Jisha Slyker awoke with a start. A cold sweat was flowing down her back. Her heart was racing and she was out of breath. She sat up as quickly as possible, causing her vision to falter. She glanced around the room as her condition slowly returned to normal. As Jisha noticed the contents of her room, her shock was replaced by confusion.
*Where am I?*
It was not because the room was unfamiliar, but rather because it was *too* familiar.
Because this was her bedroom for the majority of her life.
*Perhaps this is the spirit realm.*
After all, she clearly remembered what just happened. It would be strange if one forgot the sight of three scorched family members. Unfortunately, she was unable to do anything about it because she, too, had died.
There were plenty of accounts of the spirit realm, and some had reported that you would occasionally be shown your past and sometimes even your happiest memories. This was why Jisha didn't find her situation particularly strange.
She heaved a sigh, knowing that whatever tragedies would come to pass would be unpreventable.
*Oh well, the only thing to do is to move forward.*
As a spirit, there was almost nothing she could do to impact the physical world. Though she was sad, there was nothing she could accomplish by sulking. Even though it was the spirit realm, there had to be something to do, right?
*Let's just explore my current surroundings.*
Jisha looked down at her left wrist where a smartwatch rested. She looked at the date and time.
23:55 3-3-50.
23 hours and 55 minutes on the third day of the third month of the 18050th calendar year on planet Etmos. In other words, this was...
*11 years before my death.*
It was natural to feel nostalgic. After all, this was the day she had stayed up until midnight in order to try the newest VRMMORPG that was released, Synergy. When she thought of this, Jisha couldn't help but grimly smile. Though full-dive VR games had existed in the past, Synergy was said to be the next step in VR technology, as the world would be nearly indistinguishable from real life. However, this was only the surface of the hellscape that would soon engulf the world...
Of course, there were many who were skeptical of the new technology. However, this outlandish claim brought more hopefuls than skeptics to try out the new technology. On the side of her bed was one of the most primitive full-dive helmet models in existence.
Once she saw this, she temporarily shelved the thoughts of exploring her surroundings and decided to jump into the game, where she made many of her memories. But...
*... This is what I used to use?*
The Vbian-02. Its quality was so poor that she would ordinarily glance over it as if it were a piece of trash on the ground. However, 11 years ago, this was a fairly decent model.
There were less than five minutes remaining before the world of Synergy opened to the public.
Jisha picked up the helmet but hesitated to put it on.
*This is ironic, isn't it?*
The "game" that had brought many to ruin. The "game" that had toppled power structures of entire world powers. The "game" that had brought about a new wave a meritocracy. Though it was a likely cause of her family's downfall, she had no choice but to play it again.
*Hah... There's no more time to waste.*
Since the old Vbian was her only option with the little time remaining, she quickly put the helmet on her head and booted it up. Jisha wanted to experience the world for the first time again. Fortunately, the necessary files were already downloaded and preinstalled, so the startup of the helmet only took a few minutes.
*... this is so slow.*
Jisha was not used to waiting for so long for the VR system to boot up, so she naturally became impatient. However, this wait time also brought another wave of nostalgia over her.
Finally, the VR main menu was visible and Jisha immediately selected "Synergy". She was lucky enough to witness the countdown since she had eagerly been waiting for the release of this game.
*>10 seconds before the world of Synergy opens to the public!*
...
5...
4...
3...
2...
1...
*>Welcome to Synergy!*
As the countdown ended, the world turned white and these words appeared in the space in front of her.
Jisha's heart was racing. She remembered this moment as if it were yesterday, and she was living it again. What came next was...
"Welcome to Synergy!"
A cute feminine voice spoke in front of her. Though she couldn't see anything at first, a small fairy with blue butterfly-like wings popped up out of thin air. She looked like a miniature human with wings and was approximately ten centimetron in height.
"I am Lemieux, and I will guide you as you begin your journey in this world. Think of me as a tutorial bot!"
At this, she proudly stood in the air, hand on her hips. Her dignified tone highly contrasted with her cute voice and contents of the message. Hearing this, Jisha couldn't help but smile.
"Beyonder, what is your name?"
Jisha decided to use the Synergy username she had never changed.
"Fae Sol."
"Okay, Fae Sol! Please choose a class!"
A screen floated before her with two options:
*>Melee*
*>Ranged*
"You may notice something strange. There are only two classes! This is because the world of Synergy is more realistic than any other game so far. You must get used to your body before you can truly explore!"
Of course, Jisha already knew these things. Lemieux was about to continue, but Jisha had no need to hear anything else. She only had one purpose in games, and that was to be a gunner. Nothing would ever change that about her. Without a doubt, she chose...
"Ranged."
Lemieux's face lit up at the answer.
"You're quite decisive. Ranged it is! Now, we must choose your birthplace in this world. Once chosen, your soul will return to this location should your body die. Choose wisely! Select a Hamlet within the Starshine Shogunate."
A map appeared in front of her.
Put simply, Jisha was ordered to select a spawn location. There were many tiers of locations, such as Hamlet, Village, Town, and more. Hamlet was the smallest of these, and they were the most plentiful. Of course, they were also of the poorest quality. Because of this, new players could only spawn here. Shogunate was one of the larger location tiers, and it included a wide range of smaller locations.
Etmos was a somewhat large planet with a circumference of over 80,000 kilometron and a population of over thirty billion, so the concept of these location tiers were created in hopes of getting people from similar locations on the planet to spawn together in the game. This was because the world of Synergy was even bigger than Etmos. In fact, it was infinite. If you took these factors into consideration, it was clear why the developers created such a system. What fun would the game be without players to play with, especially those close to you in real life?
It was here that Jisha hesitated on the next step. She could pick something that she was already familiar with, or she could go somewhere new. But before she could even come to that decision, something had been in the back of her mind ever since she entered full dive in her Vbian.
*Is this even the spirit realm?*
It was common knowledge on Etmos that the spirit realm was somewhere one went after their physical body had passed. This was because spirits were not an uncommon phenomenon. In fact, they were everywhere. And there was one thing they would always say about the physical world.
It was that "advanced technology was not visible".
It didn't mean that VR helmets were invisible to spirits, but concepts such as Etherless, cyberspace, and virtual worlds appeared blurry and incomprehensible to them. This topic was still under research among spiritual scientists and was difficult to solve. The most common theory was that such technologies had extremely low spiritual affinity. However, the theories only existed due to this indisputable fact. No matter how much one wanted to deny this fact, it was a law of the world, similar to how water was wet.
If this was not the case, there were two other possibilities.
1 - Jisha wasn't actually dead but in a deep sleep or coma. Though technology was also blurry in dreams, it was much more likely to view technology in a dream than the spirit world.
2 - Jisha had reincarnated into her past self.
As much as Jisha wanted to entertain the second possibility, what was more likely? For water to become not wet, or to transgress into your past self? It was a problem that stumped her. But once the thought came into her mind, she couldn't get rid of it.
Everyone has the fantasy of reincarnating into their past self and redoing their younger years. This is why reincarnation novels were popular. Jisha was no exception. In fact, she desired this even more than most normal people. After all, her entire family and residence had been burned down without forewarning. If she had a second chance and was able to prevent her dynasty's collapse...
*There's only one option.*
With just one glance at the map, she knew which location she was going to choose. She immediately pointed to a location.
"Uval Hamlet."
There were a couple of reasons for choosing this location.
First and most importantly, Jisha had already decided to treat this situation as a second incarnation. If this were true, she needed to take decisive steps to stand at the top. She couldn't just be content with being a top player - she had to overwhelmingly stand above all. Because of this, she decided to pick a starting location that she was very familiar with. Starting in the Uval Hamlet would give her a massive advantage over other players who were just learning the game. After all, Jisha Slyker was Fae Sol, the Gun Swap Goddess in her previous life. She had 11 years of experience in the world of Synergy, which was absolutely incomparable to a new player.
A secondary reason was that Synergy and Etmos were extremely vast, and the differences in power between certain entities was massive. For example, there were many guilds and organizations from previous VR games that would undoubtedly join up to create alliances in this new game. The alliances of such orgs could easily bully smaller clans and individual players. If her memory served her correctly, Uval Hamlet was located in a relatively peaceful area. Of course, this didn't mean that it would be free of violence. Nowhere in Synergy was truly peaceful. Jisha's goal was to rise quickly, and Uval Hamlet would allow her to do so with relatively little harassment from the aforementioned bullies.
And the third and most unimportant reason was... she wanted to relive her first moments again. It was a harmless wish, so why couldn't she indulge in it?
"Are you sure? You spent less than 5 seconds deciding."
"I'm sure. Please send me to the Uval Hamlet."
"Okay! You sure are decisive! Before you go, this is what you look and sound like. Would you like to make any changes?"
A 3D model of Jisha's player character appeared in front of her, speaking preset voice lines. Submitting your body's model data was a prerequisite to playing Synergy, and Jisha had already completed this task beforehand. The model looked and sounded exactly like her. It wasn't wearing any clothes, but the body lacked reproductive organs since certain laws had been passed regarding these issues.
Jisha didn't think much of it. These waiting room type areas were private anyway, so there was no hope of anyone seeing her.
Jisha knew she couldn't go out into the world looking like her original self. Though the Slyker Dynasty wasn't a large location in the grand scheme of Etmos, she was still famous enough that it was possible for her to be recognized in public, especially since the spawn locations in the game were somewhat based on your real-life location.
The 3D model came with various sliders to adjust the body, however these were unnecessary for Jisha. Before becoming a highly skilled gunner in her previous life, she was a talented artist. This included 3D art projects such as 3D drawings and modeling. Synergy's character design included a convenient feature to import an existing 3D model for your character, and Jisha had many models saved already.
In fact, since she was so hyped for the game, she had already created a model for herself that she knew she was going to be using.
Jisha opened the menu and selected her desired model. The body type was the same. She was an average height for a 13-year-old female Northeasterner standing at roughly 160 centimetron, and she had a petite build. However, the face of the model greatly differed from her real one. Jisha Slyker had long, straight, flowing black hair. Fae Sol, the avatar, had long, wavy maroon hair. Jisha had deep brown eyes that were almost black. Fae had bright blue-green eyes. Jisha had gentle facial features, while Fae had a sharper look. If someone saw Fae Sol, there was a zero percent chance of associating it with Jisha Slyker.
Satisfied, Jisha submitted the visual changes.
As for the voice, Jisha didn't have much experience modifying it. Because of this, she imported a voice modulator that she found online. She didn't fiddle with it too much, so she sounded somewhat similar to her original self, but it was different enough for people to be unable to tell.
Jisha then submitted the audible changes.
"These are the changes I would like to make."
"Very good! I, Lemmi, would once again like to welcome you to the world of Synergy! Enjoy your stay!"
At these lines, the fairy disappeared and the world entered a tunnel of black.