Chapter 3 - Weird Events

Chapter 3 – Weird Events

The second Ethan appeared in front of Ethan and two editing screens appeared in front of Ethan. The first screen was for Ethan. On this screen, his name was set up as his original name. Other than that, there was a setup for his personality? It was set for humble and happy.

The second screen was for Ethan 2. There was no name set up for it but on the personality setting, it was set as domineering and cold. Other than that, there was the normal option for appearance. He could change his face, his body, and so on.

"W-W-What is this? Why are there two of me here and what are these character settings? Why can I change my appearance? No, how can I change the appearance? What is this personality thing?" Ethan was confused.

Then, something crossed his mind. "Is this VR device still broken?" That was the only conclusion he could come out. Since the device was still broken, Ethan decided to log out of the game.

Ethan turned on the menu and clicked log out but a notification appeared in front of him.

[Please set up your character]

"Huh?" Ethan clicked the logout button again.

[Please set up your character]

"What?" Ethan tried again and the same message appeared in front of him. No matter how many times he clicked the log-out button, the same message asking him to complete the character setup appeared.

Ethan started to panic and he continued clicking the log out button but he could not log out. Then, he immediately clicked the 'Help' button asking for help.

This kind of button was always there for VR games because there were many incidents in the past where players got stuck in the game. However, that was during the early years of fully immersive VR. After that, no same incident had happened.

However, to Ethan's dismay, the same notification appeared when he clicked the help button too. Ethan started sweating. What if he got stuck inside the game forever? Or, was Next World a game like those in fantasy novels where it trapped players inside the game?

Ethan shivered. He looked around and shouted, "Anyone here?! Isn't this game monitored by a powerful AI? Where are you?! Get me out of here?"

However, there was no response. Ethan shouted a few more times but the result was the same. He was scared and panicked but he decided to take a deep breath and calm down.

"Since the game keep asking me to set my character, maybe I can get out after I set my character?" Ethan thought of a solution. He looked at the character settings and tried to change his setting first.

Ethan tried to change the character name but he could not. So, his original character was set with his original name. "…I want to use a different name," Ethan had no other choice and let it like that. After that, he touched on the personality column only that it was permanent too.

Ethan was speechless and he did not know what in the world was the personality setting. "I should have not trusted that girl… This device is damage and now, I am suffering here."

Since there was nothing Ethan could do with his original self, he turned to Ethan 2. When he clicked on the name column for Ethan 2, he could set up his character name. Even so, he did not name it but went to the personality column.

However, the domineering and cold personality was permanent. He could not change it. Ethan sighed and set up Ethan 2's name. Since he was stressed and too lazy to think of a name and also, he did not know what Ethan 2 could do in the game.

"Sword Beast," Ethan randomly put whatever crossed his mind. He would be playing with his original character and Ethan 2 was a bug in the game. After that, he randomly set up the character's appearance.

Sword Beast had black short hair and his face was altered so he looks more handsome than Ethan. He rid of the glasses on Sword Beast and add a bit of meat to Sword Beast so it was not as skinny as Ethan.

A few minutes later, he finished with Sword Beast's appearance. Ethan stared at it for a few minutes and he felt conflicted.

"…Is this my inner desire? Do I want to look like this?" Ethan smiled bitterly. Although he just set it nonchalantly, the setting was based on his creativity.

Sword Beast ended up looking handsome. He was not as skinny as Ethan and was a bit muscular too. Not only that but Sword Beast was taller than Ethan too.

"Whatever, finish," Ethan clicked on the finish button. After that, two more floating screens appeared and this time it was to set up the stats Ethan wanted on his character.

There were seven stats for each character and two of them were the default stat. Health and Energy were the default stats. Ethan needed to choose five other stats for his character and five for Sword Beast.

Ethan decided to do Sword Beast first. Since he knew that Sword Beast was a bug, he chose the five stats without thinking much. Based on the name of the character, Ethan gave Sword Beast the strength, endurance, dexterity, sword, and beast stats. After that, he finished it and focused on his character.

According to Shawn, Ethan needed to choose carefully. If someone wanted to focus on fighting, he or she needed to get the attack or strength stat or else, they were doom as they could only rely on their equipment to give damage. Same with other things someone wanted to focus on.

"Since I want to focus on production, I need to choose production stats," Ethan looked at the lists of stats and there were thousands of them. Since he was stressed, Ethan wrote on the search menu for production stats and a list of them appeared.

Without thinking much, he chose five of them. Ethan took the forging, crafting, refining, mining, and farming. Forging and crafting were two main production things in any game so, he chose these two. He did not know what it would do because this was a stat and not a job but because they were in line with production, he took them.

As for refining, he knew it was important in forging. Refining was usually used to fix or upgrade equipment and he felt it was important. As for mining, Ethan felt that he would need to gather the materials, and forging usually needed metals and minerals, and thus, mining was important.

As for farming, he had nothing else he could choose and just took it because farming was considered production too.

"Done," Ethan finished his selection. He wanted to finish everything fast and talk to Shawn about what had happened. After he clicked the finished button, another two floating screens appeared.

[Distribute the stat points. For Health and Energy, 1 point equals 10. Points Left: 10]

For Sword Beast, he randomly distributed the stat points. Based on the character's name, Ethan put 2 points on Health and Energy each, the rest of the six points on strength.

For his character, he used 2 points on Health, 3 points on Energy, and five points on Forging. After that, he clicked the finish button and two more floating screens appeared.

[Choose your character's multiplier]

[<1>]

"…Multiplier? More bug?" Ethan felt tired. He put two on his character and put five on Sword Beast. He just did this for fun because he knew it was nothing more than a bug. After that, he clicked the finish button again and a screen appeared but this time, there was only one.

[Which character do you want to use? Ethan or Sword Beast?]

"Ethan," It was a no-brainer for Ethan and he chose himself. After that, another floating screen appeared.

[You choose Ethan. What do you want Sword Beast to do while you play as Ethan?]

[Stats Training?]

[Experience Farming?]

[Skill Training?]

[Choose only one]

"???" Ethan was confused and he thought deeply.

"Is this really a bug? When I think it back, everything is too detailed to be a bug?" Ethan looked around him to see if maybe this was someone's scheme or something but there was nothing he could do.

"Let choose one and get over it," Ethan chose the stats training, and immediately after that, Sword Beast's figure turned into an orb of light and flew somewhere. A second later, his body glows in light too and he disappeared from the dark and empty space.

Ethan traveled in a massive white tunnel before his surrounding changed to a small plaza.

[Welcome to Flitz City] Ethan got a notification but instead of continuing playing the game, he opened the menu and tried to log out. Immediately after that, his surrounding turned dark and Ethan opened his eyes.

Ethan got up immediately and looked around to see he was inside his room. "I am back," he sighed in relief. Ethan took off the VR device and checked on it to see if it was smoking or something similar but it looked fine.

However, Ethan knew that something was wrong with the VR device. He was locked inside the space and was forced to create the characters. Many unexplained things happened earlier too.

Ethan used his bracelet and decided to tell this to Shawn. He called Shawn and the call was connected. Ethan made it into a video call and saw Shawn's face in a simple iron helmet. Shawn was inside Next World.

"Ethan, where are you?" Shawn asked only to see that Ethan's background was not inside the game. "You are not playing?" he asked.

"Can you come here or can I go see you? I think there is something wrong with the VR device. When I create my charac-" Ethan wanted to tell Shawn about what happened earlier when the call suddenly ended.

"??? Why is the call ended? Is the line not good?" Shawn called Ethan back and he answered the call.

"Did you end the call?" Shawn asked and since Shawn was asking, that meant he was not the one ending the call.

"Maybe there is a problem with the line. Well, I want to tell you that charac-" the call suddenly ended again. "…" Ethan called Shawn back and when he wanted to tell his friend about what happened earlier, the call ended… more like it was cut.

"!!!" Ethan was shocked and he felt like something was wrong. Rather than calling, Ethan decided to send a message to Shawn but the message was ruined by something and at this point, Ethan felt that maybe what happened earlier was not a bug or the VR device broken.

*Ding Dong* someone rang the bell and it was Shawn. Since the call was cut many times, Shawn was worried about Ethan and came directly to meet him.

"Bro, what happens?" Shawn asked after he got in.

"When I create my charac-" when Ethan got to this point, suddenly, the tap water was turned on automatically. In the current age, many things used electronic and the tap water was similar too. When Ethan saw this, he confirmed that everything was not a mistake.

Someone was setting up something and he was involved in it. Ethan shut his mouth and the tap water was turned off.

"…" Shawn saw this scene and he glanced at Ethan to see him looking scared. "What happens?" Shawn asked when suddenly, he got a call from someone.

Shawn answered the call but there was no one on the other side. He looked at Ethan and felt something was wrong, "Ethan?"

Shawn suddenly got another call and this time was from his father. "Dad? Why are you calling?"

"You want to see me? So suddenly???" Shawn was surprised.

"Y-y-you should go," Ethan spoke, stuttered. Shawn felt something was wrong too as there were too many coincidences happening at the moment. He nodded and left Ethan alone.

"W-W-Who are you?" Ethan asked while he glanced around the room. Suddenly, he got a message from his bracelet. Ethan read the message.

[Play the game]