Tormented by loan sharks, Lorn had lived the life of an 'ascetic'. He would willingly become homeless and live the life of a beggar (and only sometimes a pickpocket), so his hard-earned money wouldn't fall into his debtors' hands. Hopefully, they would finally leave him alone after realizing he's worth nothing anymore.

But realizing his plans, the debtors decide to sell him as a guinea pig! 

The One Country's grand experiment attempting to copy a human's consciousness and put it inside the digital space! The only catch is, 80% of the test subjects are expected to receive lasting damages to their brain. 

However, Lorn finds a once-in-a-lifetime chance. The researchers were creating a virtual world using the digital space. And to create profits from it, instead of simply creating boring-old Virtual Earth (and calling it the Metaverse), they were making a game out of it!

The first fully immersive VRMMORPG in the world!

As the first tester of this game, Lorn would be a disgrace if he couldn't make money off of it!

Falling Cosmos

In the evening, Lorn decided to make fried dumplings. A sudden craving, and also another urge for him to show off to Irene.

Waiting for the dough to rest, he glanced at her. He still didn't know why she came to him. It would've been normal if she only came for the mornings and went to work in the evenings, but since she was staying with him all the time, he could only assume she couldn't go back to the brothel anymore.

As for why, Lorn could only guess. Maybe she got lucky in a lottery and bought her own contract. Or maybe the manager fired her since she kept losing her clients. Sybil would need to find some other way to pay her back, but she would still be in debt.

But looking at her, Lorn had to change his mind.

Irene had finished making the salads and was now fixing the table. She would arrange the knives and forks one way and after glancing at it from afar, she would frown slightly and change it again.

A busy nothing