When I opened my eyes, the world felt wrong.
The air was too warm. The light too golden. The sound of clinking armor and low chatter pressed in from every direction — a cacophony that wasn't supposed to exist anywhere near my quiet, gaming chair and computer screen.
I drew a breath. Then another.
It smelled of smoke and steel, and something like lavender oil burning on a brazier.
And when I looked down at my hands… they weren't mine.
The calloused fingers. The faint scars across the knuckles. The rough leather gloves.
No — this wasn't my body.
"Hey, you all right there?"
The voice snapped me back. A burly man stood behind a wooden counter, eyebrows raised. He wore a crimson vest over chainmail, and a sigil glowed faintly on his collar — a mark of the Adventurers' Guild.
I swallowed. "Where… where am I?"
He frowned, studying me as if I were mad. "You're at the Guild registration hall, lad. You came here half an hour ago, remember?"
I didn't.
But as I stared at him, memories that weren't mine spilled through my head like shards of glass — flashes of a different life.
Aiden. The name hit me first. Then the rest followed: training in the fields, dreams of becoming an adventurer, a small rented room in the west quarter of Ardentia.
I staggered, gripping the edge of the counter. Aiden. I'm… Aiden.
And then the realization sank like ice into my chest — this place, this hall, the sigils, the banners — I had seen them before.
In a game.
Elarion Online.
The MMO I used to play for hours every night.
Somehow, impossibly, I was standing inside it.
The guild clerk cleared his throat. "You came to register for your first rank, didn't you? Still want to proceed?"
My voice came out hoarse. "Yes. I—" I forced a smile that didn't quite reach my lips. "Yes, please."
He handed me a quill and a sheet of parchment marked with faint runes. The form shimmered faintly under my touch — enchanted, like everything else in this place.
"Name?"
I hesitated. Neil didn't belong here. Neither did my old life.
"Aiden," I said softly. "Aiden Vale."
He wrote it down and nodded approvingly. "Welcome, Aiden. You'll start as Brass rank — the lowest rung, but everyone does. Complete the Baptism trial, and the Goddess may bless you with your first Path."
My throat tightened at that. I knew what came next — at least, I thought I did.
The Baptism, the first quest every player took. Kill a few weak monsters. Choose a class.
But this wasn't a tutorial anymore. This was real.
And if I bled here… I suspected it would be my real blood.
I followed him down a hall lined with murals — heroes of legend, their weapons raised high under a fractured sun. The faint hum of mana whispered through the stones.
At the end of the corridor, he stopped before a wide set of doors and gestured.
"The training fields are through here. You'll find other initiates waiting. Don't worry — most survive."
He grinned, as if that was a joke.
I tried to laugh. It came out as a shaky breath instead.
When the doors opened, light flooded over me — sunlight, golden and sharp, spilling over a sprawling arena ringed with banners and filled with people.
Hundreds of them.
Rookies in worn armor. Swords, staffs, and bows glinting.
I stared at it all, heart hammering.
This was Elarion. Not pixels or polygons — but a world of warmth and danger and endless sky.
And I was trapped inside it.
But beneath the fear, something else stirred — something reckless and electric.
A whisper in my blood that said: Maybe this time, I can do more than just play.