บท 2: The Greater Beyond

Roughly an hour had passed since Valyr realized that he had reincarnated into the game that caused his untimely demise, turning into one of the numerous NPCs that existed within it.

Using this knowledge to his advantage, he decided to talk to the person driving the carriage he had woken up in, gradually becoming closer with the man throughout this time.

"You know, we've already talked about so many things, but I still haven't gotten your name yet," the man said all of a sudden, faintly chuckling as he wrapped his arm around Valyr's shoulder.

"It's Valyr," said Valyr in response, slightly smiling. "How about you, sir? What's your name?"

"Do you really have to call me sir? It kind of feels off to be calling someone like me that." In response, the man let out an awkward chuckle. "Anyways, you can call me Tryndall. I'm glad to have someone like you accompany me on this boring journey."

"I'm glad you feel that way." Valyr nodded. "Anyways, there's something that's been bothering me for a while."

"As long as the problem ain't financial, I am all ears," Tryndall joked in response. "What's up?"

"Well, I've been wondering as to how I ended up on your carriage," Valyr looked at the man beside him. "Don't you think it's a bit weird for a person to be on a carriage all of a sudden?"

"Though it is weird, you didn't really hop on my carriage all of a sudden," Tryndall clarified. "Did you perhaps forget how you got here?"

"Kind of, yeah." Hearing the man's question, Valyr could only nod.

"Well, with how you've acted the past couple of days, I don't blame you for forgetting." In response, Tryndall faintly shrugged his shoulders "Anyways, you hopped on my carriage a couple of nights ago after giving me a bit of money to let you hop on. Since you looked like you wanted to go someplace else, and the fact that you gave me money, I agreed."

"In fact, it was only after you were sure I let you hitch on my carriage did you finally go out cold."

"Not gonna lie, I was kind of worried since you were dead asleep throughout the journey so far. For a while, I thought I'd also be hauling along a corpse to where I was heading," the man added.

Listening to Tryndall's narration, Valyr pondered over his current circumstances for a bit, wondering if his character was a unique case. Though, by the end of his searching, he did not really find anything that stood out in his memories when it came to his first name.

However, the same thing could not be said for the surname he had been given.

"Zeihardt…" murmured Valyr to himself, only to place the thought at the back of his head for now as he talked a bit more with Tryndall regarding a few things. Eventually, after some time, he offered to Tryndall that he would drive the carriage while the latter could take a rest, to which the latter agreed to.

After telling Valyr everything he needed to know while manning the carriage, Tryndall headed to the back of the carriage while Valyr was left at the front, looking at the sight in front of him with a slightly hopeful expression.

'I still find it surprising that I've been directly reincarnated into Greater Beyond as an NPC,' thought the young man to himself.

Being the game that led to the demise of the entire Earth, Greater Beyond was actually a worldwide hit in his past life, being the only True Immersion VRMMORPG to have every person in the world playing the game. Then again, such a feat was only achieved by the game once it was in its later versions.

Nevertheless, because of this, the company behind the game decided to use it to their advantage, turning them into beings whose whole life revolved around the game, even going so far as to control it.

Unsurprisingly, news about this gradually spread throughout the planet, eventually causing a faction opposing this to be established. As someone who did not want others to dictate how to live their lives, Valyr had ended up becoming part of said faction.

Though, with how he had been given a second shot at making things right, it went without saying that their faction had lost, realizing what was happening just a little bit too late.

Because of that, Valyr was determined to make sure that their side would actually have a chance at winning the final battle this time around. In fact, he was planning on making preparations for it before it even reached that point just to increase their chances even further.

"From what Tryndall told me earlier, our carriage is on its way to Astarto Village," said the young man to himself, engrossing himself in his own thoughts. "Though it would've been preferable for me to head to a town or a city, it's still not a bad place to start grinding levels and gaining experience."

"Then again, I guess it would be safer for me to start my journey in a village, especially with how much knowledge I know about the game." Thinking about the things he would do once he got to the village, his thoughts soon wandered off to something else.

"Now that I think about it, I'm quite lucky to be reborn in the world of Veldanyr… though being reborn on Azgares wouldn't be much of a problem either."

Although Greater Beyond was a game that allowed players to travel to multiple universes in its later versions, in the early versions, players were only limited to certain planets, which were dubbed starter planets by the game. Depending on the race one chose, they would spawn on a certain starter planet.

For those who chose the human race, there were only two starter planets to choose from: Azgares, a planet where magic reigned supreme, and Veldanyr, a planet that resembled quite a lot of medieval fantasy stories in terms of setting.

As for the village he and Tryndall were heading to, Astarto Village, it was actually classified as one of the many starter villages in the world of Veldanyr. In other words, a place where players gradually acclimated to the world of Greater Beyond and gradually branched off from there.

"System, show me my stat screen." Feeling like he had looked at the landscape surrounding him for long enough, Valyr decided to make sure that what he'd seen earlier wasn't a dream by trying out a command he usually recited.

Fortunately for him, a screen appeared in front of him in response, prompting him to let out a faint sigh of relief as he focused his attention on the information that appeared on it.

Ding!

————

[Valyr Zeihardt]

Class: Civilian (Rank 0)

Species: Human

Level: 1

Power Level: 9 (C)

————

HP: 10/10

MP: 10/10

Stats: 1 VIT, 1 STR, 1 AGI, 1 DEX, 1 INT, 1 WIS, 1 PER, 1 LUK (1 unassigned point)

Remarks: Nothing stands out. Incredibly normal.

————

While looking at his status screen, his attention was quickly attracted by the line of text located near the very bottom of the screen.

[Version 0.1b of Greater Beyond starts in 60 days!]

"Version 0.1b… Version… wait a second. Ain't that the closed beta version?" Rummaging through his memories, he eventually recalled that there existed a version before the first public version was released, a version only available to a select lucky few that were chosen.

Surprisingly, even though the market for VRMMORPGs was saturated at the time, the closed version had generated a lot of hype it thanks to the people who were able to play it, causing all stock of the game in various stores to be sold out once the public version was released.

In fact, the supply of the game at the beginning was so bad that Valyr had to bite the bullet and buy a copy from a scalper.

"Considering how the company was the first to introduce cutting-edge time dilation technology, these 60 days only apply to us NPCs, probably," he muttered, closing the screen as he committed the information from his status screen to memory, performing a few calculations in his mind not long after.

"If the time ratio is still the same as how I remember, then that means a couple dozen players will be able to access this game in about a week or so from now. Then again, that's only if the ratio's still a week to one."

Pondering over it for a bit more, a light smile eventually appeared on his face as he decided to change a few of the things he had planned to do once he got to the village.

"Well then. I wonder if I can make some considerable progress before the 60 days are up?"

"I guess only time will tell."