PROLOGUE- From Zero

Hanging out with Tadashi is something I have been doing since before I could even speak sentences considering how both our parents were great friends before we were even born. But today, unlike the others, was exhausting.

Back into my cave, I dropped onto my pillow face first, turned around to stare at the ceiling fan, making a clicking sound with every rotation….” click” “click” “click” …… While the normal reaction of crushing defeat would be anger and frustration, I was smiling and chuckling to myself…. I was thrashed, but I managed to have the most fun with a game after a long time. And it was the drive of that moment…... that “feeling” …. that pushed me to the thought of wanting to master my choices of weapon.

Dropping dead for the rest of the day, I woke up as soon as I was fully rested and jumped right into my game chair and into the game. Dropping straight into Typhon, I was not surprised to see Tadashi Chifuyu’s name on my online friends list. But unlike him, I committed a very fatal error early in the morning, as I sensed an intense bloodlust behind me.

“Akkun, do you remember the rules before you jump onto your game early in the morning?” said Mother Dearest with a rolling pin in her hand.

I will leave the rest out as it got a bit graphic and…violent, but all I will say is that Yuito had a source of comedy in the morning.

“Nii-chan got the rolling pin treatment in the morning” said Yuito trying to contain his laughter while we were brushing our teeth beside each other in the morning…. Talk about an early morning game-over screen.

Bouncing back from my little setback, I officially started the next day of the game. Most of the players today are focused on checking out world quests and farming up Rels to registered clans and get themselves a nice clan building. Clanning up with a group of players is always a better idea than gunning it solo and would make the climb among the ranks more tolerable.

But while everyone had their sights set on farming Rels and a few rank points with world quests, I had my sights set differently today, and that is to get myself to the Adventurer’s Barracks and learn the ins and outs of my character.

I spent one whole day in the barracks, taking out armies worth of target dummies. My build is heavily dependent on outplays. My body type allows me to scale walls quickly, but I don’t have as many hit points as the more popular body types, which focus on a balance between agility and defense. Mine on the other hand is completely spec'd towards agility. Learning key combos looked to be a steep hill to climb, but I was all but willing to put in the effort.

1 week later, most of my hours in the barracks and doing menial world quests where I was tasked to kill a set amount of monsters, made me more comfortable with my build, and for the first time, I was winning PvP games as I used the combo of being more faster than most and fact that I was being heavily underestimated to close the gap and send my blade right through enemies. And out of a panic moment, I accidentally learned that I could use my blade to deflect incoming fire for a few seconds.

1 month later, I escaped the confines of Bronze and into Silver. And the higher you go, the more points and Rels you earn by World Quests and the more points you lose for losing PvP games. At this point in time, the game had all its hooks into me, as my daily routine consisted of schoolwork followed by game time. Average student by day, energy drink fuelled gaming monster by night.

Waiting for me to fulfill my promise, Tadashi was also taking it easy in-game, where most of his days in-game are spent either participating in the leisurely events in Typhon or killing random mobs in the area outside the city, and in the month that followed, I reached Gold. This is when Tadashi also started taking the game seriously, but it wasn’t enough to get ourselves into the next rank. Day after day, energy drink after energy drink, we both got better at the game, slowly learning the small details like character and weapon vulnerabilities and how to cover our own weaknesses. For one whole year, we endured and celebrated it all, clutch victories, crushing defeats. PvP games we have gotten completely thrashed in, World Quests where either our bounties get stolen, or the monster wipes us off the earth after a lengthy raid. But we persevered, helping each other to improve in-game and in-person and at the end of the year, we both reached the rank of Platinum.

While the journey that took place in the years that followed is a story for another time. But to put it in brief, it was an experience of a lifetime.

Considering how hooked we were to the game; it came at the cost of my family’s standing. My mom started to look more concerned by the day and my brother who used to look up to me, started to look the opposite way. While my brother understood down the line, Mom didn’t. Among the resistance I had with her, I respected the boundaries she set for me which resulted in Tadashi always being a step in-front of me, but either way, we managed to reach Diamond by the following year.

Next in front of us were the big leagues, Nova, and SuperNova. This is where it started to crush us the most. PvP got much harder than anything we have faced so far, and World Quests were on the edges of borderline impossible. After a year of constant trying, scraping together every single rank point after battles that left us with slivers of health remaining both in-game and in real life, we finally made it to Nova.

While we were contemptuous of what we both achieved with the new rank and had little to no motivation to push forward, what happened next grabbed us by the hand and brought us right back to it. An Invitation to the game’s biggest Esports league, what looked like a ticket to the dream, and it was one that no-one would decline.

After that, a lot went right, Mom finally came around and accepted my new life, and Yuito started looking right back up at me…. Hell, he even started to play the game afterwards. Around then, being a professional CyberGrounds player had carried a lot of weight, it became the most popular sport on air, there were game cafés promoting the game everywhere worldwide. By the end of the journey, Arctus became the richest company on the planet. They expanded around the world and built their offices on their own personal islands across regions.

To be scouted as a pro, means that you are recognized as one of the best among over 10 million individual players. And this meant much more to me than the normal pro as I made it here playing with a severe disadvantage. And my life as a pro had many ups and downs. I played with and against some of the best-known names in the game. From solo powerhouses to dynamic duos of PvE and dream team matchups of PvP. The first team we both were scouted for at first was “Team Zero”. From there, we faced many defeats and many wins. And constant practice against the best of the best alongside the help of our coach was what got us into SuperNova.

And we officially made it to the top. The names Shinogami and Darkstar were 2 more became well-known in the community, unfortunately not as a dynamic duo as we both parted ways shortly after. Tadashi got scouted to another team and we ended up playing against each other for a while. But even going our own separate ways, we still were at a stalemate of who has more wins over the other. Almost every tournament, we either knock each other out, with the 2 occasions where we swiped the major tournament win from under each other.

In 2036, Arctus suspended CyberGrounds’ pro scene and all the best were let go. Most of the pros started streaming their matches online and raked in millions of viewers at a time. However, I just played the way I used to. They say that the final match you play with your game friends must be one of the most memorable, as you play it unknowingly and will never be able to live that moment again. And in May of that year, that’s exactly what happened between me and Tadashi.

We hadn’t played together in quite a while, as 2 players on opposing teams were forbidden to match with each other back in the pro days. But this game is where it all mattered. Me at 9980 RP and Tadashi at 9992 RP, one more win away from achieving true mastery, the rank of Immortal which is only awarded to the players who make it to page 1 of the leaderboards.

“All comes down to this one, are you ready?” said Tadashi with a slight shudder in his voice over the game’s voice chat.

“I know I am, are you?” I replied with a snark in the hopes of loosening his tension.

The game of Artifacter that decided everything for us. We are dropped into the spawn for the planning phase, I quickly rundown the map layout in my mind, 2 high platforms on either side for each team to gather intel, massive open bridge with stone walls on either side with the artifact spawning on areas on top or under the bridge. My heartbeat was matching the ticking countdown,5……4……3……2……1, Engage. I make my rush outwards, smokes cover the main approach to prevent any snipers getting any ideas and I make my move onto the flank, using my speed to my advantage, I manage to get the upper-hand the enemy scout who took a kunai to the shoulder on his way up to the perch, I used the 2 seconds I had when he was staggered to close the gap and put my blade through his chest. This was a huge opening as the enemy team had little to no information as the sightline between my team and them was cut off my smokes.

Rifles started to be pointed at me and they hell bent on taking me out to even the odds. Using an impact smoke to cover my escape, I rush under the bridge where both my team and the enemy are trading shots and contesting over to grab the artifact in the middle. Our tank, who was sporting a GreatHammer, called the play to use this advantage. Our mid rangers tossed flashbangs to stop the enemy from peeking and the hammer went down and created a massive maze-like rock wall separating both their mid rangers and snipers from the frontline. I jumped straight onto the snipers who were almost powerless to stop my approach, and I picked up Tadashi jumping onto the mid rangers. The snipers try to switch to their secondaries but in the 5 seconds it takes to put away their heavy snipers, I already ended both their lives, one takes a blade through the throat and the other through the skull. I jump over the wall to help Tadashi with the mid-rangers, but he almost gets taken out as the scout was back and was lining up a shot on him who was already in a 2v1 situation. The scout takes a quick kunai to the head and heads back to the spawn, I then quickly engage one of the midrangers, but he was packing a melee weapon as a secondary. Switching to dual Tonfas, I was caught in a melee brawl where each of us were dodging, blocking, and attacking. The stalemate was broken when he threw sand into my face, temporarily blinding me. I thought it was over for me as I was caught in a grapple hold and where he was going to finish me. A loud bang followed, and I witnessed my foe obtaining a massive hole in his head as I realized my partner in the flank had repaid the favor by saving me from a swift trip back to the respawn. While we cleaned out most of the back, our leading tank and mid rangers had cleaned out the front and banked the artifact in the process.

The rest of the game went as well as that, but fate had other plans. And while I took my headphones off just for a moment till I respawned, I was met by a loud cry for help by Yuito. Putting the game aside, I ran downstairs to check what had happened and it turns out the neighbor’s dog had gone rabid and had bit my brother. Taking him upstairs to get some first aid done before taking him to the hospital, I caught a glimpse at my PC that said the words “Match Forfeited”. I knew exactly what that meant, I received the maximum points penalty and probably had cost Tadashi the match as well. But at the time, I didn’t let that worry me at all, as I was more concerned about my brother’s safety than anything else.

Mom arrived at the hospital as soon as I informed her, and Tadashi also followed shortly. He was first and foremost concerned about my family,

“Misuzu-san, I’m sure Yuito will be fine…he is a strong boy unlike this guy here”

“Really man, you even use this moment to throw a jab at me” I replied.

Normally one would consider him to be insensitive, but my mom chuckled as she knew how much of a big heart Tadashi had.

Slowly backing off, we both turn the corner out of sight from Mom.

“Hey about earlier, I’m sorry about the game, I knew how much it meant to you but there was nothing I could do. I promise I’ll make it up to you…”

Tadashi followed up with a big hug before I even finished my sentence

“There is nothing to make up for…...we won that game, I finally made it to Immortal”

It was very clear he was hold back tears of joy after that as it had been a longtime goal of ours

“In fact, I am the one who should make it up to you for helping me finally get here”

A few hours passed until Yuito returned to us. I carried my sedated brother over to the car and started to drive back.

“Need to reach the top, need to catch up to Nii-chan” murmured Yuito in his sleep.

Considering that my own brother is dreaming about the game as soon as he relaxes hinted that I might have been a bad influence on him. But at least I’m glad that all my time away from my family hasn’t made them think any less of me.

Putting my brother into his bed, I walked back across the hall to my room to shut down my PC. It had been a long day and I left it mid-game…I don't want my mom on my tail about the energy bill even though I’m the one who pays.

But my exhaustion was forgotten instantly when I saw the words “Account Terminated” on my PC screen. I ran to the PC and tried to figure out what was going on. I tried restarting the game, but it deleted itself without my warning.

I jumped on the game’s official webpage to see what was going on, there was an announcement by Arctus themselves.

“After 8 years of revolutionizing gaming and esports, the current CyberGrounds will be retiring indefinitely. Thank you to all our players for contributing to our pet project that turned into an international Goliath………However, the journey has only begun, tune in tomorrow for a big announcement which will change the world…. Forever”