Summary: The first time Gui Wen died, he had been level four.

Set early in the manhua.

For the first challenge at halfprince_fics.

A little bit darker than I thought it would be (though definitely lighter than what I'd been planning before. That just... morphed, that one.)

I start thinking about stuff in canon when I write. Obviously, I'm taking this too seriously.

Dying

By Dark Ice Dragon

The first time Gui Wen died, he had been level four. That had been... something he wouldn't forget. He had thought that after levelling up a few times he would have been all right, especially since he was still fighting the wolves. With that confidence, he'd decided to explore a little bit, to see where they usually patrolled and how many there were.

He'd found a pair standing just outside a cluster of trees. Nothing unusual, and he could handle two of them at once, even if he did have to use potions afterwards.

After attacking them however, a further four wolves had come running out of the trees, close on the heels of the first two. He'd been able to kill two before dying.

He had woken up at that point, heart pounding and his bed in disarray. That had been entirely too similar to a nightmare he had had as a child. Frowning, Gui Wen had taken the headset off and stared at it, turning it slowly over in his hands.

He'd tried to ignore the way his hands were shaking, how his heart hadn't completely calmed down, or the fact that his breathing wasn't even.

In his mind, he could still hear the wolves' howls, feel the weight of one on his chest. He'd put the headset down and carefully checked his arms. There hadn't been any signs of damage or bruising. Still staring, he'd brushed his fingers over his forearm – there. He'd twisted his arm around, but there wasn't anything to see. A wolf had bitten him in that spot, and while he could feel some pain, his skin was untouched. Was he only imagining the pain? After all, it hadn't actually happened, so maybe he was only reacting to pain that he was expecting to feel.

Gui Wen had eyed the headset before placing it on his bedside-table. He'd had enough playing for that night.

After that, he was more cautious about what he fought, too aware of how low his attack power was. It was slow going, but he amused himself in between blocks of levelling up with role playing. Doing that made him money too. He still died from time to time, but it wasn't as shocking as it had been the first time, and he was more prepared for it – unless he was attacked from behind, which was understandable.

He'd eventually found the man-eating zombies and stayed there for weeks. Even if he did accidently pull too many, with them, he had enough time to move away before they reached him.

The next time he died, it was from one slash of Prince's sword and it had been fast enough that he didn't realise he was dead until he found himself at the revival spot. Yet, he joined his team afterwards. Well, it was a game. There had been a couple of instances later where Prince hadn't paid enough attention to how much damage he was actually doing and he'd ended up at the revival spot. That... had been annoying, especially when where they were training took two hours to reach. Prince did sound genuinely apologetic afterwards though.

But, in the other games he had played, dying hadn't meant as much because he had just been staring at the screen (in the much older games) or he kept an eye on his health bar in the corner of his vision, which was distracting to begin with, and since that game couldn't let you feel pain, it may as well have been staring at a screen as well.

While the pain of dying wasn't good, being able to feel the world around him was a new experience. Like feeling the rough cloth on his skin, what tree bark felt like, and actually being able to feel the sun and wind in his face there.

A game that was ninety-nine percent realistic had its downsides; on the other hand, that was what made it fun and interesting too.