PRELUDE

Part One

    A Life in the World of Online Game

    At the usual spot... and the usual time…

    If one looked towards the area of the colorful herbal flower garden, they would see a young man lying amidst the soft grass, allowing the breeze to sweep across his face, causing his black hair to flutter gently, much like a sleeping prince awaiting a princess's kiss.

    The atmosphere was so quiet and peaceful, it was relaxing and delightful at the same time. It was no wonder he liked it here, lying down all day without a worry for the sun or the rain.

    ‘Is it time already?’

    He thought to himself as he slowly opened his eyes, shielding them from the sunlight with his hand. The aromatic scent of herbs around him touched his nose, but it didn’t change his impassive expression in the slightest.

    Since birth... this expressionless, distant face, devoid of emotion, had been a part of him.

    It was not like his sensory nerves were numb.

    'Don’t want to go anywhere…’

    Frost thought to himself while inhaling the natural scents around him.

    And he had this kind of thought every time he lay down within a world built with modern technology,

    A world named Hero Land.

As a medical student, he studied intensely every day. Even though it was just his first year, he hardly had any time to rest, making him rely on this virtual world.

    The game Hero Land was an online game that was known by everyone.

    Because everything in the game—from the images, scents, sounds, to the touch—although one knew it was a virtual world, one could not help but thought it was as realistic as another world of human.

    Ding!

    A notification sound rang, snapping him back to awareness.

    Frost moved his finger to press on the face of his wristwatch, which originated the sound just moments ago, to execute a command from the system.

    It was time to leave here.

    Suddenly, a glowing Hologram screen lighted up in front of him.

    He looked at the familiar screen impassively, sliding his finger to the final command:

    ‘Exit game’

As his fingertip pressed the button, a new screen popped up swiftly with a message reinforcing the action.

    ‘So boring indeed.’

    He closed his eyelids to prepare for the encounter with the real world and the incredibly mundane life of an ordinary college student.

    The timer counted down every second until he could move his body that lay in the machine that brought him into this virtual reality. This meant he had successfully exited from Hero Land, the famously popular online game of the era.

    Little did he know, for him…

    The online game was merely a place to lie down and breathe in the natural scents when tired.