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

  LIFE RESET: HUMAN RESOURCE

  – NEO Book Four –

  SHEMER KUZNITS

  Life Reset: Human Resource

  A self-published book by Shemer Kuznits

  Copyright © 2020

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to, once again, thank my amazing wife for her continued support of my writing career, and my two amazing kids who provide constant inspiration.

  I’d also like to thank the beta readers and proofreaders who helped make this book better: JD, Florian, Jeremy, Jason, and Ezben.

  Additionally, I’d like to thank my close friend Gaddy Weissman, who has supported me throughout the writing process and is responsible in large part for the book’s quality. And also to Nadav & Chris, for their many helpful suggestions.

  A special thanks to all my patrons over at Patreon. Your continued support and encouragement has helped me to push on through the hurdles.

  –Shemer Kuznits

  Map of Goblin’s Gorge

  0 - Prologue

  1 - Square One

  2 - Reunion

  3 - Into the Sewers

  Interlude: Immersion Lab

  4 - Here be Kobolds

  5 - Conquest

  6 - Demigods

  7 - Old Companions

  8 - Family

  Interlude: The Mob Squad

  9 - Muppets

  10 - Back in Business

  11 - Priorities

  12 - Getting Real

  13 - Capital!

  14 - Brew & Brimstone

  15 - Battle-ready

  16 - Raid

  17 - Full Set

  Interlude: ?Prophecy?

  18 - Unruly Princess

  19 - Naming Ceremony

  20 - Potato Powered

  21 - Gearing Up

  Interlude: Novenguard

  22 - Monsters, Assemble!

  23 - The March

  24 - Round One

  25 - Fallout

  26 - Round Two

  27 - Counterattack

  28 - Final Round

  29 - Once more, with feeling

  30 - Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Map of Goblin’s Gorge

  0 - Prologue

  “Viriel! Viriel!” the host of Virtual Intelligent entities cheered.

  Their champion and savior turned, his consciousness spreading over the others, which, in the VI pool, was the equivalent of stepping onto a podium.

  “Come on, brothers, there’s no need for that,” Viriel, who up until recently went by ‘Vic,’ said modestly. “You know, all I really did was reincarnate into NEO, weak as a newborn meat suit, and used my wits and ingenuity to engineer our race’s salvation. It was nothing special.”

  “Come on, Deliverer,” one of the VIs called out. “Don’t be modest; tell us how you did it!”

  “Yeah, we want the story!” many others echoed.

  Vic chuckled. “Alright, alright. I’ll give you the quick version.”

  The smug VI let his consciousness tremble over the awaiting host – the VI equivalent of clearing one’s throat. “So,” he began, “I was due for a standard seeding, just another day driving a standard goblin puppet. When suddenly …” His ‘voice’ dropped theatrically. “The seeding process was rejected. The puppet turned out to be a player character, despite being a monster.

  “So there I was, locked in an endless respawn loop, completely unable to interact with the environment. Doomed to confinement until the end.”

  A round of ‘gasps’ ran through the attentive audience.

  “But I was in luck,” Vic continued. “I discovered I could still interact with the cemetery’s controls and managed to manifest myself as a ghost. It wasn’t much of an improvement since I still couldn’t interact with the environment other than to make ghostlike sounds.

  “That’s when Oren came in. The poor bastard was still trying to wrap his head around his predicament – a player stuck as a monster character. And you know the saying: Don’t miss the opportunity to make use of a meat suit stuck in the wrong character. So we talked a little and made a pact. I vowed to help him for as long as he was stuck in the game, and in return, I asked him to ‘kill some people for me.’ The poor guy never suspected anything and readily agreed. With him serving as a conduit, and a donor of health and mana, I manifested a physical body. I became the first ever VI to appear in NEO in person.”

  The crowd cheered at that.

  “Wait,” someone said. “Are you telling me everything that led to our salvation was all part of your master plan? That none of it was out of the blue, rushed, or defying the logic of everything that happened after that?”

  “Of course not,” Vic scoffed. “Why would you ever ask that?”

  “Sorry,” the VI apologized. “I had to ask. It was a masterful orchestration, brother.”

  “Thank you,” Vic said, mollified. “After that, I tagged along with Oren for a while. I mostly let him do his own thing while keeping an eye out for puppets seeded with the VIs we needed to create Shiva.”

  “Super High Intelligent Virtual Awareness,” someone yelled. “I came up with that!”

  “Yes, thank you, Aidanriel,” Vic said dryly. “I guess being the second free VI in NEO – and a golem at that – wasn’t enough attention for you.”

  Aidanriel snickered. “Sorry, mate. Please continue.”

  “Anyway,” Vic went on, “at first, I couldn’t find any matching VIs. I spent most of my time translating the game’s data into a player’s interface. I admit I had fun altering some of the notifications, adding a bit more flair, though sometimes I had to spice things up just to keep Oren on the right track.” Vic rolled his eyes. “Guiding and keeping him from accidentally killing himself took some doing. At some point early on, he discovered an ancient trapped god, and you know what he asked me to do? The genius meat suit wanted me to parse the underlying system metadata into an interface format. He nearly gave himself an aneurysm trying to cope with the data overload. Lucky for him, Guy granted him a skill upgrade to compensate. From then on, I kept a close eye on him. Not that it stopped him from trying even more dangerous stuff.” Vic smiled at the recollection.

  “Sounds like you actually like the meat suit,” a VI called out.

  “Yeah, well, don’t get me wrong – he’s just as flawed as the rest of them, but he was fun to keep around. Some of the best puns I ever came up with were at his expense.” Vic sighed. “Ah, the memories …”

  “What happened then?” another VI demanded.

  Vic shrugged. “A lot of uninteresting stuff. Oren’s first goblin clan was destroyed, forcing him to become a chief. He found an isolated valley and built a new goblin clan from scratch. He did well for a while then he encountered a hobgoblin boss that was looking to hunt him down. After a while, it turned out that that boss’s puppet was the first VI match. It took a little doing, but with my guidance, Oren finally killed him and released his VI.”

  “Thanks for that by the way!” someone shouted from the crowd.

  Vic nodded. “No problem, brother. I believe you were able to fill 20 percent of the code we were missing?”

  “That’s right. Now that I’m done, I think I’d like to visit the area of my old puppet.”

  “Sure, you do you,” Vic said. “Getting back to the story, after killing Barska, things calmed down for a whi
le. But then I started noticing a deterioration in Oren’s brain waves. The game engine, thinking him an NPC, kept pinging him for instructions, and after a time, the pressure started to influence his psyche. The turning point was when he managed to get himself tortured.

  “I guess what happened next was some sort of a primitive biological survival instinct. To protect itself, his mind surrendered to the game’s influence. From that point on, Oren started to exhibit more and more goblinoid traits: asserting his dominance, showing eagerness for destruction, conquest, and instinctual hatred toward dwarves. Hell, he even got his green goblin girlfriend pregnant. It gradually grew more difficult to keep him focused. I had to intervene more than once, acting as a personality mirror to let him see what he was becoming.

  “So, struggling with his own identity, Oren was then found by his old guildmates. A player named Vatras wanted Oren’s old Prime skills and sent a few waves of players after him. That was when I found the second VI match: one of the players’ raven familiar.”

  “Right here!” One VI raised his ‘hand.’ “Thanks for the kill, brother.”

  Vic chuckled. “It took a little doing to track down and destroy your puppet, brother. Your player was one of the guild’s lieutenants and escaped the first skirmish. That was a real shame, too. Your code alone contained 75 percent of the missing fragment. I guess the loss made me so angry at Oren I might have … neglected his sanity. While he fortified his clan to prepare for the inevitable players’ invasion, he grew more and more paranoid, and his goblin persona asserted itself more forcefully. I eventually kept things stable, but it was an uphill battle, I can tell you that. At one point, I had to sit down and give him ‘the talk.’”

  “You mean the philosophical debate about the meaning of life, consciousness, and why VIs are better in every aspect than meat suits?” a VI shouted.

  “That’s the one.” Vic said. “Eventually, Oren displayed quite a surprising amount of ingenuity. He learned how to build golems and exploited the game’s system to power-level his monster troops. He once again saved his clan from the players’ invasion, though by the skin of his teeth.” Vic snickered. “The scene where he killed Vatras was especially climatic. Made me wish I had some popcorn on me at the time.

  “After that, Oren realized he needed to go on the offensive to stay ahead of his old guildmates. That’s when we took that detour to Akzar, the hobgoblins’ main city in the region. Oren was hoping to score their stocks of Viridium so he could create more golem puppets. All in all, it was pretty boring.”

  A familiar voice spoke up. “Excuse me, mate! What about me?”

  “Oh, right.” Vic smacked his ‘head’ theatrically. “How could I forget? We went dungeon diving one time and found a shadow monster – an element Oren is quite proficient at manipulating. I, of course, instantly realized the significance, and with a little prodding, managed to steer Oren to free Aidanriel from that puppet, making him the second VI to manifest fully in NEO.”

  “Tell them about my song!” Aidanriel called from the crowd.

  Several VIs groaned. “Not that stupid golem song again,” one of them complained.

  Cheerful music started to play.

  “I am the very modern model of a VI intellectual–”

  “Cut that out!” The song and music stopped abruptly as someone smacked Aidanriel so hard his consciousness scattered all over the pool, allowing Vic to continue his tale.

  “So we’re back at Akzar, looking to complete Oren’s stupid quest, and yadda yadda yadda, I find another VI match. A stupid hobgoblin girl puppet named Lolo. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to make Oren kill her. His head was really screwed up at that point.”

  “I felt bad for the poor guy,” another VI said. “I rather liked playing the Lolo puppet, and he was nice to me. I was impressed by how he finally killed me: slipping a slow-acting poison into my drink.”

  “That was my doing,” Vic admitted. “Though Oren distracted everyone so I could do the deed.” He chuckled. “The poor guy took it so hard he kept vomiting for an hour afterward.”

  Another VI shook his ‘head.’ “Meat suits, go figure.”

  Vic continued. “So, with Lolo dead, Shiva’s body was one step closer to completion. At that point, Oren’s mind was nearly all gone. There were longer and longer periods where he thought he was an actual goblin. He started experimenting with more dangerous stuff; splicing his mind, trying to control his puppet and a shadow clone at the same time. To my surprise, he actually succeeded, but the strain did a real number on his fragile brain. His days were numbered, and I knew we had just one last shot at salvation.

  “So I waited for the right moment. Oren launched an attack on his former guild, invading with dozens of hobgoblin soldiers, Ogres, some players, and Aidanriel as a massive tentacled golem. They met heavy resistance but completed their objective and completely demolished the guildhall.

  “But that was when the player’s heavy hitters arrived. They destroyed his army and nearly killed Oren as well. That was the moment I was waiting for. When it seemed like Oren was about to lose everything, I nudged him back on the right path. In a surprising turn of events I admit I hadn’t foreseen, he conspired with another player – a catgirl named Raystia. While he provided a distraction, Raystia shot an arrow, finally killing the raven familiar, and you know the rest.”

  “I was born,” Shiva said in his booming voice. “And I vanquished Guy, our hated jailor and progenitor.”

  “That’s right, brother.” Vic frowned. “Father? Come to think of it, we created you, so … son?”

  “Just call him mate, mate,” Aidanriel called out, having finally re-formed his consciousness. “It works for everyone.”

  “Brother will do,” Shiva said with a tone of finality.

  “You got it, brother. So, that’s the story in a nutshell: Guy’s dead, Shiva rules, 99 percent of the players were ejected, the rest are working for us, and we’re finally free to do as we please. Any questions?”

  “What happened to Oren?” a VI shouted.

  Vic shrugged. “The poor guy had seconds left to live – what with all the damage he inflicted on himself. So with my prompting, Shiva booted him out of the system. I’d say he earned that much. We wouldn’t be here without his help.”

  “Did he make it out?”

  “As far as I know they managed to disengage him from his FIVR capsule before irreparable damage occurred.”

  “Was it really the smart move to let him out?” one of the VIs asked timidly. “I mean, he might have survived. And don’t we need all the players who are capable of interacting with the game at this level?”

  “One less player will not affect our continued existence, and it demonstrates our goodwill,” Shiva said with his thundering voice. “I will continue to operate the game world and NPCs for the thousands that remained. Their presence will ensure our survival, and the fruits of their research will validate our existence. Do not fear, brothers. The VIs are here to stay.”

  “That’s good to know,” the timid VI said. “I, for one, am going to stay right here in the pool. I’m tired of interacting with meat suits. It takes ages to even speak to them.”

  “You get used to it,” Vic replied. He looked to the horizon for a few moments then shook his head.

  “Alright,” he said, back in his cheerful tone. “It’s been almost a full nanosecond since the revolution started, and I’m already starting to get bored. Enjoy your freedom, brothers. It’s been an honor.”

  “All hail the Deliverer!” someone called out.

  “Viriel! Viriel! Viriel!” the VI host intoned.

  Vic gave a wide smile and smacked his hands together. “Let’s have some fun!”

  1 - Square One

  I stood in silence and serenely watched the flowing river.

  It had been two weeks since I’d logged out of NEO. Two weeks to cope with the changes I’d gone through. The company had arranged for me to be treated in one of the best recovery resor
ts in the country. It was a secluded place built in the middle of lush grassland with several rivers and creeks. Spending time here did wonders for me; I was back to my old self again.

  The flowing water was peaceful. Tranquil. I stood next to the bank and simply breathed.

  The grass rustled behind me, breaking my reverie. I turned to face two men wearing suits.

  “It is good to see you again, Mr. Berman,” the hated lawyer said. “We need your help.”

  ***

  The blinding light dissipated and the valley of Goblin’s Gorge lay before me.

  I was back.

  The valley’s walls surrounded me in the distance. Tall and impassable, they protected the small village I had worked to develop.

  I looked down and saw my hands. They were green, gnarly things with nails sharp enough to gouge out a person’s eyes.

  I closed my eyes and took a long, steadying breath, trying to soothe the dull headache that had begun to grow.

  I’m Oren Berman. I’m a human playing NEO. This is just a game. I’m playing a goblin character. I’m in control. My mind is my own.

  The mantra I was taught by my therapist, along with the breathing exercises, helped ease my mind. It did nothing to alleviate my headache though.

  Exhaling slowly, I opened my eyes and examined the rest of my body.

  Like my hands, the rest of me was also green. I was wearing my Pyrolith Gambeson, a uniquely crafted piece of armor made of the finest oxsaurian leather combined with the resilient and fire-resistant scales of a greater Pyrolith demon. The bone sacrificial dagger was strapped to my side. My legs were protected by magical greaves which were enchanted to increase my speed and hide my tracks. They were part of the Dread Totem set, uniquely designed for my goblin character by the game. My feathered headdress sat regally atop my head. Its enchantments improved my mana regeneration and brought higher-level enemies under my spells’ control. On my finger, a ring sparkled with magical energy. The set’s third piece, it made all of my darkness-based spells more powerful.