1 The step that brings change

I hadn't got the time to react when I felt my head crash into something then a strange suction force appeared with total darkness. The darkness spread before my eyes completely blocking my ability to see anything. Even my other senses weren't working either, the only thing I felt was the pain spreading through my head.

The sensation slowly fell away then I tried to gather my thoughts. Where I am? What is this darkness? How come I ended up in the darkness when I was doing my regular walk at dusk? Even if I lost myself in my thoughts it shouldn't be this dark.

"Hah" I closed my eyes and I have taken a deep breath to calm myself. After a while the sounds and smells returned and I've tried opening my eyes. To my surprise I was standing in front of what seemed like a big old oak. I slowly observe the oak and then turning around to see what other changes might have happened in the surroundings. I fell completely shocked after the realization hit me. I'm standing in a place what seems like a big park that's surrounded by buildings in some distance away.

'This is completely illogical. I must be dreaming! That's right! Or not. I close my eyes and open them again only to see the sight of skyscrapers that are still towering there. Still this impossibility exists even though I am sure that I was walking on the road to the nearby lake.'

I was standing there staring blankly for several minutes trying to come up with a feasible solution. The solutions what seemed to be answers were impossible according to rationality.

'Come on Matthew abandon the rational thoughts you have. Think differently!' So with that I abandoned the rational solutions and turned towards the irrational ones.

I remembered the thoughts that my uncle planted in my head. It's ridiculous to say but I am probably in the future or an another world from stories that I read because of my uncle's influence.

'Wait! Then what happened to him? If I am in another world I will definitely not see him again. If I'm in the future then he possibly died or he's living his last years.' I felt sadness and bitterness in my heart but I also felt some inexplicable desire. After several minutes of bitterness I stepped forward. I felt the resolution to find out where I am and what happened.

Then I walked forward till I reached the buildings. I saw a big street with multiple vehicles going through it. The vehicles looked a bit different from cars. The strange thing was I could not see anyone driving instead people were chatting with each other and eating. With a strange thought they are self-driving vehicles. This realization led me to understand that I'm probably in the future.

Sadness has taken over me and I could only collect myself after several minutes. To my surprise the street looked much cleaner and more organized but it didn't seem like from the futuristic movies that I saw. From the looks of it the people's clothing haven't really changed or I was just ignorant. The language was the same too. After several minutes of observing and listening I asked a nearby passerby for the current date and several other things. Fortunately he politely answered my questions even though I think most normal people wouldn't have done it. I came to know that it was 2137 so a little more than a hundred years passed since 2022. It was overwhelming a bit but I was already prepared to hear something like that.

Fortunately I was still in the same city but it seems to have expanded a bit. After that I departed for the location of the place which I got from the passerby.

...

Memories washed over me when I was stepping in the familiar antique shop after several minutes of walking. It was almost the same from what I've remembered only differing in the cleanliness and it looked recently renovated. However the interior was different from what I remembered. The selves were packed with a bunch of unfamiliar stuff with a few familiar mixed between them.

At the counter stood an unfamiliar middle-aged man seemingly bored. Additionally there was another old man still lingering between the selves seemingly looking for something.

After sliding my hands into my pockets I nervously started walking towards the counter. Now I only hoped my plan would work. It wasn't the plan that most people would regard good instead it was the simplest and stupidest one I could think of.

"Good morning." I nervously greeted the man standing before me behind the counter.

"Good morning. How can I help you?" He greeted back and seized the opportunity to ask the most common question.

"I would like to inquire whether I can sell some antiques in this shop." After saying that, I pulled my hands out from my pocket with my wallet in my hand.

"I'm very sorry to inform you but the shop currently doesn't have any budget to buy things because of the recent renovations." He said the thing I hoped not to hear.

"Huh." With a disappointed sigh after I exchanged a few more words with the cashier I made my way towards the door.

" Hey young man please wait!" I suddenly heard a voice from my back that sounded like the elderly man who I saw upon entering.

" Good morning! What business do you have with me?"

"Firstly let me introduce myself: I am Gerard Valoin. I have a hobby of collecting various antiques and I meant not to eavesdrop but I overheard your conversation and I want to know whether you are willing to sell those antiques to me."

...

A hour later young man could be seen walking out of a store. Although he had somewhat ordinary face and brown hair he looked out of ordinary with his unusual clothes. He excitedly meddled with something that looked like a smartwatch with a holographic projection.

He was Matthew Lorans who just bought the newest version of Connection Network which was commonly referred as Con-net or Connect. It is a fairly advanced device that functions as an ID and a smartphone so it can be used for communication, games and various other purposes.

"The world has indeed changed a lot in a century."After meddling with it a little while he comes to know various things.

The countries disappeared after the third world war and now the world was under the Unified Government. Something unifying the world is what seemed to be just an idealistic thought in the past now was real. After searching around a bit more he found out the way how the UG(Unified Government) came to be.

The third world war started in 2053 and lasted for six years. Because of the globalization it destroyed not only the participant countries economy but all the other non-participants too. So the non-participants entered to end the war to finish it as quickly as possible but it had the opposite effect: the war lasted for a whole of six years. The war caused a huge devastation everywhere so chaos spread in every country without exception. The chaos was only subsided after a year with the joint effort of the countries governments who formed the Unified Government in short UG.

The system of UG was quite simple: it resolved the previous border problems with making regions which were ruled by their respective ethnic groups. It also released a new currency because all previous currencies lost their value.

"Woah! So it's really a hell lot of money I made. I really can't believe that I ridiculously managed to sell money for money." Thanks to searching Matthew learned how much money has he made with selling the money from 2022 to an antique collector.

" So what to do now? Hmm... The best decision is to search for housing then I can explore the other things that have changed. And I stand out too much. I really need to get some new clothes that correspond with this eras clothing habits."

....

Close to the middle of the city stood numerous skyscrapers. If someone looked at a certain skyscraper in a certain height they could have seen a youth sitting on a couch while enthusiastically meddling with a Connect.

The youth had messy brown hair and green eyes with a somewhat ordinary looking face. He seemed like an average 18 years old with average height.

"Huhh." After browsing through various topics about what had changed over the years Matthew sighed.

"So much has happened and changed. I don't even think that any of my acquaintances are alive. " He said while tears were shining in the corners of his eyes.

He was so sad. Of course it was natural to be sad when you lost everything you had, your friends, relatives and even the world you lived in.

" Even that middle-aged bastard has died as well. Even though VR-games that we dreamed of while playing numerous RPG-s exist now but we can't play them together." Even though sometimes Matthew hated his uncle to the bones but still cared for him because he was adopted and raised by him after his parents died in an accident. He couldn't remember his parents since he was small when they died.

He slowly skimmed through his memories and embraced the memories of the good and bad days he spent with him. The memories as they played games, watched films, quarreled and how he had to work at his shop.

"So what should I do now? I don't have any friends nor acquaintances. I don't have anything peculiar to do, so maybe I should try to play the newest VR-game to pass the time and get some acquaintances." After several minutes he focused on that to forget the sadness and the foreignness of the future world.

....

A week later he finally was standing in front of the VR-pod that he ordered through his Connect.

The Connect proved surprisingly useful in the last week. It was a common thing of the future world. Everyone could register an identity with it and could easily order food, clothes, various other things, read novels and watch movies.

He still had a hour before the start of the game so he carefully read through the introduction manual for the pod. He decided against reading anything about the game because it was more interesting to explore it without any guidance. The pod particularly wasn't that hard to use.

In fact, he only needed to know three important things. The first was to wear the ugly futuristic looking haptic suit that was used to connect him to the game. The second was the system that connected him to the nutrient fluids that helped to maintain body fitness, erase the hunger, thirstiness and for the purpose of allowing a longer stay in the game. The last one was how to open and lay down in the pod.

After reading through he followed the instructions given and lay down to connect to the game named Kheragey online.

'System connecting....'

'Successful connection established.'

'Confirming Identification number.....'

'Identification number is 17235182 confirmed.'

'Welcome to Kheragey online.'

"Now you can create your character and then start your adventure in the world of Kheragey "

'Great now I can finally start the game after creating my character. It was worth waiting for a week days. And it seems like I don't have to bother with registering because the identity that you get by the Connect automatically registers. '

' Please select a name for your character.'

"Hmm what should I choose? The naming is always difficult. Ah it's too much pain to figure out a new it's better to go with the usual.' After that he entered the word Rindel in the box that has appeared in front of him.

'Name successfully confirmed. '

'Now please select a race you will be playing with.'

After that a long list of race names appeared in front of him. There were some usual names that appeared in most RPG-s such as orcs, goblins, elves, dwarfs and some unusual ones such as gnomes, gnomes, centaurs, giants, lizards, skeletons and many more. He read through the descriptions especially of those he never heard of.

For example the: Lazmon. It was a race which had mostly lived in grasslands. He found the lazmons appearance hilarious with their appearance resembling a human-like mix between a hamster and a rabbit. And there were others such as the Phovar. The phovars were big bearlike humanoid species who had koala like features like bigger ears and striped longer tail.

One particular race has caught his attention. It was a race named Heklet. They were listed as a humanoid species but their appearance suggested otherwise. They had small frames which were covered in greenish-brown fur. Their eyes had a peculiar colour they were yellow or orange. The other differences lay in the ears and their tail. The ears on the head almost looked like a squirrels the tail was similar as well. However they were not completely like squirrels. The helvets tended to live in swamps and forests but most of them lived on the ground.

"Fufufu. They seem to be a perfect match for the kiting strategy that I tend to use in games although they seem a bit strange." With that in thought he immediately selected the race without further thought.

'Race selected. Now customize the appearance of your character. 'With that a small figure around 120 centimeters tall covered in greenish-brown fur appeared in the mirror in front of Matthew.

He tried various modification but in the end he didn't change that much. He altered the face a bit to look a bit sharper and made the furs colour from a greenish brown to a greenish-grey and brown mix. Then to not to waste time he confirmed his characters appearance.

'Character with the name Rindel successfully created.'

'Teleporting into a random starting village of the Helvet faction.'

After reading the notification he soon found himself standing in front of a small village surrounded by a huge forest. Trees towered tall and small wooden houses were built both on the ground and on the tree. The scene was mesmerizing with the houses and trees making a simple harmony.

"It seems like this is the beginner village where players start." Matthew thought about the feature that made beginner villages unique. The villages were always designed as locations where starting players are isolated and need to reach a certain level only then they can start the adventure in the vast gaming worlds. It was also a feature to help new players to level without being bothered by high-level players until they leave the villages and get their classes.

'Hmmm... Is this game have the same type of beginner villages or is it different?' While thinking through this he slowly started walking forward.