Prologue of Prologue (Second Part)

It was exactly from this day, May 4, 2025, 4 years ago that it happened. It was the day of the first beta test opening for the MMORPG Verstronia—Dream Story, or VDS. While it was developed as the first game by a new upcoming Japanese game company at the time, Kami Productions, it instantly became the talk of the gaming world. The first promotional video (PV) made for VDS, which had been released 6 months prior, was hash-tagged and went trending all over the Japanese Twitter side and became the #1 spot in just a little over a few hours. It got to the point where it started trending outside of Japan and obtained widespread recognition.

The momentum that the PV carried easily reached over 20 million views within a month. It was abnormally popular. After all the hype it was getting, it would be disappointing if VDS didn't live up towards it's current popularity. As though to blow these thoughts away, when I had first opened up the game on my computer I saw an unbelievable sight. The opening movie revealed that Kami Productions were more than serious when they announce that VDS will be the most ambitious and realistic game in MMORPG history.

Since it was a closed beta test, only 1000 people who had pre-registered on a first come first serve basis were allowed to play the game at the moment. But that's is not all. It was to be expected, but VDS had only been made available first for the Japanese audience only. Many potential gamers felt infinite regret due to this language restriction.

However, for me, this was not a problem. While having lived in America all of my life, since my parents' home country was Japan I had become fluent in Japanese from a very young age. Only when I had obtained one of the first sent invitations to play VDS was when I had never been more thankful of my parents for teaching Japanese to me. Without any hesitation, I instantly clicked the enclosed link and made my own account immediately.

It was the promised day. I received a personal URL in my email that only I and the 999 other registrants were able to access receive and access to play VDS.

Filled with excitement, I immediately clicked the URL that would forever change my daily life from this day forth.

What first greeted me when the game opened was an amazing opening cinema of the likes I have never seen. I saw a forest, people, skyscrapers, mountain ranges, oceans, and even what seemed to be a city above the sky covered in clouds. The crafted and painstaking details put into each scene could be imagined as the opening cinema mesmerizingly continues. When the short yet long movie clip finally ended, the logo of Verstronia---Dreamless Story appeared together with the log-in screen. Underneath the logo, captions were placed there that say, ''The story begins with you".

It took me a few seconds to rid myself of the aftereffects from watching this masterpiece. My mind continued to play back each scene I remembered in a never-ending loop. The animation looked so real, it was at questioning whether or not it was not actually a real place level of detail. Even the water looked and acted as real as could be. I kept thinking how could such detail be possible.

I immediately started to create a new account. When I was told to choose a nickname, I immediately chose to use my most familiar trick pony I used in all games: Noraa. As you see, it is merely scrambling my first name backwards without any other tricks. Thankfully, no one decided to use the exact same name so I was able to log in immediately.

What happened next was probably my second important crossroad which change my life: the character selection page. As advertised, VDS boasts a variety of unique characters to choose from, each with their own personality and quirks. Each character also have their own unique main story, with some settings specific to them and their circumstances. While this information is not all that true at the beta testing phase, but depending on which one you pick it would be possible that you would have to do a story that has almost no connection with some of the other characters at all. The difference is so much so that it would seem like your playing an entirely different game.

While on the character selection page, six different characters and their moving animations whenever I hover over their illustrations were constantly moving while trying to appeal to me. For each movement that they show off, I felt an extreme sense of almost seeing them as real people. Thankfully, their perfectly created faces proved their animation origins so I did have to keep falling under that illusion forever. That realization made me kind of relieved, and I don't know why. While there are not as many characters to choose as there are now, just introducing these first 6 characters made even the most casual players into hardcore fans:

Elwyn V. Ryder- Has bright blond hair and pale blue eyes, reminiscent of the color of the sky. He constantly twirls a spear wreathed in a red flame like aura which danced along the games calming BGM.

Sylvia Sager- With long golden hair held in a side tail style with bright golden eyes. A twin pistol user. The pistols that she wields show the sign of many mysterious markings engraved upon them.

Chloe D. Wythers- Has long straight scarlet hair, her bangs held behind her ears by an Alice band and eyes the color of amethyst. Holds a futuristic metallic white staff that even looks mechanical. Floating around her are presumably orbs of energy. Possibly a mage character.

Arlette K. Cromwell- With waist-length blue hair tied in a ponytail and deep blue eyes the color of sapphire. In her hand, she swings a large two-handed buster sword as long as her height.

Theodgar Wolfsheart- Has dark brown hair, a short stature, and amber-colored eyes. He holds what appears to be a rifle with mysterious insignias similar to Sylvia Sager's twin pistols.

And finally I laid my eyes upon the last character. That was when a sudden premonition of something I didn't even understand had come over me. I have never felt anything like it, but....it wasn't a bad feeling. With some trepidation, I used my mouse to click towards the final character….

Ashe Daemon- A silver-gray haired and silver-eyed youth with a piercing stare as though looking into the abyss. In his hands, he holds two ornamental twin daggers adorned with two different gemstones on each pommel.

It was as if lightning struck me. As I lay my eyes upon Ashe Daemon, all other characters disappeared from my sight. I once again clicked again on Ashe. What showed up next was the character summary and a confirmation button. Without even reading the history, I instantly chose yes to finish my character selection. This concluded my first, and eventually only character selection I would ever go through.

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Hah! How nostalgic. Even now I have no idea what that feeling was. But if I were ever to go through this part of my life again… I was confident my choice will never change. It wasn't until sometime later after the character selection that I began to first make my first contact with one of the future members of the [Vers Warrior]. Though at the time, [Vers Warriors], let alone the existence of guild, haven't even been added into the game yet. I turned my head to look over at the very first person I had met: Kei.

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Having finished my character selection, it was time for me to take my first step into the world of VDS.

The first thing that greeted me when I moved on was the appearance of a world with graphics so detailed it made me feel as if it could overwhelm my computer's data processing speed. It was good to note that at that the current time, I had bought the latest gaming PC for myself with the money I had gained from part-time jobs as a fun splurge. The processing power of the PC was no joke, however, the graphics the game had were so detailed it felt that even a supercomputer wasn't enough.

However, the controls and movement of the character I controlled were so unrestricted and so smooth it made my previous worries felt ridiculous.

Once the shock went away, what was left was the immense joy and wonderment as I began my journey.

Minutes turn to hours, hours turn to days, in every waking movement only playing VDS became my only new obsession. If it was not for college classes, I would choose to even forgo sleep and eating just to keep playing.

I played and played. Only taking the occasional breaks and forced interruptions from my family members, I continued to play some more.

I had truly became a gaming addict. It was a weird feeling.

I would, by no mistake, continue this lifestyle forever if I had a choice. I was that addicted.

However, even good things don't last forever.

After playing VDS for a while, I had come to face a deadly and unavoidable obstacle which severely affected my motivation to continue playing.

It wasn't anything from outside the game.

As long as I don't do any drastic, obstruction in the real world was non-existent.

No, the real trouble lied from within the game itself.

That's right.

It was the beginning of my realization of what it means for me to become a player of Ashe Daemon.

I had already opened Pandora's box.

Now it was only a downwards spiral as I forced to deal with Ashe's unique quirk which made him known to all players as the worst character in all of VDS history.