What’s up with Asterion?

Rei Hasegawa was an unpopular loser. That’s how it had always been, and that’s how Rei thought it would always be. In school he had been bullied for his looks; when he told his parents everyone thought he was ugly, they had tried their best to convince him otherwise, but he could tell it wasn’t genuine. Rei knew the truth: he was average. He wasn’t ugly, but he certainly wasn’t good looking by any definition of the word. He got decent grades, he had one or two friends, and he spent his time alone. He was well and truly average, and to Rei that was the worst thing someone could be.

Things got a little better when Rei went to university. No one knew who he was, which meant he could easily slip into obscurity until his fellow classmates didn’t even realize he went to the same school as them. It was lonely, but there wasn’t any more bullying, so Rei saw it as a win.

Things changed during his last semester of university when Rei decided to download WanderQuest. It was one of the only things talked about on campus, and Rei was curious to see what was so good about it. He’d been playing video games for most of his life, but he wasn’t particularly good at them—like everything else, he was completely average at them. But if so many people played the game it had to be pretty simple, right?

The first time Rei played WanderQuest, something in him changed. The game was easy, but he realized not everyone felt the same. Even with the low quality items he started off with, Rei was able to take down monsters that people three times his level struggled with. And don’t even get him started on the skill system! WanderQuest allowed you to assign a certain attack, spell, or skill to each key on your keyboard, and Rei had one mapped to every single key. Every time he entered combat, his brain could determine in a matter of seconds the perfect combination of attacks to use, and he executed each one perfectly.

Rei had chosen the screen name Asterion, and it wasn’t long before it became a name people knew. It was almost impossible for Rei to wrap his brain around; he was popular. As his level continued to grow exponentially, more and more players wanted to hang out with him. Rei Hasegawa was terrible at talking to people in real life; he hated seeing their faces, despised the subtle facial cues that he knew meant they would rather be anywhere else than with him. Asterion had no such problem. Hidden behind a screen, Rei couldn’t see the reactions of the players talking to him so there was nothing for his anxiety to latch onto. It didn’t take long for Rei to start forgetting there were even real people behind the avatars.

As he continued to gain fame, Rei always made sure to keep every detail about his life a secret. What if someone was able to trace the information back to him? If people knew how ugly Rei was, how lame and socially awkward he was, they would turn on him in an instant.

And then one day, Rei became the best player in the game. Being the “best in the game” was a difficult thing to quantify, but there was a day when everyone unanimously agreed that he was the top player. He had already held the highest level for a while—and was almost a hundred levels higher than the second highest ranking player—but after a particularly difficult quest that involved taking out an army of Wild Beasts single handedly, he was bestowed the title of Best Player. After that, it was almost impossible for Rei to go twenty minutes without a player trying to interact with him.

At first, Rei loved it. People wanted to hang out with him! He was good at something—better than anyone else—and everyone wanted to celebrate his achievements with him. But after a while Rei started to notice their bad intentions. Relatively famous streamers would track him down in the game so that they could interact with him while livestreaming it to everyone. While Rei always liked to interact with fans and was fine with spending a few hours hanging out with players, he couldn’t help but feel like they were only using him. He had seen some of the streams where he’d made an unwitting guest appearance and the viewer count always skyrocketed; surely the streamers were making a huge profit off of his existence and they’d never even asked if he was okay with it. Other times, players would try to party up with him. Rei didn’t mind teaming up with a couple of strangers for a while, but it was clear they were also just using him. They would force him to help them on difficult quests so they could level up quickly, and they never asked Rei what he wanted to do.

Slowly, Rei started to dread playing WanderQuest. Sometimes it just felt better to hide away from everyone, and he found himself taking on more and more quests that required him to be alone in the woods for days at a time. Rei had joined WanderQuest in the hopes of making more friends, but his unexpected popularity had forced him to isolate himself just like he did in university.

About four months into playing WanderQuest, Rei was ready to quit. He had graduated from university a few months ago and was now living on his own in a tiny apartment. He was supposed to be looking for a job—his parents had started giving him a small allowance with the stipulation that he found a reliable source of income and fast—but he just couldn’t find the motivation to. What if he started working at a job that required customer service and someone recognized his voice? They would find out who he was and where he worked, and from there it wouldn’t be hard to figure out where he lived. News would spread and his old schoolmates would start talking about how much of a pitiful loser he was and then everyone would hate him.

The other option was to try and profit off of Asterion. Maybe he could try selling merchandise? No, that wouldn’t work. Everyone would think his gaming skills and charismatic persona were just a means of profit and then they would hate him. He could try streaming, but then he would inevitably do something that would indicate how much he sucked at literally everything that wasn’t WanderQuest and everyone would hate him. All in all, Rei didn’t have any options.

It was around this time that Rei stumbled across Daffodil’s valley. He had been on one of his walks to escape the mob of players that always awaited him in Caspia—something he found himself doing more and more frequently—when he found the beautiful sprawling valley. It hadn’t been marked on his map, which meant it wasn’t something originally part of the game and, therefore, was player made.

Rei had been ready to turn around and slink off without drawing attention to himself, but when he turned around he found a player standing right behind him and brandishing a knife. It had been a tiny little knife that Rei knew wouldn’t do any serious damage, but he still kept his hands off the movement keys.

The player had a furious look on his face and soon a message popped up on his screen saying What do you think you’re doing?

Rei had tried to move his avatar’s hands into a placating position as he quickly explained why he was there.

Well?! the player had asked again, and Rei realized he must have turned off proximity chat. He quickly typed out the same response, explaining that he wasn’t here to steal anything and had just come across the valley by accident. After a minute, the player had stored the knife back in his inventory and invited Rei to take a walk through the gardens.

As they walked, the player, who introduced himself as Daffodil, explained that he grew some of the rarest plants in the game and had been worried that Rei was trying to steal them from him. He pointed out some of his favorites, and Rei felt a strange sense of peace wash over him. This player was treating him like a normal person, almost like he didn’t know who Rei was.

Rei was mistaken because when he later introduced himself to Daffodil, the player had said of course he knew who Rei was—and wasn’t that a weird thought that it was obvious someone knew him from just his name?—but he just didn’t care.

Suddenly, Rei was once again in love with WanderQuest. He found himself logging on every day for hours just so he could hang out with Daffodil. He still worked hard to defend his title as best in the game; no matter how many issues his fame brought him, Rei couldn’t bear to think about going back to being a loser that everyone hated. But now everything was better with a constant companion. Daffodil who never changed, who always wore the same peasant shirt with little flower embroidery he’d done himself, who always tended to each plant like it was something precious, who treated Rei like he was something precious. Daffodil who made life bearable.