I can finally start playing this game. Stupid school for making me do so much work, stupid parents for making me do said work. But I gotta move on from that, even if I'm a week late starting now is better than never.
His name was Wayladiumosticusrelaios - Wayland for short. There was this new and trending open world virtual game called GHONK which stood for Grand Harmony Of Natures Knowledge. Everyone was hyping it up the netizens, yutube channels, and even his classmates talked about it.
Naturally he set off to figure out if this game was really worth all the hype and after a few hours of research he was absolutely startruck. This game basically had everything, complete immersion, global storylines, magic systems, and a whole bunch more.
No matter what he had to play this game, luckily his parents bought him a vr capsule for his 17th birthday so all he had to do was buy the game when it released. And two weeks later it did.
During that time his anticipation only increased but when he entered the vr capsule and loaded into the game a message popped up. [Parental lock enabled - All games will be unplayable. Please discuss with and beg your parents to disable this feature.]
He did what it said and begged his parents to let him play but all he got was "We know you have an important test coming up so prepare for it well and Ace it. Otherwise we won't let you play games for a month."
Since there was so much at stake, Wayland locked in and studied 6 hours a day for that test. A week later he took the test and got a 110% on it. The 10% was extra credit because he did so well on the written portion.
He kept up with the news during that week and GHONK was much more impressive than anyone imagined so he was extremely excited to play.
Coming home from school, Wayland didn't even bother changing out of his school clothes and immediately entered the vr capsule.
The capsule powered up and a blue screen appeared in front of him. Using his mind alone he clicked on GHONK's app icon. The screen disappeared and the capsule filled up with liquid. Then he felt his consciousness blur, a familiar feeling of entering the virtual world.
[Thank you for playing GHONK, Please create a character to enter our world] Oh this was pretty cool, he could see an exact replica of himself with the genitals blurred. Was there a way to remove that setting? After all he was planning to gain experience in this game. It would be a waste not to.
A customization screen popped up. It had hundreds of scroll bars that affected the size and proportion of different parts of the body. For example Eye size, Arm length, and Torso width. There was even a search button because of how many options there were.
Wayland clicked on it and typed 'dic' but no results showed which was very disappointing. [Although you can customize your character however you want, it's recommended to stay as close to your original form as possible. This is because modifications decrease synchronicity rate with the character making it harder to control.]
If that was the case then it was better for him to stick with his body, he wouldn't have made too many changes anyways since he was naturally handsome, at least that's what he's been told. So without further thinking Wayland clicked the create button.
[Are you sure? Modifications are permanent. The only way to redo them is by creating a new character and doing so will reset most of your progress. Y/N]
"Yes I am." Wayland replied. Then his empty surrounding turned into white and blue pixels. The pixels surrounded him and a few seconds later they turned into various colors. They merged together creating the starting point of this new world.
The wind, the sensation of his clothes pressing against him, the light shining on his body, everything felt exactly like reality. This was absolutely amazing. In other games he'd still feel a bit of disconnection, something in the back of his mind that said this place was fake, but here that didn't exist.
"Great another one's spawned in." Said a middle aged man wearing linen clothes. This should be the introductory npc, Wayland thought. "Because it's my job I have to introduce you to our world but if you already know it, you can head straight to the training ground."
"I already know but a refresh would be nice." Wayland replied. Experiencing it himself was very different from watching it or reading about it online. He was here to fully immerse himself anyways so he wouldn't skip the storyline dialogues.
The man's face turned bitter. Wow, even the npc's facial expression looks so realistic, the way his skin stretches and folds, the glimmer in his eyes, and the flaring of his nose. "You're not one of those weird ones are you?"
"Oh, I'm sorry for staring, it's just that everything here is so realistic."
"Why wouldn't it be? This is an actual world, but you wouldn't believe me no matter how much I say it. I should just get this over with so I can this pompous guy and by that I mean you out of here."
"Sir, I think you accidentally said your thoughts out loud just now." He added the Sir part because he learned that showing respect to npc's would boos their favorability and that resulted in a lot of benefits.
"I did but it wasn't an accident. Anyways our world has been invaded by other worlds which led to portals also known as gates appearing. Demons and monster come out of them and they've been terrorizing our world for countless years. We tried to fend them off ourselves but failed. Now we're continuously losing ground due to the --" A bright light appeared and dispersed quickly, showing another player. "You there, come over here, it'll save me the trouble of saying this entire thing again. God knows how sick I am of repeating the same lines, but it pays well so I can endure talking to you bums."
"Was that also intentional?"
"Yes." The new player joined them. Woah, that was not a natural face, this guy definitely went heavy on modifications, red hair, red eyes, little to no body fat, sharp jawline and thin lips. It seems he was trying to look handsome but he just turned out looking more like an alien instead.
"This is what I was talking about when I mentioned weirdos. But I digress so once again ....(What was said above).... due to the corrupting force that monsters and demons naturally emit. (Sighs) Heroes! to save this land you must defeat these invaders and close the portals they come from. But first you must strengthen yourselves so please go to the training grounds. That's the gist of it you guys can go now, as for the specifics you'll figure it out yourself."
"Thanks for the introductions." Wayland replied.
"Yeah, yeah, now go to the training grounds, it's that way and you'll hear a lot of people grunting and moaning so it's impossible to miss."
"Ok, see you later then."
"Hopefully not. Now that one was unintentional"
The alien-like player already headed to the training grounds so Wayland ran a bit to catch up to him. "Dude do you want to play together? Once we pass the tutorial we can hunt in a party." Wayland asked, this guy looked weird but it seemed they'd be playing around the same time so it was good to befriend him.
From the community forums he learned that it was extremely hard to solo-play for hunting based professions. He wanted to become a monster hunter and feel the thrill of battle so having more party members was better.
The alien turned to him with a look of disdain and superiority. "Ha, I can't believe a disgusting thing like you would have the guts to talk to me. Needing to listen to that ugly npc's introduction and dragging me in it, wasting my time. If it wasn't for the restrictions I would've killed both of you. But such is fate, having to interact with nasty and mentally diseased people is is inevitable. Someone as grand as me should just make good use of it. Behold mortal engrave this face into your mind, for unlike you, I will rise to the top of this world. And I won't stop there I'll break through the shackles that bind me and become a God of this world for I am divinity itself, I am Divine. So rejoice meeting me shrimp, for someday you'll be able to share this story, the best accomplishment of your life to your bug-like family and friends. Now disappear from my sight, your weak beta male energy is lowering my alphaness." Damn, he could've just said no. With that the Alien wait I meant to type Divine walked away.
But while Divine was spouting his bull crop, Wayland took a picture of him. It was kind of unnecessary since there was no way he'd forget a face like that, but he could show it to others and pay them to hunt Divine down.
Since even though it had a lot of drawbacks player killing was allowed in GHONK so he'd be able to get back at this guy someday. And if that was too expensive then he could do the job himself, because as the number 1 PK'er in another game once said revenge was a dish best served with your enemies items.