5 Slaving away

Tom spent the rest of his day eating away at the measly profits that his challenge raid brought him. For the amount of effort and sweat he spent on killing all those monsters, he earned just five thousand bucks.

It was just a droplet in what he wanted to earn, and what he would earn if he killed the same amount of monsters in the standard dungeon.

'If everything goes right, I should be able to buy myself a nice, small house with today's earnings.' Tom thought, actively hyping himself up.

"Burp!" Tom's stomach released a sound of satisfaction after Tom stuffed it with a plethora of fast food and sugary, carbonated drinks. It was bad for his body, for sure, but it also just so happened that this kind of simple, fatty food was exactly what the players needed to stay longer within the game.

'No, I can't think of it like that,' Tom protested against his own thoughts, eradicating the lazy yet unhealthy possibility of the future from his mind.

"Hey," Claudia greeted as soon as Tom entered the playroom. Her face was full of anxiety as if her fate was about to be decided.

"Sup," Tom greeted the girl, not paying much mind to her mental state. 'Whatever she thinks I'm about to make her do, doesn't matter. As long as she slaves properly, we will be done.' Tom thought as he moved past the girl and placed his card on the registry once again.

"Come on, we don't have an entire day." He hurried the girl up. Claudia followed his order, placing her own card beside Tom's. Their party was all set up after a brief talk with the AI.

"Hey, can you promise me one thing?" Claudia asked, breaking her otherwise silent front.

"It depends on what you will ask for," Tom replied, picking up his card. His eyes didn't skim at the girl's face even once.

"Tell me you won't dump my avatar. Promise me you won't try to get this kind of revenge on me." Claudia asked with a serious expression on her face before her disposition broke apart. "Please, this avatar means everything to me. Please, just…"

"Who do you take me for?" Tom grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I'm not petty like that. As long as you clear the middle floors for me, I will be happy." He added, shrugging his arms.

"See you in the lobby," Tom said his farewells to the girl, marching towards his usual connecting spot.

A private spot to play at was the minimum the Online Hub could offer for veterans like him.

One lengthy connection procedure later, Tom appeared in the familiar white room, in the middle of the crowd of sexless mannequins.

"What do you mean, as long as I clear the middle floors you will be happy?!" Claudia's avatar asked at the same time as it launched at Tom's character. Claudia's armored fists struck Tom squarely in the chest…

Rather than inflicting an injury, they only turned into mist, reassembling itself back into the mirage of Claudia's avatar when she pulled her hand back.

'Does her character change while she's in her avatar?' Tom asked himself, leaning his head as he watched the girl.

"What are you looking like that at me, for?! Do I look like a damned puppy?" Claudia instantly went on a rampage.

'Thank God for the privacy clause,' Tom praised the thoughtfulness of the creators of the game. Because while in other lobbies, they would appear just like everyone else appeared to Tom right now.

As boring, expressionless mannequins.

"Now, now, calm down," Tom said in a soft voice before moving forward and pretending to pat the girl's head. His hand would turn into mist as soon as the projections of their avatars would intersect, so Tom stopped his palm right above the girl's hair.

"Are you for real…?!" Claudia muttered through her tightened lips, already turning red from agitation.

"I will clear all the floors up to the twenty-fifth one," Tom said, moving towards the gate. "Make sure to keep roughly ten to twenty meters behind me. I don't want you to burn yourself for no reason." He added, pushing through the illusory gate.

A flash and the white lobby was replaced with the familiar structure of the dungeon. Tom breathed a sigh of relief. 'Why do I feel at home here rather than in my actual place?' He despaired over his addiction to the game before shaking his head. 'No good, I can't be distracted here!'

There was only one rule everyone was aware of in this game. Once your avatar dies, it's game over.

'And I don't want to hold the gegewepe party yet,' Tom thought as his lips formed a small smirk.

Gegewepe party. A name created from the phrase popular amongst the gamers across the entire world. Good game, well played. The shortened version of this post-match salute turned into something far grimmer once Dungeons Online conquered the gaming industry.

What used to be a pleasant phrase one would use to praise his teammates and opponents alike turned into an announcement of one losing all his progress. And with one's earnings from the game tied closely to how strong their avatar was, there were even cases of people inflicting self-harm during gegewepe parties!

"Hey, can't you stop leaving me behind just one damned time?" Claudia yelled as soon as she appeared in the dungeon. Her face was flushed red from all those times when Tom either ignored or plain-out disregarded her.

"I told you, keep ten to twenty meters away," Tom said, not even bothering to look around. "Everblaze." He cast the usual spell of his. A fire covered his clothes, once again generating a pool of liquid blaze around every step he made.

"Auch!" Claudia shouted lightly, jumping away from the heated element of Tom's spell.

"So that's your cleaving spell," Claudia said as a small smirk appeared on her face. "That's why you don't need my help on the low floors, right?" She added, allowing her smirk to grow even larger.

"I'm a solo player," Tom replied, shrugging his arms. "With a brawler like you, I won't waste most of my playtime dealing with the middle-tier monsters," Tom informed the girl.

The game itself had many flaws. Developers keeping every single piece of information about the game to themselves was a splendid example. All that people knew about Dungeons Online so far came from the sole discretion of players.

It was amidst this process of discovery and sharing that a certain slang was invented.

"So that's the case," Claudia silently noted, nodding her head in appreciation of Tom's honesty.

"Well, since you are so high on saving time, let's stop wasting it," she added, following right after Tom's avatar.