Chương 2: Guests

The motors of my virtual headset buzzed as I was forcibly logged off of Wonderwind, sent into the real world. A jarring change of scenery followed. The scents of pleasant forestry from in-game were all replaced by the very real smell of forgotten cup noodles on my nightstand. I woke up in darkness, the only light coming from the blinking red light of my headset." Low battery," it read. I stared at it blankly. The headset was connected directly to a wall outlet.

I tested the cable, finding it snug, but the battery wasn't charging. Was my electricity out? Hopefully it was just that. If the headset itself was broken, this shit would get expensive quickly. Deep calm breaths… I told myself, though I instantly regretted it as every musty smell of my room entered my nose all at once. At least the lack of light helped me avoid seeing all the overflowing garbage bags. I pulled out my phone and saw that the clock read 7: 34PM.

My time of waking up from the game usually came down to random chance. I didn't really care about the time these days. I'll admit right away that my living situation was not my best quality. Friends and family called me a game addict.

And while I argued that I was just a career-driven and hard-working assassin, it was true that I would gladly bury myself underground if it meant I could be permanently connected to a virtual headset—because holy shit, this New York place was a far worse spawning city than even the shittiest blight towns in Wonderwind. I opened up Oblivara's livestream. His chat was going crazy, messages popping so fast I could hardly read them. Most of them spammed, "Outplayed!!" or "Washed up!" One read, "Wow, who was that?

That assassin was actually good." I smiled lightly at that. The stream itself showed Oblivara's death timer as he ranted out loud in the menu. I turned up the volume to hear him shouting.

"I better not have lost my fucking sword! Someone check Martyn's stream. Did they catch him?" The chat responded with, "Iron Ring," and, "The assassin lagged and died." That made Oblivara laugh.

"Yeah, serves him right. Alright, the stream's continuing in two hours. Good time for a break. I'll go take a shit." His voice was clearly upset, but he logged off. The deaths timed us both out of the game for two hours. Oblivara could rest easy knowing his guild had his back this time. In my case… hopefully I hadn't lost anything valuable. As long as my cloak didn't drop, I could always recover. A pop-up opened on my phone, informing me of a new post on the Wonderwind official forums. It was titled."

Oblivara gets one-shot on stream in front of fifteen thousand viewers by a non-ranker." The post already had five thousand upvotes and was growing in real time. A lot of users had probably received this notification too. The algorithm was pretty good at notifying people of the posts they actually wanted to see. With a vague smile on my face, I opened the post and watched the clip of our fight from Oblivara's point of view, taken straight from his stream.

From his perspective, I could not only study Oblivara's fighting style, I could also notice weaknesses in my own. My attempt to taunt him could have been less obvious, perhaps, but even that had worked. All around, my movements looked solid, and Oblivara couldn't keep up in the slightest. My practice showed. I was confident I could kill most tank players with relative ease. The comments were far more interesting. By Angleangel3, 6045 upvotes: " Lol, classic dagger to the brain. Completely outplayed.

Oblivara's washed. Looks like he's just another idiot tank player." Reply by Greenwitch, 4067 upvotes: " The assassin was very skilled, to be fair. His movement is straight up maniacal. Any miss movement would have killed him. Been a while since I've seen an outplay like that." By Wendrilshin, 5346 upvotes: " Holyyy, what's up with that assassin? Who is that player? A non-ranker?" Reply by TreantForHire, 3487 upvotes: " The assassin died right after lol, I saw it from Marty's stream. Must have been a fluke.

Apparently his username is literally 'Assassin'. Some no-name." I blinked at that. My username was out on the streets now. The name had a bit of a backstory. One of my uncles had been creating an account for himself some rough ten years ago, back when the game was brand new. He tried to write out the class he wanted to play, not realizing that he had been selecting the username. Thanks to my uncle, the account had the rare name of just "Assassin." Nobody else could share the username.

I received the account after my uncle quit. I continued reading the comments. Reply by Greenwitch, 2349 upvotes: " The assassin killed Solace as well and died to lag. I reckon he would have escaped if not for that." Reply by Lordwinter, 4236 upvotes: " What gear did he drop? Must have been a rich kid if he could one-shot Oblivara." Reply by TreantForHire, 2567 upvotes: " Marty didn't share, but he fought with uncommon daggers lol. Absolute trash gear. Like I said, it was a fluke."

Reply by Greenwitch, 3486 upvotes: " Wow. He killed Oblivara with an uncommon dagger?????" Reply by Lowmansky, 789 downvotes: " Ya'll unskilled fucks, just stop using [Swing] and play the game for real." The comments grew increasingly stupid from there as people started arguing about the [Swing] system, and about whether I was skilled, or if I just got a lucky hit in.

The general consensus amongst players was that using [Swing] was way better, and most players said that I was just a no-name-assassin that got lucky, though there were loads that were impressed by the outplay. That was good. Publicity could be used to make money. And I had ideas on how I could turn my reputation into rent money. For now, however… My bank account situation was hideous enough that I didn't even want to check. 567 dollars. Rent cost 1300. And the payment was already overdue.

My landlord was my dad, thankfully, so he would probably offer leniency with more time. Again. I stood and stretched. I tried flicking the light switch, but nothing happened. Must have been a power outage. It wouldn't have been the first time I'd been disconnected because of one of those. When I opened the door and exited the attic, however, I found that the lights downstairs were very much still on. A bout of laughter echoed from the living room deeper in the house.

I paused and required a moment to recognize the voice. It was my aunt, whose plump face I already remembered, though I couldn't put a name to it. Shit, I thought. We had guests. My desire to head downstairs for a meal and a toilet break suddenly disappeared entirely. I wanted to turn back into the attic and head to sleep. But my electricity was out. I'd need it back to start charging my headset. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I sighed and continued down.

I passed a mirror on the way there and quickly paused to check my appearance. Honestly, I didn't even think I looked bad. I looked like a more tired version of my in-game avatar, as Wonderwind always used the person playing as the base model for their character. I was eighteen years old with shoulder-length black, slightly greasy but not disheveled hair. I'd shaved four days ago, and the few strings of beard hadn't yet started looking awful. People always saw me as tall, and I was slightly above six feet.

These days, I was shaped like a stick considering my diet and lack of exercise, but a loose black shirt hid the lack of meat underneath. Even if I wanted to shower first before meeting guests, both the kitchen and the shower were connected to the living room in our house, so I had no choice but to show my face. I tried to be sneaky regardless. There were seven people in total in the living room. My mom and dad, my sister, and some cousins that I recalled the faces of, but not their names.

I made no eye-contact as I passed calmly into the kitchen. I subconsciously reached into the skill slots in my head to activate [Stealth] and [Conceal Footsteps], and I immediately felt stupid as nothing happened. Conversation suddenly paused, and I felt people looking at me while I opened a bag of instant noodles.

"Aiden?" mom asked after me.

"We have guests." I can tell mom, I thought. It seemed I'd have no choice but to introduce myself. I stood between the doorframe and said, "Hello." Plump-face aunt already had a disapproving frown on her face with a glass of wine in hand. Her son, Alex, glanced at me, then looked away, disinterested. I only remembered his name after being compared to him for so many years, because apparently his status as a hobbyist football player was more respectable than my level in Wonderwind.

There was one pleasant guest, however. Ricky, one of my younger uncles, because he actually played Wonderwind in his free time. He ate a piece of rib on his plate and casually asked, "How's our favourite assassin?"

"Doing decent, actually," I said. If my electricity hadn't been cut.

"Have you been checking the forums?" Everyone else in the room sat and listened, not knowing what was being talked about. Ricky said, "I don't really have time to log in much these days. I watched the world cup for a bit. Didn't quite spot you there yet, eh?"

"My mechanics are about on par," I said, and I truly believed that, "but I'll need to match the top players in levels and gear before I can qualify for competitions."

"My cousin in Europe is earning two grand a month," Ricky said.

"If he doesn't die too much during said month, at least." He laughed, but only for a second.

"He did say that playing full time is too risky. A good month will let him live, but there are months when he doesn't earn anything at all. And he's one of the best players in the game, winning local tournaments. He told me that going to school is still a much better career option."

"If your cousin is only earning two grand, he's doing something wrong," I said with a shrug.

"Top five hundred players should expect to earn six figures minimum."

"Really?" Ricky asked, giving me a look.

"You're set on playing full time, then?" Everyone had their eyes on me, probably wondering how much I earned from playing Wonderwind. I really didn't want to answer. I'd been downstairs for less than five minutes, and I was already being inquired for my worth in society. I turned eighteen six months ago, I thought. Am I already expected to provide for a full family?

"Good luck, Aiden," was all Ricky said after I didn't respond.

"I also heard my cousin found a girl in-game. How's that situation?" I snorted.

"Talking to girls is generally considered not a very efficient method of leveling up." Ricky let out a laugh, shaking his head in amusement. Everyone else merely looked disapproving, especially my parents. Dad did not have the look of someone who was proud of me. My younger sister, Anna, looked like she wanted to be on my side, but even she looked away. I moved back into the kitchen, hoping that I'd shown my face for long enough.

I boiled the instant noodles and ate them, now separated with a wall from my cousins as their discussions continued. The fact that I could still hear them did not dissuade my aunt from making fun of me.

"So Aiden spends all day playing that game? And he doesn't have a car? Does he go outside?" I do not go outside, thank you very much. As I said, New York city was not a place I'd willingly visit unless I absolutely had to, and buying a car was pointless for that very reason. I had a driver's license, though, which I trained for and obtained virtually, since VR was just that realistic these days. I shut my ears from the conversation and ate my noodles, after which I decided to take a shower.

Not because I needed it, but because taking a shower would probably make my dad think I was more respectable as a person, and I was going to need to ask him about my electricity problem. With a towel around my waist, I moved back to the living room and said, "Dad, can I talk to you for a bit?" He batted an eye, but stood from the sofa. My dad was a large man, as tall as me, but he actually had the muscles to back up his size.

He used to go to the gym every day, though his six pack had long been replaced by a beer belly. We moved into a hallway out of earshot.

"My power is out," I said straight.

"Did the fuse break?" Dad crossed his arms and merely stared at me. Ah, so this wasn't an accident, I thought and mentally sighed.

"Son, you told me that in six months, you'd be winning competitions," dad said.

"That was seven months ago now, and that's how much time I was willing to be lenient with you. Every single one of your rent payments has been late."

"All but two," I corrected. His frown deepened.

"You're late again. Your mother and I are getting sick of watching you waste your life away in the attic. You need to start searching for jobs, Aiden." My face was blank as I stared back at him.

"I see your point, dad, but earning in game would be a lot easier if I could reinvest what I earn. Paying rent puts me at ground zero every time." Dad didn't look impressed. He opened his mouth, but I spoke over him.

"I want you to see something." I pulled out my phone, and showed him the fight between me and Oblivara.

"That player right there is a livestreamer with ten thousand viewers daily. He's rich as hell. And that dark figure is me. This is the clip of me killing him. The clip in itself almost has a hundred thousand views already." Dad was listening now, tapping his finger with his arms still crossed.

"I killed the streamer and stole his gear piece," I said.

"His best gear is worth five thousand. On top of that, I killed his ally, and stole her gear. Her best gear piece was worth two thousand."

"Two thousand in game worthless gold, or actual money?" dad asked.

"Dollars," I said.

"Real money. I don't need to enter competitions to earn money." He still didn't look impressed.

"And what's the caveat? If you're earning, how is the rent still late?"

"The caveat is that my power just went out, and I died," I said, now frowning back at him.

"Instead of gaining their gear, I got killed and I'm the one who lost money. Because someone decided to cut my electricity." Dad said nothing.

"I'm skilled enough to earn money in Wonderwind," I said.

"But to be honest, you're making it difficult, dad. I need money to invest into my equipment in order to gain better and more expensive equipment. Right now, I'm like a rat trying to enter Wallstreet with a few pennies. No matter how much of a genius I am, I won't get anywhere with a single penny. Especially not when my peers are also taking everything I earn before I can reinvest anything."

"Well, do you know how you could solve that problem?" dad asked. I waited for him to continue.

"Get a job," he said firmly.

"Work for a year. Move out. And when you're not shaming us at family dinner, that's when you can play that game for as long as you want." For fuck's sake, I thought. My brain urged me to keep arguing. There was a reason why I kept playing Wonderwind. I genuinely loved the game. Compared to the jobs in today's market, flipping burgers and whatever bullshit was available for an unqualified kid like me, the opportunity to move to another reality for my job was literally a dream.

I would have risked anything to pursue Wonderwind. But with my family acting like this, it was difficult.

"You know what, dad," I said.

"You're right." Saying that was painful, since I knew I was talking out of my ass, but I took this as my last chance. I said, "I think I'll go search for a job right now. You've told me that the best way to impress the boss is to head in and ask for a job directly, right?" His eyebrows rose. The words I said turned his stern mood into a smile right away.

"I'll look through local IT-places first right away," I said.

"Can I take the car?"

"Of course," dad said.

"If you're serious about searching for jobs, I will give you my full support." I nodded. Then I moved to the attic to put on some haphazard clothes. Certainly not something one would wear for a job interview, but I had loads of black T-shirts, and a few that didn't smell. Dad gave me the car keys at the door and wished me luck. I hopped into our family SUV, a brand new 2025 model. Really, my family wasn't in any financial troubles at all.

My dad was a C-suite executive at a construction company, earning a whole load of money, and my mom wasn't broke as a hairdresser either. The rent money I paid went straight into my parents' car purchases. It was a nice car, I supposed, though I'd driven far nicer super cars in virtual reality. I put on my playlist and headed out of the city. I certainly did not drive to any IT-places like I had promised.

Even if I found a tech company that was hiring, I'd be told to fuck off before I could even ask for an interview. My dad just thought I was smart with computers because I knew how to reset the wifi router, so he believed I had a realistic chance of getting a job in IT, despite the job market being absolute dogshit. I'll need to earn the rest of the rent money today, then, I thought, and I drove straight to Ender's Cafe, the best twenty-four hour internet cafe in town.