1 What The Hell?

"What the hell?!"

Ethan yelled.

By the time he noticed it, he had no idea why he got here.

He was in a room, with a plain ceiling and a cabinet with an old design.

The ambiance of the room was slightly dark.

After contemplating for a while, Ethan regained his cool and compose himself.

A minute passed, he shot up from the bed and went to the corner where a mirror was pasted.

Jet black hair, hazel black eyes, and a face with good proportion but was considered to be average.

Not too ugly, not too handsome. Just a face that can hook two girls at a time.

He touches his cheek seemingly amazed by the sight. And no, he was not insane enough to be in love by his own face.

It was just that the face reflected in the mirror was his very own look when he was still in his early twenties.

"Yup, this is really me in college."

Ethan said while also moving his right shoulder.

"No kidding, I can move however I like. This is definitely not a dream," he muttered again while thinking back.

He was in a party, a farewell party to be exact.

It was a party held to celebrate his retirement as a guild leader. His guild was very famous, in fact, it was the number one guild of the VR game, UTOPIA.

The game become famous after gaining multiple supporters from around the globe.

Just like its name, UTOPIA was a perfect game. Unlike the past VR games, this one has so many elements added to it.

A neural connectivity of 95%, the highest percentage among the VR worlds in the past 20 years.

Senses like smell and taste were also integrated thus gaining insane popularity even in the beta testing phase.

He played for almost 10 years and become a prominent leader inside the game.

"Yeah, I was very cool at that time," he claimed.

But he decided to retire.

The reason? It was very simple and childish. Anyone who can hear it would definitely say he was not a true gamer because of it.

He was just bored.

His base class was a Swordsman and it was upgraded several times until he becomes the Sword Saint.

It was the Transcendence Class of the Swordsman profession. In short, it was the peak of all sorts.

That's the reason he got bored because of the repetitive activities.

Yeah.

Whack and slash.

Lunge and slice.

And repeat!

That was monotonic.

Ethan wanted new, he wanted to do another style and he come up with a solution—it was to change class!

But even he, the 'almighty' guild leader of the number one guild can't do anything about the game rules.

ODP. One Data per Player.

It means a player can only create one account. It was in the rule of fairness... so as the company says.

So Ethan cannot create another account to play another class.

And because he got a Transcendence Class, he cannot change his class by buying whatever item that the game sold to change the user class.

So well, he retired.

Planning to fund a certain group of scholars (game creators and maniacs) to create another game above UTOPIA, and of course, play it afterward!

But who would have thought he would return from the past just after he chugged all the liquor and become drunk?

Who needs to be dead by the way? If he can go back to the past by just drinking some delicious wine!

"Or I died... at the party?"

Ethan paused for a moment but was back again after thinking it was pointless to point it out. He was alive, healthy (barely), and still handsome.

Anyways, he fixed his crumbled hair probably rugged because he was out from sleeping a while ago.

He pick up his phone at the near table and saw he has a message lining up on the screen.

"Boss? What level i—Ahh yeah. I remember now."

Ethan was going to ask what boss level is it but after seeing the exact date on his phone, he remembered that he had truly returned from the past.

"So this is the time I quit college and began to work in the restaurant."

Ethan softly muttered remembering that fact since he lack money to support his education.

By all means, considering his greatness, he was an orphan with a tragic past.

Both of his parents died in a car accident. His uncle, the best friend of his father adopted him when he was still 10 years old.

As he got to high school, he started to do part-time jobs to not solely depends on others. Even his uncle was good to him and the whole family cared about him a lot, he planned to not burden them.

His uncle has a big family with three daughters and one son. That's why even it was hard, he does part-time work while doing his studies up until he reached college.

After that, he rented a small apartment in the city, quite near to the university he was enrolled. At the same time, he works at a restaurant.

It was a good start for his college days but as time went on, he realized his funds were not enough to afford his daily needs. He stops schooling in the meantime and plans to save money for the next semester.

Usually, his shift in the restaurant would start from 3 pm to 9 pm but since he stop going to school, he was now working full time.

Ethan read the message. The 'boss' was searching for him and asking why he didn't come to the restaurant.

His boss, the manager of the restaurant was a good guy in his thirties. So it was just a concern text, not seems angry...he thinks.

He replied by saying he'll come in the afternoon.

"Hell, even it's half paid, it was still money," he said before hopping to his bed again.

Ethan planned to rest for the whole morning.

Even the influence of alcohol vanished from him, his mind was still hazy.

'Maybe some after-effects of coming back from the past?' he suddenly thought.

Whatever principle and theory involved in it, right now he never cares as he slowly close his eyes and went to sleep.

Good night.