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

'And that's the last of them,' Tom thought, pulling his spear out of the last remaining monster in the area. With how swift this movement was, all the blood stuck to the blade fell to the ground, forming fat drops as it fell.

"Please, wake up!" Then, behind him, one of the men that Tom saved with Claudia cried out, desperately shaking at the lifeless body of the girl that got her throat cut open.

'Doesn't he realize that it's futile?' Tom thought, puzzled by the situation. Even though he never directly experienced a death of a fellow human, not to speak about someone close to him, his extensive training was more than sufficient to make up for this lack of experience.

On the other hand, the party that Tom just saved shouldn't really have problems like that. While the death of a companion was always a tragedy, for someone clearly making a living by touring the dungeon, death should be no stranger.

Tom's (un)heartless request