"No way…" Lucius' mouth was wide open just like his eyes, as he was looking all around and immediately recognized the place… it was a familiar one that stuck with everybody who ever played the game.
The spawn location of every beginner that starts the game, the palace where the storyline starts with basic tutorials, up in the clouds next to the Forgotten Gods' realm, which is a foreshadowing for the most ridiculous final boss fight in the main quest.
Yeah, the Forgotten Gods. Every newbie who logs into the game gets to see the gates of the realm and its guard. The developers did this in a way to impress the players, to show what is yet to come, that they can reach a level where they could fight even gods.
And that moment it was his journey that began once more… but not as the Last Conqueror, but something more terrifying.
I gotta be hallucinating, yeah why the fuck would I be in a game that is just purely impossible… maybe I fall into a coma… yeah those machines keeping me alive… I am just a potato in real life… He thought as he looked at the gates of the Forgotten Gods realm.
"Mom! Unplug me! I'm not going to live in a false reality, do it, Ma! You promised me!" He shouted from the top of his lungs but his words didn't reach anybody, only the vast skies and clouds… yeah their promise was heard by no one…
A promise that was made by his parents and him, a promise that was just terrifying to even think about. It was simple, if Lucius falls into a coma or becomes fully paralyzed, they will unplug him from the machine keeping him alive. They were going to let him go… let him go to the afterlife in peace… yeah, that was their promise. If the cancer takes his whole body just let him die, do not keep him with machines in a dream-like state or who knows what exactly.
Fuck… please keep your promise, mother, father… do it… don't let me rot in a bed for years… I was already dead from the moment I was diagnosed…
"Mother! Father! Plug me—"
"Why are you shouting?" A sudden voice came from behind his back, and for a moment he just completely froze, didn't even turn around… and the reason for it was because the voice was too familiar.
A sweet voice full of innocence, a voice that he had heard thousands of times… and when he finally turned around to see it with his eyes she was truly there as he remembered her.
Her deep purple dress, the golden braided hair, the pale skin with the golden cane in her hand… and most importantly the diamond that replaced her two eyes… the two big ass diamonds that shine like nothing else in the world.
"Miu…?" His voice came low filled with pure shock.
Like she was there… as a real being looking exactly like she looked in the game… her big breasts, her gorgeous face and those diamond eyes… all of it was real as well as the sharp sound of the cane as she started to walk toward him.
"It's me, Lucius. Nice to see you again… no… " She giggled. "It's nice to see the real you." She smiled as she slowly reached out her pale hand to Lucius's face… it was warm… not just that but the smell of her was exactly like how the game described it.
Mirelda Isenwyn Urathis, known simply as Miu, the Goddess of Wanderers.
In the game, she is essentially the tutorial guide, the players' assistant. According to the game's lore, all players begin as wanderers, and only later choose their classes and after completing the tutorial mission assigned by her.
"T-this can't be real…" Lucius whispered as he stared at her… well, more like stared at her big boobs.
That too was just like in the game. Those horny ass developers knew exactly how to grab the male player's attention. Her dress only covered her nipples and it was kind of see-through… yeah those nipples seemed too real… as did her whole being.
"It is real, Lucius!" She shouted now with a joyful voice as she spun around and just like in the game as she did it golden sparks formed around her. "This is Eldoria, the palace where you belong, the palace where the journey starts!"
No way… I can't be this down bad… this can't be real… He thought as he was still looking at her nipples. Why the fuck am I imagining a game character this way… I had never even thought about having sex with her.
"Can you stop it?" She asked, but now her sweet voice kind of faded away. "Just accept it, why do you act like this? And stop staring at my boobs, you freak." She said as she covered her boobs.
"What…?" he asked back, looking up at her face with disbelief. Her mouth was moving, he could even see emotions on her face, could see that disgusted look even though her eyes were diamonds.
"Yeah, you died, you freak, just accept it. Why do you need to do this 'Oh I'm hallucinating—" She mimicked him. "You died, a painful and terrible death. You are not plugged into the machine, you are not even in the hospital anymore, your body was cremated and you are in an urn."
Now, this was something… something truly confusing to him, not even confusing, just… something he couldn't name. Like hearing that his body had already fucking turned to ash… what the fuck… but there was one more thing that was more stange then his death.
"Y-You went off script."
"Because this is not a game, not a dream, not an imagination… but your reality now." She said as she stepped once again toward him and pointed her finger to his forehead. "This… is… not… a… game." She poked him and he felt her sharp golden nails.
Yeah, he felt it, the pain as her nail dug into his forehead. He even felt her breath… and the smell, the smell that the game described as very rosary-like.
How much fentanyl did they give me…? This has got to be an overdose… a trip? I'm tripping about Miu in a sexual way… about a game character.
"I can hear your thoughts." She said but now her facial expression changed too, she looked fed up with his bullshit. "You are not on fentanyl, Lucius, you are not on the machine and you definitely are not going to have any sexual act with me. You're dead, you got cremated, your body is in an urn and now you are in Eldoria."
"Wait…" Lucius said, staring at her harder now, realizing that something was truly wrong. She knew something she shouldn't. "You can't know about my death… or what happened after it."
It wasn't just about that Miu went off script, talking about modern medicine and machines, but that she knew that his body was already in an urn… it was something totally different now… like it wasn't just impossible anymore, but absurd to even think about it.
The first time he finally started to realize that what she was talking about was truly the reality of his situation… that he wasn't just imagining or dreaming about a game character in a nasty way.
"Oh, I know everything… a month has already passed since you died." She laughed. "Your parents are grieving you, your friends too… but something greater than death happened…" She suddenly went silent like she was adding some dramatic effect and then stretched her arms wide open. "You were invited into the game that is no longer just a game, but your life!"
Finally, it snapped to him the thing his mother did, she accepted an invitation… and that invitation was to the game… and from it everything came together like a puzzle and maybe it was the worst thing.
The worst thing is that he's in the game, truly in it… because he's not a nobody. No, he was the conqueror of it… the man, the myth, the legend who defeated everybody who tried him.
In short… he is the worst example to be in a game.
"Was I isekai'd… like transmigrated into the game?
"In short, yes, in long, no." She kept smiling as said it. "You were written into the script as a memorial, but the script became reality, as well as the game, and now you are a character in Eldoria, a character in the endless journey."
Yeah… she said exactly what he actually thought about… the same thing that had happened to him, the thing he had been reading mangas about… how absurd that is for several reasons and at the same time how exciting it is… absurdly exciting.
"But Eldoria wasn't a VR game… like Sword Art O—"
"Just accept it." Miu said again, raising her voice. "You are in the game as the Last Conqueror of Eldoria! You are real, you are Lucius!" She shouted with joy as she spun around once again… but she didn't realize what she had done with it…
For a moment Lucius froze, but it was now entirely different then how he was before because a faint smile appeared on his face… and for some kind of reason, for the first time… Miu felt it.
"I am… in Eldoria for real…" He whispered as he looked down at his hands, clenching it into a fist and feeling his nails dig into his palm, the pain was as undeniably real as everything around him.
And with that acceptance came something Miu did not expect.
"Can you… say the last part again?" Lucius asked as he slowly looked up at her and she felt his eyes were filled with something that she could name nor understand.
"Last Conqueror of Eldoria… that the title of you or at least was, but—"
A historical laugh… he just laughed, and with it, he changed into something entirely different from how he had acted just a moment ago.
In his eyes, there was no confusion anymore… only the acceptance of something far greater than he had ever imagined happening after death.
"So…" He stopped laughing and now with a wide smile, looked up at Miu. "I am a… god, right?"