“Hey, wake up!”

Had I fallen asleep? I probably didn't. I most likely passed out from the pain.

The first thing I did was open one eye and look around, wondering who had woken me up and brought me back into a life of torture and sadness.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was surrounded by three pretty girls. One blonde, one black haired, and the third one had brown hair. All of them seemed worried about me, judging by their expressions.

One of them, the blonde one, had placed my head on her lap as she held what felt like a rag against my neck. Was she tending to my wounds?

Admittedly, it was kind of embarrassing to wake up in a strange girl’s lap, but I took a good look at her and she was cute as hell. She was incredibly beautiful, more so than I had originally thought. I could imagine a long list of bad places to find yourself after fainting. This was nowhere near the top.

“Rise and shine! I'm user YooTheBest. But, ah, you can call me Jeongyeon. I found you in that forest over there,” the blonde, Jeongyeon, said as she gestured toward the forest behind us, “You were passed out and had a knife in your neck. Hope you're feeling a little better. I used some healing magic on you, but I ran out of MP before finishing, so you're not quite ready to get up and start walking.”

It was shocking to hear that she had healed me. I had no idea who she was, but I was extremely grateful that she bothered to do that anyway. I struggled as it was to not faint again because of the pain, so I couldn't imagine how much more pain I was in before being healed. I tried to thank her, but I wasn't sure if I could talk at all.

“Don't speak, it's okay,” she said, noticing my internal struggle. She grinned warmly. “Your stab wound might open up or something. It's ok. I'm just gonna introduce my friends, alright? That way we get to know each other from the get-go. I’m sure you're a bit freaked out right now, seeing as you just woke up in a stranger's lap, so I hope getting to at least know our names will help with that.”

I nodded, thankful to have finally found people that seemed to be genuinely interested in helping me.

“Ok, so like I said, I'm Jeongyeon! This girl over here, the one with the black hair, that's Nayeon. Her username is bUnnie.” She pointed at the pretty girl and told her to wave. Nayeon waved at me, looking a little awkward, and I waved back just as awkwardly. The awkwardness kind of dissipated when she smiled, as her smile was absolutely adorable. I guessed the username was making a reference to her cute front teeth.

“And this one right here,” Jeongyeon said, pointing to another cute girl with long brown hair, “is Jihyo. Her username is GodJihyo. She's the leader of our tiny guild.”

Jihyo stepped closer to me and waved. The first thing I noticed about her were her eyes. They were so big and brown, absolutely mesmerizing. I was so captivated by them that I almost didn't hear her introduce herself to me.

“Hey, Chaeyoungster. I'm Jihyo. Leader of 3Mix. This is going to be an offhand question, but I'm assuming you're affected by the bug too? The one that somehow connected our sense of touch to the game?” Jihyo asked, kneeling closer to me. Jeongyeon made a small sound.

“Uh, let's not call it a bug. We don't know what it is. All we know is what it does. None of us here have any knowledge in video game programming or developing. I don't want us to look like idiots when it turns out it's not a bug.”

Nayeon spoke up. “Point is, it's clearly not just Jihyo and I suffering because of this...phenomenon,” she said, nodding at Jeongyeon, “since Chaeyoungster here looks like she's actually suffering from the stab. That must mean that there are probably a lot of other players in this server that were affected by it too. Therefore, it wasn't anything that we did, which is what we suspected at first.”

I was going to respond but Nayeon jumped to her feet and pointed somewhere over Jeongyeon’s shoulder.

“Jeongyeon! Over there! An enemy! Go go! Maybe it'll drop a couple potions and more EXP!”

Jeongyeon turned around to look for the enemy and gasped. She quickly but carefully moved my head from her lap and pulled out a sick-looking blade from a small sheath. “Take care of Chaeyoungster, Jihyo,” she ordered, her previously soft expression now replaced with a tough determined one. “We don't want her to die in our care. Nayeon, back me up just in case I lag.”

Nayeon ran into a nearby tent and came back out with a crossbow. She loaded it as quickly as she could and ran after Jeongyeon, who had already made her way towards whatever enemy they were talking about.

Jihyo, probably noting my desire to see what was going on, positioned me in a way that I could watch the scene unfold. I immediately wished she hadn't, as the enemy that they were about to fight was a giant troll-looking thing. It was massive, much taller than any human I had ever seen. It very easily could smash its giant club into either of the two girls and instantly kill them.

“Are they going to be okay?” I croaked out, dreading the outcome of this fight.

“Yeah, don't worry, we all chose pretty good combat classes. Jeongyeon is a Ranger, so she's swift and good at melee fighting, and Nayeon is an Assassin. She has this perk that lets her land critical hits if she's hidden. Besides, all of us are pretty high level, as you've probably seen. Jeongyeon is level 58, Nayeon is 54, and I'm level 60. They probably won't eve—”

“W-wait, back up! What do you mean by ‘class’? What's that?” It was rude of me to interrupt her but I needed to know everything about this game. She took it in stride, though, and calmly explained it all to me.

“They're kinda like professions that decide a person’s abilities and fighting style in a game,” she answered, still watching Jeongyeon and Nayeon attempt to take down the giant troll. “You choose the class at the beginning of the game when you customize your character. They're a little different than what they're usually supposed to be like, but they still have some similar basic attributes. Jeongyeon chose to be a Ranger, which means she can use bows, blades, and sometimes swords. She prefers a blade over a bow, though. Rangers can also be good at using certain types of magic, which is why she was able to heal you as much as she did before she ran out of MP.”

I slowly started to understand what classes meant. Maybe they were kind of like those geeky Dungeons & Dragons’s classes? Mina had tried to get me to play with her before, but as always, I refused.

“Nayeon, as an Assassin, can do pretty amazing things. See her over there, hiding in the trees?”

I turned to the battle scene and briefly checked on Jeongyeon. She didn't seem tired at all despite running around the giant troll, stabbing and slicing whenever she had an opening.

I looked to the trees but couldn't find Nayeon at all. Was she even there?

“I bet you can't find her,” Jihyo interrupted, smiling proudly in what I assumed was Nayeon’s general direction. “That's because Assassins are masters of stealth and infiltration. They may not be the strongest class out there, but they make up for it with a variety of skills, like lockpicking, the use of status effects, camouflage… all that cool stuff. She's using her camouflage, or stealth ability, right now, which raises the chances of getting a critical hit if the enemy can’t see you.”

I didn't know games were so complex and thought out. I had skipped the character customization screen, so I had no idea what class I was and what cool things I could do. Maybe I could ask Jihyo if there was a way for me to find out later, but at that moment, I