Beware The Night

Keita Amano, he was never the most popular kid in school. He did always notice how others would actively avoid trying to interact with him, though it mostly seemed to be because of his addiction to video games. He played pretty much all the time in school, not even attempting to talk with others.

While he was certainly good at not showing it, he was indeed a bit depressed about the fact that he had no one to call friends. He couldn't help it though, he always loved video games so much that they practically became a life necessity for him.

As of right now, the school day had just ended for today and he had quickly gone back home and onto his computer to play games, nothing out of the usual. What he was doing right now was looking for something to play, he had already finished any games he had been playing thus far and wanted something new.

He was scrolling through the various games that were present on the game distribution website, and most of the games didn't really catch his attention. A majority of the games he saw were rather competitive, and he was never really into competing with others in games.

He only really played them for the enjoyment of playing games, nothing more.

Keita released a tired sigh as he continued scrolling, there were many new games being distributed each and every day, but most of them were very similar to one another. Nothing really stood out to him, so he was honestly thinking of just playing through one of his old games again.

"Hm...?" That would have been the case, but a certain game cover caught his attention just as he was about to swipe down the scroll wheel again. Going back up slightly, Keita noticed a game that had the cover of two blocky characters standing amongst various animals. "Mine...craft?"

Amongst all the other games, this particular cover really stood out. This Minecraft game had a unique and interesting style of design, at least from what he could tell from the cover. It looked pretty friendly too, so he curiously clicked on it.

〔Minecraft〕

● Cost: 2,000 Yen

● Genres: Sandbox, Survival

● Rating: E10+

● Developer: LGM

● Description: Explore a wonderous world of infinite possibility, a world full of both mysteries to uncover as well as dangers that lurk around every corner! Adventure around the world, survive the denizens of the night and create anything you wish. The only limit is your imagination!

"This could be interesting..." The description really did catch his attention, from what he could tell, it was a game that let the player play the game as they liked. He had played a few sandbox games in the past, but never really got into them, mainly because they didn't have too much to them in terms of things to do. "Might as well give it try."

The price wasn't too high at all, so he paid for it before making an account and quickly beginning the download. Strangely enough, the download took no longer than thirty seconds to complete as the game was quickly ready to be launched. Seeing this, Keita looked a bit doubtful.

"Did I get scammed? Two-thousand yen isn't much, but still..."

Shaking his head, Keita clicked onto the 'Play' button within the launcher that was installed prior to the game installing itself as the launcher soon closed down. Soon enough, he felt his eyes becoming heavy and was trying his best to force himself awake.

"Wh-What...?" Soon enough, his body went limp in his chair before he found himself quickly waking up again. "W-Wait, what the?!"

Literally, a second later, at least from what it felt like, he soon found that he was now standing in a void with a holographic screen in front of his face. Keita understandably began panicking as he looked around trying to understand just what was happening.

"What's happening?!" Keita began pinching himself since he assumed he might be dreaming. "This is a dream, right?! Where am I?! All I did was install that game, just what is happening anymore?!"

Keita had many questions running through his mind right now, It took a few seconds before he managed to calm himself down, at least as much as he possibly could. After calming himself down enough, he managed to finally take notice of the screen.

"This... is Minecraft?"

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At the moment, Reiji and Yuta were walking back up to the apartment room after having just gone out to get something to eat. They had fallen asleep for a few hours before waking up and finishing Minecraft before making it public, which took them an extra two hours or so.

After officially launching the game, the brothers went out to get some burgers to eat. They literally hadn't eaten anything since they started working on Minecraft, they were so invested in making the game that they honestly disregard the need to.

Upon making it back to the room in their apartment where their computers were located, Reiji put down the bag of food on the table before switching on his computer. As Yuta began unpacking their food, Reiji decided to check out the analytics for the game.

"Anyone downloaded the game yet?"

"Doubt it, we literally had no marketing or any form of advertisement." Reiji chuckled a bit as he said this. The reason why a lot of games become an immediate success a lot of the time is because they've had great marketing done prior to release, which allows them to build a fan base before the game is even released. They didn't have that. "Nevermind... check it out."

〔Game Analytics - Minecraft〕

● Sales: 4

● Total Income: 8,000 Yen

● Genres: Sandbox, Survival

● Rating: E10+

● Developer: LGM

"Four sales already? Huh..." Yuta was also pleasantly surprised by this, and while four downloads weren't anything to write home about, considering their situation and the fact that they launched the game no more than an hour ago was impressive. "Bring up their play screens."

The advantage of their computers was that since they were the creators, they obviously had vast control over everything that happened and will happen in and out of the game. With a simple click of a button, Reiji could see every single player currently playing.

〔Minecraft - Current Active Players〕

● Yama - [Singleplayer]

● IDon'tKnow - [Singleplayer]

● BlackNight123 - [Singleplayer]

● Username1 - [Singleplayer]

"Wow, nice usernames..." Yuta deadpanned slightly upon seeing the list of names of the players that were currently playing. While both his and Reiji's weren't the most extravagant out there, they'd at least be recognisable over time. "Let's see what the first guy's up to."

"Sure." Reiji shrugged before clicking onto the first username, which was probably the most unique amongst the four despite sounding so simple. Simple was best, and that was the same when it came to usernames as well. "Oh~, this is amusing."

"Oh, he's already managed to build a house! Well, something resembling one..." Yuta chimed in with an amused tone as he pulled his chair over to sit next to his brother. On the screen, Reiji could move around the world as if he was playing in Spectator mode.

True to Yuta's words, the character on the screen was a Steve who had managed to build a small house made of both wood and cobblestone. The Steve had a pair of leather boots on and had a stone pickaxe in his right while a torch was in his left hand.

"Guess the tutorial we added was a lot more helpful than we first thought." Reiji commented simply as they continued watching the player beginning to replace the open walls with glass panes. "Looks to be having fun, but for how much longer?"

"Night time's coming..."

While they added a tutorial for the player at the beginning, it didn't go into everything about the game, only the very simple basics such as crafting and what you needed to do to get started. They wanted the players to experience everything else on their own, and one of those things included the first night.

"Here we go!" Yuta grinned slightly as they could see that the sun was slowly but surely setting in the distance. The player on-screen did panic a bit before calming down and placing a torch onto the wall of his house. "Imagine if we added a feature where torches could set the wood ablaze."

"It'd be amusing, but frustrating." Reiji chuckled since doing so would make it difficult for the player to have a light source during the night in their homes if they were made of wood. They could get glowstone or something, but those were much harder to get compared to torches. "Watch out, buddy."

Just like how they intended, monsters began to emerge into the world randomly in the surrounding darkness. Due to how dark it was, the player obviously hadn't noticed them appearing just yet and was still in his house sorting through his chests or whatever.

"Oh, he's noticed!" Yuta's grin widened as the player soon noticed the groaning of the zombies and quickly looked around in a panic. Yuta laughed a bit when the player jumped up in fright at the zombie that was bashing against his door, opting to back away several meters out of fear. "He's actually killing it, nice job!"

Just as if the game were set to Hard mode, the brothers made it so zombies could break down wooden doors. Once the zombie broke the door down, the player managed to kill it with his pickaxe by waving it around wildly. The player quickly replaced the door and began calming down.

However...

"The night's only beginning..."

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"Holy... crap!" Keita panted heavily in the game as he slid down to the ground against the interior walls of his house. He was having tons of fun playing the game, and he was honestly shocked by how real everything felt. "This game has monsters?!"

The entire time he had been playing thus far, nothing aside from basic animals like sheep, cows and pigs made themselves known to him. However, just as the night came, that strangely cute yet terrifying form of a zombie came breaking down his freaking door!

"Oh no, are there more?!" Keita quickly widened his eyes at the thought before blocking the door with two blocks and peaking out his windows. His jaw dropped when countless others mobs could be seen roaming outside. "Zombies, skeletons, spiders... and whatever those green things are!"

Soon, one of the skeletons seemed to notice him watching them from within his house and fired an arrow. Although the shot was rather sloppy, the arrow did manage to hit the window pane that Keita was standing behind.

"Ah~!" Keita screamed and fell to the ground out of fear. "I didn't know monsters were in this game! Just what in the world is this Minecraft?! Okay, what do I do?! I know, just surround myself in blocks and wait for the daytime!"

Just like he said, Keita quickly stood in the middle of his house and surrounded himself with blocks on all sides as well as on the top. He broke one of the blocks so he could see, and it was in this space did he wait as he watched the mobs walk by every now and then.

"This is scary..." In the little safe zone of his, Keita's character was shaking as he watched the monsters walk by. His expression soon brightened as, after a few minutes, the world began to brighten again as the sun began rising again. "Oh, they're burning! Yes!"

Keita was relieved when he saw that all the monsters outside that he could see were currently burning under the sunlight, these included the skeletons and zombies. While he couldn't see the other ones, he assumed they were probably burning as well.

"They're dead, I'm free!" Keita cheered to himself before breaking down all the blocks that he surrounded himself with before going outside. He looked up at the sky with glee as he felt that session of terror and despair pass by. "That was too scary, didn't think this was a horror game...huh?"

Turning his head slightly, Keita's face went blank when he found himself face to face with a tall black creature with incredibly long limbs. The creature had a pair of unblinking and glowing purple eyes that seemed to stare directly into his soul.

Keita had no idea how to respond as his entire body froze upon noticing the creature staring at him, but that nonexistent movement quickly took a one-eighty as the creature opened its unnaturally large jaw with a roar before charging at him.

"Kyaaa~!"

With the girliest scream he's ever done, he ran away as fast as he could.

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