beginner weapons and armor," I muttered, analyzing the economic impact of this new player invasion. "That sly fox Kitsuna must be dancing on a pile of gold coins in her shop right now."

Knowing that my world inside there was moving so dynamically truly made my fingertips itch. I wanted so badly to log in, interact, craft new weapons, and sell the rest of the Alpha Dire Wolf loot to the nouveau riche players looking for rare items to show off.

The sound of a doorknob turning broke my concentration from the phone screen. My room door was pushed open carefully.

In the doorway stood Mira, looking much fresher compared to yesterday. She pushed a small trolley containing a breakfast tray which, judging by the aroma, I could guess held bland clear chicken broth soup, steamed vegetables, and high-calcium milk. Typical sick-person food that I hated so much, yet needed so desperately.

Behind Mira bounded a teenage girl with straight, shoulder-length black hair tied in pigtails. She wore rabbit-patterned pajamas and carried a teddy bear in her arms. Her cheerful face instantly beamed when she saw me sitting up against the headboard with my eyes wide open.

"Brother Rian!!" she shrieked joyfully, darting toward my bed ignoring Mira’s quiet warning not to make a ruckus.

It was Alya, my only younger sister. She immediately hugged me from the side very carefully, as if afraid her embrace would break my ribs, and then buried her face in my shoulder.

"You scared us all half to death, you know! I almost cried until I ran out of breath when I was told to sleep over at Auntie’s house because this house turned into a makeshift hospital!" Alya blabbered in a pouting tone, but I could feel her shoulders trembling slightly from the lingering fear that hadn’t fully dissipated.

I smiled gently, set my phone down, and stroked the top of my spoiled sister’s head. "I’m sorry, I was being naughty. But look, see? I’m healthy again. My white blood cells have been beaten back by Doctor Karin’s medicine."

Mira arranged the breakfast tray on the overbed table across my lap, smiled watching our interaction, and then retreated briefly to the corner of the room to prepare my medication schedule.

"Brother Rian has to eat a lot! So you can recover quickly and play games with me again!" exclaimed an enthusiastic Alya, pulling a sofa chair to the side of my bed and looking at me with suspiciously sparkling eyes.

I paused my soup spoon mid-air, looking at her with one raised eyebrow. "Play games with you? Wait a minute... don’t tell me..."

Alya grinned widely, displaying her rows of white teeth. "Yep! Papa managed to buy a second-wave capsule console for me yesterday! They’re abroad, so the internet there is faster for the console ticket war! I’m officially a Second World Online player now!"

I chuckled hearing that. The Chronos Tech company truly was extraordinary. "Wow, our little champion has become a virtual adventurer. So, what race did you choose? Don’t tell me you picked the Flower Fairy race that can only fly around without being able to hold a sword?"

Hearing my question, Alya’s facial expression suddenly turned into a mix of explosive enthusiasm and an incredibly funny look of frustration. She waved her hands frantically in the air.

"Not even close to a Flower Fairy, Brother! When I was in the character selection room, I saw the Beast sub-race option. I thought it’d be like those cute cat-eared human races in anime... Uh, turns out I ended up choosing a Pure Beast! I became a single-tailed white fox cub walking on four legs!" complained Alya in a high-pitched voice.

Recalling the exotic race experiments I had internally discussed while observing StoneBrook city, I immediately burst out laughing.

"Walking on four legs? Hahaha! Oh my goodness, Alya... the motor neural controls must be incredibly confusing for your brain, right?" I asked between laughs, imagining my sister stumbling around the town square as a fox.

"Exactly, Brother!" Alya pouted, puckering her lips. "It feels so weird! The first time I logged in, I immediately fell flat on my face because my brain was confused on how to move my front-left leg and back-right leg simultaneously. It felt like being forced to learn to crawl all over again. For hours I just spun in circles trying to balance my tail that kept wagging on its own whenever I was happy."

Alya rested her chin on her hands, but her eyes shone with pure joy. "But... once I got a bit used to it, it turned out to be super fun, Brother! I can run so fast creeping through the tall grass without monsters noticing! Our camera perspective is also super low, it really feels like seeing the world through an animal’s eyes."

I nodded in understanding, scooping up my chicken soup while continuing to listen to her entertaining chatter. "Then what about your fighting style? Your hands I mean, your front paws don’t have thumbs to hold a sword or a magic wand."

"That’s the problem," Alya complained. "At first I was frustrated because I couldn’t use any weapons. My equipment slots were all unusable. My normal attacks only relied on my race’s passive skills, which are [Bite] and [Claw]. Hunting Slimes alone took a long time because I had to jump and bite them directly!"

Alya suddenly smiled proudly, patting her own chest. "But, thankfully this game system is very fair! At level 3, I managed to unlock access to a monster-exclusive class: Beast Magic! Since I’m a fox, I specialized in the Fire Element. Do you know? I don’t need to chant long spells like human Mages. I just have to imagine the fire, then howl or bark, and... BOOM! A fireball shoots out of my mouth!"

"Wow... a Fireball shot from your mouth? Like a mini dragon? That’s really cool, Al," I said genuinely, truly amazed by the diversity of Second World Online’s mechanics that seemed to have no limits.

Listening to Alya’s adventure stories about how she ran through the grasslands, chased rabbit monsters on four legs, and shot fire from her mouth sent a massive surge of gamer adrenaline through me. The longing to return to that magical forest, feel the cold wind blow against my Elf hair, and hear the clinking of gold coins in my pocket, struck my chest hard.

I lowered my gaze to the remaining soup in my bowl, letting out a long, heavy sigh. "Must be nice... I really want to hurry up and play again."

Hearing my tone drop, Mira, who was preparing medicine in the corner of the room, immediately cleared her throat loudly, giving me a sharp glare that implied: Don’t even dare think about that VR today, Young Master.

Alya giggled seeing me silently scolded by Mira. She stood up from her chair and smoothed out her pajama dress.

"You just rest for today, Brother! Gather lots of strength," Alya said enthusiastically, giving a quick kiss on my cheek. "I already promised to log in this morning with my party friends. We want to try hunting mutant rat swarms in the eastern sewers! When you’re healed and can enter the game tomorrow, you have to help me, okay? My name in the game is Yuuki!"

"Of course. I’ll look for you later. Be careful not to burn your tail with your own fire," I teased.

Alya stuck her tongue out at me, then ran happily out of the room heading to her own.

Watching the back of my little sister disappear behind the door, I could only shake my head with a faint smile. Her presence truly brought colors of life that erased the gloomy aura of my medical room.

"Tomorrow," I whispered internally, clenching my right fist with firm resolve. "Today I will rest completely, eat all this bland food, and swallow all the medicine.