As for Zelda, well, her first priority had been to find her parents after they – along with thousands of others who’d been wrongly imprisoned – had been released from Party prison.
Once reunited with her parents, Zelda had returned to her work with Bernstein’s database. The whole of it had been released online and was available everywhere, but it wasn’t complete. With the Party in ruins, their data and records had been abandoned – and would likely have been forgotten – if not for Zelda. With the help of a special grant from the transitional government, she’d established the Fred Bernstein Foundation for Human Rights. With her at its head, they’d begun work to piece together the remains of the Party’s data; clearing the records of the wrongly accused, solving missing persons cases, and bringing closure to the families of those who’d been disappeared into Party black sites.
And then there was Thorne. Kaiden took a sip from his glass of iced tea as he called her to mind.
She’d been asked to run for elected office in the transitional government. It’d been an offer she’d declined. Declined in favor of taking a spot on a special investigative task force. The very same task force, as it happened, that’d been assigned the job of tracking down Party criminals in hiding. Under her leadership they’d already brought many to justice, among them one former Agent Werner and his boss, the disgraced Commander Slaen Moran.
And then there was Kaiden himself. The leader of the band that’d brought down the Party, people liked to call him. But he still disagreed on that point. What he was going to do next was, well, still unanswered. He’d never really had the freedom to choose before. But now, with a new government in place, and his bank account full for some time thanks to a transaction marked “sale of digital goods,” he wasn’t in any particular hurry to figure out what came next.
No, Kaiden wasn’t sure where the future would take him. Wasn’t sure what he wanted to do next. And for the time being, that was okay.
The only thing he was sure of was that twice a week he was going to log into Nova Online. Log in on a new account where he and three other players were very excited to play through the game. And maybe, this time, they’d take it a bit slower. Maybe they’d bypass overthrowing any tyrannical governments or uncovering databases of buried crimes.
This time, they’d play at their own speed and enjoy themselves.
Yeah, that sounded good, Kaiden thought. Inside a modest house somewhere on a nondescript street, he pulled a VR headset over his head and logged in. A smile stretched across his face as a line of text projected onto his vision.
Welcome to Nova Online.
It was followed thereafter by a less familiar line.
Kaiden Moore didn’t want much out of life, but this? Well, this was a good start.
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Afterword
Hello, Alex Knight here.
If you’re reading this, then you’ve finished the Nova Online Trilogy! I hope you’ve enjoyed it. These three books have been the primary focus of my life for the last two years and I can’t overstate how grateful I am that you’ve read them!
Being an author is my highest aspiration in life and I still have to ask myself just about daily “is this real life?” Readers like you help make my dream a reality and I truly can’t thank you enough!
The trilogy is finished, but that doesn’t mean your adventures in the world of Nova Online have to be. I’ve written a short story, Survivors: Nova Online, which you can get for free when you sign up for my publisher’s mailing list. Included with the novelette is 60,000 more words of LitRPG stories from my awesome fellow authors at Portal Books. They’re all very talented folks who are creating some amazing stuff. You can find Survivors: Nova Online and the rest of the free story bundle here:
https://portal-books.com/sign-up
Plug in your email on the landing page and my publisher will get the bundle to you straight away!
As well, I have something of a favor to ask. Reviews make a huge difference to authors. More reviews mean more readers will discover my books, which gives me the support I need to dedicate more time to writing.
If you’ve enjoyed the Nova Online Trilogy it would mean the world to me if you would consider leaving a rating and a short review on Amazon or Goodreads. I love hearing from my readers and this is a direct way for you to send me feedback!
For those of you that want to discuss my books further, you can check out the Portal Books Facebook group:
www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGPortal/
Thank you again for taking a chance on my trilogy. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!
Keep grinding,
Alex Knight
P.S. Look out for Hellbound (Saga Online #2), coming soon!
More LitRPG from Portal Books
Portal Books is a LitRPG publisher, and our team is passionate about the genre.
If you’d like to try out stories from the other fantastic Portal Books authors, you can sign up to our mailing list for 60,000 words of LitRPG stories. Whenever we add more, you’ll get the update, absolutely free.
https://portal-books.com/sign-up
Below are some of our titles, which you can read right now!
Occultist (Saga Online #1)
Welcome to the world of Saga Online, the newest fantasy VRMMORPG. Join Damien as he discovers the rare Occultist class and summons an army of demons to save his mother’s life.
It’s available on Kindle Unlimited and on Audio.
Bone Dungeon (Elemental Dungeon #1)
Reborn as a dark dungeon, Ryan was happy defeating adventurers with undead minions. Then a necromancer arrived, and un-life got
