Chapter 1
Dawning
Hector Dawning was known as a crazy man by his colleagues, and today, his actions further emphasized this belief and added to his record of insane antics.
“Dawning, tone it down a little, won’t ya?” a deep voice said. The crowd of spectators parted to reveal a huge bulky man with a face riddled with scars.
Hector only gave the man a quick glance before ignoring him and leaving the hangar. The man’s face twitched as he held his anger in.
The crowd also ignored the man and were more interested in the baggage that Hector left in the hangar. A crew arrived a few seconds after Hector left and opened the baggage revealing a variety of horns, bones, flesh, and other materials covered in blood.
The crowd were flabbergasted. These objects were proofs of the hunt that Hector Dawning had gathered. They were all from different species and were all classed as extremely dangerous ones. Usually, a group of at least five people was needed to take down one of those, but Hector Dawning did it alone, and he took down more than ten.
Insane, truly insane. He was a complete madman with no regards to his life.
“Damn it, Dawning! You almost killed me with a heart attack,” said Officer Helena Allens. She was one of many personnel in charge of logistics, and Hector Dawning was under her charge. He had taken a scouting request this morning, and she almost puked blood after seeing Hector’s PCS energy levels decreasing. She then almost slammed her head against her terminal after hearing his report of taking down High Danger Ranked beasts.
“It was within my abilities. I know my limits,” Hector said indifferently. “I came here to report the completion of the mission and submit the scouting data.” He placed the data device on top of the table and turned to leave.
“Wait, Dawning. The higher-ups have decided to put you on break.”
Hector stopped mid-stride, then turned around with a raised brow.
“They said that your actions were a bad example to the others, especially the newcomers. It might influence them and cause an increase in death-rates.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice? That would mean lesser consumption of resources.”
“Watch your mouth, Dawning!” She sent him a death-glare.
“Fine. How long is the break?” he asked with a resigned expression on his face.
“It’s indefinite, but you’ll receive vacation pay as the break was not on your request.”
“How kind of them.” The sarcastic tone was not missed by Helena.
“Be careful with your words, Dawning. You know what they can do.”
“I know, I know.” He then left after saying those words.
“Why is he so difficult?” Helena sighed as she took her seat. It was only then that she noticed the other personnel looking at her.
“You have it hard on you, Allens,” one of them said.
“Let’s drink it out tonight. You need to relieve some stress!”
“Tch,” Hector clicked his tongue after checking his account balance. He remembered that time when he was starving and didn’t have a single penny. That was when he took this job. Now, he had the money and had no way to spend it. Most of the time, it would be used to repair and upgrade his PCS and weapons, but the maintenance of his armory was still too little compared to the amount he received whenever he went out.
His PCS, short for Powered Combat Suit, had survived for so long and had undergone so many upgrades. He could trade it off and buy a new one with better specs, but he had been too used to it, and breaking in a new one didn’t seem attractive to him. He was alway tethering in the boundaries of life and death whenever he was out on a mission, and using a suit he was unaccustomed to would spell danger.
Even though others think that he was unafraid of death, he was not doing this suicidal stunts because of that reason. He knew his limits, that was a fact. Whenever he fought, he always left a small room for error, but because of his extreme actions, people misunderstood his intentions. The way he fought was focused on efficiency, thus, making it look like he was risking it all.
“Now… what do I do?” he pondered as he sat on a bench in a park. It was already afternoon, and the setting sun could be seen behind the buildings. This was only an imitation of the real thing.
After the war four centuries ago, the outside world had transformed into a hostile environment. Animals mutated into violent beasts and plants turned into toxic organisms. This was the result of man’s reckless actions.
Fortunately, this type of future had already been predicted by the old world’s scientists and researchers. Safe cities covered in special domes were built as the last refuge of mankind in the post-war world.
The plan was successful, but they overlooked an important point. The resources inside the domed cities were limited.
As a solution to that, the PCS were created to allow select people to go out of the city and scrounge for usable resources. There were two types: harvesters, those who focus on searching and gathering resources, and the hunters, those who fight the beasts outside to allow the harvesters to concentrate on their jobs.
Hector Dawning was obviously a hunter, and one of the best in fact.
It was soon dark and the lamps in the park lit up. Hector took it as a sign to leave and walked out of the park, encountering a few couples who were out on a date.
He walked along the road, then followed a path he was familiar with. After leaving an alley, he was greeted by the bright lights of the business district. He went into a small decrepit shop with almost no customers, completely out of place in this lively part of the city.
“Oh, isn’t it Dawning!” a loud voice said despite the gloomy atmosphere. “I heard you took down a buncha monsters again. Still being reckless, huh?” A delicate-looking man with long blond hair said behind the bar counter.
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“Word travels fast,” was Hector’s only reply as he sat by the counter.
“Indeed, and that’s not the only thing I heard. News is that you got your ass kicked out the door!” the man said as he filled a glass and placed it in front of Hector.
“You need to check up on your sources, Clay,” Hector said as he downed the glass in one go, then added, “I wasn’t fired, just put on a temp leave.”
“Playing with words don’t suit you. Indefinite means there is a chance of not coming back, and it’s quite a high one.”
Hector ignored what was said after that and focused his attention on the flat-screen television on one of the bar’s walls. Drowning out Clay’s useless banter, his interest was caught on the advertisement being shown.
A huge colorful world people can explore without the risk of dying just from inhaling the air outside was what was being shown. Then, monsters appeared and were taken down by a group of people dressed in strange outfits, wielding fantastical weapons and magic.
“Worldforge Genesis,” Clay said. He had shut up after noticing that Hector wasn’t paying attention to him. Seeing the other party’s interest, he volunteered on making an explanation. “It’s a VR game.”
“VR?” Hector raised his brow with the unfamiliar term.
“Virtual Reality. I guess you’ve been spending too much time outside seeing how not up-to-date you are with the current trends.” Clay tried to make a point by setting his eyes on Hector’s common clothings.
“They’re wasting precious resources on this kind of stuff?”
“Oh, don’t put on that act now! I know that you don’t really care about that.”
“Tch! I just don’t like the way the higher ups do things.”
“Now that is soooo like you.” Clay laughed at the bitter expression on the other’s face. “Oh, well! Now that you don’t have anything to do, why not try out this VR stuff? I’m planning to play that one.”
“Worldforge Genesis?”
“Yep. It’s a new game, and it will be launched the day after tomorrow.”
“I don’t see the point in it.”
“You say it’s just wasting resources, but think of how the common people feel. Unlike you who gets to experience and adventure in the outside world, many of us here can’t, and even if we did, we won’t last a minute. VR games give us that freedom and joy.”
Hector only silently yielded. He looked back at the television, but the commercial had ended and a weekly drama was being played instead.
“So, wanna give it a try?” Clay asked.
“Fine.”
Hector lived in a condominium unit. It was not his choice but rather forcefully imposed upon him. The payment for rent was automatically deducted from his account.
Looking around, it was rather extravagant for a single man with no living relatives. Furthermore, he spent more time outside hunting and he had left this unit unattended. Fortunately, the management sends someone to tidy it up for him, so even though he had not maintained the unit, it was without a speck of dust.
He sat on the plush sofa and looked at the objects on the table. One was a helmet with a streamlined design. Its surface gave off a metallic luster. Beside it was a game box with the words “Worldforge Genesis” printed over a beautiful scenery of a medieval castle surrounded by lush forests.
Tonight was the launch of the game. Yesterday, Clay accompanied him in buying the gaming helmet needed for the game. He then made a gaming account and had the system unit installed in his condominium unit. Now, he could use the helmet anywhere inside the boundaries of his condominium unit.
This morning, he and Clay lined up in front of a game store before opening hours. For almost five hours they waited in line to buy a copy of the game. There, he witnessed with his own eyes how crazy the people were about this VR games.
VR technology began its implementation about six years ago. At that time, he had already been working as a hunter for a year at the age of seventeen. No wonder he had not heard much about this technology. During that time, he had been too preoccupied with earning money and surviving.
Feeling the cold surface of the helmet in his hands, he relaxed in the sofa while inspecting the device. It was hard to believe that something like this could bring a person to a virtual world and experience things as if they were in the real world. For someone like him who had faced against monstrous creatures outside with his life on the line, his grasp on reality was a bit too strong, and so the idea of entering a virtual world, a fake world, was surreal.
“The stars themselves are already fake, how much faker can this virtual world be,” he said with a smirk as he looked out at the glass panels separating the living room from the balcony. The curtains were open so he could clearly see the night sky emulated by the city’s under-dome.
He had already installed the game earlier and performed the necessary calibration procedures. All that was left was to login to the game and experience it himself.
There was a beginner’s manual inside the game box, but he ignored it, thinking why would he need a guide or a manual if the virtual world was supposed to emulate the real world?
With that thought in mind, he placed the helmet on his head. It was already past 10 pm. The time of the game’s server launch was at 8:30, but he didn’t really mind that. Unlike the others who were crazy about this game, Hector was still skeptical about it.
He laid his back on the sofa’s backrest and relaxed his entire body, letting himself sink into the soft cushions. Now that he was in a comfortable position, he uttered, “VR Start.”