Family

Chapter 3 : Family

For two hours I spent my time working out in my personal gym, I did everything. from running on the treadmill,push up, bench press, shadow boxing, etc.

At least once a week, I would do a heavy work out, this was a habit I got from joining the sport club in high school.

If I didn't do that, my entire body would feel stiff and uncomfortable.

After finishing the last set of my push up session, I entered the stand alone shower that had been installed in the gym room, and started cleaning myself.

Changing my training suit back to the clothes I used before, I then went to the kitchen, and drank a glass of water from the dispenser.

Turning my gaze to the clock on the wall, it was almost 4.00 am, my parents should be on their way back home right now.

While waiting for them, I began playing with my handphone on the sofa in the living room.

browsing the internet, I opened a gaming site which I followed, there was an article about the incident with N.W.O. and a few new games that would be release this month.

Unfortunately, all the games that would be released were all related to fighting, which made me really regret it. why didn't they release it much earlier.

After the incident with N.W.O. what I needed was relaxing games, and for me fighting games wasn't cut for that role. It even could make me remember the days of struggle in N.W.O.

If only they were released faster, before the launched of N.W.O. I could guarantee they were going to be very popular. That was my assessment of these games based on the article.

time passed quickly as I surfed the internet, until the sound of car engeine entered the garage, I finally realized my parents had arrived back home.

I looked up at the entrance to the house and saw a middle age couple walked in through the door.

The man wore a black suit with a matching black stripped white tie, dark brown belt, and a pair of black leather shoes. He was around 178 cm, with brown skin, brown eyes, and short black hair that was neatly trimmed to the back side.

the woman also wore the same matching suit as the man, she looked like a pretty office lady. She had a silky black hair that reached her shoulder, a pair of beautiful eyes, a fair white skin, height around 175 cm, and a slim figure.

They were my parents, Jim Holmes and Elli Holmes, they were both worked in the same company as a director and his secretary.

When they saw me, my mom smiled gently and my dad just gave a nod in acknowledgment, and as a reply, I waved my hand at them.

My mom looked puzzledly at me. "What's up David? It's rare seeing you in the living room at this hour".

As soon as my mom asked me, my dad also chimed in as well. "Yeah, usually you would hole up in your gaming room" for the whole afternoon".

They then sat themselves on the sofa in front of me.

I shook my head and as I stared at them, my eyes started to moist, almost crying, but I managed to hold it back. "Nothing much, I just somehow missed both of you a bit".

But as expected of a mother, my mom immediately saw through me, she quickly moved to my side and gave me a warm hug.

"Come on, David, if you have any trouble, you can always depend on us, you know that right? So just tell us what happen".

I looked straight at my mom's beautiful black eyes, they were reflecting her worry and confusion. So I gave her a reassuring smile. "Mom, what I am saying is true. I really don't have any trouble at all, it's just that I really miss both of you".

"But…".My mom still insisted and tried to pry more into it.

However, before she could continue, my dad suddenly cut her off,he leaned forward and his expression was serious.

"David, were you playing N.W.O. last night? did you get trapped in there?".

When my mom heard my dad question, her eyes suddenly widened and her mouth was agaped in surprise, and her expression turned ghastly white.

I gave a nod of affirmation to my dad question. "Yes, but I have no problem with that incident. Actually, I was doing pretty good when I was trapped in there. I just miss the both of you, after all I was trapped in there for four years".

Upon hearing my explanation, the both of them visibly relaxed a bit.

My dad heaved a sigh of relief and leaned back to the sofa. "It's good nothing serious happen to you. I heard the news from one of my subordinates in the office this morning. He told me her daughter woke him up in the middle of the night while crying, when she was asked what happened, she told him about the trapped players and the story of her death."

My mom released her hug on me, and shook her head with a sad look on her face, chimed in. "What a poor girl, she must have a terrible experience when she was in the game".

Although what the system announce at the beginning, about the players only had three lives, was a bull crap, and everyone should have realized it by now, but the experience brought by the terror of death still lingered in many players consciousness, becoming some sort of trauma.

And this trauma would be embedded more deeply in the consciousness of those players who experienced their fourth time dying. The thought of you would die in real life if you died for the fourth time in the game, you could imagine the terror those players felt. That would become a mental scar for their entire lives.

after that I told them my experience in N.W.O.From the first day of my journey to the time I fought the last boss of the game, and occasionally they would asked me some questions, in which I answered patiently one by one.

Without realizing it, time flew quickly, it was already 8.00 pm when I ended my story. Our stomach started protesting in hunger, and because it was already too late for my mom to start preparing for dinner, we opted to eat something outside.

The one who suggested this idea was my dad, he wanted to help me to get relax, he told me it wasn't a good thing to hole myself at home after such incident,I had better go out for more fresh air and changed my mood, so I wouldn't keep remembering those harsh days in the game by idling around in the house.

Without changing our clothes, we immediately headed to the garage where my dad's car was and hit the road. Our destination was a family restaurant two blocks away from our home.

By the way, I lived in the capital city of Terran Republic, New Ardonia, a metropolitan city full of skyscrapers. It was also one of the biggest trading center of New Earth where countless merchants and businessman from all over the world gathered.

The downside of this city was the air pollution and its heavy traffic in which more often became a traffic jam.

My house was located on the outskirt of the city, in a pretty nice house complex, it only took twenty minutes drive to the city center.

Not long after, our car parked near the restaurant we were aiming for. It was a mid size restaurant in which, apart from the main building also had a few tables right in front of it, that acted as an open air restaurant.

It was still in the middle of summer right now, and the weather tonight was very good, so my mom recommended to eat on the open air restaurant.

Both me and my dad agreed with her. There was still a table at the corner that was unoccupied, so we walked over to the table and as soon as we sat down, a waiter came and welcomed us,, he then promptly asked for our orders.

I took the menu given by the waiter and looked at it. there was nothing new on it, it still had six set of dishes as usual.

This wasn't our first time here, so my mom without looking at the menu in my hand already knew what the menu were. With ease, her mouth spewed the name of a few set of dishes.

While waiting for our orders to arrive, we began to chat around.

My mom began with an unexpected question. "Hey David, did you find any girl you like in the game?"

my dad who sat next to her suddenly perked his ears with full attention.

I forced a small smile and then shook my head. "Mom, how could I have the time for romance with my life always on the line? To survive, that was my only thought back then. And the only way to do that was to get stronger, so most of my time was used to improve my skills and leveled up as quickly as possible".

Upon hearing my anser, mom was a bit dejected. "Oh… I thought you could let me see my grandchildren soon…".

I forced another smile and tried to changed the topic by asking them about their company situation.

But… thinking of it now, if only I knew the death thing was just a bull's crap, I would chase those beauties back then.

Although my looks was just above average, back in N.W.O. I was what the players called as god class expert. So of course many girls were trying to hold my golden thigh, but regretfully, I ignored them all.

Back then I thought my life was more important than those so called romance, and as you saw the result yourself, I was still a single dog rright now.

Hmm? Wasn't one of the reasons I played N.W.O. was to look for a girlfriend?

Remembering this fact, I almost face palmed myself… I really regretted it…

While we were chatting, the waiter who took our orders before came back with plates of dishes on the tray, and with a swift motion, he served the dishes on the table. After that he moved to another table which was just vacated and cleaned it up.

We ate our dinner leisurely as we chatted, it was almost an hour later that we finished our meals.

After paying the bill, we straight away back to our home, and because it was already late, we decided to retire for the night. Saying goodnight to my parents, I entered my bedroom and laid down on the bed.

But even after fifteen minuts had passed, I was still wide awake. I didn't know why, but I didn't feel like sleeping at all.

It was useless to just laying down on the bed if I couldn't fell asleep, so I went to the desk and booted up my laptop.

I was thinking to read some webnovels on the qidian website, I hadn't read the updated chapters of the novels I followed for a week now, they should have been accumulated nicely.

but before that, I checked up the forums I followed, searching for any new development regarding N.W.O. but I didn't find any worthwhile news.

However, I found something else that picked my interest. Someone posted that he was trapped in his dream when he was taking a nap in his house this afternoon.

He cklaimed he was transported to another world, where sword and magic were vary normal in everyones daily lives, and although their technology was the same as us, the basic principles their technology worked was based on magic.

He wrote that he was trapped in there for four years and had to complete various quests and a main quest.

If in four years he hadn't finished his main quest, his completion rate for the tutorial of project world rebirth would be deducted.

He was asking if anyone knew about this project world rebirth.

Upon reading this post my expression became stiff.

Back then, after I defeated Ultima, this project world rebirth also appeared in the system notice.

And now it appeared again.

I suddenly furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. Why no one had mentioned this project world rebirth before?

There should have been players who were curious about this project, but no one had ever mentioned about it before in any forums.

That was until this post appeared.

When I read the comments below the post that were full of ridicules, I finally understood.

The main quest!

What was the main quest of N.W.O.? It was to defeat the last boss of the game.

So when I got the notice of that completion rate thing, was after I finished the main quest.

And this person who posted the question regarding project world rebirth, Was also the same as me, he must have finished his main quest.

In conclusion, only selected people who had the right to view their completion rate, and those people were the one who successfully completed their main quests.

No wonder, no one from N.W.O. had ever mentioned project world rebirth. It was because they hadn't defeated Ultima.