1 Vol 1. pt. 1 Patch 1.0: User Setup and Avatar Creation (2/2)
Her hurt voice and sad display is enough to cause a change of names. ”Alright! Fine, how about, uhh,” he looks her over. Given her appearance and personality, wouldn't it be best to give her a matchingly-weeaboo name? ”…how about Saya? I don't know, I'm bad with names. Just stop crying!”
She gives a few more convincing sniffles before wiping away her virtual tears. ”Saya is cute enough, I guess, baka Onii-chan.” She goes from looking sad and disappointed to bubbly within a second. ”Okay! Virtual assistant customization is complete. You may change my properties at any time. Next is avatar customization.”
Ryouta smiles for the first time since he's been immersed. He's finally getting somewhere!
And where he is getting is falling into an abyss. He sinks right through the café booth and falls into an endless void only to suddenly stop right in front of a mirror.
There is no reflection at first, but once Saya arrives, a body appears in front of the mirror with the same pale complexion that he has in real life. There are no other discernible features. ”Here you go! You can either visualize what you would like your in-game avatar to look like, or you may modify shape it with your own hands. Wait wait, Onii-chan, are you one of those perverts who wants to play the opposite gender?”
”I'm fine with a male character, thanks,” Ryouta says with a sigh. He feels like his hair is going to somehow get even whiter if she keeps this up.
”Alright, here!” Saya says, causing a certain floppy appendage to hang down between his legs. There is a reason why this game is for eighteen and older players only. There is more to its realism than just the graphics and senses.
He may not have a face for himself yet, but Saya can feel the unamused, disappointed expression he wants to show her. ”What? All parts of the body are customizable! Geez, it's not like I'm some pervert like you, Onii-chan.”
Ryouta can only shake off her endearingly-annoying charm and focus on the task at hand. What does he want to look like? That's pretty tough. He decides to try a few things out.
The pale body turns into a short, green goblin with a single thought. Another thought causes the goblin's nose to grow longer and floppier, and the opposite thought causes it to go so far back into its head that it caves into his face in a graphical glitch.
”Just so you know, Onii-chan, any appearances deemed immersion-breaking won't be allowed. You can play around with the editor all you want just to be silly, and I can take screenshots that you can show others if you would like me to, but you have to be serious for your actual avatar!”
That answers several of his questions at once. Wait – he returns the model back into its standard human shape and walks to its front. He looks down at its crotch. ”Onii-chan, please don't tell me that you are going to do what 93.98% of all male players do.”
Oh yeah, he is definitely going to do that.
It drops down to the floor from its sheer length. Then it grows thicker than the model's legs, and finally shrinks back down to a more realistic size. Alright, he got that out of his system.
He looks over at Saya to see her facepalming with red cheeks.
”You're the worst, Onii-chan,” Saya says.
”Trust me, I know. Alright, I'll get serious now. What do you like more, foxes or dogs?” Ryouta asks her.
”Seeing as how my personality is based off of your own, we share the same likes and dislikes. You should know what my answer is with that information, Onii-chan.”
Wait, does that mean he has the personality of a tsundere little sister somewhere in his mind if she's based off of his? Now he has even more questions which he doubts will ever get answered.
”Dog it is.” Ryouta returns to the task at hand. A pair of pricked ears-pop up on the top of the model's head, and then a huge, bushy tail sprouts out from just above its rear.
”Wolf ears and tail? That's an edgy look there, Onii-chan! Just kidding, it's kind of cute and cool at the same time. Let me guess, you're going to try and fix the imbalance between animal-themed girls and animal-themed guys?”
Ryouta gives her a thumbs-up. All Saya replies with is another facepalm.
Next thing on the list: be cooler than in real life. The model increases in height to a solid six-foot-three, gains a broad frame perfect for laying some muscles onto it, and grows a much stronger jawline with masculine facial features.
The white skin of the model is replaced by a light complexion, its flat body is filled out by muscles, and as for a certain thing - he decides to go with the upper end of average. Maybe a little bit above average. Alright, like a whole two inches above average. It's just a game, who cares? It's not like anybody is going to be seeing it.
Three?
No, just two. Three is a bit much.
Okay, three.
All that's left are to finetune some things. He makes sure that the model's nose looks just like how he wants it to; gives the eyes a soft, red color to them; and places a pair of short, thick eyebrows above his eyes. Hair as white as snow grows down to his waist, and it looks like some of the fluffiest, softest hair he has ever seen! Even he wants to pet it despite it being his hair.
By the end of it, he looks like he's either trying to seduce girls whom are into masculine bishounen guys out of dating sims where a single, normal girl is pursued by a group of the world's most attractive men, or he's trying to attract twinks that want to call him daddy. There is a very thin line between being bishounen and yaoi bait.
Is there even a line in the first place?
He can already tell that he's going to be getting harassed by his one friend.
As soon as Ryouta even considers saying the words ”alright, I'm ready,” he gets teleported into the body that he just sculpted.
He's finally got a body for the first time since he immersed! ”Alright! This is perfect. How do I look?” he asks Saya, turning to face her with his hands on his side.
Saya immediately covers her eyes and turns away. He can see the tips of her ears going red. ”Such a lewd Onii-chan! You can't just shove something like that in my face!”
It's at this moment that he wishes he had something to throw at her. She's five feet away from him! Nothing is in her face!
She giggles and uncovers her eyes. ”Lookin' good, Onii-chan! There are some final things to go through to ensure that you have an enjoyable time in Fantasy Tales Online.”
Several floating screens pop up in front of him.
The first one reads, ”Do you wish to enable traumatic content?” Ryouta has heard about this. Heavy gore, torture, **** – all of these and more fall under traumatic content, and this is often a cause of controversy within the media. However, because players must willingly opt into this, the defense, ”the only ones who experience it are those who consent to it,” is often used.
Ryouta gets enough dark themes from reading and playing other games. He doesn't need it here, too.
”Please set the slider to the amount of pain you would like to experience,” reads the next window. He pushes the slider around between 0% and 100%. He'd rather not feel what it feels like to have an arm cut off in case that happens, but he feels like setting it at 0% would just be too easy. He sets it at 50%. That way, things should still really hurt if something happens, but not hurt so much that it cripples him.
Ryouta knows that this game tries to be as realistic as possible. That's why both traumatic content and realistic pain are serious parts of it. The most unrealistic part of the game, aside from the fact that there are all manners of mystical beasts and magic, is that characters never need to use the bathroom. They do need to eat, sleep, and drink though.
The third window shows a map. It shows the entire known world thus far, and he is allowed to choose any spot to spawn at. However, he already decided with his friends where they are all going to spawn at. He chooses a forested region near the coast on the eastern continent. The area has a lot of high ground to look from, so it will be easier for him and his friends to find one another if they utilize that.
”That's everything, Onii-chan! What would you like to name your avatar?” Saya asks.
Ryouta wastes no time in shouting out his answer. He's been prepared for this. ”Fenrir!”
”'Fenrir' is taken. Is Fenrir749 acceptable? This is just for technical database things. In-game, you can tell people that your name is whatever you want, including just Fenrir!” Saya explains.
He should have known better. ”Yeah, that's good enough. Is there any way for people to see that I'm actually Fenrir749? It would be embarrassing if somebody sees that.”
”Nope! Purely database stuff. I promise, Onii-chan.”
”Alright, good enough.”
”Oh! One last, last thing. Promise,” Saya says. Ryouta knows that she's just playing up the part of a cute little sister, and that there is no way she would ever actually forget anything. She's an AI, after all. ”Do you have any feedback regarding the setup process?”
”Not really. I think it's a lot better than most games', everything is pretty clear, and it's uhh, definitely unique. The environment based off of my memories was really nice, thanks for reminding me of that place,” Ryouta says.
”No problem, Onii-chan! Even trash like you deserves some fanservice every now and then. Alright! Are you ready to begin your adventure in Gaia, Fenrir?” Saya asks.
Fenrir gives a thumbs-up.