Chapter 1 - The best game and the awful me (1/2)

「Seriously, are you not going to find a job? You understand, right? Your father won’t work forever. We are managing somehow, but what are you going to do when we die!?」

「I know that! Shut up!」

Again. At least let me have lunch at peace… Such a thing shouldn’t happen so early.

Without being able to refute such a sound argument of my mother, the only thing I could do is to yell at her.

I’m aware that what I’m doing is nasty. After graduating from high school, I entered a regular university without much effort and graduated. …Until that point, my life was not so bad. The problem starts from here.

Even though I tried hard to find a job before graduation, I lost all my energy and motivation trying to find a company with good conditions, like that a year went by, then two, and little by little, ten years passed.

「You are already over thirty… The neighbor’s son from the house next door, Masatsugu-kun, is working splendidly and raising beautiful children」

I know that, you don’t have to tell me. All my classmates are working normally and most already have a family. But I…

「Ah, now I lost my appetite」

I get up fiercely from the chair.

Even though I look like I lost my temper, but in fact, I didn’t. I only acted bravely in order to escape out of the conversation quickly. That’s right, it’s not like I flipped out.

It’s my usual running away. I just gave up on fighting, and as a result, I got better at running away.

I just don’t want to stay here anymore.

Just when I was planning on going to my room, the only place where I can feel at peace, I hear the doorbell ringing.

When I check the outside through the door phone, I discover that there was a delivery man on the other side of the door.

「I have brought your orderー」

I was about to leave thinking that it would not be necessary to receive it personally, but then I saw a familiar logo in the box.

「Wait a moment, I’ll go now」

「My, it’s rare for you to come out. …I hope you haven’t bought anything with money that is not yours!」

「Wrong. I still have money from a prize」

In order to get rid of the guilt of not working, I registered on every possible page where you can win prizes and so, sometimes I win some of them.

However, sometimes the articles come from adult sites, so I go to receive them myself so they do not see it.

When I opened the door and the delivery man saw me, he was a little startled.

So that’s how a person reacts when they see a sloppy man who has an unshaved face and is at home at day time on a weekday?

But I already got used to this kind of gaze. Neighbors look at me even worse without disguising the look.

「Please sign or stamp it」

「I’ll sign it」

I assumed that the box that I received from the delivery man was not groceries or something similar since it was small and light.

「Oh? It’s not food? 」

It seems that my mother who was behind me for a while lost interest and returned to the kitchen.

I started climbing the stairs with the box in my hand, then when I got to my room, I locked the door.

I opened the box and checked the contents.

「A game?」

There was a sheet of paper and a PC disk.

I signed up for several game contests, so I thought I could have won one of them. When I looked at it, it only had the title written, there was no game screen, no pictures, even the production company was unknown.

「The title written is 『Village of Fate』. What’s this? A test version?」

Though it’s ambiguous, I remember applying to try new test games. For now, I’ll try reading the paper.

『Yoshio-sama, you have been selected to alpha test, congratulations! This is the world’s first game that has successfully incorporated the latest AI and succeeded in creating characters capable of thinking and acting resembling that of a humans』

The world’s first… what an exaggeration. Generating hype is fundamental to the game industry, but that’s too much.

I grumble inwardly as I continue reading.

『You are the God who governs the fate and the existence who gives oracles to the villagers. Let’s develop their village by giving instructions to villagers once a day! Please learn the details while playing』

What a bunch of irresponsible. But lately most of the games come without any instructions, so it may be that.

Based on those few sentences, it should be a building village game. I played many town planning simulations but never one with a village.

There was still a bit to read so I continued.

『Please, don’t tell anybody about the contents of the game. Please do not disclose any information on the internet. If you break this promise, you will be deprived of the right to play and the game will be reclaimed』

Promise…? Usually, it’s a contract or an agreement. In the first place, How would you know who of all was the one who disclosed the information? I’m not the only test player, right?

『There are two points to take note. Please be sure to always be connected to the internet to play. The other point is, once the villagers are eliminated completely, you can not play again. It has an automatic save, so it is impossible to start over again』

Isn’t that bad? It’s unreasonable to restrict a test player from total annihilation. Even if you have confidence in the game balance, it continues to be a domineering gaming company. I’ll put a claim later.

There are a lot of negative points, but the question is whether to install this suspicious game. I tried to search the title on the internet, but I can’t find anything. An unknown game from an unknown company.

I thought it was shady from the explanation, but it looks like a really dangerous company.

「It looks like they could have put a virus in it. Then, let’s use this」

The PC that I am using now is a new one that I won luckily from a draw since until a year ago I was using a not very old but cheap computer.

So there is no problem if it breaks or not.

It may be a game with bad graphics, or just a joke from someone, however, because I have a lot of free time, the only thing I do is play games or surf the internet. So even if I been deceived, I just need to write a message on the bulletin board on the internet.

I reconnect the old PC and insert the disk. The paper has not written the recommended specifications, so if that sales pitch they used is real then I’m not sure if it will work or not.

On the screen, the only thing displayed is 『Village of Fate』 written big on it.

「I don’t know whether is simple or they are simply cutting corners」

As the word 『enter』 appeared under the Village of Fate logo, I pressed the enter key.

「Hey, hey, this has to be a lie」

From the image that seemed to be cutting corners, an image appeared that would make you doubt whether they were recording on live.

A horse-drawn carriage being pulled by two brown horses. The CG is so well made that you could even see the hairs and sweat of the horses.

「Recently, the difference between live filming and CG has shrunk considerably, but even so, it’s amazing this image」

The video advances while I observe the image in admiration.

The reason is unknown, but the carriage is running at full speed through the forest.

A man with a flustered expression seated on the coachman’s seat is gripping tightly the reins of the carriage. He checks his back many times turning back his head.

The man has a large scar carved deep on his face. Although he has the looks of a foreigner, he’s pretty handsome.

But it is his appearance that stands out the most.

At first glance, he looks like he is wearing dirty brown clothes… But looking closer, it’s an armor made of leather. He has a long sword on his back and a dagger on his waist.

「Wearing armor while driving a carriage, isn’t this a usual setting used in a medieval fantasy setting? This is so cliche」

Although I muttered that, that kind of world view is classic of an RPG, but it may be unusual for a simulation of a town-building system.