Hater 101

"WINNER!"

The familiar game voice sounded, punctuating yet another victory for WhiteFlame, otherwise known as Shiro Yakeshi in real life.

He took off his VR headset, his face beaming.He quickly grabbed his phone to check, and there it was, fifteen thousand yen deposited by Yamaha Productions, the company behind the famous and most-played tactical RPG.

There wasn’t a soul on the planet who didn’t know about Guns and Magic Online, GaMO for short. Besides the high-end graphics and deep story, one of the biggest draws of the game was that you could actually win real money from it.

Messages poured in from the forum of Guns and Magic Online:

{User128825: Another victory for WhiteFlame huh?

Sage: Sigh, I told @Overkiller he wouldn't win
Jujustuseeker: No one wins against WhiteFlame
Daoist: Yeah, brother has had like a 365 day streak}

Shiro couldn’t help but smile at the praise he was getting but it was true. He had remained undefeated for a whole year.

GaMO was a tactical RPG. Just as the name implies, it was a mix of magic and guns. It had many different modes of play—battle royale, and others. But what truly set the game apart was the RPG Survival Mode, the mode everyone hyped about, the mode where you actually got paid.

It was usually one versus one, although you could do teams too. The rules were simple: two players are dropped onto a map. They find loot, complete missions, level up, then find each other—and kill each other. Each player had a timer, a health bar. In-game, it was ten days—but in real life, that translated to just ten minutes.

The game had five rounds. Each player started with ten days. If you were killed in round one, the remainder of your time was transferred to the other player in the next round. But your timer would revert back to the base time—ten days—at the start of your next round.
It was pretty simple.

So, if you won the first two rounds, you could spend the rest of the game camping and waiting for the other player's time to run out. However, you couldn’t relax too much, you would become a sitting bank for the other player to cash in on.

{Gunner2.0: I wonder how he got this good.

Procrastinator: He's just a homeless bum who spends his time doing nothing}

Of course, there were always haters.

{Daoist: WhiteFlame, do you have any tips for this younger brother?}

Shiro smirked. Daoist wasn’t a great player, but at least he wasn’t a hater. He always asked where he went wrong and tried to improve.

{WhiteFlame: You should avoid trying to level up in the first round, instead hunt down in the first round even if you have one spell. However, again, this is coming from a gun user. Switch to guns @Daoist

Daoist: Thank you brother, but I enjoy the magic. Thank you for the tip though.

Procrastinator: Yeah yeah. Just because you got lucky doesn't mean you win with some kind of strategy or something.}

Shiro shook his head. He didn’t get mad. These quarrels with haters were beneath him. In fact, he enjoyed talking to them. It gave him something to laugh about.

{WhiteFlame: It is not luck my friend. I am the god of games. I rule the world of Andre!

Hater101: Do you now?}

“Oh, a new name?” Shiro muttered. This was a new username he had not seen before. Hater101? One could only imagine what he was here for.
“It is my duty as a divine being to help this poor soul, haha,” Shiro said.

{Hater101: Are you really the god of games? Then what does that make me?

WhiteFlame: I don't know. I just know I'm the one and only true god of games.

Hater101: Want to prove it?

White'shelper: Wait is this a challenge!?

Jujustuseeker: Sure looks like it, give it up @Hater101. You could never win.

Sage: I've been play5ling for three years but haven't won a single game against WhiteFlame and we play 1v1s every other day. Give up man
Procrastinator: Wait maybe this guy will finally put WhiteFlame in his place
Healer: wait hold up. What is happening?}

With that, the whole forum went abuzz as this new, mysterious name seemed to be challenging Shiro.

More comments and messages poured in faster than the human eye could read, so Shiro just gave up trying altogether and waited for things to settle down.
After twenty minutes, all the regulars were online.

{Nernakai: Hehe, how good can he really be? I've been in WhiteFlame's shadow for my whole life, how is a newbie gonna be any better?

Greenriver: Wait NK, you never know.

Nernakai: 😕, whatever.

Daoist: WhiteFlame please do another match I want to see.}

The Survival RPG Mode made so much money because matches were broadcast live. Since the game played like a full RPG, it was akin to watching anime—every battle, loot drop, and spell acquisition felt like a story.

Shiro needed the money anyway. What would it hurt?

On cue, his phone rang. A notification:
{god of games sends you an invitation to a time survival match. Accept?}
Shiro quickly pressed accept as the request was about to time out.
A follow-up message appeared:

{Match is scheduled for 12:00 a.m.}

“Hm. Weird time,” Shiro shrugged. He couldn’t care less when the match was held.

“Arg, I was in need of some ramen,” he said, stretching. He checked his watch. 11:01 p.m.—more than enough time to grab a bite at the nearby ramen shop, a shower, and an episode of anime.

...

..

.

"So come aboard and bring along... all your hopes and dreams!Together we will find everything that we're looking for!" Shiro happily sang, immersed in his own fantasy.

Unaware of the oncoming white truck—coincidentally, one with faulty brakes and, mysteriously, non-functioning headlights.The driver slammed the horn, but Shiro's noise-cancelling headphones were the real deal. He couldn’t hear a thing over the music.

Honk!

Honk!

The driver tried to swerve, but the truck wouldn’t change course.

"They'll always be room for you! If you wanna be my friend! We are... We are o—"

CRASH!

The white truck struck Shiro with such force that he flew several meters across the road.

Shiro couldn’t feel his legs.

His body was crumpled on the road like a broken action figure, limbs bent at unnatural angles. His vision trembled with every beat of his heart, each thump weaker than the last.

He couldn’t breathe. Not properly.Every inhale came with the sound of gurgling blood. His lungs were filling. Drowning him from the inside out.

"Ah..."He tried to move, to speak, to do something—but only a strained breath escaped.

A distant scream.A panicked voice.The thudding of hurried footsteps.

He couldn’t focus on any of it.Everything was fading—too slow to be merciful.

His fingers twitched. He felt nothing.

The world around him was turning white.Not like fading to black, no.This was brighter.

White. Blinding white. 

It crept in from the corners of his vision, swallowing the night sky, the asphalt, the broken glass.

He blinked.

His body didn’t hurt anymore.Not because he was healing—but because the pain had left with the rest of him.

*So... this is it huh?*