Dying felt... disappointing.
I always thought there'd be light. Trumpets. Maybe even a personalized montage narrated by Morgan Freeman.
Instead, I got the sharp squeal of brakes, the blinding headlights of a delivery truck, and one last thought ricocheting through my brain like a ping-pong ball on fire: They betrayed me.
Not just the company—Atlas Corp—but the guild too. Zenith. My brothers, my so-called allies. The people I fought beside in ChronoRealms Online for nearly two years. We scaled dungeons together, battled in regional tournaments, even had an emotional group karaoke night when Brutus hit max level.
But when Atlas offered me hush money to "pause" my gameplay for a year—some absurd clause buried in my contract that let them buy out my account—they didn't defend me. Didn't argue. Just looked away.
And now I was dead.
Except—I wasn't.
The next breath came sharp, sudden, like surfacing from deep water. My eyes snapped open. My chest heaved.
I was back in my room.
Not the condo I'd rented after going pro. No—this was my old shoebox apartment, the one with the peeling posters and the half-busted gaming chair held together by willpower and duct tape. The one I hadn't seen in—
I scrambled for my phone.
April 6. 6:42 AM.
Launch day.
The day ChronoRealms Online first went live.
I stood there in stunned silence for a full minute, breathing like I'd just jogged through five load screens. I touched the desk. The warped wood. The crumpled tournament registration flyer still pinned to my corkboard. This wasn't a simulation. It wasn't a dream.
Somehow—I had respawned.
But not in-game.
In real life.
Back before everything.
Back before Atlas Corp sold out the player base.
Back before the guild got corrupted.
Back before I knew who I could and couldn't trust.
I dropped into my chair, heart pounding, as my eyes landed on the device sitting neatly on the desk: the Gen-One VR dive module. Outdated, clunky, but freshly updated and ready for launch. I remembered setting it up just before the servers opened. My hands moved on instinct, booting the rig, patching into the game's server.
This time, I wasn't going in blind.
This time... I had the future on my side.
The visor clicked down.
"Initializing ChronoRealms Online..."
A rush of color swallowed me.
And then I was standing in the beginner zone: Hollowroot Village.
The world spun around me in vibrant, dreamlike beauty. Cobblestone paths twisted between low wooden buildings, with merchant stalls just beginning to open and a misty sunrise spilling over distant mountains. A blacksmith wiped his hands outside the forge. Birds chirped.
I'd forgotten how simple it was. How clean. No territory wars. No power creep. No corporate sponsorships. Just potential. Pure and limitless.
And me?
I was going to break it.
I opened the character panel.
Level 1 Mystic Initiate.
HP: 50/50
Mana: 40/40
Skills: Basic Bolt (Energy), Meditation (Passive Regen)
In the original timeline, Mystic Initiate was a joke. Fragile, underwhelming damage, slow start. But I knew better now. At level 25, the class unlocked Ether Surge, one of the most busted combo spells in the game—if you knew how to build around it.
I'd beeline for that. No wasted points. No distractions.
I stepped off the spawn circle, boots crunching the dirt. Around me, new players were materializing in bursts of blue light, shouting excitedly into party chat, comparing character heights and freaking out over the "cool realism of the goats."
They were clueless.
They didn't know that the goat pen had a hidden key buried under the trough that started a chain quest for a stealth cloak. Or that if you climbed the windmill now—before noon—you could grab a rare item from the ledge.
And most of all, they didn't know what was coming.
The global tournaments. The regional guild wars. The betrayals. The famous players who hadn't even logged in yet. The ones who would become streamers, champions, digital celebrities. I knew their usernames, their strengths, their first mistakes.
And I was going to find them.
But not yet.
I made my way through the village, ignoring the main quest marker for now. That one always led to a fetch quest about sheep and soap. Instead, I ducked behind the potion shop and approached the well.
There it was.
An old man NPC with a crooked cane, half-hidden in shadow. Most players never noticed him. But I did. I remembered the forum post—months into the original timeline—when someone finally discovered his questline.
I clicked him.
"Ah... adventurer," the NPC croaked. "I have seen your face before. Or perhaps... I will see it again."
Goosebumps.
"Would you help an old man with a memory lost to time?"
Yes.
Quest accepted: Echoes of the Forgotten
Reward: Passive Skill – Keen Memory (Increases XP gain from unique events by 5%)
And just like that, I had a head start.
It wasn't much. But in ChronoRealms, a five percent advantage could mean the difference between a legend and a footnote.
I kept moving.
Gathered wild herbs near the cliffside (hidden ingredient for a rare buff stew), avoided the combat trainers (their tutorials wasted time), and zigzagged toward the east orchard where the first real fight was waiting: a Level 2 Wildfang Wolf.
It was stronger than me.
But I knew its pattern.
"Basic Bolt!" I shouted, launching a glowing streak of energy.
The wolf snarled and charged. I sidestepped. Cast again. Again.
Its health dropped to 40%.
Mine to 60%.
My hands were sweating.
This wasn't just nostalgia. This was survival. And victory.
"Last one—!"
I launched the final bolt.
The wolf staggered, let out a strangled yelp, and dissolved into light.
+32 XP.
Level up!
I collapsed to one knee, grinning like an idiot.
I was back. And this time, I was going to do it right.
No guilds. Not yet.
I'd build one from scratch. Handpicked. Quietly, methodically. I knew the players who would become gods later. I knew their schedules, their quirks, their weaknesses. Some were introverts who never joined a guild until Year Two. Others got overshadowed early on and never got their shot.
I'd find them before the world did.
I opened my map and set a marker.
Tomorrow, a girl named Aiko would stumble into a town square on the western side of the zone. She'd pick the rogue class, get ignored by every party, and nearly quit after getting killed by a glitched goblin.
But I knew better.
She was going to become one of the greatest PvP rogues in the game.
And I was going to recruit her before she ever picked up her first dagger.