3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Cody
Cody stared at the pink tutorial pop-up in shock.
How was this…? What was this…? This couldn’t be.
He was home. This shit didn’t exist on Earth.
There was no fucking way he jumped from one insane game system to another.
He was supposed to be home, sitting on the beach, sipping his coffee, and enjoying the tranquility of the lake.
Well, fuck, Knife said, and chuckled. Ain’t this interesting?
“No-no-no-no-no,” Cody muttered.
“You have chosen ‘No’. Please confirm you would like to skip the tutorial,” came a melodic female voice and a big ‘NO’ flashed on the screen.
“No! I mean, yes!” Cody shouted. He had no clue what was going on. He definitely wanted the tutorial.
“You have chosen ‘Yes’,” the system voice said.
Let’s go! Knife said and actually sounded excited.
Fucking Knife… Cody thought, as the pink screen changed into a wall of text.
“Welcome to Cottage Country!” the system voice read. “It’s time to kick back, relax, and enjoy some slow living and sweet romances.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Cody said. “Beats fighting monsters and nearly dying every single day.”
Sounds boring, Knife said. Sounds like very few opportunities for stabbing. For sinking into the flesh of the living and being coated in warm, sensuous blood, dripping down my length and—
“The town of Cornerstone has eight main Residents and many non-permanent or less important residents,” the system continued, and Cody was thankful Knife shut up to listen, so Cody didn’t have to hear Knife-monologue about how much he liked stabbing things.
It was a bit on the nose, to be honest, and he’d already heard it a million times before.
“Make sure to meet all eight of them,” the game’s narrator continued.
“To make your friendship grow, say hello and discover their Friendship Quests. Completing Friendship Quests will help you achieve Friendship Levels with each Resident.”
“Great…” Cody said. “So, this is what? A life sim? And I have to make friends?”
“Some Residents may even be Romanceable,” the narrator continued. “Once you achieve Friendship Level One you will know if the Resident is Romanceable. To check your progress, you can open your Resident List. You must achieve all five Friendship Levels before you can unlock Romance.”
A menu appeared with a list of people. They had headshots, their first and last name, and a series of five empty circles next to their profiles.
Some looked familiar, but at least half he didn’t know.
Presumably, those circles would be filled in as Cody made progress with their Friendship.
He’d played a few life sims before, so he understood the gist of it.
He even played a few with Morgan, back in the day.
Sometimes it was nice to unwind with a bit of the three Fs: foraging, fishing, and farming.
But something told him this life sim wasn’t going to be the farming variety, seeing as he inherited a cottage from a dead relative, not the prerequisite farm.
The tutorial walked him through where to find his Town Map, which he could also use to locate Residents.
His Stamina Bar was at the top left. It was currently a full green bar.
If he glanced away and stopped thinking about it, the bar would disappear, but if he wanted to check on it, all he needed to do was think about it again and look up to the left corner and it’d be there.
It was the exact same as it had been in the last game he’d been stuck in.
The short introductory tutorial ended and Cody was left to…wander, he guessed. Go meet the NPCs. Or in this case, they weren’t really NPCs, were they? They were real people, living their lives.
He brought up the Resident List, just by thinking about it, and scrolled through.
Most of the people who he didn’t recognize were various business owners.
When Cody came to visit his Grandpa Sam, he usually stayed at the cottage and rarely came into town.
He did remember burly Resident Bob Gilbert, the owner of Bob’s Bait and Tackle, because it was one of the few places Cody did visit with Grandpa Sam.
But he couldn’t recall the older-looking waitress named Doris Smith who worked at Frank’s Diner, or the middle-aged man named William Brooks, who ran a bakery called Corner Pieces.
There was also a young blonde woman who was listed as Marigold Parker, owner of Cornerstone Critters, and a brunette woman, Lexi Rayes, who was apparently the librarian at the Cornerstone Public Library.
He was disappointed to see that Morgan’s older and equally ginger brother, Doug Callahan, had made the shortlist. There was also a little girl who looked a bit Asian, wearing her black hair in pigtails.
Her name was Gracie Callahan, but Cody had no clue who she was.
The last name suggested she could be Doug’s kid.
Under the little girl’s headshot, he found Morgan’s smiling face.
He really hated eighteen-year-old Cody for breaking her heart, all those years ago.
Every single time he found himself sleeping on the ground, looking up at the foreign constellations of Velasarin, his mind would wander back to lying on the beach with Morgan, holding hands, and looking up at the vastness of the Milky Way.
The night sky looked amazing out in cottage country, away from all the light pollution of the city.
Nearly every night he’d spent on the beach with Morgan, looking up into the sky, they would see at least one shooting star.
He couldn’t scroll past her picture. All his time in Velasarin, he never had a photo of her, just his memories. But she really was as beautiful as he remembered.
Get a fucking room, Knife grumbled. Actually, go get the fucking girl you’ve been jerking off to for the past decade, take her into that room, and fuck her brains out.
Yeah, well, it’s not going to be that easy, is it? Cody shot back at Knife. You said it yourself; she doesn’t seem very into me. She’s still pissed about what happened between us.
Then do something about it. You’re finally home and you’re going to sit on a beach and feel sorry for yourself? Knife said.
Cody ran his hands over his face with a sigh.
It was weird not having a full beard, like he used to in Velasarin.
A lot of things felt weird now. Because he was home.
He was still trying to wrap his brain around that.
To him, he had lived a decade in that game world.
A decade full of hardship and pain. He’d made friends and lost friends.
Nearly died a few times. He’d won loot and celebrated, and he also experienced the bitter taste of defeat.
He was technically thirty-eight now. He had lived a life in Velasarin that matched those years, but he was back in his twenty-eight-year-old body.
For Morgan, it had been only one decade since he ditched her and broke her heart, and only four months since his grandfather’s funeral where she politely ignored him.
But for Cody, it had been two decades. So much had changed for him, he’d had so many life experiences, and he was convinced his biggest mistake was leaving Morgan.
And now that he finally could make amends, he felt himself stalling.
He could hop in his car and head into town.
That’s what this new game wanted him to do, right?
He could meet and greet some of the people on his list, and that included Morgan.
Judging by the uniform she had been wearing, she clearly worked at the grocery store that her family owned.
He could begin to mend things. Or at the very least, he could test the waters and see if she was even remotely interested in mending things.
Assuming she hasn’t already met someone and is married and has a couple kids by now, Knife said.
“Fuck.” In all of Cody’s fantasies, she was on her own.
He didn’t like thinking of the very real alternative that she’d found someone else and was no longer single.
But she had been alone at the funeral, so hopefully that meant she was available.
Plus, she was still going by her maiden name.
Not all women changed their names once they got married, but those two pieces of information gave him a sliver of hope.
Only one way to find out, Knife said.
Cody silently agreed.
The town of Cornerstone was pretty much the same as Cody remembered.
Main Street was only five blocks long, with a few business-filled side streets that eventually gave way to quiet, quaint neighborhoods.
There was a row of little shops on the main stretch, the small grocery store being the very first one.
Cody kept driving, finding a parking spot on Main Street at the opposite end from the grocery store.
He’d make his way down there, but he wasn’t ready to start there.
Also, he was starving and needed to hit up the diner first.
Some of the shops were open year-round, such as the grocer, while others popped up as seasonal attractions for summer visitors, cottage owners and renters, and there was a campsite not far from town. The population was actually something like ten thousand, if he remembered correctly.
As he walked down the quiet street, hands in his pockets, he shook his head in wonder.
This was so…weird. He’d hopped from one game right into another?
How was that even possible? But he stopped questioning game mechanics years ago.
It was just the way of life in Velasarin.
Every single person there was connected to the system and had access to game screens, Stamina, and an Inventory.
Maybe you’re dead, Knife said. Maybe this is a weird afterlife thing. I guess that means I'm dead, too? Huh.
God, I hope not.
A grey and white cat stepped out from under a parked car, looking up at Cody and meowing.