Chapter 1 (1/2)

One year has pa.s.sed again. My school grades has resulted in an unchanged cla.s.s. I am still that solitary school student. But, my personal life has changed a little.

There’s a corrugated paper box in my room. I suppress my overjoyed heart and take out the contents within it slowly. This is a delicate instrument that can be broken if it is just knocked a little, so I use special care to take it out and open it.

“Woahhh!”

After opening the paper wrapping, the unique smell of a new machine and the silvery s.h.i.+ne that comes from it cause me to shout out. The thing that’s in front of me, is the virtual reality system helmet —– known as “ValGear”. The size of it allows me to use a single hand to pick it up, and it’s a necessary item to play [Another World].

The first virtual reality prototype machine was huge, and they did not truly allow one to truly enter the virtual s.p.a.ce, as it read the data from within the virtual reality and then transmitted it into the body. Thanks to technology advancements, the machines now only require to send a fake signal to the brain and let one experience virtual reality —– All these things that were difficult to understand were written in a manual that’s heavy and thick.

This particular one I have here is a relatively advanced version. One of this would need approximately 60 months worth of a high school student’s pocket money, and that’s certainly a sum that a student can hardly afford.

When I entered my details to become a beta tester, I did not know how much ValGear costs, and I found out that it was a frightening sum after I checked the retail price.

Furthermore, ValGear also requires a computer, and to sum it up, if a high school student wants to play this game, the prerequisite costs would have deterred him long ago. That’s not all, since ValGear has nearly no other uses other than playing this game, no one would consider buying this, other than gamers with a surplus budget.

But I have heard that there will be a cheaper version of ValGear this autumn, so perhaps it is normal to wait until then to buy it.

Because of the above reasons, the number of applicants for the closed beta testing were numerous. There was only two hundred slots, and at the end of the application date, they announced that the chance to get in was only 2500 to 1, which meant that there were over five hundred thousand applicants. The games that I played in the past had only fifty thousand players, and I believe anyone would be able to understand the difference here.

But come to think of it, I really did not expect to be selected. When I saw the announcements on the ratio, I had already given up hope, and wanted to say “I surely couldn’t be picked right.”, but it seems like I must have used up all my luck in this lifetime.

None of my cla.s.smates was selected to become a tester…….. And when I heard this news in school I was momentarily stunned, and it seemed like I needed to change my initial plans.

How about telling them that I received the qualifications to become a beta tester, and invite them to my home to play….. No, this will not work. [Another World] is a Full-Dive VRMMORPG, and only one person can play this game by using ValGear. Truly, if there’s only one person playing at any given time and the rest of them look on at his strange behavior when he’s in the game, it would not be fun at all right?

Then how about I don’t invite them, but instead tell them that I played [Another World] and talk about it? No, that will not pa.s.s either. If we’re already friends, that might not become a problem, but if I talk about this topic when I do not have any particular connections to them, they might come to regard me as a person who likes to brag. I don’t want to do anything that might cause them to hate me, when they are my best chances to become friends.

Then, I should hide the fact that I’m playing [Another World]? They once said, even though they really wanted to play [Another World], they simply could not afford the current ValGear, and would wait for the cheaper ValGear that is going to be released in autumn. So, I should make use of this advantage to play this game in advance, and gather the relevant information on playing [Another World]? And when they started to encounter any problems, I will be right there to provide a.s.sistance. Right, I will do that!

Since I decide on that particular strategy, I should start playing now.

I read the thick manual to completion, connect the machine wires, adjust some of the settings and finally crawl into bed with the ValGear worn on my head.

I turn on the switch.

Immediately, I lose my consciousness as if I have fallen asleep, and my whole body is submerged in a s.p.a.ce of white emptiness. I am certainly wearing the ValGear right now, but it did not seem to appear on my head right now and there is only bright light in front of my eyes.

Huh? Did I set something wrongly?

“Welcome to, [Another World]!”

Just when I am tilting my head and pondering on what to do, a voice suddenly speaks to me. Following the source of the voice, I turn my gaze over to the direction and find a young girl standing before me. She looks slightly younger than me, with a pair of cat-like eyes and a cheerful smile, giving off a cute impression. Her clothes are mostly white in color, and the design of it is literally shouting [I’m cosplaying~!].

How the heck did she even get into these clothes? I am a little curious over it. Even though the light green hair that she had would not appear in the real world, it was unexpectedly suitable for her.

“What’s wrong? h.e.l.lo, this player over here?”

The young girl looks at me with my delayed reaction puzzledly. It is not a solution to be silent, so I shall just try asking something.

“….. Erm, is this really a game?”

“Yes, it’s a game! But to be precise, the game has not started yet, and we are still at the stage of character settings.”

Wooah.

Hmm, I’m still at the character design stage. This certainly is similar to other net games. The first thing to do is to set the basic character settings, otherwise without this step completed, I probably could not enter the game. But now that I think about it, who is she? (TL: Thank you, captain obvious.)

“Ah! I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Themis, and I’m the AI to aid the players in [Another World]. I’m also a NPC. Pleased to meet you.” (TL: テミス – It TLes to Themis and you can wiki this name up if you want to know.)

NPC! When she mentions this, I recall that the manual has something like this written in it. Considering that many players would be troubled over the VRMMORPG’s controls, and to allow the game to progress smoothly, every player will receive their own personal AI. It was also written that all the AI helpers would be completely different. I have thought that it would be a cat or dog or an animal that’s something similar, but to think that it would be a girl.

But….. Apart from her hair color, she looks no different from a normal person. Rather than say a normal person, she’s more like an extremely beautiful girl.

How should I say this. I’m amazed with the advancement of technology when I look at the incredibly realistic girl in front of me.

When I know that she’s a NPC, I feel less nervous and I think I can converse properly with her.

“This player here, please tell me your name before entering this game. It will become your fixed in-game name, so please pay attention when picking one.”

As Themis finishes speaking, a four sided panel appears in front of my eyes, looks like it’s the menu settings.

Hmm…… My name, alright, let me use a name that I picked when I played from my past net games.

“I will use the name [Chaos].”

Chaos…… [混沌], such a Chuuni name. The name display has been filled with the word [Chaos.] (TL: His in-game name is Chaos/katakana. The moon runes are Chaos/kanji.)

“Chaos-san right? I understand. Then, let us begin with the character’s settings.”

Character settings…… It refers to the player’s virtual character inside the net game. The character’s appearance and abilities are decided at this stage, so I should carefully choose every detail.

“A character can change their gender, race, profession, appearance, and stats distribution.”

“What sort of races and professions are there?”

“There are four races, Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Beastman. There are no differences in terms of strength, but in [Estobia], the majority would be humans, while the other races are considerably lesser.”  (TL: イストピア > Estobia)

“As for the professions, the current basic professions that are specialized in combat are, warriors, archers, thieves, magicians, priests. And production professions would be blacksmiths and alchemists. Even though the production professions are able to create items, they are weaker in combat skills.

The only profession that can use magic skills are, magicians, priests and alchemists, while the other professions are unable to use them. Instead, the professions that are unable to use magic would be able to learn physical combat techniques. Also, priests are able to learn healing magic.

Once a character reaches level 50, they would be able to change their professions to a higher ranking one by completing missions.”

Hmm, there are seven different types here. This is quite a dilemma. Even though I want to try the production professions like the alchemist, I am a little troubled when Themis said their combat skills are weaker. That is because I do not know if I have the chance to party with other players, and if I played like my previous net games and end up Bocchi-ing, I have to rely on my own to battle. If that is the case, I need to have a certain degree of combat skills.

Indeed, I should choose the combat professions. With the same reasoning, even though priests have recovery magic spells, their attack techniques are also lesser in number, so I should not consider them. As for thieves, I would forget about it. Even if the stats are the same, I had my lessons learned when I played other net games.

So warriors, archers and magicians? Using arrows and swords seem to be das.h.i.+ng indeed, but magic attacks are cool too. Wait…. How do you aim when you use arrows and magic? What sort of actions do I need to do when I use the techniques? If it was like the old games, if I just press a b.u.t.ton, and the character will follow a preset attack. But it will not work in this game, since the one who is really moving is myself. I have never fired an arrow before, and I only learned to use the sword a little in my school physical lessons.

“Hey Themis, what sort of actions do I need to do when I attack or use a technique? Because I have never used a bow and arrows before, I am unable to attack at all if there is no a.s.sistance in my actions.”

“When you use archery or skill techniques, the system will adjust the player’s movements. Even though techniques differ from one another, if the character goes beyond the correct position for executing the techniques like laying down on the ground, you would be unable to execute them. Please take note of this point.

In regards to a normal attack, no matter what actions you do, as long as you hit the enemy you would cause damage to them, so there is no need to adjust for that.”

Eh, isn’t that troublesome? I can understand the a.s.sistance for executing techniques, as some of these techniques are actions that cannot be fulfilled in reality. If they had to be done completely from scratch, one would surely find it impossible to execute them without the the a.s.sistance.

For an example, if there was a technique that needed to jump over an enemy’s head and then strike down from that position, then it would be a technique that could not be used if you do not jump. Players themselves would have to do that jump.

It is easy to understand the explanation of ‘laying down on the ground and not be able to execute the technique’, because you simply cannot jump from that position, not to even mention executing the technique. The same goes for magic techniques, as they have to go through the computer’s a.s.sistance since they do not exist in the real world.

But if I don’t have any a.s.sistance with normal attacks, then that would mean I had to attack based on the movements in the real world. If that’s the case, I would become an amateur who is going to swing the weapon like a madman. An amateur who does not even know how to wield a sword, while attacking a like crazed person during normal times, but performing artistic like actions when I execute techniques —– One weird warrior has appeared.

Wahhh….. That’s super lame.

I don’t think that I can do exciting battles like the historic dramas, since these are actors who have trained vigorously to be able to perform smooth flowing action. For someone like myself who only attended a few sword lessons during physical cla.s.ses, I will probably look terrible wielding one. I should remove warrior from my options.

Then archer and magician are left…… Okay, I decided. I’ll choose magician. It is extremely cool using magic right? Besides, if I chose archer, I have to worry about whether I have enough arrows, and it would be tough playing that profession.

“Alright, I have decided on male, human, profession is magician. I will leave it to you.”

“Understood! Next is stats distribution, how would you distribute them?”

“What types of stats are there?”

“There are six types, [Strength], [Physique], [Dexterity], [Agility], [Intelligence], [Will]. Every time your level is raised you will receive stat points, and players can distribute them freely to become stronger. [Strength] affects close range battle’s attack, [Physique] affects physical defence and HP (health points). [Dexterity] affects ranged attack, while [Agility] affects speed. [Intelligence] affects magic attack, and [Will] affects magic defence. Even though [Intelligence] and [Will] are related to MP, that area is affected by other variants, so they cannot be cla.s.sified together.”

There are six types….. Since I am using a magician, I would surely have many skills, so it’s best if I raise my [Intelligence]. In comparison, [Strength], [Dexterity] and [Agility] seemed to be unnecessary since magicians lack physical attack techniques.

“According to Chaos-san’s profession, your most relevant stats are [Intelligence] and [Will]. With the game’s settings, these two stats will raise a little magic attack and defence. In addition, hit rate and evasion are based on the player’s feedback, and therefore there are no such stats in this game.”

The stats distribution seemed to be similar to the past games, and it should be fine if I distribute them like this. The only difference here is Themis’s explanation on hit rate and accuracy to be based on the player’s techniques. But on this point, I will think of it as a game that requires good control.

“Everything on [Intelligence].”

“All in on DPS right! Certainly, compared to other professions, the good points of a magician is their high magic attack and AOE skills. In comparison, your skills will consume a lot of mana and your physical defence and HP will be low, is that fine?”

“Yes, no problems at all.”

Indeed this game is the same. Typically the professions that use the magic skills, will mostly have high DPS and powerful AOE techniques that kills the foes quickly. But their HP is low and their defence is like a piece of paper. If an enemy slips past, these characters would be instantly killed. The magic professions will try to make up for these weaknesses by raising their evasion or HP, or party up with other players to protect them. Since I don’t know if I can party up successfully, I should raise my [Physique] when I level up.

…… Even though that should be the case, I just chose to go all in on DPS. I think I will just continue playing with the mindset of [kill or be killed]. In any case, the stats distribution comes to an end.

“What do you intend to do with your appearance? I’ll call up the character’s appearance now.”

As soon as Themis finished talking, there is a full 3D body that appeared in front of my eyes. It seems like the basic appearance bases itself on the person’s real world appearance. I have never looked at myself from a high angle, and I feel  really amazed by it. When I am staring at myself, another four sided panel appears in front of me. It seems to be the editor, but…..

“Isn’t this a little too difficult right?”

There are simply too many options in the display. I don’t know changing what options will lead to what change in my body parts, and complicated to the point of not being to use it. It is difficult to understand the meaning of the options by reading the user interface, and using instinct to try it out is impossible. Looks like I need to spend effort on using this.

“I’m terribly sorry. I will feedback your comments to the company to simplify the UI. Even though this is an inconvenience to you, but the only option is to let you spend more time to adjust this portion. The time to improve the Editor’s UI will probably take some time.”

Themis lowered her head with embarra.s.sment. But she’s merely an AI helper, how is she going to report to the company? This AI Themis is done incredibly well, her answers are no different from a real person.

But changing the appearance is kind of difficult, what should I do….. Forget it, I will just play using this appearance. Setting my other options had taken quite a bit of time and I want to play as soon as possible.

“I’ll just use the basic appearance.”

“Understood. Then please tell me which starting point you would like to begin in the game. There are the starting points of Ca.s.stal’s kingdom capital Maldor, Baecasal’s empire Satbruken, and Commune United Kingdom’s Kreiman. The differences of these three are the only the locations.” (TL: The kingdoms are TLed from CN > EN. Expect changes in the future once I check the WN raws)

“Please help me set as Maldor.”

“Understood, transferring you now!”

There is a magical circle emitting green and white light appearing at the bottom of my feet, and I become enveloped by a piercing bright light. While I close my eyes, I transfer to [Estobia].

“Chaos-san, we’re here.”

When I hear Themis’s voice, I slowly open my eyes, but the surroundings make me lose my words.

Green, green, it is still green — I am situated in a place where there are only trees. When I raise my head, there is a ray of sunlight piercing through from the dense leaves’ small openings and I cannot help but squint my eyes. The forest releases a peculiar type of scent that can only come from vegetation, and the cool air from the tree shades is stimulating against my skin. I gingerly stretched my hand to feel the tree’s bark, and actually felt the even texture from it.

Wow. Everything here looks like the real thing, but this is only virtual reality!

“It’s too amazing! I can feel everything with my five senses, isn’t this no different from the real world!”

“That’s right, they spent a lot of effort on this because the company placed a lot of importance in recreating the real thing!”

Themis’s tone was full of self confidence. When I looked at the [Another World] on the television screen, I only thought [it really looks like the real thing] and that was it. To think they even made it feel like the real world. Their slogan [do you want to experience a new world with your own body?], is not an exaggeration.

But……. is this place really Maldor? There does not seem to be any city buildings and also no human presence too. Surely it is not a kingdom that co-exist with nature, and the humans live deep within the forest right?

“When I look clearly now I’m in the forest, is this really Maldor? Eh? Where are you Themis?”

Even though I keep hearing Themis’s voice, I am unable to find her presence anywhere. Actually, rather than saying her voice went through my ears, her voice is resounding directly in my mind.

“In order not to disrupt the player, I will hide by default. If there are any help needed, just give me a call and I will appear, like this!”

When she finishes speaking, she suddenly appears in front of my eyes. It is certainly true that an AI helper like her is supposed to aid the players in the game, but if she is accompanying them by their side, they might find her to be very annoying.

“Ara……. This is not Maldor hah…….”

—— I seem to have heard something really dangerous.

Themis looks left and right and then stays in a daze at her original position.

“Erm, even though the location is within the Ca.s.stal’s kingdom, but this isn’t Maldor. The capital is located in the center of the kingdom, and if that is set as the destination, then this place is located to the southern west. I deeply apologize, but it seems that something has gone wrong with the teleportation.”

This problem crops up from the start…… Are you sure it really is okay if something like this comes without warning? But it is also true that the goal of the beta test is to discover problems like this. If the starting location is off, then why not take a few steps to go back? It is not a solution to keep complaining here, so I should just ask how the game controls work.

“I’ll leave it to you to report the error. There’s one more thing, is there any tutorial for teaching the new players? I want to be familiar with the basic controls.”

“If you want to learn it, then let me explain some of the basic controls. First of all, the computer needs to confirm the information from the player. If you think about [I want to see the character’s information], [Open up the character’s information panel] or other commands similar to it, the window would appear in the air.”

I only just need to think about it? Character information, appear before me! …….. It really comes out, I see, so this is the character’s information panel.

“Players can confirm the various stats from the window. According to the game rules, you can gain XP by defeating monsters, but your stats will not increase when you level up. When you level up, you have to go into this window panel and put in your stat points to increase the various stats. If you only wish to confirm your HP and MP stats, the system has a simplified function to display only these two different types of data. Please take note that once you distribute your stats, the effect will be permanent and no further changes can be made. Then, please use the same method to open the skill menu.”

The window changes to the skill menu. There were nearly hundred of icons, where arrow heads pointed to a messy and complicated tree-shaped map —- but this tree shaped map did not extend endlessly. When I reach the starting point, the icons that are displayed can be counted with my fingers —– The very first one that comes from the top is [Magic Bullet LV.1] with the arrow pointing downwards lit up, while the rest of the icons and arrows were dark in color. If every icon represented a skill, then I am able to learn quite a lot of them.

“This  is the skill menu. From here the players can confirm the skills that they already learned, the next skill that is connected by the tree, as well as the controls for using the skill. When you distribute the skill points, you require the points that you receive during a level up. The icons that are lit up shows the skill that players can use now, while the arrows that are lit up means you can distribute stat points to the next few icons. Normally, if you don’t follow the skill-tree, you would be unable to learn the skill. Currently, the only skill you can use is the attack magic [Magic Bullet].”

“What does LV 1 means on the Magic Bullet?”

“It represents the level of the skill. You can spend your skill points on leveling them up, and the highest you can go is LV 5. By strengthening the skills, you can boost their power and range, as well as shortening the casting time and cooldown. But, the stronger a skill is, the longer it takes for the original casting time and cooldown. Please take note of that.”

That is a headache. Should I spend points on learning new magic or strengthening what I have now? Since the points are limited, I still have to take note on not spending points of the weaker magic skills in the early stage of the game.

“How do you activate the skills?”

“When you shout out the magic skill you can activate it…… Ah, you don’t need to shout the level of the skill out okay. Even though some skills might require some actions, but you can do the same thing as calling our your character screen, it will be fine to think about it in your mind. But most of the early game skills are straightforward in its path, so you don’t need to do all these steps.”

So it is voice activated, suddenly I feel like the technology has regressed. I will try it in any case.

“[Magic Bullet].”

Huh? Nothing happened?

“The skill was not activated, did something go wrong again?”

“No, I have not finished yet…… Besides the incorrect posture or insufficient MP, there are a few situations that will not permit users to activate the skill. For a magician, if you don’t equip a magic staff you cannot activate the skills.”

“I see, if I don’t carry an equipment that is related to the skills I can’t activate them hmm. But I don’t have a magic staff.”

“Your initial equipment — The magic staff is placed into the inventory window, you should take it out now. Please open your inventory window.”

I changed the screen to the inventory panel, and there icons displaying potions and a magic staff.

“This is the inventory panel. Players can place items or take them out from here. The method to take them out is to touch the item, please touch the staff’s icon on the screen now.”

When I touched the icon, it disappears, and replaces it is a magic staff instantly appearing in my hands—-

It certainly is a novice equipment, rather than saying this is a magic staff, this is more like a wooden staff —-  and at the same time there is a popup displaying for the magic staff’s information stats. It is really convenient with the information window appearing once I hold it in my hands. There is one other thing, I do not know when my clothes changed into a long robe and cloak, which are also the cla.s.sic clothes for a magician. Perhaps I changed into them when I got teleported here? There were too many astounding things that happened one after another, and I only notice this change now.

“When you wish to put the items back into the inventory panel: Just think of [Place the items away] will do. As long as it an item, the size would not matter and can be kept away. On the whole, items that are not taken out cannot be used, but if you require to use something like a potion or similar recovery items, you can use them directly without taking them out from the inventory window. This function is called the [Emergency usage]. But once that is done, players would be unable to take the items out from the inventory panel temporarily, and they would not be able to use the [Emergency usage] a second time. Please take note of that.”

As I listen to Themis’s explanation, I try practicing by putting the staff in and taking it out again. After all, there would be no time take a potion during battles as it would break my concentration. I should pay serious attention to this aspect.

“Please open the map for your next step. The map panel can display the kingdom’s overall map and a map of Chaos-san’s surrounding locations. Chaos-san’s map will display the nearby enemies, NPCs and players.”

I call out the overall map on the map screen and find there is a blue mark on top of it, appearing on the south western area on the [Maldor]’s location. Looks like this mark represents my current location. I change back to the map of my surroundings. There are barriers that appear to be from trees. There is also the function of zooming in and out to prevent any blocking of visibility. Themis is indicated with with a green mark, and besides her, there are several red marks and another green mark in the surroundings.

“Do these red marks represent enemies?”

“Yes, the red marks represent enemies that are attacking a certain target, and yellow marks represent enemies that are not attacking a target. Do you wish to go there?”

Since Themis’s mark is green, does that mean the NPC is also a NPC? A NPC surrounded by magical beasts…… and is being attacked by them? Is this something like a mission or event? That is kind of interesting.

“Okay, let’s go over and take a look.”

“Understood, in order not to disrupt the battle, I will hide myself temporarily.”

Themis disappears after saying that. This is my first battle in this game, and I gripped the magic staff tightly with my heart raring to go with full of expectations, and ran towards the red marks.

It is easier than I have expected to move the character, and I run for about two minutes before reaching the destination. Since the one who is moving is the character, I naturally did not feel tired.

What enters my eyes was a young girl who is close to my age, seemingly from a village nearby. She is surrounded by seven or eight wolves and they are about to pounce on her. If this is a mission, surely it feels like a [Save the village girl from the pack of wolves] right? (TL: Yes, save the girl from a pack of ‘wolves’!)

“Are the wolves strong?”

“These are forest wolves, level 1. The names and level will be reflected on the magical beasts’ heads, please take the information into consideration during battles.”

As I listen to her, I peer to the front and find out the wolves are indicated with a green status bar and the name [Forest Wolf Lv 1]. Amongst them is a wolf with a green status bar filled with some red on the right side, and on the other hand, a girl with a green status bar.