PROLOGUE- Humble Beginnings

While Tadashi was counting the steps left to my house where we could finally boot up the game, and after what felt like an excruciating wait for him, we finally reached our destination. Greeted by mom who was passing on her way to pick up my brother, I was given a reminder of how she treated Tadashi the same way she did to me and Yuito, like her own blood. Which was quite apparent from how both were on a first name basis…. I guess that was a given how close our families were.

“See you later, Misuzu-san” were the last words Tadashi spoke to my mother in passing while we both ran into the house.

Shoes off, up the stairs, first door to the right. Not a speck of dust to be seen, and tidy to the point of pinpoint perfection, clear signs that mom had been busy before we walked in.

Tadashi sets up his laptop, keyboard, mouse, and mousepad on my short table in the center of the room, while I’m directly in front of him on my PC on the desk. I plant myself on the chair, push myself towards the table and enter the code for access to the game.

It accepted my code and prompted a video to introduce us to the game.

“CyberGrounds is an in-depth MMORPG that allows you to build your own character tailored to your own “exact” playstyle. You can use any weapon you want for your character and design any kind of ability you want using precise combinations of key presses, like an arena fighter, making possibilities limited only by one’s imagination, but only one character creation is allowed per account. One person is also forbidden from using more than 1 account, as each account will be monitored through the fingerprint identity through their keyboards, any invalid or reused set of prints monitored on an account will result in all involved accounts and users of the detected prints being banned for life.”

At that time, I thought this to be too extensive as a punishment, but as someone who is still waiting for the game to finish downloading, I still wasn’t buying into any of the game’s promises until I experienced it for myself…. I mean, limitless possibilities? Please. As soon as the video finished playing, the game was ready to be played.

At first launch, the game prompted me to stand and perform actions like touch the top of my head, crouch, turn around, for a moment I thought maybe this was just a party game disguised as something revolutionary, as for a moment there, looked like me and Tadashi were playing some non-contact version of Twister. But turns out it was scanning me to be used as my in-game avatar. After I sat back down, there was no option to create a custom character, you must play as yourself in game, and the only options available to change were body type, which decides how fast and strong your character is, and outfits, which is, well, self-explanatory.

From my choice of clothing, I was only given a stern reminder that not only was I obsessed with the color black, but that I have no sense of style whatsoever….Eh, at least the dark red highlights on the outfit were nice, I think? Next screen, was based on combat style, firstly, weapon.

After countless years of bringing a gun to a gunfight, I wanted to mix up the bag of tricks, and try something different. After testing almost every weapon available, I made my choices. The most popular combo used by players was a rifle with a secondary pistol. My choice was the very opposite, the wakizashi, a swift short blade which no one has picked according to the charts displayed due to its high risk, and kunai secondary, a throwing weapon just in case I need some range to close distances.

After I made my choices, I was transported into the open world of the game. Where I was greeted by a voice saying, “Welcome to Ark Sanctuary”.

With a name like CyberGrounds, I expected the world to be more futuristic….. But the first city I was hovering over was a blend of steampunk and one of those fantasy setups you would find in every isekai manga I’ve read ever. A city surrounded by a massive circular wall, lined with different kinds of hub areas for people to hangout in, the map showed buildings from a Guild building which I am guessing is for quests, to a Tavern for teaming up and hanging out. I was still not released into said world, but I was tasked to choose a name to go by in said world. I was going to go with my usual game-name “Shinigami” .....might sound generic in the modern day, but it’s one I always go by as it was the game name used by my late dad…nice to have something to remember him by. While I was having my head in the clouds, literally, I entered in my in-game name and confirmed it without looking. I realized moments later that I messed up as I had made an unchangeable typo. Welp...guess I am the “Shinogami” of this world now.

My first steps into the open world were only met by a “Eh, seriously?” by the man behind me. I turned around only to see a guy in a long dark-emerald open trench coat with what looks like a light armor inlaid in his black shirt’s upper torso……give him a hat and Tommy gun and he might fit in well with the Italian Mafia, and I was not hesitant to say that right to him, considering I knew exactly who it was based on the game name edgy enough to get myself cut.

“Yes, I’m here to kill one who has been a thorn in our side…kind of looks like you, obsessed with dark colors, looks like a stalker who has gone through hell” Tadashi struck back showing off his dual pistols which he also casually joins together into a rifle.

What followed were our usual comedic jabs, but they did turn a bit more serious when Tadashi did recognize my weapon choices, a short-blade on my holster across my back, and my left hand with a gauntlet that looked like it was armor made of charred dragon skin.

“Wakizashi and Kunais, you do realize you just made the game significantly harder on yourself, right?” Tadashi said behind me with a concerned look.

While I made everything based on my preference, Tadashi was in the background researching the combinations that are the strongest. He showed me a video he found that said that even though the game’s abilities are balanced in a way that the more complex the key combinations for the move, the stronger it is, the wakizashi and throwable builds is heavily unfavorable as basic moves are extremely complex and are weaker than guns and heavy weapons. Using either is advised to be backed up by a strong alternative weapon but never together.

So, to sum it all up, I am stuck with the weakest weapon combination in the game, and I am unable to change my choices as making alternate accounts are heavily forbidden and I am only allowed one character.

Putting him and his “research” off, I returned to my chair and was looking to start a match and walked around Typhon, the starting city of Ark Sanctuary. With ease we entered the Guild building which we spawned right next to, approaching the NPC at the reception, we were presented with two different options. PvP Arenas and World Quests. Both have a set number of points allocated for a match win or quest completion. PvP’s reward the greatest number of points but also the most penalizing if you lose, but world quests offer only a very small fraction of the points PvP offers, but there is no penalty in abandoning the quest. The higher rank you are, the more difficult these quests get, and the more points they offer. But there is a catch, you will be unable to participate in World Quests if you are close to ranking up, and you only can get access to them back by ranking up after winning three PvP games in a row, or by losing 1 of 3 games and being thrown back down into the middle of your current rank.

Since World Quests were going to take the most time, we decided to queue up for a game of PvP. Two game modes are being rotated at random for PvP, Artifacter and Battle Royale. Getting a game of Artifacter at first, the rules were simple, whoever gets the highest number of points in a time span of thirty minutes wins. 1 point awarded for a Kill, and 10 awarded for retrieving and banking a randomly spawning artifact at the enemy’s base. A few seconds later, we were teleported into a small arena which looked like it lifted straight out of a post-apocalyptic dystopian movie. Looking around, it looked crazy realistic, I threw a kunai into the sky, and it disintegrated, revealing a transparent dome.

Countdown goes off, and away we go. Whole team rushes forward, looking at different angles at the artifact at the center, waiting for that one enemy to peek out. Knowing barely anything about the map layout, I first climb as high as I can to get a layout of the place, I scan the map left to right moving the mouse on my desk slowly, and the next moment, I hear a loud bang and my screen goes red and I am shown a timer that is ticking down till it allows me to respawn. Chalking it down to a learning experience, I leave the base, only for my screen to go red and resetting the timer I previously waited out again. The pathway from the base to the battle was contested by one behind a shining scope. One well-placed shot to the head and it is all over for me. Having no way to rejoin the fight, I waited on my comrade in arms who realized that I was stuck to help me out of the situation. Converting his dual pistols into a rifle, he gave me some cover to get out by tossing a smoke grenade and using that to contest the sniper. This was the first time since I spawned and didn’t see a scope glint followed by a red screen. I cut off from the main group due to my lack of defense and range and ended up face to face with the guy who is trying to bank the artifact at our base. I tossed a handful of Kunais at him, but he was fast enough to side-step them, dive back and put 6 revolver shots into my chest, back to the base to respawn. Thirty minutes passed and the result was as disastrous as my performance. The enemy finished with almost 5 times more points than us and with most of my time spent looking at a respawn timer, my whole team was quick to throw blame and insults at me.

Next, we tried Battle Royale, which had been a mode so popular in the past in other games, that its rules were widely known. Parties of at least 2 players are put into a very large map area with a shrinking zone, and the last surviving team wins. Key trick here is that you won’t be able to use your own gear at the start but will only be given access to them obtaining 2 halves of a “Cyber Cypher”. Half of it will drop once you wipe a team, or an entire Cypher will be handed freely at randomly spawning buildings called Cyber Stations once the zone shrinks down to the 3rd of the possible 5 phases.

Interested in trying a mode that both of us have played to death, the game starts by taking us across the sky of a massive map that looks like it is from a post-apocalyptic urban city. There is an urban section littered with shattered and collapsed buildings and burned-out vehicles and others include an open desert with uneven terrain, a wrecked train station, but everything was dark due to the overcast evening setting and the reddish sand blowing over.

Drooling over the visuals aside, we managed to drop in and were curious to see what kind of loot there was to find. The match starts with dull looking weapons compared to the shiny neon personal weapons we choose, in the hopes of scoring our gear back. The first match went mostly well…until we retrieved our personal weapons and I started to become dead weight once again. And that is when the reality of my character set in. I had no defense against range, and my ranged option is too slow, and enemies can always predict and sidestep it. I couldn’t even keep using the gear I picked up at the start, as they are too weak against the players using their personal gear in the final circles.

The rest of the day passed as we both finished our 10 placement games. The game decided that Tadashi is to be placed in Gold rank based on his performance, while it decided me to be the lowest of Bronze…. To be honest, I would’ve been surprised if I got anything higher based on how badly I got demolished in the last 10 games. The sun had already gone to rest with the darkness outside only kept away by the nightlights, and Tadashi closed his miniature War-Machine and packed up his gear and was forced to stay for dinner by Mom. Tadashi wasn’t sparing a moment, even to take a breath to talk about all the highlights that happened today in the game…. Mom let it slide, noticing how much fun he was having and Yuito trying and failing to keep up with our lightning-fast conversation. Me on the other hand, I was impressed by the game yes, but not by my performance. Leaving the humble Nakamura Residence, he looked back and spoke some parting words for the day

“That was fun, hope it stays that way for the days to come, you with me on this right, Akio?”

“Of course I am, and I will catch up to you, just you watch”