Download App
0.87% The Extra of The Lunerra / Chapter 2: Volume I - Chapter 1: Wish

Chapter 2: Volume I - Chapter 1: Wish

On the surface, hidden from the light, avoiding the sun behind the clouds, a man in his mid-twenties with silvery hair stood in the midst of huge and countless craters, wearing light but high-quality armor and wielding an elegant black-red sword.

The atmosphere was gloomy. The man was sweating profusely and breathing rapidly, so much so that he looked extremely tired, as if all his energy had been drained.

The man took a deep breath, then straightened up slightly and turned his expressionless face somewhere else.

There was another man standing there, sweating profusely, just like him. Although the two men were in a similar condition, one was standing while the other was lying on the ground.

In addition, the man lying on the ground looked more like a demon than a human being with his grayish skin and horns that rose from his forehead to form a crown.

Despite this frightening and powerful appearance, the red blood emanating from his body slowly watered the earth. Then his eyes, which only a few seconds ago had been sparkling with light, slowly began to fade.

The man, still standing unlike his opponent, involuntarily smiled and looked up at the sky. Then he felt a drop fall right in the center of his forehead.

Seconds after the first drop, it started to rain heavily, but the man continued to smile, not caring about getting wet.

The raindrops seeped into the armor, creating a feeling of discomfort, but he turned and looked far away from the battlefield, at the huge, smoking city. Then he raised his sword and shouted as loud as he could.

"I did it!"

The moment he shouted, the image slowly faded to black, and a text appeared on the screen. As the man slowly disappeared from view, the credits slowly started to roll after the message 'Congratulations!'.

"I wonder how long has it been..."

I smiled at the credits that flowed in front of me and got up from my chair with the relief of a weight lifted from my shoulders. I stretched and looked at the clock right next to the computer.

Seven hours huh...

Leaving the credits running on the computer screen as they were, I headed to the kitchen and gulped down the water I had just taken out of the fridge.

Obviously, I was relieved and at peace, because I had come across an unfamiliar ending of a game I had been playing for a long time, but unfortunately, the same could not be said for my body which had been in the same position for seven hours straight...

I poured another glass of water down my throat and went back to my room and sat down in my chair. The credits were still rolling, the names of the producers and animators coming up.

I memorized these names a long time ago, I've seen this scene so many times that I know exactly when it will end: one minute and forty-seven seconds.

Shortly after I sat down in the chair, I counted down from three and the credits ended just as I reached zero. The main screen of the game appeared and I was back in control. So I leaned forward slightly, went into the stats section of the main menu, and looked at my profile.

<<------------------------------

-Aerual Complex-

-6132 Hours Total Game Time

-5118 Hours of Solo Play Time

-1014 Hours of Online Play Time

-Total 132 Story Ends

-Completed Achievements: %100

-Preferred End: Karma Ending

------------------------------>>

I finally managed to get the achievements up to one hundred percent... In just three years, after two hundred and fifty-six days of playing this game, not counting the intervals, I actually finished this game.

This game, "The Lands of Lunerra", stole a huge amount of my time, but I did it...

I smiled again as the memories began to flash through my mind.

When the game first came out, I was seventeen years old, a normal high school senior, I didn't have many friends and I had an ordinary life. I was nothing more than an orphaned kid just hanging out on my own, a simple person who spent all day studying for the university exam...

When I finally passed the exam and was accepted to a very good university with a scholarship, I was introduced to this game thanks to an advertisement I came across while watching a video on the internet.

After days of exam stress, I was quite surprised to see an advertisement for a game whose graphics were not based on realism but on 'fantastic animation'. I still remember my curiosity and excitement when I first saw the advertisement...

I was excited to see such a good game, even though the graphics were in the style of fantasy animation. Because as an eighteen-year-old, fresh out of high school, I was hungry for entertainment.

So after working during the summer vacation and buying myself a good computer, I bought and downloaded the game without thinking too much about it.

The game was exactly as advertised, so there was no rip-off. Of course, it was too early to make such a judgment since I still didn't know the story or the quality of the game, but the 'Story Mode' option that greeted me when I entered the main menu of this game, which managed to attract me with its name and graphics, made me smile involuntarily.

In a time when online games have almost completely taken over the industry, I never warmed up to the 'grind' mechanics and the cycle of completing the same tasks and similar activities.

That's why I always found it more fun to play games that told me brand new stories and gave me pleasure as I 'lived' these stories. I was one of those gamers, which is rare in our time...

I already knew that The Lands of Lunerra had a story mode, but still, with the excitement of a child eating cake for the first time, I clicked the 'play' button. Thus, I started a game that would take two hundred and fifty-six days out of my life in just three years.

The game was set on a different planet. Different kingdoms, different lands, and a completely different world... But on this planet, which is almost the same technologically advanced as our world, one day suddenly all living things fainted and fell asleep.

As all the people fell asleep, accidents plagued the world, and when they woke up, they were greeted by great suffering, but it was nothing yet. Because they had encountered creatures they had never seen on Lunerra.

Creatures that were thought to have appeared out of nowhere had caused great trouble for humanity. Countless people lost their lives because of them, but then people gained skills by acquiring a system similar to today's games. Using this system, they fought the creatures and became stronger, and so on... The story briefly begins eighty years after the 'awakening' of the planet.

Our character was an orphan boy whose parents were killed by someone. It's such a cliché when I think about it. A main character type that can be found in almost every fantasy-based entertainment source and a basic scenario that most people are probably tired of seeing...

But that didn't stop me from playing the game. Because I was drawn to the choices I could make by controlling the main character, the countless paths I could choose to walk with him, and the many endings I could get at the end of the story.

As a result, I finished the game at least once with all the classes, completed quests for all the side characters, realized again and again how detailed the game was, and each time I encountered something for the first time, I was even more excited. With each new ending I finally reached, I literally fell in love with the game.

Being able to communicate with almost all the NPCs in the game, befriending them, forming groups with them, and going on adventures with them was a great satisfaction for me, who didn't have many friends in real life. But no matter how many times I finished the game, my stats always showed ninety-eight percent of the achievements.

So I got ambitious, and after almost a hundred and twenty-one hours of work, now, I've actually finished this game.

I'm happy. I feel absolutely wonderful, but at the same time, I feel... empty? I think something like that.

What drove me to play this game again and again and again was that every time I came back to it, it managed to show me something new, but now I've reached the absolute end...

Now, what should I do with all this free time?

What can I do?

I really love the game, in fact, I doubt I could play anything better than this in my life, so what choice do I have but to accept it?

I paused, closed my eyes, and forced myself to think like this as much as possible, but I couldn't get rid of this dark, endless emptiness inside me.

Finally, I opened my eyes again, frowned, and sighed deeply.

Damn it, this was bound to happen eventually. After all, no game can generate new things forever, and it was pretty clear that I would end up finishing this game and having nothing left to do.

I shouldn't have gotten so attached to a game.

With emptiness in my heart, I looked at the main menu of the game and closed the game with another sigh. Then I leaned back in my chair and watched the ceiling in silence.

I forced myself to laugh, I tried to be happy, and I thought about what I could achieve for the rest of my life. Who knows, maybe I could even become famous for my achievements.

I started to think about the future. And then suddenly, one by one, every single one of these thoughts was interrupted.

My half-smile turned bleakly sour.

Who am I kidding?

I got into a really good university, and my future is bright, yes, but what else do I have? I have never had a 'real' friend or a lover in my entire life. Have I ever tasted real 'happiness'? Even my parents ran away when I was very young, sending me to an orphanage.

Even though I am only twenty-one, and still considered young by society, I have had a rough road. Looking back, most of the smiles I show people are fake. I was never really loved by anyone and that's why I played this game in the first place.

The best solution I could find was to cure this lack of love in me through interesting stories of two-dimensional characters, but now that's over too.

I stared at the ceiling for a while longer, then yawned slightly and realized that I was quite tired, so another annoying thought entered my mind.

Ah, really... it's Sunday. I have to go to class again tomorrow.

I don't want to go ... I already know what they are telling me, but I still have responsibilities.

I lay down on my bed, closed my eyes and decided to go to sleep, but then I remembered that I had forgotten to turn off the computer. Sighing, I forced my aching joints and tried to turn off the computer without sitting in the chair.

That's when a notification on the screen caught my attention.

My eyebrows raised curiously.

I saw that the notification indicated that I had received an email. Then I saw the subject of the email and the sender and completely froze in my tracks.

Forgetting all my joint pains and fatigue, I quickly sat down in the chair and clicked on the notification.

<<------------------------------

-Sender: lunerra****.info@*****.com

-Receiver: aerualcomplex2****@*****.com

-Subject: Congratulations!

Thank you for following us for three years and continuing to play our game! We can see from our system that you are the most frequent and consistent player!

Although this frequency is a bit daunting for your health, we would like to congratulate you for being the first person to reach 100% achievements! Therefore, as the game's production company, we would like to make you an offer. As long as it is within our power and not too extravagant, we would like to fulfill one of your wishes! Please take this email seriously, because if there is something we can do, we definitely want to help you!

------------------------------>>

I stared at the email for a while, checking and rechecking the sender. But no matter how much I looked, it was definitely an email from the game's production company.

Well... I definitely wasn't expecting this.

I took a deep breath, leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes, and thought.

My wish... They told me they would fulfill my wish, but what do I want from life?

Even though I have an ordinary and monotonous life, I am studying at a prestigious university in a department where I can earn a lot of money in the future. So money is not a problem, and I am not a money-hungry person.

I read the email a few more times and then clicked 'reply'. I thought for a long time about what to write, but when I realized that I couldn't think of anything, I smiled involuntarily.

Why am I thinking? If I think about it, will I really be able to convey my wish to them...? No, I don't think so.

Wİth this thought in my mind, I stopped thinking and started writing down the first thoughts that came to me.

I didn't care if it was irrational or emotional, I just wrote what was in my heart at that moment and then sent my response.

<<------------------------------

I don't want to be an ordinary person.

------------------------------>>

I looked at what I had written, and kept looking, my eyes widening as the silence in the room reached a frightening level.

I... What kind of response did I send to a giant game company?! How could I type these eight words and then hit 'send'...?!

I could feel myself starting to blush with embarrassment, but then I saw a notification pop up at the bottom right of the screen.

They replied to my email pretty quickly...

W-wait a minute...

They answered my email! They read what I sent!

I felt the embarrassment more clearly than I had ever felt before in my entire life, I even started to sweat. But I still clicked on the email reply, I was curious.

<<------------------------------

It sounds like you've had a hard life... Yet we know a solution that will do you good! But for that, we need your approval, are you really tired of the mediocrity of this life?

------------------------------>>


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
WindskyW WindskyW

So, here it is... my novel's first chapter. I really hope you liked it, feel free to express your opinions!

Chapter 3: Volume I - Chapter 2: A Familiar Place

I just stared at the screen when the company that made The Lands of The Lunerra answered my e-mail seriously, instead of mocking or making fun of me in various ways.

The makers of the game that made me smile and feel sad so many times in my meaningless and ordinary life gave a serious answer to my ridiculous wish... did they?

Am I... am I dreaming?

The reason I got out of bed was that I forgot to turn off the computer, what if I really slept in that short time?

I quickly pinched my arm and tapped my cheeks twice with my hands. Yet nothing changed, I was in reality.

Ah, this is the 'reality'...

It is really real.

I turned back to the computer screen, looked at the email for a while, and sighed again.

Maybe I'm being played a joke, maybe they will laugh at me after I reply, but still... I still want to take a chance.

Even if this is the joke of the century, for the first time in my life I want to trust someone.

To this end, my fingers met the keyboard again. I stopped thinking again and started typing the first thoughts that came to my mind.

Am I going to write something embarrassing? So what?

Will people make fun of me? I don't care about any of that.

I just... I want to do what comes from my heart, I want to speak freely, without any restrictions.

<<------------------------------

I'm an orphan. I am not trying to pity myself, but I am a lonely person. All my life I have never had a friend, a loving family, or a lover. The only time I really had fun in my ordinary and monotonous life was when I was playing your game, The Lands of The Lunerra.

I'm studying a good major at a good university, so I don't have one foot in the grave. Nevertheless, I am sure there is nothing in this ordinary life that would make me happier than your game. Thank you for your attention, even if this was a joke, you helped me get it off my chest. At least I feel relieved.

------------------------------>>

So I sent the email without a second thought.

I read what I sent all the way through, then again and again. My facial expression didn't change even a little bit, I didn't really feel embarrassed this time.

Honestly, I felt relieved. It felt strangely good to just express myself with my feelings, without thinking, without any barriers.

I didn't think it would be like this.

~ri-ring!

Oh, the company responded to my email again quite quickly.

How do these guys read, evaluate and respond to emails so fast? They're talking about granting a wish... This is serious, shouldn't they have an assembly or something?

Anyway, let's see what response they sent.

<<------------------------------

Thank you for revealing your true feelings! Please click HERE for the help we would like to offer you!

------------------------------>>

To be honest, I was expecting something like a greeting card.

After reading the text on the screen again, an idea popped into my mind. I paused for a moment, then sighed deeply.

I... I guess I haven't even spoken to a human being. There's a good chance that I've opened my heart to some artificial intelligence created by the company. Because no human being, let alone a company, can answer an email like that so fast.

Still... I will trust them, I will believe in the Land of Lunerra.

That's how I clicked on the link they sent, holding on to this tiny ray of hope inside me.

After clicking the link, I waited for a while, holding my breath.

The room fell silent, not a single sound came out. Second after second, then a few minutes passed. The silence in my room just continued, and after a while it even became scary. So I finally stopped holding my breath when nothing really happened.

My computer is one of those at the top end of the overall market. So 'slow' is out of the question.

In short... I got ripped off.

I smiled slightly, looked at the 'here' sign, and clicked on it again. Again and again, nothing happened.

Nothing...

My smile widened, and my anger rose inside me. I jumped to my feet, looking for the closest thing to me, and I found it. I grabbed my chair, and without even waiting a moment, I threw it against the wall.

The chair broke into two, maybe three, pieces. A big black stain appeared on the wall I had just painted. I looked at the chair for a while, then at the stain on the wall. I felt the emptiness inside me grow.

What did I expect? I had been tricked by someone and frankly... my heart was broken.

Furious, I threw myself on my bed, not caring to turn off the computer.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I put the piece of clothing in my sleeve to my face.

I thought about my life, my childhood, and the days I spent in the orphanage. The friends I thought I had made, the people who followed me like leeches after my successes.

The people who approached me in every way not because of who I am, but because of what I have done at this age and what I can do in the future...

A smile reappeared on my face, a wide smile without any hint of happiness. A smile that the arm I used to hide my eyes was not enough to hide.

Just before going to sleep, I nervously glanced at the bright screen of the computer one last time, with a small hope. What I saw was the same scene I had seen before I jumped up.

A low, whisper-like voice echoed in the silence. My voice, the sound of my laughter. And then... suddenly, as my laughter was slowly intensifying, my vision suddenly blurred.

"H-ha?"

I felt nauseous before I even realized what had happened. Something bitter rose in my throat and I wanted to vomit. I jumped out of bed and tried to run to the bathroom, but with the first step I took into the room, I felt the weakness in my legs and found myself on the floor.

Then I felt something else, the blood rushing through my veins, trying to leave my body as if it were pressurized water. An intense pain, centered in my chest, suddenly began to squeeze my heart. I put my hand over my heart, trying to separate the fingers that were holding it, squeezing it as if to burst it, but there was no such thing.

With that, countless different thoughts sprouted in my mind, yet the most prominent one was clear.

Am I... having what they call a heart attack? I'm only twenty-one and I'm having a heart attack... How many other ridiculous things can happen to me?

Am I... am I going to die like this? Is this the absurdity of my ordinary, monotonous, and painful life?

No...

I... I don't want to die

I don't want to die!

"H-Hel-"

My half-formed words froze in an instant. Because I had managed to see something with my already blurred vision.

It was an image on my computer screen. It was the small notification of an e-mail that appeared at the bottom right of the computer screen.

<<------------------------------

:D

------------------------------>>

Time stopped in an instant. My eyes widened as if to ignore the pain.

And then... the whole world was plunged into darkness.

******

I... I think I'm dead.

Well, I say "I think" because I'm not sure.

I'm just in the dark. I can't feel my body, but at least it doesn't hurt anymore.

So I must be dead, right?

I looked at the dense, endless darkness around me and waited for a while.

Anyway, when people die, aren't they supposed to go to heaven or hell? Although they might not be going to either of them... This dark void, for example, doesn't look like either of them.

Where am I?

Actually... Am I not a bit too calm? Is it normal for someone who has died to react like this, and even more so for someone who has experienced a sudden and unexpected death like mine

It's strange, to think about it and yet not be afraid... It's definitely strange, but I guess there's nothing I can do about it.

I looked around me for a while, but I couldn't see any light source or any other being other than myself, so I realized something else.

In fact, I couldn't even see my own body, much less my surroundings, so I just sat down and waited. Although, I don't even know if I actually sat down.

It seems that the only thing I can do in this dark void where I am not even sure if I am alive, let alone sitting, is to wait and keep thinking for a long time...

*******

What is the reason why people are afraid of the dark?

According to an article I read, it is because of the unknown. As long as there is light, a person can see what is around them, but when they are in the dark, they have no idea what is there. So the first thing that comes to mind is that there is some kind of danger.

That's why people are afraid of the dark. Because they don't know what will come out of it.

And I... just stood there in total darkness, with no senses at all, and for so long that I lost track of time.

I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't feel my muscles, I couldn't move my body. There was no smell or presence, no sensation of cold or heat, just pure and endless darkness surrounding me.

I was not a person who was afraid of the dark, but I could still feel myself slowly going mad with the despair of the unknown.

If I could feel my fingers, I would have probably started gnawing on them out of fear a long time ago. That smile I saw on the computer screen just before my presumed 'death' and where I was now, prevented me from thinking clearly and scared the hell out of me, but there was nothing I could do. So as time went on, I became more and more afraid.

If the producers of The Land of Lunerra are responsible for what happened to me, and it's impossible for me to think of anything else after that smile I saw before I died, did they really think that something like this would make me happy by removing the mediocrity from my life?

Are they crazy...? Although... how did they manage to do such a thing in the first place?

As my pointless thoughts clawed at the last remaining fiber of my will, I began to feel my mind fading.

If I spend a few more hours here, there will probably be no more 'me' in the world.

I will go mad, not just die, but go insane just standing here.

Just then, as I was slowly disappearing into my thoughts, something happened.

The endless darkness suddenly shimmered with an extremely intense light. It was so intense, so bright, that I closed my eyes, but it wasn't enough, I had to shield my eyes with my arms.

And then, I paused. I realized something, something that felt strange; something that shouldn't have happened.

I have... hands? I even have eyes?

Slowly I moved my hands away from my eyes, so the first thing I saw was a white wall.

I focused on the wall, and when I did, I realized that it was more of a ceiling than a wall. Excited to see a real 'thing' after a long time, I sat up and looked where I was.

I was in a strange room, quite plain and small, but actually quite tidy, with monochromatic and smooth walls, a single, average-sized desk, a mirror, double-doored closet, and the bed I was currently lying on... all of this felt 'familiar' to me for some reason.

Why does this place feel so familiar?

I continued to look around curiously, but it wasn't long before I was shocked by a sudden thought.

When I confirmed my thoughts with the design of the room, I slapped myself in disbelief, but I still didn't wake up from the dream in any way.

Thus, experiencing feelings of fear, surprise, shock, curiosity, and most importantly excitement all at the same time, I thought that I had really gone crazy and started to hallucinate while staying in that darkness.

It took me a long time to realize that the fantastic animation-style graphics I had seen on the computer screen had now turned into realistic graphics, but I was sure.

This room, with its design and all the other details that gave me a heavy sense of intimacy, was clearly the room where the second part of the story mode of the game The Lands of The Lunerra began.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
WindskyW WindskyW

I'm sorry if I made mistakes in the use of language while translating. I am trying to improve, but as I said, this is my first work with English. I hope it's not that bad.

Load failed, please RETRY

Gifts

Gift -- Gift received

    Weekly Power Status

    Batch unlock chapters

    Table of Contents

    Display Options

    Background

    Font

    Size

    Chapter comments

    Write a review Reading Status: C2
    Fail to post. Please try again
    • Writing Quality
    • Stability of Updates
    • Story Development
    • Character Design
    • World Background

    The total score 0.0

    Review posted successfully! Read more reviews
    Vote with Power Stone
    Rank 200+ Power Ranking
    Stone 12 Power Stone
    Report inappropriate content
    error Tip

    Report abuse

    Paragraph comments

    Login

    tip Paragraph comment

    Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.

    Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.

    GOT IT