Fatal Fantasy

Renan looked at his computer screen with a hint of excitement on his face. Displayed on the computer screen was, without a doubt, the delivery man sent by SURREAL.

The man wore an elaborate-tailored uniform and sewn on his hat was the well-known logo of the company. With that said, there could only be one reason and instance on why this SURREAL employee was here, patiently waiting on his doorstep.

"Yes, yes, YES!!! The game is here at last!" Renan yelled out excitedly.

He promptly jumped out of his seat and out of the room; quickly dashing towards the house's main entrance to pick up the package. When he reached the main entrance, Renan opened the front door with great gusto and was then greeted by the sight of the delivery man he saw on the computer screen a moment ago.

"Hello and good evening, Sir. My name is Kyle Payao, an employee from SURREAL here to deliver the state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Game Capsule, as well as the newest VR-MMORPG game of our company entitled Fatal Fantasy." The man introduced himself and said all of this with a business-like smile plastered on his face. "I'm looking for Sir Renan Roxas, the one who ordered these two things—does he happen to be here?"

"Actually, that would be me." Renan replied curtly.

"I see. Well then, if you would be so kind as to press your finger here so that we can verify and complete this arrangement."

Holding up the tablet he had in his hand, the delivery man passed it to Renan. Without another word, Renan quickly took it and pressed his finger on the fingerprint scanner of the tablet.

"Mr. Roxas, thank you very much for your patronage and cooperation. I hope you continue to support SURREAL and purchase its goods in the near future." With a slight bow, the delivery man courteously said.

"Mhm. No problem."

"Then, I'll be on my way."

The man gave one last smile before turning around to leave the residence. Meanwhile, Renan looked down at the large package left on his doorstep; it seemed to be too heavy for him to carry alone all the way back to his room, which was located on the second floor.

"REM, could you kindly take this package up to my room please."

"Right away, Sir Renan."

A monotonous female voice suddenly answered him out of nowhere. In a short moment, an automaton appeared behind him and grabbed the large package with its claw-like hands. Without so much as a grunt, the automaton easily lifted the package off the ground then turned around to head back inside the house. Renan leisurely followed suite, going up to the second floor and back into his room. The automaton carefully put down the package onto the floor before turning its head to look at Renan with its big-round robot eyes, awaiting for further instructions.

"Mhm, good. Now start setting up the VR Game Capsule." Renan commanded.

"As you wish."

The automaton quickly got to work and ten minutes later, a slender metallic capsule now stood in one of the corners of the room. Its design was sleek, steady and simple; not really a sight to behold but Renan still liked it nonetheless.

"Nice. Now time to see what this baby can do!" Renan grinned while eagerly rubbing his palms together.

"Sir Renan, is there anything else you would like for me to do?" the automaton said from beside him, using its mechanical voice.

"No, nothing else. You are relieved from helping me; thank you for your services."

Hearing its master's reply, the automaton did a slight bow and proceeded to go out of the room. And now, Renan was the only one left in his room, with the new addition of the Virtual-Reality Game Capsule of course.

"Alright, it's time to suit up!"

After saying those words, Renan did the exact opposite of what he said and steadily began stripping himself out of his clothes from head-to-toe (save for his underwear, of course~). A few moments later, Renan was now standing inside the room with nothing more than his boxer-shorts to barely cover him down below. Besides that his body was truly a sight to behold, especially for the opposite sex. Six rows of well-sculpted packs jutted out of his abdomen, exuding a sense of majesty and masculinity. His four limbs weren't exactly looking thick and heavy like a weight-lifters, and instead had a feeling of compressed strength hidden deep inside of them. Overall, his body wasn't gaudy but looked to be just right and perfectly balanced; a being which females would crazily crave for even in their sleep.

"…All preparations complete. Okay, ready perfectly."

"Hey bro, what did that delivery guy bring to us?"

Unexpectedly, a muffled voice came from outside of his room followed by the sound of a door being swung open. Renan, caught by surprise and out of reflex, turned around to look at the intruder who barged into his room with a blank gaze. A few seconds passed by in silence as they both just stared at each other, before finally the newcomer broke stalemate between them.

"Oi, you disgusting pervert nudist of a brother—why in the hell are you just randomly standing there with only your underwear to cover that shameful thing of yours?!"

The intruder visibly frowned her fine eyebrows in disgust while both of her normally cute eyes now exuded a frightening light that would make anyone feel subconsciously weak in the knees. But in contrast, Renan received that look of hers that could kill with a gentle and elegant smile that felt like a cool breeze frolicking through the grasslands in the midst of spring.

"Good evening to you too, my dear twin sister Renaviel. I'm really sorry for putting you in this awkward situation and witnessing such a distasteful display of myself." Renan promptly apologized. "Actually, the reason for this is because I'm getting ready to enter the VR Game Capsule, and it is also recommended that the user put on the barest minimum of clothing for a more comfortable VR experience; or so the instructions say."

"Hoh, is that so? And I suppose this is what you would call the barest minimum of clothing?" Renaviel rhetorically asked as she pointed a finger to his nether regions that was only concealed by a single piece of blue underwear.

"Yes, precisely so." Renan nodded his head. "Anyway, my dear twin sister Renaviel, did you perhaps want anything from this brother of yours?" He asked while approaching closer.

"Oi, you scum: you dare get closer to me? How about you just stop right there."

Hearing the threatening tone laced on her voice, Renan obediently complied with a shrug of his shoulders and moved towards the VR Game Capsule instead. When he was only an inch closer to the thing it automatically opened up its glass doors. Renan put a hand to the side of the glass doorway then turned his head to give one last look at his twin sister.

"Look, Renaviel, if you don't have anything you want from me or don't have anything you'd like to say; then if you don't mind I'll be heading inside now." He stated.

"Hmm… I'm guessing that's the thing that the delivery guy brought, huh?"

"Yeah. This is called a VR Game Capsule which I bought three weeks ago, along with the hot new VR-MMORPG game that SURREAL recently launched."

"You mean Fatal Fantasy, right?"

Renan simply nodded his head in response.

"I see… Well, I just came here to satisfy my own curiosity and since I've already achieved that I'll take my leave—I wouldn't want to scar my cute eyes and make it suffer any more than this anyways."

Having said her piece, Renaviel made a display of closing her eyes and turning around to walk away. Renan followed her back with his eyes and couldn't help but say to her: "You know Renaviel, you should seriously consider taming that tongue of yours…" But she didn't utter a reply and just closed the door on him. Seeing that, Renan heaved a sigh of exhaustion before finally entering the VR Game Capsule.

"Portal Command: Game start Fatal Fantasy."

At his command, a colorless gas began to emit out from the top and bottom parts of the capsule. Gradually, with the entry of this unknown gas, Renan's vision turned completely hazy while his mind became somewhat heavy. He was beginning to lose consciousness bit by bit, as he instinctively sensed his being suddenly get transported into another world.

...

A moment later, when Renan finally managed to peel his eyes open; he was greeted by a magnanimous sight of a whole new world. He was currently in the beginner town of Elisa, located in the southern region of the Faelbeast Kingdom of Faelharau.

Elisa was a flourishing town of trade and commerce as well as agriculture. Near the town situated on the west side was a long running river that stretched for miles on end, and located to its east was a dense sea of trees where varying wild and exotic animals dwelled within. Additionally, the town's architectural structure tasted of the ancient orient; a specialty found in most South East Asian countries as the materials used were mainly different kinds of soft and hardwood.

'So this is what the country of Faelharau looks like, huh.' Renan stood there watching the scene before him in astonishment.

From what he could tell, he spawned somewhere in the large central plaza of the town. Moreover, countless flashes of dazzling rainbow-colored lights descended into heaven as a multitude of new players kept streaming in like a tidal wave.

'This is going to be a lot of fun I can tell...'

A wild grin formed on Renan's beastly face, showing off his silvery-white fangs that appeared quite sharp and menacing. Surprisingly, Renan didn't look human at all except for a few similarities to the race. The major differences being the pointy-long wolf ears on his head, the frightening claws jutting out of his hands, and lastly, the extremely sleek and stylish white tail sticking out behind him. Although his face and body still resembled that of a human's, the large amount of fur or hair covering his skin was unique only to the intelligent and sentient animal lifeforms known as the Faelbeasts.

After a couple of seconds surveying the scenery around him, Renan decided to open up his Character Page for the time being to have a thorough review of its contents. And if he remembered correctly, all he had to do was hold his index finger in the air and swipe it down to materialize the Settings window.

"Oh, it worked."

Appearing out of nowhere was the Settings window that listed all sorts of options such as Account, Customer Service, Game, Graphics, Audio, Effects and more. But since he wanted to check out his stats, Renan immediately went to the slot that had "Account" written on it and then clicked on his Character Page.

<Character Profile>

Username: Lobo

Gender: Male

Race: Faelbeast (Wolf)

Nation: Faelharau

Affiliations: N/A

Guild: N/A

Titles: N/A

<Character Stats>

Health: 200/200

Mana: 100/100

Armor: 0

Magic Resistance: 0

Physical Damage: 5-9

Magical Damage: 5-9

Attack Speed: 1

Movement Speed: 1

<Attributes>

Strength (STR): 0

Intelligence (INT): 0

Dexterity (DEX): 0

Agility (AGI): 0

Vitality (VIT): 0

Wisdom (WIS): 0

Luck (LUK): 0

Charisma (CHR): 0

[Available Attribute Points: 5]

<Elemental Affinities>

N/A

[Available Elemental Points: 1]

<Skills Mastery>

N/A

[Available Skill Points: 1]

Everything was as he had expected. There wasn't any noteworthy thing on his Character Page other than his chosen race and affiliated nation. But looking at his attributes, he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at how super-duper low they were. In fact, his attributes were practically nonexistent at this point in time.

"So the game starts you out with the lowest possible number, ay." Renan gave a bland remark.

Pressing one of the attributes, a small tab suddenly emerged in front of him which detailed the effects of this particular stat. With his curiosity piqued, Renan pressed and opened each attribute in order to gain a clear understanding of their respective effects. In the end, this is the summary of what he had learned: For every attribute point allocated to Strength the player's physical damage will increase by 2 points, and the same goes for Intelligence but instead it increases magical damage. Dexterity is attack speed and can be increased by 1 point, and the same applies to Agility which refers to the player's movement speed. Vitality is the player's health and can be increased by 10 points, while Wisdom is the player's mana and can be increased by 5 points. Lastly, the Luck stat increases the drop rate of monsters while Charisma gives an advantage when dealing with NPCs.

'Hmm… At least the game's attributes are easy enough to understand.' Renan thought as he nodded his head in satisfaction. 'And since 5 attribute points are made available, I can already start to build up my character. So, the question is: what should be my play-style?'

Renan contemplated a bit as he visualized himself in numerous grand battles and fight scenes, earnestly searching for one that would suit his taste and give him the best possible enjoyment inside the game. A moment later, Renan abruptly shot his eyes open as they gave off an intense light. He then smirked to himself as if he found something funny before briskly tapping a couple of times on the window.

"There you go. And... save."

[Ting! Attributes have been updated... Character Stats is being refreshed...]

A system prompt was heard followed by his Character Stats quickly changing. And so, this was now the contents of his newly updated stats and attributes:

<Character Stats>

Health: 200/200

Mana: 100/100

Armor: 0

Magic Resistance: 0

Physical Damage: 5-9

Magical Damage: 5-9

Attack Speed: 4

Movement Speed: 3

<Attributes>

Strength (STR): 0

Intelligence (INT): 0

Dexterity (DEX): 3

Agility (AGI): 2

Vitality (VIT): 0

Wisdom (WIS): 0

Luck (LUK): 0

Charisma (CHR): 0

[Available Attribute Points: 0]

Honestly, his stats didn't see much of an improvement even after he updated it. With only a measly 5 attribute points at his disposal, upgrading his attack speed and movement speed seemed to be the right choice in the early stages of the game. Plus, it suited what he had in mind with regards to his chosen play-style.

"Huuuu~ Now that that's finished, I guess it's finally time to head out."

With that said, Renan dashed out of the town's central plaza and straight into the vast crowd of people. A fulfilling and grandiose adventure awaited the coming of the Mad Dog.