Chapter 2.

A terrible thunderstorm descended on Dakstarial that night. Disasters of this magnitude have not yet been in the memory of the current generation. The wind tore everything on its path with sharp blades, and the clouds that had been ripped up by the strongest lightning flashed with various colors that were completely unusual for a normal thunderstorm.

Dressed in a blue cape, girl ran in the pouring rain, resisting the oncoming gusts of wind. Her body was wrapped in a layer of protective spell, which allowed her to stand on her feet. The big hood, which she held with both hands, still could not protect from the violence of the elements, forcing her gray hair to wobble from side to side.

She hurried to the Tower of the Overlord, which rose exactly in the center of the city. Raising her head for a second, the girl noticed how the translucent dome of bluish energy, having taken its beginning at the top of the tower, sank into a huge area of ​​land, protecting it from the wrath of nature. She stared reverently for a moment and quickened her pace even more; beneath the dome, the power of the elements was considerably weakened and she no longer had to feel such overwhelming pressure.

Having risen to the top of the tower, she carefully opened the huge golden door - the entrance to the personal chambers of the Overlord. Although there was no one inside the large room, the girl still felt exactly where the strongest creature in Dakstarial is located. She walked a little deeper into the floor and got on a large balcony, on the edge of which stood the seemingly old man, dressed in a gray cloak. But he was far from being as simple as an average man would have thought. Dakstarial was created already long after his birth, and he became his keeper only on his own will. For thousands of years, the Overlord has defended and tacitly ruled the country, remaining a symbol of the inviolability of the greatest state. The girl came closer and noticed that the old man's eyes shone with a bright blue light, hands were drawing patterns unknown to her, and his eyes were directed to a protective dome-shaped barrier that even now did not stop growing, covering more and more lands.

After a moment of hesitation, she nevertheless spoke.

"Grandpa, I'm sorry to distract you from such a complex spell." - These words the girl said deeply bowing to the creature in front of her. Let her be considered his kinsman, but the respect carved in her heart did not allow her to treat him like an ordinary grandfather.

"Ellie, you shouldn't bow to me," the old man was distracted for a moment, but didn't stop casting a spell, "besides, how can a matter that allowed me to see my beloved granddaughter be difficult?"

The keeper turned. The old man's soft voice seemed to the girl like a warm spring breeze. However, he spoke so only with her.

"Grandpa, I dare not distract you from business on ordinary days." - still the young guest continued respectfully. - This situation is too strange, if it were not for the order of the father, I would never have dared to disturb your peace.

Hearing the words of his granddaughter, the old man became slightly saddened, the wrinkles on his face seemed to have become deeper. At this point, he recalled what efforts he made to convince her to call him grandfather, instead of the title that was so annoying.

Overlord's eyes became focused, and the girl involuntarily recoiled from the wave of energy ejected from the body of the old man. The dome flared and then stopped expanding, fully stabilizing. Unfortunately, the eyes of the young guest could not see how far it stretches — the spell created was so large-scale and powerful.

Another lightning bolt crashed powerlessly against the erected barrier, forcing the girl to look up.

The silence that lasted for several minutes interrupted Ellie's slightly uncertain question:

- Grandfather, the father does not know what caused this cataclysm, he says that, in his memory, over our or whatever lands, this has not happened yet. I was told to ask you for advice on what to expect...

"Your father is right; this has not happened in his lifetime." - He stretched the old man, turning to his granddaughter. "But I can state with certainty that neither the cause nor the result of this storm has anything to do with us, despite the fact that we were hit by it.

"Then what should be done?"

- Nothing... - Another thunder interrupted the old man. "Whatever this storm means, there is no way we can change what it carries with it."

- I understood, grandfather. - Ellie respectfully nodded her head, although her eyes showed that she did not understand much. - And... - For a moment, hesitating and removing the notes of cutting delight from the voice, the granddaughter of the lord continued - What name would you give to this thunderstorm?

"You shouldn't call it," the old man answered without hesitation. - It is simply a residual sign, which is screaming about the changes taking place in the world.

- ...

"A fateful night when the skies themselves were burning ..."

The girl, following the example of the Lord, glanced at the sky. After spending a few seconds in oblivion, she nevertheless pulled herself together and, having said goodbye, left.

***

Returning to consciousness, the guy felt that his entire body except the head was in a thick, slightly cool liquid.

"Am I in a capsule?"

The attempt to move one's hand was surprisingly successful and easy - the substance was not too thick. The guy tried to open his eyes, but by doing this, he immediately closed them back. The light was too bright.

Only after a minute of torment, the overly sensitive eyes were finally able to get used to the lighting. The first thing he saw were the branches of the trees, through which rays penetrated, apparently of the midday sun.

"Where I am?"

Trying to sit down, the guy realized that he was lying on the edge of a small swamp. He rose carefully, noting that he was not wearing any clothes.

"Why am I not on the ship?"

The first players who connected to the game had to get into a new world in a special way, like discoverers who travelled across the ocean. But the surrounding forest was a little like a medieval vessel.

"But I'm not even in the city. Something is wrong…"

Looking around a little, the guy realized that there were no more people around. He was completely alone in a small forest surrounded by quite familiar trees, albeit slightly higher.

"I will not hurry, maybe it's some kind of surprise."

"Inventory".

When the guy mentally spoke the keyword in his head, he strangely felt a small space. It was quite large, the size of a small room, an area of ​​9 square meters. To his surprise there was nothing.

"Where are the clothes?"

It was rather strange: if he was thrown into the woods, then why didn't they give him any resources, like food or weapons?

"Maybe the city is very close?"

Before exploring the surrounding space, he decided to test the other functions of the game.

"Status".

A small translucent window appeared before his eyes. He was conceived as simple as possible, but giving at least some information about the character. It consisted of: name, race and its features, as well as the names and levels of current professions and specializations. The game did not have a system of levels, the character gradually became stronger, moving along the game world and developing in the chosen direction. Now there were only a few lines in the status of a guy, but even they made him sit on the ground in surprise.

Name: Rey???

Race: ???

Racial features

[Immortal]

[Multifaceted 1 level.]

[Soul Master 1 Lvl.]

[???]

"What is it?"

At the beginning of the game all players had to be of the human race, with the same features - Immortality and Accelerated Development. Immortality was common to all players, and Accelerated Development is a feature that allows you to learn faster.

"This is obviously a mistake. I just need to ask someone. "

"Disconnect".

Having spoken the last available word in his mind, he patiently waited for the session to end.

"I hope this will be fixed quickly." - The guy frowned. He had not much time left to mess with it.

His connection should have been interrupted from outside. The player could only send a command to end the game session and after some time he had to be carefully disconnected from capsule. But ... Five minutes passed, and the guy continued to sit with his back against a large tree.

"Probably, not only did I get a mistake, that is why it takes so long."

The idea looked quite plausible, but by the time the seed of doubt had already begun to germinate. How could an error have occurred in a game that has been developing for several decades? It took another ten minutes, and the guy just continued to sit, looking in front of him with empty eyes.

"It seems that in this life, I am just too unlucky."

All this time he was thinking about what happened. Various thoughts were spinning in his head, but among them was the true one, which he immediately grasped.

"I obviously had to be somewhat different from the other players. I even know what ... "

"Has this disease decided to reach me even in another world?"

The guy was not raging, these stages he passed a few weeks ago, when he learned that he was sick. And now he tried to quickly accept the fact that he would have to spend his last days not in the company of other players, exploring new lands filled with fantastic adventures, but somewhere deep in the forest, without clothes or at least food.

It took him not too much time and the guy rose to his feet. He was not going to lose faith so easily. The first step was to finally make sure that there are no starting cities nearby.

"Even the name is not fully known?"

"Rey, yes ..? Not so bad, to be honest. "

"Although I hardly need to get used to it too much, two or three days and it will no longer be useful."

Taking a couple of steps, he stopped. The guy remembered one thing that for some reason did not occur to him before that.

"I can die."

At the very beginning of the game, the player did not have any things other than clothes, and he would not have greatly developed the initial specializations or professions. After dying several times, the player could get used to it, because for the inhabitants of the world of technology, battles with the help of cold steel would be very unusual. After death, the player was reborn in his starting city, but in an exhausted state. He needed to quickly get into the city, or at least get out of the woods.

Deciding not to kill himself immediately, he nevertheless walked a hundred meters each way from the meadow, but he never saw the end of the forest.

"If the city was really close, then it should be easy to find it, but there are no landmarks here." - Thinking about that, he realized that there was no other choice.

After he chose one of the trees, Rey slowly began to climb on it. Before that, he had never climbed trees, so it was a bit clumsy. But the new body turned out to be quite strong, stronger than the old one, exhausted by the disease. This allowed him without any problems to rise to a ten-meter height. It has to be enough.

The guy grabbed the trunk of a tree. The bark has painfully crashed into bare feet. More painful than it should have been felt by the player, but Rey somehow did not pay attention to it. All his efforts were directed not to fall down ahead of time and not to look down. And now, with his eyes looking on the ground, the guy closed them involuntarily. The height seemed treacherously scaring.

"I can do it. It won't hurt anyway. " - Having consoled himself with these thoughts, Rey leaned forward to immediately grab back to the trunk.

- Hehe. - He laughed in confusion. - It's not that simple.

Having stood like this for another half a minute, the guy squeezed his eyes, deeply, lingeringly inhaled and fell from the tree.

He did this with his head down to be sure that he would die quickly and surely. Due to the closed eyes, the second of free falling was slightly delayed.

The guy was right, he instantly died, breaking the spine and smashing the skull. But something went wrong. The pain has not disappeared anywhere. Moreover, he felt it, for some reason, even after the moment of his death...

Rey froze in the midst of pitch darkness, and the hellish agony pierced not even his body, which now did not exist, but the consciousness floating in the arms of the surrounding darkness! All his nature was ablaze with the fire of pain, which seemed to punish him for what he had done.

"Where is the fucking bound!?"

The feeling of pain in the game should not exceed a certain limit, but now the guy was sure that it was not true, because the pain is absolutely severe! Migraines from taking medication now seemed to him so insignificant and gentle that he would be happy to endure them, if only to stop this suffering!

In this state, he spent about ten seconds, until the pain began to smoothly but quickly recede.

Rey came to his senses only when he felt a soft tingling on the bare skin of his back.

"Grass". - easily guessed the guy.

Opening his eyes, he saw the familiar landscape. Glade, with a small swamp, next to which he, in fact, lay, this time not even trying to climb. There was still a huge stain of blood on the side of the grass.

"Why is this happening to me?" Rey sighed, again closing his eyes for a moment.

He connected to the game to take a break from the pain of the real world, but even here, it overtook him. This feeling of his own helplessness combined with aching tiredness in the whole body were suppressing him so much that he didn't want to move a finger.

Rey looked up and wondered why he deserved such a punishment.

These torments are familiar to him, so they ended relatively quickly. Now they were replaced by bitterness and surprise about how the developers created the game. Stunned by his life before this, the guy could not fully enjoy the whole range of sensations that overwhelmed him when he was in this new, seemingly brighter world. The bitterness was caused only by the fact that his whole body was felt as a dried piece of flesh. And this feeling was also very real. Each muscle, each vein of the body dissatisfied hurt.

Rey lay on the ground, trying to have some rest. He uttered the disconnection command a few more times, but nothing, as he had expected, happened. Having finally come to terms with his incomprehensible fate, he tried to rise. The arms and legs were like wooden ones, but it still worked.

"I don't want to spend my last days just waiting for death. Until I jump upside down from the trees, at least it shouldn't be painful. "

Rey looked at the sun again and, having determined his direction, moved west. As far as he remembered, the colonization of the new world began on his, conditionally, west coast, so hoping that he was not summoned too far away, the guy was going in that direction.

Ten minutes later, his body was almost completely normal and he no longer felt such strong discomfort while walking.

In fact, right now the situation did not look so terrible, Rey moved forward through the picturesque forest, never ceasing to be amazed at the level of realism. The feeling of soft, some kind of air grass under bare feet was simply fabulous, and the daytime sun, which pierced through the tops of the trees, gave a pleasant, indistinguishable from the present, warmth on the skin.