1 THE REAL VIRTUAL MERGE

Matthew has just returned from the office. He spent tireless hours in the office, completing the jobs assigned to him by his manager. He was a good student from a moderate family who managed to send their children to school. He passed his university with adequate grades and got a job in one of the country's most reported Virtual Reality Game companies. Given his unique set of skills, he was appointed to be one of the developers of a to-be-launched game.

"Legend Are Us: Gods and Demons,"

The game was themed to be an open-world virtual reality game where characters could experience various things such as combat, hunting, roaming around, doing any job one wanted and many more. The concept behind the game was incredibly genius, and this was going to be the first game of its type to appear in this region.

The problem started once the game was launched. Until the game was created, the company was treating its employees, like Matthew, with the adequate amount of respect they deserved. Yet once the game was released and became an instant hit, the company's attitude towards the developers changed drastically. They were treated like replaceable parts. The managers who were previously polite began to shit upon them and overload them with vast piles of work. They never expected such an attitude from their superiors. It was a massive pushback to their mindset, which ended up becoming a reason for a mental block.

Eventually, the overwork seemed to have overwhelmed his mind and body. He could no longer perform well in the area and had multiple reservations about the job. All he could do was curse at the administration that was torturing him day in and day out. Matthew's only escape from reality was the game he earnestly created. It was kind of his brainchild and hence he had ingested a lot of Side trails, Easter eggs and Hidden Roads for himself. It was one of the reasons his character was within the top 10 of the entire game server. No one knew his true identity or where he came from.

"Monarch of Secrets"

That was the name Matthew had chosen for himself and also the character who was the highest rated in his collection. What people didn't know was that he had a group of more than ten characters which he developed through various means and excelled in individual jobs. He was a surfer who had a top ranking account in almost all major jobs.

Two of his accounts were number one and number three in the Melee combat scenario. One was named Perseus while the other was named Helios. He had one account which ranked third in the healer category called Jane Mary.

His fourth and fifth characters were ranked third and second in Alchemy and Weapon creation jobs. One was named Prophet while the other one was called Vulcan. His sixth and seventh characters were called Desmond and Riich having controller and thief jobs respectively. The eighth and ninth characters were both special jobs which he had managed to gain through pure luck during the new opening. They were a Dragon Warrior and the other one was Light Knight called Kaiser and William.

The last and most precious character of his, which was also the then ranked one character of the game called the "Monarch of Darkness" was also a special character. It's the job of that of a necromancer. The account was formulated based on his own name, Matthew. It was a character he had wasted most of his time building and played most hours on.

It was also ranked in the global merger rankings which meant Matthew was secretly the top player to have ever existed in the game. Many envied the characters he was playing but the horrible work hours were slowly leeching his life away from him.

Although he was able to earn a good amount of money from his game characters, he couldn't leave the job since it was the only thing which gave him his edge in the game. he knew about many of the e4aster eggs and created some of his own to support his characters in the game. he had fun doing that, and he made sure to go over all his tracks so that no one would be able to notice his work.

A huge experience in computer programming helped him in doing so. One of the biggest reasons the game was popular among the masses was the fact that it was set in a pseudo-modern world which had all the places just like the earth had with a lot of twists and changes to geography and new planes to go to. It was like playing a game which had the same world set up as the one players were living in making them even more indulged in it.

He managed to persist in the job, but recently some people had been keeping an eye on his progress and his projects and hence he knew that maybe his actions were being slowly found out by someone. hence, today he decided that he had to get out of the company before the axe falls on his neck, slicing it apart.

To do this, he planned the perfect set-up and set the bait up for the prey to bite. He reached the office the next day and decided to do some minor work before dozing off for a little while. As expected, a person soon walked out of the manager's room and walked up to him.

'How are you doing Matthew?" a voice was heard from beside him. He slowly opened his eyes and with an exhausted look, moved them towards the person in question here.

'i am well. I'm just doing some of the minor debugging work and then I will get back on the project assigned to me." Matthew replied in a calm voice.

" It seemed to me that you were napping just now. tell me, is this a workplace or your home? Do you come here to rest?' The manager was angry with him.

'I am sorry sir, but due to an emergency situation yesterday I couldn't get a night's sleep. hence, the exhaustion seemed to have piled off. It will not happen again." Matthew said as he jumped back on his keyboard.

'Is that how it works now? I am just supposed to take your word for it." The manager said in an angry voice.

"As I said earlier sir, please let it go this time and next time I promise you nothing of this sort will ever happen again." Matthew knew that the bait had been bitten and he just needed to play along. he didn't look at the manager while talking.

'Enough of your promises. I want you to do overtime today with no pay. That will be your punishment." The manager said.

'Enough for you bitch." Matthew suddenly threw his keyboard out and jumped up from his chair. he looked at the manager with an angry look in his eyes and said in a mad voice. ' I have had enough of your bullying. You fucking bastards. You know nothing about doing this thing yet you are supposed to be supervising me when I am forced to meet unnatural and impossible deadlines. You shout at me, scream at me, expect me to meet deadlines and even overwork with no pay. Fuck you."

H grabbed teh mouse and threw it at the manager's face, making him fall to the ground while lifting his things off and rushing into the HR office. There he threatened HR and got a forced expulsion for disrespectful behaviour. He didn't have to do any kind of extra unpaid months. He was finally free to do what he liked the most.

Play games and easily earn a lot of money. He decides to collect his favourite beverages and food for the night before retiring to his flat apartment and getting ready to start the game. he went into the showers and changed clothes. he had his dinner and after some minor stretching and looking at the TV, he decided to go into his Virtual Reality Pod, called Gamma.

He logged into his favourite account and started the game. As soon as he appeared in the spawn city and was about to take on admission, he suddenly received a message. It seemed like everyone in the vicinity received it.

'THE GAME OF DESTINY HAS BEEN CHOSEN: LEGEND ARE US: GODS AND DEMONS WILL BE THE NEW HOPE FOR HUMANITY"

The next moment the screen suddenly backed out and he was forcefully ejected from the pods. he looked around and could feel the city lights had gone out and the buildings suddenly starting to vibrate. When he opened the window, a horrible scenery was awaiting him.

Before he could even come to terms with the events, a screen popped mid-air.

"WELCOME TO LEGEND ARE US: GODS AND DEMONS VERSION 2

We hope you will have a great time playing"