“Good evening, madam Tim”.
“How are you, Orlando?”
“I’m fine”.
A vibrant youth moved through the familiar roads of his childhood street while exchanging greetings with the neighbors that he was familiar with. A bright smile filled his face as he heard the replies of the familiar neighbors.
Right now, he was rushing back home for the version 1 update of his favorite game- Space World. This was the first launch of the game, but being among the lucky players who played the beta, he so much anticipated it.
Not only was the game background super realistic, but the characters were realistic too, just like they were real people.
Since a month ago that he played the beta, he just couldn’t stop dreaming of starting the game for real. Now, today, his dream was finally fulfilled and Space World would officially launch in 5 hours.
It was currently 7:00 pm, which meant the launch time was midnight.
As soon as the magical words appeared before him in the air, Orlando opened his mouth wide, feeling like he was in an extremely realistic dream. As he kept on looking at the words, a bright light flashed, blinding him slightly. “Shit! What was that?” While squinting his eyes slightly in pain, he cursed as thoughts of giving the game company a bad review already started sprouting in his mind. The next second, his vision was restored and the words came back. [Young Adventurer! Welcome to Space World!] [Character Name: Cabbage Lord!] [Level: 0 {Normal Human}.] [Main Class: None.] [Sub Class: Civilian.] [Current Location: Middle-Ray Island.] [Remark: A new player with a unique name, but no strength and meaningful achievements to his name.] As soon as this stat table was displayed before him, Orlando’s eyes glittered like stars as he carefully scrutinized them. Though he was still a normal human with
“Shit! That looked painful!” A player yelled, slightly horrified but excited. Most of the players that were here, including Orlando were avid gamers who already played most if not all the popular virtual reality games. They even had the privilege of enjoying Space World’s predecessor, Galaxy. With all these experiences, they were definitely not new to virtual reality games but the sight before them was still stunning. The ravaging zombies looked so real that it evoked a sense of fear and dread in their hearts. Though the zombies looked terrifying and disgusting, this still couldn’t eclipse the excitement in their hearts. Also, the extremely realistic and vivid show as the first player was killed struck terror in their hearts like they were living in a horror movie. As they looked, stunned in place, a player suddenly yelled. “Attack them!” “What?” The others asked. [The Legendary Cuckolder!]- “Who cares if we die? Let’s attack t
While frozen in one place, Morales felt a deep sense of nostalgia hit him. He could see an excited him again, feeling all hyped up for the fateful day that was designated for the launch of the VR game. Like other players, he logged in excitedly and joined in the adventure at 12:00 midnight and didn’t stop playing till the next morning where his eyes were red, swollen, but still excited. Right now, the time came again but instead of joining excitedly with the others, he already entered since, and his wish was fulfilled though, in a different way, he was now an NPC instead of a player. Also, right now, other creatures probably feel excited like the previous him logged in too to experience the extremely realistic game world of Space World. He used the vague term creatures because he still wasn’t sure if the people who logged on were humans or aliens, this was a conundrum that he still wasn’t confident of. Even if they were aliens, he instantly ma
After watching to his fill and confirming what he wanted, Morales felt a strong urge to go meet the players and strike a conversation about the latest celebrity news on earth but he held himself back. “F*ck, does that even work? They’ll be so scared that they’ll suffer a stroke. Their reaction will be- NPCs actually know about celebrities on earth, awesome!” In the end, he could only abandon the plan, deflated. Despite the strong sense of kinship that he had towards the players, he knew that an NPC striking such a conversation with a player was plain creepy. He didn’t even know his current situation yet. What if he was correct? What if a wizard programmer on earth was the one really behind his transmigration, and what if him striking such conversations with players would anger him? Perhaps, the wizard would suddenly become so angry and snap his fingers then boom, Morales was dead and dead for good. He shuddered at the thought. “F*ck!”<
Hearing what the NPC just said, Cabbage Lord felt on top of the world as a myriad of thoughts immediately filled his tiny mind. His knowledge and experience in virtual reality games came surging back into his brain.“A friendly NPC described as extremely dangerous by the interface, probably a powerful Pugilist, sitting nonchalantly on a chair lonely in a zombie apocalypse, and calmly asking me what help I want…, what did this mean?”“This…, I can’t believe it, I met a special NPC”.For the first time in years since he started playing virtual reality games, Cabbage Lord felt that perhaps he indeed had luck but it had been dormant since.Special NPCs were those specially designed by the programmers, and they were not only filthy strong, but they sometimes helped players, and they probably had a big role to play in the game as a whole.What made Cabbage Lord confirm this thought was how the NPC initiated the
Astonished, Morales found it a chore to keep his expression from changing on seeing the system’s notification. He already thought of a lot of things that would happen after meeting the players, but he did not expect this.For the first time, he was reminded of the fact which made his conscious mind really accept that he was now an NPC and no longer a player.As he was still standing before the player, he didn’t have the luxury of thinking long. His only saving grace was that Cabbage Lord was also left feeling over the moon by his player interface notification.Taking advantage of this, Morales rapidly started making connections in his mind. He remembered something; when the version was launched, he received a notification of the NPC interaction interface being updated.Perhaps, this was what enabled him to give this mission to the player.Though he still wasn’t sure yet, he already resolved to hold tight to this player. What just
In the Clifford family base in Middle-Ray island, precisely at the strategic planning hall, another problem was presented on the table which drew the attention of all the experts of the island. Even Commander Arachnid was informed of this problem even though he was engaged in a dangerous battle with the Eye Demon, which showed how much importance was placed on it. At the front of a holographic projection in the hall stood a female Clifford navy officer, she was the one explaining the new problem to the soldiers present. Below the podium where she stood on the hall gathered a group of soldiers. They were precisely 50 soldiers, with a Grade E Pugilist as their leader. The lady explained. “15 minutes ago, we discovered a strange phenomenon in the island”. The lady pointed at a certain location in the map being displayed on the screen for emphasis. “The phenomenon occurred in the city trade square”. “Our surveillance system suddenly discovered hum
“Grab him, quick!”As soon as Cabbage Lord revealed himself, he was captured and dragged away by the soldiers in the island. Once again, he was awed by the realistic mannerisms of the NPC soldiers.Their words, behavior, and reaction on capturing them reminded him so much of real soldiers. He just couldn’t believe that these people were programmed.Though he was astonished, he felt even more anticipation about triggering the mission. Thinking about the mysterious special NPC that he met only left him feeling like growing 10 extra hands and legs for efficiency.He was not the only player who was captured. As soon as the players knew of the mission that could be triggered, they swarmed towards the NPCs willingly to be captured.[New Mission has been triggered: Hired Mercenary!][Mission Details: …]With a lot of other players, he was taken to an underground hall where a group of NPC soldiers attended to them. 2