Sisyphus Online

Just like the boar's skull couldn't compare to the mace, the soft, meaty husk Cinder called a body couldn't compare to the solid hunk of thick pelt and dense muscle and bone that was the tank-like boar.

It was like a collision between a car driving 25 miles per hour crashing into a human. Twenty-five wasn't a big number. But with the car's—boar's—weight and mass, it was enough to turn the human into scrap.

Cinder's face was pale, and he flinched to cover his head with his arms as soon as he came to. After a second or two, he opened his eyes and realized he was in the grassy fields he had been in before starting the game.

It felt like he heard a soft chuckle. But it was barely more than a soft hunch, so he ignored it and looked at the floating blue window in front of him.

"So, I can see stuff like this, still?"

It was the system asking him if he wanted to return to Rata or log out. And beneath it, in a tiny red screen, was a warning that repeatedly dying as a Naturalist could lead to long-lasting psychological damage. There was even a website and a number written down for those who needed help.

Still feeling the impact of the boar crashing into him like ants crawling over his body, Cinder understood. It wasn't just the pain, which was thankfully cut short. Naturally, he didn't know what dying felt like since he had never done it before.

But what he had just been through felt pretty damn close to what he imagined it felt like. A lot of pain and then darkness consuming his mind. Cinder's fingers were still trembling.

The fear was too real. The sensation of dying was too real.

The game—Sisyphus Online, was too well made. It was too good.

Cinder understood why it was called Token mining and why Kode preferred taking the Tokens from newbies instead of hunting monsters or mining for them. It was a lot easier just talking to people who didn't know any better and guiding them into handing over their Tokens before they knew how difficult they were to get.

"Take me back to Ratar, please," Cinder said decisively.

Regardless, Cinder was pretty sure he managed to kill the boar with his strike. He had to return and get the drops and his weapon before someone else took them.

A moment later, he appeared in the center of Ratar again.

"Back already?" Kode asked, looking at Cinder from his seat on the edge of the fountain at the center of the village.

"You've got a surprisingly stable mind, then. Are you going to try again? It might be difficult without a weapon, though."

"Can't I just pick up the one I dropped?" Cinder asked since it sounded like Kode wasn't even considering that possibility.

"I mean…The monster might be guarding it and the Tokens you dropped." Kode shrugged.

Cinder hurriedly tapped his pocket.

"Damn it!" In the aftermath of dying, he hadn't even considered that. By dying, he lost everything except his beginner clothes. They were bound to him. But Tokens and the mace weren't. It was part of the Naturalist experience.

Travelers dropped a few of the things on them if they were unlucky, and only rarely dropped anything in their Inventory except for a small portion of their Tokens.

Cinder sprinted out of the village. Without a mace, his journey became a lot easier, but he still ended up out of breath before ascending the ridge where he fought the boar.

He let out a sigh of relief between deep breaths as he saw the boar. From behind, it looked like it was sleeping. It lay flat on the ground with its legs pointing backward like it had just collapsed mid-step and fallen asleep.

Worried that it was just knocked out and not dead, Cinder carefully circled it. As soon as he saw its caved skull and the bloody mess beneath its head, he realized he didn't have anything to worry about.

Most of that blood probably came from him, though.

The mace was a little bit away, bloody, slightly dented, and a little bent. Still very usable, though. Holding his breath, Cinder used a stick to poke around the boar's head where he had died.

It was furry, wet, sticky, stinky, and nasty. He had seen a few accidents up close at the construction sites he had worked at. The ones involving power tools were always horrendous to look at.

But there was something about the brain, the death, and the fur, all of which had overwhelmingly realistic textures, that made it something he didn't want to get too close to.

He was not squeamish.

Eventually, he found the bronze coins with the symbol of a man rolling a stone up a hill on one side and the 'SO' logo of the game on the other side. There were two of them approximately where his body had been. Those were his Tokens.

But there should be some from the boar as well, so, despite his stomach's protests, he continued looking around the boar's corpse.

"I guess this is one way to save money on food…" Cinder tried to look at it positively.

He might be wasting his time, but he was at least saving money. By ruining his appetite like this, he wouldn't even crave meat for at least two days.

"Find anything?" Kode asked, finally having caught up. He was surprised. He did not think Cinder would kill the boar on his first try.

Cinder looked at Kode. Kode ignored the gagging sounds Cinder made. He was a Traveler, so his degree of realism was a lot lower than Cinder's. But he had heard the stories.

The blurry bundle of pixelated pink and red probably looked a little worse in real life.

"I found…my stuff," Cinder eventually managed to get out, without it dragging with it his breakfast.

At that thought, Cinder wondered if anything actually would come up if he did puke. He didn't want to find out, so he stepped away from the boar and grabbed some fresh air. But the smell of blood clung to his nose, even after he walked several meters away and turned around.

He felt it once again. The game was too good. And Token mining seemed a lot easier than hunting.