Sen exits the capsule, and heads down to eat dinner with his family. It is a bit early, but his family has agreed to have dinner after the tournament is over rather than their normal time. Getting to the table, his father is missing, probably working, but his sister and mother are both already there.

The spicy stew they’re having is absolutely delicious, and Sen savors it for a while until his mother broaches a topic he isn’t looking forward to.

“So Sen, your birthday will be this Friday, is there anything you want to do for it?”

While for most people, a birthday is something to look forward to until you reach a certain age, for Sen, it just means meeting up with a bunch of kids of other rich and influential families in the name of networking. His “parties” are as much for his father as for himself, his father inviting all of his powerful colleagues, and encouraging Sen to make friends with their children.

Sen’s father has been raising him to be a politician, not that he's been receptive to the idea. Many of the things his tutors teach him cater towards dealing with people, but those classes have been drastically cut down after Fifth Dimension appeared, and now, Sen isn’t sure what his father wants from him.

“Just the usual meal please.” Sen thinks for a moment, he hasn’t had any real friends over for a birthday since before he remembered his life as Damien, but maybe he can change that this time. “Can I invite the rest of the group I play with?”

Jiu smiles, happy her son is actually wanting to have people over of his own volition. “We’ve already invited them, and they’ve all agreed to come.”

Sen blanks for a bit before smiling, his parents are apparently paying more attention to him than he realizes. Maybe this birthday won’t be quite so bad as normal.

The week leading up to Sen’s birthday is simply spent grinding out the dungeons and practicing body enhancement skills in preparation for the last round of the tournament this weekend. There are less than five hundred teams remaining, so it is only going to take one day this time.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Friday comes, and with it, Sen rises hoping that this birthday will be less dealing with arrogant idiots and more chatting with his friends. He gets ready for the day dressing in a more formal fashion than normal. While he prefers his plain clothing, he can’t make his father look bad in front of the many colleagues he expects to be there.

Once he’s dressed for the day, he heads down to see his mother has taken the day off work, and made his favorite waffles for breakfast, which he drowns in various fruits, whipped cream, and syrup.

Once he finishes his far too many waffles, thankful that the game capsule exercises him, he thanks his mother, and starts to talk with her. While the actual party won’t start until a bit after the third meal of the day, and continuing until well past dinner, it’s tradition to spend rest of the day with his family.

Lynna shows up soon after, and enjoys the waffles possibly even more than Sen. They chat for a while, excited about the tournament, and Jiu joins in, asking about their different strategies and sharing her support for them.

After a bit, they all head over to the living room, and play some old fashioned non immersion games together. Sen is actually quite bad at these, and gets regularly crushed by both his sister and his mother. They continue until it’s time for lunch, and then go out to eat some barbecue at an all you can eat restaurant. They all enjoy the different types of meat they can cook on their table’s grill, and Sen almost feels bad for the store owner with how much they eat.

Heading out the restaurant, they walk around the commercial area for a while, Sen looking through a bookstore, which are surprisingly a thing, though physical books are horrifically expensive. In most cases, you can read a book in a bookstore, then if you want to buy it you scan it with your phone, which will buy and download it for you.

Sen tends to stick with digital works, but there’s something about physical books that are just nice to read on. After reading portions of a few stories, he scans the code on the books’ pages, which will make sure to save his spot when it downloads, and then he decides to go look around at some gaming stores.

Gaming stores are less for actual games, and more for gaming apparel, as actual games are simply bought from home. Sen looks through the various shirts, keychains, and figurines, and eventually decides to buy a Gladiator decal to apply on his capsule back home, before they finish off their outing with a stop at a poke place for their second lunch.

Once they get back home, Sen applies his decal to his capsule, and they all hang out in the living room, playing some more of those non immersion games while they wait for the first people to arrive. Their father arrives first, and comes to join in the games with his family, doing even worse at them than Sen.

It isn’t long until the doorbell rings, and the first guest arrives.