"Oh come on dude!"

"No, it's over... today is the final day of our agreement and I am not at all invested in this game," echoed Xander in response to Arata... or was it Yamen now? Bah, why did he have to give two damns? He wasn't going to be putting anymore time into this silly virtual reality realm. He was told how it would get better soon, told how amazing the game was but it just didn't pique his interest.

As he chatted with his friend, in one fell swoop, he decapitated a midget greenskin who was haphazardly sprinting at the boy. Rolling his eyes in boredom, he watched the being crumble into dust, leaving no quest reward. The only thing he got to wield was this stinkin' broadsword and failed to obtain any sort of firearm in the progress... though he did have to admit this world looked beautiful and realistic... it was surreal to him, but it didn't appeal to him with all of these missions these... N P C's? Whatever, those people sent him on.

"We haven't even gotten to the exciting parts of the game and it's free-form reclassing!"

"Seriously? You guys will shirk your homework in class just to take another class in-game... that's pretty counterproductive and a waste of money..."

Responding with a nonchalant tone in his voice, Xander stared back blankly at the boy who was facepalming, shaking his head. Staring at his comrade, he could infer that this was another one of those "terms" he mentioned about games like this, though he didn't bother recalling any of them. Why would he? He wasn't going to be using this set for any longer than a week. Rolling his glazed over eyes and shrugging, he pulled up the menu and begin sifting through all his gear and items he had procured over the past seven days before moving over to skills.

"Come on, don't want to disappoint Kumiko, do you?" He felt a jab to his chest as his sleazy little friend guffawed lightly, earning him the boy a slap to his elbow. "Come on man, lighten up! Have some fun! Not every day y-" Xander interrupted Arata's response with a cold glare and threatening frown, causing the shorter boy to put up his hands and back away. "Yeesh, ok, ok, jeez... This is why people don't respect ya sometimes; you're no fun!" Xander couldn't help but pinch his noses dorsum as he stopped briefly for a moment to breath through it and sigh loudly.

"First off, I haven't seen her online two days ago, so that should tell you much. Second, I do not like frittering my time away on something as meaningless as this." His voice was reduced to a low growl as he continued looking at the myriads of items on the list, trying to make sense of it all before moving to the main menu. Scrolling through, he found the large achromatic logout button.

"I'll respect what you guys do with your free time, but please don't pull off a stunt like this again... please." Giving the logout button a quick jab, he thought nothing of why it was grayed out as he waited for the logout sequence. Instead, nothing happened. Raising an eyebrow he jabbed the icon again and received similar results. Two seconds later he began jamming his index finger at quicker intervals, attempting to escape this decorated but horrible reality.

"Uh... dude?"

Coming to a halt, Xander turned to his friend who was staring in bewilderment at his screen. Eyeing the boy suspiciously, he exited the menu before pivoting around and glaring at Arata. "Alright, what did you do Arata?" He was disappointed at his friend's antics but this was taking it a step too far. Keeping him from logging out? Were they that desperate to keep him playing?

"Hold on, i-"

"What hasn't Arata done?" Another proud voice erupted from their sides. Glancing to the side was a smirking girl, giggling just for a few seconds... before he saw the glint in her eyes. Taking evasive maneuvers, Xander backstepped away from Arata to avoid being caught in the glomp. Of course, Arata was the less fortunate of the two males as he and the girl plummeted to the ground, bodies bouncing off each other like rubber balls going up and down the pavement. "Aw, why did you have to avoid it," she laughed a little before getting off of a dazed Arata.

Rolling his eyes, he turned away from the girl briefly, listening to gleeful chirping of a few animals in the distance. "I had no intention of being a pole for either of you two hang on to Kumiko." Returning his collected gaze to the girl who yawned a little. "So what's the sitch Xander?"

Pulling up the menu, he displayed the problem with it, explaining that he couldn't log out from the game. After staring at it for a moment, Arata weakly responded as he got up, dusting himself off.

"I'm sure it's just a bug; the developers will probably fix it in no ti-"

Being cut short once again, the heavens erupted with a sable hue before turning a shade of crimson in an instant. This strange predicament seemed to garner even the most disinterested Xander who stared weakly at the screen with a draped figure; all features were obscured with the dark cloak and Xander could only think of one thing at the moment.

"How cliche..."

“Greetings adventurers, I am the Dark Lord!” the figure on the screen’s deep voice echoed across the server.

"Riveting," Xander muttered to himself as he gazed at his friends who were either shaking their heads or frowning.

"I was expecting a more... grandeur launch event..."

"Shush and listen to what the fearsome Edge Lord has to say."

“It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to your new home. Some of you may have noticed by now that you are unable to log out of the game. This is not a bug...”

... tch, right "not a bug" or whatever. He might of not known much about games, but if this was a way to generate some suspense, this developer was utterly failing to rile him up. Seriously, he read Fantasy books that were more creative than this.

“But don’t be scared, dear adventurers! Think of this like a new beginning! A way to escape from that wretched old world forever!”

"This is a pathetic excuse to get people excited for this game... I'm positive they'll have that bug you mentioned fixed soon."

Looking over to his friends, he saw them both staring attentively at the screen in the sky once those words were uttered, both with their menus pulled up. Walking over, he noticed that their boxes were also grayed out as well, with Kumiko was weakly tapping the button in a slow rhythmic pattern. Arata's finger just lay there, still as the air around them.

"Arata? Kumiko?"

“Until we meet again, my friends!” the man’s final words echoed across the world before the video feed was cut and the sky returned to normal.

Even with the environment returned to normal, the axe wielding girl couldn't help but breathe heavily, the gasping of air becoming the only sound that either guy could hear. Suddenly, her knees began to buckle under her and she collapsed liked a bunch of ruins. The only saving grace that kept her in shock on the ground was Arata and Xander catching the older girl.

"Kumiko! I'm sure it's just like last Christmas!"

Her grip on both their arms suddenly strengthened, Arata wincing at how tight he grasp was whilst Xander remained unfazed by it, instead furrowing his eyebrows.

"Arata... you just made it worse... come on, lets find you a place to sit."

Picking her up, they both carried her towards the nearest rock. This... this was going to take time to comprehend as they sat her down, her head staring straight at the floor, eyes lifeless. Was it really that serious? Xander knew she never broke down like this unless they really hurt her feelings or she was sorely frightened.

"Hey, come on Kumiko..." Arata pulled her in for a hug as he spoke to her. "Everything will be fine." Approaching the two, he gradually was pulled into the hug as he steadily moved his arm around the girl, trying to comfort her too.

"Hey, I'm pretty sure we can override this stupid bug by removing our helmets, so no need to worry."

"Uh, Xander," Arata hissed lowly, drawing him over her neck. "That's no how it works... your body won't move at all in the real world due to the way the VR set works. That would result in complications if you moved, y'know?"

That... made a lot of sense now that Xander thought about it. He didn't bother bringing it up again until their ally stopped convulsively breathing. Eventually regaining her composure, Arata and her started discussing about what to do as the blonde haired boy stared at the rock as if the secrets to escaping this forlorn reality were etched on it.

"What about killing ourselves," Xander finally piped up resulting in a worried look from both. Arata had to embrace her again before she went into another panic attack.

"Xander, are you crazy?!"

Shrugging, he pushed himself off his butt, stretching. "I mean, you guys do respawn and stuff in the games I've seen you played, so I don't exactly see a problem with this. There is a slight chance that could be the problem."

"Yeah, but we have no idea whether it's just temporary death or permadeath!"

Permadeath? Oh... oh!... oh. That was a little concerning now that he thought about it. The term clicked easily and puzzled him. They explained things like health bars and mana bars and every little nitty gritty detail about this game, down to its mechanics. This game was very realistic now that he thought about it, though had elements that he was unfamiliar with. Would other players be able to revive you? Were you stuck like that? Would you respawn? Myriads of questions clicked inside his head, but only one goal stayed situated amongst the rabble.

Escape.

Due to the psychology of people, this could be given as a way of new life... a very dangerous lifestyle since everyone was free to do something. Roam in the realm, discover wildlife, fight monsters, and of course players duking it out with other players. Plus he had no intention of staying in this video game world. He didn't even like video games for crying out loud!

"... lets get back to Sanctuary... I'm very sure that it's risky lingering in an area like this." Giving a hand to his two friends, he pulled them both up, all three of them brandishing their weapons. "Lets get a move on it; we can discuss our plans for the future once we get back to that zone... let's move."