Chapter 1 - Prologue

The computer was a featureless black wedge. It didn't have a power cord, but a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on its rear, spiraling across the floor and plugged into a crudely installed fiber-optics socket. Kenzo leaned back in his desk chair; it made a small creak that sounded unusually loud in the absence of daytime chaos.

Ping—!

He logged into his account, opened his music app and played his usual playlist on shuffle, and then, he selected one of his favorite video games.

Skyrim.

It was the fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls series. An amazing RPG video game that took place in the fictional world of Tamriel, specifically, in the snowy mountains of the north. Playing as the legendary Dragonborn, the player must go on a quest to defeat Alduin the World-Eater that's trying to resurrect the extinct race of dragons to rule the world.

And Kenzo loved it, at least, when he was younger.

Then, as the years went by, mods (as in modifications) became the norm. They were like DLC content, that overhauled the gameplay or expanded the world. Kenzo personally used 310 different mods to keep the game entertaining.

In Skyrim, there were three major 'Classes', the Warrior, the Mage, and the Thief. And with those three classes, came eighteen different skills, it seemed rather low for a RPG but that was balanced with the amount of freedom in choosing whatever skill the player wanted to level in, and could even create their own classes.

One could make a mix between skills called 'Builds' such as 'Spellsword', that allowed the player to wield both magic and melee weapons.

Kenzo preferred two builds that he constantly played in early game, 'Paladin' a classic archetype for any RPG, though Kenzo usually used a modded version of Telekinesis instead of healing spells, that resulted in a very impressive Darth Vader role-play.

And 'Destruction Mage', focused on learning and using spells capable of summoning blizzards of fire and storms of lightning at will. With the addition of mods, Kenzo was able to use hundreds of spells without difficulty with the build.

After reaching a high-level, Kenzo would combine Builds until he maxed-out every skill and weapon in the game.

Thum, Thum, Thum—!

A familiar theme played, the iconic black background with a dragon symbol on its left appeared. On the right side, the menu options showed themselves.

▷ New

▷ Load

▷ Credit

▷ Quit

Kenzo paused a moment, his cursor was hovering over 'New', instead, he moved his mouse downwards to 'Load' and clicked it, scrolling down the list of save files—he found what he was looking for, the first character he ever created. Kenzo smiled and loaded the save file.

The loading screen came on, with the usual 'advice' written in a white font.

Kenzo yawned, he covered his mouth and blinked twice, that was bizarre—Kenzo never felt so tired in his life, he yawned again, and this time, he couldn't help but close his eyes and feel his consciousness drift into darkness.

Never in his wildest dreams, did Kenzo ever thought he'd be summoned to another world at that moment.