Light Online

Eddie Hunter is broke and desperate when he stumbles across an ad for long-term immersion farming in the game Light Online. But illicit research on the pods he and the other farmers are using gets forcefully shut down, altering the code in a way that prevents everyone from logging out. Stuck in-game, Eddie tries to earn real money while getting entangled deeper in the world and with the people he meets there. When he discovers a side of Light Online that previous players never considered, he knows he has to find a way to stay.

Eddie Hunter isn't stuck in Light Online anymore — but if he wants to keep his job, he needs to stay. Working on a hidden development quest he discovered by accident, he becomes increasingly entrepreneurial while running his own inn, and the Meadowlands region is rapidly developing. The goblins of the Forest of Fools have noticed the growth and begin attacking. Between running the inn, building for his quest, and adventuring, Eddie realizes he can't keep everything going alone — especially after a dungeon appears in the Meadowlands where there was never one before.

Eddie Hunter has discovered that he loves building. Creating things with his own hands satisfies him — fortunately, his job in Light Online demands exactly that, alongside everything else players must do. Balancing adventuring with building would be easy, if there weren't always two dozen more things pulling at him. Worse, there's growing evidence that his efforts to raise the Meadowlands' settlement level cause the game to add new content to the area, giving him even more to manage.

Eddie Hunter just wants to keep building his settlement — but somehow there's always something in the way. His ties with the AI Freyja have made him a target for one of the other, less scrupulous AIs in the game, one who isn't picky about how he expresses his displeasure. On defense against a parade of opponents, Eddie relies on his party and the other adventurers in the area — while still managing to build, which is fortunate, since his current project is the defensive walls of the castle he intends to create.

Eddie Hunter is pretty happy with his stay in Light Online — even with a major raid coming up, he's still making progress on his castle. His business ventures are performing admirably and his testing is going well. With other settlements to found, a forest elf town to find, and a settlement quest still to finish, Eddie stays busy. But the NPCs in Light Online are far too much like real people — which means treachery and backstabbing are well within their grasp.