1 Prologue (2/2)

My dad, Rei, had named the game after his wife, and many quests and cities also held close relations to her. Of course, only he knew the plots and hidden secrets of the game, since he had forbidden Kai or Toku and me to help him with his creation.

Thus, we could all play the game without cheating or prior knowledge. Sapphire was a very free game, all the game NPCs were given high intellect AI bots that could recreate emotion and improvise from knowledge gained from the main system. Basically, the game was a self-learning program, but that information was cut off from the world in fear of foreign countries disturbing the peace. In the game there were only a few rules that applied, most banned crime and harassment, making Sapphire a safe game for even young children to enjoy.

”Hey Yuri, are you listening?” Kai asked with a pout of his face. ”Man, you seem to always get caught up in your own thoughts, let dive into the game already!”

”...hey brother, how old are you?”

”Hm? Don't tell me you forgot my age!?!” He cried out in shock and terror, disbelief showing plainly on his face. ”I'm 21 okay?! My birthday is April 12, don't tell me you forgot!”

”Ah sorry, I might have mixed you up with Toku.”

”Kuh?!”

Watching my older brother slump to the floor depressed, I mentally sighed. Why is his mental age so low?

God, even Toku seems mature compared to him, someone please help this stupidly dense brother of mine. Maybe a girlfriend could set him straight, ah but that won't work, he's too dense. After all, he has tons of girls chasing after his handsome features, but he doesn't seem to notice any of them. How disappointing.

”I'll go set up my capsule now then,” Toku said monotonously while walking around Kai's despairing figure. ”The game releases in two minutes, you guys should start too.”

”Sure thing!” I replied with a cheerful smile, ignoring the sobbing man on the ground behind me.

”Guhhh, don't think your brother will fall from just this!” He shouted while leaping up and running after us.

No, you did just fall from that, brother, you okay? For some reason, you seem even weirder than usual.

We set up the settings of our respective gaming capsules and sat inside. The game's time was accelerated twice as fast as reality, so one hour in the capsule meant two hours in the game. I leisurely brought the helmet over my head and leaned back inside of the capsule. Turning on the power, my world turned white and the game started booting up.

What new world awaited me in here? Would it be a pleasant world or a sad one? I guess only time could tell.