Rich Yuki, Poor Yuki

Yuki takes a deep breath, sweat dripping down his chin. The air feels heavy, thanks to the smoke left from Houta's flames.

„This game is so weird.“, Yuki tells Houta, who doesn't pay much attention to him. Too busy stabbing the slithering monster with his frozen shards. He stops and puts his hands on his waist.

„You're not gonna say it?“, Yuki asks.

„No.“

Yuki raises Firestorm, runs and jumps heroically. „Off with your heeeeead!“, he screams. He beheads the serpent-like creature and it dissolves, dropping loot.

„Go ahead.“, Houta motions.

„Hehehe a HEAD.“

Houta rolls his eyes.

Yuki picks the serpent's remains. As he does, a notification about inventory update shows up: Poisonous tooth x2, Poisonous scales x9, Gold 500,000.

„500k.“

„What the–

„How is that possible?“

„You tell me, you've been here for two weeks.“

„Maybe there's a glitch and all the updates affect you differently. We'll see tomorrow. Probably.“

„Already? And what do you mean, probably?“

„Why did you even come here?“

„Oh, you know...“

„No, that's why I asked!“

„Well, to find her...“

„Find who?“

„My –“

„Nanami?“

„Yeah...“

„And how do you intend to do that if you can't even tell me you wanna do that?“

„I –“

„What's your plan? Did you even text her?“

„As soon as you showed me how. But messages weren't delivered.“

„Maybe she never got here, Yuki –“

„Look – can we – ?“, Yuki raises his voice, then continues calmly, „I'll figure it out. Can we go to Chia Madre now?“

„Chico de Mano.“

„Whatever. It's gonna be a different name tomorrow.“ He opens his inventory and accesses the map. Zooms in on their location and looks for the town Houta told him about. „How long is our journey?“

„Won't make it before Sleepy Time.“

Yuki wrinkles his nose like he just sniffed something shockingly foul. „Sleepy Time?“

„I think you should pay me. Weekly. Or daily.“

„If I do, will you start answering my questions?“

„Will you start reading notifications and warnings and news?“

* * *

Yuki and Houta have been walking for a while. It's nighttime.

„So when's Sleepy Time?“

Houta looks up. „When the moon appears.“

„Uhhh, so does that mean... You like to keep to your sleeping schedule or...“

„When the moon is out, you can't help it. No player can. It's a sleep with no dreams, and a time in which updates are done. So when we wake up, those updates are in effect. If there are any.“

„Whoooooa, info dump much! Nice! So, that means... We don't get a lot of playtime at night? Cause I saw there's still an option of time forwarding.“

„The moon, Yuki.“ Houta halts and materialises a tent from his inventory, enters it and closes it without a word. Yuki looks up the sky. The moon is moving swiftly in a curved line. Yuki shrugs. He sits on the nearest rock. The moon stops, and Yuki and the rest of the players enter their Sleepy Time.

To have free will is to be able to choose. Choosing something is losing the possibility of the other. Choosing is not freedom.

„So was there an update?“, Yuki asks Houta. Tent is no more, and they resume their journey.

„I don't know, Yuki.“

Yuki stops, upset.

„There's no way of knowing besides checking.“

Yuki quietly pouts, keeping up the pace with Houta.

„Think of all the nice stuff you'll be able to buy once we get to Mano.“

„Oh, you're right!“, Yuki quickly switches to excited and energetic. „Now I can get all the forging materials I never used to be able to.

„I can just... buy gems!

„And food!

Oh yeah, the prices....“, Yuki switches back to pouting.

„Huh.“, Houta exclaims unhelpfully. „Food prices never changed when I checked.“, continues Houta still unhelpfully. Then, he checks the map out of habit. „Yuki! The teleport option is on again! Look, let's use this one in the town center.“

Yuki opens his map too and they both teleport to Chico de Mano.

Yuki bumps into another player before even properly materialising. He can't see Houta, nor if he can recognize the town – the crowd is too big. Everyone seems upset about something, but Yuki can't make any sense of it. Someone grabs him by the sleeve. Houta.

„I've no idea what's happening. There's an angry line in front of every shop. I'm gonna do some shopping too. Let's meet later by the teleport just outside of town.“

Houta pulls Yuki out of the crowd and leaves. Yuki finds the forging symbol and as he struggles to find the end of the line to the shop, a girl runs in front of him, causing Yuki to halt lest she knocks him down. There must be some unknown magic in the air, because this girl is now running in slow motion, her long, ocean blue hair like midday sun on the ocean waves, scent of mint and lavender in perfect portions, her smile the only inch of happiness among this chaos.

Scent?, Yuki's thought brings him back to reality. Or rather, game reality. I couldn't have smelled anything, must've imagined it.

Yuki looks left and right but there's no sight of ocean-haired girl. There's only one player left in front of him, and he's just leaving. Finally it's his turn. Shopkeeper is a cliché looking man you'd expect to see at a forging shop: jean overalls, red beard with huge mustache, strong build and muscly arms.

„Just a moment.“, the shopkeeper declares in his very cliché scottish shopkeeper voice. He turns and leaves to look for something in his storage behind his little shop. His rumaging is taking a couple of minutes, but Yuki is a patient guy.

„Here.“, the shopkeeper puts a heavy looking „CLOSED“ sign in front of Yuki's face and turns again to leave, this time further away.

„Wait! Where are you going? Are you out?“, Yuki wants to know.

„No, you are! I ain't tradin' for ya bull!“, the shopkeeper shouts and exits Yuki's sight. Yuki turns around to see what other players think about this.

„I heard they're willing to trade in Terropol.“, a player behind Yuki assures him.

„What an awful name for a town.“, Yuki notices.

The player raises an eyebrow at Yuki. „You mean kingdom.“

The player shoots another look at Yuki and goes away. Yuki eyes some of the players in hopes of talking to them, but they're all very upset and loud and Yuki's first instinct is to leave. He teleports to the spot he agreed to with Houta.

„All of our precious gold!“, Houta greets Yuki.

„What, what go–“, terrible realisation strikes Yuki. He checks his inventory under precious materials tab.

All the forging materials he accumulated – here.

All his many colored gems and stones – here.

All the gold he saved up in the past two years and all the gold he got only yesterday – gone.