01 | THE BAR

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CHAPTER ONE.

FOR SIX YEARS, you have been living in a game

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FOR SIX YEARS, you have been living in a game.

An adventurer game, at that, with all its flashy, exorbitant graphics, healers and the necromancers at the guilds. A game where there's all those levels you need to climb to reach its pinnacle, a game that pretty much has a loose plot to abide to that is peppered with quests. You reckon that you got lucky with this whole isekai and transmigration thing—you could have become a washed weak adventurer constantly walking the tightrope between life and death, but when you wake up, you find yourself...

...as the Bartender. You got lucky. The only mishaps you have to fix are angry, drunk customers when they are short of a few coins to pay, or the customers that carry the big axes with an unpleasant scowl on their faces. Several have attacked you in their drunken stupor over their years—you can tell from their alcohol sodden breath, pink cheeks and swaying feet that they're too gone to really know what they're doing. So a quick hit in the back of their neck slumps their bodies down and renders them immobile.

You're now [Name], a character who somehow shares the same name as you. The ID you found on the bed when you woke up told you that. Bartender, [Name]. Simple words. Hard job.

The first time you tried to mix a drink, it didn't work out well. In your previous life you remembered hating chemistry with a burning passion—and to be a bartender, it sort of required a knowing of mixology and certain liquids. How to add a couple herbs to another, the works—and yes, you had failed spectacularly before, serving dried Ox's heart all sloshed up in a grape concoction—but after a few months, you got the hang of it.

And now six years later, you're twenty four. You joined the game at eighteen, you've established connections, intended or non intended, and you've made your peace with the life you lead. Your previous life was nothing short of stagnant: it was dull, almost, not unhappy, per se, but mostly boring, with your average grades, your average family; your average friends. And now thrust into a world where there's dragons and princes and bounties—

It isn't too bad. It really isn't. You could have been in a situation a lot worse. People say being isekai'd to an adventurer game seems pretty life threatening, but really, you beg to differ. The worst part of the job is babysitting the adventurers, really—there are some regulars around that stick to you like glue, chattering your ear off while you just clean the glasses. Some days are annoyingly busy to the point you actually have to rush—other days, slow, like today.

One thing doesn't really change in between worlds, however—is the fact that people underaged try to sneak a drink or two. And now in front of you,  there's a scrawny, pimpled teen wearing lousy armor cowers with his metal braces on his teeth, stammering as he tries to pass you an obviously fake ID. Every time you try to reach out for that flimsy paper he has in his hands, he flinches, and crumples the ID even more. You start to be irritated.

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