Chapter 4

Reyna-

After I spoke, he released my wrist and stopped walking. “This map hasn’t been made to the public yet. It is still under development and will be released later in the game. This is the only place in the game where we can speak without being discovered.”

I didn’t know what was more surprising, the fact that he actually responded to my question, or that his response was proof enough that he was indeed Luka Alder, the CEO of Wolf Tech, and the creator of Arcane Realm.

“Why do we need to be worried about being discovered?”

“Because what I am about to tell you, needs to stay between us. Since you are hellbent on looking for me, I have no choice but to trust you.”

My eyes widened at his statement, but I didn’t say anything, since I didn’t know what to say. He sounded serious, which meant there was no time for jokes right now. Although, I wanted to laugh about the situation.

“Do you promise not to tell anyone that you saw me?” He asked with a stern expression on his face.

“I promise.”

He didn’t jump right in to explain what was going on, but I didn’t rush him either. He turned and walked away a few steps, muttering something under his breath that I couldn’t understand. When he turned to face me again, he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I don’t really know you, but I was the one who hired you personally. You seem like someone I can trust, but I swear if I find out otherwise, you will live to regret it. I understand what I am about to tell you seems crazy, but I realize I can’t do this alone.” He stopped talking and sighed as he dropped his hand from behind his neck.

“You can trust me. I haven’t told anyone that I saw you earlier.” I reassured him and then waited for him to continue.

“You mentioned earlier that I have been missing for a week, but the thing is, I am not missing. I have been trapped inside this game for the past week. I logged into the game after it was released to the public and since then, I haven’t been able to log out.”

He was right, it did sound crazy. “Maybe there is a problem with your headgear. I could look at it and see if I could fix it.” I offered, my brows pinching together as I tried to think of another reason that he can’t log out.

“I already know that it isn’t my gear. This wasn’t the first time I have used it and I made sure that everything was working correctly before I logged on. It is my account that has been altered. If you haven’t noticed, my username doesn’t appear above my head, like yours does.”

“Then I can look at your account…” I tried suggesting but he interrupted me.

“You aren’t getting what I am telling you! Someone messed with my account and now I am stuck inside the game. If I die in here, I will die for real!” He was yelling at this point, although I didn’t blame him.

What he was saying had me freaking out. The idea that a player could be trapped inside the game and not be able to get out was scary enough. Add in the factor that if you die in the game, you die for real, was even worse. It made me want to log out immediately and never log in again.

Looking at Luka, I tried to understand what he must be feeling right now. If he has been trapped inside the game for a week, how has he managed to survive? There might not be many high-level monsters in the first level, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t in constant danger.

He could get attacked by another player and be killed. In every game I have ever played, there were players that enjoyed killing other players. With this game, if you kill another player, you can loot their items and take a portion of their gold pieces.

Not just the in-game dangers, but if he hasn’t eaten or anything in the past week, how was he still alive in the real world? The image of him being somewhere unknown, lying down in his own body fluids and weak from not eating or drinking anything was hard to stomach. Stepping away from him, my hand covered my stomach, which was now coiling at the thought.

The urge to throw up was overpowering. Managing to push down the feeling, I took a deep breath to calm myself. Just then an automated alert popped up.

“Your heart rate is increasing to a dangerous level, if you don’t calm yourself, you will be forced to log out.” The automated voice spoke.

“Maybe telling you this wasn’t a good idea.” Luka muttered.

“I am fine.” I assured him.

“I was going to ask for your help, but I can’t afford to have you be forced to log out if we were in a situation that would cause you high levels of stress.”

I knew I would regret it, but I also didn’t think he would mind, given the current circumstances. “Would it help to know that I hacked in to override safety features in my personal headgear?”

The look of anger that flashed over his face, had me cringe, but it was gone just as quickly as it appeared. He let out a long sigh, before rubbing the back of his neck. I have come to learn that he did that when he was frustrated. I noticed he did that a lot when I saw him at the office in the past.

“I suppose there isn’t anything I can do about it now. In any case, I do need help and you might be the only one that can help me. Given your status in the company as well as your knowledge of the game, you are my best bet.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to help me beat the game, so I can access the control room that is built inside the game. It would help if we could spend real money on the game, but since I don’t have access to my banks, there isn’t much I can do there. I doubt you have the kind of funds we would need either. There are a lot of hidden features in the game that will help us beat it, but some require certain missions that I can’t do myself. All throughout the game there are easter eggs that I have planted. I don’t know where they all are since they were randomly placed.”

I didn’t need to think about it, as I already knew that I was willing to do anything to help him. If he really could die in the game and in real life, there was no way I was going to deny him either. Since playing games is my job and something I was good at, he was right about how I might be his best bet.

“I will do it.” I answered without delay.

My quick response seemed to catch him off guard, because he gave me a strange look, as if he didn’t believe me. Flashing him with a cheeky smile, I didn’t break our eye contact. Only after he relaxed did he start speaking again.

“Then I need you to put in a request to work from home. I know you will need to go to the office when you are needed, but if I am going to have any luck in getting out of here, I need your help as much as possible.”

“That won’t be a problem. All requests for time off in my department or to work remotely, go through me. I will post a notice that I will be away from the office for the time being.”

“I forgot you were promoted a few months ago, to head of your department.” He looked away from me as he looked to be deep in thought.

I was honestly surprised he knew I had been promoted a few months ago. From what he said earlier, he didn’t know me. I am starting to wonder how true that was. It wasn’t like my promotion had turned into a big event at the office, so how did he know?

Just because he was the CEO, didn’t mean he knew everything within the other departments. For him to know about my promotion, filled me with pleasure. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel as if he had noticed me.

“Okay, well if we are going to do this, you are going to need to level up. Based on the way you fought earlier, your level is still relatively low.” His attention returned to me, and he cocked a brow at me. “What I don’t understand is how a beta tester has such a low level.”

“I restarted my account today. I wanted to get the full experience basically and start from scratch since there have been a lot of updates. Being that I was already ahead of everyone else, I missed out on a lot of the updates that players get based on their levels. I also didn’t want to be so far ahead of everyone that I would be playing on my own most of the time.”

“Okay, I see your point. It would have been helpful if you hadn’t restarted though. It will be okay regardless; I will help you level up as quickly as possible. Since I haven’t been able to beat the first-level boss, I haven’t been able to advance, but my level is fairly good.”

If he has been stuck inside the game for an entire week, I would bet his level was more than good. If it was high, I didn’t understand why he couldn’t beat the first-level boss. When I played the beta version, I played solo, so I know it is possible.

I thought about asking him but decided that it would potentially insult him if I mentioned that it was possible to beat it solo. It could be possible that he wanted to ensure that he didn’t die, which would make sense. If I were stuck in here like he was, I wouldn’t want to rush in to fight a boss on my own.

Since he seemed to want to stay under the radar, it would make sense why he didn’t ask for help from other players. If others found out that he was stuck in the game, it would destroy the company he built. The game could potentially get shut down as well, meaning he would be stuck here forever.

“If we are going to do this, we need to get to the second floor as soon as possible. There are missions that we will need to do, to get the things we need to beat the game. So far no one has beaten the first boss, so if we hurry, we can get the rare items before anyone else.”

I guess my idea of players that spend money on the game have made it up to at least level three. With the game being open to the public for an entire week, it didn’t make sense. The game wasn’t impossible to beat, although it wasn’t easy either.

“Why hasn’t anyone beaten the first boss? It isn’t difficult, especially for a guild or for someone that spends money on the game.”

“Everyone is content with staying on the first level and leveling up. While there isn’t much to offer at this level, for new players they are more interested in exploring a new world. You should know better than anyone that when playing a new game to this degree, they are wanting to learn everything they can. Unlike the real world, this world is full of possibilities.”

“That makes sense. Well, what do we need to do first?”

“Actually, there is something we need to do, but you probably aren’t going to like it.” He muttered softly.

“What is it?”

“We need to get married.” He spoke so faintly that I barely heard him or thought I hadn’t heard him correctly.

“I am sorry, come again?”

“I said we need to get married in the game.” He repeated, this time louder and firmer.