“Why do you want to play this game?”

“Boredom,” he said while shrugging

“What do you want to do in-game?”

“Everything interesting” Another shrug

“Why do you not answer questions fully?” The NPC had the nerve to even frown.

“You can read my mind anyway” This time he rolled his eyes. Everyone knew that the NPC interviewer was just a formality, Deyoi Studios had been screening people to play for a month now and nobody could figure out how each person’s answers were relevant. This led to the consensus that they were using the highly restricted mind reading technology.

“If you had to choose between demons and your fellow humans who would you choose and why?” The golden question, it was a new question that the interviewer started asking after people started having thoughts of mind reading during the interview.

“Dunno, whichever I’m loyal to at the moment, and if I’m not loyal to either then neither.” The interviews were all public so when people figured out how to pass Deyoi Studios test most gamers felt dread. You had to be straight out honest about all your intentions to the interviewer and the world since with mind reading technology nothing could be left out.

Neroi was not most gamers. He could care less about people knowing how he plans to act in the game. His mentality is strange in this day and age, games are no longer considered games. They decided your whole life, your friends, your status, and most importantly your finances. It was common for there to be a free 10 day trial on established games and they had become the most important days of any gamers experience in a game. Deyoi Studios was strange because you had to pass their screening to play and the ten days had been extended to twenty days of free playing.

Deyoi Studios was a revolutionary in the world of virtual reality, they changed the 10 days and at the same time demanded anyone playing their game must come to their studio resort far more spectacular than 99% of the current earth. With people becoming attached to virtual reality the earth was left unmaintained by humans and instead used robots to take care of their bodies. Real unpolluted swimming pools, real food not in dehydrated packages, and real sunlight, experiences taken advantage of in the old earth were now luxuries only the extremely rich could afford. People now could only get reproduced experiences in virtual reality making it the go-to place for all.

Neroi left a note next to his parent’s VR capsules and went over to the old junkyard near his house. He had used some of his hard earned game money to buy it from an old drunkard who spent most of his time in virtual reality and could care less. Using the scattered parts in the yard Neroi had worked on perfecting his one true skill, electronics. Despite living in a world filled with advanced technology most people did not focus on the skill. Why upgrade hardware when it is already enough to make your wildest dreams come true? Of course at the price of Credits, the common currency all games used to payout players. What most people didn’t know though was that the virtual reality grid was running out of space to hold all players data. Hell, one of Deyoi Studios’ main reasons for its own facility was that it was separate from the global VR. Neroi didn’t know this either, he just found it interesting and had built thousands of robotic friends since he was 12 and discovered the place. He was 18 now and despite living in a lazy society where only the virtual world mattered was not a ball of flab but not a “muscle man” like in old earth. He had been 14 when he had found an old workout video in the scrap yard and after an eternity of boredom he decided to try it out.

He sighed, I’m gonna miss this old place, he thought. His memories here were better than most of his in the vast virtual world. He had often tried to play the more popular games where space travel and technology ruled but was often the target of “noob hunters” who would make their target forfeit all their beginner’s benefits and often threatened to send a pesky virus into your account locking you out of most games. Twice Neroi tested his luck and only because of his electronics skills was he able to remove the viruses after hours of work. This pushed him more into the medieval game genre where viruses were much were harder to pass and noobs still had more skills to defend themselves.

His electronics skill allowed him to build amazing machines in the nontechnical setting and he had often been labeled as the anonymous mechanic. His favorite part of the genre was the close combat. He was not a big man and definitely not very skillful with swords so he had ended up constructing the perfect weapon for himself, the Club OF Doom. As the name says it is a giant club with overwhelming power and he has made it in multiple games to balance out his crafting profession instead of being focused on fighting.

Despite being well known he had little to no following since he mostly avoided people, he found much more comfort in NPCs who only knew their situation and are less likely to lie or deceive him. The whole point of Deyoi Studios’ extra days of free gameplay was to get a large fan base started and work out any problems before the official launch. The requirement to continue after the twenty days without being erased was to collect 500 pledges from your followers and each follower could only pledge to one gamer. This would create a huge fan base for the new game if the popular gamers who joined the beta could bring in followers the game couldn’t normally target.

Deyoi Studio had a real world facility, for the gamers who passed their interview, but once the twenty days were up if you didn’t have the required pledge you would be kicked out or forced to pay an outrageously huge rent.

Neroi arrived at the facility and unlike most of the residents immediately locked himself in his small room. It was big enough to fit a huge bed and a VR Pod. Despite playing multiplayer VR games he did not enjoy human interaction, people just didn’t spend as much time making single player VR games as multiplayer ones. He didn’t have much to explore, there was the pod in the corner, a giant bed taking up the back wall, and television on an entertainment center next to the door. The setup was nice but what worried him was the fact that it was a public bathroom and shower. Luckily the dorm-like buildings were separated between boys and girls. Another interesting fact was that no one over twenty-five was accepted to early access. Neroi was only seventeen years old himself, but when the world had transferred to doing most things in virtual reality the age to do certain activities had been lowered to thirteen.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The official release was not until the next day and he didn’t feel like sitting around so he started exploring. He brought some headphones but nothing to actually play music, he didn’t want any excuse to talk to someone. Lots of people were moving in and most were out exploring like him. Compared to gamers in the past, the previously laughed at job became extremely popular with the majority of people playing a game and uploading their experiences as side job. Not every could make enough off it though; Neroi had to sell his skills as a technician and often received machines in need of repair through the mail. Right outside the dorm was the huge pool and the extreme amount of sunlight surrounding the island was fully exposed. There were too many people so he decided to come back at night if it was less crowded.

Neroi moved on to the huge dining hall to see what the advertised “Real Food” was like, he himself had never eaten fresh unprocessed food. Few people know what real food tastes like and even fewer know what even qualifies as real food, some even assumed animals dropped processed food when killed in the real world. He looked at the menu and was surprised to see a pork roast on it so he asked if he could try it, what he didn’t know was that almost every person coming in had come in asking for it. Most gamers ate pork roast in game but none had actually eaten one. As it arrived he compared its appearance to the game version and his senses were overwhelmed. He took his fork and ate a peace and almost died of pleasure. Worried he would look strange he looked around to see if anyone noticed but too his surprise everyone else seemed to be having similar experiences. He ate all of it fast and washed it down with the old style drink called cola. He accidently let out a huge burp from the extreme fizziness. He got himself a few cans and went back to his room.

Soon it was 4 am and he was wide awake. He was usually up this late repairing machines but the difference was his burst of energy. The cola had overwhelmed him and he had been drinking all night so he got the equivalent of a sugar high. He decided to walk it off and went to see if he could check out the pool so he put on a swimsuit. Walking with his fake headphones he made his way outside and was surprised to see the pool even more packed than earlier. Sighing he decided to just enjoy his walk. He was doing just that when a boy obviously intoxicated appeared out of nowhere and knocked Neroi into the pool. Neroi was okay but he had never actually been submersed fully in water bigger than a bathtub so he just stayed floating face down for a few seconds before suddenly being jerked out by some hands.

“DUDE! ARE YOU OKAY? Totally an accident bro!” the same boy who had knocked him in had pulled him over to the rim and practically screamed into Neroi’s ear. Neroi just nodded and started to fall back into the water as he tried to figure out what to say. Bubbles floated to the surface as he soon realized he needed to breathe. Luckily the boy pulled him up again. “Woah there, you’ll drown like that. Never been in a pool eh? Why didn’t you come out earlier to see what it was like!?”

“Well…there just seemed like too many people.” Neroi managed to mutter out. He could talk to people normally but this situation was just too much to him. He used his arms and pulled himself out of the nine-foot deep water back to dry land. He is glad he hadn’t come out earlier, he looks like a frightened baby scared of the water now. The boy jumped out with him, he felt dread and his sugar high disappeared quickly. He decided to just get up and keep walking like it didn’t happen all the way back to his dorm. Suddenly he felt a tug on his arm and turned around to see the same boy following him still. Doesn’t he understand I want to be as far away from his as possible? Neroi thought.

“Hey, bro wait up let me make it up to you. What’s your game name? We can be friends and I can help you out in the game!” He never stops talking does he? Thought Neroi. He was stuck, it was a gamer rule that when someone asked your in-game name you had to state it with pride or be dismissed as a low leveled gamer. At this point, tons of people were watching and even though most were drunk some were sober and would remember later. Neroi acted like he cared but he would never disgrace his in-game self, Yernero. The name was something he had come up with when he was little but he had used it for everything and the same for the avatar. He had updated the avatar with age but he was proud of his “second version” of himself.

“Yernero and I doubt you would be of any help anyway.” Neroi angrily brushed off his arm and continued to his room.

“I’m Iorwerth!” the boy yelled with a laugh and went back to messing around with his friends. Neroi almost froze but managed to keep going. Iorwerth was the fourth most popular user in the gaming community and his characters in games were usually a much higher level than the crafter Yernero. Frustrated Neroi changed clothes and passed out not at all excited about the next day.