Key:

( ) = Speaker/Side notes

{ } = POV

[ ] = Titles

Note: There are differences between the history of this world and our own, so just because I’ve mentioned something that happened in our history(ie Great War), the specifics of said war may differ.

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Location: Tokyo, Japan

{Rex Yamamoto}

Date: 0 days since Merge

Today marked one of the greatest changes to face our world. This morning, I got out of bed thinking that it would be your average, ordinary day. Well, who wouldn't have? Who in their right mind would've predicted that our world would merge with a game world!

And so our tale begins....

My name is Rex Yamamoto, an average 15 year old high school boy. Well, that’s a bit of a lie. The experiences that I’ve had in the last 10 years wouldn’t necessarily be considered “average”. An orphan at the age of 5, followed by my attempts to adapt to my new life, much of my upbringing was shaped around the constant irregularities during my childhood.

I had come from a lower middle-class family. We’d lived in a 2 room apartment, with a common space(living room and kitchen) and one bedroom. I can’t remember much of what life was like back then, but I do remember that I had always been happy. My parents had taken good care of me uptil the day they died.

When I was 5 years old, I witnessed my parents' murder at the hands of a serial killer.

The serial killer was an escaped mental asylum patient. I had found out later that he was a war veteran of the last Great War, and had gone mad after witnessing the torture and death of his squadmates.

He broke into our apartment in the middle of the night. My father had heard him open the door from our bedroom, and motioned for my mother and I to go hide. My mother began to hide us in the closet, but before we had managed to close the closet doors, he had found us. He held a butcher knife in his hand, and stared at us with bloodlust filled eyes. My father was killed while trying to fight him off, and my mother was killed shortly after as she attempted to protect me, hugging me close to her body.

After having killed my parents, he walked toward me, ripping me out of the embrace of my now deceased mother. A psychotic grin was plastered on his face. I had tried to resist, but within a few seconds he had already pinned me to the ground. As he moved the blood-soaked knife toward my throat, I remember thinking, without a doubt, that I was about to die. However, at that moment, instead of feeling the agonizing pain of having my throat torn open, I heard a single gunshot. The next thing I knew, the serial killer toppled over,  a single bullet hole had appeared at the back of his skull. The man who had shot that bullet was the same man who would soon become my new father, Takeru Yamamoto.

Takeru Yamamoto, a young police sergeant who had only been a part of the police force for a little over two months, decided to adopt me after the murder of my parents. He was a man with decent looks and a pretty good physique. He had long, jet black hair which almost reached down to his shoulders. He had bangs that covered his right eye and part of his left eyebrow. He had a pretty well built body, but not to the point that the only thing you could see were muscles. Based on what I had seen of him so far, I thought he was a hero. A brave, selfless, caring individual who would help those in need, and I was partially right. He was pretty good father while I was growing up, and pretty much took care of me till the age of 13. During the first 4 years of my life living with him, we had moved a total of probably 5 different times due to his work. We moved to Russia, then China, then London, then the U.S., and ultimately ended up back to Japan. By the time we had returned to Japan, I had already developed a third culture kid(TCK) mentality. Although I had still spent the majority of my life in Japan, the 4 years I spent abroad had greatly affected my cultural identity. I felt like an outsider within my community. I was unable to relate to the experiences that my classmates had gone through. Furthermore, they were cautious whenever we started a conversation, afraid that they would unintentionally bring up some bad memories. By the time I was 13, the majority of my classmates had stopped talking to me.

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Well, at least I had a good life at home with my step-dad, right? Wrong. At the age of 13, Pops, decided to become a NEET, and refused to work on anything he wasn't interested in. Why is that you may ask? Well, in his own words,

“Look, you’re a man now right? You’ll be able to take care of the both of us!”(Takeru/Pops)

My step-father, with a happy-go-lucky attitude and a cheeky grin on his face, said that to me on my 13th birthday. Now I’m stuck with doing all the housework, which includes taxes, repairs, cooking, cleaning etc. What’s worse is his spending habits! Spending almost 1,000,000 a day alone on anything he can find on online shopping sites, I’ve had to change the password to our bank account so that we don’t end up broke! That bastard! Well, I can’t really do anything about it. Anyways, even though he’s a NEET, we’re still getting by economically. Pops has got a huge stash of money deposited in the bank. I’m actually not that sure of what type of job Pops had before meeting me. All I know is that every military or high-risk related organizations, from private bodyguard companies to national armies, wanted him to work for them. Of course, now that he’s a NEET he’s rejected all those offers. When I asked him what he did before, he would always try to change to topic. In the end, I just gave up on asking, cause if he didn’t want me to know, I wouldn’t bother him about him. Regardless of how he’s acting now, he’s still been a good father to me. Plus, he still does gets us an income every week in the form of gambling.

He’s been gambling even before he took me in, and has become a sort of legend within the gambling world. Yes, most say that gambling is not an economically suitable way of earning money. In most cases I would agree, but Pops just has an inhuman amount of luck when it comes to gambling. He walks in with probably 100,000 yen, and walks out with at least twice that amount. There’s even a rumor that he caused a casino to go bankrupt. The owner had challenged him to a game of blackjack and decided to put the casino up for collateral. In the end, the owner lost the game in 10 turns, each turn being a win for Pops. How accurate is this rumor, I won’t say.

Now, lets return to the present.

I woke up this morning in a complete daze, and slowly lifted my body out of bed. My entire body was aching after having participated in a hellish training course for my martial arts classes. It's been 10 years since that incident where my parents were killed. Due to the trauma that came with watching my parents' murder, I developed Marie Antoinette Syndrome. It's a condition where, after an extremely traumatic situation, a person's hair will lose its color and turn white. However, in my case, only the hair on the right half of my head became white. The left half had gone from jet black to a dark grey. I had a slightly built body that continued to grow due to the various punches I've taken during the course of my martial arts training, which I had been forced to take by Pops because he wanted me to be able to defend myself.

While my head was still in a daze, I began walking toward the living room so that I could make myself a cup of coffee, a task that I've become accustomed to after having to take care of both Pops and myself over the last 10 years. When I got there, I saw Pops sitting on the couch with a serious expression while staring at the T.V.

What's this? What could've gotten him so worked up?

Usually I’m the first to wake up in the morning. Even when he does wake up first, he’s usually laughing his ass off to some funny T.V. show.

I took a look at the T.V. and see a live news report, and I soon found out why Pops had had that serious expression on his face.

"Government officials have stated the Earth's size has increased by at least 3 fold, and new land masses have appeared throughout the globe. Scientists have yet to come up with a reason for this unnatural phenomenon, but are said to be working around the clock so that they may find some answers. What can be confirmed, however, is that our world's geography has completely changed, and civilians are warned not to venture out into these new regions until a proper survey of the area has been completed. The government has mobilized the military to set up a defense line over all Japanese territories..." said a reporter.

The Earth had increased in size? What the hell? You can't be serious.

But after looking at the reporter's serious, and somewhat panicked, expression, my doubts soon began to fade away. The screen soon changed, and a map of what would now be our new world appeared. Portions of the map were marked in green, representing our original world, which would later be known as Old Earth. Portions of the map were also marked in red, representing these new land masses the reporter had been talking about. Within minutes, I had realized what had caught Pops's attention. The map closely resembled the map of the world of an MMORPG we played. Confirming my suspicions, his face having changed into one of disbelief, Pops said,

"It's Jukaria..."

For a moment, it was as if time had stopped entirely. Our facial expressions remained in a state of disbelief as we processed everything we had just learned, unsure of how we should react to the new information we had just recieved. However, a devious smile began to form on Pops's face, and I knew that he had developed some sort of plan. With a sigh, I realized that starting from today, my life would become even more hectic.