Evolution Island: Kill to Survive

Reset!

Moments after the command was registered onto the system, the totem pole gave off a blinding white light. Aaron shut his eyes and shaded his face with the back of his palm.

When the bright flash faded away, Aaron heard a familiar sound. It was the loading screen music which played every time a save file was loaded. He looked around to see if anything had changed, but found the women still gathered at the settlement. If the data had been restored, then the women wouldn’t be there and both Nashoba and Zach would be alive. But it seemed like nothing had changed.

“Why won’t you load, God damn it!” Aaron banged his fist into the totem, bruising his fingers. “You stupid game! Load the freaking save file!” He had planned on venting out all his anger on this inanimate object, but before he could punch at it again, a shock threw him back.

As Aaron stumbled back on his feet and prepared to launch a fire barrage at the target, his Z-band buzzed.

[Save File Loading Error!]

[The data has been corrupted!]

[Respawning in 3...2...1]

“What the hell is going on?”

Before Aaron could anticipate what was about to happen, a digital 3D construction sequence was initiated. A steady stream of scanning lasers digitally rendered a character model, piecing together minute digital fragments. All the pieces eventually joined together and the respawn notification sound chimed in perfect sync. As the digital re-construction was complete, Zach’s character materialised before Aaron.

“What? What just happened?” Zach looked at Aaron and then back at his own hands. He pressed his neck to see if there were any broken bones, but he couldn’t even feel the slightest pain. “Am I still alive? How? Are we out of the game world?” he asked in confusion.

Aaron was stumped for a few seconds and then he finally realised what had just happened. A happy smile lit up his face and a flood of relief washed over his heavy heart. “You just re-spawned bro!” he declared emphatically, with his eyes moist with tears.

Zach was still in a state of shock. His mind had been completely messed up by this re-spawning procedure. It took him a while to come to terms with the current situation. The fact that he was still standing in the human settlement and was surrounded by tribal people quickly put his doubts to rest. “So, we are still trapped inside this game,” he said. Everything came back to him now and he remembered how the Dark Orc Warlord had snapped his neck. “Wait a second, did we finish the quest?”

“Yeah, we did,” Aaron nodded.

“And I just randomly re-spawned here?”

“No, it wasn’t random at all. I actually loaded our previous save file and it worked.”

Zach looked at the women they had rescued from the camp and knitted his brows together. “If you loaded a save file, how come they are here? Why didn’t our progress reset?”

“Well, the save file was corrupted. So, nothing really changed, except you re-spawning. Even Nashoba is still dead.”

“So, that means our characters can re-spawn whenever we get killed?”

“I really don’t know how it works. Maybe at least one of us has to stay alive and actually load the save file from the save point,” Aaron answered, gesturing towards the totem pole.

“That’s pretty neat. I guess we don’t have to worry about getting killed as long as we have a backup.”

“I wouldn’t rely too much on this mechanic. The file was still corrupted. Who knows what may happen next time,” Aaron replied.

Zach nodded and smiled. “It’s good to be back. You really have to tell me how you managed to defeat that dino.”

“I got all the time in the world.” Aaron walked up to Zach and hit him with a fist bump. Just then he remembered that he was still holding on to some great loot which was perfect for Zach. “I got something for you,” he said, opening up his digital inventory. Scrolling to the third row, he took out the special wizard equipment set along with the olive staff and handed it to Zach.

“Holy smokes!” Zach could barely contain his excitement. He finally had a full set of class-based clothing. This meant he’d no longer have to wear the cumbersome leather armour which barely offered some extra armour points and offered no boosts to any of his stats. Zach thanked Aaron for bringing him back and then switched on his Z-band. He was in the equipment screen when he noticed something was wrong. As he swiped over to the character menu, his expression quickly changed. He froze where he stood and words refused to come out of his mouth.

“Whoa, it looks like you’ve seen a ghost? What happened?” Aaron asked.

Zach turned his Z-band towards him and said, “I knew this was just too good to be true. There’s always a penalty for dying in survival games.”

“No, this can’t be! You’re back at level 1!” Aaron exclaimed in disbelief. He went over the skills section and that too was completely blank. Even his special abilities were missing.

They both realised what had actually happened now. Loading the previous save file had not restored the old data, but only allowed Zach to re-spawn inside the game. However, since he had died, the game had wiped out all his character progression data and reset his level to 1. Every skill, ability and special item he had acquired was gone now. It became amply clear to them that getting killed had severe consequences. Since Aaron had managed to complete the quest without dying, it had been registered as a success for the whole team, but Zach was still penalised for being killed.

“We’re gonna stay trapped in this game forever if this keeps happening!” Zach cried out in frustration. “I’m f*****g useless now. How the hell are we gonna defeat the Zone Guardians now?”

“We will find—”

“We can’t find a way! I’m level 1 and you’re level 20 or something! I can’t help you.”

“You can just farm XP to level up. We can try the grottos.”

“f**k that! I see what Gilbert has done. He doesn’t want us to ever get out of this world. Each time we get killed, our progress will reset and we’ll be back to level 1. And then we will keep getting killed again and again, because we’ll be f*****g low-level newbies!”

Aaron shook Zach firmly by his arm and spoke in a much more serious voice. “Just look at me, bro. This is exactly what Gilbert wants. He wants us to give up. But, we are not noobs. We’ve played enough survival RPGs before to know how to survive. This is just a game and we are not gonna let this game get the better of us. What matters is you’re back here and you’re alive. We got this.”

“I thought I’d be able to get back to the real world if I died, but here I am. And God only knows how long it will take for us to conquer all these islands. We could be trapped here for the rest of our lives.”

“If you keep thinking like that, we’ll keep losing every fight,” Aaron replied.

Zach gave him a long hard stare, before eventually accepting his lot. “How the hell can you always stay so positive? Does this s**t not bother you?”

“Hell yea it does. No one would wanna be trapped inside a game against his will. But, I don’t think crying about it will do any good. This is our reality now. We are no longer in our own world. We gotta beat Gilbert at his own game.”

“It sounds like you know something which I don’t.”

“Yeah, I just realised it while fighting the last boss,” Aaron answered. He waited for Zach to pay close attention, before continuing his train of thought. “Ever since we were teleported inside this game, we’ve been itching to get back to the real world. That’s been our biggest problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we are too afraid of this world. We are still not ready to accept our role here. This is a game and we always used to play games for fun. We used to enjoy ourselves and invent new strategies to beat even the toughest bosses. That’s what we have to do. Instead of worrying about getting back home, we have to immerse ourselves in this game world and build up our characters. We are gamers and this is what we do best. No crazy game dev can outsmart us. This game used to be our favourite RPG. This was like our second home. I’m not gonna let anyone ruin that for me.”

Listening to Aaron’s words re-ignited that old flame inside Zach’s heart. He had been so stressed about getting back to the real world, that he’d forgotten he used to love this game so much. Though Gilbert had added a bunch of new things here, the core game was still the same. Back when he’d first started testing this game, he’d made a promise to himself, that he’d be the first one to conquer Solaris and become the first Apex Predator. Aaron reminded him once more about all the great memories they had of playing RPGs together.

“You’re right. I have been too obsessed with getting back home.” Zach breathed out a heavy sigh and took in a deep breath. “This is still my favourite RPG and I’ll not let Gilbert ruin it for me. We’re gonna beat the Zone Guardians and conquer Solaris!”

As soon as Zach had finished speaking, a global notification appeared in the sky.

[Evolution Island is now being streamed online!]

[Bets going live in 5minutes!]

[Current viewer count: 500!]

[Global Champion Zeus911 has joined the server!]

[Conqueror’s Fortress has been occupied!]

[Current Challengers: 6!]

[PVP Mode Enabled!]