Afterlife Dream

After all the players made their choices, the mechanical voice spoke up again.

"Dear Adventurers, congratulations on having completed the level 50 raid, 'The Wrath of the Fire Golem'. Some heroes come to stay, some heroes come to leave. You now have two paths in front of you. The left door will take you out of the game, and the right door will bring you back to the game. Should you decide to exit the game, please make sure that you have no more untraded Life Points in your inventory. Untraded Life Points will be lost after you cross the door to leave the game."

I took a deep breath and saw two intricately carved wooden doors materialize in front of us. The left door was painted blue with tears forming the word "LEAVE" while the right one was painted yellow with flowers forming the word "STAY".

The four players who intended to leave stared at the doors for a long time, and then the girls started to cry. The boys were emotionally shaken, but they blinked away the tears and smiled nervously at each other.

Agathea and Timothy winked me over, then they traded me one by one. They both gave me a few scrolls, stones, and also potions.

"These are the items that we just got from our Surprise Raid Gift boxes. For you. Good luck in Afterlife Dream."

"But I..."

My words were stuck in my throat. I had nothing to give them.

Agathea took my hands and squeezed them.

"It's alright. Thank you for making this one last memorable run for the both of us."

Agathea and Timothy held hands and walked toward the left door.

"Wait!" I shouted.

They turned to look at me in confusion.

"Is this really what you want? Are you not going to regret it?"

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The two players in front of me exchanged bright smiles.

"Nope. It is time for a new adventure."

The door opened with a creaking sound, revealing a bright, blinding white light behind it. Agathea and Timothy walked in hand-in-hand, and they too disappeared into the light.

After that, it was Lilianne's and JunHo's turn. They just finished exchanging the last hugs with their guildmates and were now also heading toward the door.

"Thank you, Antares and Lazarus, for selling us the helmets. Good-bye, everyone."

"Bye, Lily!"

"Bye, Jun!!! Have a great life ahead!!!"

And then they too disappeared behind the door. All of us went silent for some time after the door was closed. The four people left just like that. One day, we too, would leave the same way and left everything behind.

"Exiting the game" was no different from dying, only that it was something that you decided for yourself. You could stay for as long as you wanted, just like Cecilia who did not want to leave ever, or you could stay just for a short period of time. I opened my user interface screen again and stared at the seven Life Points that I got. What about me? How many Life Points did I want before I decided to leave? Did I even want to leave? These couple of weeks in Afterlife Dream had been more exciting than my whole life on earth.

"Let's go," ZhaoYun broke the silence.

We all might be wondering about the same thing. When were we going to go through that left door?

Until then, we would still pick the right door faithfully, returning to the world of Afterlife Dream again and again until we decided to leave.

As soon as I arrived at the safe map, I went to visit the Life Points NPC. I had never bothered to check the list of benefits that players could trade against Life Points before. I was of course curious, but what was the use of looking at those things when I did not have Life Points to trade with? I didn't want to dream day and night about things that I could not yet get.

Although I had yet to loot my own Fire Golem Helmet, the success of today's raid meant everything to me. When I closed my eyes, I could relive the one-hour raid again. It was so great. It was great to work with dependable people and achieved something. It was great to get my first Life Points.

I swallowed my saliva and then clicked on the Life Points NPC. A list of life benefits was shown to me.

Male Gender - 500 Life Points

Female Gender - 500 Life Points

Intelligence - 500 Life Points

Beauty - 500 Life Points

Health - 1000 Life Points

Riches - 1000 Life Points

...

My God. I could not imagine exiting the game without trading in at least 10,000 Life Points. I did not understand why the four players left so early. The list went on and on. The more I saw, the more I wanted.

"Impressive list, isn't it?"

I was caught off guard and my soul almost jumped out of my body. HellWitch was standing next to her, her eyes pinned on the Life Points Trade List in front of me.

"Hey, Antares, why did you die in your previous life?"

I blinked at HellWitch. She and I knew each other for fifty levels already, a couple of weeks of game time. But we had never talked about gloomy topics such as death. I had the talk with Kitty because she told me her cause of death before she asked me about mine. I did not talk about this matter with anyone else. Now that HellWitch asked me about it, I felt my face go numb.

She interpreted my silence and darkened face as a refusal to speak, so she forced herself to smile and shook her head, gesturing for us to drop the topic.

"It's alright, Antares. Sorry I asked."

HellWitch turned to leave. I stared at her lonely back as she walked away, and then before I knew it, I called out to her.

"HellWitch, wait."

HellWitch turned around to face me. Her mouth was slightly open in amazement.

We stood there together in front of the Life Points Trade List, and I told her how I died.

"I was weak since birth. After a few years, my immune system started to fail and I became vulnerable to every trivial illness. What killed me, in the end, was pneumonia. I was only fourteen."

I was only fourteen.

That sentence caused tears to well up in my eyes. I cleared my throat and looked away, trying my best to blink away the tears.

I also did not know why I talked so much about it. I only told Kitty that I was sick. I should have not said that much. It was depressing.

I glanced up at HellWitch and our eyes met. After a while, she averted her eyes.

"I am sorry to hear, Antares."

I shook my head. What was there to be sorry about? I was born that way. No one did anything bad to me.

"Laz and I were abandoned by our parents," HellWitch started to talk. "I was sixteen years old and Laz was ten years old."

Ten! I widened my eyes in shock. So young!

"It started when Dad found himself a mistress. The mistress came to our house one day when Dad was not home. She demanded Dad to take responsibility for... for the baby in her stomach."

HellWitch looked queasy when she talked about it, but she continued.

"Mom was so mad. That night, our parents fought fiercely. We heard all sorts of things, about Dad being forced to marry Mom because Mom came from a rich family and so on. Things that we did not know until that very moment. And then... Mom, she left to go back home. Dad also left, maybe to live with his mistress.

Laz and I were left alone in that house, all by ourselves.

Initially, I did not know that we had been abandoned. I thought maybe our parents just forgot to notify us that they had to go out for a while. We managed to survive for around two months. Then I understood the situation. My parents were not coming back. My grandparents from both sides of the family were no longer alive, and there were no relatives to ask for help from. I went to the police station to inquire about my parents' whereabouts. They in turn inquired about how we were doing and I told them everything."

"I don't know whether they managed to find my parents or not. What I know was that two days later, a lady from the social service came with three police officers to escort us away. In the end, Laz and I went to an orphanage. We were not used to living in an orphanage, but at least we were fed and taken care of. I used to play MMORPG to distract myself from the unhappy life, and I got Laz to play with me as well."

HellWitch pulled her lips into a thin line.

"That was how we started to play Afterlife Dream together."

"One day, the orphanage caught fire. Everyone was evacuated in time but then Laz... Laz went back in because he said he forgot something."