Chapter 1 - Ethan

Chapter 1 - Ethan

20th Spring, Month 1, the Year 2555, Saturday.

[Tomorrow will be the launch day for one of the biggest games ever, Next World. The game is developed by Diamond Dragon Company under the support of the Grentz Union] the news on the screen reported.

[Diamond Dragon Company's share has gain momentum without stopping since the announcement of Next World] the announcer announced.

Grentz was a world with high technology. Although they were not at the level of space travel, Grentz had many other achievements in technology and one of them was Virtual Reality.

Virtual Reality was useful in many things but the thing that was synonym to it was games. Since VR became a reality, the gaming scene evolved exponentially.

Games with many different settings were created and Players managed to play them with the best experience.

Now, the Grentz Union decided to create a game, and this excited many players. Why? The Grentz Union was the world's government where it was made up of politician from every country. This meant that Next World was supported by every country in the world.

The developer of the game was the biggest and most successful gaming company called the Diamond Dragon Game. However, this gaming company was under one of the biggest companies in the world, the Diamond Dragon Company.

The reason that the Grentz Union created this game was unknown as they did not reveal much about it but rumors floated around that they wanted to use Next World as a platform to dissolve conflicts between the countries.

Even so, everything was a rumor and no one knew the real truth. Still, there would be no rumor without truth to it. So, among the many rumors floating around, there must be some truth to it.

However, the avid gamers did not care about that. All those politics was not their concern. As a gamer, all they wanted was to play this game.

Some of the beta testers had said the game was the usual action RPG but, the game was a bit hard because the monsters in the game were not the common monsters they would encounter in other games.

As for the details of what they meant, the tester could not reveal it. More to that, the tester said that players would be quite free in the game as they could work on their creativity while playing the game.

"You know, if you want, I can just give you the device for free," Shawn spoke.

"Umm… I cannot do that… This device is expensive and I feel bad if I get this for free," Ethan spoke.

"Sigh~ Sure. You don't need to rush paying me back. For now, play Next World and stabilize your life first. Once you have extra money, you can start paying me back," Shawn spoke.

Ethan smiled, "Thank you. I never thought I will get a nice friend like you here."

"…There are a lot of nice people in the world," Shawn spoke but Ethan just smiled. "Stood straight, my friend. What with this hunch back?" Shawn slapped Ethan's back. Ethan jolted for a bit in shock but once he saw it was Shawn, he smiled.

Ethan was a 21 years old young man. He was in his first year of college and it was not even a month since he attended college. Ethan was a skinny boy with short brown hair. He had an average height and face too… no, his face was not in the average.

Ethan was a good-looking boy if he was more fashionable. He was not that presentable to others and with his glasses, he looked like a nerd. Not only that, he was more like a weird nerd.

Shawn was his new friend he made once he attended college. Both of them were in the same course which was engineering.

Although they were friends, they were like day and night. Shawn came from a super-rich family. His family owned a technology company and it was one of the best and biggest companies in the country.

Due to his family background, Shawn wore branded clothes, watches, bags, shoes and everything he wore was worth thousands of Gren. Gren was the world's currency.

So, he attracted a lot of attention but in the college they attended, Shawn got a lot of attention not because he wore branded items but because he was super handsome. Moreover, Shawn was a confident person and that exuded more of his charm.

Compared to Shawn, Ethan was nowhere near Shawn's level. Ethan's family was average. They were not rich nor poor. Just enough to go day by day. So, Ethan could not wear any branded clothes or something of that status.

Ethan attracted a lot of attention too but not because he was rich, handsome, or confident. It was because he was a weird nerd and he befriended someone like Shawn.

Ethan was in no way a weird young man. He was as normal as someone could get but his personality and appearance made him looked like a weird nerd.

Ethan was a timid young man. He rarely talked to people, no, he rarely talked during the normal time too. He was a quiet boy. Ethan usually walked while looking at the ground and his back was hunched a bit too. Due to this, he attracted a lot of attention and was stamped with the title 'weird nerd'.

How the duo became a friend was a mystery to everyone but both of them simply became friends because they clicked with each other.

To Ethan, Shawn was a nice person who treated him normally like a friend would. To Shawn, Ethan was easy to get to because Ethan did not try to get close to him or try to use him because of his money.

However, the current situation where Shawn treated Ethan to Next World's specific VR device was not because Ethan asked for it but Shawn wanted to help Ethan.

Ethan was unaware of this but according to Shawn, Next World's currency could be exchanged for real-world money. The exchange rate was 1000G to 1 Gren.

The reason Ethan needed money was because of his family. His older brother and sister caused a big problem in the family that the family needed to use a lot of money. Due to this, the family was in massive debt.

Not only that but because they needed every money they could get, they even used Ethan's scholarship money he got with his hard work.

Now, Ethan was being frugal and he was searching for a part-time job to support his education. Ethan did not want to give up his education. Not only that but his family had used the scholarship money and if he quit college, he needed to pay that money back.

Even so, after searching for a while, no one wanted to hire him because of his personality and appearance.

Shawn's driver found out about this by accident and told Shawn about it. Once Shawn knew about it, he knew that Ethan was his true friend.

Ethan was aware of Shawn's rich family but he did not try to use Shawn for that money. He kept it a secret and tried to solve his problem by himself.

Due to this, Shawn wanted to help Ethan by asking his family to provide him a different scholarship or he would give Ethan some spending money. However, Ethan refused that.

With Ethan's stubborn refusal, Shawn came up with a different idea. He got a piece of news from his brother about Next World's exchange rate and told Ethan about it. Since Ethan could not get any job, he felt like playing the game would be a good solution.

However, Next World was a special game where it needed to use a special VR device developed by Diamond Dragon Tech, a subsidiary of the Diamond Dragon Company to play the game. Even so, the device was obviously expensive.

Due to that, the current situation came to be. Since Ethan did not want to use Shawn's money for free, Shawn loaned it to Ethan by buying him the VR device.

"This is inside news, so, don't tell anyone about it," Shawn spoke.

"…Someone like me will not have anyone to tell any secret to," Ethan smiled and he held the VR device tightly in his chest. The device was a headphone combined with glasses and it was beautifully packed in a box.

"Err… whatever," Shawn gave up and continued, "This game is developed by a powerful AI and every inch of the game is monitor by that AI. This is not all but the game flows naturally like it is real."

"…" Ethan was silent as he was waiting for Shawn to continue.

"Due to this, the game's missions and events are generated naturally based on the flow made by players when playing the game," Shawn spoke.

"So?" Ethan was confused. He did not know what Shawn was trying to tell him.

"So, we as the player can play the game in any way we want. The way we play it will affect the game. So, we are quite free when playing Next World. No restrictions," Shawn spoke excitedly and he continued.

"You want to make money, right?" Shawn asked. Ethan nodded.

"So, become a merchant or choose a production profession like crafter, blacksmith, or cook to get a better income," Shawn spoke. "You are a smart person and with your creativity, knowledge, and the game's free restriction…" Shawn stopped.

"Imagine what you can do. Also, imagine that Next World is a fantasy world, there will be a lot of things unreal you can do there," Shawn spoke.

"…" Ethan was silent and he felt like if what Shawn said was the truth, choosing the production profession might be the most beneficial if he wanted to save money.

"Still, I may be wrong but Next World is a Fantasy Action RPG so, I don't think what I say is too far from the truth," Shawn spoke.

"Anyway, what will you choose?" Ethan asked.

"Me? I will do the common thing everyone is doing. Fighting monster. I think I will become a swordsman," Shawn replied.

"Oo," Ethan nodded. Then, they chatted for a bit more before Shawn and Ethan parted ways.

Ethan decided to get back to his dorm room. He held on to the device tightly and carefully as he was afraid that he would drop it and broke the device. While Ethan was walking carefully, a beautiful girl was rushing somewhere along the same road that Ethan used.

The girl was talking to her phone and was happily looked around while running. Suddenly, she looked somewhere and forgot that Ethan was in front of her.

*Bump*

"Kya!!!" the girl screamed in shock.

The beautiful girl bumped on to Ethan. Ethan fell on the ground and the VR device he held tightly in his arm flew to the lake beside the road.

"Clarisse, what happened?" the voice from the phone asked worriedly.

"Urg… Nothing, I bump into someone," Clarisse replied.

"Are you okay? I told you to stop running while talking on the phone!" the voice sounded mad.

"Err… I just get too excited for this free time, hehe," Clarisse laughed silly. "Ah!" she remembered about Ethan who she bumped into. Clarisse looked at Ethan and she was shocked to see that the person she bumped into was the college's infamous weird nerd.

Ethan got up, "Urgh…" he grumbled in pain.

"Are you okay?" Clarisse got up and tried to help Ethan up too. At the same time, the soft wind blew her beautiful golden hair with the sunlight shone at her making her looked more beautiful.

Ethan glanced at Clarisse and saw her beautiful face looking worriedly at him. However, not even a second after he saw Clarisse's face, Ethan looked at the side and saw the VR device he got from Shawn was drowning in the lake.

"!!!" Ethan was shocked and he got up immediately and grabbed the device from sinking into the lake.

"…" Clarisse was speechless. She never thought she would be ignored by Ethan. Even so, she was in the wrong and decided to ignore what happened just now. Clarisse walked towards Ethan and asked, "Are you okay?"

Ethan had just picked up the box but it looked like water got inside the box as they were pouring out of the box. Ethan's hand trembled as he immediately opened the box to check on the device.

The headphone was wet with water. Ethan had opened the box earlier with Shawn to check on the device. If he did not unpack the device, the plastic wrapper would have saved the device from the water.

Ethan clicked on the power button desperately but the light did not turn on. The water ruined the device. Ethan's hand trembled and his eyes started to gleam with water.

Looking at Ethan's reaction, Clarisse was frozen on the spot.

"Clarisse? Hello? What happens? Clarisse?"