The Explorer

Lorn woke up, his eyebrows twitching from the sunlight on his face. As he opened his eyes, he saw a clear blue sky and swaying tall grass at the edge of his vision. He was lying on his back in an empty field, but he couldn't tell what he was doing here.

Groggily, he got up to look around. A piece of paper fell out from atop his chest, and Lorn reflexively tried to catch it. But, although his body moved fast enough, his fingers felt stiffer and more sluggish than what he was used to. The paper jumped from one hand to the other a few times before Lorn grabbed it.

But as his hands grasped at the piece of paper, something in his body instinctively made him let go. It was as if he intended to hug a person, but found out they were actually mannequins.

Now that he thought about it, this whole place felt… 'off'. The sky, the grass, the paper, the air, even his own body. Like they were missing something crucial.

"Ah…" he whispered. "This must be the digital space…"

He looked at his hands, then at the grass and paper on the ground, and was genuinely surprised at how real they looked. But thinking about it properly, it wasn't that surprising with how far computer graphics have gone these days. The only thing different was that Lorn was inside it. An odd thought came to his mind.

'How many polygons am I made of?'

He touched his body, then felt nothing odd. Nothing rough or, polygony. In fact, this digital body felt better to him. Then he touched the surrounding grass. Felt like grass. He nibbled on one and it tasted like dirty salad leaves. The more he interacted with the world, the more he felt his senses getting used to the digital world.

'Be yourself. Explore. Interact. And try… Huh.'

Lorn pinched himself next and felt pain.

He looked around himself once again. He was atop a small hill, a vast plain surrounding him. On one edge of it, tall, jagged mountains loomed among the clouds. One mountain in particular stood out from the others, its top half shaped like a wide column, as if someone had stuck a giant plateau atop another mountain. Just near Lorn, a flock of sheep were grazing carelessly on the tall grass.

At the other edge, there was a river and a forest, and a small… town of a sort before them. It really wasn't big, since Lorn could see it in its entirety from the hill he was standing on. Perhaps it was only three or four kilometers wide. One other thing Lorn noticed was that the place looked terribly old, its buildings reminding Lorn of the destitute, forgotten villages of Tyvat.

He thought he'd never see a place so… lacking as his birth-country, but here he was, looking down upon one.

'Though to be fair, this town thing does have a pretty nice wall…'

It was built with wooden logs bound together by clay. From the gray tones of the clay, Lorn guessed that some amount of cement was added as well.

'But why would they need such a fancy wall… And I can only see dirt roads heading towards it too.'

Pulling his thoughts away from the town, Lorn picked up the piece of paper that fell off him and read.

[Welcome, player Lorn Ashin, to the One World. A digital replica of Earth for your consciousness to experience, explore, and possibly, reside in.]

[Explore. Interact. Enjoy. And, Beware.]

Lorn glanced at the short message, flipped the paper around, found nothing, and frowned.

"That's it? And what's with that ominous Beware?"

Lorn sighed and read the message again.

"Player Lorn Ashin? Since they're explicitly calling me a player, doesn't it mean this is a proper Virtual Reality Game? Not just something you tuck on your face and pretend you're inside?"

Lorn had nothing against the current VR technologies, but compared to the real thing that he was experiencing now, the old technology definitely was lackluster.

Now he could see what Reina meant. This definitely was a big surprise. And it was also very profitable, considering how big the gaming industry was, and how far the technology involved was being pushed. As long as they could solve the 80% chance of getting brain damage, the game built thanks to the #008 – 3 could be a huge success.

'But why would it be considered a Non-public Lvl.5?' Lorn couldn't help but wonder.

The only two other examples he knew of were enormous geopolitical plans that encompassed and affected the entire world. The only thing he could compare that to were the two Great Wars that occurred in the previous century.

But in a way, the #008 was bigger. The exploration of the Consciousness was definitely not something to scoff at, with how they were able to relocated his mind to the 'One World'.

But, which was more impactful? Two wars that resulted in millions dying, a modern miracle of a country establishing itself as one of the most powerful in the world immediately, or the next step of humanity, which was to explore the digital world that contained endless possibilities.

And now, seeing a world not so different from reality, Lorn's feelings swayed towards the third option. If what the One Leader achieves what they're intending to achieve, which was to create a place people could actually live in… the One World wouldn't be so different from humanity finding another planet to live in.

Lorn's head hurt, imagining the countless possibilities this technology brought.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"Alright, I can't stand here forever."

Lorn patted the dust off his clothes and started walking towards the town below.

"KEeAekh!"

A guttural shout interrupted his thoughts.

Lorn looked at the source of the sound and saw an odd… phenomenon. He could only describe it as a one-armed mannequin walking towards him with a broken gait. It reminded him greatly of a zombie with how it had to drag one of its legs, but nothing in its appearance suggested an undead.

Its skin looked smooth, its eyeballs were glossy, and its movements were terribly rigid. But that didn't change the fact that a moving mannequin was approaching him slowly and that it possibly had ill intent towards Lorn.

"KAakh!" it shouted again.

It was now only 20 steps away from Lorn. But he could only look at the doll with a confused face. Perhaps he should've been more scared, but with the sun shining bright above him, and a faint belief that everything here was fake, he wasn't so fearful.

As it came ten steps closer to him, Lorn at least took on a defensive stance, ready to strike the doll down. For the last ten steps, the doll did a little dash, but its sudden movement made it fall face-first onto the grass.

On the ground, it struggled to get up, but its missing hand and its rigid joints did not allow it such a complex maneuver.

Lorn, feeling disgust for the thing, kicked its head with as much force he could muster. With a shattering sound, the doll's head cracked, before it soon broke down into particles. It left nothing behind, except a small, spherical lump of clay. It emitted a light blue hue, softly beckoning Lorn to touch it.

"Fucking video games…" he murmured before picking it up.

However, when his hands made contact with the clay, it once again turned into particles but this time, it was kind of absorbed into Lorn's body.

"Fucking virtual reality…" he murmured again and headed towards the town. "What the hell was that all about?"

As he came closer to the gates, he saw a guard appearing over the wall. It was an old man with a huge, bulging mole on his cheek, and he was wearing an old-fashioned brown jacket over a dirty white shirt. He was also holding a spear, which Lorn found very confusing.

"It's an Undying!" the man suddenly shouted to someone behind him.

Lorn stood there, confused at his title, as the gates of the town opened before him. A younger guard stood there. He tried calling out to Lorn, but the words died in his mouth. Then he looked at the older guard, who was coming down the wall, and a look of hesitation passed through his eyes. Oddly, his facial expressions didn't change much during the charade.

"Please!" the old guard shouted to Lorn. "Come inside! Come inside!" he turned to the younger guard. "Talin! Go call the mayor! You know what to tell her!"

Lorn was still confused by his reception, but he warily walked inside.

"Uhh… What's going on?" he asked the old guard. "Why are you calling me Undying?"

"Don't worry," the old guard smiled. "The mayor will take care of you! Ha-ha-ha!"

"Okay, uh, there was this moving clay doll outside the city… do you know what that all was about?"

"Ah-hah! You must've seen a Possessed Object. Don't worry too much about them. They're a creepy bunch, but are largely harmless. Even children can take care of the weaker ones! Ha-ha-ha!"

Lorn nodded, processing the information.

"Okay, uh, what's this place called?"

"Silt. The finest town in the whole of west Vox."

"Vox? Which continent is it on?"

"Continent? What's that? Ha-ha-ha!"

Lorn was a bit creeped out by how often the man laughed, but he focused on the information provided. A completely unheard of country, and a person who didn't know what a continent was.

The old, wooden buildings around him and the shabby clothes everyone was wearing, he could tell that the world wasn't so advanced. And with the Possessed roaming around the place and the people calling him Undying, he could understand that the world was one of a typical fantasy setting.

But Lorn wasn't so worried that the game world would be boring. Any setting could be interesting as long as the creators put in the necessary effort. And with the One Country behind this new virtual reality, Lorn knew he wouldn't need to worry about such things.

Though he was curious how realistic the world was.

Feeling mischievous he wondered aloud. "Am I really talking to an Nnn-?"

Lorn's tongue suddenly refused to work. He was trying to say NPC, but when he got to the word, his brain suddenly froze.

"Nnn!" he tried again, but the result was the same. "This world is-"

"Are you okay? Aha-ha!" the guard asked.

"Yeah."

Lorn guessed that perhaps he wasn't allowed to mention to these people about the real world and the stuff related to that. He was a bit scared that they forcefully controlled his freedom of speech that way, but he tried not to think about it too much and waited for the mayor.

A 40, 50-ish year old woman approached from the distance, accompanied by the younger guard from before. The old guard next to Lorn bowed slightly to her as she came, "Here's the undying, mayor."

"Thanks, Rowan," she replied. "I'll take it from here."

She briefly scanned Lorn from top to bottom, before she looked him in the eye.

"I'm Yuline Eider, the mayor of Silt. It's an honor to meet you, Undying one."