Yvvaros: The Digital Frontier (23 page)

“About time you showed back up!” Silverstrike was waiting for them on top of one of the lower roofs nearby. “I was beginning to worry.”

He looked at Luke, and then at Tess, and then back at Luke again.

He knows that she’s his sister, now.

“So how long have you and Luke been… well, you know?” He asked the question with the type of awkward nervousness that would be expected from any younger brother toward an older sister on the matter. “Just since we all started playing the game?”

“Yes,” Tess said, smiling. “It’s… it’s what I want, Ben. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

Ben smiled and looked like he was fighting back tears.

“Hey, I’ll manage,” he said. “This beats you being dead, that’s for sure.”

The battle was over. Players from all around Kantor were making their way over to where the three of them were. Luke was confused by it for only a second.

They want me to say something.

He climbed up to where Silverstrike was on the roof before clearing his throat.

“We did it. This is exactly what we set out to do. But we paid a heavy price for it.”

He turned to Silverstrike, wishing that his friend would step up and help him out.

Damn it, you’re the one who is good at this kind of stuff, not me.

“We uh, need to never forget just how this happened to begin with.” Luke panned his head across what was quickly becoming a crowd of players. “The developers are not on our side.”

Thoughts of his dad briefly flashed through his head.

Was that really him?

“What Kato is getting at is that we’re not just fighting each other, but this world.” Silverstrike finally began cutting in. “It’s not just some silly in-game story, we really are going to have to fight to survive, and colonize the continent, bit by bit, if we want to avoid disaster.”

The crowd broke out into joyous applause. Luke only cared for one face among them all.

Tess…

He climbed down from the roof and walked over to her. Neither of them said anything, and instead pulled each other into a tight embrace.

“I thought you were gone,” whispered Tess.

“I’m all in now, remember?” Luke smiled. “I’m not going-”

His head suddenly hurt, and his field of vision was blurred beyond recognition. Luke could hear voices around him, and as he shifted his head, the unmistakably harsh glow of bright fluorescent lights pushed his gaze back.

“He’s waking up,” said a female voice. “We can take the headset off now without worrying about his reaction. He should be stable.”

“Uhhh…” Luke couldn’t feel most of his body, but a sharp, throbbing pain was coming from his stomach.

From where the knife went in.

“I’m… still alive?” The question left his mouth as little more than a whisper, weak and unsteady.

“Shhhh… It’s okay.” Sam’s voice was a whisper too, laden with concern. “Luke… You’re okay now, here in the hospital. You weren’t yourself before.”

She ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment, Luke forgot about anything else and focused on the sensation. Then, he began to remember and to think about Yvvaros.

“I… I can’t stay here,” he said. “I have to get back inside.”

He looked across the room. His headset and his dad’s laptop were sitting on a chair not too far away from him, but the prospect of moving caused his body to rebel against the pain.

“The doctors were worried that you might not pull through.” Sam was smiling softly at him, though her expression was hard for Luke to make out through blurry eyes. “Your dad was actually the one that had them keep the VR headset on.”

My… dad did that?

“Where is he?” Luke looked around the room again. There was a nurse standing by the door, Sam, and nobody else.

“He left,” said Sam. She shook her head let out a shaky sigh. “Luke, what you did… it scared me half to death. Your dad, well, he couldn’t really believe it. I think being here might have been too hard for him.”

Or maybe he had another reason, something else that took priority.

“Sam…” whispered Luke. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. And I don’t think I ever well.” Sam leaned in closer to him, sliding partially up onto the hospital bed and up against him. “But I care about you, Luke. And I’m going to help you through this, help you figure things out.”

“I’ve already figured things out, Sam.”

She looked up at him with confused eyes, and Luke could pinpoint the exact moment that her hopes began to drop as she read his expression.

“What…” She shook her head. “Luke, what are you talking about? You almost died! You tried to kill yourself…”

Luke smiled.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I tried to step through a door and close it behind me.”

Sam squeezed his hand as though she thought that it would bring him back to his senses.

“Luke, what are you saying?”

“Sam, Yvvaros is just the start.” He locked eyes with her, making sure that she could see that there was no doubt, no hesitation in them. “The real world isn’t the only place for a person to exist.”

“It’s just a stupid game, Luke!” Sam threw her hands up in the air. “What happens when they decide to shut the servers down? What happens when a new game comes along?”

“Then we move along with it,” said Luke. “The same way that people have moved from their physical bodies into something greater. The same way I… tried to.”

Sam stood up and walked across the room. She turned away from Luke and took a deep, uneven breath.

“This isn’t about a game, or about a fantasy world, or about anything that can be summed up by the media in a thirty-second news story.” Luke sat up in the hospital bed as far as he could. “This is about transcendence, Sam. This is the next frontier, where humanity is headed next.”

Sam walked back over to him, still shaking her head. She sat down and laid one of her hands to rest on his chest.

“You’re… still delirious from the drugs they gave you.” She smiled at him. “It’s okay. We’ll both have a laugh about this once you’ve healed up. And then you’ll be able to head back to school and things… things will go back to normal.”

Luke smiled.

There is no normal, not anymore.

END

Thanks for reading. I want to take a moment to give credit to the litRPG pioneers for inspiring this work, most especially D. Rus and Reki Kawahara.

We live in exciting times. This is a novel that could be categorized as either fantasy or hard science fiction, depending on one’s perspective. I suspect that many of the technological and philosophical themes of this book will come to a head within the next twenty or thirty years, and that’s truly what pushed me to begin writing this series. The world I imagine within this text is not that far off from reality.

A special thanks to Olivia Wells for keeping me motivated and serving as my unwavering editor.

To hear about future litRPG releases from me, including the next book in the Yvvaros series, sign up for my newsletter at
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Alex