5. David

As soon as his eyes were closed the whole world started to spin around him, in the beginning, it was barely moving but soon its pace reached an unthinkable speed, all images in his head started to blur and soon only nothingness was left.

He stood in the middle of a dazzling clean, white room, from here on out he knew exactly what to do.

"Orbisterra would you please connect me with the new Fantasy VRMMORPG?"

"Requesting connection to the World of Nelenia" a synthetic voice rang in his ears.

One of Bao's feet went up and down on the white floor as fast as a machine blaster but no sound was heard.

"Request granted, welcome to Nelenia."

"Finally!"

"Characters resembling user will be randomly generated."

"What?! I can't even customize my own avatar!"

"I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy with our service, but due to the current development stage of the game, customizable characters are not an option. Would you like to continue regardless of the problem?"

"Sigh... yes continue."

"Only one character could be generated due to special version Xavier number 2.6712.16, would you like to continue?"

"Yes, yes continue. This is not how I imagined my first VRMMORPG experience, this game better be good," he complained. How did it come this far? To betray his family for such a broken game, he wondered with regret in his eyes.

A big window appeared in front of him, bringing some colour into the triste sterile room, it was an image of his character in Nelenia and a small text describing its stats, skills, level and backstory. His avatar had really its similarities with him, just like Orbisterra said, it had barely enough muscles to wield a simple wooden stick and its clothes were patched in several places, not that they were looking good in the first place.

"David, 16 years old from the human race, level 0" Bao started to read the description on the other side of the panel

"This is the first time I see an RPG where you can start with a level below 1."

"David is the third son of a simple farmer family and as such he has little hope to inherit any of his family wealth therefore, in his coming of age ceremony, he decides to leave home to become an adventurer whose tales will be told throughout the whole kingdom. And despite his frail body and little knowledge of the world, he marched towards his goal against all odds.

Stats:

[David - Level 0]

[HP: 5/5]

[MP: 0/0]

[Strength: 1]

[Perception: 2]

[Endurance: 0]

[Charisma: 1]

[Intelligence: 3]

[Agility: 1]

[Luck: 1]

Skills:

[World Traveller]

Titles:

[Weaker than a slime]

What's up with those trashy stats? And his equipment is even worse, a single loaf of hard bread, his rags he is wearing and a wooden staff as a weapon, not to mention that insulting title."

"Please note that Nelenia has a permadeath system which in your case would result in not being able to play the game anymore since you have only one character at your disposition. Also please remember that the world in Nelenia will continue also after your logout, which means that an AI will take over your avatar during your absence, would you like to continue?"

"This game is shitting me! I understand that the world continues even after logout but permadeath!"

"Would you like to continue?"

"I didn't talk to you Orbisterra, give me a sec to think about it. But since this will be my last dive, permadeath shouldn't be too big of a problem. What really bugs me though is that I need to play a weak-ass character just like myself in real life, who thought that would be a good idea? Well, I guess the irony of life isn't it."

"Would you like to continue?"

"Yes."