Morphine Administered

Chouji was only joking when he wished he was dead. Sure, his body ached in places he didn’t know existed. But it was better than being actually dead. Having the Grim Reaper raising his scythe at his feet and faced with his own mortality once more, Chouji did what any reasonable person would do.

He bolted up screaming.

Having a spine that was only half functional, “bolted up” really means “jerked up just a teensy bit.” Even if he had a fully functioning spine and set of abdominal muscles, all of the slings, bandages, and tubes he was hooked up to would have restricted his movement anyway. 

To Chouji’s surprise, the Grim Reaper dropped his scythe and screamed too. He raised his hands up defensively, and motion of recoiling back lifted the large head off his head. Chouji did see white, but not the bone white of a skull. It was hair, a storm of choppy hair as white as paper. His skin nearly as pale. The only color to this person was the piercing electric blue of his eyes. He had a young, narrow face atop a long, skinny neck. But overall, he was quite short. They could have been the same age.

This was the Grim Reaper?

At some point the two stopped screaming and looked at each other in timid silence. Chouji was the first to break it.

“Are you here to kill me?” he asked.

Much to his chagrin, the other guy did not answer his question.

“You can see me? Th-That shouldn’t be possible!” The other guy pointed a gaunt finger at him from under the black sleeves. His voice had somehow gotten higher.

“Walking through doors shouldn’t be possible,” Chouji said.

The other guy bit his nails as he paced back and forth.

“How could this be…” he muttered to himself. “What explanations are there to…”
He snapped his fingers.

“Of course! The veiling debuff that prevents players from seeing mods expires automatically upon date of death, but if you somehow continue living past the date of death, then the debuff would wear off so the player would be able to—” He cut off his own ramblings by groaning and vigorously rubbing his face with his hands. “Agh, I should’ve realized!”

That continued for a few more seconds before he stopped and peaked at Chouji through his fingers, still on his face.

“So… are you here to kill me?” Chouji asked once more.

The other guy sighed as he bent down and picked up his scythe.

“Well, not anymore,” he said. “This complicates everything.”

“It sounds plenty complicated already. I recognized some of the words, but definitely not in that order.”

The other guy opened his mouth to say something when there were footsteps outside the hall. He brought up a finger to his mouth to silence Chouji. A nurse stepped in. A male nurse. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

“We heard you scream. Is everything okay in here?” the nurse asked. He didn’t even glance at the foot of the bed where the white-haired guy wielding a big scythe was standing. He also didn’t mention anyone else screaming. Whatever that veil thing was, it was working.

“Sorry,” Chouji said. “I had a bad nightmare.” He wasn’t even sure what time of day it was, but it seemed a plausible enough excuse. And while the nurse was still here… “Also, my pain is getting a little bad. Is there anything you could do to help?”

The nurse nodded. “Sure thing. I’ll administer some morphine.” He walked out of the room and soon came back with a syringe in hand. The nurse walked by the foot of the bed and straight through the white-haired man. He injected the IV bag, walked back (right through the white-haired man a second time) and left.
Chouji sighed in relief as the pain dulled with each passing minute. It was still there, but far more manageable. 

“You have some explaining to do. Are you some kind of ghost?” Chouji asked.

“Not really. I’m a Reaper.”

“So you kill people?”

“No! Reapers don’t do the killing, they just show up when it happens.” The other guy scratched his neck. “That sounds pretty bad, but it just means that we separate your soul from your body when your body dies.”

“Are you telling me that I survived getting hit by a truck but I’m gonna die here in this hospital?”

“Heheh, it’s funny you mention that…”

~⚔~

Standing right outside the city gates, the difference between Lumino City and Tyro Town was like night and day. 

The walls outside Lumino City were at least three times the height of Tyro Town’s. Instead of wood logs, they were built out of cobblestone. There was even enough room at the top for guards to be stationed up there, patrolling the perimeter of the city. At the front was an archway with a large, criss-cross metal gate at the front. Gina told me it’s called a portcullis. It was six people wide and reached halfway up the wall, allowing for easy clearance of travelers and wagons. 

Gina reached into her bag and pulled out a medallion of some kind, round and bright silver. She held it up so the guard at the very top could see it glinting in the sunlight. He motioned to his fellow guards and the gate began clanking upwards. 

“Some kind of pass?” I asked.

Gina nodded. “Lumino City is only open to those who have been to Lumino City before.”

“What about first-timers? How do they get in?”

She just shrugged.

We stepped through and gazed at the architecture surrounding us. We had already come so far, from a rural village to the closest thing this world had to a bustling metropolis. We breathed in the fresh city air, looked around…

…and saw buildings exactly like Tyro Town’s.

The same pastel paint. The same vaguely European design. The same grid-like arrangement. The only difference of note was that these buildings were slightly taller, and there were more of them. There were some three-floor buildings, and maybe even a couple of four-floor ones. 

“What the hell is all this?” I asked.

“It looks like they reused game assets here,” Gina said. “But don’t worry. Lumino City is a far cry from the rinky dink Tyro Town. No offense to Tyro Town.”

People minded their own business, going about their day as we walked through the streets. The dirt below my feet felt exactly the same as Tyro Town, but the people here seemed slightly more… upper class? Refined? I wasn’t sure what the word for it was. Tyro Town had a rustic charm, but these people had an air about them. They knew they had it good. Living in this walled city, full of life and culture.

“And some players get to spawn in here?” I asked. Gina chuckled.

“Yes, but only if you’re lucky. It’s a very nice area. Excellent trade, fine blacksmiths, everything an adventurer could want. Part of the reason this place is so large is that most adventurers get here and never want to leave.”

I couldn’t blame them. This place looked like a great place to live, even for non-adventurers. 

“So where are we headed anyway?”

“The Wet Saddle.”

“What kinda name is that?”

“Legend has it that the first barkeep Eustace Flats was riding his mighty stallion through the dank Swamps of the Pter—”

“No! No no no. Stop that.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “The last thing I need to more dumb lore about this world.” I tripped over a curb. Not the best idea to close my eyes. Also, they have curbs here? That’s a surprise.

I dusted myself off. “I need to save all the space in my head for spells and learning spells.”

Gina held her hands up. “My apologies. But yes, the Wet Saddle. It’s a pretty big tavern near the heart of the city. It’s not the biggest one here, though. That goes to—”

“Gina.”

“Sorry.”

“What is it with you and taverns?”

This time she glared at me.

“It’s not me who’s obsessed with them, it’s Coral. She’s an old party member of mine and we used to go on adventures together, and that includes celebrating our spoils. She loves alcohol and taverns. I may have picked up that bad habit from her.”

Somehow I never realized that Gina would have been a member of other parties, but it makes sense.

“I didn’t know you had a backstory,” I said.

Gina shrugged. “Every NPC has a backstory.”

We were at the Wet Saddle before we realized. It looked exactly like the Green Horn, except for the sign out front which depicted, you guessed it, a wet saddle.

“So she’ll be in here?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?! You’re gambling the life of my brother on ‘probably’?”

“You don’t know her like I do,” Gina said. “When she isn’t adventuring, she doesn’t do much else besides drink her gold away. I can all but guarantee she’s in here.”

I looked at Gina dead in the eyes. She was serious. I had only known her for a ridiculously short amount of time, but if I wanted to save Chouji, I had to trust her. So I nodded.

We walked through the door, and Gina gasped.

“Oh no.”