Server Launch!
Server Launch!
They said that in 2046, a virtual-reality game nearly indistinguishable from real life would launch.
Gamers loved hearing that.
Which made sense—any gamer alive had dreams about true virtual reality.
While everyone was nursing those dreams, a completely unknown developer dropped a bombshell.
They released a VR game trailer carrying the tagline "Another Reality."
The title that appeared in the footage read like this:
[Demon's Saga]
Overwhelming graphics! Overwhelming map scale!
Even fully autonomous NPCs driven by high-performance AI!!!
The world of Demon's Saga, glimpsed through the video, was majestic and magnetic.
The premise—players becoming adventurers who hunt demons sealed across the land—was clichéd, but it clicked anyway.
Pre-registrations snowballing was obviously the natural course of events. And so, after an achingly long wait... the game finally launched.
With expectations that high, the community exploded. Of course it did.
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[It's finally here lol]
Alright, let's gooo lolol
+
[Gonna slaughter every single demon bastard lolol]
[I'm calling first warrior dibs I'm calling first warrior dibs it's mine]
[Fuck.. stuck working overtime so I'll be two hours late]
[↳ dumbass lololol]
[↳ bro's out here losing half his life www]
+
[I heard this game has an adult 19+ mode, is that true?]
Feel like I definitely heard that somewhere
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[Yeah, shockingly, it's real]
[Yeah, even more shockingly, it's a feature the game officially supports]
[Yeah, but supposedly you can only turn it on in certain situations, so any shut-in game nerds hoping for it should probably give up]
[↳ you bitch, the hell do you know about me]
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[Whoa, look at these graphics, holy shit]
Whoa, listen to this sound, holy shit whoa, feel this haptic feedback, holy shit
It feels real as hell
But the character looks are just kinda normal..
+
[???: "Another Reality"]
[↳ didn't need to extend that to NPC looks..]
[I hopped into the game for a sec and it's genuinely insane;]
[There are a shitton of people in the tutorial zone right now lolol]
[No but fuck, how is there no traffic load with this many people packed in?]
[↳ and no lag either with those graphics damn]
[↳ what, did they juice up aliens to run the servers or something?]
Posts were racing up by the second.
With only a little exaggeration, it felt like the entire world was talking about Demon's Saga. Its popularity was that white-hot.
It had hands down satisfied everything gamers had been hoping for.
Thanks to that, Demon's Saga's player count multiplied exponentially...
Two months passed like that.
*
[Conditions not met!]
[Cannot use 'Player's Eye' at this time!]
"...So what the fuck is this thing, seriously."
Two months had already gone by since that system window first appeared in front of me.
Technically, it was the first system window that had ever appeared in the twenty-two years since I'd been dumped here, and I still had no clue what it was.
Never imagined anything like this existed in the world.
Fine, let's say the holographic window popping up is a good thing.
But what am I supposed to do when I can't even use it?
There wasn't a stat display window like people normally know, or any level window either—nothing visible at all.
The only thing I could see was that trait called 'Player's Eye'... but in practice, it kept telling me I hadn't met the conditions and wouldn't activate.
'Still, something has definitely changed.'
Because otherwise this wouldn't have suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Times like this, living in the forest was seriously inconvenient. Even when I wanted to gather some information, there wasn't a decent place to do it.
"Maybe I should head into the city for the first time in a while..."
When I was younger, I'd been so terrified I assumed I'd live cut off from civilization forever. But fortunately, it hadn't come to that.
As long as I kept the black horn sigil on my collarbone hidden, I could pass for a normal person.
Not that I could go all the way to the city center, of course. The sigil was bigger than you'd think, and you needed proper identification to enter there.
The only places I could visit were a few back-alley trading posts. They never asked many questions about your origins there.
So if I wanted information, I'd have to go to the back alleys...
'Mm, I'll go later.'
I gave up quickly.
I was curious, but it wasn't urgent.
Besides, I'd already gone once two months ago. I'd bought plenty of supplies while I was there.
In my situation, visiting too often only brought trouble down on my head.
The more frequently I showed up, the more my face would stick in people's memories—and the higher my chances of getting caught.
Plus, the bastards in that place... even to me, someone who'd been forcibly living the outcast experience for twelve years, they were a sketchy bunch.
So I'd endure for now and focus on what needed doing.
With that thought, I resumed my search.
I'd been living a bit lazily lately, and my food had run completely out.
The meat I'd preserved in all sorts of ways—salted, smoked, dried—was visibly scraping the bottom too.
Even my emergency rations, apart from the truly precious stuff, barely added up to a single cupped handful.
Winter was only a few months away as it was.
Time to restock provisions.
So today was hunting, all day long.
One problem: game was pretty scarce.
Maybe it was because a lot of monsters had shown up nearby lately—edible prey had practically dried up. Not that I could eat ogre meat.
'I'll have to do a cleanup sweep one of these days.'
Normally I'd been coasting on the lazy assumption that the ecosystem would sort itself out. Monsters or not, this place was still nature.
And one common mistake people made: you couldn't just assume animals were always weaker than monsters.
This land was saturated with Demonic Energy. So plenty of animals had mutated from that same energy.
On a good day, you could even watch a mutated bear chowing down on ogre meat. It was that kind of bizarre land... which meant I couldn't exactly keep it well-manicured anyway.
Even so, after roaming around for a long while, I'd managed to bag about one or two rabbits.
But that wasn't enough. To replenish my depleted salted meat, I needed at least one boar.
So I headed further toward the forest's outer edge. The number of pure animals was higher there, after all.
I could eat mutated meat too, sure, but hunting it was a pain in the ass and prepping it was even more of a headache.
'Been a while since I've gone near the Surface Layer.'
This forest could be divided into three layers.
The Surface Layer, the Middle Layer, and the Deep Layer. The deeper you went, the thicker the Demonic Energy became, and the stronger the monsters that appeared.
Even the deepest parts of the Deep Layer were places where I had to put my life on the line.
That was why I lived in a cave somewhere in the Middle Layer.
The monsters were manageable, and human footsteps were practically nonexistent, so there was little to stay on guard against.
On top of that, the cave even had a small lake inside, which was great—I didn't have to hike way out just to wash up.
For a bunch of reasons, I lived in the Middle Layer.
Anyway, because of all that, trips toward the Surface Layer were pretty rare for me.
Still, heading there for the first time in ages brought memories trickling back.
"..."
Honestly, they weren't exactly happy memories. Most of them were about desperately clawing my way up to the Middle Layer, more like.
I hadn't been able to beat down monsters from the start either.
There was a time when even a single animal gave me a brutal struggle, when I had to run and hide from pursuers who'd track me into the forest.
I still had memories of pitifully scavenging animal carcasses off the ground, of lying down under a rotting tree because I couldn't find a place to sleep at night.
All those bleak stretches of time had piled up and given me the life I had now, at least.
"But I'm still alone."
Now that I thought about it, not much had really changed, had it. Fuck.
I only cursed my miserable reality for a moment. As I kept walking, I soon reached the border of the Surface Layer.
There wasn't any exact line separating the Surface Layer and the Middle Layer, but you could roughly tell by the size difference in the surrounding trees.
This ought to be the Surface Layer by now, that kind of feeling.
But I couldn't go any farther than that.
"Kyaaaah! Someone save me!!"
Because a scream rang out from up ahead.
As soon as I heard the voice, I immediately hid behind a nearby tree.
Staying low, I peered out and saw a woman being chased by a full-grown boar.
Judging by the leather armor and the iron sword in her hand, she must have been an adventurer.
She must have come in, run into the boar, and pissed it off—that seemed to be how she'd ended up in that situation.
"Shit, why is it so fast! Please, just go away!!"
Her voice sounded pretty desperate, but I had no particular intention of helping her.
'Getting found out would be trouble.'
Helping wasn't the problem. But what would happen afterward? If she went back and blabbed?
I'd naturally end up in hot water and might have to go into hiding again for a while.
It might've looked a bit cold, but this was the right call. And she was an adventurer to begin with, wasn't she?
They lived with danger every day—she must've been prepared for this.
"Tsk tsk, screaming like that'll only rile it up more..."
Still, I needed the boar meat, so I tailed her. If she managed to get away, I'd take the boar. If she died, well... a shame, but... I'd take the boar.
But watching her, she seemed too reckless to survive.
She wouldn't stop shrieking while running, and then she threw her weapon and agitated the boar even more. She kept piling mistake on top of mistake.
The first rule of this forest was to stay quiet. Monsters lurked in all directions.
I couldn't dismiss the chance that her loud yelling would draw a monster's aggro.
And what was the point of throwing your weapon?
Even if she escaped the boar, she'd need a weapon to get out of the forest. Idiot.
Her escape route was a problem, too. She might've been new to the forest, but she was heading deeper into the Middle Layer instead of the Surface Layer. I got that panic messed with your judgment, but that would only make the situation worse, right?
No, from the start, she looked like a rookie adventurer, and coming this deep into the forest was the real mistake.
People should hunt in hunting grounds suited to their level.
In the end, whether exhaustion caught up with her or not, she took the boar's charge head-on.
Wham—!
"Kkyaak—!"
With a dull impact, her body flew way off into the distance.
In the direction she'd crumpled, the boar pawed at the ground. A signal that it was about to charge again.
She let out a curse in a hollow voice.
"Ah, damn it..."
People were supposed to be terrified when they died, but she looked calmer than I'd expected.
Had she already accepted it? Or did she not have much attachment to her life? That was a surprising sight.
"...Huh?"
In an instant, her eyes met mine. Well, I'd gotten careless about staying hidden while I was spectating.
I'd figured I was far enough away not to be noticed, but she spotted me anyway.
Not that it mattered much. She was going to be finished here anyway.
Whether she stared blankly at me or not, it made no difference.
Squee-eeek!
Right after that, the boar charged and trampled her body. A futile death befitting a rookie.
Looking at the scene, I quietly muttered one line to myself.
"Tch, natural causes."
But I'd avenge you against the boar, at least.
*
Then, that evening...
A weird post went up on the [Demon's Saga] forums.
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[Was exploring the map as a newbie and found something weird, who the hell is this??]
(Picture)
Isn't this a high-level zone? I thought nobody lived here?
So who is this guy just standing there watching me die??
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[????]
[It's too far away to see clearly... don't tell me that's a guy?]
[Why would a guy be there out of nowhere, does that even make sense?]
[Isn't it photoshopped? Or they mistook something else for a person]
[↳ Pretty sure it's a person if you look at the shape]
[Whoa, zoomed in and he's hella handsome damn]
[↳ fr?]
[↳ you bitch, I zoomed in and the graphics are so pixelated I can barely see him]
[↳ tbh just his silhouette looks handsome though lol]
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