It’s Hell.

Japanese office life is pure hell.

I shouldn’t have underestimated it.

I thought It’d be a walk in the park after all the grinding I did throughout school to make money.

Work late at a part time job, come home and stay up even later boosting accounts and hunting rare items to sell.

But I guess school was easy enough to where I was able to rest from the long night before.

But not now

No not now.

Day in. Day out.

Work

Work

Work

There is no school for me to go to during the day.

So they can keep me there for days if necessary to meet a deadline.

There was one time I didn’t get to leave for over a week.

I slept at the office under my desk and in my chair.

I’ve thought about giving up several times.

But I didn’t, I’ve stuck through it for almost three years.

I have so much more respect for Japanese business men and women who have no guarantee they can be done with this career after three years, a relatively short timespan in the grand scheme of things.

Just a couple more months and I will be out of this place.

I don’t actually have any updates on the gaming landscape because I’ve been so busy lately at work.

BUT-

I’ve heard rumors on the hush hush about deep-dive tech coming out sometime late next year.

Which has a lot of major implications for me personally if true.

It would mean this world is not the Sword Art world because it came out sometime in the 2020’s and it was the flagship game for the Nerve-gear.

Which is a little sad, but oh well, there are others it could be.

It could be log Horizon, or Infinite Dendrogram, or the .hack// series.

There were lots of anime in the VRMMORPG genre back in my world.

So I’ll see when it comes out.

____________________________________________________________________________

They sued me

Those motherfucking pieces of shit sued me.

Okay, to explain more, October of 2013 rolled around, and the price of Bitcoin took a meteoric rise.

So I cashed out when it reached where I remembered it peaking, at around 1200 dollars, and waited a few days to receive my 35 billion Yen.

But once my parents found out.

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Once those fuckers found out.

They demanded my money. Can you believe that? Demanded it. On the grounds of raising me and letting me live at their house for an extra 3 years.

I would happily give them a couple hundred million yen, and leave them to their lives.

But they had the gall to try and take me to actual court for all my money.

Absolute insanity.

I didn’t want to end up in the news with the headline, “Guy who becomes billionaire after lucky break with crypto, is sued by parents”.

That sounds like an excellent way to become famous in real life.

Something I want to avoid at all costs.

I just want to live a quiet, peaceful life.

In real life at least.

When the game comes out I want to be some kind of top ranker.

It just feels like something I should do.

So when my parents lawyer came to discuss terms with me. I decided to settle, giving them 10 billion yen, a third of my total fortune.

With the caveat that they stay the fuck away from me and leave me the hell alone for the rest of our lives.

They accepted.

And it was done.

When the dust settled, I was left with 25 billion yen, still definitely enough for the rest of my life, it just hurts my pride a lot to have given them so much money.

But I at least preserved my anonymity from the public eye.

I will likely never see my parents again, and I am happy with that.

I thought we could be friends, and I would visit them every so often.

But definitely not after the shit they pulled.

*sigh*

Oh well, I have to move on.

After the whole shebang, I decided to spend somewhere around 2 hundred million yen to buy a beautiful, traditional, quaint little japanese house on the outskirts of Kyoto.

It was so wonderful.

Cherry and plum blossoms, small pond with koi, the works.

I think my first few nights in it were the most peaceful moments of my lives.

I didn’t have to deal with my bitchass parents.

I didn’t have to go to my fuckass office job.

I could just relax and do whatever I wanted .

My house wasn’t very large, just enough for one man to live in.

Living room, Bedroom, office, large bathing room, toilet, and a dedicated gaming room. Because I’m cultured of course.

For the first week of my life after being done with most of real life. I mostly just de-stressed.

It had been rough getting here, but I’d finally made it.

I won at life.

All I had to do now was live the rest of my life, having fun.

Waiting until this world's main focus was released.

And so I did.

Time flew by pretty quickly, as I played the games and watched the shows I had missed because I was so busy.

And as such time passed by

____________________________________________________________________________

The rumors were slightly off.

The first publicly available Deep-Dive VR tech released in early 2015

Every day I get closer to the dream.

Being a richy rich person, I was able to get one immediately.

It did look familiar but I just can't remember where from.

Probably an anime, I’m sure I’ll know when the game itself comes out.

The tech was surprisingly small.

It was a full helmet and plexiglass visor.

There were also gloves that were white with black fingertips.

It did come with a couple flagship “games”

An interactive sim where you could create to your heart’s content.

And a virtual space where you could hang out with your friends, like a mix of rec room and discord.

To say I got more use out of the first than the second was an understatement.

It just felt so real.

It’s amazing how much they were able to recreate.

Sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound.

I don't know how they did it, but they managed to recreate all of the human senses, all for gaming.

God bless Japan.

Since then a couple of VRMMORPGs have come out, but I knew that they weren’t the ones.

But I found it.

____________________________________________________________________________

2016, Ren’s house

*scrolling noise*

“Eh”

*scrolling noise*

“Mmh”

*scrolling noise*

*Clicking noise*

“Hmm interesting”

‘Maybe I’ll give this one a try later’

*clicking noises*

*scrolling noise*

Hmm-

HMM!

*frantic scrolling and clicking noises*

‘This is it’

‘New Online”

“Oh my god this is it”

“This is what I’ve been waiting for for 24 fucking years!”

“New World Online”

‘Wasn’t that from the anime, Bofa something’

‘Bofa, Bufu, Bufo’

“Bofuri”

“The show was called Bofuri”

“It may have been quite a while since I’ve seen it, but it was one of my favorites from back then”

“Ah yes, it's all coming back to me.”

“Alright, I can work with this.”

‘Coming out July 22’

“Today's date is the 3rd, so only a bit more time until I can get it.”

I preorder the game and begin the short yet excruciatingly long wait for it to come out and arrive

____________________________________________________________________________

July 22, 2016

It's here, it's here.

I got the game.

‘I’m so excited to play.’

I take the game cartridge out of its box and put it in the receptor on the headset.

I then walk over to my dedicated deep-dive gaming seat, which looks like a bean with the inside curve scooped out and filled with cushions.

It's very comfy.

“Todays the day”

I put on the headset and gloves while sitting down in the chair. I boot up the headset. And select New World Online from the long list of games.

And I close my eyes