C001—Arrival
—DING!
[News Gate: 365 Days Passed. Archie—a Professional VRFPS Player—Presence Undetected, His Last Flight Is Australia!?]
News Gate is the number one news portal in the world. With their resources, they can get networking and technology developers to cooperate with them. One of the things they got by being so collaborative media company is making everyone get a piece of news at the same time.
Like what's happening right now, the news is transmitted to various groups, including a taxi driver and a passenger on the highway in Jakarta, Indonesia.
"Archie..? Professional player? Who is he?" asked the taxi driver who had pure white hair to the passenger who was a young man.
"Archie? He just a gamer bug."
The driver narrowed his eyes slightly as if in disbelief, but after he realized what year he was currently living, "Oh?! He must be extremely famous, right? News Gate even used that One Snap…" at this point, everyone seems knew about the News Gate's big secret, they even non-officially named it as One Snap.
Public understood that News Gate deliberately built the One Snap system to deliver valuable news faster and get the public's attention in an instant. Thumbs up for them.
"Maybe?" replied the young man while shrugging his shoulders.
Since 5 years ago, Archie has become a phenomenon in the virtual reality gaming world, as a player who dominates the VRFPS realm, men must recognize his reputation widely.
The young man immediately saw a smartwatch on his wrist that could hand out a hologram screen, it had been a long time since he activated the android. Whatsoever, the first thing he saw was a news article.
[News Gate: 365 Days Passed. Archie—a Professional VRFPS Player—Presence Undetected, His Last Flight Is Australia!?]
30th June 2155
News Gate International – Archie Alpetrichor, a young man who is now 23 years old from Indonesia is a professional player of the game called VRFPS Battle Strike. Archie has been reported missing since one year ago, from July 2154, until now—June 2155—without any information.
Archie was one of the top class players on VRFPS Battle Strike and got 300 MVPs—Most Valuable Player—in 688 matches of Battle Strike Pro-League, Cup, and World Class Tournament in 5 years. Archie disappeared without leaving a trace, even the Ordinary People squad where he took shelter when active as a player could only shake their heads about his existence.
In the time of everyone's oblivion. On June 29th, 2155, someone revealed Archie whereabouts. A user from the Interlang forum called Truthshoo created a thread about the professional player.
On the post of (interlang.c*m/post/tw/1544) ... }
"It also got TWed?"
TW or Trust Worthy is a feature of the Interlang forum administered as a label on threads that spell out a fact. Without a second thought, the young man immediately entered the Interlang forum—Who wouldn't be curious about the information of a person who got Best Virtual Reality Player in 2154?!
[... Due to the title I gave 'Archie in Australia', then I'll give you the proof, so stop your fingers to type fake/hoax, okay?
Let's begin!]
The young man was jaw-dropping when he read the thread, because not only was Truthshoo good at stringing the words when describing those stories, but he also fetched so many photos related to Archie...
[Archie at Melbourne Airport]
[Archie at Melbourne Aquarium]
[Archie at Melbourne Zoo]
[Archie and Kangaroo]
[Archie and Koala]
[Archie and Magpie]
All the photos was looks like a warm and quiet big brother in a harmonious family who is forced by his little brother or sister to make holiday memories. Although the photos are a little blurry, Archie face which often appears in advertisements is still recognizable to people.
The photos have been analyzed by various world editors, even the picture metadata is still in its original form and becomes unavoidable concrete evidence.
However, even though the world only has 2.5 billion humans at the time, they were still very diverse and so vocal with their voices. So when they looked at the photos, users from the Interlang forum who respect someone's privacy—despite having intentionally entered this thread—quite denounced Truthshoo's act of consciously spreading it to the public.
[Bruh.. did you just snatch some photos without permission?#StopPaparazi] (1.2 million Like)
The comment got 1.2 million likes, yes... you read it right. The total of these thread visitors was 5.9 million people in one day. At least 1 out of 5 people was disagree with paparazzi activities, but the rest...
[Awww, how cute they are?! Look at the birds! They're trying to get close with Archie cheek! I LOVE HIM!!] (3.9 million Likes)
[Bro, the kangaroo doesn't even flinch when he's touching da big shoulder. ARCHIE MUST BE OUT OF THIS WORLD! HE'S AN ALIEN!!!] (2.5 million Likes)
[Koala next generation must be jealous if they looking at the pic... like... HOW CAN HE HUG 3 KOALAS MAMA AT THE SAME TIME? HOW?!!!] (1.9 million Likes)
The young man barely chuckled and shook his head as he read it. The thread from Truthshoo ended with these photos but turned out that there was a pinned comment from Truthshoo itself that sank to the bottom, because comments with likes over one million will be at the top, and the pinned comments will follow after.
(pinned)[Truthshoo: Photo taken on July 2154] (10k likes)
"Of course—"
—Ping-Ping-Pi-Ping!
His speech was interrupted because of the notifications that appeared on the top screen, not only one but there were four notifications simultaneously coming from the same group chat called 'OP on Construction'. The group chat containing 10 people is active again after being empty for a year.
{[OP on Construction (10)]
— 30th June 2154 —
[Kanna-chan: Stay healthy!]
[Yu: Listen to Kanna-chan words!]
<New Message (4)>
— 30th June 2155 —
< 3:47 p.m.>
[Yu: @Archie, is that true?]
[Kanna-chan: @Archie why you didn't take me to Australia...]
[Jay: Ayo~ @Archie, what's your relationship with the kangaroo?]
[Kazzzzzuki: @Archie]
The young man who had also just read articles and gossip about Archie Alpetrichor smiled when he saw these messages. It was the first time he saw a group of people sending messages and discussing the same things at the same time.
[Kanna-chan: OHHHH?!!! I THOUGHT YOU WERE ALL BUSY!]
[Kazzzzzuki: I just woke up...]
[Jay: I've been grinding.. and Kazu-san, you haven't changed a bit -_-']
[Kazzzzzuki: Shut up, I'm tired after because of Dungeon LVL 100.]
[Larisa: Are we reading the same article?]
[Kanna-chan: I guess...]
[Kim: Could it have something to do with him?]
[Kanna-chan: Maybe? I hope so..]
Their left behind some jobs and things when the notification from News Gate pop-up. They stopped and without no time looked at this group chat. They got so much excitement about that article, especially after getting a look at pictures from Truthshoo thread.
Getting known about someone who's always been so serious on the battlefield of VRFPS Battle Strike can enjoy and have such a great time in life, it makes them feel relieved. As a friend, They're just happy looking Archie can smile brightly after those tragedies.
[Jay: Looks like everyone is here... Why don't we do the dungeons together? ^^]
[Kazzzzzuki: I'm ready...]
[Sayyid: How about sleep?]
[Kanna-chan: Kazuki will be the only soul who knows the reason for his death..]
[Yu: Wait guys, something's bothering me...]
[Jay: What's wrong?]
[Kim: Are you okay, Yu?]
[Kanna-chan: I told you to 'Stay healthy! Don't imitate Kazuki!]
[Kazzzzzuki: ....]
[Arduino Pardi: Pepperoni?]
[Yu: No... it's just...]
[Yu: @Archie are you here?]
No one expects that, because they come and text on the group after the article about him that has been reported missing on 365 days. But now Yu randomly ask about Archie existence in the group, how come? The sentence confuses anyone who reads it, even the young man in the taxi flinched his body because of Yu's instinct.
The taxi driver who was driving was confused when he realized the change of atmosphere inside, 'Is he okay?' he thought after peeking his eyes into the car mirror and found the young man showing a warm smile on his face.
However, just as the taxi driver was thinking about the reason behind his passenger's smile, all of sudden a smooth voice could be heard from behind ...
"Hi... I'm... Back!"
—THUMP!
Sky rumblings broke the sacredness of Jakarta, it seemed the rain clouds began to gather and gifts waters to the thirsty Earth. The sound of raindrops and thunder blended in the middle of a busy highway. However, all of that was nothing compared to the notification from 'OP on Construction' group.
Because, after that message....
[Archie: Hi, I'm back...]
—Ping-pin-pin-pi-p-p-pi-PI—PING!
They broke the notification sound.