The Catalyst

“Love is blind? Indeed. That's why I fell for their bullshit in the first place.”

“Love is a beautiful thing? Whoever said that was drugged when such words left their mouth.”

Love hurts? That's a fact!”

“I should've just refused when I was offered the contract… No, I didn't have a choice the moment it was offered to me. My fate had been sealed from that second.”

“Damn it all!”

Within the confines of a six-meter squared room, with stone walls and a muddied floor, a young male voice muttered words audible only to himself.

"All this nonsense wouldn't have happened in the first place if I'd been rich enough to pay off the debt!"

Thud!

At the end of his statement, a loud sound resonated, suggesting something was thrown to the floor.

"Fuck! That hurt!" The male voice cursed as the owner struggled up from the muddied floor, rubbing his forehead with his only functioning hand.

Nathan had woken up to broken body parts, each movement sending waves of pain through him. With great effort, he managed to sit, the ache in his body almost unbearable.

Seated on the cold floor, Nathan replayed the events of a few hours ago in his mind.

He had stood up to his mother-in-law, unleashing a torrent of insults that resulted in a merciless beating from all the male figures around him. The brutal assault had left him unconscious and ultimately led to his incarceration in the cold, stone-walled room.

His entire body bore the aftermath of the brutal assault, with bruises marring most of his skin. Even his lips weren't spared, bearing cuts and traces of blood.

Examining his limbs, Nathan noted the severity of the damage. While his right hand still functioned, his left had suffered immensely – dislocated from his shoulder, a broken elbow, and a wrist twisted in the wrong direction. Adding to the injuries, a shallow cut traced down half of his left arm, from the elbow down to the middle of his palm. The evidence of the violent encounter was etched on his battered form.

The entire cell remained silent, the only audible sound being the painful panting that escaped Nathan's mouth.

As he reflected on the events that led him to this grim situation, thoughts of his sister surfaced in his mind. Young, exceedingly beautiful, with graceful curves, silver eyes matching the strands of hair on Nathan's head, and very black hair on her head similar to the majority on Nathan's. Despite the differences, she bore an uncanny resemblance to her brother, with more feminine features that rendered her exceedingly attractive to both genders.

Nathan felt a wave of gratitude towards whatever superior being might exist, thankful that his sister hadn't fallen victim to any untoward incidents within the Nashville household – a fate not uncommon in such environments.

At just nineteen, three years younger than her older brother, she served as a maid in the family's central building. Despite witnessing Nathan's beating, an unspoken rule existed between the siblings. They refrained from openly acknowledging their connection, understanding that being seen together could bring dire consequences for both of them.

Nathan's thoughts drifted from his sister to his late mother, whose last request had been that he and his sister never break apart. Their bond was to be unyielding, with a commitment to love and stand up for one another in any given situation.

However, Nathan held a different perspective. As the older sibling, he believed it was his duty to protect his sister, a solemn obligation he intended to uphold regardless of the circumstances.

Once again, Nathan's thoughts shifted, this time to his late father, who had fallen victim to the snares of this malevolent family. Before his demise, Nathan's father had confided in him about a family secret. Their ancestors had once been extraordinarily wealthy, yet no records or traces of that wealth remained. The mystery raised a question: why were they impoverished if they had originally possessed great wealth?

His father hadn't provided a direct answer but instead bequeathed something to Nathan, deeming it an ancestral heirloom passed down to the first sons of each generation.

Nathan had been on the verge of dismissing the item if not for the earnest expression on his father's face during his final moments on the deathbed.

Smith had pleaded with Nathan to preserve it and, above all, never allow anyone to discover its existence. He refrained from unveiling the reason or purpose behind the item to Nathan, yet he was resolute in impressing upon his son the importance of safeguarding it with his life – the same warning he had received from his father, Nathan's grandfather.

Recalling that he still possessed the item, Nathan dipped his only functional hand into his pocket and sighed as he pulled out a pair of dice.

He gazed at the small objects in his hand for a few seconds, then cursed aloud. "What the hell is a stupid dice going to get me in this world!?"

His curses multiplied as he continued speaking. "Screw you! Screw the Nashville family! Screw this!" At the end of his vehement outburst, he tossed the dice away with red eyes.

Puck!

The pair fell into the mud, landing on the bloodied part he had just stood from, a visceral reflection of the turmoil that enveloped his existence.

Ding!

He heard a bell-like sound and turned to locate the source within the empty room.

He sighed when he couldn't find anything out of place, realizing he might have heard wrongly.

Everywhere remained in total silence for quite some time, and then there was another sound.

The sudden, human-like sound pierced through the silence, startling Nathan and abruptly pulling him out of his reflective state. {Blood detected. DNA confirmed. Host Accepted.}

"Huh?" Nathan turned around once more. His head swiveled in every direction, a mixture of confusion and caution evident in his expression. The voice had been too distinct to dismiss as mere imagination, prompting him to diligently search his surroundings in an attempt to unveil the source of this unexpected declaration.

Soon, he found himself back in silence, unable to locate anything. The source of the female voice remained elusive, casting doubt on what Nathan thought he had heard and seen.

Just as he calmed himself with a sigh, the same voice echoed once more, disrupting the uneasy tranquility that had settled in the confined space.

{Synchronization in progress.}

{Synchronization Progress: 0.001%}

The statements sounded strangely familiar, though Nathan couldn't recall how they had become ingrained in his memory.

"What the hell was that!?" he questioned himself. Doubt and confusion lingered as he pondered whether he was slowly succumbing to madness, now hearing things that seemed to defy logic.

There was no one around the last time he checked. How then was he hearing a voice as audible and clear as the one he'd just heard?

Suddenly, the same thing he'd heard appeared on a white panel in front of him.

[Synchronization Progress: 0.001%...]

"What the hell is this?" Nathan cried out loud as he stared at the panel in front of him. It moved in from of his eyes every time he tried to to look away. Whenever he closed his eyes, it would vanish and the moment he opened them, the panel was waiting for him.

[Synchronization Progress: 0.01%]

Soon, the percentage was one digit closer to a hundred, a clear sign that it was on the rise. Initially, Nathan hadn't paid much attention, but now the entire panel seemed strangely familiar.

The white panel triggered memories of the VR games he had enjoyed playing a few years ago. The characters in those games often encountered similar panels, leading Nathan to an immediate, if speculative, conclusion.

He was in a virtual reality.

He instinctively reached for his head, hoping to remove the headgear, but his hand met nothing.

"Damn it!" Nathan struggled to his feet and walked toward the broken mirror mounted on one side of the wall. As he glimpsed his reflection, he noted his other hand remained broken, and his body displayed bruises all over. Sharp pains in his ribs affirmed his suspicion of having broken some bones.

Everything felt too real to be a game simulation, and besides, if it were, he wouldn't have chosen his own features for his game character, even though he was undeniably handsome.

Swiftly, the number continued to rise and soon stopped at 0.1%.

Since the appearance of the panel, Nathan hadn't heard the voice and began to question if he'd heard wrongly. Just as doubt crept in, the voice resonated once more.

{You have successfully received $600,000,000 as a host bonus, $200,000,000 as startup capital, and…}

The voice echoed, and the white panel in front of him displayed the same words.

Nathan couldn't believe he was hearing about money he had never seen. He dismissed it as a joke until the next statement jolted him into reality.

{$200,000,000 as compensation for the hell you're about to witness.}

"Huh?" The voice's mention of compensation for the impending "hell" left Nathan bewildered.

Before he could fathom its meaning, loud cracks echoed through the virtual space. Alarms blared in Nathan's mind as he bent his head down, realizing his legs were broken in several places, bones gruesomely protruding through his skin and torn trousers. The pain was unbearable, a sensation that transcended the boundaries of the virtual world and seared through his consciousness.

Before he could even register the pain, another series of cracks echoed through the lonely room.

Nathan immediately knew it was his arms as he could no longer feel them. His entire being was covered in blood from his neck down, and in one single moment, all the pain crashed into him, a torrent of agony that threatened to consume his consciousness.

"Fuck!" Nathan screamed inwardly, gritting his teeth to stop himself from screaming at the maddening pain. Just as it grew to a level close to insanity, Nathan's eyes rolled back, and he fainted.

Thud!

He crashed back into the muddied floor, and even as he lay there unconscious, his body continued to spasm, caught in the relentless grip of the horrible nightmare.

The next two hours turned into a nightmare for Nathan. Every time he woke up, he was greeted by excruciating pain that slowly subsided, teetering him on the border between life and death. He fainted a total of five times, each episode shorter than the previous, as the relentless virtual ordeal persisted.

{Physical Body Transformation Process: 0.9%}

He heard those words before fainting one last time, and then his heart stopped.

Nathan Hunt was... dead.