Cercei

"Tyrion"

A female voice called out within a hospital room.

"Tyrion" The voice grew a little stronger and a young man seated on a chair, with his head rested just by the hospital bed was quickly jolted awake.

As the young man set his eyes on the person laying on the hospital bed, the sleep within his eyes vanished like a puff of smoke as he smiled.

"You are awake. How are you feeling?" Tyrion asked.

The lady on the hospital bed weakly smiled as she felt Tyrion softly grab her wrist, caressing her hand gently.

"I feel better now Tyrion, sorry for troubling you. You don't have to keep coming here every time I have a seizure." Her expression sad as she told him.

"Don't say that Cersei, I don't have much to do anyway, I'd rather stay here with you."

Cersei smiled upon hearing his words. "My dear little nephew, you have a sweet mouth."

Tyrion's smile dimmed slightly but he recovered and snorted lightly. "You are only a few years older than I am."

Cersei giggled lightly and as the morning sun landed on her face, her soul-stirring face glowed brilliantly, stunning Tyrion in the process.

Seeing this, Cersei's smile reduced a bit. "Alright, alright. It's morning so I won't argue with you. What time are you leaving for work?"

This immediately broke Tyrion's stunned look and his eyes focused. He stroked her head affectionately as he responded. "Work? Yes, I should leave for work now."

"Take care of yourself, I will come to check on you later. If you need something, call the nurse, alright?" Tyrion stood up from his seat, he gazed at Cersei deeply and lovingly kissed her forehead.

Cersei closed her eyes in response to Tyrion's kiss and a smile lingered on her face.

"Alright. Go before you are late. You don't have to try very hard. Just do what you can and leave the rest. You are very hardworking as it is."

Tyrion withdrew and said. "Don't worry, I will find a good-paying job and lots of money, letting you get proper treatment and leaving a good life." Tyrion said as he held her hand, saying silently within his heart. "I definitely won't be so poor as to watch you die slowly."

Watching Tyrion leave with a reluctant but determined look. Cersei's face turned sad once more.

Tyrion left the hospital thinking about Cersei. She was the only living relative he had in this world, but she was also terminally sick, having only three months or less to live.

There were several ways to cure Cersei's cancer, but the procurement of this cure was very expensive! Even if Tyrion decides to sell himself and his organs, he wouldn't be able to afford it if there was a hundred Tyrion.

Within this world, science had been improving by leaps and bounds. All sorts of AI technology-filled every corner of the world, and this development had caused people's lives to improve tremendously. However, it also meant that human labour was becoming obsolete.

Unemployment was no longer something that was rare, especially to people like Tyrion who were at the bottom of society. To them, finding a stable job was simply a dream.

If nothing changed, he would have continued to wander in unemployment. He had lied to Cersei, he didn't have a job, he was using loans to take care of Cersei's hospital bills but it wasn't enough as he is still owing the hospital a lot of money.

It was not until two years ago he had come to this world from earth. He had been in a very painful accident; Tyrion and a few of his friends were rock-climbing when Richard's rope broke, in the process of catching Richard from falling and saving him, his rope also snapped.

Richard could have helped him, but one thing lead to the other, he fell off the mountain.

Tyrion could still feel the sensation of his bones splintering to pieces. The noise when his head slammed against the mountainside was something he would never forget.

But two years was a long time and at this period, Tyrion had almost forgotten about the earth.

One and a half years later, his little aunt, Cersei, was diagnosed with a serious illness during a work check-up.

Without the money to afford the millions of dollars of medical expenses, coupled with the fact that, he couldn't find a single job, Tyrion could only watch as his only family slowly died.

That feeling was worse than being cut with a knife. Tyrion had hugged his little aunt while trying not to sob on many occasions but some things are harder than they seem.

A few hours later, Tyrion exited from within a skyscraper. The ShellShock company; one of the largest companies in the market.

Tyrion's expression was extremely dark, but he was also tired as well. This was the fourth company he had been to just this morning and he still wasn't given a job no matter how much he had begged. Some didn't even allow him for the interview with the way he dressed.

Tyrion loosened his necktie, wiping his sweaty forehead with his tie. He walked into an alley and a small restaurant called Cook'n Sip was revealed.

The restaurant was somewhat dirty and mostly parked with people making all sorts of noise, but Tyrion didn't mind.

This was where he went to when he was extremely tired. Not that he wanted to eat. He had no money for that anyway.

"Where is the food waiter!" someone shouted admit the cacophony of baseless sounds.

"-made two thousand dollars from the last mission!" The noise within the restaurant was loud but the talk of money immediately flowed into Ryver's mind and he immediately focused his ears on the people seated next to him.

"How did you manage that? It is incredibly hard to complete a quest. With how incredibly dangerous the game is." One of the other two, the fat one asked.

"I got incredibly lucky this time. Completed the daily quest just a few minutes to the reset." The skinny man gloated.

"But I heard the game is extremely dangerous and could possibly kill."

The three people talking to each other paused when they heard another voice. Tyrion sat beside them with an extremely serious expression on his face.

"Who are you?" The three people were all in their late twenties. And one of them who seem to be the leader of their group had an extremely serious expression on his face with the others keeping their guards up.

Tyrion sensed the hostility and quickly explained. "I'm not here for trouble, I promise."

"Then what are you here for?" They questioned with wary expressions on their faces.

"I heard one of you speaking about making two thousand dollars in a single mission. I'm kind of in desperate need of money right now and I can do anything almost anything to get it." Tyrion was tired of trying to make money the good way. It wasn't working for him. Therefore he wouldn't miss this opportunity.

"If you are in need of money, why don't you go to the loan sharks?" While they might believe Tyrion's story, the matter they were about to talk about is one that could place them in jail if they were ever caught speaking about it.

Tyrion smiled bitterly. "Trust me, I've borrowed from three of them already. If I go to a fourth, they will certainly know there's no way to repay them back. Killing me will be considered generous."

While the three people had let down their guards a little, they still refused to believe him. Collecting money from three different loan sharks? That was already courting death.

Tyrion saw this and quickly brought out three papers from within his pockets.

Looking at what was written on it, the three people relaxed. He had been speaking the truth after all.

"Sorry we doubted you, but you can't blame us for being careful. We could land in jail if we are not being careful." The fit man said.

Then he proceeded with introductions. "I'm Theon, the thin guy is Bran and this fat guy here is Mance."

Tyrion nodded in greeting. "My name is Tyrion."

"So, how do I get the game?"

* * *

Tyrion ignored the bad odour in his bedroom and concentrated on the game cartridge in his hand.

Pure black and also metallic, it was the size of a thumbnail.

After he checked it, Tyrion pushed the cartridge that had cost all his savings inside the virtual helmet's cartridge slot.

Tuck!

A warning alert notice came out of the virtual helmet's speaker, but Tyrion had used a VPN to mask his location, so he wasn't worried

There was obviously no such thing as a manufacturer or safety hazard warning when it came to an underground game.

When it was first released a year ago, this game had claimed that it could achieve a hundred percent realism.

Theoretically, when a game proclaims a hundred percent realism, it should easily be able to overtake all other games that could only achieve around thirty to forty percent realism, and become an instant hit among fans.

However, in this case, the game was banned before it was even released to the market.

The reason: it was too real.

Real enough to kill you if you died in the game itself.

Out of three thousand beta players, only ten percent had survived and were able to log out of the game. Even one casualty was enough for a game to be banned

Counting thousands of casualties, it was decided that this game could never be released to the market. Even so, Tyrion had heard some rumours about rich people wanting more excitement and investing in this game to make it work again, thus making it a true underground game that only a handful of people could access.

Not even taking into account the hidden ways one had to resort to in order to purchase this game, and the extraordinary fees that one had to pay, the fact that death in this game meant death in real life was enough to make everyone stop seeking it.

But Tyrion did not care.

Because if he did not manage to gather 10,000 in medical fees within the year, considering the condition of his little aunt, she will be dead anyway and he would have no one in this world.

Ten thousand might not have been that big of a number for someone who was rich, but for Tyrion, it was an unachievable sum of money.

Which is why Tyrion was willing to take the risk of playing this game. Moreover, he had a feeling this game was almost similar to the one he played on earth; Call Of Duty.