“...Well that was stupid.” Simon climbed out of his game pod and stretched out his body. The last thing he remembered was taking a step into the library, and then a strong glow appeared underneath his feet. After that everything went white, and a notice appeared saying that he died. “That was my fault for being careless though… Oh well. I guess I’ll catch up on some other stuff while I’m out of the game.” Simon left his living room to grab a quick snack and he turned on the T.V to the News channel.
“...and now to our main story. Today we were able to get an exclusive interview with Adam Eviss, the owner of the Dimen company, and asked him a few questions pertaining to the game, True World Online.” The screen then switched over to a camera that was focused on an interviewer and a tall man with sharp features.
“It’s nice to formally meet you, Mister Eviss. Now, I hope you don’t mind answering a few questions that the people have been dying to know the answers to.”
“Haha, please, call me Adam. Also feel free to ask any questions you wish.” Adam’s voice was a rich baritone that had the strange effect of causing a person to tense up.
I see the old man is as healthy as ever… Simon thought while he ate his food.
“Okay Adam. So here is our first question: What are your thoughts on players killing each other in the game? Many have questioned the ethics and morals of such an act, and some concerned individuals are saying this might lead to increased cases of violence.”
“Why is players killing each other odd?” The interviewer was temporarily stunned by his counter-question, and seeing this caused Adam to laugh. “This has always been a thing in video games. Players killing each other is nothing new.”
“...While that is true, there is the whole new concept of players physically attacking each other, whereas before it was nothing more than a few button presses.”
“Hah! So just because the medium changes it gives an entirely different meaning?” Adam shook his head. “It’s the same as it always has been. Players fight, players die. Since there are no negative repercussions like actually killing them in real life, it’s fine isn’t it?”
“I see. Well since those are your thoughts on the matter, let’s move onto the next question…”
Hm. The old man does have a point. Simon remembered the time when he was killing other players. I didn’t actually ever feel bad or disgusted by ‘killing’ someone. I wonder why that is. Was it the absence of blood? The fact that it’s not actually ‘real’? Or is it something else…
Simon’s thoughts were interrupted as the interviewer continued speaking. “The second question concerns the health and safety of players while playing the game. While you do have warnings placed for players playing for too long, many of them ignore this and continue playing to the point where they get sick or worse. Do you have anything to remedy this situation?”
“As a matter of fact we do. Within a few days all game pods will have their software updated so that players will be forcibly logged out if they continue playing for eight hours consecutively. If they do this, they’ll be locked out of the game for at least an hour before being let back in. Of course, someone could log out before the eight hours is up and then log in again, but that’s the player’s decision to neglect their health.”
“Is that the only thing you have planned?”
“No. We do have other countermeasures in the works, but none of them are ready for public use yet. All we can do for now is discourage players from playing for too long, but it’s ultimately up to them to take care of their health. After all, if a player became sick and couldn’t play the game, that’s their fault.”
“Okay, onto our third question. Can we get any details on the creation of TWO? Since your company announced it so suddenly, many people have been trying to investigate the origins of the game but no one has come back with any definitive information.”
“Haha, you’ll have to forgive us for protecting our secrets like that. But now that the game is out, I see no harm in sharing the origins of the game. It all started about 10 years ago, when I met a brilliant young boy who shared with me a world of possibilities. As for what he’s doing right now I can’t say since it’d go against our agreement, but i’m sure he’s living well right now.” Adam turned to the camera and winked.
That wink would be super awkward if I wasn’t watching this… Actually, even with me watching this it was still super awkward. Simon frowned a little but continued to watch the news.
“This next question is a little personal, but is there any news regarding your daughter, Sophie? One of the few pieces of information that was leaked claims that she was the one responsible for the creation of the game pods.”
“Yes, little Sophie did make the game pods, with a bit of help of course. As for what she's doing right now, she's working on a big project so she won't make a public appearance for a while.”
Is that what she's doing right now? Working on something? Even if she is, she could at least respond to my messages… Simon sulked for a moment before returning his attention to the T.V.
“Okay, for our final question, what advice do you have for the players, both in game now and in the future?”
“Let’s see… I would say not to treat it as a game to be cleared, but as a brand new experience instead. Some players might believe that getting high stats or gear will grant them victory, but this game isn’t that simple. I encourage players to explore new possibilities and keep their minds open to anything that happens. My final piece of advice to players is that, no matter what… enjoy yourselves!”
“Thank you very much Adam, for giving us this opportunity to ask questions. We look forward to hearing from you again.”
“Of course.” Adam gave one last smile before the screen returned to the regular news, and Simon began idly flipping through the channels.
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*Click*
With nothing else interesting on T.V, Simon turned it off and was about to wash dishes when his phone rang.Looking at the screen, he noticed that he had over 50 missed messages and calls! “Now who could that be?” Simon answered the phone and was treated to an ear-splitting yell.
“FINALLY! I'VE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU FOREVER!!!”
“...Thank you for destroying my ears.” Simon finally responded after recovering his hearing.
“Who cares about that? Simon, we have a serious problem here!” The voice on the other side sounded desperate.
“What’s wrong?” Simon recognized the voice as his friend Eric. They had first met in elementary school and stuck together until the accident happened. For a while Eric was unable to contact Simon, but their friendship was still strong after many years. “Is it something that even Cin can’t handle?” Simon continued after a brief pause.
“It’s even worse! When can you get here?”
Simon could start making out the sounds of blaring alarms and someone yelling on the other side. “I can get there in an hour or so.” He replied after checking the time.
“Can’t you get here any faster?”
“Tell that to public transit.”
“... I’ll pick you up.”
*****
After a few minutes after the phone call, Simon heard the sound of a loud engine and looked outside to see a fancy car pull up to his driveway. The driver door was flung open and a young man with neat red hair got out and ran to the doorway. Just as he was about to begin rapidly pressing the doorbell, Simon opened up the door and said, “Hey Eric. How have things been?”
“Hey?! That’s all you have to say?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“Oh, I don’t know… how about, ‘Hi Eric, sorry for abandoning you for a week just so I can play a game.’”
Simon rolled his eyes at his friend’s antics. “Well are you going to drive us there or what? We’re wasting time here aren’t we?”
Eric’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly as he tried to come up with something to say, but eventually he gave up and walked back to the car without a sound. With a grin, Simon followed him into the car and they took off at high speeds.
“Isn’t this a little too fast?” Simon was gripping the edge of his seat as he noticed that they were going 30 over the speed limit.
“The sooner this problem is solved, the better.” Eric said with a grave tone of voice. It was at this moment that Simon noticed bags under his eyes, so he decided not to question it anymore and sunk back in his seat. In no time they reached a large building with the words ‘Dimen Corp.’ written on it.
Eric practically jumped out of the car and began pushing Simon towards the entrance of the building. The receptionist at the front recognized the two of them and let them pass after Eric flashed a card. The two guys made their way to an elevator and took it all the way down to the bottom floor. From there they went through a few familiar twists and turns and eventually ended up standing in front of an opaque sliding door.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Prepare yourself Simon.” Eric approached a panel beside the door and pressed a few buttons. The instant the door slid open, Simon was treated to the sound of a blaring alarm and people yelling at each other. While Simon stood there clutching his ears, the people inside the room instantly locked onto him and began begging to him.
“Simon, you’re back! You need to stop her!”
“We can’t work in this kind of environment! And she’s only making the problem worse!”
“...What the hell is actually going on?” Simon pushed past the others and made his way to the center of the room. What he found was a large screen flashing with warning symbols, and a small girl sitting with her back turned in the center of the screen. “Cinnamon! CINNAMON! Turn off the alarms!”
Upon hearing Simon’s voice, the girl on the screen instantly stood up and all the alarms stopped ringing. As soon as the alarms turned off all of the other people in the room let out a sigh of relief and collapsed to the floor. Cries of “It’s over, it’s finally over!” and “Sleep… I can sleep…” were heard all around.
After watching these people for a few seconds, Simon redirected his attention to the large screen. The girl’s face completely filled up the entire thing as she stared directly at Simon. This girl was an entity known as C.I.N.M, or her official name, Complex Integrated Network Manager. Most of the people who knew her though called her Cinnamon, or Cin for short. “Simon onii-chan, you’re back!” She said with an elated voice.
“...” Simon turned over to Eric and asked, “Did you teach her that?”
“That’s not a question I’m at liberty to answer…”
“*sigh* Cin, just call me Simon like usual. Anyway, what’s wrong?”
“Aww.” Cinnamon looked a little disappointed and let out a sigh, but then became serious as she began explaining the situation. “In the past 24 hours, there have been a total of 46 hackers trying to get into my systems. Though most are within this country, a few are outside. I expect to pinpoint their location and begin counter-hacking in 3 hours or so, but my overall processing speed will be reduced by a total of 0.03 seconds at that time.”
(A/N: Disclaimer, I know nothing about hacking.)
“It’s not too serious then.” Simon seemed unfazed by the amount of people trying to simultaneously hack into Cin’s systems. “Why haven’t you already gotten rid of them? You have the capability to do so.”
“Of course because I was waiting for you to come here!” Cinnamon smiled innocently.
“...Really?”
“Really! You haven’t talked to me in a week! Do you know how lonely I get here?” Cinnamon gestured at the empty space around her.
“Aren’t there the other employees though?” Simon gestured at the people collapsed on the ground.
“Yeah but… I like talking with you more!” She flashed a brilliant smile.
“Hahaha. Alright, let’s get rid of these hackers then, shall we?” As Simon went up to the main console, some of the other employees began to recover and walked off to do various things. A few of them returned to their computers while others left the room and returned with snacks and beverages. Eventually once all the employees were settled, a comfortable silence came over the room and all that was heard was the tapping sound of fingers on keyboards.
Simon took a quick glance at Cinnamon (who was sitting down and staring at Simon) and thought about her (almost) unhealthy obsession with him. While Cinnamon would interact normally with the other employees (or at least as normal as an interaction with an A.I. can get), it would always be subjects about business or work. Simon was the only person she talked with about other kinds of subjects, and the only way the other employees could get her to change a subject was to talk about Simon first.
After a minute of silence, Simon spoke up. “So, did she turn on the alarms and spam warnings the entire time until I got here?”
“Yup.” Eric replied while staring at a computer screen. “I mean, she was already starting to get angsty since you hadn’t come by for almost a week, so I think the hackers was just an excuse to make us drag you over here.” He gave Cinnamon an accusing look. Faced with his eyes, Cinnamon simply looked away and whistled an inconspicuous tune.
“Jeez Cin, you didn’t have to go that far to make me come here.”
“Of course I do! You told me beforehand just before you started playing TWO that I shouldn’t call you over if there isn’t an emergency. Well now there’s an emergency, and you’re here. By the way, how’s TWO?”
“Shouldn’t you know about stuff happening in TWO already? I mean you have access to the internet, not to mention you’re the one managing the worldwide server.”
“Yes, but I want to know what you’ve been doing.”
“Haa…” Simon let out a sigh and mentally prepared himself for a reiteration of his adventures in TWO, as he knew that Cinnamon wouldn’t let him go until he said everything. Simon began recounting his experiences, starting from the tutorial. Once he began speaking, the room somehow became even more quiet as all the employees were straining their ears to listen to Simon talk. After all, quite a lot of them hadn’t been able to get a game pod, and those that did still had to work so they didn’t have a lot of time to play.
At first everyone was very impressed when they heard that Simon had taken down Wolfy, then became shocked when they heard about him taking down a boss that was 15 levels above him. Simon didn’t stop there though, as he continued to talk about the absurd things that happened while he was playing. He talked about the Crios Blades and the Gemstone Caverns, the event battle, and Sir Albert’s crew and the rematch with Wolfy. The entire room was completely dumbfounded hearing Simon’s tale, as the things he had done and accomplished were just insane.
At this point though, Simon stopped and asked Cinnamon a question. “Hey Cinnamon, why did Wolfy respawn? That and he got tougher too…”
“Oh, that’s because certain monsters have a very strong will - think of it as a soul, if you ‘will’ - , so once they die their will lives on. Then the ambient mana gathers around the will and reforms their body into a stronger form in order to fulfill their wishes.”
“The actual reason?”
“We were lazy and re-used enemy A.I, then gave it an upgrade.”
“HAH!” Simon laughed just as he finished typing in commands on the keyboard and hit enter. “...Aaaand done. Those hackers will be getting a nasty surprise in a few seconds.” He wore an evil grin on his face as he imagined the hackers trying to deal with the countermeasures he had deployed. Then returning his gaze to Cinnamon he added, “By the way, I met Cim when I was creating my character.”
“You met big sis? That’s not fair! You have time to talk to her and not me?” Cinnamon pouted and turned around.
“Well it’s not like she recognized me anyway… Oh yeah, Eric, how far are you in the game?”
“I… uh…” Eric was struggling to recover from hearing Simon’s story. “I’m a level 19 Halfling Thief. I chose the town of Melvan as my starting point, so it’ll be a while until I get to a capital city.”
“Alright, add me when you get the chance. My name in game is Q, by the way.”
“Hey hey, can I join you guys as well?” Cinnamon suddenly jumped into the conversation.
Every single employee in the area exchanged glances. Was allowing an A.I to play the game alright? For a short moment, they were all internally debating with themselves about the consequences of allowing Cinnamon into the game. In the end Simon instantly answered her question by saying, “Sure, why not?”
“Yay! I get to join Simon!” Cinnamon was jumping around in celebration.
“Even if you do play the game, you’re not allowed to cheat okay? You need to create an avatar from scratch, and have to limit your abilities to that of what an average human is capable of. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise…” Simon began lecturing her like a parent would for their daughter.
“Okay~.” Cinnamon smiled and agreed to those conditions. The young man and A.I locked eyes, and then began laughing in sync with each other.
“Oh god, I have a really bad feeling about this…” Eric muttered as he watched the two continue to laugh.
----------------------------------------
Hold on a second, exposition and backstory in True World Online? What is happening to this fiction!??!?!?
Well yeah, it's slightly deeper than what one might previously have assumed. There has been slight foreshadowing to this stuff, as in, things that were briefly mentioned in earlier chapters (like chapter 1). That aside though, I hope you enjoyed this chapter as it thickens the plot... (whatever little plot this story has).
Btw, T-minus two chapters until the official appearance of another character... I'm hyped.
Fun-fact: I've temporarily run out of fun facts.
P.S: Cinnamon sure does have the potential to be a super yandere...