The light faded, and Cid stumbled forward as solid ground materialized beneath his feet.
His senses were overwhelmed all at once. The smell of damp earth and moss. The sound of leaves rustling in a breeze he could actually feel against his skin. Sunlight filtering through a thick canopy above, casting dappled shadows across forest floor covered in fallen leaves and twisted roots.
It was real. Too real. More real than the game had ever felt even with the immersion pod.
Cid steadied himself against a tree trunk, its bark rough and solid under his palm. His heart pounded in his chest, each beat distinct and powerful. He could hear it. Feel it. This was not code anymore. This was something else entirely.
A chime rang out, clear as a bell, and text materialized before his eyes.
[INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL]
[WELCOME TO APOCALYPSE ONLINE]
[CURRENT LOCATION: DELEVARO FOREST]
The notification hung there for a moment before fading. Immediately, another took its place.
[CHARACTER RESET COMPLETE]
[AVATAR APPEARANCE REVERTED TO REAL WORLD TEMPLATE]
[ALL CUSTOMIZATIONS REMOVED]
Cid blinked. His hands flew to his face, tracing features that felt different. Wrong. Or rather, right in a way that felt wrong. His avatar had always been an idealized version of himself. Sharper jawline. More intense eyes. Slightly taller.
But now his face felt rounder. Softer. More like the face he saw in mirrors every morning before school.
He needed to confirm this.
Cid pushed away from the tree and started moving through the forest, his eyes scanning for water. The undergrowth was thick, brambles catching at his starter clothing, simple brown pants and a white shirt that marked him as a fresh spawn. His footsteps crunched on dead leaves, the sound loud in the relative quiet of the forest.
'Keep moving,' he told himself, pushing through a cluster of ferns. 'Find water. Confirm what happened. Then figure out what to do next.'
The forest seemed endless, trees stretching in every direction. Birds called overhead, their songs unfamiliar. In the game, ambient sounds had been pleasant background noise. Now they felt overwhelming, each chirp and rustle making him jump.
After what felt like an eternity but was probably only five minutes, he found what he was looking for. A small puddle, partially hidden beneath a fallen log, its surface still and reflective like dark glass.
He knelt beside it and looked down.
The face staring back at him was his own. Actually his own. Tousled orange hair that framed his face in messy waves, the same hair his mother always complained he never bothered to comb properly. Bright piercing blue eyes that his father said were too intense, too old for someone his age. He was six foot one, lean but athletic from years of forcing himself to excel at sports despite preferring to stay inside. The ideal student on paper. The shut in who somehow managed to be good at everything he tried because failure was not an option in the Raimon household.
Cid touched his reflection, watching ripples distort the image.
'It really is me,' he thought, his throat tightening. 'Not Grimlord. Not some idealized avatar I spent hours customizing. Just Cid. Just the kid who spent more time logged into a game than talking to his own family.'
The reality of it crashed down on him all at once.
He would never see his family again.
The words of that reaper like being echoed in his mind, each syllable like a hammer blow. Your old life is gone. Your bodies lie empty. Your families grieve. That life you knew? It is over. Finished. Done.
His mother's face flashed before his eyes. The way she had looked on that screen, on her knees, screaming his name like it could somehow pull him back. His father, always so composed, always so in control, trying to hold her up while his own face crumbled into something Cid had never seen before. Raw anguish. Yuki standing in the corner, her phone forgotten on the floor, tears streaming down her face as she stared at the paramedics loading him onto a stretcher.
'They think I'm dead,' Cid thought, his chest tightening painfully. 'Or worse. They know I'm not dead but I'm somewhere they can't reach. Trapped in a coma with no hope of waking. Mom's probably at the hospital right now, refusing to leave my bedside. Dad's probably making calls, demanding answers from doctors who have none. And Yuki.'
He swallowed hard.
'Yuki probably blames herself. She always said I played too much. She was right.'
His breath came faster. His hands clenched into fists, fingernails digging into his palms hard enough that the pain cut through the haze. The pain was sharp. Real. Everything here was real now.
'I never told them I loved them. Not recently. Not in years. When was the last time I said it? Middle school? Earlier?' His mind raced back through memories, trying to find a moment, any moment where he had bothered to express something beyond irritation at being interrupted during a raid. 'I was too busy escaping into this world, too focused on being Grimlord, too invested in digital achievements and the respect of people whose real names I don't even know.'
A sound escaped his throat, something between a laugh and a sob. His vision blurred as tears threatened to spill over. His body shook, trembling with the weight of loss and fear and regret all mixed together into something that felt like it would crush him from the inside out.
'And now they're gone. I'm here. Trapped in the game I chose over them. There's no going back. No do overs. No respawns for this.'
The tears came then, hot and unstoppable. Cid pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to force them back, but it was useless. For several long moments, he knelt there beside the puddle, his shoulders shaking, letting himself break under the weight of what had been stolen from him.
Images flashed through his mind in rapid succession. His mother making breakfast every morning even though he barely acknowledged it. His father asking about college applications, trying to connect, trying to show he cared even when Cid shut him down. Yuki showing him funny videos on her phone, desperate for just a few minutes of her brother's attention.
All those moments he had thrown away for this. For a game. For an escape.
And now the escape had become a prison.
'I'm sorry,' he thought, the words echoing uselessly in his head. 'I'm so sorry. Mom. Dad. Yuki. I'm sorry I wasted the time we had. I'm sorry I chose this over you. I'm sorry.'
But sorry did not change anything. Sorry would not bring them back. Sorry was just another useless word in a situation where words meant nothing.
Then something shifted inside him.
A memory surfaced. His father, years ago, after Cid had failed a test for the first time in his life. He had been devastated, convinced his world was ending. His father had sat him down and said something that stuck with him ever since.
"Falling apart is easy. Anyone can do that. Getting back up, that's what separates people who survive from people who don't."
Cid sucked in a breath. Deep. Shaky. But deliberate.
'I can't afford this,' he told himself, the thought cutting through the grief like a blade. 'Not here. Not now. Breaking down won't bring them back. It won't change anything. The only thing weakness will accomplish here is death.'
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, the moisture cool against his skin. His legs were unsteady as he stood, but they held.
'And if I die here, then I really am abandoning them forever. Mom will spend the rest of her life wondering if there was something she could have done. Dad will blame himself for not being stricter about the game time. Yuki will grow up thinking her brother chose to leave her.'
His jaw clenched.
'No. I won't do that to them. I won't make my last impact on their lives be pain and regret.'
The reaper had said their old life was over. That this was their reality now. That they could die here permanently.
But that thing had also said they needed to survive. To fight. To grow stronger. That this world needed warriors to stand against an apocalypse.
'Which means there has to be a reason,' Cid thought, his mind beginning to shift into the analytical mode that had always served him well. 'A purpose. Something we're being prepared for. And if there's a purpose, if there's a goal, then maybe, just maybe, there's a way out.'
He straightened, rolling his shoulders back, forcing his body into a posture of confidence even if he did not feel it yet.
'The reaper's words can't be one hundred percent absolute. Nothing ever is. There's always a loophole. Always an exception. Some condition that can be met. Some detail everyone else is missing.' His eyes hardened. 'I found exploits in the beta when the developers said there were none. I optimized builds that the community said were impossible. I cleared content people swore couldn't be soloed.'
His hands stopped shaking.
'I'll find the way out of this too. I have to. But first, I need to survive long enough to look for it. And that means treating this like what it is. A game with new rules. A challenge with unknown parameters. A problem that needs solving.'
Cid took another breath, this one steadier. The grief was still there, a weight in his chest that he suspected would never fully leave, but he could function around it now. He could think.
'The reaper said the game mechanics haven't changed. If that's true, then everything I know about Apocalypse Online still applies. Stats. Skills. Leveling. Combat. Crafting. Quest systems. All of it.' He started pacing, his mind working through the implications. 'I spent three years learning this game inside and out. I was in the beta. I know things most players don't. Spawn patterns. Hidden quest triggers. Optimal leveling routes. That knowledge is an advantage.'
There was one thing every player could access. The foundation of their existence in this world. The interface that defined capabilities and tracked progression.
Cid stopped pacing and stood still, centering himself.
"Status," he said aloud, his voice steady despite the lingering tremor of emotion.
Ding.
The sound was crystalline, pure, like a bell cast from glass and starlight. It resonated through the air, through his bones, through something deeper than either. The world itself seemed to respond, reality bending to acknowledge his command.
Light coalesced before his eyes, forming from nothing into something, particles of luminescence gathering and arranging themselves into coherent patterns. A translucent blue screen materialized, hovering in the air at perfect eye level, covered in text and numbers that glowed with soft inner light.
━━━━
[PROFILE]
ID: Cid Raimon
Race: Human
Age: 17
Job Class: Summoner (1%)
Classification: Legendary
Rank: Iron (-)
Constitution: Sealed
Core: Sealed
Talent: Sealed
Attributes:
STR: 10 | AGI: 10 | END: 10 | INT: 10 | WIS: 10 | LCK: 10
Abilities:
Beastcall: Summon beasts to fight for you. Defeated beasts can be permanently added to your roster.
Overmarch: Maximum active summons equal to your level.
Jackpot: 5% chance to summon a Legendary EX Rank entity.
Inheritance: Permanently learn one skill from each summoned beast.
Gate: Call forth your beasts from the void at will. Defeated summons return after cooldown.
Skills:
Summons: [None]
━━━━
Cid stared at the screen, his eyes moving methodically from line to line, absorbing every detail with the focus of someone who knew their life depended on understanding exactly what they were looking at.
'Okay. Let's break this down systematically.'
His gaze landed on his attributes first, the six numbers that would define his physical and mental capabilities.
'All tens. That's the baseline for humans. Same as it was in the original game.' A wave of relief washed through him. 'So I'm not starting from zero. I'm not some helpless child in an adult's body. Ten strength means I can lift and carry what an average adult male can. Ten agility means my reflexes and coordination are normal. Ten endurance means I won't collapse after running for five minutes.'
He mentally catalogued what each stat meant based on years of gameplay experience.
'Intelligence affects skill power and energy capacity. Wisdom affects energy regeneration and resistance. Luck affects critical hit chance and loot drops. All at ten means I'm average across the board. Not great, but not a death sentence either. I'm a blank slate. Everything I become from here is earned.'
His eyes moved up to the three sealed stats, and his brow furrowed.
'Constitution, Core, and Talent. Never seen those in any version of the game. Not in beta. Not in any patch notes. Not in any datamine I ever read on the forums.' He stared at the word Sealed, trying to puzzle out its meaning. 'They're locked. Inaccessible. Which means they exist but I can't interact with them yet. Probably tied to leveling or some specific unlock condition.'
'Constitution might be related to health regeneration or disease resistance. Core could be about energy reserves or internal power. Talent is vague enough to mean anything.' He filed the information away. 'Can't do anything about them now, so no point wasting mental energy. Focus on what I can control.'
Next came his rank, and he allowed himself a moment of dark humor.
'Iron minus. The bottom of the barrel. The lowest of the low. Literally cannot get any weaker in terms of classification.' He mentally ran through the full ranking system, something every serious player had memorized. 'Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Adamantite, Mythril, Orichalcum. Nine ranks total. Each subdivided into three tiers based on modifiers. Minus for low tier, no modifier for mid tier, plus for peak tier.'
'So that's twenty seven possible rank classifications from Iron minus at the bottom to Orichalcum plus at the top. And I'm at position one out of twenty seven.' The thought should have been discouraging, but instead it was oddly motivating. 'At least I know exactly where I stand. And the only direction I can move is up. Every monster I kill, every level I gain, every piece of gear I find, all of it pushes me higher. Measurable progression. Clear goals.'
His eyes moved to his job class, and despite everything, he felt a spark of something that might have been excitement.
'Summoner at one percent completion. So this percentage definitely tracks progression within the class itself. As I level up, as I unlock more abilities, as I gather more summons, the percentage increases. One percent means I'm at the absolute beginning.' He paused. 'But that Legendary classification. That's significant.'
In the original game, class rarities had ranged from Common to Rare to Epic to Legendary. Common classes were things like Warrior, Mage, Archer. Straightforward. Simple. Everyone started with one. Rare classes were specialized variants like Berserker, Elementalist, Ranger. Better stat growth. More interesting abilities. Epic classes were powerful hybrid builds like Spellblade, Monk, Dragoon. High skill ceiling but devastating when mastered.
Legendary classes had been myths. Rumors. Things people claimed existed but nobody could prove. Class types whispered about in forums but never confirmed.
'And now I have one,' Cid thought, a grim smile crossing his face. 'The reaper wasn't lying when it said we'd been given power beyond what the game offered. Legendary classification means this is rare. Powerful. Potentially game breaking if I can figure out how to use it properly.'
He focused on his abilities, reading each one carefully and considering the implications.
'Beastcall. Summon beasts to fight for you. Defeated beasts can be permanently added to your roster.' He paused, parsing the wording carefully. 'Wait. So I can summon beasts period. Not just ones I've defeated. But defeating them lets me add them permanently to my roster.'
The distinction was crucial. His mind raced through the implications.
'So I can call forth random beasts even now, at level one with no roster. But I won't know what I'm getting. It's a gamble. Could be something useful. Could be something weak or even hostile to me.' His eyes narrowed in thought. 'But defeating beasts and adding them to my roster means I can control what I summon. Build a collection of creatures whose abilities and strengths I understand.'
'That's the real power of the class. The randomness is a starting point, a way to get initial summons. But the true strength comes from curating a roster of defeated beasts that complement each other and cover different situations.'
'Overmarch. Maximum active summons equal to my level.' His mind immediately started calculating possibilities. 'So right now, at level one, I can only have one summon out at a time. At level ten, I could have ten creatures fighting alongside me simultaneously. At level fifty, a small army of fifty. At level one hundred, a literal company of monsters under my command.'
'The scaling is insane. Most summoner classes in other games capped at three or maybe five active summons. But this? This is exponential growth. The higher level I get, the more overwhelmingly powerful I become. It's a class that rewards survival and persistence.'
'But,' he cautioned himself, 'that's only if I can actually build a strong roster. Having the capacity for fifty summons means nothing if my roster is full of weak creatures. Quality matters as much as quantity.'
'Jackpot. Five percent chance to summon a Legendary EX Rank entity.' He stared at this one longest, trying to parse its meaning. 'EX Rank. That's new. Completely new. It wasn't in any version of the game I played. The ranking system I know goes from F to SSR. But EX suggests something beyond even SSS. Something that breaks the normal scale.'
'Five percent chance. That's one in twenty summon attempts. Low odds, yes, but not impossibly low. If I summon a hundred times over the course of my time here, statistically I should proc this five times. And if EX Rank is as powerful as I think it might be, even one of those summons could change everything.'
'Though there's no guarantee when it'll trigger. Could be my first summon. Could be my hundredth. That's the nature of probability. But the fact that it exists at all means there's potential for massive power spikes. And if I manage to defeat an EX Rank creature and add it to my roster permanently, that's a guaranteed trump card I can call on whenever I need it.'
'Inheritance. Permanently learn one skill from each summoned beast.' Excitement built in his chest as he considered the implications. 'This is huge. This might be the most important ability in the entire class. Every beast I summon, I can take one of its skills and make it my own. Permanently.'
'So if I summon a wolf with enhanced bite attack, I could learn that and use it myself. If I summon a fire elemental with flame breath, I could take that skill. If I somehow manage to summon a monster with flight capabilities, I could potentially learn to fly.'
'The customization potential is nearly infinite. I'm not locked into a predetermined skill tree like most classes. I can build my entire combat style around whatever skills I choose to inherit. Defensive skills from tanky creatures. Offensive skills from aggressive ones. Utility skills from versatile monsters.'
'It also means I need to think carefully about what skills I inherit. Make poor choices early and I might regret it later. Though the fact that I can inherit from each summoned beast suggests there's no hard cap. As long as I keep summoning new creatures, I can keep learning new skills.'
'Gate. Call forth your beasts from the void at will. Defeated summons return after cooldown.' He read this one twice, making sure he understood correctly. 'So once I summon something using Beastcall, I can dismiss it and recall it whenever I need it. They exist in some storage space until I need them. That's incredibly useful for resource management and tactical flexibility.'
'And if a summon gets defeated in battle, it doesn't die permanently. It just goes on cooldown and I can call it again once that cooldown expires.' Relief washed through him. 'That's critical. It means I'm not losing my roster permanently when things go wrong. There's a penalty in the form of cooldown, but it's not permanent loss. I can take risks with my summons without worrying about losing them forever.'
'Though I don't know how long the cooldowns are. Could be minutes. Could be hours or days. That's something I'll have to learn through experience.'
His eyes dropped to the empty sections at the bottom of the status screen.
'No skills. No summons in my roster. I'm starting from scratch.' The reality was sobering but also oddly liberating. 'But I can use Beastcall right now. Summon something random and see what happens. It's a gamble, but it's better than having nothing.'
'Or,' he thought more carefully, 'I could wait until I find a beast I actually want to defeat and add to my roster permanently. Use my first summon strategically rather than rolling the dice blind.'
He weighed the options, his analytical mind considering the pros and cons of each approach.
'Random summon now means I have immediate help. Something to fight alongside me, even if I don't know what it is. Could give me an edge in surviving the early game. But it's risky. What if I summon something aggressive that attacks me instead? What if I summon something so weak it's useless?'
'Waiting to find a beast and defeat it means I'm working alone until then. More dangerous in the short term. But it also means my first roster addition is something I've chosen deliberately. Something whose abilities I understand because I've fought it.'
'The smart play is probably to do both. Use Beastcall now to get a random summon and see how the mechanic works. Learn by experimentation. Then once I understand the system better, start hunting specific beasts to build out my roster with creatures I've selected carefully.'
Cid dismissed the status screen with a thought, and it vanished into motes of light that dissolved into the air like fireflies at dawn.
He looked around the forest with fresh perspective, his mind settling into a calmer, more determined state. The trees stretched tall around him, their branches forming a canopy that filtered the sunlight into golden beams. Birds called in the distance, their songs now less threatening and more like background ambiance. Somewhere nearby, he could hear the faint trickle of running water, a stream probably, which meant a potential source of drinking water if he needed it later.
'Delevaro Forest,' he thought, recognizing the environment from countless hours of gameplay. 'Starting zone. Low level spawns. Wolves, boars, goblins, maybe some slimes or hornets. Nothing too dangerous if I'm smart about engagement.'
The knowledge was comforting in its familiarity. This was still Apocalypse Online, just with higher stakes. The rules he had spent years mastering still applied. Monster behaviors. Spawn patterns. Environmental hazards. All of it was information he could use.
Cid stood in the dappled sunlight of Delevaro Forest, alone but not helpless, level one but not powerless. He had knowledge. He had a Legendary class with abilities that could potentially rival anything in this world. And he had something more important than either of those things.
He had a reason to survive. A family he needed to find a way back to. A promise he had made to himself, standing over that puddle with tears in his eyes, that he would not let his last impact on their lives be pain and regret.
'First things first,' he thought, his resolve hardening into something unbreakable. 'Test the summoning. See what this class can actually do. Then start building power. Level by level. Summon by summon. Until I'm strong enough to find answers. Strong enough to find the loophole in this nightmare. Strong enough to go home.'
He took a breath, steadying himself for whatever came next.
'I hope I find Fang and the others soon. But until then, I'll do what I've always done. Adapt. Optimize. Survive.'
Cid Raimon, seventeen year old from Queens, level one Summoner with a Legendary class and everything to fight for, prepared to take his first real step into this new reality.