Life Reset: Human Resource (New Era Online Book 4)

by Shemer Kuznits

  I raised my hand. “Thanks, I got the picture.”

  I opened the Settlement Interface and navigated to the research tab, filtering out the building projects we’d already constructed.

  Research

  Daily RP: 172 (132% bonus applies)

  Accumulated RP: 20,460

  Barracks expansion blueprints:

  ● Second Floor (adds 100 beds). Cost: 200 RP

  ● Beast Holding (add cages for beasts). Cost: 200 RP

  ● Trainer’s Office I (increase amount of trainers by 2). Cost: 100 RP [Already researched]

  ● Obstacle Course (increase training speed by 20%). Cost: 300 RP [Already researched]

  Expert-ranked building blueprints:

  ● Essence Capacitor (collect and store ambient energy). Cost: 500 RP

  ● Advanced Smithy (enable forging of higher-quality items). Cost: 700 RP

  ● Warlock Tower (housing and training for magic users). Cost: 800 RP

  ● War Machine Workshop (heavy war machine factory). Cost: 800 RP [Already researched]

  ● Improved Lodging (lodging increased by +50%). Cost: 1,000 RP

  ● Cathedral (a place of worship). Cost: 1,000 RP

  ● Science Facility (support advanced sciences research). Cost: 18,000 RP

  Our daily RP yield was impressive compared to when we started. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the 132 percent bonus section and a follow-up window opened.

  Settlement Efficiency: +42%

  Chief Constructor Skill Bonus: +50%

  Research Center: +20%

  Gremlin Totem: +20%

  It was interesting, but a little too much detail for my taste. I did my best and let the game system worry about quantifying the bonuses.

  The amount of RP available seemed staggering at first, but I realized it wasn’t really impressive for a full year of ongoing research. My absence, as well as Zuban’s state of being dead, had a strong negative impact on our researchers’ output. The way it looked now, they would be able to reach that much in a third of the time.

  Going over the list of barracks extensions reminded me we had already researched a bunch that was not built yet. Seeing the second floor upgrade also made me realize my clan didn’t have the infrastructure to support a truly large army. That was something I was going to have to discuss with Bob and probably Tenragan, our new arena master.

  The Expert-ranked building tab now held the advanced smithy I’d asked Romil about. I scanned through the list and nearly choked when I reached the bottom. The science facility Aly had asked me to build for her was there all right, just like Kaedric promised. However, the cost was staggering.

  “Eighteen thousand RP?” I exclaimed. “You gotta be kidding me!”

  Vic said.

  Maybe, but I find it very surprising that the cost is almost exactly the amount of RP we’ve collected so far. Coincidence?

 

  “Fine,” I muttered. It didn’t really matter; I still had a ton of RP, and I was going to put them to use. I highlighted all the available research projects except the science facility. I didn’t want it to accidentally get priority and hog out all the points.

  Total RP to research: 4,400 [20,460] available

  Research? Yes/No

  I clicked on ‘Yes.’

  The four female researchers started zooming across the room as if someone had hit the fast-forward button. The stacks of papers were reduced before my eyes, and a short moment later, all the projects I had selected were marked as available. I selected the science facility and repeated the process. The blueprint’s progress bar instantly went up to 89 percent. Romil and the others could do the other 11 percent on their own. It wasn’t such a pressing matter, and I had a long list of buildings to construct before that anyway.

  “Shall we continue our survey, my lord?” Kaedric asked.

  I sighed. There was so much more to do. I still had to look into the equipment production line for the soldiers, decide on the location for the many new buildings we were going to build, go over my own equipment enchantments, enchant the Viridium spheres to create a new golem, and I probably needed to go over the new kobold Settlement Interface in-depth. I didn’t even have the time yet to fully study my own Settlement Interface to check if anything had changed since I’d left.

  “I guess,” I said wearily. The faster I tended to everything, the faster I’d be able to put it behind me.

  We were just about to leave when everything around me grew transparent.

  It seemed that my hour was up. Time to get back to reality.

  I wished they’d find a way to alert me before doing that.

  12 - Getting Real

  Tal’s face was staring down at me when my capsule’s lid opened. His brow was creased. “How was it?” he asked.

  I smiled to reassure him. “It was good. I made some progress.”

  “And the …” He exposed his teeth in a mock snarl.

  “Yeah, my inner goblin was mostly on his best behavior,” I said.

  He seemed relieved. “That’s good news. Well, you were in there for a full hour. That’s like 28 hours in-game. I bet you’re dying for a break.”

  “You could say that.” I returned his grin with a grimace. “Actually, I should go back. There’s too much going on for me to leave things lying around. The situation is stable at the moment, but it could all go down if I’m not there to maintain it.”

  Tal shook his head. “No chance at logging in right now. Mr. Emery wants a full report then the doctors here want to give you a bunch of tests, make sure your body’s coping with the time dilation thing. You also need to eat. Since they plan to log you out on a regular schedule, they didn’t put you on prolonged immersion support.”

  I suddenly became aware of how hungry I was. The last thing I’d eaten was a small cookie along with my coffee two days ago. I winced at my skewed perception as I realized that it had only been an hour ago. The time discrepancy was doing funny things to my mind.

  A technician I didn’t know approached and started to disengage me from the FIVR capsule.

  “Follow me,” Tal said when I got out. “They prepared a room for you. It has a bed and a shower.”

  “Can’t afford to sleep in reality,” I said. “I will take that shower though, and I wouldn’t mind something to eat.”

  My room was only a few doors down the corridor from the lab. The room was small, and it had clearly been someone’s office a few days ago. It was comfortable though. I made a beeline for the shower. I was probably clean enough, but having spent hours in the game running around, fighting, and running errands made me feel like a shower was long overdue. Another example of the time discrepancy’s confusing effects.

  Tal remained by the door. “Go ahead and clean up. I’ll tell them to bring you something to eat.”

  ***

  When I walked out of the shower, a young and fairly pretty woman was standing there. She wore a formal attendant’s uniform and was in the process of putting food on the table from a cart. She turned to face me, and the corner of her mouth curved when she saw me standing with only a wet towel wrapped around my waist.

  “Mr. Berman,” she said pleasantly. “My name is Sharon. I’ve brought you something to eat.”

  “Err … um … thanks, Sharon,” I stammered, feeling a little exposed.

  Her eyes twinkled in amusement. “Is there anything else I can bring you?”

  There was no sexual undertone to her question. She was a professional doing her job. But the question, asked by a beautiful woman while I was mostly naked, caused my man-brain to consider some unlikely scenarios. Then an image of a lithe green goblinette flashed in my mind. Her adoring eyes and her fierce loyalty made the beautiful woman standing in my room pale in comparison.

  “No thanks,”
I said.

  Sharon offered me one last knowing smile then left the room.

  I let myself drop into the bed and grasped my face with both hands. What was I doing? Why the hell was I worried about staying faithful to a digital character?

  This was beyond confusing.

  ***

  I rested for 10 minutes before the call came then I dressed and walked to the nearby conference room. To my surprise, Jim, the head technician, was the only other person in the room with me.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  Jim smiled at me. “It’s late in the evening. Since this is only the first of what we expect to be many more routine meetings, there’s no need for full attendance. We can, of course, call your lawyer if you’d like him to be present.”

  I hesitated then shook my head. “It’s okay. I just want to go back into the game. Things progress quickly there and could take a wrong turn if I stay out too long.”

  Jim chuckled. “Being a goblin chief is a full-time job, eh?”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I muttered.

  “I might know more than you think. I educated myself on NEO’s monsters’ social structure. Isn’t it the chief’s obligation to sire as many soldiers as possible?” He threw me a mischievous grin.

  “I … eh … I mean,” I stuttered.

  Jim gave a hearty laugh. “I’m just teasing you, Oren. We’ve gone through most of the logs already; I know you used the Breeder’s Den to summon all the NPCs you have.”

  That left me wondering if they also had some sort of transcription of my intimate encounters with Tika, but I decided I didn’t want to know the answer.

  “So what are we doing here?” I asked. “Time’s a-wastin’.”

  Jim nodded. “We have a bunch of medical tests we’d like to perform to make sure your health isn’t being affected by the game. We don’t know how, or even if, time dilation can adversely affect a player’s body. We’re in uncharted territory here. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “As soon as we’re finished here,” he said. Then he looked critically at me. “How do you feel, Oren?”

  I suddenly felt like I was being put under the spotlight. The good-natured man was looking at me with a calculated gaze. “I’m okay,” I said lamely.

  “No headaches?”

  “Nope. Last time I logged in, I didn’t feel a thing.”

  “Good, good. So no gaps in your memory or anything of the sort?”

  “No.” I frowned. “Was that a possibility?”

  “Not really, but as I said, this is uncharted territory. We’d like to make sure you remain healthy.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Are you feeling tired? Maybe a little bit exhausted? You’ve been up since early this morning, and I’d say you had a lot of excitement for one day.”

  “No, I feel fine. I had a good long sleep in–” I stopped when I realized what I was going to say.

  “Inside the game,” Jim finished for me.

  “Well … yeah.”

  “I thought so.” He smiled at me. “This is good news, Oren. Our readings show you’ve been sleeping inside the game in intervals of up to 30 seconds.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Not on its own, no. What you’ve been doing is called microsleep. It usually happens naturally as a result of sleep deprivation. The mind shuts itself off for a few seconds in an attempt to refresh itself. It looks like in your case microsleep replaced actual sleep, allowing you to rest while still under the game’s time dilation. So from your perspective, it feels like you gained a full night’s rest. We’re still looking into the long-term effects of this phenomenon, but so far it doesn’t seem dangerous. The other players inside the game have been doing it as well much longer than you without adverse effects.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. I started feeling uncomfortable sitting at the large conference room table with only Jim next to me. “Was there anything else? I should get back there.”

  The technician raised one finger, and his expression grew serious. “There is one more thing. I believe I owe you an answer.”

  A sense of trepidation filled me. “About me turning into a monster,” I whispered.

  He nodded gravely. “About that.”

  I closed my eyes. Visions of me as a sadistic, feral beast flashed across my mind. Sharp teeth exposed, blood coating my hands. An uncontrolled savage.

  “The game doesn’t affect your mind, Oren.”

  I looked up at him in surprise.

  “I’m absolutely certain. I have a complete copy of all the data that was transmitted to you by the game. The buffer around your mind feeds the information into a backup storage space, so we have access to everything your mind receives. It’s a lot of data, as I’m sure you can imagine, but using some data analytical tools, I was able to get a clear picture of what you’ve experienced.”

  “What did you find?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “The game doesn’t affect your mind directly,” he reiterated. “All the information you received is sensory input. Your mind is being flooded with information: sight, touch, and smell – everything that is required for you to perceive the game world fully.”

  “What about the information tendrils?” I asked. “I can understand things just by looking at them; I can see the underlying metadata.”

  Jim shook his head. “That’s just a different part of the transmission; a layer of data on top of the sensory input. It’s intended to be used as tags for the system to follow up on what you’re perceiving.”

  “I … don’t understand.”

  Jim sighed. “Humans don’t think like computers. We can’t receive a string of binary code and see an image. The FIVR technology sends a transmission to our minds, coded in a way that can be interpreted by our senses. So you might see a picture of a grassy hill on a sunny day, which is the result of a million different neuro signals being fed to you. But a computer just needs a tag saying ‘grassy hill on a sunny day’ to keep tabs on what it sends you. Are you with me so far?”

  “I … think so.”

  “It appears that very high CCP individuals are able to interpret those tags,” he continued. “What you call the metadata is just the label for the sensory data being fed into your brain.”

  “That … makes sense,” I admitted. It explained how I was able to look at an item or a creature and understand their function or capabilities without even analyzing them first.

  “Yes. It’s an amazing mental feat, actually; one that we will be studying further. But it also means that it’s harmless. I’ve studied the data very carefully. Only sensory information has been fed to your mind. Nothing was trying to control you.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I objected. “I could feel the goblin in me waking up. When I was nearly beaten, the rage unleashed him. He fought viciously, did things I would never do.”

  Jim gave me a steady look.

  “What?”

  He sighed again. “I don’t suppose you know what my fields of expertise are?”

  “NeuroTec sciences?”

  “Among other things. I also have a background in psychology. It helps to understand the human mind in my line of work. Can I tell you what I think happened?”

  The sense of trepidation came back with a bang. I nodded, feeling my mouth dry.

  “The human mind is an amazing thing.” Jim stood up and started pacing. “We can analyze a given situation, determine the best course of action, and execute. We are reasoning, responsive beings. ‘Civilized animals,’ was what my old psych professor used to call us.”

  “What does that have to do with–” I started, but Jim held up his hand.

  “Despite all that, we are still basically primitive beings driven by feelings and desire. We’ve come far, yes, but we’re still a bunch of animals at the core. The instinct of ‘kill or be killed’ is there, along with a
strong sense of survival. In cases of extreme conditions, people fall back to their basic instincts. Getting panicked, for example, is a biological security mechanism. In case of mortal danger, instinct replaces logic and deduction, making us act, run, or fight to preserve our lives.”

  I understood where he was going, and I didn’t want to hear it. “I don’t–”

  Jim raised his hand again, and his tone became more serious, compassionate even. “You were abandoned to fend for yourself. Alone in a dangerous world. You suffered pain and loss and fought for your survival. The fact that it was all inside a game is irrelevant. When confronted with the need to fight for your life, your mind did what was needed to ensure your survival.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  His eyes nearly shone as he looked at me. “The game never affected your mind directly, Oren. There is no goblin monster waiting to take over your mind. There is only you.”

  His steady gaze communicated the words he didn’t say out loud: You are the monster.

  ***

  Jim’s words echoed in my mind long after he walked out of the room, leaving me to my thoughts.

  I was the monster? I was the one who tortured, killed, and relished the death and pain of others? It felt surreal.

  The ability to blame the atrocities I’d committed on someone else had been taken from me. I wanted to argue against that conclusion, but the technician’s words rang true. I knew he was right. Deep inside, I could still feel the goblin in me, even now. He wanted to return to his clan and his mate. Be with his daughter.

  I was so preoccupied with my musings that I didn’t notice the doctors prodding me with various devices, taking all sorts of measurements.

  I was still deep in thought when Tal finally showed up to walk me back to the FIVR lab where the technicians prepared me for another session.