Yuki’s POV
“So you’re the new…boy right?” The girl beckoned at Yuki while giving off a menacing glare.
‘This is bad, she’s mad, she’s so mad!’
“Yes, m-m-my n-name is Yuki, n-nice to m-meet you!”
“What are you stuttering for?! I can’t believe my new brother is so wimpy, with a name like ‘Yuki’ no less!”
“Ano…m-may I ask what your name is?”
*Sigh* “My name is Rika, I was named after my dad Riku.”
“Rika…is it…um, please don’t make fun of my name!”
“Why shouldn’t I? It fits really well along with your looks”
‘What does she mean my looks?’
“What do you mean? Don’t I look like any normal guy?!”
“‘Normal guy’? *pfft* Hahaha…I mean you look anything but like a ‘normal guy’. When was the last time you looked in the mirror? I might even say you look cuter than me, which kinda pisses me off!”
‘What!!!? Wait wait wait…the reason why she was so mad was because of how I looked?’
“What do you mean?! I know I’m kind of short at 5’4” and with no visible muscles but it’s too farfetched to say I’m cuter than you!”
“Oh please, even when you give me that mad look you’re still cute. Look around you, haven’t you ever notice the stares of the people around you?”
Being skeptical of what she said I took a peek at the people around us…’WHAT THE FUCK!!! They really were looking at me!’ I saw a couple of them blush and turned around, while a couple girls gave me the same glare that Rika has, ‘did that girl just wink at me?’.
‘Wait a second, how did I not notice this?! Have guys been like this all this time?’
I started thinking back during highschool, ‘None of the guys during highschool had the same look as these guys though…is it because these guys were Americans?’
“How come I’ve never seen this happen back in Japan? Is it because they are Americans?”
“Baka, of course not!” I flinched from her sudden shout “These guys don’t know you are a ‘boy’ heck, I don’t even fully believe it myself. I’m sure back in Japan they knew you were a boy, because you changed and had P.E. class together with them right?”
“Oh yea that’s right….ha ha….ha…sorry for being an idiot.”
‘Am I really that stupid? Of course they knew I’m a guy…ah, wait, so that’s why when I had my first P.E. class during freshmen year so many of the guys were blushing. When I started changing with them, they got the teacher involved, who tried to explain to me I shouldn’t play pranks at my age. That took me a lot of convincing to make them understand I wasn’t playing a prank’
“Anyways stop feeling dejected, Mama’s calling for us.”
In the distance, while holding Father’s hand, Anna beckoned for us to go to her. I don’t know how they got so far away from us, probably they had some stuff they wanted to talk about alone. Rika tried to grab my hand and lead me towards them, naturally I pulled back my hand. Giving me a cold look she headed towards my Father and Anna. Making sure I have some space between Rika and myself I followed. As I timidly drew near the group Anne gestured towards me.
“Hello Yuki dear, my name is Anna, I will be your Mama from now on.”
‘She seems nice, kinda reminds me of Aka-nee, ah…Akari, I miss her already.’
“Nice to meet you dear Mother, I hope you treat my Father and myself well.” I politely said as I gave her a bow.
“Kyaaaa!” Suddenly screaming, which caused me to jump, she rushed at me and gave me a crushing hug burying me in her chest and preventing me to breathe, it was pretty soft.
“He’s so cute just like in the picture you shows me Ken! I just wanna bite him!”
‘I take it back, she’s not like Aka-nee, nope. Not like her at all!’ Trying to break out of her hug, I start wriggling about, it was getting harder to breathe.
‘Why’s she so strong?!’ I struggled for a little longer until I submit to being choked to death. She finally lets me go after what seemed like an eternity of bliss, err I mean torture.
“Puhaaa..haa…haa, Please dear Mother, don’t do that again.”
“Awwww, even Yu-kun’s pouty look is also cute!”
‘This is gonna be a tiring family…Well at least Rika isn’t like Mother.’
After this rather embarrassing exchange we headed to Mother’s car. While driving to the Anna’s house, I saw signs and posters plastered everywhere. ‘That’s right! Today was the day that Maverick Tech released the new game called ‘Second Start Online’!’ Excited about the newly released game I started looking around, at all the new scenery, but mainly at the posters and billboards for the rest of the ride.
Once we pulled into the driveway of the quiet neighborhood I saw that it was a two story house, just like Aka-nee’s…’I really gotta stop thinking about Akari-nee…’
Anna opened the door and walked inside, Father followed her, then Rika, then me. As soon as I stepped through that door, I knew, right then and there I was going to love this place. Laying right in front of us were two large boxes with large labelling.
“Second Start Online Dive Pod”
‘What is this thing doing here?! Two of them no less!’ Wondering about that, I turned to Anna who was beaming with excitement.
“SURPRISE!!! Did I get you? I bet you didn’t expect for me to have two pods on the day the game was released did you?”
Confused about how Anna was able to acquire not one but two pods, I was about to ask her when…
“Baka, do you even know what your father’s job is?”
“I do, he works as a manager for a marketing company….right Father?”
“Yu-kun you are right, but also wrong. I work for the marketing department of Maverick Tech. Everyone working for Maverick Tech received a pod and a lifetime subscription to the game ahead of time. That’s why you see two pods here, one was given to me and the other to your Mother.”
“Anyways bring your stuff inside, I’ll show you to your room Yu-kun”
----------
I found out that only the Dive Pods were shipped out, the game wasn’t unlocked yet. After learning that, I looked up Second Start Online’s (SSO) website to find out more about it. It turned out SSO was a world that is bigger than Earth, set in a giant continent called Milan, inhabited by many monsters and sentient beings. There were currently five race available to start with: Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Beastmen, and Halflings.
Elves are also known as the ‘Fair Folk’ those blessed by nature, they are strong in the arcane arts and their agility is high, due to living amongst the trees. However, due to their focus on agility and unity with nature, they have lower amounts of strength at the start. They worship Gaia, the mother of all life. Their Capital Illandra resides in their country to the east.
The Dwarves are beings who are blessed with high affinity to earth and stone. They are dexterious, strong, and tough. However it is because they are strong and tough that they are slow. Dwarves are relatively short in stature, when compared to the rest of the races, except Halflings, which vary. Dwarves make expert crafters and the best tanks but, due to their short height and stoutness, they move slower. However, do you confuse slow movement with attack movement, those are two different things. The Dwarves worship Saxum Faber, the First Dwarf and father of metal working. The Dwarves reside in the north, within their mountain fortress Saxul.
Beastmen are nomads, they never stay in one place for long. They are the perfect warrior. They possess speed, strength, dexterity. However, they are limited in their ability to harness mana, the source that creates magic. Beastmen rely more on passive abilities than skills, which have to be activated and costs mana. Beastmen don’t have a Deity they uniformly worship, only those who are predators worship Luna, Goddess of the Hunt and Moon. Since Beatmen are nomadic, they don’t have a specific starting location.
Humans are the most balanced of all the races. They don’t have any advantages or disadvantages. Because of this they are also the most versatile, they are able to grow in any direction. Humans have many Deities, but the main Deity that is worshipped is Luxa, the Goddess of Light and Tranquility. The human Capital called Lucierna resides in the west.
Halflings are exactly as they are named, they are half something and half other. They are the result of love that prospered between the races of the continent. Because they are Halflings, they are able to harness the some of the strengths of both of their parents’ race. This is a good thing and a bad thing, while they have both advantages, they also have both of the disadvantages, which pretty much evens out. For example if the parents were Beastmen and Elf, the Halfling will start out with high agility and moderate strength, but they would only have mediocre to moderate amounts of mana. The option of Halflings are mainly for cosmetics rather than stats. Just like Beastmen, Halflings don’t have a specific starting point.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Also, although capitals are mentioned, they are not necessarily required locations to start. Elves can start in the human kingdom, and vice versa. However, there are benefits to starting in one’s respective kingdom. You will gain intimacy faster within your respective kingdom, rewards will be higher and easier for you to get quests. This doesn’t apply to Beastmen and Halflings, but they are able to gain the same advantages for NPC’s of their race.
Some other information that I found was that unlike most RPGs, SSO puts emphasis on the ‘Second Start’ part. You get decide who you want to be and what you want to do. The only thing you cannot change is your gender and your looks. Although, you can kind of change how you look through the use of Halflings, which I found out later.
This whole time that I was gathering this information from the website, Rika was also doing the same thing. It turned out, both of our parents will be busy marketing the product that they won’t be able to play, so they gave both of us full reign of the Dive Pods.
---------------------
June 10th, 2075. The launch of the first virtual reality game ‘Second Start Online’
Scanning…..
New User Detected. Sending you to Character Creation.
The box faded away and I appeared in a white room devoid of objects.
Welcome to Second Start Online. I am the AI in charge of Character Creation.
(Yuki) “Do you have a name?”
I am named AI_025. There are many others like me, each responsible for different things.
(Yuki) “Heehhh…is that so?”
‘That’s pretty amazing for Maverick Tech (MT) to create different AI’s.’
Please select from one of the following races
As soon as that was said, 5 figures that have similar features to myself popped out in front of me. The first one was a Human, he looked exactly like me. The second was an elf, this one was taller than the human, aside from the pointy ears and the slimmer features, nothing else was noticeable. The third one was a dwarf, ‘Ew! It looks kinda ugly…I’m already short enough in reality, I don’t want to be shorter.’ So I passed on the Dwarf.
The next two figures were kind of different, aside from the last one, the fourth one that I was currently staring at had fur covering its’ body, with claws and an elongated face. This figure constantly changed every few seconds to a different kind of beast, sometimes it would have scales instead of fur and so on. It turned out, that the Beastmen race is more ‘Beast’ than ‘Men’.
‘There goes my prior idea of picking a Beastman, I didn’t expect them to be like that.’
When I approached the last figure, AI_025 talked to me again.
You must choose the race of both parents in order to create your Halfling race.
“Interesting, hmm. Let’s see, what if I go with Elf and Dwarf?”
Interestingly enough, the Halfling transformed into a barbarian looking elf, with a beard.
You can further customize the physical appearance that you want from the parents.
‘Wait, you are telling me I can change the look of the barbarian? Didn’t the website say something along the lines of not changing looks?’
“Ok, can you make the Halfling have the shortness of the Dwarf, no beard like Elves, and slimmer, between a Dwarf and Elf?”
As soon as I said that, something that looks like a Hobb** from Lord of the ***** popped out in front of me.
“Haha! No way! So pretty much all the other races are obsolete then right?”
Incorrect. Facial features and gender cannot be changed, aside from picking a genderless race or picking a beast race.
‘Interesting, I guess the Halfling class is basically the character creator. However depending on the two parent races that the Halfling is based on will decide its’ advantages and disadvantages.’
“Can I see a combination of a Wolf Beastman and a Human?” I would’ve chosen Elf instead, but for some reason I feel like I’ll be made more fun of by Rika if I chose an Elf instead of Human. Call it a sixth sense for what girls will do to me, after being bullied so much by them, I can kinda understand how they will act towards me.
An image of a Kemonomimi popped up in front of me.
“Kawaii~*cough* I mean, how manly! Yes! That’s it! Manly!”
What stood in front of me was a figure of my height, a silvery white pair of ears and a fluffy tail emerging from behind the figure. It had a darker shade of silver for hair, unlike Beastmen, the figure did not have fur covering its’ body. Looked at the face, I could see a pair of deep amber colored eye’s staring back at me, as if it’s trying to capture my mind. The face of the figure can be described in one word: “BISHOUJO!!!” In my excitement I forgot that this figure was based off my looks and fell in love with it. The figure was short, and really feminine looking, coupled with its’ slim figure and captivating eyes even made me forgot that I was staring at my Halfling counterpart.
“I want it…” because I had forgotten that I was still in character creation, I mumbled my thoughts on how much I want this pretty ‘Bishoujo’.
Character Creation Complete. Please Choose starting location. Lucierna the Human Capital, Illandra the Elven Capital, or Saxul the Dwarven Capital. There are also minor cities you can choose from if you so desire, just say ‘More’
(Yuki) “Huh? Lucierna? Illan-“
Lucierna the Human Capital was chosen. Please wait while your character is fused to you and transported.
(Yuki) “FFFFUUUU-“
Fusion Complete. We hope you enjoy your Second Start, because there won’t be another one.
PREVIOUS CHAPTERBack to Main PageNEXT CHAPTER