MotivatedSloth

"Hello, sir. Are you cashing out or leveling up?"

Dungeons Online was the first game that cracked the system. Let nerds earn by nerding, and they will nerd forever. And Dungeons Online did just that. 

Noobs turned into middle-class workers. Pro-players turned into celebrities and multi-millionaires. 

And there was Tom. Likely, the only top ranker that lived off the scraps and cat-food. A courtesy of his father that went and disappeared, leaving Tom with just enough money to survive until his graduation. Until the day where the option of cashing out would appear.

Dungeons Online. A game where developers never shared a single bit of information. A game where the death of one's avatar is permanent. A game that can turn a beggar into a lord just as quickly as turning a celebrity into nobody. 

But where does all this money comes from? How is it connected to the unnatural disaster that all governments across the world buried any information off? And how is this all connected to Tom's missing father?

Dungeons Online

"Well, there is no point wasting our precious ammunition on them," Tom said, letting go of his rifle. Thanks to being strapped around his neck, it didn't fall to the ground but dangled on his chest instead.

"How do you intend to kill them, then?" Claudia asked, puzzled by Tom's peculiar decision. "With your bare hands?" she added another question, this time filled with irony. "Remember, we are no longer just controlling our avatars! What if they have some kind of acid effect?"

"It's nice to see you worry about me," Tom smiled as he pulled out a military-grade knife from his backpack before unsheathing it and taking his first step towards slimes. "But we still have to kill them in one way or another, don't we?" he posed the rhetorical question before walking towards the monsters.

Testing on the slimes