"I'm sorry… But given the current state of the company…"

"No, no… You don't need to explain to me, boss. Have you forgotten? I'm the one doing all the sales reports so I know how badly we're doing."

"I… I truly am sorry. And I thank you for your years of service."

I gave my boss another wave before making another gesture with my other hand, shutting down the video feed in front of me.

Great… Not that I wasn't expecting it, but it seems like even my position as the Head of Sales was not enough to save me from the dreaded retrenchment…

Ten years of working at this company and everything was lost just like this… At least I no longer need to do the dreaded walk out of the office with a box in my hands in this day and age anymore…

With the video cut out, I was now left alone in complete darkness.

I reached my hand to the side and pressed a button, causing the sound of gas escaping to hiss from the side before a panel in front of me opened up to reveal my study room.

My hands reached up and took off the headset on top of my head before I stepped out into my study room to look back at the thing I just exited.

The VR Capsule, the latest machine in the VR market that has pretty much become synonymous with daily life since its introduction. Not only was it booming in the entertainment sector but even in the business sector as well with how convenient it was.

With this machine, you could hold in person meetings without being there physically and you could even simulate an office space where your employees could come to work while their physical bodies were at home, cutting down travel time.

The entertainment industry also boomed with its existence with multitudes of various entertainment options popping up including games, movies and of course, porn. Especially when you are able to simulate basic senses while in the capsule as well, there is almost no reason not to use them if you can afford it.

As such, these machines were quite widespread all around the world and pretty much everyone uses them.

Of course that also led to some societal problems where people end up wanting to live in these VR Capsules in a simulated world rather than the real world but that's none of my business.

Right now, I just got laid off and I'm staring at my VR Capsule in relatively low spirits.

I still have quite a bit of savings so even if I were to be without work for a few months I should still be fine, it's just the prospect of needing to job hunt again that I was annoyed with.

Anyway, it's not like I have anyone else but myself to take care of in the first place so it's not that big of a deal.

I don't even know if I could still find a job that's on the same level as my previous one in the current market either…

Fuck it… This can be future me's problem… For now, I've found myself suddenly devoid of anything to do for the rest of the day.

I was just about to leave the room when I heard a notification ping from the VR Capsule.

Oh? Maybe some company heard about the layoffs from mine and offered me another job?

Yeah right, there's no way that's possible.

Still curious, I went back into the machine and tapped on the screen at the side of the seat, bringing up the notifications screen.

'New update for Galactic Conquest!'

Galactic Conquest, one of the most popular VR games in the market right now.

It's an online game that simulates an entire galaxy where players can explore a future where humanity has already achieved faster than light travel and even colonised multiple planets.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

The details put into the game was mind boggling and players had the freedom to do whatever they wanted within the game.

Although the price for that freedom was the fact that other players you find in the game could also do whatever they wanted to you and that included robbing and killing your character.

There's a lot of opportunities but it's also quite an unforgiving place if you ask me.

But that's also why they had released a single player version of the game as well.

The single player version allows the usage of mods to alter the game to your liking but of course it comes with the caveat of it being limited to only one player in the game.

It's also no secret that the developers sometimes take ideas from player made content on these mods to be used in the official multiplayer games as well.

Is it scummy? Maybe. But hey, I'm just here to play the game.

As for me, I do own the single player version but I do play the official servers for the PvP aspects of the game from time to time.

Seeing that I have the entire day free now… Why not just indulge myself a little bit?

I sat back down on the chair inside the Capsule and tapped on the screen, bringing up the browser that would open up to the game's modding site to look for new mods.

I quickly went through the list of mods, marking the ones I was interested in to be loaded into my game.

Better boobs and butt physics… Increased body sliders… Schlongs of Conquest… The Dyneera Experience… Oh? What's this?

I tapped on the last mod on the screen to open the description page, reading through it briefly to realise that it was a complete overhaul mod.

According to the mod author, this mod 'completely overhauls the game and makes it even more realistic and better in every way'?

Hmm… It doesn't say exactly what it does and they did not post screenshots either…

They did, however, mention that a new game has to be made for this mod to work.

Nothing unusual since that's usually the case for mods like these.

The good thing about it was that it claimed to be largely compatible with all the existing mods so far so there was no need to uninstall any other mods.

I felt that it was unfortunate that I would have to be giving up on my other playthrough which I have already spent close to eight hundred hours on, but I thought that I could just try this mod out on a new save. If I decide it was not interesting enough, I'll just uninstall it and pop back over to my old save.

With the mods installed, I activated the VR Capsule and the door closed with a hiss while I put on the headset.

The machine whirred to life and the darkness around me gradually lit up to reveal the start screen of the game.

Double checking that the mods were loaded, I then selected the new game option and I was directed to the character creation screen.

One great function was that this game allowed the saving of preset characters so I've already done that hour long character customisation when I first started the game. All I need to do now is to just load up the preset and I could see the character I had painstakingly created appear in front of me.

I only spent a minute or two doing a few minor adjustments to my features before I went on to customise my character traits.

Pick these perks here, these traits there and then these backgrounds that I know would make this build either overpowered or more fun to play.

Hmm? There's some traits and perks I do not recognise?

I guess these must be some of the new things the overhaul mod has added in.

I looked at the descriptions of these new options and I couldn't help but feel the mod author did this part half heartedly.

These options would usually have a flavour text before specifying what the trait does in the game.

Example, for the 'Sharpshooter' trait in the base game, the flavour text would say 'After countless hours practising with the gun, you have an almost superhuman knack of landing your shots'.

Beside that would be the game effect of the trait, 'When holding your breath while aiming down sights, slow down time by fifty percent'.

Yet I see a number of these traits that have flavour texts but the game effects column was left completely empty.

There's a trait I found called 'Super Adaptive Body' with the description being 'Your body is super adaptive to changes'.

What the heck is that supposed to mean?

And what even is 'Super Immunity'? The flavour text is even less specific with 'You are super immune'. Super immune to what? I know there's debuffs in the game like being poisoned but is it really just that? Or is it something else? Why can't you just explain here instead of leaving people guessing?

I get that you might want to make it seem mysterious but ambiguity isn't going to do anyone any favours here damn it!

I'm definitely leaving a comment on the mod page to point this problem out later.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just pick a couple of these new character traits and perks on top of my usual choices just to test them out.

With my character complete, I waved my hand over the button to complete my character and my point of view switched to the character I just created.

There were a few final adjustments to be made where the game calibrated me to the character and finally I was able to click the button to start the game.

I prepared myself to be transported into the game but… Nothing happened.

I tapped the button a few more times and I quickly realised that the game was frozen.

Damnit… Did the game crash? I know I have a few hundred mods installed but it has been working fine so far… Must be one of the new mods I downloaded.

Ugh… Probably a mod compatibility issue with this overhaul mod then… That means I now need to go back out and test which is the incompatible mod to--

A sudden pain wrecked through my head and my vision went black with pain.

The last thing I remember was falling down and something soft hitting my face.