In the beginning, there was a girl who played a game…

  The menu option appeared before my eyes:

  Calamity Lara/ Short name: Cala, Level 94, Title: Warlord, Class: Assassin.

  Statistics:117256 kills; 3 deaths

  Activate?

  Of course, activate!

  Cala stood just a bit taller than me, and I was already considered a tall girl. Her hair was a sleek raven black, cropped short to her head, and her piercing grey eyes had a steely blue tint that gave them a mesmerizing quality. It felt as though an extra light was shining from those eyes whenever she looked at you. Her long, delicate eyelashes hinted at some non-human ancestry flowing in her veins.

  She had a lithe, powerful body that moved with the speed and grace of a predatory cat. Her black leather armor clung to her like a second skin, effortlessly stylish. Her small, pert breasts, slender arms, and long legs completed her striking figure.

  Her nose was originally perfectly straight but now had a slight deviation in the middle; a while back, a healing spell didn't work perfectly. Yes, even magic has its blunders. While a visit to a high-level specialist and a decent amount of gold might have fixed it, it wasn't on Cala's priority list.

  Her rather thin lips defined a relatively wide grinning mouth, displaying two rows of perfectly white teeth.

  Yes, that wide grin was mine: I was glad to be her, and her stylish clothes were my personal contribution. When I took over her character and assumed the identity of Cala, her dress was primarily utilitarian, but I've always believed that life requires more than just practicality.

  I slowly flexed my hands, clenched and unclenched my fists, stretched my legs, and rolled my shoulders.

  I had to get used to being her... it only took me a few seconds to adjust. It's incredible how quickly our brain adapts to a new body, one that's stronger, better, faster, and still mine.

  Finally, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  "Warlord?!" I chuckled with satisfaction as the memories flooded back into my brain. Yes, I was one of the organizers of several successful raids on noteworthy enemy cities. The fire of battle, the rush of adrenaline, and the thrill of risking my life for a cause - nothing compares to that feeling. And let's not forget the reward of all those shiny gold coins lining my pockets. A sense of pride and nostalgia washed over me as I reminisced about my past conquests.

  I chuckled. As strange as it can be, the avatar has its own memory which adds to mine. I cracked my neck. So, let me go meet my friend Spartacius!

  Why did he call Cala a cheated character? Oh yes, because I didn't play her from the beginning; I didn't create her myself. I have her from a friend; we met in real life while I was working on a game-related school project, and he let me take over his account. That's how I got Cala. Well, that's another story.

  Taking over Cala's character didn't feel like cheating; it was more like an adoption. Even though the memories I had of her weren't originally mine, I still felt like they belonged to me because Cala is a part of me now. I remember everything she went through, the good and the bad, the betrayals and the moments of glory.

  I sighed. Memories of why I stopped playing flooded back. How could I forget? It wasn't because of Cala or the game but rather because of me, Dolores. When I was leaving, becoming myself, I was starting to feel incomplete. I was afraid that I would fall too much in love with the idea of me being Cala; that's why I stopped playing her.

  Now it felt like coming back home. I took another deep breath and enjoyed the feeling of being alert, of being alive, of being Cala!

  I stepped into the lobby—a sprawling, cavernous hall that felt like a surreal blend of railway station, cafeteria, library, and cinema. It stretched endlessly to the left and right, bustling with life. Lone figures loitered beneath flickering advertisements, calling out to recruit for one guild or another. Clusters of people, both large and small, gathered around tables or lounged on plush couches, engaged in lively chatter. Overhead, jinn-like flying servants zipped through the air, gracefully delivering trays of food and drinks to waiting hands.

  I ignored the hullabaloo and briskly crossed the chaotic expanse toward the far wall, where glowing portals shimmered in and out of existence. Following his instructions, I called out:

  “Spartacius' room!”

  The portal shimmered and pulled me into a modest, almost bare chamber. It was minimalistic to the extreme—just a table and a couple of chairs. Clearly, it ranked on the lower end of private rooms, with no signs of entertainment or luxury.

  He was already there, waiting for me. A relatively handsome warrior stood tall at about 1.85 meters, just a touch taller than Cala. Blond hair framed his confident face, and his patchy armor failed to conceal a sculpted six-pack.

  The worn, low-grade armor told a story. Either he didn’t have the means to invest real money into the game, or he chose not to. Living without spending real-world currency in this world was possible, but there was no denying that money could make the experience far easier—and far more comfortable.

  He seemed a bit taken aback when he saw me - clearly, he wasn't used to seeing me with this avatar.

  “It's me, Cala!”

  He smiled happily.

  “Wow, you look sexy!”

  A red panel blinked above his head: attention, minor 14 years.

  He had to use the word 'sexy' ... I sighed. I was there with a kid!

  It was rare to encounter a fourteen-year-old playing Mephisto's World, a game where almost anything was possible. However, some families believed it was better for teenagers to experience the harsher realities of life within a virtual world rather than in the real one. The argument was that young people could—and often did—enlist in the military before the age of eighteen, where they’d face gruesome truths firsthand. Better, some thought, to let them face these in a controlled virtual environment first. Besides, the game’s safeguards ensured that if such young players found themselves in dire situations, the system would either save them or forcibly disconnect them, severing their link to their avatar.

  For a brief moment, I considered leaving him behind. But as that initial reaction faded, I reminded myself of why I had trusted him in the first place. We'd met during my desperate hunt for a co-pilot and mechanic in a high-stakes car racing game. He was one of the few to step up, and it didn’t take long for him to prove he was skilled and capable.

  After we tackled that long Paris-Dakar rally together—an event that now only exists in Dreamland—I added him to my friends list. At the end of the ten days race, we placed eighth out of thousands of participants, with me as the driver and him as the co-pilot. It was a remarkable achievement, and we made a solid team.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  We’d bonded like true comrades, why should I cast him aside now just because I found out how young he is? I remembered when I first started gaming at seventeen—how furious I was when people dismissed me for being "too young." Now, I could understand their hesitation better, but back then, it had only fueled my anger. There was no way I was going to do the same to him.

  He had asked me to help him complete a quest in Mephisto Chapter 2: Remove the Lynx from Lilytown's Forest, which was why I’d reactivated Cala in the first place. The fact that he had prompted me to bring Cala back to life was reason enough to lend him my support.

  I grinned and said, "Isn't this outfit something? It took me ages to find all these pieces and put them together!"

  It was true - I had spent at least half of my game time raiding the auction house or chasing rare mobs to get the perfect ensemble.

  Before he had a chance to comment, I said: "Come on, let's go kill that beast!" -then I turned towards the wall.

  Another portal opened, but this time the magic portal was plastered with adds:

  You are entering Mephisto's world. A New Reality! No repetitive quests, no fixed outcomes. Fight for good or bad, be an angel or a demon! And many more pictures and slogans plastering the wall, each one more enticing than the last.

  Mephisto's World, the greatest and most popular game online!

  My avatar melted in a streak of rays and I found myself in a new world. Now I was really there. Now I was really Cala. There was still a difference between the lobby and the game. No matter how good the lobby was, the game was the real thing. I looked around.

  It was as if I would see better and more colors than on Earth. The graphics were amazingly well done. Each time I joined the game, I had this moment of wonder; each time, I was stunned. It must be the incredibly high computing power that enables this. I remember seeing the billboard displaying the number of users when I entered the lobby. It showed numbers in the millions of users playing Mephisto, and all their computers were made available for the game! Millions, tens of millions of computers power connected!

  But the real magic lay in how they made all those computers work together seamlessly, creating the greatest and fastest computer ever built. And all of this computing power was being harnessed for a game! It was truly mind-boggling.

  “Is there something, lady Cala?”

  A sweet voice woke me up from my thoughts and made me smile. I turned and saw her: a beauty to fall in love with! I admired the cascade of incendiary red hair falling over her bare shoulders.

  "Everything OK,” I replied, smiling back at her.

  Her hair shimmered like little flames in the sunlight as she smiled at me.

  She was reclining on a bow, sporting a trapper outfit, and carrying a bag filled with arrows over her shoulder. The sight of her standing against the untamed forest was breathtaking, and to top it all off, she was the most skilled fire-arrow shooter I had ever met - my Alice.

  "I need to summon a friend; please help me," I said, rummaging through my inventory for a summon stone.

  Each summon consumed one of these stones, and summoning any member of your group required two people to perform the spell. I placed the stone carefully on the ground, and Alice placed her hand over mine as I spoke his name.

  Once the spell was cast, we stepped back. You don’t want to accidentally end up hugging the person you're summoning—unless, of course, that's the plan.

  A second later, the stone crumbled into fine dust, and there he was, smiling warmly at us.

  “Hi!” he greeted.

  I gestured between them. “Alice, this is my friend Spartacius!” Then, turning to him, I added, “Alice is my merc.”

  He gave her a curious look. “You still have a rogue archer from Chapter 1 as your bodyguard? Aren’t they supposed to be pretty weak in close combat?”

  Alice stood by my side, her smile perfectly composed—as any NPC's should be—but I caught the faintest flicker in her eyes and noticed her fingers tightening ever so slightly on her bow.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at her reaction before giving Spartacius a casual shrug. He wasn’t entirely wrong. Mixed classes, like rogue-archers, tended to be less effective in specialized roles compared to their purer counterparts—a rogue excelling in close combat or an archer in long-range precision. Still, hybrid classes had their own unique advantages.

  Besides, I had a hunch the original owner of my character, Cala—Markus—hadn’t kept Alice purely for her combat prowess. Sure, there were likely more efficient mercenaries in Mephi*, but few could rival Alice’s striking beauty.

  She wasn’t part of Cala’s assassin contracts team. She had been more of a side project for him, a companion for quests rather than a combat machine.

  “She’s fine,” I replied nonchalantly. “She’s level 84.”

  I wasn’t about to launch into a detailed debate about class builds and skill trees—that had never been my strong suit.

  “Whoa, level 84? That’s insane!” Spartacius exclaimed, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “How many years does it even take to get a merc to that level? Crazy! But honestly, you should see what a level 84 sorcerer from one of the Chapter 3 cities can do.”

  I shrugged again, nonchalant. “About eight years or so? Maybe less if you’re focused. And yeah, I know, but we are a team and I prefer her.”

  He considered that for a moment before nodding. “Should I hire one too, then?”

  “I’d recommend it. You’ll need to make it to Chapter 3 before you can even hire a sorcerer, though. And trust me, you’ll want some help getting there.”

  “OK, makes sense. Uh, can you lend me some gold to hire one? I’ll pay you back after we get the reward.”

  “Sure thing,” I agreed easily. “Let’s head to the camp first, though, before we visit the town. Oh, and hold up— we’ll rent a pair of horses. Otherwise, we’ll be walking for the next hour…”

  The ride to the rogue camp would take less than half an hour, and I was happy to lend Spartacius the gold to hire a horse. Fortunately, there was a nearby spot where we could buy or rent one.

  Travel time in Mephisto was always a hot topic, sparking endless debates in the forums. Players spent a significant portion of their in-game hours traveling from one place to another. Sure, there were portals and other mobility perks for higher-level players—teleportation spells, coach rides, or even flying mounts—but even then, a lot of time got eaten up by mundane logistics.

  The developers’ stance was clear: Mephisto wasn’t a shooter game. It was a realistic fantasy experience. If you wanted to travel faster, you needed to earn it—grind levels, learn mobility spells, invest in pricey mounts, or find clever workarounds. Nothing came easy.

  And honestly, that was the point. This was hard-core Mephisto, not some watered-down knockoff designed for casuals. If you wanted to get anywhere in this world—literally or figuratively—you had to put in the work.

  As we started our ride, Alice pulled her horse closer to mine, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Slaver gangs have been reported in the area, and a couple of settlements were raided. What precautions should I take?” she asked, her tone calm but serious.

  Slaver gangs… That was new. These borders had been quiet for far too long. It had to be the Golden Empire’s doing. This was their usual tactic—sending in slaver gangs as a way to test the defenses of neighboring territories while maintaining that they had nothing to do with those privateers. If the gangs succeeded in sowing chaos, the Empire would follow up with a military campaign under the guise of "restoring order."

  The Golden Empire was an aggressive, expansionist power, and the Republic was now facing the result of their disastrous war with the orcs. That whole debacle had been a masterclass in political shortsightedness.

  When the orcs rebelled against Mephisto, the Republic saw an opportunity to rid themselves of the orc tribes living along their northern border. Instead of supporting the tribes as a buffer against Mephisto, they attacked. It had been a catastrophic mistake. They’d sent three armies north. Two were utterly destroyed, and the third retreated in disarray after taking heavy losses. Now the Republic was scrambling to recruit a fourth army, while the orc tribes, weakened and bitter, were offering even more concessions to Mephisto.

  And here we were, riding along this powder keg of a border, with slaver gangs adding fuel to the fire. Lovely.

  I sighed.

  “Scout ahead for us, but don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  Alice nodded, her usual steady calmness reassuring. Nothing more needed to be said. She’d slip into the shadows and keep watch, warning us if anything seemed off. Alice might not have been the strongest, but this was a case where she would excel. She was reliable, quick, unseen as a rogue would be, and a sharp archer for backup if needed.

  I shifted in my saddle, my thoughts wandering. Just this morning, I’d been invited on a shopping trip by Clara and Lola—the sisters I shared an apartment with. Instead of tagging along, I’d chosen Dreamland.

  Shopping had its perks, sure. With Lola, it could even be fun. But Clara? Ugh. She was the adult in the room, the older sister who always seemed to feel the need to remind us. Yes, fine, without her, our parents wouldn’t have let us relocate for school, but did she have to overplay her authority every single time? It was exhausting.

  We’d just had another heated argument about some pointless subject—I’d already forgotten the reason.

  I snorted, the memory of her endless lectures still lingering in my mind. Whatever. Dreamland might come with its own set of frustrations, but at least here, the possibilities were endless. The fun, the challenges, the freedom to explore and make my own choices—it was all mine.