Winter break can be a mixed bag depending on what you want to do once school is over. You can play a lot of video games, hang out with your friends, or go on a trip with them and your family. It can be either fun or boring depending on if you're interested in these kinds of activities.

Originally, most of my winter breaks boil down to hanging out with Damon and Zac, playing RPGs with Dad and Kazuki, reading novels with Kazuki, and practicing cooking with the recipes I found online. But since came into our lives, we’ve mostly spent most of our days playing there when we didn't have anything to do. But that doesn't mean we can play it for 24 hours. We still need real-life connections and Mom would flip if we stayed in our rooms playing it without any rest. So before the long-awaited departure from the game, we decided to do our own thing in the daytime.

For Kazuki, he's working on an art project back home. I would have helped him out, but he insisted he could make it on his own and he wanted it to be a secret to surprise me and my friends. Either way, I'm guessing it’s his first step to gaining his independence in real life.

As for me, I’ve decided to call on my friends for some arcade fun followed by lunch at that 2010-themed cafe, which I learned that it's called a "Tennie's Hangout". Weird and cringy name, but it's not too lame.

"Alright! You guys got plans once we reach the title kingdom in the game?" Zac asks while enjoying his sloppy burger. "I was planning to fl- I mean, meet some NPCs and players visiting there."

This guy... I have a feeling he might do the same with Dahlia once we deliver that container to her.

"Other than the delivery, Kazuki and I are planning to set up separate stands in the kingdom and explore outside of the city," I answer while sipping a cup of dalgona coffee. "Now that he's free to roam around without me following his every move, there's a chance he might spend mostly on exploring rather than selling potions. He hasn't decided about it yet, but it's a possibility."

"I was planning to replenish my magazine and find new guns there," Damon answers while enjoying his tomato salad and grape juice. "My current ones might reach their limit soon and I'm hoping the shops have much stronger equipment that can help me with the monsters for the time being."

"Speaking of which, Hayate... Why don't you try exploring a [Dungeon]?"

I tilt my head and raise my eyebrow. "But I already traveled through and ."

"One, both of them involved you guys grinding monsters rather than exploring, and in the case of , you guys simply did a revenge plot on those ants before the whole [Hidden Quest] antics you guys mentioned," Zac counters. "Second, you need to know two types of [Dungeons]. [Open] and [Instance]. [Open] is what and are and they're meant for beginners who want a bit of challenge and EXP after hitting double digits while [Instance] is mostly roguelike dungeon crawling."

"Roguelike...dungeon crawling? As in like tabletop RPG's dungeons and those old-timey dungeon crawler games I've been hearing about?"

Zac grins. "Yep! You travel through random layouts on each floor and finish some challenges to move up a floor. The difference is that the higher you go, the strength of the monsters and the difficulty of the challenges will grow. If you die, you will get a nasty [Death Penalty] that doubles your EXP loss and bans you from taking any [Instance Dungeon] for in-game hours or days after logging back in. Plus, if you're at a party, there's no way you can get back to them after you die thanks to the login ban. So you better avoid any losses if you want to succeed."

I hum at the thought of those [Instance Dungeons], which give me more questions than answers. "There's no mention of it in the latest patch notes for [Monarch of Light]. So I'm guessing that's part of the game from the start, right?"

"Yeah, I get why you have no clue about it since you guys were stuck with back-to-back [Hidden Quests] and [Mastery EXP] grinding. At the game launch, you can explore about 4 [Instances] around and its surrounding villages. Damon and I tried a few [Instances], but we got crushed at about 6 floors or so. Not a good time."

If what Zac and Damon said is true, then it will be like the [Link Ant] incident all over again if we go to an [Instance] immediately. We should plan accordingly if we find one in the game.

"Well, the plan stays the same then. Level up our [Masteries] and [Familiars], get new equipment, and see if we can do something for the kingdom through [Quests] and stuff."

"Knowing you guys, you mostly rely on your crafted equipment rather than looted ones," Zac says. "I mean, no offense, your rewards from that last [Hidden Quest] are nothing more than rare materials. There should be a limit on what your weapons can do."

I sigh and hum in thought as I take out my phone and search for something online. "You may have a point there. Regardless, without our weapons, we might not be able to obtain those loot from the [Dungeons] anyway. Once we arrive at the kingdom, we'll gather enough information to know what we're up against."

Zac shrugs and says, "If that's what you want, we won't stop you. Although you can try your luck with the ones near ."

While he says that, I finish searching through the net and sigh again. "Yeah. I would rather try if you guys are willing."

"Like we wanted to," Damon groans. "By the way, why are you looking at your phone? It's rude while you're eating a good cake, you know."

"I'm just looking at the list of [Instance Dungeons] you guys mentioned." But when I look at it on my phone again, my eyes widen at what I see. "You guys said there are 4 [Instance], right? But most of the forums said there are 5 of them, not 4."

"Uh... Right... Remember about the [Mind Link] incident that delayed the expansion launch? They said it's related to that 5th [Instance] you've mentioned," Zac explains. "Not to mention the reason why it was included is because a guild that was involved in the incident made it one due to a [Hidden Quest]. At least that's what the game detectives and rumormongers found.”

Oh... Now I understand. Other than lore-related consequences that were excluded recently, there are a lot of real-life implications that might have been included. Not only that, the details they’ve shared have given me a new revelation about [Hidden Quests]. You can unlock through them, but there's a chance events in the game might change depending on the choices you make. I should relay this to Kazuki and think twice about some [Quests] involving [Dungeons].

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Uh... Hate to interrupt, but should we move away from any Isekai-related topic right now?" Damon suggests before drinking a glass of orange juice. "Namely how we need to prepare for college?"

Zac groans and buries his face on the table. "Please, dude... Not this again! I'm already struggling to get my grades up to avoid my Mom from having that talk for the third time!"

"Don't get all overdramatic, Zac. We're only a few months away from graduation, so we need to consider our future for once."

Right... Our future... I would have shrugged it off as another filler chat as usual. But I quickly exit the list from the forums and search for something else. "Now that you mentioned it, I do have a few ideas. Take a look."

I hand over my phone to Zac and Damon for them to see. When they did, their eyes widened at what I searched.

"Majors in Computer Programming, General Literature, Creative Writing, Culinary Arts..." Damon quickly looks at me with his eyes widened. "Whoa... Aren't they a bit too much for you?"

"Yeah. I thought you'd rather wait for graduation than angst over what college you can do," Zac added. "Unless you've been replaced by an AI version of yourself back in [Isekai]..."

I quickly smack his head before he can finish that dumb theory.

"I'm still me, Mr. Dumb Conspiracist. As Damon said, we need to focus on our future beyond graduation soon," I explain. "But for me, I haven't decided my end goal nor do I have any interest in following in my parents' footsteps. So instead, I'll try gunning for the majors I'm skilled at and see where they take me. Who knows? I might find something that might end up a job that I genuinely enjoy."

With that speech, I notice both of them staring at me in silence for a while. God, I hope I didn't say anything cheesy to make them laugh...

"Wow... I never thought of the day when Hayate Palmer finally made a decision on his own," Zac mutters.

"You can say that again," Damon agrees. "Still, I'm glad you started thinking of yourself than thinking of Kazuki and everyone else."

"Heh... It's better than being Kazuki's babysitter all of my life."

I let out a sigh as they continued to comment on my sudden change of mind. Although I haven’t stopped being indecisive out of nowhere. While the events from that [Test of Courage] quest were fictional, everything I experienced was real to me and most of the battles I experienced let me open my eyes to a realization.

I can't protect Kazuki forever and I can't ignore my future any longer. But it doesn't mean I need to think too much about the latter to decide on it. If I want to search for my goal in life, then I might as well start small and at what I love.

"But if you're serious about all of this, maybe start with one major and minor at another to reduce the workload," Damon says.

"Then how about Literature and Culinary Arts respectively?" I suggest. "Kazuki is still starting out on making his first game, but I might help him out with story and lore. Plus, I might try writing my own novel a bit similar and different to Seraph."

"Dude, you have to write a fanfic if you want to get into writing. Or try writing an isekai webnovel."

Damon quickly smacks Zac's head while I roll my eyes. "Are you saying that because you want more harem novels with mindless violence?"

"Hey! Not all of them are harem and mindless, Jacobs! You wouldn't understand anime culture if you tried caring about the media itself!"

"You do realize I watched a few ones other than the ones you watched to get some dumb romance advice?"

"Don't rope my romance life into this conversation!"

...And there goes our civil chat. This is gonna take a while for me to defuse without getting the customers' attention. At least Kazuki's not around to see this. Again.

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After enjoying our lunch at Tennies' (and avoiding another awkward argument), we decided to skip the arcade for a while and visit a small park nearby since the weather was clear despite there being snow covering some of the concrete floors. But as we head there, I notice a large LED screen in front of the game store showing a commercial in front of a crowd of customers.

[Are you ready...to dive into a whole new world?]

We stop walking as soon as Zac and Damon also notice the commercial.

"Whoa... I didn't expect [Isekai] to get a new commercial so soon," Zac comments.

"Yeah. And it looks like they're showing not only the scenes and gameplay from the previous trailers."

Damon's right. It seems like they are also showing reactions from streamers and Vtubers such as Venus Qizuna and Mirai Techie. I guess we should leave them to finish the commercial.

That is until I hear someone shouting, "Whoa! They're showing Wind's PVP fight!"

My eyes widen. My fight?! As in the fight against that unruly customer that day?!

I would have shrugged it off as a rumor. But at the 25-second point, I see my [Isekai] self in that exact PVP fight along with the skill that finished that ruthless guy off.

GAAAAAHHHH!!! I can't believe those Midnight Dragon guys would add me to the commercial at that moment! Sure, the contract stated that we have permission to use our characters' likenesses for promotion along with testing the AI stuff. But I didn't expect them to use the time I had to drive away a bunch of jerks who tried to threaten Kazuki!

"Uh... Hayate..."

When I hear Damon's voice, I look up from my near-fetal crouching position and see some customers now staring at me.

"Hey, does that guy look like the archer guy from the commercial?"

Oh, crap... Is it because my character is near-identical to my real self?!

"No way! He looks very generic to be Wind's player."

Dammit! There's no way I can stay here for long! I grab Zac and Damon's wrists and drag them away before they put two and two together.

"Hey, what's the hurry? Aren't you going to meet your fans?" Zac says in a teasing manner.

"Shut it, Osborne! I rather be a generic guy than be a super famous hunter of [Isekai]! Now keep running!"

I wish I could have brought my hoodie jacket. Then I might be able to hide my face away from this gaming crowd and avoid being dogpiled by autograph requests and asking dumb questions about my private life!

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After a few minutes of running, we arrived at the park as intended. I collapse under the shade of the tree while Zac and Damon just lay down on the grass with less snow. If we’d tried going to the arcade first, we might have lured them there and ended up attracting more gamers and fans there. At least I get to catch my breath in this serene place for a while.

"You know, you could have just brought us to another cafe or something."

I sigh after hearing Zac's suggestion. "Give me a break. I need somewhere that's within walking distance!" I counter. "Besides, this is the only place I know that doesn't involve video games, raving fans, and commercials. Please give me a chance to enjoy a peaceful real life for once!"

"Geez! You want privacy and touch some grass! I get it!" Zac groans. "I'm just surprised you almost spent your whole high school not buying and playing video games."

"I think of it as his greatest strength, Zac," Damon comments. "No wonder why your grades were mostly above average despite your indecisiveness."

"Don't remind me."

Zac's snide remarks aside, they're right about a few things. I'm not the type to get too addicted to one hobby. I mostly think as an afterthought and it never took over my daily life compared to Kazuki's dreams inside the game. Although I'm still concerned with the Wellington guys now that commercial might end up being public on TV and streaming ads online.

"Wow. I didn't expect an archer who defeated the plague and was one of the strongest players at the time to be camera shy."

I quickly stand up once I hear their voice. That's not one of Zac's snarks nor Damon's compliment.

I turn around and see who is behind us. He's a young man who seems to be our age wearing a brown snow jacket, black pants, and brown faux boots. His brown hair could almost be mistaken as dark scarlet due to the tree covering most of his appearance if it wasn't for the lack of leaves this season. I could shrug him off as one of the gamers back at the store. But he knew details about me in [Isekai]. There's no way I can ignore him after hearing his baffling words.

"Hey. Easy there! I'm not a stalker," The young man says, putting his hands up. "I did promise your brother that I would meet him during the studio tour. But something came up and I had to skip it. So I was hoping to apologize to him, but..."

I narrow my eyes. "Cut the chit-chat. You know, it's impolite to blab out sensitive information to the public. Who are you?!" I ordered the young man in the most stern tone I could make. "I have a right to call the police for stalking!"

"Geez... I told you I'm not a stalker. Besides, I have a right to know as one of the beta testers on a few features of the game. AKA the AI your father built and that [Familiar] system you guys are using right now."

Beta tester? So is he saying he's like me and Kazuki? I keep glaring at him. There's no way I believe him with those statements.

"Who are you? And how did you know about my brother and father?"

The young man smiles at me. "In the game, I'm of the [Force Blade]. However, you can also call me Zane White. The son of the Scenario Developer and one of the game developers, Evan White."