Chapter 1: The ' SHIFT ' and Betrayal
' Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip ' jake woke up to the sound of water dropping, he found himself in a dark and damp cave, when his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw rocks scattered around him, he looked up and saw a large hole through the ceiling, it was then he remembered what had happened.
Before the ' SHIFT ' he was an orphan who lost his family due to poverty. His father had died when he was young and his mother who had taken care of him all his life had fallen ill after he graduated from high school due to excessive work. With no one else able to work, he had no choice but to drop out of school and give up his hope of completing college. He had to get a job in other to cover his mom's medical bills and medication, he began working multiple jobs, he used the pay from all of them to pay for his mom's medications. A year later, his mom's condition had started to look up, the doctors finally had hope. But then his mother's condition took a turn for the worse, she urgently needed operation, but with jake's meager pay barely enough to cover her medication, he couldn't afford the bill for the operation. He tried all he could to raise the money, he asked friends, old classmates even his different bosses, but none yielded anything.
When he tried to take a loan , he was denied because he had nothing to his name. In the end he couldn't raise the money needed for the operation, he lost his only remaining family, with no money to perform a funeral, he cremated his mom and took her remains home. A year after his mom's death the ' PARADISE INITIATIVE ' was announced.
After the ' SHIFT ' ,he saw in this new world the hope for a better future, he promised himself that he wouldn't get into anything evil but he would make money so that he wouldn't lose any loved one again. Using what savings he had left he purchased a set of blue ' UNCOMMON ' armor and a green ' RARE ' longbow, he joined a medium sized guild and went on monster hunting missions. A few months after joining the guild, he was sent along with two others; a female mage and a male swordsman, to investigate a newly formed dungeon.
As they went deeper and deeper into the dungeon it got darker, then he suddenly saw a light behind him, he turned and saw the mage casting a fireball, he thought it was supposed to light up the way forward, he moved away from the center and continued walking. But instead of going past him the light got brighter and he suddenly felt a burning sensation and ' thwat ' he fell on the floor dead. He was confused to say the least, when the respawn countdown ended he stood up and was about to ask them why he was attacked, but as soon as he stood up another fireball was hurled at him and he lay back down dead. He remembered that the game doesn't support friendly fire so he checked his logs and found out that he had been kicked from the team, still wondering why he heard the guy say " tsk, even that isn't enough to make him drop his equipment ", the girl replied " you shouldn't be bothered we'll just have to try again " when his timer was nearing the end he prepared himself to run for it immediately he stood up, but he forgot about the 5s invincibility and immobility, he stood up but couldn't move and just watched as another fireball was cast and as soon as the 5s was over he lay on the ground once more. But his luck didn't favor him this time with a ' ding ' all his equipment was dropped, he just lay there looking as his blue and green glowing equipment were picked up, the swordsman came up to his corpse and said " don't blame us , if anything blame yourself. A low level scrub like you walking around with this kind of equipment, it was bound to happen ". With that they left him and went out of the dungeon, while waiting for the timer to end the floor caved in and he now found himself in this cave, with nothing on him except his underwear.