"Haaa... What a wonderful life."
A young man looks at the beautiful world in front of him with sadness. This young man is Terry Horace, a twenty-four-year-old who is currently inside a game called Second Life. Second Life is a VRMMORPG that was created in the year 2089 using a technology called Neural Drive, a piece of technology that can transfer the user's consciousness to the digital world.
"I hope that I will die before the server closes. I don't want to part away from this game... no... From this life. Second Life is a literal thing for me. It gives me a Second Life."
Terry says that because he has a terminal illness, and the doctor said that he only has ten years before he dies. He decided to buy this game after his condition was too severe to let him go back home and he needed to be monitored in the hospital 24/7.
Lucky for him, his parents are filthy rich and can afford it without a second thought, but sadly, they also do not have any thoughts that their son would die in a decade. They are too busy with their work.
"It was when I was fifteen, huh? Time sure flies."
It has been nine years since the game first launched, and now it is on its last legs. Second Life started to lose popularity because many people prefer shooting games over RPGs these days and RPG-type games' grinding process is considered boring.
Second Life is your typical RPG game with many quests divided into five parts. The first one is Main Quest. The Main Quest is a personal quest that will not affect the world. While many people do not like this type of quest because of how many dialogues and cutscenes it has, people need to do it because it grants a lot of EXP.
The second one is Daily Quest. This one is the most repetitive quest, but it gives a lot of EXP and Gold, so people are willing to go through Daily Mission just to get the reward.
The third one is Guild Quest. This one can only be obtained when the player enters or makes a guild with a certain number of members. The Guild Quest can affect the world. One of the strongest guilds in Second Life managed to clear the hardest mission and now, their guild name is always remembered throughout Second Life. Players also get a lot of Gold and Items from the quest giver and get a huge discount in certain parts of the world for every item they buy from NPC.
The fourth one is the Raid Event. This one is a spontaneous and random quest given by the GM. It usually has the task of defeating a Raid Boss that will attack a certain city. This quest also affects the world. Three cities were wiped out because not many players attended the event or did not deal enough damage to defeat the boss. The reward for completing this quest is usually an item given to them for their contribution. The reward is decided using a contribution point. The more Healing, Tanking, and DPSing you do, the greater the reward.
The last one is the World Quest. It is the most difficult, but the most rewarding quest the player would ever get. This quest always involves fighting two Raid Bosses, which involves all the players in the world. This quest does not affect the world as much as the Raid Event and Guild Quest, but anyone who manages to clear a World Quest will get many benefits from the NPCs across the globe.
Terry, or Gwyn, in this game, gets up from the ground and takes out a scroll from his inventory. This scroll is called [Return], which lets him teleport to the city he chooses as his base. Sadly the scroll cannot be used in dungeons and battles.
After activating the scroll, he arrives in the city of Atamdal in the continent of Autumn.
The world of Second Life is separated into four continents with names of seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
While Autumn is the smallest of four continents, it has the strongest monsters and dungeons. That doesn't mean the other continents do not have high-level monsters or dungeons, but Autumn's monsters are too much for newbies. The lowest level monster in this continent is Level 30.
Because of this, Autumn is considered a Veteran continent, and no newbie can pick Autumn as their starting place.
Gwyn walks toward a massive building in the middle of the city. This building is the base of Trinity Guild which he created a month after the game launched, making his guild one of the oldest in the game.
His guild is not in the top five, but it was in the top ten, eight, specifically in the official thread made by the GM. They said that while his guild only has twelve members, they are strong and capable individuals that can defeat a World Boss with only ten members.
Sadly, all the members except Gwyn decided to retire and quit the game.
Gwyn walks inside the building and smiles a little at the sight of his guild. The first of five floors are decorated to look like a pub—a lot of tables and chairs on the floor and a bar at the end of the room.
Gwyn goes to the second floor and sees a lot of training dummies on this floor. The second floor is a training room where he and his guildmates train their combos.
He continues to go upstairs and arrives on the third floor, where he can see ten rooms. This is the main room for each member of the Trinity guild. Gwyn's room is located at the end of the room.
After looking at the rooms one by one, Gwyn walked to the fourth floor. This is where he and his guild store their miscellaneous items. Trinity is a group of collectors. They have at least one of the items the NPCs sell, and they even buy the non-usage items like alcohol. This game is played by children as well, after all. Gwyn and his guildmates decided to make this floor a potion lab, kitchen, blacksmith, and enchanting workshop.
The last floor is his destination. This floor is the vault where the Trinity guildmates store their valuable items like rare weapons, armor, and ingredients. Gwyn walks to the deeper part of the vault, where he can see the statue standing at the end of the vault, surrounded by a mountain of gold, jewels, and valuable items.
These statues are the avatars of all Trinity members. They are all wearing powerful armor and holding mighty weapons in their hands, except for one statue, the statue of Gwyn.
When the members of Trinity quit the game, they left all their weapons and items to the guild. Gwyn decided to make a statues of his friends and a statue of himself to put on his weapon and armor when the server is near closing.
Gwyn took out all of his equipment and put on the statue, leaving him behind with his starting gear.
"With this, the set is completed. The Trinity Guild has finally reunited."
Gwyn gives one last sad smile before going back to the first floor, where he sits on his usual seat in the meeting room where all the members were discussing their next raid.
"It was a great life. I hope my next life will be as good as this one."
Gwyn closes his eyes and waits to go back to his pain-filled life. The countdown reaches the last ten seconds, and when it reaches zero, Gwyn can feel a pain coming from his chest, but when he opens his eyes, he sees a blue sky and people shouting someone's name.
He looks around for a few seconds before releasing one word.
"What?"