Urgent Maintenance

[Top 1. WynterRain. Archmage. BR 901,459]

[Top 2. NightFall. Barbarian. BR 14,130]

[Top 3. Natalie. Rogue. BR 12,890]

"WynterRain?"

"WynterRain?"

"Who's he?"

"I think I've heard of him?"

"Did you just say WynterRain?"

"He's a professional gamer! How could you don't know?"

"BR 901,459? What the hell?"

Hiro could feel his body suddenly reacting strangely. His muscles tensed up and he couldn't move. His body started producing an excessive amount of sweat all of a sudden.

'How could that be? WynterRain? is that Yuujin?'

'No–'

'No—'

'There must be someone else using his username for fun.'

'But, how could he reach 901,459 BR within a month? Is he a masochist? No way, it's impossible to do that even if he was a masochist. World level cap won't let any player surpass that BR at this moment.'

Hiro couldn't move his neck, he kept staring at the giant screen and his eyes were fixed on the first row on the leaderboard.

Even so, the title that had been given to him as the Top 1 CBT player was still embedded in his avatar.

[Glitching]

The Top 100 players display on the screen disappeared again after experiencing a glitch.

The others wondered again while Hiro was still staring at the blank screen with the same feeling.

[Glitching]

[We apologize for the inconvenience]

After displaying an apology message, the top 100 players leaderboard returned to normal and NightFall took the first place again.

"What just happened?"

"Where did WynterRain go?"

"Why didn't he win the top 1 rank?"

"Is he a cheater?"

"Yeah right, he must be a cheater!"

"I'm very sure, he's a cheater!"

Hiro closed his eyes after hearing the various accusations directed at a username he knew all too well.

Even though he wasn't sure that the username was used by his brother, still, hearing people refer to the his brother's signature username as a cheater was a huge insult.

"SILENCE!"

Hiro suddenly shouted in a loud voice and managed to stop all the whispers that made the atmosphere in the Beginner Town square area turn very noisy.

All eyes turned back to Hiro with displeased looks, some even frowned in front of Hiro before finally deciding to leave the place.

"What a freak."

"For someone with only 14 thousand battle ratings, he is too arrogant."

"I'd better go home and sleep."

"Disappointing."

It didn't take long for the square to return to its normal silence.

However, Hiro was still standing alone at his place. At the same spot, not moving an inch.

His mind was still stuck at the moment when his brother's username, WynterRain, rose to the top of the rankings, surpassing his own, NightFall.

Hiro didn't know why it bothered him so much. He tried to push the thought out of his head.

But he couldn't, he was reminded of the list of 1000 CBT players that Anonymous had sent to him before he decided to log in to the game.

From the 1000 player names, he remembered very well that all players used real names instead of usernames like his.

And from the 1000 identities he had known, Hiro also knew that Yamaguchi Yuujin's name was not listed there.

He then remembered that there was another leaderboard display he had encountered in his HUD system. Right on the icon of the leaderboard menu.

He immediately checked it.

This time, the menu displayed the complete names of players, sorted by the player's battle rating.

Hiro quickly scrolled down and saw how many numbers were listed on the leaderboard.

As he expected, the total number of CBT players was 1001.

1001.

The additional 1 player was him.

After he realized that somehow he managed to join the mysterious CBT version without doing any registration the first time he attempted to try the VR machine, Hiro got goosebumps.

It looked like someone had prepared all of this.

But what for?

For helping Hiro harvesting LSC? No–way, it couldn't be that simple, is it?

As for the other 1000 players, all of their username looked familiar to Hiro because he had read them before,

in the [1000] file sent by Anonymous.

Somehow, the 1000 names listed in the file very accurately displayed the same 1000 names as the players listed on the leaderboard inside the game.

Whoever Anonymous was, Hiro was sure, Anonymous knew something that he didn't know until this moment.

And once again, he checked carefully the usernames on the leaderboard list, but still, Hiro was sure that WynterRain didn't exist in the list.

With his mind already filled with various kinds of questions, Hiro finally decided to return to Liberty's house. Liberty was probably waiting for him now because he had been away for too long.

Hiro's legs felt weak and he walked like an unsteady person, he didn't care even though some people looked at him with a strange gaze.

Hiro continued to walk like a soulless undead.

He was really confused now.

Some strange events seemed to keep trying to trap him, making his brain feel overheated.

Finally, after walking very slowly, Hiro arrived in front of Liberty's house which still looked the same.

It didn't change a bit.

He then entered the house, the door was unlocked, hoping that Liberty was waiting in the living room to greet him and congratulate him on his success as the top player in the CBT version.

But, when he entered the house, the living room looked just as empty as before he left.

However, when Hiro directly walked to open the door of Liberty's bedroom, his knees suddenly limp, seeing the beautiful figure in front of him.

Liberty was sitting while looking out the window, ignoring his arrival.

"Libe?"

Hiro really couldn't believe what he saw. Even the voice that just came out from his mouth sounded weird.

But, he ran and hugged Liberty's body tightly from her back.

He was so happy to see the girl finally woke up.

Hiro could smell Liberty's sweet scent, her body temperature had returned to normal. The fever has gone.

And Hiro almost forgot that he wanted to tell the girl about all of his achievements.

His first achievement in buying a regular plot that would help him provide passive income for living expenses in the real world.

His second achievement in getting first place in the CBT version of the game that further made him more confident to be able to pursue the LSO opening game prize of 60,000 USD by becoming a top 100 player within one month.

Hiro was very happy with those two things, even though no one realized it and no one would appreciate his achievements.

But he believed that Liberty would be as happy as him after he told everything.

And now, after Liberty has woken up to hear a very long story from him, he didn't realize at all that Liberty was very shocked by his surprising hug.

Liberty did not return his hug and the girl just froze like a statue without a soul.

After a minute of a warm moment, he finally found something that didn't feel right.

Hiro immediately let go of the girl and then stared at her awkwardly.

Liberty's two-round eyes stared back at Hiro, but it felt empty.

She tilted her head as if her mind was now full of questions.

"Who are you?"

"Do I know you?"

"Where am I?"

"What am I doing here?"

"What is this place?"

"Am I already dead?"

"Are you a friend of my brother?"

Hiro didn't know how to react after hearing numerous questions that came out of Liberty's sweet yet beautiful lips.

His mouth seemed to have been shut tightly.

"I'm sorry, but, what is your name? How do you know my name?"

Hiro couldn't answer, he was speechless and his throat suddenly felt very dry.

And before he said anything, suddenly a notification popped out.

Ding!

[An unexpected error occurred]

[The game server will be temporarily offline for urgent maintenance]

[Forced to Logout Warning!!! (10s left)]

.

.

"Wait, What?!"

[Disconnecting from the server]

.

.

[Disconnected]

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*author special appreciation speech*

Dear Last Shelter Online Readers,

I will introduce myself once again in a short sentence. I am a girl, I have a lil brother with 7 gap years. (If you need more information, read at the review section).

It was a little funny to reveal this, but actually my brother and I could communicate very well only during playing an online game. Distance doesn't matter. But, when we grew up, it's very hard to see each other like in the old days. But I believe, without any words coming out from our lips, we missed each other a lot.

So, one fine day, I suddenly missed him due to the separation we got from COVID-19 lockdown. We haven't seen each other in person for more than 3 years. The longest yet hardest time ever in my life. At this moment, I suddenly want to write something that resembles the bond between siblings. And thus, Hiro was born and so was his brother, Yuujin.

But 'Last Shelter Online' was more than that.

I hope that everyone will enjoy the story of LSO. This is the first time for me to write a novel like this. But I promise, I will do my best.

I made this because the next chapters will be premium.

Once again, thank you very much for reading Last Shelter Online.

I hope that you will always support Last Shelter Online until we reach the final line together.

All Love, Sabet.