Martial Online.

[You have been infected by the Black Smoke of Verhan!]

[You are forbidden from entering Martial Online as long as you are infected!]

[Time till your avatar is purified: 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds]

'Oh, great!' Ambrose groaned, but his sound didn't travel anywhere. He was floating aimlessly in black space while looking at the messages in front of him.

'I will be left behind others unless I somehow earn crazy rewards from the event, but I doubt it. I failed to kill the boss after all... I wonder if they managed to kill him.'

Ambrose opened his interface, but a strange scene happened.

***

[Name: Ambrose]

[Level: ???]

[Class: Swordsman]

[Title: ]

[XP: ???/???]

[HP: ???/??]

[SP: ???]

[Silver: 0]

[STR: 10]

[CHA: 5]

[INT: 8]

[LUC: 6]

[AGI: 1]

[VIT: 20]

[DEX: 15]

[STA: 15]

***

'Strange...' Ambrose thought after seeing all the question marks. 'I also lost my silvers. Well, there was only five anyway.'

He pressed on log out button and disappeared.

...

After Jesse opened his eyes, he took out the VR headset and placed it gently on the bedside table. He then took out his phone and checked the news to see if they had any updates about the situation.

It took him barely a second to find the news he was waiting for.

[Players from Amaterasu successfully defeated the boss of World Quest!]

[A World Announcement appeared on the skies of Martial Online!]

Jesse saw the image, which showed the world announcement in all its glory.

[WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT: Dark Magician, Karma has been defeated - Rewards will be calculated and given tomorrow night!]

'They did it...' Jesse closed the phone and sighed deeply. He felt sad that he couldn't kill the Dark Magician himself, but he was glad that he still died.

"I wonder how much damage I dealt to him in the end..." He pocketed his phone and looked blankly at the ceiling.

"Kill, huh..."

He still felt the sensation on his fingertips—the sensation of absolute power. Kill was something that changed his demeanor entirely, and it was indeed a powerful skill, but he wasn't sure how to use it in the future.

"It is a powerful skill, but I can't deactivate the skill. That is a huge side effect, and I can't waste the skill scroll and decide not to use it." Jesse sighed and fixed the position of the pillows under his head.

"I need to start hunting for skill scrolls, but where can I start doing that? Rich might help me, and I can also show my skill... I wonder how he reacts to my suicidal skill, hah." Jesse let out a strained chuckle. "Also, players seem to have a much easier time creating skills than NPCs.

"Rich said that he tried for two decades to create skills, but I could do it just by thinking what I wanted. The skill scroll decided how the skill worked and the side effects, etc., but it is clear that players can create it fairly easily.

"Well, maybe not easily; I might have been lucky. I don't know yet, and this whole skill creation is quite a mystery for now."

Jesse sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I am sleep deprived. I might as well catch up with sleep while I can't play."

He closed his eyes and fell asleep in bed without caring that his stomach was rumbling with hunger.

...

The next morning, Jesse woke up rather early and hurried to the bathroom before moving to the kitchen to eat. He was the first one to wake up in the household.

But while he was munching on food, he heard heavy footsteps coming from upstairs. His body tensed, and he soon saw his parents talking while moving over to the kitchen. They saw him but didn't say a word about him and instead moved on making food.

Terry, Jesse's father, put coffee brewing and grabbed a newspaper from the kitchen desk. He leaned on the cabinet and started reading it while waiting for his coffee to finish brewing.

Maria, on the other hand, started making breakfast.

"Hmph, all the news is about that game these days." Terry shook his head disappointedly. "The media has truly fallen down. Where are important news stories about the newly appointed minister and about foreign news?"

Jesse perked up his ears while silently eating the oatmeal cereal.

"I heard about Lydia's son, who has a respectable job in the union, spending all day inside that game. He wakes up, eats, and then goes straight to the game. She is afraid of his well-being because she doesn't even see her son anymore." Maria said.

"Hmph." Terry shook his head sternly. "He has a well-paying job; why bother spending time on a game that has no value in the long term? You can't make money by playing games!"

'I managed to.' Jesse thought to himself and felt happier knowing about the 600 crowns in his bank account.

Another set of footsteps came from the direction of the stairs. Holly entered the kitchen with a sleepy-looking expression and messy bedhair. She rubbed her eyes and saw one more person in the kitchen who rarely ate with them.

"Are you still eating that garbage food?" Holly scoffed and sat on the opposite side of the table. "No wonder you look like a skeleton when all you consume is that."

"Holly..." Maria sighed and shook her head.

Jesse raised his gaze from the oatmeal cereal he was eating and looked at Holly. He didn't answer and instead put another spoonful of food in his mouth.

'I would make food if I could. I can't fucking reach the stove, and they don't buy anything else but oatmeal these days.' Jesse thought to himself.

Holly pulled out her phone and started texting her friends while annoyingly glancing at Jesse occasionally.

"Jesse." Maria suddenly spoke without turning to look at her son.

Jesse swallowed the food and asked. "Yes?"

"Alice will be visiting you today. Don't make things hard for her, alright?"

'Today?' Jesse's eyes popped, and he dropped his spoon into the bowl of oatmeal. He wiped his lips with a napkin and rolled out of the kitchen, hurrying to return to his bedroom.

Holly watched as her brother left and chuckled. "She is way out of his league. I know he is half-cripple, but is he blind too?"

"Holly, can you stop bullying him for once?" Maria's voice turned stern, and she then continued focusing on the breakfast.

"Hmph." Holly pouted and turned back to her phone.

Terry changed the page on the newspaper and then saw a name mentioned on the page.

[Dark Magician Karma was killed yesterday night, and the person who delivered the final hit was identified. The final hit was delivered by Player Serenity]

...

Jesse looked at himself in the phone's mirror and sighed deeply. He closed his phone and put it in his pocket.

Ding, ding—a doorbell rang from downstairs.

Jesse gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand. He then rolled his wheelchair to the corner of the room and tried to stand with his back straight. He looked at his legs, and they looked skinny, as if they were malnourished.

Knock, knock—someone knocked on the door.

"Come in." Jesse spoke slowly and turned over to the door.

The door opened, and a young woman entered his room with a handbag in hand. She was very lovely, with light blue eyes and beautiful silver hair. She was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt. It was clear that she would be the center of attention everywhere she went.

"Thank you for coming, Miss Alice." Jesse bowed slightly while hiding his nervous heartbeat.

"How have you been doing in the past week?" Alice asked with a lovely smile, but then looked concerned. "I heard that you had another fracture?"

"Yes, but it is fine now." Jesse said while rubbing his right wrist. He wasn't lying, as he couldn't feel any pain in it anymore.

Alice smiled and was relieved. She took a seat and crossed her legs. As she moved her hair over her delicate ear, she noticed a white VR headset with a golden visor on top of the table.