1 Chapter 1

"Choices", an upcoming full dive VRMMORPG was announced a few months prior and has since then caused a massive storm in the gaming industry.

While not being the first of its kind as a VRMMO, it promised something breathtaking that was only a concept before.

Creating new senses that humans could perceive. Predeceasing this, only visual information and light haptic feedback was sent back to the body of the users.

With this technology, massive improvements were made in the immersion of the users. The basic senses such as hunger and thirst, as well as a few others like heat or cold were promised to exist.

That in itself would have been enough for the majority of users.

The company behind "Choices" alas had a different idea.

It was said in the reveal trailer for the game that several new senses that could only exist in fantasy would exist in the world.

The reveal trailer showed beautiful landscapes and a fight that at first glance was cookie cutter material for a proper fight scene.

Out of the perspective of warrior, a group of goblins walked down a shallow path in a forest.

The warrior, as well as his group ambushed the goblins and made some quick kills. The players were happy that everything went smooth, until they were unexpectedly filled with a bunch of arrows. The ones being ambushed now, being them.

After the party succumbed to their injuries, the screen faded to black and a caption with "adjustable pain levels" came up.

This caused outrage in the media covering the game.

"Too graphic", "What do they mean by "adjustable pain?" or "Shocking Content" were headlines that were used to criticize the game.

Gaming forums thought this was by far the most interesting bit of the trailer to talk about.

Some users pointed out that the players of the trailer had total freedom of movement and their sword style was basic at most.

The mage of the group was called noob by a lot of users. Even though they had no interaction with the magic system of the game so far, they could hear the stuttered incantations of the mage to cast a haste spell. The warrior did not look at the mage while he was chanting so it was not clear if he used hand gestures to cast his spells or not at the moment.

This changed nothing about the fact that the team wiped to at most two or three goblin archers.

Basic defense positioning were important and not following these lead to the whole group getting killed.

Lots of thrilling conversation about the game were present for the three months until the game was finally released to the public. Every new bit of content that was published by the company Limitless was the cause of several hour-long videos that were uploaded minutes after completion.

And then there is me. From the get-go of the first reveal trailer me actually playing the game was a given. My parents were hardcore games that annoyed me for all my life with gaming.

When they heard that a new promising game was announced they went ballistic. Focusing on every little bit of information and planning entire routes and strategy guides based on a few breadcrumbs that they found.

I myself like games, but I was never as hardcore as my parents. But now that the opening of the server came closer, I got a little bit exited.

I would give it a chance at least. It might even be something I really like.

After carefully placing myself into the standing oval capsule, I pressed the only available button on my right hand. The capsule remained dark, unusually dark.

I know from my parents and the calibration of the capsule somehow how the new full dive works.

The old capsules only projected the world around yourself, and you had a suit that gave your body feedback. It was a lot of equipment and only some people took the effort to always wear the full suit getup.

These new capsules, which my parents paid a whopping 15,000 credits in total for, worked without external equipment. You just had to lay into it, and with the press of a button, everything around you changed in an instant.

The calibration process was as rudimentary as it could get. As you opened your eyes you were presented with a simple room that only contained a table and some small objects upon it. Nothing special when it came to calibration programs. Pick up some stuff. Jump up and down. Going from point A to point B.

Simple stuff. The only major difference was that you were now physically doing all that.

Gone were the days when you had joysticks and keyboards to move your character.

Twelve hours before the opening of the main server, players would be presented with a simple timer on top of the table.

"Let's summarize what we are going to do." was said by my father in a low voice.

"Elves are generally good with magic related stuff. Mother will cover that part for sure.

Dwarfs are proficient with crafting related stuff such as forging and jewelry.

Humans, at least of what we saw in the trailer should be your casual pick race for all of the noobs. While balanced they should be the allrounder class and therefore bad at high level stuff.

As a human you will have to grind harder in a specific job as other races.

So for our group we should not consider humans at all."

"Hey, who said I was going to pick an elf dear?" said my mother nonchalantly from the sidelines.

My mother, while usually quite reserved, was still unsure of what race she should pick.

"We don't even know what races are available at all, there could be for who the hell knows be playable goblins. It is called "choice" for a good reason I think.

We should not discuss race here but rather the magic system. Elly, you wanted to be a caster, right?"

Elly shot for Elizabeth was my twin sister. Of us two she was the opposite of me when it came to gaming. The indoctrination of my parents only worked on her and not on me.

"Yes mom. I don't care about my race as long as it can cast powerful magic. I will make anyone kneel before me AHAHAHAHA" My sister kept on laughing maniacally as everyone started ignoring her and now the focus was on me.

My parent just looked at me without asking anything.

"I- I don't know yet. I will go through my creation with no expectation. Magic is also a must for me but that is literally all. As for jobs I will focus on crafting I believe. You can always sell stuff like potions or repair kits for weapons. There also isn't the real money aspect in the game so acquiring gold will be important."

After talking about the game for nearly another two hours we ate to our hearts content to not be hungry.

The opening drew closer and soon we entered each our own capsules. My parents painstakingly removed everything out of our guest room just to get four capsules installed into the room. One in each corner to be exact.

Only a small table with food and a mini fridge in the middle remained. So that when someone was hungry, they could quickly log out and back in.

[Opening Server Connection]

[Calibration complete]

[Establishing first contact]

[Welcome User]

Welcome? There was nothing. I was floating in a black void. Not really inviting.

[Initiating Player Creation]

[Everything you will say or do will influence the resulting features of your creation. Please answer truthfully User]

So I have to do a questionnaire? The game is called "choice" but that is something I didn't expect.

I tried moving but I only floated forward a little bit.

"Hey this is quite fun. Can I go faster?"

I zoomed through the void. Not knowing how fast I was going.

After a shot time I was finally asked a question.

[Question 1: What kind of environment would you create of you could create anything?]

An existentialist question? Right from the start the System is asking hard questions.

Still floating forward I pondered for a good minute without answering.

"That is a hard question system. I have never created an environment and have no experience. I would maybe create something comfortable for me. I always liked nature so a big mountain-range with all sorts of cute and sometimes dangerous animals would be perfect for me.

Maybe even small rivers and while I'm at it a beautiful waterfall."

[Confirmed]

[Question 2: What is something that you value in your life?]

Wow… Another hard blow for someone like me. I just answer instinctively.

"So, something that I really value is freedom. I don't like to be contained. I want to roam the world and go anywhere I want.

There are many cool places in my world which only a few people get to see personally. One of my favorite places of all time are some unknown pyramids where we had to crawl though small tunnels only to end up in a great Hall which was so deep underground that it had a pool in the middle of it that contained groundwater. I was little but that memory was so impactful for me that I remember it clearly to this day.

[Confirmed. Thank you for your answer user.]

[Proceeding with Question 2,5: Did you explore other pyramids or even tombs?]

Wait what? I expected personalized questions but that is a bit excessive.

"Well yes. I explored many pyramids. That one earlier stood out from the others because it was something I did together with my twin on my own. We just went into the pyramid without permission and trespassed through a few areas to get there" I laughed as I said that. Remembering all the sneaking we did to get into the pyramid was fun.

"As for the question on tombs. I went to the resting grounds of many previous emperors on a few occasions. But they are publicly available so everyone can go there. They are often buried in big churches, so our family took the time to visit them and had also fun in that particular city at that time."

[I am still not accustomed to some of your customs. Would you please explain in rough detail who can travel in your world?]

"Are are sentient!?!?!?"

[Shit… Please just answer the question user.]

"Nonono what the hell happened to that mechanical voice of yours? I thought you were an automated system the whole time."

[The creation of players is outsourced to angels like myself. We just got the order from the goddess of creation to appear emotionless. That is still something new for me so I messed up.

Sorry to ruin your experience.

Can we still proceed? I still need to ask a few things.]

That was quite a shock for me. This was a rollercoaster of emotions for me.

"Can we talk person to person? It is strange to just listen to your voice."

[Hey that is your own fault!!! You just floated away. That is a design flaw that we didn't expect.

It should be so that you only see a text box and I have to say [Confirmed]. But you just flew away, so I had to personally follow you and ask you directly!!!]

I was wondering why it took some time until the questions came.

"I am sorry for that. I didn't know better."

[Don't be. That was something unexpected that shouldn't even be possible. As long as you agree to keep our conversation secret, I have nothing against it.]

"That sounds fine for me. I wouldn't even get anything out of it."

[That is not particularly right but close enough.]

With a snap of her fingers I regained my vision. I was back in the room the calibration took place in.

The only new thing was the small angel sitting in another chair beyond the desk. The desk filled with a stack of papers that wrote themselves.

Our entire conversation was written down on these sheets.