The sun broke through the clouds waking me from my daydreams of a fantasy world, my focus was once again drawn to my professor at the front of the class. He was lecturing us on some obscure topic I had no interest in, I flipped open my notebook browsing through my notes,

“Hey Toshiaki.” A familiar voice whispered to me. 

Glancing over my best friend Uemura Masa, Uemura had a strong muscled frame like a bodybuilder, as I looked down I noticed he was repeatedly lifting a dumbbell.

“Are you coming to the arcade after school?” He continued 

“Sure” I replied, closing my book, and the bell soon rang for lunch. 

Uemura and I went to the roof meeting with Saito. 

“Hey!” He waved to us. 

Saito is a fairly attractive guy, he’s about my height and build but his face has a hint of a foreigner to it making it stand out. He’s always been more popular with the ladies than either of us, and not just because he’s captain of the kendo team, and archery club.

“Check this out, Toshiaki, Uemura!” he said waving us over.

We slowly walked over to where he was standing peering down at the soccer field below.

“See that?” he said pointing towards the center of the field.  The field was completely empty, both of us looked around without seeing anything.

“The fields empty Saito.” I said not understanding.

“Exactly. Weird isn’t it. The soccer team should be practicing right now but they're not.”

“What's so weird about that?” Uemura said leaning his back against the rail as he sat down

“Every day we come up here and you haven’t noticed?” Saito said looking at Uemura with a smirk.

“Nope” he replied, unboxing his meal.

“There’s a meet with another school coming up isn’t there?” I said sitting down as well

“Yup.” He said sitting down as well. “A few of the key players disappeared a week ago.”

“What?’ Uemura said leaning forward

“Yeah. No one knows what happened, but Tamanaha, Hara, and Ozawa all went missing within a few days of each other last week.”

“You don’t say” I said biting into my sandwich without really caring

“Yeah apparently the school got the police involved but no one can find them, so they called off the meet.”

“Why haven’t i heard about this until now.”

“I only just heard myself, Anno from the archery team was friends with them and he told me about it today.”

“What about the teachers, why didn’t they say anything.”

Saito just shrugged in response. 

“Are you going to the arcade after school?” Uemura asked, leaning forward again with his mouth full.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Yeah, Kawamoto is taking over the kendo club for me today.” Saito said, finally beginning to eat.

“Good they just got a new game in, I really want to try it out, it's called Experience of Wealth. I heard no one has played it yet, it's just sitting in the corner. Apparently some foreign company is doing a trial run of it here in japan. Supposed to have insane graphics.”

“Why has nobody played it?” i asked

“My dad hasn’t put it out for the public to use yet, it's in the storage room but its hooked up.”

“What kind of game is it?” Saito asked, tilting his head.

“No idea, but it looks like it could be just right Mr. Mmo. There’s a knight and a dragon on the side.”

“Cool,” Saito said, growing excited.

“And I bet you can get a high score in it, Toshiaki!”

“I’ll try my best.”

Soon after the bell rang, only 3 more periods to go before we finished for the weekend. The classes passed by quickly and all three of us met up in front of the school. Uemura and Saito pulled their bikes up to me as I flipped through my notebook.

“Ready?” Saito said, pushing my bike out to me.

“Yeah, just checking my notes”

“What for?” Uemura said, scratching the back of his neck.

I looked down at my book, and strangely in the center of the book was a sketch of a man in a black cloak his face was scratched out and across his back a katana was strapped.

“This” I said, turning the book to them.

“I didn’t know you drew!” Uemura replied.

“I don’t. I don’t know where it came from. I noticed it today after you asked me to go to the arcade.”

“One of the manga kids must have gotten a hold of it. Looks really good though. Bit edgy though.” Saito said 

“Maybe.” i said as i grabbed my bike.

We rode across town to the arcade, it was a dark building without windows. Uemura’s sister greeted us as we entered. The building was lined with almost every arcade machine you could want, stretching back to the beginning of arcade cabinets. 

“It's back this way,” Uemura said, waving to us as we walked. After walking through the countless cabinets we finally reached a blank area of the arcade. Uemura put his finger to his lips signaling us to be quiet, before pushing on the wall. It slowly gave way revealing the wall to be nothing more than a curtain. Inside were countless boxes, and racks with old machines and parts. 

As we delved deeper into the room the machine came into view. The machine was a large box with a curtain and a picture of a poorly drawn knight and dragon.

“Uemura this cabinet looks like shit” Saito said putting his hand to his forehead.

“Come on!” Uemura urged in response 

He stepped forward pushing the curtain aside. Inside where seats with what looked to be Vr sets hooked up.  Uemura pushed deeper inside and sat in the chair. He strapped the headset on and pressed a button, the machine came to life as the lights inside began to flash. 

Saito and I shrugged as we stepped forward. Saito grabbed the headset. 

“Woah!” He exclaimed “These headsets… I’ve never seen anything like this before.” He quickly sat down putting the helmet on.

I slugged my bag against the side of the machine drawing the curtain shut. 

I sat in the chair, it was uncomfortable but it seemed to slowly conform to my posture, the helmet hung just in front of my face. I reached out grasping it by the edge slowly inspecting it. As I put on the helmet, light flooded out of the panels, slowly my field of view was completely enveloped by the panels. 

I stood in the center of a white room, peering down at myself. I was completely naked. I quickly moved to cover myself. A voice echoed throughout the space.

“Do you wish to live?” the voice said booming. 

I sat in silence, expecting the dialogue to continue. But nothing happened.

“Yes” I replied sheepishly 

“No matter the cost?”

Silence once more.

“Yes.” I replied more confidently this time

“Even if it costs you your life?”

“What?”

“Even if it costs you your life?” The voice repeated

“What does that even mean?” I said to myself but the voice did not reply. “Okay this game is too weird, I’m done with this.” I said moving my hands to my head, but my hands didn’t catch on anything, there was no helmet to grasp.

“Hey! What gives! Log out! Game over! I’m done!” I screamed into the void hoping to wake up.

“Do you wish to live?” The voice asked again.

“No! I want out of this game!”

“Very well.” 

Suddenly a pain enveloped my chest like my heart was about to explode, I tried to breathe but no air came, panic overtook me.

“Do you wish to live?” The voice repeated for the third time.

“Yes” I eked out but the pain doesn't subside

“No matter the cost?”

“Yes! God damn it just stop.”

“Even if it costs you your life?”

“Yes fine!” I said angrily

“Will you be my champion?” The voice continued.

“Yes, sure!” the pain in my chest continued to burn.

“Good.” The voice said after a great deal of time. The pain slowly faded away.

“I will wait for you” The voice continued, and with that the void disappeared causing me to tumble through the air, I feel like a rag doll. Crashing into a tree. Surprisingly as I stood up I felt no pain. In the right side of my vision I noticed a flashing number with letters floating nearby. The letters and numbers displayed “1’000’000’000 CD”