Bandung, Oktober 5 2012, 4.45 pm.

Aria read a few messages on his phone as he walked. He started replying one by one to his WhatsApp messages to his two brothers and to his online friends. He wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be staying over at one of his sibling's home this weekend like he had last week. His two older siblings, Asri Zulkaidah and Arka Syawaludin, are now married with one child each. All three siblings live in Bandung although their homes are very far apart, namely in Cimahi, Ujung Berung, and for himself in Dago. Meanwhile, he would fulfill his promise to Vestalia and his two online friends to meet at the Seption game tomorrow.

Aria put his cell phone in his pocket because he had to cross a fairly crowded highway at the Dago intersection, heading towards Tubagus Ismail Raya Street and immediately turning down a nearby smaller street. The road was a dead end for motorcycles. But there was a narrow passageway that pedestrians could use as a shortcut to his boarding house. He started opening his phone again as he walked. This time he opened an internet application, felt relaxed, and searched for any keyword that came to mind as reading material.

Aria remembered to buy some snacks and a few bottles of water for tomorrow. He decided to walk straight instead of turning left towards his boarding house to get back to the highway and visit the mini market right at the crossroads. In a short time, he bought the food and drinks he needed then walked back to his boarding house.

Aria finally arrived at his boarding house. He started to take off his shoes and went straight to his room to take a shower. The two college students living in the room next to him hadn't returned from their campus yet and he won’t be surprised that they weren't coming home tonight either because they were staying at the campus, the internet cafe, or other places like boarding house or their friend's house. Somehow it made him feel freer than usual, even though he had felt free from the start of living alone in a boarding house at the same time he entered junior high school. The family living in the contract house downstairs also didn't see him very often, usually only if they offered him excess food.

While getting dressed after taking a shower, Aria began to wonder if his mother or father had asked how he was doing. The thought often entered his head every weekend, but it quickly disappeared. Living like this was probably better for him and his family. He could only be thankful that his school fees and living expenses were still covered by his parents, despite what had happened to him a few years ago. Fortunately, with his lifestyle, he doesn't waste money easily without thinking about the repercussions.

After being dressed, he started to turn on his computer and connected the battery charger to his cell phone. Five o'clock in the evening was not a long time to be able to play Seption Online because it was cut off by prayer time. Moreover, his main activities didn't start until tomorrow. Nevertheless, he was able to log in to check on Velocity, which was grinding using the Auto-Pilot method.

He is very grateful for the premium features in the game, from the Battle Pass, Septatite Mine, and especially Auto-Pilot. The ability for a character to kill monsters repeatedly without having to play the game is the biggest invention in the online game business. Although this feature requires players to pay one hundred and fifty thousand Indonesian rupiah per month (equal to $12 at the time) through game vouchers, the price is affordable by even low-paid workers. Moreover, the game is EP-limited so players got limits for their grinding time in one phase of the month and need to save the EP for regular bi-weekly in-game activities such as Nightmare or Fear Extermination.

The rest of the previous weekend time had been spent by Velocity and Vestalia completing sidequests and separately promoting to Rank C as Cleric Class on Monday and Tuesday at their leisure. After that, Velocity taught Vestalia about the Auto-Pilot feature so that they could automatically grind for a few hours each day Wednesday through Friday to level up their characters. Aria himself wondered if girls like Aulia were allowed to buy game vouchers by their parents, but it didn't seem to matter to the girl. It's possible that Aulia is covering up how her money is spent just like him.

Aria had previously sent a message to Aulia to run the next field study with his two friends, Wing, and Rhinoceros. Rhinoceros himself volunteered to look for the subject, so he trusted his best friend to take care of the quests they would get.

Aria started the Seption game app and began logging in. After docking his Headphones, he waited for the Loading Time before controlling the blue Dragonoid Velocity's body on his monitor. He had to get used to being in his home every time he started playing the game, even though every time he left his home, Velocity would teleport to the last city he was in.

“G-Good evening, Mr. Velocity,” said Pyrus as he flew over to greet Velocity. He hurriedly placed his juice on a nearby table and flew over to his master who had woken up from bed.

“Good evening, Pyrus,” replied Velocity lightly. “I told you there was no need to be so formal. You can greet me even while drinking juice.”

“Y-Yes, sir. But I'm just trying to follow the protocol,” said Pyrus looking serious.

“Is there a penalty for being a little informal?” asked Velocity, inciting the little dragon. “Anyway, I'm not a grumpy, angry master. Remember that.”

Pyrus just nodded in reply, Velocity continued speaking. “Well, get me my Cleric uniform, and what's on the menu this evening?”

“Today it's Spore's job to cook the mushroom soup, the newest familiar you've recruited,” Pyrus replied smoothly.

“Oh my. A Mushroom is cooking mushrooms?” commented Velocity as he changed his clothes. Spore was indeed a mushroom-shaped monster that he could find in the Native Forest located outside the city of Erutan, the capital of the Fairy Tribe.

As he ate, a notification popped up from his Mobius. He guessed that Pendragon was once again sending him a welcome message accompanied by a different comment or advice every time he arrived in this virtual world. The messages were related to the activities he could do in the game. He usually just replied with lighthearted words such as okay, alright, or roger, and that was followed by another scolding sentence from Pendragon like a teacher. However, today the message he received was completely different and caught his attention.

Dear Velocity,

I saw your and Vestalia's names on the list of Saviors going on a field study to the city of Mjolnir tomorrow. Unfortunately, I was supposed to be the instructor and had to switch places with my friend due to scheduling conflicts. Don't worry, my friend Atroce is a reliable instructor when you need him, and make sure you don't play tricks on him like on me in the last field study.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I don't know if you have any special abilities when it comes to defeating Fear like Ifrit, but my advice is to avoid acting too risky in front of other Survivors.

Also, if you have some free time I'd like to play Clash with you again. I haven't accepted my defeat yet and maybe I'll challenge you to a game of Commander once you complete the sidequest to learn how to play.

Your guardian, Pendragon.

Velocity sighed. It was true that Pendragon had come out of the blue to challenge him when he'd managed to win against some Survivors in that sidequest. However, his victory was clearly by luck as he tied the score at the end of the game and the win-loss was determined by a card draw from the deck after the cards in the field were reset. Pendragon didn't seem to admit him either from losing the card minigame or the way he preempted actions that Pendragon probably should have taken during the first field study.

Velocity thought about the message. Was this instructor change part of the story? Why bother relaying the replacement instructor if Rhinoceros had already relayed the message of who the instructor was before he logged in to Seption's world? He didn't want to think any harder, so he switched to selecting the reply words on his monitor to Pendragon according to Thoughts' instructions. Surprisingly, Pendragon's reply also seemed to connect the message, not just an automated message. What kind of advanced technology could allow an AI to reply to a message with these details?

Velocity tried to forget all the speculations in his head and started out of the house towards the city of Dragavar. There weren't many activities for him to do other than buying and selling in the Market using the Mobius Terminal. This was one of those activities that many online gamers did, the Trading System. In the past, producing a lot of item drops and currency in the virtual world could make a business in the real world called RMT or Real Money Trading. Nowadays, such a business is severely restricted by the omitting of the player-to-player transaction system due to its unsavory history and even the perpetrators of such businesses interfere with the activities of players who are actually playing the game without wanting to do RMT like themselves, even if they want to do it once or twice.

Velocity began opening Mobius to check his equipment and stats.

Velocity Stats

Power : 1+3

Spirit : 5+3

Focus : 5+3

Tenacity : 18+3

Agility : 54+2

Creativity : 9+4

Wisdom : 5+3

Velocity Equipments

Main Equipment

Weapon : +7 Veteran Hammer [2]

Offhand : +4 Bradium Shield [1]

Armor : +4 Affection Robe [1]

Garment : +4 Wool Scarf [1]

Shoes : +4 Tidal Shoes [1]

Accessories R : +5 Necklace [1]

Accessories L : +5 Necklace [1]

Add-Ons

Headgear : +4 Corsair [1]

Face : +4 Elven Ears

Mouth : +4 Pipe

Backpack : +4 Slime Backpack

Doll : +4 Firebird

Mount : Alpaca

Familiar : Mermaid

Velocity carefully looked at what Items were acquired during Auto-Pilot and thought about their distribution. Some Items must not be sold as they could be used for furniture or equipment materials. He also needed to save up Sepilith because some rare items would have very high prices and uses. Moreover, some of the features he would unlock from the field study would drain his Sepilith even more, the game would teach him to manage money which he could take the application concept for the real world.

Aria looked at his digital clock, an hour flew by just his trading activities. His playing time would be cut short by prayer time. He could do Auto-Pilot again for another two hours while the rest of the night would be used for meals and laundry. He plans to go to bed early in the hope that he can wake up before dawn and be ready early to meet up with his online friends.

Two hours passed until he finished all his chores. Even though it was still eight o'clock at night, he was already getting ready for bed. It wasn't time to worry about his homework for Monday and his short story writing school for the following Friday. Before he went to bed, he planned to write something in his personal notebook. A special notebook separated from the notebooks of each school subject that served as a mixture of his diary and a book that became a tool to scribble down his thoughts or feelings. It was currently being used to clip information about his latest favorite game.

Since childhood, Aria has loved to write. To others, his scribbles might be hard to understand, but to him, it was the writing that he managed to get out of his head so that he could record his memories. This notebook was older than all his other notebooks for school. This was his second book that he had written since he entered middle school, while his first book with full pages was stored in one of his suitcases. He believed that these two books would definitely be useful traces in case something happened to him, regardless of whether his parents or his siblings would understand the meaning of his writings.

Tonight, he wrote down his opinions mostly about either his friends from school or from the game Seption. Strangely enough, he also wrote about fictitious characters like Pendragon and characters that appeared in the Great Demon Baphomet novels named Salvadore and Fensalir. He recorded all his hobbies from playing games, writing, and reading novels into a single notebook.

He reads his own writings while lying in bed and catches something interesting. Fensalir is a werewolf that Salvadore defeated and then recruited by him to be his right-hand man, the storyline continues with the process of the two of them recruiting other fighters and taking over a village renamed Azure Moon village with Salvadore as its leader. Fensalir has the power to transform into a huge monster that fights other monsters with the help of Salvadore who becomes a wizard handler to control Fensalir's body that previously raged wildly.

Each time it transforms, Fensalir will lose its clothes. Salvadore provides a description from the novel's point of view that Fensalir's body has several incision scars and burns from his chest to his back, thus Fensalir is nicknamed the Wounded Beast.

Aria concluded that there were similarities between Fensalir and Pendragon. However, he couldn't confirm his theory unless he could force to open Pendragon's Mechanic Class uniform in the Seption game, which was unlikely to happen. Is this a coincidence? Considering the Seption game is set in Japan, it feels too similar to the setting of this novel. If Salvadore was previously a human who suddenly woke up from his sleep and became a black goat in a foreign world, did Salvadore have the same status as a Savior for the world he entered?

He was fantasizing too much. The most plausible thing is that the writer Masaru Shiba was also involved in the development of the game Seption so the setting of the story is similar. If that's the case, the other world Salvadore entered was a virtual world? It's very possible that Planet Nexon in the novel is a virtual world, because the heroine—the main female character of the novel named Stelia gives clues from her point of view, especially since she borrowed the body of a dead Elven creature on planet Nexon.

He closed his personal notebook and began to skim through Baphomet's novel again. He finished a chapter with the story of when a princess of the Lazuardi kingdom named Lazuli asked Salvadore for help to take her away from the kingdom under the pretext of kidnapping. When it was nine o'clock in the night, he closed the novel and turned off his bedroom light. Within minutes he was fast asleep.