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[I arrived. I'm standing in front of the Arcade Beat Up.]

A strong feeling of agitation and nervousness made Giselle Dardi's cheeks burn. She became aware of the voices mixing in the hall as she looked through the people passing by on all sides, watching with fascination and strangeness the hundreds of costumes.

A deep nervousness ate at her stomach. The more she saw those costumes, the less comfortable she felt. This was the Game Festival, the biggest games fair in Latin America. The place where the group Fidalgos marked to meet up. And there was a particular reason for that: as a solo player, with a bug in the system, it was the first time she accepted to join a group.

Giselle had a huge problem since she logged in for the second time in that game. Her aid system was faulty, as the kids said, "bugged". Since then, she couldn't level up. She had been stuck at level 0 for two years.

During the night before, exploring the Universal Chat System, Giselle found in the Ad System, a proposal from a player looking for a woman to get married immediately.

She was very upset with the end of her engagement, and accepted to marry a player. Although, she didn't know now where her head was, but until the day before she felt tired of living in suffering.

Now that she thought about it, that "marriage" was too real. Giselle didn't have money to get to higher levels through payments, and the new game rule was very beneficial to her. She would end up inheriting her husband-to-be's attributes and levels.

It turned out that the groom was the most famous player of The Game, close to level 10. He didn't seem to think very well when he accepted her marriage proposal, among dozens of women and men interested in him. And simply forgot to put the request in private message. There was a lot of agitation among all the players of the Game, ending in that meeting at the timely Game Festival.

Looking at those people dressed up in tribute to their favorite game characters, she hoped there weren't any curious ones among them to know who the mysterious Zeros was, who was going to marry the most famous player, Death. They had agreed to meet in a distant place, not to congregate Game players, so only a few would show up.

But even though it was funny to see some cheap costumes falling apart while playing on the various arcades available to visitors, Giselle wondered how they would react when they noticed that Death was going to marry the most mocked player of the Game.

When she remembered that they almost convinced her to wear a bride costume, she felt completely embarrassed — she replaced the idea with a simple t-shirt with the logo of her favorite game. And so, she walked towards the meeting point, trying to look as if she belonged there, among the players.

"Ah-huh..."

Giselle startled while keeping watch on the other side, distracted looking for her companions. A hand touched her shoulder.

"Zeros?" It was a man's voice.

Feelings turned inside out inside Giselle. Worse, calling her by her online nickname in public was embarrassing. Very slowly, she turned around.

"Y-yes. I..." Then she was petrified.

When thinking about online gamers, Giselle had a binary vision: chubby acne-covered boys, weird buck-toothed girls. Why? She didn't know.

But this was the complete opposite of what her mind had drawn up. Right in front of her was a guy about five or six inches taller than her. The hair was a dark brown color. He had some stubble, giving him a college student look. The dark eyes shone in the lights of the arcade games around them. The skin tone was olive-dark, so beautiful that she felt hypnotized.

"H-hello" he stuttered. A smile slipped to the side of his mouth, Giselle thought he looked older than he had told her.

"I'm Death." Giselle found herself smiling back.

"I'm Zeros" she replied politely, stretching out her hand.

The young man took her hand, pulling her close. He took all the liberty to greet her with a kiss on the side of her face. She smelled a pleasant green apple scent, sweet and penetrating.

"I'm glad you're not an old man using a girl 'avatar'" he stepped away. "I must confess I was feeling very nervous about that" he seemed a very

"I'm glad you're not some middle-aged man using a girl's "avatar" ", he stepped away. "I confess, I was feeling really nervous about that...", he seemed like a very sincere and smiling man.

Giselle could say the same; she was just as surprised as he was. And they both proved the fact, staring at each other intently. However, Death was the first to speak:

"You're cute", there was a goofy laugh on his mouth.

Her face was slightly blushing with embarrassment. It wasn't the first time she was complimented, and it might have been one of the reasons she was still alive, but it was still embarrassing.

"There. The shirt with a bride print, the Beat Up arcade!"

Giselle and Death turned to the side. Two strangers emerged from the crowd. The girl recognized them as Eclipse and Lemon, the other two members of Fidalgos. They were wearing a shirt with a suit and tie print, one of them was big, the other handsome. Completely different from the stereotypes that were in Giselle's mind.

"So, ", smiled the big boy, "I'm Eclipse".

He studied Giselle and Death running his eyes over the young and only girl in the group.

"Damn! You're really the famous Zeros?", he asked, running his fingers over his jaw. "The girl known for not leveling up for two years?"

Arching an eyebrow, the girl had no idea she was famous.

"I..." Giselle stammered. "Yeah, that's me..."

She also looked at Eclipse and Lemon, who looked older than Death

"Well, since the forced Patch happened, my aid system has been having problems", she explain. "It's always giving Error 404, so I haven't been able to level up. It's like a part of me doesn't exist to the system, but I can't log out either. Which makes me stay here.

It was true, although it didn't shame her anymore. Still, players felt so sorry for her, that they didn't think it was worth stealing her experience points. In fact, she had none. Lemon laughed, approaching.

It was true, though it no longer embarrassed her. Still, the players felt so sorry for it that they thought it wasn't worth stealing their experience points. In fact, she had none.

Lemon chuckled, moving closer.

"I've been hearing her story for months, and I really wanted to meet you." He pointed at her. Then he stretched out his hand to shake hers. "It's a great pleasure to meet you!"

Giselle took her hand, shaking it. He was cold like all the players, as if they had died and been revived by Patch.

"We really want to study you!" Eclipse revealed, smiling. "You are the only error we found in this Game's matrix.

The girl furrowed her brows, clueless about that.

"That's why we created Fidalgos." Lemonade shook her head. "Only to accept you, hoping our experience points will rub off on you."

Death beside Giselle, also shook his head after crossing his arms.

"That's true," he agreed. "In addition to the guild, we also agreed on a wedding."

Giselle looked from one to the other. She wasn't sure what was going on, except that the three guys seemed to know each other.

"And today is my twenty-eighth birthday." Death narrowed his eyes. He was three years older than she was, Giselle thought. "I think we can go out and have a little fun."

Lemon and Eclipse smiled, congratulating Death on his birthday. Giselle took the opportunity to chase away the fear she felt of them, she had been fantasizing about kidnappings and robberies when she was still on her way to the Festival. She could easily call herself a coward; she had positioned herself next to two large security guards in case of a mishap. But everything went well, except that those kids didn't have the slightest notion about approaching.

Eclipse laughed out loud, throwing her big, heavy arm around Giselle's neck, pulling her close. He had a funny smell.

"That's big Zeros!" he announced to the groups of people passing by, pointing to her red face. "Look, my dears, this is the weakest player in the universe!"

Many passersby passed by and didn't care. When some people were interested, they laughed and encouraged or called them a "nerd".

"Hey, cut it out. You're embarrassing the girl." Lemon rolled her eyes. He reached out to Deat, his round face beaming with pleasure. "I am the leader of our clan. Level: 6. Class: Cleric. I graduated in information technology last year. You can call me Bruno.

Eclipse smiled, noting Giselle's gaze in her direction.

"I'm Tomás. I studied at the same college as Bruno's. We're boyfriends, to tell you the truth." Eclipse made a gesture towards Death, still with his arm around Giselle's shoulders. "Death is our friend too, we all went to high school together.

"Yes," Death replied, a huge smile dodging his mouth. "However, you must get your fat arms off my bride.

Tomás laughed back, but stopped when he realized that Death was dead serious. He quickly dodged away from Giselle as if she had a contagious disease.

"Don't call me that," the girl said. "It's going to feel like we're actually engaged, I just met you."

The young man looked at her appraisingly.

"Do you think games and real life are completely different worlds?" he asked, curiously.

"Of course they are" Giselle found the question strange. "You don't fight dragons in real life."

His brows rose, and her face grew slightly grim. She knew in this game, things were different. The virtual was very real and frightening.

Because it was too weak and never evolved, it simply gave up on going to the front lines — or completing any missions. She heard that the goal after all players unite became to win the game, defeating the Entity, as they called the system.

"I think your life is really going to change, Zeros," Death said, a deep note of secrecy lacing her voice.

He stared at her for a long time, and her face gradually relaxed. A beautiful smile lifted the corner of her beautiful mouth.

"But I suppose ordinary games are far removed from reality," he agreed, and seemed to be amused by the confusion on his companions' faces. "By the way, should we do the ceremony now or later?" I'm sure our "nuptials" will be nothing more than a good tour of the event.

Caught completely by surprise, Giselle felt her face flush at the same time as she couldn't stop the corners of her mouth from curling into a smile.

"Let's get this over with, then," she replied, raising her arm, where one of the symbiote chips that connected her to the System was implanted.

Marrying provided better advantages than the benefits of betrothal. Giselle knew that other than her, in her clan, only Death was a frontline player. Usually the boy gained a lot of experience by doing solo adventures, so she took a selfish interest in that marriage.

In the Game, social interaction often depended on a face-to-face system. Often, monuments, curious places, churches, different spaces different from the real world served the purpose of gathering players, who, in addition to interacting personally, could exchange items and information. It was as if the real world were an extension of the Game.

Some systems, such as marriage, took place with the blessing of a class known as Cleric, which is a class not often chosen by players. And if the players were not around, it was not possible to complete the ceremony. Luckily for the bride and groom, Bruno was a cleric.

"But you are too hasty. Did you know I charge twenty gold pieces to perform ceremonies?" said Eclipse." Oh. It's okay, you're "family".

Giselle waited for him to put his arm over hers after saying those words. They connected to each other by approach technology.

Without delay, right before the girl's eyes expanded her profile screen. A blue screen, which always reminded her of a science fiction movie. Only people using the game's symbiote chips could see them, a technology they called Augmented Reality.

By Eclipse putting his arm through hers, she was accepted into the clan called Fidalgos at last.

"You are welcome, my young maiden," Eclipse said, bowing exaggeratedly.

Then her eyes lifted.

"Has your status changed anything?" he asked, interested.

Giselle glimpsed the screen to the right, an augmented reality hud like a profile screen in a video game. She was willing some information but still got an error.

[ERROR 404 - The server could not find what was requested.]

"No, it's still the same error." Giselle shrugged.

"Really?" Lemon tried to see, cocking his head. "My God!"

The boy raised his hand, gesturing to the hud itself. Giselle managed to glimpse her status with letters and graphics in reverse.

"Ah, looks like you've been listed in our guild." Lemon cupped his chin, sucking air between his teeth. - "Weird."

"Very strange," Death nodded. "Can we have the wedding, see if that changes anything?"

Eclipse nodded, raising her arm to Death. The groom ran his hand over his friend's arm, which he then offered to Giselle.

"Let's go," Eclipse nodded confidently. "It is my blessing as a Cleric."

Giselle hesitated. She felt a bit of uncertainty after glimpsing her status. Two years ago she hadn't changed at all. Well, it won't hurt to try, she thought.

As she did so, a new one popped around her eyes, where she spotted a button that said [Marriage]. Prior to that, her device was shared with the leader of the group and Death, paired to exchange information like a cell phone.

[Bring your symbiote device closer to your fiancé's], she read on the screen as Eclipse started the entire ceremony process. Giselle lifted her arm, lightly touching the back of Death's device.

[Cheers! You and Death are married], she read the image that appeared.

She felt like she'd been a little disappointing. Leaving his house to meet a stranger, whose real name he barely knew, and touching her arm in his to receive an empty message in return, sounded stupid.

"Oh, that's great." Death smiled.

Giselle threw him a quick glance, and saw him staring at her with an expression of absolute satisfaction. He grabbed her hand, holding it as if plucking a wildflower. He kissed the back of her hand gently.

The girl gaped.

"At last, married."

There was a sly smile, but Giselle thought there wasn't any trace of malice in it. Death was completely different from what she had imagined. For someone with such a funereal code name, he seemed very refreshing.

"Has your status changed?" he asked after a moment of silence.

Giselle looked up at her status screen. It still has the same error. She shook her head, pressing her lip together.

"Too bad." Death didn't seem concerned. — Well, since it's my birthday, how about we enjoy the event? he said, smiling. "We're at the Arcade Arena. Saw an Autorama that looks insane!

"Oh, yes." Giselle shook her head. That whole marriage thing was completely out of her mind now. — I was interested in the Cosplay Hall. We could go there later to make fun of people.

"You mean, laugh out loud and offend people for no reason?" he asked, seeing her think and nodding. He pretended to be impressed. "Dude, you're my type!"

The two looked at each other, flirting, completely forgetting about their other companions. They distanced a few steps, close to each other, their arms touching.

But suddenly, Death stopped in his tracks. He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out another cell phone. Giselle noticed that it was a very old model, it almost seemed to come from the first lines of smartphones.

She read the screen and suddenly Zeros's face was pale and his lips tightened. He bit his lip, and an expression of deeply hurt feelings came over her face.

"Oh no... "

He remained motionless, his face growing more pained, heaving through clenched teeth. Looking into her face, Giselle felt she was falling into a deep ditch.

And to her surprise, Death hugged her tightly, pressing her against his chest, murmuring softly, as if she were a child afraid of the dark.

"You will die..."

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Soler or Solo Player is a user who runs campaigns, participates in an event or any proposal for a game alone, without joining any guild or group.

The HUD, Heads Up Display, which can be translated as: Alert Screen. The HUD is the display area where players can see their character's vital stats such as current health, mana amount, inventory, score, radar, maps, bonus attributes, armor level, ammo count and much more.