Chapter 1: Kris
Eating the favourite meal, his mom's selfmade burger which somehow manages to both taste extremely good and be healthy consisting of mostly vegetables and fruits, and happily chatting with his family this day started just like every other day.
It is as if his life is the perfect one, some bad things always happen but nothing really noteworthy has happened yet. Considering his luck to have such a great normal life he can just enjoy his time with his family and friends.
Going to school like on every other day he was greeted by Fabian and Pierre as always and of course their topics in convesations are games, as always. The three of them started playing another new game a few weeks ago, an MMORPG in a science fiction setting evolving around aliens invading the earth and humans 2 colonies, moon and mars.
It may seem to be a typical setting but the game has some serious thoughts behind it and the setting is not to be underestimated. Kris is a bit behind the other 2 though because he just couldnt decide on what route to go down with his character which is after many hours of fruitless attempts to get the perfect name, Kr1st.
Although the name was supposed to look cool with the idea of combining his name Kris with 1st so that if he manages to complete something nobody else can do he can say 'my name already says I'm the first' but somehow it ended up being regarded as someone really religious which doesn't exactly fit his nature.
This game, Arcus Nova, has some kind of unique story but at the moment it is just one more game that they played together, always trying to get a guild, clan or something similar going with the name DaKingz, one more example of their pefect naming sense when they started gaming.
Being 15 years old their little group has already managed to achieve some major goals for their age. In one of the less known RPG games with some kind of setting in the greek era they managed to become one of the top 10 groups clearing most of the games even though they are such a little group.
But for Kris this is nothing too serious as he just enjoys spending time with all his friends together, completing extremely difficult quests is nothing he thinks about, his train of thought goes into the direction 'This is another thing we managed to complete together'.
"Hey Kris, have you checked the Weapon shop yesterday after the weekly reset? There's an electricty saber in there! I can't do anything with it but I know it's always ur favourite choice fighting to go into melee range ... although it's complettely stupid here." (Fabian)
Arcus Nova's shop system is nothing unique. There are general shops like a weapon shop, potion shop, Equipment shop etc. In every big city and around some of the huge dungeons.
"Yeah, guess who doesn't have any money at all left for the next weeks? I bet that person did buy something other people would call a stupid investment and forgot to leave some money for important things like better armour or potions. That person must be really stupid to go along that way" (Kris)
"You really did do that, right? I don't know why we even bother playing with such a noob, haha."(Pierre)
"Well he must be really religious to do such a thing, although praying for money won't help you out this time even with your name!" (Fabian)
Although they tell Kris everytime he goes along with a melee route in a more future setting that he will fail horribly and they will leave him behind that never happened, atleast the leaving behind. I mean everybody fails sometimes, right?
"Well it's still better than your name, right 'I_own_trolls'. I mean its always nice to have some beautiful trolls for everyone but isn't it bad to exclaim it like that? Other people might get jealous and fight you." (Kris)
The first game they played was some years ago when they all haven't mastered their English and it was a little game where you have to save humanity from a troll invasion. Really simple game. They all didn't chose the best name, even Pierre with his 'RoastEmToast' had an incredibly bad moment of creating several characters and then deleting them because he did not like the name and then settling on this one. He still claims to have been controlled by a higher force that wanted to give other people a bad impression of him.
Since they all ended up having some kind of bad name nobody wanted to admit defeat and change their name. So in a mutual, silent and manly agreement they are still challenging each other and the first to change his name will lose his honour. In the end everyone of them kept their names and ended up going by that name in every future game too.
"So today's the time to get that secret dungeon down? Can't wait to get all those credits to buy me a Low Arcus Armour of Darkness. I mean the evasion rate it gives is already cool but being able to sneak without being noticed... I will become a fucking assasin this time!" (Pierre)
The dungeons in this game are something that really sets this game apart from other games. Instead of going having a fixed location these change their locations every few days, some even every hour and are all kinda different.
The secret dungeon they found this time is a little spaceship of the Invaders (that naming sense for aliens though) that had a crash landing and is in the middle of being repaired. Only because it is inside of a jungle nobody else seems to have noticed it as of yet.
If not for Kris' special way of playing they wouldn't have noticed it neither. Instead of just going along the route layed out as a main storyline as most people do or just randomly going around the open world Kris always try to understand the concepts behind the world. One of his hobbies is trying to find loopholes in those games backstories or NPC's .
Through observing and searching everytime they entered a dungeon such as a spaceship or a hidden base of the Invaders, he managed to find a secret function of the game. Hacking, it is not that hard once you found the secrets in those ships computers and after interacting with them, it allows him to locate the Invader's troups withing his radius which constantly grows as his level in hacking does, once a day roughly.
So once they walked around as always they intercepted this signal in the jungle with nothing except some ressources nobody wants to farm in it.
Although the game in itself and the backstory are all nice Kris already had a problem with all the weapons and most advanced items as they just complettely ignored the physical laws and just like in many science fiction games for example laser pistols are one of the common things.
"Yeah let's get that ship, maybe we would even be able to claim the ship right? I mean a base that can move with us would be kinda cool right? And we still have to top our Snowhouse base from last time!" (Fabian)
The last game they played was actually placed in a Nordic setting and they noticed that with a special item you could farm snow, refine it to snowblocks and then build a base with those blocks instead of stones in the freebuild function within a guilds base.
After school ended they all quickly left and within an hour greeted themselves via voice chat again to get the dungeon done.
The dungeon in itself is not that interesting and through their coordination and tactics, letting Kris scout and take out enemies melee, having Fabian as backup and snipe those that would be impossible to reach and Pierre doing his own thing, seemingly sneaking around uselessly while somehow having just as many kills as the other 2, they quickly cleaned the outside because most Invaders were distracted repairing the ship.
Not long after moving in Kris heard someone approach his room and quickly said.
"Edward not this time. I'm in the middle of an important quest, tell Mom or Dad or both of them that whatever it is they want I really cannot come at the moment. It will have to wait for later!"(Kris)
Although for people who don't know about it they may not suspect it but Kris family is actually really rich and they even had a buttler, Edward, to help them in their house. His parents would often send Edward to get Kris for lunch or whenever they want to talk to him about something.
"..."
Not noticing that Edward doesn't even answer Kris full concentration was once again on clearing the dungeon with his guys.
A moment later the door to his door opened and just as Kris wanted to turn around after being in a save area after some more kills in one of the storage rooms of the spaceship he felt something pierce his chest on the left side intending to pierce his heart.
After a short scream his sight became darker and he lost his consciousness
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'Is this really how it ends? Being killed while playing a new game...'
...
...
Fabian and Pierre hearing the scream first thought it would be some kind of bad joke on Kris side but after some minutes only hearing his ingame sounds but nothing else they became worried and called him first on his phone, not receiving an answer, then his parents and sister, also not receiving an answer although they usually always have their phones with them, they called the police then as their worries increased.
Half an hour later Kris neighbours could see an ambulance driving to the hospital and several corpses being handled by the police. Somebody broke into their house and started killing the inhabitants.
After some investigations the curlprint was found. The houses own buttler went on a killing spree and took all the money from their safe to escape but was caught driving too fast on the highway while behaving suspicious after the police came to charge him for driving too fast.
Only one person survived and that is a real miracle. The police seeing that Kris still lived with a sharpened metalpipe through his chest couldn't believe their eyes but later on the doctors found out that he has a incredibly rare condition, called Situs inversus.
All his major organs are mirrored from their normal positions so it wasnt his hearth that was pierced and with the pipe still in his body he somehow survived after being in the hospital for months and undergoing operations after operations to save his lungs and his life.
If Edward had pulled the pipe out of Kris body he would've died there.
...
After being in the hospital for half a year in a comatous state Kris finally awoke and couldn't comprehend what exactly happened and why he was where he is.
"Oh you are finally awake! Fabian come here Kris woke up!"(Pierre)
"Man we thought you were hone, nice to see you up again. You should've seen you. It must've been god that saved you seeing how you are always a religious Kr1st!"(Fabian)
Both Pierre and Fabian had tears in their eyes as after half a year they nearly lost hope to see Kris wake up ever again. The doctors told them that his chances would be around 10% to survive and were slowly starting to discuss if just letting him die would not be the better alternative.
"We told them our Kris would never just lay around here sleeping all day long, they wouldn't trust us that you a fighter in your heart. We still have to get to the top with DaKingz after all right? Hahahaha"(Fabian)
Still not understanding a word they told him Kris tried to get up but noticed that he can't. But not because he was bound or something else but because he felt incredibly weak and it was even hard to move his head to look at his friends.
After some days in the hospital and being told everything from his friends and the nurses the police came to ask him about a possible motive of Edward and to end their investigations. At that time Edward was already in the prison for a lifetime.
"I never thought that Edward would do anything to us. He was like a big brother to me, I spent my whole life growing up with him being there if my parents were out. What happened to this gentle loving man that he ended up ... murder... in....g......"(Kris)
Only now fully understanding what it meant he broke down in tears. He will never see his family again and the sadness just overwhelmed him now that he had to speak about it. Still crying as the police silently left his room Kris cried himself to sleep.
'Why would he do this? WHY EDWARD, WHY? ... why ... why'
A few months later the police finally ended their investigations and got Edward to tell them his motive. He said that from the beginning on he only worked for them because the pay was good and he had a secure spot. But as his family became poorer the money he earned was not enough and eveytime someone of Kris family bought new things he felt a deep hatred building up in his heart. Just the week before he murdered them his family died being witness to some deal a rich family made after they were employed as cheap workers there. Setting Kris family to the same level as the other rich arrogant family he let his hate out and did what he did.
'Just why Edward? DAMN, why didnt you tell us your misery... you were part of our family... you were my brother... after all.... DAMN'
Now Kris was released from the hospital but where could he go? He had no more family and no aunts or something similar. His friends wanted to get their parents to let him stay but due to him not being an adult yet he was brough to an orphanage and then to another family whose duty is to let him rebuild his relationship to parental figures but all he did was close himself out from them.
Once he started to attend school again Fabian and Pierre instantly rushed to him.
"Hey what's up? You're finally up again for another round of enduring this endless pain called school?" (Fabian)
"Hey Kris, how are you?" (Pierre)
"Hello, I'm fine, thanks" (Kris)
Being even more concerned now that they actually noticed Kris moody atmosphere for the time being they just try to cheer him up and hope that in due time he is once again his cheerful self of before.
Just a few weeks later Kris new family moved away to the other side of the country and he still not paying attention to anything in particular didn't even say goodbye to his friends. They had to receive the news from their teacher and several attempts to get into connection with Kris all ended up not working so after a few months they were forced to stop and move on with the feeling of having lost something in the progress.
On the other side of the country Kris was still blaming himself for the things that happened.
'Edward... this is all my fault. How couldn't I see that he was in vain?... I should've stopped him, or helped him or ... Atleast notice it and solve the situation! DAMN!!!
On the other side of the county there is a new student in one of the local schools. He is 16 years old and his name is Kris. The kids in his new class think that he is kinda weird because he never engages a conversation and always seems to be absentminded.
Since he is already a new student they just let him be after the first few weeks and accept that nothing is different to before except his existence in class.
Nearly 1 years go by like this with his class occasionally trying to integrate him every 1 or 2 months. During this time at first Kris just didn't pay attention to anything else and tryed to sort through his thoughts and was occupied with his growing depressions because he blamed himself to be the reason why his whole family died.
After this first year passed his thoughts started to become more straightforward again and he accepts that he couldn't have done anything about it after searching through his memories for all the time to find some place where he could have noticed Edwards behaviour or stopped him somehow but there just was no such time so after all this time he could finally accept that the whole situation was not his fault and start paying attention to everything else again.
The next week he sorted through his thought he approached his new family and wanted to say sorry about all the time he just behaved as if they weren't even there with the plan to do some homework things or something else, maybe cooking, for the family so he could integrate somehow and start a new part of hsi life.
In school something happened that was already thought to be impossible by most people, the guy named Kris approached someone and started to talk a bit with the classmembers. Although he never really told them the reason why his behaviour changed like this or his backstory in general after some weeks Kris felt like he finally arrived in his new class, feeling sad about how he treated his friends before he moved.
He moved away just like that and didn't even speak with them about anything at all. Feeling a deep shame about this all he didn'd dare to speak with them at all even though the contacts of them are still saved somewhere and if not finding the contacts of people is not an impossible task if you know where they live.
The people he now calls his friends really remind him of old crew because just like them they love to play games and after some months of hesistation soon in a brand new MMORPG a character named Kr1st was created.
With his new family it was harder to get some free time to play though. Once he tried to help some more it was like very task that all around the house was dumped onto Kris. His nice behaviour was used as a cheap workforce especially once the garden didn't seem to be nice enough anymore and had to be complettely renewed.
After some time and trying to talk with them the only conclusion was that the only reason why they had accepted Kris was because of the money the government gave them to support him and the first year was just perfect for them because it was like still living alone but receiving more money for it.
So even though Kris found some people in class he called friends he never really opened up to them and told them about his past or showed his real personality. For them he was just a nice guy who always behaves nice and tries to help where he can but somehow is weird because they never got an explanation for his ehavior the first year and nobody knew anything about his time before moving there.
Finishing the school a year later Kris was forced to move out of his new families house because they were no longer obliged to care for him and without any other contacts in the surrounding cities because the friendship with his classmates just didn't hold anymore after school ended.
The only thing for him to do while searching for a job was trying to find some hobby and in the end he started to play games more and more and involved himself into light novels and fanfictions based around virtual reality just because with VR there would be soo many more possibilities of MMORPG worlds.
To follow his only real hobby and per chance finding a university that just now started a field of study in informatics and mechanics of virtual reality the next thing he did was trying to attend this university and follow the one hobby that was left to him... Gaming.
Just that year the company Prion technologies who already enlightened the world with a viable virtual reality capsule a few years prior ,and have been working in silence ever since then, did what nobody expected.
They announced that they are working on a VRMMORPG game called 'Sui Generis' and in a few years it is gonna be released. Most people were confused at first because Prion technologies, even though they were one of the biggest companies in the world, did not have a single product that indicated them working on a game ever in the future.
After the first shock some people just decided to ignore that announcement but for every gamer around the world a pure joy could be seen on their faces in the next weeks. One of these people is Kris although hiding those emotions is his forte.
For half a year he followed every single article that was made about 'Sui Generis' and then Kris was sure that the game is really gonna come out and be great so a decision was made at that point.
For the next years besides studying of course (nothing is more important than a good education and possibilities for the future, not even gaming) a clear routine established in his daily life. He would train in various martial arts a few days every week and recap about every MMORPG he played and got some more extra materials to study (more games...).
The one set goal of his was to find the secrets in the games settings as he has always subconsciously done before but this time Kris is gonna be prepared for everything.
After a short period of time after an article it was already known that the world is gonna be a fantasy-like one. So after some weeks he started to write down various theories that could help him gather knowledge down in a notebook. Theories about how magic might work, the impact of stats and various other things.
Thus a new stage of his life started that starts with information gathering and training for a new game and then planning to involve himself into it soo much that he can forget about all the worries he has and just be happy playing the game.