Aegis the Paladin Salaryman

I didn't get around to changing my name. I'm gonna wait until I think of something cool. Apparently, choosing a username is very important. It's what everyone will know you as online. A lot of people have different stories for how they got their names too. It's very cool. I want to have a personal attachment to my name when I create it too.

I finished the meal that Walter prepared for me and went to my room. My eyes immediately drifted to the VR headset. As I picked it up and stared at it, I remembered the words that Lucia said to me.

Do you think that the only way to repent is to throw away your life?

There's no more potential value in a death like that.

This time around, I wasn't going to use the headset to escape my sins. This time around, I'm going to use the headset to have a fulfilling death. One that'll bring value to the world!

As I put my headset on, I laid down on my bed and recited the lines that would activate my headset.

Take me to the place I could escape for all of time.

Take me to My Fantasy Online

My eyes quickly closed and opened back up to see the roof of the guild hall's inn section. I wasn't standing up or anything, I was lying on the bed of the room in my armor. Wait, does that mean that my body stays here even when I'm logged off? I should ask the fairy. I have to figure out how to add friends from her anyway. What was her name again?

"Hey Faye!"

…

What the hell? I thought she was supposed to be my personal fairy. Why isn't she showing up?

"Faye! Faaaaaaaye? Faye?! FAYE?! FAYE FAYE FAYE FAYE FAYE THE FAIRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY-"

"WHAT?!" Faye popped up in front of me.

"I wanna know how logging out works for heroes. Also I need to learn how to message people using UI magic."

"Oh really? I thought you were too busy running headfirst into forests to get yourself killed to get my help." She raised her eyebrow and faced away from me.

"Yeah, don't worry. I won't be doing anything that stupid for a while. Now can you tell me how to use my UI magic and help me out?"

"Hmph! That's not going to be enough! You put me through a lot of mental stress yesterday. I'm going to need an apology from you!" She turned around and pointed an accusing finger at me.

It looks like she's not gonna let this go. I'm willing to move past it already, isn't that enough? She wants an apology so bad? Fine! I'll give her one. With a completely straight face, I apologized to Faye.

"I'm sorry that you got overly emotionally invested in someone that you just met and got your feelings hurt in the process."

"Ugh!" She gave me a look of disgust and then shook her head in disapproval before poofing out of the room. Damn it, are you kidding me?! The tank that Lucia found probably cleared their schedule and is waiting for me to message them! Fine, I'll give in!

"I meant to say that I'm sorry for going on a suicide charge into the forest! Do you hear me, Faye?"

"That's better" Faye popped back into the room.

She then began to explain how logging out in MFO works. If someone were to log out in MFO, Their body in MFO will instantly fall asleep at whatever point they logged out at. However, to prevent logging out during combat or "combat logging," You can't log out once you enter combat.

"But wait, that means that when I logged out yesterday, I fell asleep standing up. How did I get on the bed?"

"About that…"

Apparently, once I was laughed out of the game and logged out, My body dropped to the floor and my head hit the table. The trio that saved me got an extra laugh and even nearby members of the guild got a laugh as they passed by as well. Afterwards, they all let me be and Lucia left money on the table for an inn.

"Lucia...she's interesting. I want to fight by her side one day."

"Good luck with that. She's the leader of the strongest guild on Faramos. Only high-ranking members really get to talk with her."

"SHE'S THE GUILD LEADER?!" I jumped out of bed and startled Faye.

Damn it! Now I feel ten times worse over how I acted! I was totally standoffish at first and she had to save my life to top it all off…

"I'm sure she'll be honored to fight with you someday! She was nice enough to give you this start and even pay for your first night at the guild hall!" Faye saw my dejected expression and gave me words of encouragement.

I put on a smile and Faye began to explain messaging other heroes using UI magic. Apparently, voice command wasn't the only way to open your menu, it's just the easiest. You can also just think of opening and closing the menu and it'll open and close on command. The technology that this game displays never ceases to amaze me. I tried it a couple of times and got it in a couple of minutes. If I had to describe the feeling required to open your menu, it would be like imagining the game's menu with its basic functions like logging out and adjusting certain settings. Just that bare thought would be enough. Once I got it, she showed me how to navigate the proper channels and I managed to find the username of the person Lucia wanted me to contact. The person's name was "Aegis." That name sounds cool as hell! After spending a moment to admire his name. I sent him a short and simple message.

[Is this Aegis? Lucia said that you're a no-life that could teach me a thing or two about tanking. Are you free right now?]

As I hit send, Faye questioned me by saying "'Right now?' Are you sure you're going to get a message so soon?"

"Well, Lucia said that he was a no-life so he should respond relatively fast-"

A new line of text popped up in my DMs and I noticed it was from Aegis.

[Yeah sure...]

His response was pretty fast. As expected of a no-life! I did just as I was instructed and waited for Gus in the Guild hall. I couldn't buy any drinks because I didn't have any money. Monsters don't drop any money, so the only way to get money is to do quests...which I hate doing. Long story short, questing is an inevitable evil that I have been putting off. I put my shoes on the table I was sitting near, leaned back, and patiently waited.

After waiting a bit, some weirdo entered the guild hall. He looked like he was in the wrong world. He wore complete business attire. He had shaggy brown hair and had a constant look of annoyance on his face. He scanned the room until he found exactly where I was sitting. Once his eyes concentrated on me, he made a beeline for me. Oh crap. This is the guy I'm supposed to meet. As he approached me, I reached my hand out for a handshake.

"Hey, there. My name's-"

The stranger pushed my feet onto the ground and pulled me by the collar.

"Do you have any manners? You're in a public establishment!" the man told me.

As I caught myself before leaning too far back and falling backwards I thought to myself...What in the HELL is this guy on about? First he walks in wearing that stupid getup, coupled by that stupid look on his face. Then he storms over to me and pushes my feet to the ground. And he has the nerve to talk to me about manners?

"Do I have any manners?! I tried introducing myself and you pushed my feet to the floor, you weirdo!" I got in his face. The two of us were so close, we were butting heads. The other patrons of the guild saw our altercation and started to instigate the situation.

"My money is on the white armored guy! He's built like a brick house!"

"Don't you know, physique doesn't matter when it comes to heroes! I once saw a man the size of a toddler take down a dragon!"

Now I'm starting to get excited! This guy pissed me off and now I'm totally justified in beating him to a pulp! As I put my fists up to start swinging, he returned the gesture. The two of us then began to trade blows. For every gut punch, their was a face punch. For every face punch, another punch to the stomach.

We kept going like this for hours. In any other case, one of us might've dropped to the floor because of FYL, but we're tanks. We're built to stand up fighting until our HP drops to zero. That along with the fact I just learned during this fight prolonged it way longer than it needed to be: Apparently you can't die in Jericho.

Our fight was taking so long, the other members of the guild hall were getting annoyed.

"This is getting boring. I'm logging off."

"Yeah, me too."

Once everyone started to go to their separate rooms to sleep, I did a quick scan of the room to see if there was anyone that still cared about our fight. The only ones still around were the staff that were cleaning up. I dropped onto the floor panting. I was completely exhausted and Aegis followed suit. He then took two health potions out of his jacket's inner pocket. One of which he handed to me. As I drank up, he introduced himself.

"By the way, I'm Aegis. Nice to meet you."

This guy is absurd. He has the nerve to beat my ass and then rewind the clock back to a proper greeting. However, I was too tired to combat him on this.

"Nice to meet you. My name is Matthew."