In front of Lin's eyes, everything began to darken until it became completely black, like pitch. After a few seconds, he received a message from the game:
[Since Neo has just launched the wonderful game: "Arsenal", we offer a visual guide, where we will show him how to use a sword, and what to do if he wants to learn to wield it. Does Neo wish to be trained?]
Lin paused for a moment, considering the idea of being trained to use a sword, but soon dismissed it. After all, the game only offered to show the basics. He wasn't sure if the game would truly demonstrate how to feel the sword, what movements to make to deliver specific strikes. Overall, he assumed this was beginner-level training, not for professionals.
So, he declined, and a server list appeared in front of him, with various data: it showed how many players were currently on each server, how popular the server was among viewers, and other statistics Lin didn't care about. He simply picked the most popular one, which had around three hundred players.
Once he selected the server, a loading screen appeared, and after a few seconds, everything went dark and he was plunged into endless darkness.
...
Lin slowly opened his eyes and immediately saw a bright blue sky with a large yellow sun. Confused, he slightly moved his body and didn't feel anything unnatural — it was as if he was in the real world, not in a game!
"How strange… It's like I'm in reality, not in a game… Even my sensations are real, this..." Lin touched his body and hands and felt real contact. "So amazing..."
At this moment, he was experiencing the same shock he felt when he received his Title or used his skill for the first time. It was a fantastic feeling — even though he knew he was in a virtual reality, the sensations were so real that it was impossible to distinguish them from real life!
Lin quickly calmed himself and regained composure. He slowly examined his surroundings and his own body.
At the moment, he was in something like a gladiatorial arena, surrounded by many spectator stands filled with either real or artificial people. The entire arena was made of smooth yellow sand, where players stood or fought. Some were simply trying things with their swords, while others were already practicing strikes in the air.
These scenes slightly surprised Lin, but he quickly turned his attention to his own body.
He was dressed in black garments, with a violet katana at his waist, and the lower half of his face covered by a demonic mask. It seemed the appearance he had created in the menu looked exactly the same here.
Lin nodded and thought about what to do next:
"Everything's set up. Now I just need to begin training and improving. I don't know the general skill level of the players here, but watching how they swing their swords, I can get a rough idea..." he looked at a young man in red, who was trying to swing a two-handed sword with one hand...
Lin shook his head and simply decided to practice with his katana.
He slowly drew the katana from its sheath and swung it sharply to the side, creating small waves of wind that lifted the sand from the ground!
Whoosh!
The sand rose and flew off to the side, and Lin made a quick assessment:
"It felt like I swung nothing, the sensation was as if I had a toothpick in my hands, not a sword. The speed was high, even though I didn't use much force. But what bothers me is the lack of connection with the sword..." Lin touched the blade and frowned.
"When I used a two-handed sword, I could feel it completely. I knew exactly where its edge ended, and so I could confidently use it, knowing the blade would hit the enemy — and whether it killed or not didn't matter, because I could just swing it again."
"But with a katana, it's more difficult..." Lin raised the katana above his head and swung it hard!
Whoosh!
"If I had a two-handed sword in my hands, I would've definitely split the ground. But with a katana..."
The sand quickly settled, revealing smooth ground with no scratches or cuts, but the blade of Lin's katana was badly bent due to an incorrect swing.
"This is all I can manage with the katana... I just can't feel the weapon. It's like a wild snake, spinning in different directions and refusing to stay straight." Lin sat on the ground and began thinking about how to fix this problem:
"The simplest solution is just to keep training with the katana until, at some point, you fully feel it and can wield it properly. But what should I do right now? Just keep swinging it until my hands bleed? Can you even do that here? Doesn't matter. For now, I'll just keep practicing normal swings, since they seem a bit off to me."
Lin stood up and gripped the katana handle tightly with both hands — it had already fully recovered. Then he made his first swing:
Whoosh!
He raised the katana again and swung it.
Whoosh!
Again.
Whoosh!
Again.
Whoosh!
After fifty swings, all of Lin's muscles ached terribly, and he had to stop.
"T-this... Why am I so exhausted? Even in virtual reality, where fatigue is felt less, why am I so tired from simple swings?" He raised the katana again, his hands trembling violently, as if he had been in icy water!
"Argh! The katana weighs almost nothing, but it feels like I've lifted several tons with one hand!" Lin was sweating so much that it was pouring from him like a river!
But gathering all his strength, he swung the katana downward!
Whoosh!
Nothing unusual happened — the swing was just as ordinary as the previous fifty.
"Fifty-one..." Lin completely ran out of energy and collapsed, looking up at the sky with a smirk.
"I only did fifty-one swings... What a weakling I am..." He slowly closed his eyes and briefly fell asleep.
...
"P-please, John! I didn't want to, really! Really! They made me! I didn't want to..." A little girl with a knife in her hands cried heavily. She was on her knees, looking at the body of a teenager.
"John!!! No!!! You bastard! How could you kill John!!!" A ten-year-old Lin stared with an indescribable look at the small girl who had laughed with him just hours ago, but now had killed the best person he knew!
"Lin!.. I... I... I really didn't want to! They... They made me, they said they would set me free if I killed John..." She burst into tears, gently touching John's lifeless body, who died with a smile.
"Y-you! You damn bitch, you believed those bastards!! What the hell is wrong with your head?! John helped all of us with everything he had, but you... You... You dared to kill him because of your selfish desires!!!" Lin couldn't hold back, he picked up the knife from the ground and stabbed it into the girl's right eye with more force than he had ever used before!
"Aaah!!! Why?! Lin, why did you do that?! I just wanted to leave!! Leave, do you understand!!!" She cried even harder and tried to touch her right eye, but the knife prevented her from doing so.
Lin watched her actions in anger and did nothing. But after a while, he felt something in his heart — something hard to describe and understand. He noticed tears streaming down his face, and then he cried loudly, saying:
"No! No! Zan, you killed John, you bastard, you bitch. But why am I crying?!!" Lin burst into tears, the feeling in his chest growing stronger. He looked at the girl, but she no longer showed signs of life.
"Zan?.. Zan?.." Lin shook the girl's body a few times, but she didn't respond. He swallowed and gently brushed aside her light hair, revealing a scene he would remember for the rest of his life:
Zan stared blankly into the distance, her eyes completely lifeless, with a stream of blood flowing from them, staining the gray floor a bright red.
Lin's lips trembled, not believing his eyes. First, he slowly shook the girl's body, but when he saw no result, he started moving faster, and his eyes showed only blankness. He had just one thought in his mind:
"Live! Live! Live! Zan! Live! Why! Why did you die! Don't leave me alone!!!" Lin clutched his head, turning in all directions and seeing only one thing: murder, violence, and blood.
"No-no-no! This isn't real!! I... I... I... I avenged John! Yes, I avenged John! That bitch, Zan, wanted to escape this place without me, without John, she just wanted to run away alone like a rat... Yes... She's a rat. She's a damn rat..." Lin looked at his blood-covered hands and cried.
"She... She... I... I didn't want to... I really didn't want to... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I-I really didn't mean to. I'm sorry everyone!! I didn't want to kill! Zan, I'm sorry!! John!! Don't leave me alone, please!! Mom, Dad, take me away!! Where did you go?! Why did you leave me alone..." Lin cried heavily and lay on the ground, hugging the bodies of Zan and John.
I understood what that feeling was.
It was remorse.
I truly, truly regret my actions.
I realized I was truly foolish when I grabbed that knife from the ground.
I shouldn't have done it.
I'm foolish.
I'm truly foolish...