Another Incident

Chapter 4 : Another Incident

After I read the earlier post, my brain began to move rapidly. There must be someone, or even people, who had the same experience as the writer of the post before, being trapped in their dreams.

I tried searching other forums, looking if there was another post similar to the one before, or even better, found the information about project world rebirth while at it.

Regrettably, it seemed my search was a futile one. Even after spending more than an hour, I couldn't find a thing.

So I decided to give it up for now. I had a feeling that this wouldn't end so soon, there would be many more people who would have the same experience as the players in N.W.O. or the writer of the post before.

Or it might even be a new way of being trapped? Who knew what would happen later on.

Sooner or later, it was just a matter of time, everything would be revealed and a big wave of changes would crashed onto the world… Somehow, that was the guts feeling I got from all of these incidents.

Throwing away those thoughts to the back of my mind, I closed the forum which was displayed on my laptop's screen, and opened qidian website, continuing my original plan to read the latest chapters of the webnovels I followed.

Satisfied with the content of the last chapter that was available, I shifted my gaze to the bottom right corner of my laptop, I found that it was already 12.00pm.

Upon this realization, abruptly, sleepiness began to crept onto me.

Deciding to not resist the temptation of my soft and warm bed, I began my wobbly steps to the bathroom and took care of my business first, before plunged myself onto the bed.

The next day my handphone's alarm clock woke me up precisely at 07.00am.

My usual routine after I woke up in the morning was to do some light exercise by stretching my limbs, plus a few simple gymnastic move to warm up my body.

That was also should had been the case yesterday as well, but due to my carelessness in forgetting to set my alarm clock, I overslept and when I realized it, it was almost lunch time, too late to do any exercise.

It took me approximately five minutes to finished my routine, and after that I took a quick shower and changed into a new set of clothes.

Heading downstairs, I found my mom and dad were sitting at the dining table with each of them drinking a cup of coffee.

What was strange was that they were still in their sleeping wears. Usually at this time, they had finished everything that should be done at home and ready to go to work at any time.

But today seemed to be an exception, not to mention my mom hadn't make any breakfast, I bet they even hadn't brush their teeth yet.

my mom who saw me from a distance away, stood up from her seat and headed to the counter where the coffee maker was, and began to make another cup of coffee, which seemed to be for me.

I approached the dining table and picked the seat closest to my dad. As I sat down, my face turned to the side where my dad was and asked him curiously. "Is it holiday today? Why are you both still in your sleeping wears?"

My dad didn't answer me immediately, he looked at me for quite awhile. It made me wondering if there was anything strange on my face.

When I was about to aske him another question, he suddenly uttered something that made me wondered what had gotten into him

. "I finally understood a bit how you felt yesterday".

My mouth was agaped, speechless, I didn't know how to react at his abrupt claim of knowing how I felt….

At this moment, my mom came to my side and put the coffee she just made in front of me.

Still in the state of speechlessness, I shifted my gaze at my mom who moved her seat next to me.

Upon seeing my expression, my mom immediately knew what I was thinking, she then heaved a sigh and began explaining what was going on. "Last night, I and your dad was trapped in some sort of dream world...."

I hadn't heard her sentence fully when my mind halted for a second.

Upon hearing the word "Trapped", a realization struck my mind, my memory brought me back to the post I read last night, about someone was trapped inside his dream while he took a nap at his house.

It seemed my parents were in the same situation as the person who wrote that post.

After that spontaneous thought flashed in my mind, I turned my attention back to my mom's story.

According to her, they were both had a same dream of being transported into another world, just like those webnovels I liked to read.

Luckily, my parents weren't separated, they appeared in the same place, to be exactly, it was in front of a big city hall.

They weren't the only one who were in that place, just by my mom's estimation, there should be around a hundred thousands of people gathered there.

They were all mixed, from teenagers up to the senior citizens. There weren't any children among them though.

What amazed them were the senior citizens, all of them had a vigor of a bull, jumping around here and there happily. All of their illnesses and disabilities seemed to have disappeared overnight, and even some of them were crying in joy.

My mom told me that later on, someone made a sensus and found out something interesting. The lowest age among the people who were trapped in there, no one was lower than sixteen years old.

When my mom was still in the middle of her story, something started bugging my mind. There was something amiss in her story.

It didn't take me long to realize it though. The problem was how did she know they were in a dream and not really transported to another world? wasn't it strange.

When I asked this question, my mom chuckled a bit and gave my dad a teasing gaze. My dad as the recipient of the gaze, shifted his sitting position to the side, avoiding her gaze. He acted as if he didn't see anything and just kept sipping his coffee calmly.

Looking at their actions, a sudden thought come to my mind. My dad must had made a silly remarked about this topic that made my mom tease him.

As to not hurt my dad's little self esteem he had left, I nudged my mom to continue her story.

It was actually pretty simple to find it out. They just needed to enter the city hall, and at the center of the city hall was a large blue sphere floting in mid air. it was around three meters in diameter.

They just needed to touch the blue sphere to open a menu like in a game, where you could check your status, skills , quest, etc.

Although it was very simple one, on the quest menu, you could find various informations about many quests. And just by skimming at them, you would naturally understand the rough information about the world they were in.

So that was why… I nodded in understanding and then asked her to continue the story.

She continued by describing the city they were at. It wasn't that different from a small city at the country side that could be found everywhere, with population not more than 500,000 people.

What made it different from normal city was the people who lived in there, they weren't just human, there were also other races, for instance, dwarfs, beastmen, and elfs.

their technology was also different from us, it was based on magic. Although a lot of items there looked similar to the one here, but their fundamentals inner working were very different from ours.

In summary, it was a modern fantasy world where magic and technology coexist.

Upon hearing her description of the city they were at, I, once again. Remembered the post before. I wondered if the person who wrote the post also trapped in the same dream world as my parents. The description of the two worlds were really similar to each others.

Shaking that trivial thought aside, I then asked my mom about the quests offered by the blue sphere.

My mom's answer was really unexpected. Unlike the players in N.W.O. who had only one main quest, but numerous sub quests, in contrary to that, for those people who were trapped in their dreams, each individuals had his own main quest and ten sub quests

my mom's main quest was separated into two parts. The first one was to reach intermediate level in one combat arts, and the second one was to master the art of tailoring. The main quest had a time limit of four years.

Meanwhile, my dad's main quest only had one objective, that was to master one of the combat arts, which was also have a time limit of 4 years.

A lot of people were grudgingly complaining that their main quests were too difficult. It was nearly achievable if they worked hard to the bone every single days, without rest for four years straight.

Who the hell would do such a crazy thing, that was what my mom said to me with a look of disbelief.

Well… Sorry mom, I was the crazy person you were mentioning. That was what I did in N.W.O. everyday worked myself to the bone, non stop for four years straight… I couldn't tell her that, could I?

so I let her comment slide away.

However, to think there was no penalty whatsoever attached to the main quest. Somehow, I felt being cheated…

Nevertheless, it was a good thing. No penalty meant everyone could return safely even if they hadn't completed their main quests.

But, hey, anyone noticed it yet?

wasn't the difficulty of the main quest dropped significantly from the time with N.W.O?

if I should measure it using gaming terms, then N.W.O. was hell mode, and this dream world was hard mode.

Was there any relation between the two?

Nevermind, there was no point speculating the answer for a question that might not have any answer at all.

So in the end, no one in their city completed their main quests, and after four years had passed, they return, or rather, woke up from their long dreams.

"That's why your dad said he understood how you felt yesterday. after all, we also spent four years in the dream world without seeing you".

After she said that, my mom gave me a big hug, in which I returned it with my own hug.

As she released her hug, I asked tentatively. "so are the both of you don't have to go to work today?"

My dad who up until now kept silent, finally answered me with a single shook of his head. "No, I have contacted the company to ask for a leave of absent for the both of us. We needs to sort out our thoughts properly, so it wont hinder our works tomorrow".

Agreeing with his train of thought, I noded slightly. But as soon as I did that, a pang of hunger suddenly struck my stomach.

I then pointed my finger at the clock on the wall of the dining room, and asked my mom with pitiful expression on my face.

"Mom, what about the breakfast? Its already 8.00 am".

My mom smiled amusingly and poked at my forehead. "You are already this old, stop acting like a spoiled kid".

After that my mom headed to the kitchen, preparing our breakfast. Meanwhile, the both of us who were left on the dining table decided to move to the living room, chatted as we watch the television in there.

just like yesterday, the news channels of various medias once again were buzzing with another big incident. As you would expect, it was about the dream world where my parents were trapped last night.

with two incidents of people being trapped occurring one after another, many people had began thinking there must be something or someone, who caused all of this.

many ridiculous speculations began sprouting all over the place. Some people said this was a warning by the god for those who didn't worship him, another said, it was the sign of doomsday, and another one said it was just Neo International's plot to rule the world, etc.

due to the third speculation, Neo International received a lot of harassments since this morning. It made the upper echelon of the company green in anger.

Immediately after that, Neo International called all the medias from all over the world to make a statement in a press conference.

And right now, we were watching that press conference from our living room.

The expression of the spoke person from Neo International seemed a bit pale, but he looked very calm.

It was a very short press conference with no question and answer session. The spoke person from Neo International just clarified the baseless rumor spreading around saying that all the incidents of people being trapped were caused bby their company was not true at all.

Although they had the technology to create a virtual world, but they didn't have the technology to fabricate other people's dreams.

As for the N.W.O. incident, it was still being analyze by the professionals and hadn't any conclusion yet.

And after saying all of that, he left the conference room.