Nostravia

"Sir Martin, what you've just met is a god."

"A god whose cult burned cities in his name."

Martin gulped. Staring at his former mentee, who looked as dead serious as if he was talking about doing illegal tax evasion.

"A god? A god of the game world?"

Stephen took a sip of his rainbow colored drink before continuing,

"Yes, he is one of the gods of Nostravia. An infamous one.

The god detested adults so much that the children who had received his blessing became physically stuck in their child form until the day they died.

Not only that, though. The one incident that made the child god, Loko, famous was a distant event in the past.

The cult-like followers of Loko waged a religious war on a kingdom, and they burned down every single city of the kingdom.

At the end of the war, they stormed through the capital city and took over the kingdom.

Now, a holy nation that worshipped Loko as their god stood in the lands of Nostravia. Fortunately, they seemed to have been satisfied with having a kingdom of their own right now and didn't plan on doing world domination."

Martin nodded his head in understanding. Such a backstory was certainly an interesting one that he had rarely heard before.

A cult that followed a brat god and took over a kingdom for their own was quite a nice breath of fresh air in the abundant demon king story in fantasies.

But there's still one problem in Martin's mind. "I understand he's a big deal in the game, but why are you getting so serious about this? Why are you telling me to meet you just to say this?"

'This could have been an email.' Martin thought as he shot a questioning look at Stephen.

Hearing his question, Stephen looked left and right, scanning his surroundings to make sure no one paid any attention to them before whispering,

"Sir, I didn't tell you this when I sent you the game, but look at this first before I continue my explanation."

Stephen then leaned over the table and put his hand under him, covering it from all directions except for Martin's.

Martin wondered what kind of shenanigans his former mentee was up to this time, but he was certainly not prepared to see what happened next.

Stephen pointed his index finger forward. Then suddenly, the tip of his finger faintly glowed red.

The red glow intensified before a small spark of fire burned on top of Stephen's finger. 

Martin's eyes went wide. He couldn't take his eyes off the fire.

It just appeared out of nowhere, and it continued burning even now.

'How did he do that? Is that a magic trick? Did he use some kind of tool to produce the fire?'

But Stephen didn't have any sleeves covering his arms.

There wasn't any contraption that could explain the fire just appearing out of the blue.

Stephen then put out the small flame and raised his finger, letting Martin examine it from up close.

No matter how he looked at it, Stephen's finger was bare. No skin-colored materials or anything covered his finger.

He touched Stephen's finger, and it was an ordinary human finger.

He didn't get any android attachment to his finger to make him half robot, something that also didn't exist in the world, yet.

"How…?"

Stephen leaned once more, this time to whisper the words to Martin.

"Sir, the game wasn't simply a game. Somehow, the skills that we learnt inside the game carried over to real life. It is on a much weaker scale, but we can activate our skills and apply the knowledge from Nostravia when we're on Earth."

Martin's mind just froze when he heard Stephen's answer. 

Not a single thought could form in his head as he processed the words that Stephen had just spoken.

Seeing his former mentor's confusion, Stephen continued.

"The game had been around for some time, but people could only play the game if another player invited them to play.

And there's this organization that connected the game world to this world.

Not only can you convert the coins you've earned from the game into real-world money, you can even transport items from the game into the real world and vice versa.

Though the latter could only be done if you are a high-ranking member and got the necessary permission to do so from the organization.

What I'm telling you, sir, is that we, the players, think that this game is not really a game, but a real world that exists somewhere out there, in a place that we have never heard of."

Martin took a large sip of his bitter coffee and massaged his temple.

"Give a minute to take this all in."

Martin then walked out of the cafe, lit up a cigarette, and took a deep breath.

After about two minutes, Martin came back and sat in front of Stephen once again.

"Alright, to get this straight. The game world is probably a real world that exists somewhere out there, and the abilities we get inside the game are also transferred over to the real world. Is that correct?"

Stephen nodded, "I know it's hard to believe, but that is correct, sir."

"Why have I never heard of this before? Something as huge as this must have been on the news somewhere and exploded on the internet."

"That's the thing, sir. When you register as a member of this organization, something that you have to do if you decide to continue playing the game, you are required to keep the existence of the game a secret.

I've heard stories from the other players that the people who didn't uphold this secret will 'mysteriously' disappear without a trace from the real world.

And considering we never heard anything about this game before we were invited to play by another player, there must be some truth to these stories."

Martin took a deep breath. He almost went out to smoke for the second time, but he held himself back.

Stephen then spoke once more,

"This is why I told you to meet, sir. I don't want to risk some people somehow being able to hear what we're talking about.

And the second reason, I want to ask you, do you want to continue playing the game?"