1 Chapter 1-Prelude

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This world is an unfair place.

That is a lesson I have learned. Everything was taken. Some were graduating college, becoming doctors. Some were getting married, having kids. What have I done? I was always smarter, but never wanted to work. I was always happy, but I never pursued. I am a failure. I can blame the world all I want, but I share the blame. This is what I have wrought. I shook it off. I ignored it. I told myself it was fine. But that only made it worse. I ran from my problems. There was nobody to run to. It had all been taken. I could only watch normal people in agony over my lack of what they had. I make minimal money, and live extremely frugally. I always struggled to save money, but I managed to accomplish it once. And that became the sole light in my life. My escape. I lived my life in the World of Yore.

The World of Yore is a land inside a game known as Nature's Grace. You can be pretty much anything. It was a place where I could be the real me. The me before the struggles, the me without the hardships. It was my only escape from this cruel, cruel world.

The World of Yore had been described as a parallel world, for it was just like the real one. Everything was decided by fate. Nobody knows who created it, but what was known was that it ran on an A.I. This A.I was flawless, and nobody who tried to infiltrate the system could even get close to it. In addition, there were many things that set it apart from other games.

The first call upon fate was one's start in the game. It was completely random. There was no town that new players spawned in or newbie quests. There weren't even story quests or a tutorial. Luckily, you would always start in a city, town, or village. However, not all settlements are created equal. You could be spawned in a remote village far from any monsters or danger, you could be spawned in a huge city constantly threatened by monsters, or anything in between. Your start in life isn't just about where you are. It is about who you are. You could become a farm boy constantly starved to death. You could be born a warrior. You could be born an abandoned orphan. You could be born a prince. Nature's Grace wasn't fair. Why? Because life isn't fair.

The World of Yore was cruel, much like life. If you died in the game, you would lose your character, items, and everything. You would have to reset. There is one problem there. Some idiots would try to commit suicide in order to reset your character, but the system stops them and forever bans them. Purely making a new account or getting new headgear would do nothing. Since the headgear intercepts your nerve signals to use in the game, it registers your person, not your headgear. You are then forever banned.

There was one more major difference. It is not a game where you can just get together with friends from real life and hang out. That is because you wouldn't be able to find them. It was truly impossible to tell between NPCs and players. NPCs had full-blown personalities and everything. Most of all, they can adapt. While your best friend or lover may not truly exist, but what does it matter? They look like, talk like, think like, and they act like living beings. That was why this game was a true escape for many people in society.

I delved into that world as an escape as well. I hoped that it could truly let me escape from my problems. As soon as I put on that headgear, I knew it would change my life. Whether it would be for better or for worse, I would just have to see myself.

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