Banished to Another World - Chapter 128: Discovering a gold mine

The world I transmigrated into was a dark fantasy game universe, devoid of hope or dreams.Doesn’t feel like it at all, though.

“Please, I implore you to save the world.” This is what a goddess in white says to me in a pure-white space. Such is the standard line that suggests the game is about to begin. Please say this stirring line to boys and girls with sparkling eyes! It’s wrong to direct it to someone like me, who’s exhausted from job hunting! When I declined her politely, she flew into a fit of tears; when I agreed to assist her on small tasks out of reflex, she proclaimed: “it’ll be fine if you just help in the Starting-Village Arc. Please guide the Hero!” Then she tossed me into another world. No, this is a world modeled after a game that this gamer goddess likes…

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

“You better stop the fucking prank, woman, and just pick up your phone and call your alpha! Otherwise, I will press the damn button and blow you up,” A man with a very ugly-looking scar on his face said menacingly, holding a time bomb remote control in his hand and shaking it back and forth before a woman.In the last moment of her death, Rose looked into her heart and cried bitterly.“If I had a second chance, Rolan, I would never have agreed to marry you. I would never have had hopes in you.” _____On the day of her sister's wedding, Rose found herself thrust into an unexpected role as the bride when her sister failed to show up. Marrying a man who had loved her sister for three years, Rose held onto the fragile hope that he might one day care for her. But her dreams of love quickly crumbled—he ignored her, treated her coldly, and never gave her the attention she longed for.Even at her lowest, when Rose’s life hung by a thread, he was nowhere to be found, choosing instead to enjoy his time with her sister. Rose’s heart shattered as she took her final breath, consumed by betrayal and despair.When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her younger self—not before the wedding, but on the very same day she was meant to die. This time, Rose vowed to rewrite her story. She would stop loving him, leave him behind, and refuse to let herself be caught in their web of betrayal again.But the peaceful life Rose planned never came to be. Against all odds, she discovered she was pregnant—carrying his child. Now bound together by this unbreakable link, Rose must face the man she once loved, all while trying to guard her heart.Why is he chasing her now? Why wasn’t he with her sister when she ran away and left him? Why does he seem desperate to win her back when all she wants is to stay far away?