Few Decades Later - Year 2072
VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) technology had become incredibly popular, and the world had advanced significantly since the third world war.
A freelance spy operating under the name Kazuyuki Rihito was studying at the National K Academy (NKA), waiting for a chance to kidnap a boy named Raymond Tsukassa. Raymond, with his curly dark brown hair, medium tanned skin, and light brown eyes, was also 16 years old and attending college. On paper, so was Rihito. However, in reality, Rihito, with jet-black hair and golden eyes, was quite a few decades old, or rather, over a century old.
Rihito was the living weapon created in 1964, and after the destruction of his creator organization, he had lived as a freelancer, traveling the world and learning various skills. He continued to gather knowledge in multiple fields, becoming proficient in all manners of things. Despite not feeling emotions, he could perfectly imitate them due to his understanding of the human thought process, making him an exceptional actor and an even better spy.
He possessed supercomputer-like processing, cognitive, and reflex abilities, allowing him to almost foresee the future like the Demon of Laplace, a mathematical genius who theorized that if a creature knew everything's position and motion at one moment, then the laws of physics would give it complete knowledge of the future. With reaction speeds three times that of the best human athletes, Rihito could easily make three or four moves by the time an opponent made a single one. He was able to partially actualize this theory and use it in combat.
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After the destruction of my creator organization, something akin to curiosity awakened within me, I have no clue why but... I wondered what it would be like to feel emotions. I had never experienced emotions and wanted to understand them, similar to machines so I traveled the world wondering,
"How are emotions certainly i can act that way but does one really experience slowing of time when they find something exciting or dangerous, is falling in love truly like getting struck by lightning because i found it damaging for my body when i was hit by a bolt of lightning?"
During my travels, I mastered countless martial arts, weapon arts, and meditation practices, spending time at Shaolin and other places dedicated to body arts and meditation. These experiences expanded my horizons and mind, gradually weakening the seal on my emotions by 2024.
During this time, I began to notice changes within myself. I could feel my heart race and experienced something I could only describe as 'thrilling' when I immersed myself in stories (novels), fights, and visiting new places. These newfound sensations drove me to continue my quest for understanding and experiencing emotions.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
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Present Time at Kee's apartment
Pew, pew, pew! Guns fired and walls appeared out of nowhere. Clack, clack, clack! Swords slashed, and bodies pixelated and disappeared. This wasn't real life, but a VR game directly controlled by the brain.
It was a world-level MMO battle royale, and the special player [Kee] was going on a rampage, destroying everybody.
What’s special is that it’s me. Yeah, I’m a special player, but not because of an item, magic, or unique class. It's because of my inhuman mobility and pure gaming skills while using common and rare items, but not a single unique, legendary, or mythical item providing special abilities. That's the reason why i have unique Title as well as unique name display style.
I’m the only one in the top 10 leaderboard without any special items, but this is easy for me because of my superhuman reaction speed. With this brain-to-computer interface, and me already having a sensation for such mobility as I'm able to do it in real life.
Well, I’m not just fooling around playing video games; this is research. That’s right, I’m currently under the name Kazuyuki Rihito, but my original name is Kee.
In 2072, people normally finish their studies for the 12th standard at the age of 14, and by 16, they are in the second year of college, like me. Though I’ve been 16 since I was born or rather created. But back to the point, I’m not just playing, but researching. I may let myself be indulgent because this is one of the ‘feelings’ I’m able to enjoy. The research for my project is movement reversal—doing feats that are impossible or maybe the better word for it is 'un trained movements? like asking an ordinary man to perform gymnastics?' for your body currently in VR, then training your body to have similar muscle to see if you can actually move the way you do in VR in reality without any actual physical practice, if its true it could revolutionize many things by being able to train people for variety of situation without any risk especially military. It's a concept called reverse learning, but I don’t think it's useful for me that much because I can already copy any kind of movement, even if it’s not possible because I’m not exactly human in the first place.
Plus, I’m only doing this project to get close to Raymond Tsukasa. He’s the target I have to kidnap. I’m not doing this because I like it, or rather, I can’t like anything. My heart just doesn’t flutter or give me that giddy feeling; it’s like something stops or slows it.
I’ve realized my emotions are being suppressed, so I’m trying to get money to buy and restore the equipment they used when they made me, so I can remove the suppression and also the annoying voice in my head that keeps saying, "Learn more, more." That’s what E.E. stands for in Project K.E.E (my name Kee): Key to Eternal Evolution.
The Original had been destroyed long ago and salvaged and turned into waste land from the war.
It would have been annoying if I could feel annoyance after I partially unlocked my seal, but for this specific case, fortunately not. The things I like are video games and entertainment (novels/light novels, manga, anime), mostly fighting stuff. I also enjoy fighting a little bit—the thought of what will happen next, how I can counter, what looks the best, and what's more efficient.
That’s the only thing I feel. The rest are emotions I can act out as part of my disguise, but I can’t actually tell how they feel. There’s a distinct line I can feel when my heart races, like when the stakes are high or the thrill from a dangerous fight, similar to a novel or comic. Or the time my heart tightens when reading books(novels/comic) while being on the edge of the plot. However, the rest are only emotions I can act out as part of my disguise; there's a clear line between what I can and cannot feel.