Hello, this is my first time writing FF. if you have any comments or critique please tell me, i need them a lot to improve my writing.
Oh, and please forgive me it there was any bad grammar. English was neither my first nor my second language. it's my third.
And maybe i'll draw all my characters. but not now though, i have my studies (TwT
(*) - Thought
" * " - Spoken Dialogue
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Chapter 1 – Ghost Girl
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Part 1
"At last it's here!" an excited voice rang out.
A teenager, wearing a sky-blue jacket and dark blue pants, were delighted while examining every parts and nooks of his newly delivered piece of technology. It is a bright, shining silver capsule with a symbol 'RR' inscribed on the sides of helmet that was placed inside it. Yes, it is the device used for playing the first and the latest Virtual Reality MMORPG ever released on the market, Royal Road, the first game which the maker company had claimed to have achieved a realism level of over 99%.
The teenager was inside a room of modest size. The wall was layered in a blue-colored wallpaper with a little bit of yellow tint. A poster or two showing people in full clad armor could be seen hanging on the wall. There wasn't anything out of the place there at all, except for a large silver capsule which looked like it was an escape pod taken from alien spaceship, and the sight of the boy who literally hugged the said capsule while laughing maniacally.
“Fuhyahya hyahyahyahya! Ufufufufufu.” The noise he made as he laughed creepily while hugging, patting, and groping the capsule affectionately.
Like a pervert!
Then a voice of lady came from outside of the room, startled him who quickly releases his hands hugging the capsule.
“Rick, eat something first before you start playing your new game! What do you want? i’ll make it for you.”
“I have eaten outside, mom! There’s no need for that!” Replied the boy called Rick, His voice is unnaturally loud.
“Then don’t play for too much! Don’t forget to do your daily exercises!” Replied the lady, half shouting.
“Don’t worry mom, I've done enough daily exercises for today! Now i need to concentrate so don’t disturb me!” Replied Rick loudly, ending the conversation.
The boy's full name was Rick Ashford, seventeen years old in age, his height was nearing 180 cm. He had a clear blue eyes and pointy hair reached down to his neck. He was quite muscular given as he had been involved in many sports including Boxing and American football; sports that requires immense amount of stamina and strength.
Loud Mouthed and being too honest, those were his personality which made him quite famous among his friends and acquaintances, not to mention his quite-handsome-but-not-too-much features, and his good-but-quite-annoying nature. even though his weirdness and honesty stood out the most, people still liked him for all he is.
He had been waiting forever just to buy the capsule ever since the game, Royal Road was released over six months ago. The booming popularity of the new game led to a huge number of pre-orders, and rather limited rate of production of the capsules made it hard just to acquire one. Just one minute late in filing out the order mean one would wait for weeks for the capsule to be delivered. Just on the first day of the release the number of orders easily exceeded the number of capsules available.
Rick felt bitter when he had to wait for a long time as he had learned the existence of the game late.
But actually, he was the first person outside of Korea to be owning the game.
Because the game was first released in Korea means that only Koreans could enjoy the benefits of being one; people outside the country had to wait for not-so-brief period of time before they could buy the capsules. Not to mention the overly-difficult procedures needed before they could placed an order for one.
What about the language barrier then? It was a Korean game so everyone who played the Virtual Reality MMORPG game would spoke in Korean, right? Any foreigner would be left out if they hadn't learned Korean.
Imagine if that was the case.
“Blablabala, Blablablablaba!” One fire mage started a conversation with his friend blue mage.
“Lablablablaba, blabablaba! Blababla!” The blue mage said after he pointed his finger at one foreigner.
“Bla bla! Blababla!!” They both asked the foreigner.
“............. Bla bla?”
“............”
“.......................”
How awkward!
But that kind of event wouldn't happen at all! The in-game automatic translator would broke that barrier easily. The user would automatically spoke and read the universal language of Versailles as if it is their own!
For Korean, the device itself had been equipped with it’s automatic translation module. But for foreigners, they had their own extra module given, which is the extra helmet placed inside the capsule. The original Korean version needed no helmet to operate.
Now Rick thought about these kind of matter no more. He had learned all things related to Royal Road for months as he waited for the capsule to be delivered. His personal computer were full of data concerning information about Royal Road. Felt a great joy as he could finally tasted the first ever and highly acclaimed VR MMORPG, Royal Road, inside his room, A big grin formed on his face. Excited he then hurriedly opened the capsule because he wanted to play the game ASAP.
But his hand stopped when he was about to reach the helmet and put it on his head, without him intended to or anyone grabbed his hand to stop it.
(Hey wait, you have to read the manual first!)
a sweet girlish voice rang in his ears. Well, actually the sound wasn't exactly reached his ears. the voice was inside his head, as there were no figure of a girl could be seen anywhere inside the room, let alone anyone stopped his hand from reaching the helmet.
A pure definition of a sudden appearance of a ghost!
He was alone inside the room, and there was a ghost girl whispering inside his head and grabbing his hand, but that only made Rick felt annoyed, not frightened.
"Stop bothering me, Sylph! any of that could be learned in-game! Actually, I've researched so much that i need no manual or tutorial any longer! and how many times i told you to not messing with my body, it's mine!" Said Rick familiarly to the invisible girl.
Unconsciously, he stared at the said manual book that had the symbol ‘RR’ inscribed to it’s cover. it’s thickness was impossible and the corner looked so sharp it could be counted as a weapon of murder. it must have at least thousands of pages, and Rick wasn't the type of person who could sat for hours reading pages when he had the time to be playing instead.
But his gaze got interrupted by the invisible girl’s voice. The girl named Sylph sounded quite desperate and worried.
(I’m not messing with your body and i have a bad feeling about you playing this Virtual reality game! you know this game directly accesses your brain right? Then.... what about me?)
"Argh, i said to not worry about that! it just mean that you, who had a near-unlimited access to my brain cells and all my nerves, will also be playing the game with me; although I’m the only who will do the playing and all the monster slaying. All you have to do is just to watch me in sideways and not to bother me!” Said Rick in a slightly commanding tone.
(Sigh.... At least you could consult Professor Brown before playing the game, please? It's just to ensure your safety and all. what if, you know.... That happened again and I’m not there to save you? Please, just ask Professor Brown.) Sylph said apologetically.
“......Yeah, you’re right.” Rick said after contemplating a bit.
Understood about her concern, Rick just nodded and turned down his over-excitement a notch. He had gotten his hand on the capsule already, there was no need to rush. And after all, he does not want that to happen again, especially when he was going to battle some monster. It would looked so pathetic if he died in some monster’s hand while that were to happen to him.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
In fact, that had always been occurred to Rick whenever he was the least wanted it to happen. He always struggled to prevents that from being happened to him. He couldn't help it whenever that happened, he never could. That could be quite frightening indeed.
Really, what the heck was that?
Narcolepsy. A chronic neurological sleeping disorder which rendered Rick to be unable to held back his desire to sleep, thus losing his consciousness at a random interval. An illness also contracted by that weak main character of a certain only-god-knows-what-kind-of-game-it-is Japanese game. Rick had contracted the disorder ever since he was still a kid. But unlike that weak and sickly main character of a certain only-god-and-some-Japanese-guys-knows-what-kind-of-game-it-is Japanese game, he had no reliable-and-caring-while-most-of-the-time-acting-like-an-idiot childhood friends, and buncha pretty gurls -oooh so envious!- whom he'll be setting flag to one by one -die you damn player!-, who could have helped him in case of his sudden lost of consciousness due to the disorder. Rick as a kid was quite introverted, and he had such a hard time trusting people.
One day when he was eleven years old, he was in the middle of running happily, out from a nearby convenience store after getting two pop ice cream. The strawberry flavored one was for himself and chocolate was for his mother. Felt extremely happy he was running without checking the crosswalk traffic light first. it was green, but suddenly it turned yellow. a second later it would turned red, but Rick had passed by the lamp and not slowing down. He then had to lost his consciousness suddenly and drifted to the dream world just when he was in the middle of the street. Bad luck as one should call it, a car that was running with high speed was not expecting Rick to flew up from a corner and then stopped so suddenly on it’s track. Not that the vehicle would have expected anything and could hit the brake by itself though.
“la la lala~ fun fuun fufun funfun~ lala laaaa~~~ lala-DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH YOU DAMN KID?!!”
The shocked driver hit the brake quickly. The car had listened to the driver’s will obediently and drifted slightly to the right, but the driver could not control his vehicle well at that speed. At this rate he was either going to hit the frail boy if he continued to go straight or hit the sturdy traffic light if he drifted further right.
‘Damned useless excuse of a car! You Heap of iron garbage! You should just ever be sold and be turned into a pickup truck to carry a very heavy load! Or a tractor to plow the wide barren field! or even be sold as a junk just like that, for no one would look at you and then saying that those useless slab of iron you were are a vehicles!’ thought the driver who tried to control the unstable car. he imagined himself nagging endlessly at his own car.
‘Boo hoo..!’ the car wept with droopy eyes, looking at it’s owner who said such a nasty stuff.
Well, one should already knew about which way he would choose after that series of event.
*Screeeeeeeeeeeetch *bam *whoosh *whoosh *kyaaaaaaaaa!
Just as expected.
Rick was quickly hospitalized and fell into a coma. He wasn't even awake when the car sent him flying and spinning. His father, Professor Ashford, a renowned and respected scientist that had earned many awards for his new inventions, lamented on the accident which had happened to his son.
After Rick had finally gained consciousness, him and his dear colleague, Professor Brown, started designing a device that could help his son out of harm's way if he was suddenly lost his consciousness like that again. With an advanced AI which would directly connected with Rick's brain via his nerves, the AI could regain control of Rick’s body whenever his disease struck unexpectedly again. After a few years of research, they had finally completed the device.
Yes, the AI of that device was named Sylph.
Having the body of a computer; not just a normal computer but a mini-sized supercomputer that was planted on Rick's back, she was the Artificial Intelligence system his dad and his colleague designed and was the most advanced AI's they ever build. Of course, except for Royal Road massive AI's, Versailles's goddess which outdone every kind of AI's system ever written. Now Rick had a metallic device bulging on his back. The device was very similar to those RIG found on that certain horror space game, except that it has no glowing segmented part.
Being connected with Rick’s body via the nerves, she could see and hear whatever Rick had saw and heard. she even could took control of his body to a certain extent. an Omnisensor installed on his neck allows more precise measurements of Rick’s and his surrounding environment’s conditions. This gives a heightened reflex and lowered reaction time! She could even detect any hidden life forms that was hiding behind a tree in a radius of tens of meter!
(Wow, a red squirrel! So cute!) Said Sylph who looked at the nut-munching squirrel located on a tree next to Rick.
Without even his consent his head followed the movement of the squirrel.
There he saw the nut-munching squirrel being marked with a circle. above the circle there was a text ‘Tracking Mode’. Only his neck moved to follow the squirrel’s movement.
The nut-munching squirrel leaped fast to the tree next to it.
“Oh, frigdamn-” *snap
But why was them genius duo of Professors made Sylph as a female, not male?
“Weell, a teenage boy could use some excitement right? Professor Ashford?”
“Damn right, Professor Brown. We can’t let him grown up like us, being unpopular in our younger days! He should spice up his life even for a bit!”
“....But that was just you, Professor Ashford. Rick is popular, and even i was pretty popular back then. Even Samantha liked me, you know? I’m just saying, Bwahahahahahahaha!”
“................ Damn you!!”
*smack! *bam! *whoosh!
But, could Narcolepsy also be affecting Rick’s VR gaming experience, not only his daily life? and is having Sylph accompanying him inside the game be possible?
That is what Sylph wanted him to ask Professor Brown. And that is why she was desperately wanted him not to play the game.
Before, in the period of waiting for the capsule to arrive, Sylph was always warned him about the danger of his disorder and the possibility of the game being too straining for his brain, but his stubborn nature had made Sylph gave up. Then after she had asked him for the last time after the capsule has finally arrived, he had finally listened to her.
Rick went out after he told his mother, Samantha, that he wanted to visit Professor Brown (Weird, why was always mom’s cheek blushed for a bit whenever i mentioned uncle Brown?), and headed to the laboratory his father owned. He chatted with Sylph about Royal Road the entire way.
After half hours of long walk he had finally reached his destination. Rick was feeling tired and exhausted, not because of the long walking distance, but because of his constant heated debate about Royal Road with Sylph. Any stranger who saw Rick's constant grumbling and sudden yelling during his walks would have thought of Rick being one crazy teenager, but he just doesn't care about them.
All he had inside his head was the thought of Royal Road. He was busy thinking about what class he should choose, and Sylph's last amazingly stupid request was making him boiled in rage.
“Like i said, i would never take a profession such as the florist!!!”
He shouted with all his heart in front of his father's laboratory, startling the strangers who in exchange looked at him with pitying gaze.
“That person is a florist?”
“...Why would a florist visiting the laboratory?”
“But it looked like he hated his job as a florist?”
“Such a young guy. he must be forced to do the job by his parents.”
“.........”
As he quickly entered the laboratory building, his ears looked so red just like the color of blooming rose.