1 Prologue: The start!

Modified.

"I haven't played games for two weeks. Ha~, thankfully, I had finished my transcript earlier." Gram sighed in relief.

Looking at the game package, Kitamura Gram dusted the cover with one hand while putting his other to his nose and even then, he still felt excited.

"Kaede said she had so much fun in the game, I wonder what she's doing now." Because of the school work, he had not allocated many brain cells to understanding Kaede's words about the game since she felt unreliable to him. He thought, his girlfriend won't possibly become a headache for the developers if some of her words were true.

"It's kinda exciting now that you think about it!" Gram thought of the possible things he could do now that he was free from school activities.

What he expects is that he should be able spend more time alongside his girlfriend, and thinking about it made him so excited.

Kaede Honjo, one of his childhood friend. He confessed his love and they became a couple, although; it was awkward transitioning into a relatively close relationship but aside from the downsides, hey, they have already held hands although he hasn't done that much aside from that. Through this game, he thought he had a better chance to do more lovey-dovey stuff since his very shy girlfriend doesn't easily budge with his proactive move but it didn't mean she won't be as timid as in game.

"He~he..." Gram face had turned into a delight, he quickly removed the trace of 'saliva' that had appeared and looked down to the big box he currently held.

At the label of the newly bought Virtual Reality Gaming Device were people holding swords and staff fighting a dragon of some sort. The title above the package was in a bold letter, New World Online written in colorful letters.

It was the VRMMO, a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Game! Virtual Reality technology is the recent addition to the world's latest game genre. Although it had been decades since the VR technology had been in works, in contrast to the present Virtual Reality technology, the old one couldn't even be compared to even it's plastic labeling. It might just be cow dung compared to gold.

Because of that, the popularity of VR related games rapidly increased in sales. Kaede, his girlfriend, started playing this recent VR game to get a heads up, while he and her friend Risa Shiromine were the one that invited her to play. Thankfully, she had bought the gaming software for him early as he was busy doing his school activities in the past few days and although he was the one that invited her, he ultimately urged her to play the game to get used to playing so that she won't get left alone when he and her friend joined later.

The trio were all childhood friends, Risa Shiromine was like his rival when it comes to games, since they were both good and like to play games, they had come to be friends, even saying that they were close friends is true.

After looking at the game manual, he opened the box containing the VR helmet and removed the bubble sheet packaging, not even tempted to pop the bubbles due to his uncontained excitement.

Gram put some time looking at the basic introduction of NWO, the VR game is called New World Online. Until some time, a furrowed brow appeared in his forehead as he looked towards the description.

"What is the exact time-dilation though, I can't imagine them doing 1-1 time to game between reality. They supposed to increase it though given the fact that some events can go as far as weeks in game time?" Gram got confused but he just thought that maybe, the packaging employees just forgot to type the sentence, he could look for it on the web later. He could just experience it and just deduce the time based from the time he's been playing.

He was after all, an old-school player in RPG games, he hadn't even thought that VR games would come to this point where compressing time is as easy as baking a pie. Since they even advertised the game that it didn't have any demerits in people's health since it counted as sleeping. Even if the company fooled around, they wouldn't be able to take backdoor even if they had help from the universal government, since it questioned the well-being of the majority of people, especially people that play VR games.

What a wonderful technology, a very suitable one for a gamer like him. Gram excitedly nods again with a wondering face about what it would feel like to be in the game.

"Humu~humu, let me start, my hands are already iching, so I had to configure my status. It's a typical rpg mechanic but I wonder what type of build should I make?"

"I remember Kaede saying she had done a full defense unintentionally? An overpowered one at that, but she's a tiny bit unreliable."

Kaede was a cute ditzy girl that wasn't very good at games and though he hadn't seen her play, her stories about her ventures in the game, at least eased his mind while he completed all the school activities appointed to him. Risa had been in the same position as him, since they both had responsibilities as the class representatives, while they had a different job to do, they helped each other finish the task so that they could play the game earlier. It had already been three days since the opening of the game while they weren't exactly late, as a competitive gamer, Risa would try to level up like a madman.

Gram though was different, he wasn't that competitive, it was different though if Risa was his enemy. They always had a friendly rivalry, while Kaede ate on the side while watching their antics with curiosity.

He plugged the hardware before he rested his body on the bed. He put the helmet on, although he had played many games in the past, all of them were using computer software or consoles. It was his first time playing a VRMMO. He had some knowledge when it came to RPG but he wouldn't say that he was very good at it.

Gram started his first configuration.