Kyazuto lay down and grabbed his VR-Force. He was thinking about 'his' world, about AOS. He played the game for 2 years since release, maybe not the longest time but a very fun time for an outsider like him. And now all servers shut down because 'it's too dangerous to use the VR-Force'. Two years and there were no health complaints whatsoever.
"Probably just some angry moms who want their sons to play less games."
Many old players have left the game since they were afraid to be harmed. During peak hours there were over 7.5 million players simultaneously playing AOS all around the globe. Now the only server left is the Japan server. With approximately ten thousand players still playing the game on peak hours.
Kyazuto didn't want to stop playing AOS. He didn't want to stop coming to the world where he could escape reality, the world in which he had 'real' friends. The VR-Force was a great tool for him to talk to others, because he couldn't really make friends in the real world. He didn't really know what to do after the server shut down. Maybe go back to play MMORPG's on the computer? But they would never be nearly as good as the VRMMO's.
Kyazuto gave a big sigh.
"Why...?"
The Servers where about to shut down in about thirty minutes, so he put on his VR-Force to say goodbye to all his friends which were still online. He plugged in his power cable. The 'Connection' lamp turned red, so he plugged in his LAN cable. After the 'Connection' lamp turned green he said 'Start' and once again he saw his ceiling getting smaller and smaller. It looked like he's falling but he didn't feel anything. And after 5 seconds falling in to a black room he found himself lying in a bed. In his bed… his virtual bed.
He often thought about the way the VR-Force is working, the way how high-density microwaves can access a user's brain and create fake senses. He often thought about why no one ever came up with the idea of creating a feature, so you could rest in the virtual world. You would never need to get back in the real world ever again. Of course, you would have to drink and eat somehow but he thought that this wouldn't be a problem. He really loved this world. He really loved how he was accepted and respected even though he was such a looser in the real world. He didn't want to give up on this world… this was the reality he wanted.
He stood up and looked around. Everything looked just like it always did. Nobel and beautiful. It took a lot of time and effort to build this Guild castle. It's the biggest guild castle out there in the world of AOS, but what else should you expect of the greatest guild, huh?
He stepped out of his room heading straight to the guild's conference room. He walked down the big hallway, countless magnificent statues to his left and right side. All statues equipped with equipment from A to S level. When he arrived at the conference room, he opened the door immediately. A large round room with four large doors and a large round table right in the middle. Here's where all the guild's actions were discussed. There were times, where all the 11 seats were occupied. Now there were only three.
"Itaka, Kanagaki, Sakubara…"
All three immediately stopped their conversation and glanced over to Kyazuto.
"…good to see you here guys."
"Hey Kyaga!"
All three greeted him so perfectly simultaneously, that it sounded kind of scary. Kyazuto looked around him.
"Is there no one else at the guild castle right now?"
Itaka looked at him.
"I only saw Shizu-san here a few minutes ago, the rest isn't even logged in."
Kyazuto nodded towards him and headed towards a big magnificent chair, the biggest of all 11, the guild master's chair. He sat down on his chair and lowered his head.
"I'll miss this world and especially you guys."
Again, all three stopped their conversation and looked at Kyazuto.
"I'll miss my life here and the other reality I could escape to."
"Of course, it was hard work to build all this up and I understand why you don't want to give up on all this, but sometimes it's just the best to let go." Kanagaki said surprisingly calm.
"Yeah, he's right Kyaga-kun", said Itaka, "We thought about playing the new AOS computer version when it's coming out. We will all just use the names we're using here and start there again."
Kyazuto sighed.
"Maybe you guys aren't like me…"
the three looked at him questioningly.
"I'm just a loser in the real world, but here I'm popular and everyone likes me… I don't want this to end, I don't want to be the boring kid with no friends anymore."
Sakubara smiled at him.
"When we work hard, we can achieve everything again."
"But a PC game could never be my second reality. No matter how much I would achieve in a computer game or how popular I might be… I would never feel like it's me. In this VR full dive game, it's something different, it's just like me. When I eat I can taste, when I see something I can see it, and not just some stupid animation on a monitor… I want to stay here… in my reality."
For a few seconds everybody on the table just looked down and said nothing. Until Sakubara stands up.
"I will log out now guys, I don't want to stay until the end… It was an honor to fight together with you!"
Kyazuto, Itaka and Kanagaki said goodbye, and with two movements of his right hand Sakubara logged out.
Suddenly one of the four doors opened and Shizuka came in. The moment she saw Kyazuto she started to run with open arms, she looked as cute as always, with her light blue hair and eyes. She cried:
"Kyagaaa!!"
She gave him a big hug and Kyazuto blushed.
"Good to see you Kyaga-kun, I really wanted to say goodbye to you!"
"Yeah me too, but why are you so pushy today?"
Shizuka pushed herself away from Kyazuto, took a step back and leaned slightly forward.
"I'm sorry, but I'm just kinda sad right now, because this might be the last time we will see each other."
Kyazuto laughed.
"Raise your head Shizu-san, you don't need to apologize. I'm really sad as well… But I'm sure we will meet in the AOS computer game!"
Shizu smiled at him
"I'm looking forward to it!"
Itaka coughed slightly, and both Kyazuto and Shizuka looked towards him.
"You two are certainly cute together, but it's already past 23:59, the servers will go down in thirty seconds."
Everyone lowered his head again…
"See you guys!"
Everybody closed their eyes.
Five, four, three…
Suddenly Shizuka grabbed Kyazuto's head and gave him a kiss. He immediately opened his eyes.
Two, one…
Now he's falling again… But that's strange… Normally you just wake up when you log out… But this time he's falling. It just looks like he's logging in, as Shizu gets smaller and smaller… But this time it just feels like he's falling for real… But then…
He stood. He was hectically touching himself on his chest and face to clarify if he's there for real. After that he looked around him. And he saw a lot of people on a big space… A big circle with giant walls…
Could it be…? Is this the colosseum of the Beginner's town?
On his left-hand side there was Itaka, and on his right-hand side there were Shizu and Kanagaki. All three touching their face as if they weren't really sure what's going on and couldn't really believe what's going on, just like Kyazuto and… everyone else.
"H-Hey! Are you guys okay?", Kyazuto asked the three.
"Yeah, sure I'm fine, but what's going on?", Itaka answered.
Normally Itaka had a very resolute look when he was saying something. But now he just looked very unsure, confused and lost… That was really scary. But he was right, they had to find out what's going on and why they've been force teleported to the beginner's town colosseum.
"I think that's the Beginner's town colosseum where we are at right now, but I don't really know anything else."
Kyazuto swiped down his right hand to get in the player menu…
The watch said 0:01…
Why aren't the serves down? What's going on? I have to think about something to do…
"Any one of you guys got an idea?"
Kyazuto turned his head from left to right while saying that, and when his eyes met Shizuka, he saw her blushing and try to avoid eye contact.
"Shizu-san, are you okay? What's goi-… "
Just when he was about to finish his sentence he remembered Shizuka kissing him before the teleport. His whole head turned red. He never kissed a girl before, but it was the VR-World anyways…But it felt so real….
Itaka and Kanagaki looked at them kinda confused.
"Anyway", Kanagaki said, "What do you think should we do?"
"Maybe calling a GM?", Shizuka said.
"Good idea!", answered Itaka.
Itaka swiped down his right hand and opened up the player menu. He pushed the button 'Call a GM'… Nothing happened. He pushed it again… And again… No reaction.
"Looks like it isn't working, maybe a bug?"
Kyazuto swiped down his menu as well and tries to push the button... No answer for him either.
"Yeah, maybe you're ri-…"
Kyazuto suddenly stopped talking…
"Hey Kyaga-kun, what's wrong?", asked Kanagaki
"G-Guys?", stuttered Kyazuto, "C-could you please open up your player menu?"
Everybody looked kinda confused at him, but did what he said.
"I-is there no 'Log-Out' button for you either?"
Everybody looked frightened at the space where's usually the 'Log-Out' button.
All of a sudden, the earth began to move. Everybody tried not to fall. A tiny gap, shaped like a circle, showed up right in the middle of the colosseum. And there was something coming out of it… A platform? No, a pillar, a big pillar which was rising to the sky. And it looked like someone is standing right on top of it. Every single one of the ten thousand people in the colosseum now looked up in the sky, to the top of the pillar. The man on the pillar looked kinda scary. He looked like a walking coat with a pair of red glowing eyes.
"Care people of Zeiwit…"
So, I was right… we are in Zeiwit, in the Beginner's Town.
"What I'm about to tell you now, may will shock some of you people."
His voice sounded very clear, almost like he's standing right in front of someone. He had to talk in a GM-channel.
"Some of you may have already noticed that the 'Log-Out' button isn't working anymore. But that's not a bug, that's a new little feature.", said the man with a voice, sounding like he's about to pull off one of these evil laughs, any second now.
Kyazuto looked around him, and everybody just looked in the sky, at this giant pillar. They looked at the man in the coat very anxiously.
"This isn't the AOS you knew! This is something new!"
The man was taking very loud, almost creaming, that made his words even scarier, as they already were.
"You won't be able to get out of here anymore, unless you clear all the 100 stages of this game!"
Don't get out? 100 stages? What is this?!?!?
"So, you guys may be stuck a little bit in here, so everyone will get a potion, after the item resets, which will let you go in the character customization for once, so you can change your appearance. That's for everyone to feel comfortable in his own skin, while you are stuck in here for a while. I am really generous, right?"
The walking coat started to laugh… And he pulled off one of these evil laughs just like in all the movies…
"Oh, yeah! I almost forgot about that one."
What's coming now?
"You may as well don't want to die anymore… Just don't try what will happen if you do."
What does that mean???
"This isn't a game you want to play anymore… But a game you have to play! So, Let… The games… Begin!"
He pulled up one end of his coat and turned once… and puff… He was gone with a little bit of smoke now being there, where he stood just seconds ago.
And then some started to talk, some fell on their knees and began to cry, and some just stood there and where too shocked to say anything… The four were part of the third party. Until Shizuka began to cry and fall into the arms of Kyazuto.
"Wh-What are we going to do now?", Itaka asked.
Suddenly the clothes of all people in the colosseum changed to the beginning clothes. Kyazuto checked his inventory immediately… Empty… Just one item. The 'Potion of the Look'.
Description: 'A potion, which lets your character look like you.', Untradeable, Unsaleable, Rarity: S.
Shizuka, still crying on the chest of Kyazuto, raised her head and wiped away the tears from her eyes.
"We won't get out anymore, right?"
Kyazuto looked in her tear-filled eyes, and got a determined look. He grabbed her by the hand and said:
"Come on guys, if we want to get out of here, we have to get started right now and can't wait and complain!"
He stared to run, Shizuka on his hand, and Itaka and Kanagaki behind him. Once arrived on the market, he turned to the three.
"We have to get some items with our starting gold, since there seems to be no Tutorial Quest. Just a sword should be fine for now, and since we know most of the easy combos the beginner dungeons and quests should be pretty easy."
He looked at three, and again he saw Shizu looking anxious. Her eyes still filled with tears, and her mouth slightly opened.
"D-Do you feel nothing? How can you be so calm? W-We just lost everything and were put into a new world! A world which we can't get out of."
"Y-Yeah I know, but we have to- "
"No! We don't have to do anything, we just lost everything Kyaga!"
Shizuka began to cry again, this time just staying in front of Kyazuto…
"Maybe you're right… But we have to get started as fast as possible, there aren't too many of the easy Beginner's quests and I know Zeiwit pretty good. If we want EXP from quests and not only farming, we should start fast."
Shizuka sniffed her nose, and once again wiped away the tears in her eyes.
"I think you're right, we should get started if we want to get out of here as fast as possible. I'm sorry, but I just got kinda emotional, I don't really know how to feel right now…"
"Nah, it's all fine", Itaka said with a very calm voice, "we will beat the game and get us out of there!"
"Yeah, and I will defend you with my life, you don't need to worry", Kanagaki said with a smile on his face.
Shizuka began to smile, and look at the others. Kyazuto, Itaka, Kanagaki. The adventure hadn't even started, and Shizuka knew that with her friends by her side, she doesn't need to worry…