“Anton! Anton wake up!”
“Father, Anton is still sick.”
Anthony Saunders woke up groggily, not knowing the people who were shouting in his ears. The last thing he remembered was he was very sick due to a pandemic disease that finally got to him. Staying in a dingy apartment that his father’s second cousin owned did not help but that was the only place he could go to ever since his parents died.
Anthony worked in a convenience store and didn’t even manage to complete high school. He was in his third year when his parent died and needed to work at a convenience store to make ends meet.
Unfortunately, there was a pandemic going on where he lived but he couldn’t not work since he needed the money to eat, pay rent, and pay for his internet. The only hobby that he had was playing games and watching animes, movies, and television shows on his dingy laptop. His favorite game was Diablo II, and he spent an ungodly number of hours playing the game. He even streamed it and earned a small amount of money through the streaming platform which supplemented his pay from the convenience store.
Unfortunately, even though he was a good gamer, his favorite game that he streamed regularly was an old one. Even if it had loyal followers, it didn’t have many audiences anymore and the majority of its loyal audience was already taken by famous streamers who were much better at the game than he was. He even followed them himself.
Anthony would have liked to choose another game, but Diablo II was the only game that his laptop could handle, and he really loved it.
Sadly, when he caught the pandemic disease, he knew that it would take a miracle for him to survive since not only was he malnourished due to the lack of funding, but he also could not afford to buy basic medicine and was too weak to seek help. Nobody even cared that he didn’t appear for quite some time. He knew that his boss from the convenience store probably called him, but he was too weak to answer the phone.
The last thought that he had was, that he wished to see his parents again and he wanted to play the Diablo II game one last time and then he didn’t wake up again.
Anthony thought that his consciousness would remain silent forever but then he heard the voices.
When he looked around, he saw a middle-aged man wearing a tunic that farmers from the Renaissance fair that he once attended wore. The main difference was that it was truly worn out and didn’t have the newness of a costume. The middle-aged man had dark hair and blue eyes and even though he had the sturdy body of a peasant farmer, he looked thin.
The other person was a girl who looked about eleven to thirteen years old. The girl had blonde hair and blue eyes as well and was also wearing a linen dress.
“Anton! I’m so glad you woke up! I thought you’d died,” The girl suddenly cried and hugged him and the middle-aged man beside him was teary-eyed as well.
“You should eat Anton. I’m so glad your fever broke and for a while, we were losing hope.” The man gave him a bowl of soup that had what looked like cabbage, leek, and potato.
Anthony sat up weakly but the fact that he was able to was proof that he was getting better from whatever sickness he had. He started eating the food that the man gave him. It tasted bland confirming the fact that possibly, they had no spices, even salt to add to their food.
After he consumed the bowl of food, the girl gave him a mug of water then he laid down again feigning severe weakness. The middle-aged man and the girl went somewhere, probably to finish some sort of farm chore, and left him alone.
As a consumer of tons of web novels from the internet, he knew that he must have transmigrated somehow since he didn’t recognize the man and the girl, and the house looked like those huts that poor medieval farmers stayed in. He was actually waiting to see if some sort of memory would arrive to help him with information but unfortunately, after several minutes, nothing came.
Anthony did notice something peculiar. On his wrist was his beloved Diablo II game icon. He knew that transmigrators had systems or gifts to be able to become the main protagonists of other worlds and it looked like his transmigrator gift was connected to his beloved game.
When he looked around, he saw that the man and the girl weren’t around so he began muttering words that might summon the system. He muttered “system” and “menu” and a combination of the two words, but nothing happened. When he muttered “Diablo II,” the icon from his wrist expanded to look like a computer screen hovering in front of him.
That fact gave him unimaginable excitement since he was seeing the starting screen of the Diablo II game. The Diablo II logo was above the screen as usual and below it were several options. The first one was the usual single-player button. The next option was the same as usual which was Battle.Net but the one after that was Multi-player and he wondered who would he be able to play with. The next option excited him so much because it said “Browser” meaning he had access to an internet browser.
The other options just below the main options were the usual, “credits,” “cinematics” and “exit Diablo II.” The only difference on the starting screen was one of the buttons was saying that it was a browser instead of a “gateway” option.
Anthony found after experimentation that he could control his mind to act like the mouse and he didn’t need to hover his hands and touch the options which would make him look like a moron. He could also summon the starting screen by thinking “Diablo II” with the intention of summoning it.
He mentally clicked on “Exit Diablo II” and the starting screen disappeared. It was a good thing that he did since the girl just arrived. For experimentation, he prominently showed the icon on his wrists to the girl to see her reaction but based on her expression, she did not see the icon. When Anthony thought of “Diablo II” the starting screen appeared, but the girl did not react as well, meaning she did not see the hovering starting screen. That confirmed the fact that he was the only one who could see the tattoo and the starting screen which relieved him greatly. He didn’t want to be burned as a witch just as he transmigrated.