“Hey…” It was Matthew, nice of him to stick around. “…Thanks for the assist back there,” he consoled. “Maybe next time just let it slide?”
“Couldn’t be helped. It was completely instinctual…” Snot ran down my lip.
“Want to wag school and play some old school Tekken?” He extended his chubby hand.
Funny how good can sometime come out of the bad. “Yeah, that sounds great.” I grasped his baby-soft hands and accepted the assist.
We headed outside. “What games you playing right now?” he asked as he led the way to the front of the school. No teachers stopped us, no late arriving parents bated an eyelid. They just went about their days.
“You heard of Final Tales Reborn?”
“Oh yes, that’s the VR game that’s been out for about couple years now? I prefer Carbine Footprint.”
“That’s like Counterstrike or Battlefield, right?”
“More like Battlefield 1942. It’s set in World War 2.”
“Cool! I might have to give that a go. Hey, where’s your folks’ new place?”
“It’s just across the crosswalk, and in the only cul-de-sac down that street there.” He pointed.
A tiny green creature on the crosswalk caught in my eyes. “Woah a praying-mantis!” Can’t leave the little guy here, he might get run over! I stopped to pick him up.
“Hey watch out!” Matthew yelled from across the street. A horn blared, and a monster of steel and metal roared and screeched. The world around me seemed to go quiet, and my body went stiff. Time seemed to stop, and everything with it.
…
A man popped his head out the window. “Move you fucking idiot!” he said, his voice gruff and unrefined.
“Oh, ahh, ah, sorry!” I scuttled across, gently cupping the bug in my hands.
“You almost got ‘Truck-kun’d’!” Matthew laughed.
“Haha, imagine that. I wonder what world I would have been transported to?” I said, gently releasing the majestic prayingmantis onto a low-lying branch.
He looked at me and narrowed his eyes, his tone serious. “, what would you have done in that world?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for example, if you were transported to your Final Tales Reborn game, would you dungeon crawl, work your way to becoming king of a nation, or maybe even follow the storyline and complete the game?”
It never really crossed my mind as something even remotely possible. I mean, sure I’ve fantasized about it, but without any real consideration of the consequences…
“In all honesty, if I didn’t die within the first couple of seconds or days, then, if it was safe to do so, I’d probably try to find a way to invite my friends and family across, and if they didn’t want to come, I’d probably just find a way to go home.”
Matthew his chin and mulled that over for a minute before speaking again, “Interesting perspective. What if you were cut off from them, and there was no way home, AND you only started at level one?”
His persistence in asking these what if questions was suspicious, if nothing else, and the serious look on Matthew’s face was raising my left eyebrow to new heights, but nevertheless, it was a fun exercise. “Okay… well normally in these stories isekai’d people start out at godly levels, but sure, for the sake of this hypothetical, let’s say I’m level one. Then…” This is actually a really difficult exercise. There are far too many variables… “Assuming that if I died there was no coming back, I’d start off with the Mage class probably, that way, if there was ever any fighting, I could sit in the back and not get hurt. If things went poorly, I could just run away. Also, I probably wouldn’t even leave the city walls, and just sit in town crafting.” Is that all I’d be doing? It is hard to say without actually being there. “What would you do?”
There was a glint in his eye, and a smug grin crept across his face. “Well… I’d would level up but only by fighting the weakest monsters possible, thereby reducing the risk of personal injury or death. Though it would be preferable to exploit any flaws in the mechanics, say for example if the NPCs were now slayable, I would slay them in their sleep for easy EXP and loot their houses, selling off anything that wasn’t useful to me, and use that money to better equip myself. Once I reached a comfortably high level I would start building my harem, dominating the local talent. I’d use them—”
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“Yeah, I bet you’d use them…” I wrinkled my nose.
He just smiled evilly back at me, before continuing: “I’d use them to help me subjugate a small town, then I’d repeat this process until I had conquered a whole nation, and then finally, the world.” There was nothing in his eyes that said this wasn’t exactly what he’d do. He couldn’t seriously be considering this as an actual possibility? “But yes, you are right. Oh, the terrible things I would do to those NPC girls.” He chuckled, slurping a bit of drool that momentarily escaped him.
“Gross… Not my thing.”
“Sure it is. It’s every guy’s dream.”
“Hah! Your dream is to beat me at Tekken!”
“You’ll be eating those words!”
“I have never lost to anyone until now.” Matthew’s brows were furrowed. “How did you beat me?”
A smile latched itself to my face, whether I wanted it to or not. Victory was always so sweet. “It’s a combination of things. Timing is really important, so is move recognition, damage calculations, and psychology.”
His eyes narrowed on my face. “Explain.”
“Err, well…” Oh jeebus, do I really have to explain myself? The look on Matthew’s face said I did. “If I can tell what move your character is making, I can choose the optimum response. For example, I was able to tell when you would do a high kick with Hwoarang, so, as you saw, I would counter with cannonball headbutt, which allowed me to dodge your kick, wind up my attack, and hit you before you could defend. Ialso let you hit me with your weakest moves to lure you into a false sense of security, which put you more into offence rather than defence,” I explained.
He grabbed his chin in thought. “Disconcerting… My guess then, if you’re putting so much thought into this, is that you haven’t revealed your ace yet.”
What a thoughtful individual. I chuckled. “You caught me. I haven’t whipped out my dream team yet, Jin and Wang or Jun.”
“Show me,” he demanded, tone stern.
“Umm, are you sure?”
“Are you fucking kidding me!” he threw the controller against the wall, leaving a small indent.
“Woah.” Frozen, I stared at his red throbbing forehead. “Sorry …” I whispered.
“No-no, it’s fine,” he said, visibly calming down. “Sorry, it’s just that counter move is so annoying,” he grumbled.
“It can be countered too, by using a move called ‘chicken buffering’.”
“Why isn’t it in the moves list?” he asked, rubbing his brow.
“It’s a secret move. You initially have to figure it out yourself or learn from someone else. If you press forward and these three buttons at the right time, it’ll activate.”
He stared at me below his blonde brows. “Thanks,” he finally said.
“Err, no problems.”
“Sorry about before,” he said, awkwardly patting me once on the back.
I raised an eyebrow at him, his face seemd to convey true concern. “Oh, you mean that? Yeah, it’s only the worst day of my life.” My shoulders slumped.
“She’s clearly out of your league. What made you think you had a chance?” he probed.
Ouch!
“I choose not to be limited by leagues.” I smirked. “But really, it’s just this one time in one of my classes, kids were playing, throwing things. I got a coaster right between the eye, opened me up real good. She came straight over and gave me her handkerchief, though it was more of a cloth. Anyway, it was the nicest thing anyone had done for me since coming to this school.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing. She said no.” A sigh of relief escaped me. “If we were sucked into another world together, maybe I’d have the guts to try and get to know her… maybe ask her out again…”
Bzzzt. Bzzzt. “What is it?”
“Won’t Blake be waiting for you?” he reminded me.
“Yeah, you’re right…” My heart sank.
“What are you going to do?” he wanted to know. Blake and his cronies will definitely be there, waiting, waiting to bash my head in. Why would Catherine want to meet? She made it clear she doesn’t even know I exist. Maybe… Maybe it’s a trap. Maybe they figured out I ditched school, and this is their elaborate plan to get me back there so they can bash me.
“I’m not going back.” The words fell like a rock.
“Wait, you’re giving up a chance to hook up with the hottest girl in school, because you might get hit a few times?” He makes it sound so simple, but school society isn’t simple. Maybe Blake goes too far and breaks a bone or worse, or Catherine gets to know me and actually doesn’t like me; and hooking up is a bit of a stretch!
“I’m not giving up, I’m just changing quests,” I reasoned.
“What if today was your last day on Earth?” something about his face read smug.
“What? Like I was going to be Truck-kun’d?”
“Something like that…”
“I don’t know…” I grabbed my bag and got up. “Thanks for the session.”
“You leaving?” he looked a little sad.
“Yah, I gotta prepare for FTR tonight. We’re farming a super-rare item, and I also got to baby-sit my brother.”
“Wait…” He seemed torn over something but continued. “I want to show you something,” he said, loading something up on one of his desktop screens.
A camera view of a conference room loaded before us, and there stood the doctor or whatever she was, from Astor Corp, Claire Watson.
“Subject Zero,” she said, as an image of… me? Appeared on the wall. “Has demonstrated symptoms of exposure. His vitals were normal and his molecular structure stable.”
“Thank you for your report, Special Agent Stone.”
Men in military uniform sat around a long table.
“You have all read the brief on the ‘Quantum Reality Entanglement Apocalypse’ paper…” the Defence Minister stated, his tone rhetorical.
“That was published by Professor Rheiner?” the General responded. If he was looking, he would have noticed several of the men roll their eyes or raise an eyebrow. “We need to shut down the project!”
“The implications,” the Defence Minister continued, completely ignoring the General, “are far reaching. But. Perhaps what’s most disturbing, if what she writes is true…” he slightly adjusted his glasses. “…are the gamers.”
The Secret Services minister interceded. “Special Agent Stone has provided qualitative evidence of subject Zero, which collaborates Professor Rheiner’s theories.”
The Secretary of Education finished a sip of his coffee. “‘Nearly all people can stand adversity, but if you want to test a person’s character, give them power.’”
The Director of National Intelligence clasped his hands, “No matter the character, absolute power absolutely corrupts… We know this from the ‘Hercules experiments,’ when people are in a position of power they feel more entitled to exercise their will regardless of ethics or morals, the difference being that without an equal level of power there will be no one to hold them accountable or take responsibility. The risk of having thousands of players running around with superhuman entitlement is a risk we can’t afford!” He then looked over to the Home Affair Minister.
He raised a finger, and a projector screen illuminated with the words ‘Operation Level-Down.’ “We have already developed a contingency plan for that, and our people are in place should the worst be realised.” He wore a calloused look of resolve.
The Defence Minister nodded in agreement. “Very good.”
“But what how will the migration be handled?”
“If, the migration is required, John here is preparing for it,” he said, gesturing to the man at the end of the table.
The man stood up. “Thank you, Defence Minister. My name is John Albeck, I have the honour of being elected the first Minister of the newly established department of Game World Migration.” He walked over to the projector screen as it changed to a pearly white city with beautiful-lush gardens and waterways, like heaven built on Earth. “This is the city of Elizabeth, it resides on the Atlantic server store here in this city, where we have full access. Our agents are already in place, creating backdoor entries into the NPCs in leadership.”
“So, this City of Elizabeth, is where we will migrate to?”
“Should the worst be realised, yes.”
“Umm…” What the hell was that? “How?” Did you get that video…
“That’s unimportant,” he sighed.
Are they suggesting we’ll be isekai’d? “You don’t actually believe them, do you?”
“Maybe… Just be careful, and if it does happen…” There was a long pause, and his face drew in all serious like. ‘See you on the other side. Watch out for those trucks.’
I guess that was his way of saying goodbye? It was a strange, but it felt like he was genuinely concerned. “Err, yah, thanks. See ya.”