"What are your name, young lass?" The old man asked me.
"Miyu.." I just said my in-game name instinctively. I could see a lot of other people with the same clothes as me with different vibes from the resident here, that meant they're players that from the game lore we are called 'Xenonian'.
"Miyu? A beautiful name there, young lass" He chuckled while praising my name. I could felt my face heating up from his praise but I quickly hide it by just looking away. The old man noticed it and just chuckled. I pretended to not notice him and just kept following him.
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"Here is the main plaza of the town" He pointed at the giant square shaped area in the middle of the town. It has the vibe of the normal town center with a fountain in the middle that holds a statue of someone.
"Who is that..?" I pointed at the statue in the middle of the fountain. The statue looked very familiar but I couldn't remember.
"That? That is the statue of the goddess" He said simply. I tilted my head at him as why he didn't explain any further but he pretended like he didn't see anything and continue on walking. I can't help but have a familiar feeling on the statue. But the further the think I about it the more I don't understand.
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"Here is the 'Community Center'. It's a place of multiple function." He said as I looked at a big building with multiple floors. It looked like the generic Adventurers Guild in an isekai theme story. But the difference is the building looked very tidy and clean.
"But it's mainly used for the registrations of 'Wayfarer'." He said dumping a possibly important information.
"Wayfarer..?" I asked him while tilting my head a little with a confused tone but straight face.
"Wayfarer is a type of 'occupation' that most people usually choose for it's high reward but also high risk.." He seemed a little sad when he said the last part. But it didn't last long as he hid it quickly.
"They usually travels the land for completing some commissions" He continue to explain.
'So adventurers basically huh..?' I thought while looking at the giant building in front of me. This game gave us the choice to be whatever we wanted. So I will choose to be whatever I also want.
"Then let's continue shall we, young lass?" I nodded and followed him.
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"And that's about it!" We ended up in the main plaza of the town once again after going around the town for around 20 minutes. On the way I've seen hundreds of 'Xenonians' so it's gonna be crowded soon and I didn't like the crowd so I need to go.
"I hope my guide has been useful for you, young lass" The old man said while chuckling and pulling out his fedora out of nowhere.
"Thank you.." I wanted to thank him but I didn't know his name as he never gave me his name. He realised it and quickly introduced himself.
"Well, young lass. My name is Toshinori Bushida. Welcome to the town of Miden.." He introduced himself while tipping his fedora towards me.
"Now then I shall go as I have things to do.." He turned around and started walking away. But before he could go to far I shouted.
"T-Thank You!" He then chuckled while waving at me while still walking away. After a while he blended into the crowd and couldn't be seen anymore.
"Now what should I do.." I said while looking at the time. It's now around 10 minutes real life before I met them. It's now around 12.50 P.M in real life.
"Well let's just look around.. I guess?" The devs didn't give any sort of tutorial on this game with the exception being how we use the UI. With the only difference is there is no storage or backpack UI because everything have to be manually transported. So there is no magical endless space for inventory.
Right now I only have this clothes and the money of this world. Which is a currency called 'Avarus'
Just like the real life money they come in different variations. But all of them are in a coin shape and are made with the same ingredient. There are 6 main type of them but every single one of them have a unique carving of an Orchid in the front side of it. The first one is brown in color , it has a value of 10 Avarus. The second one is dark grey in color which has the value of 100 Avarus and so on with third has shining but pale light grey color with a value of 1000 Avarus, fourth one which has a bright shining gold color and has a value of 10.000 Avarus, the fifth one is pure white in color and is worth 100.000 Avarus, and the last one has a bright blue color and is worth a whopping 1.000.000 Avarus . In my pocket I only have 3 pale light grey colored coin which meant I only have 3000 Avarus.
"Oh yeah.." I looked at a certain place on the UI. It's the most basic and generic every RPG game have. The status sheet.
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[Name: Miyu
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Class: None
Skills: None
Magic: None
Technique: None
Strength: 5
Endurance: 3
Agility: 5
Dexterity: 8
Mind: 8
Spirit: 8
Title: - The Traveler From The Far Lands, (The true traveler who have traveled from the far far lands, Effects: Allowing to go back to the Land far far away instantaneously)
- One Deep Within, (Truly discovers something within even if yet to understand it, Effects: Unknown)
- The True Self, (Embody the true self of one, Effects: Increased learning speed and understanding of oneself)
- ??? (Unknown, Effects: Unknown)]
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The system of the status sheet is just like normal RPG with the only difference as the devs said.
"There will be no leveling system in this game"
And yes they took their words and made a VRMMORPG without any leveling system in it. We still truly wonders how to increase our stats but the devs surprisingly answered.
"By training" They simply answered like that so I have a few clue on how to do it. But that will be for later.
Right now I'll focus on my stats first. The most and common things are the name, age, and gender area. It's nothing notable other than the gender thing but just like the past me said it will be the future me problem.
The second part are Class, Skills, Magic, and Technique. Based on the name we could already assume how they are work. Class is just like a normal RPG the 'class' you chose like for example a warrior or a mage or even in some RPGs I could even see them making weird classes like Chef or some other things. Skills, Magic an Technique are pretty self explanatory.
Next are my stats, the most simple aspect. Strength is simply how powerful you are in a physical aspect of your body. Endurance is the tenacity of your body in game or in a gamer term usually is how 'tanky' you are. Agility is just like it's name how fast and agile you are in this in-game body and dexterity is how good your body, reflex and instinct coordination are. For Mind, I speculate it's a stat for mental endurance and capacity and Spirit is for how much your 'Magic' capacity and your 'Magic Energy'. Those are only my speculations on the stats part. For the last part the 'Title'.. I looked at the title part of my status sheet while tilting my head in confusion. While 'The Traveler From The Far Lands' title is the title that is given to every player which the effect basically meant that we could exit the game but..
"Isn't that too much for my titles..?" I looked at my 4 titles all with different descriptions and effects. Then I saw a few odd ones such as the title 'One Deep Within'... from the name itself it's quite philosophical but from the descriptions made it even more odd. With the effects also unknown I cannot speculate what it means. Another one which is 'The True Self' title which just like it's name meant my 'True Self' while the effects are nice and all but the timing of this title with my body are weird..
"..?" A question mark popped up next to my head while looking at the last Title. It's name is not revealed with it's description and effects also Unknown. I assumed this was a bug that the devs haven't patch but I couldn't guess much because of the unpredictable nature of the devs and the company itself. I then just stopped thinking about it and looked at the time.
"5 minutes.." I spent 5 minutes just to observe and learn my stats and understands it. 5 minute left until I will met them..
"Well let's just walk around.." I decided to just walk around seeing what interest me.
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[Genki: Hello! You guys at the Main Plaza yet?] I suddenly received a message in the form of a text box. In every VR games they implemented the feature that message from our phones could be connected to our UI.
[Setsu: I'm right in front of you..]
[Genki: Oh-]
[Setsu: Kuuji, you here yet?] I looked at the text box in front of me. I am very nervous. I'm nervous at the fact that they will not recognize me. I'm nervous at the fact that could we still be friends.. But I gathered up my courage and answered.
[Kuuji: I'm heading there..] I then started walking back towards the main plaza with silent but melodious steps. Even with my nervousness I won't let my condition change the fact we've already promised to play this game together.
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[Kuuji: I'm here..] I messaged them when I arrived at the main plaza.
[Genki: Huh? Where are you?] Genki seemed confused as why he couldn't spot me.
[Kuuji: I'll approach you guys..] I nervously walked towards them. Even if they couldn't spot me I already saw them long ago.
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"I couldn't see Kuuji? Where is he?" I couldn't spot Kuuji's figure anywhere.
"I don't know? He said he'll come here now" Genki said while shrugging. I couldn't see anyone similar to him so he must have blended in with the crowds.
"Setsu..Genki.." I heard someone called out to us from the side. But instead of seeing Kuuji we saw a girl.. around 150 cm in height. She has a short shiny black hair and an unusual ruby red eyes. She looked a little lifeless and is almost completely devoid of any emotions.
'Wait lifeless and devoid of emotions..?' I thought before suddenly interrupted by Genki.
"Who are you, girl?" He just straight up asked him. But based on her gaze and the way she called us..
"Kuuji..?" I guessed who she is and she just straight up looked at me with a nod. Genki looked at us with a confused expression.
"What? What? How?" Genki looked very confused but so am I.
"But how..?" I'm very confused right now as to what happened.
"Well let's get away from here first.." She said while walking away. I and Genki just followed her while still having a lot of question marks on our head.
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"So wanna explain it now?" We are right now on a spot I found last time where I was searching for the town. It's a wide area where there is a not very tall hill with a nice opening. We sat on the edge of the hill and talked.
"I dont know.." I looked at the view from the edge of the hill. From here you could see the vast forest and the beautiful blue sky.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Genki asked me.
"And don't even to try and reason as everybody knew in VR they have a regulations on gender" Setsu said sternly. But I don't even have a reason to just lie.
"Well I certainly don't know.. I woke up this morning and I'm already like this.." I spoke the truth. As I didn't even know the cause of why this could happen and why does this happen to me. After my answer they became silent while I just stared into the vast horizon. Setsu obviously noticed the atmosphere and decided to do something about it.
"*sigh*.. Well we certainly also couldn't understand either.." He sighed while fixing his glasses to just remember he didn't have one in-game.
"But it doesn't matter I guess? I mean I don't mind your looks as long as it's still you, Kuuji." Setsu said. I instantly looked at him in surprise while widenin my eyes.
"I also didn't mind it! After all we will always be the trio that we always are!" Genki said full of energy. I was surprised at their reaction on the changes that happens. More surprisingly water started to drop down from my eyes. The tears could clearly be felt in real life and in-game.
"Woah! Why are you crying?!" Setsu looked surprised at the sight of me crying.
"What?! Kuuji cried?! The one that they say never cry?!" Genki was surprised after all I rarely ever cried and when I mean rarely I really mean it. In our time together I already ever cried once and that is when my parents left me and Nee-san. Even I was surprised, but I quickly wiped all those tears away and release a smile..
"Thank you.." I said with a small smile. Both Genki and Setsu also smiled back at me. It's a warm feeling a lovely one. A feeling I always hope will never went away. The feeling of true happiness..
"Well then.." I stood up and stared into the horizon one last time.
"Let's play this game!" I said with a little burst of happiness and excitement. I could see Setsu smiling while closing his eyes and leaning on the side of a tree while Genki is grinning with excitement. From this point on, our journey in this wonderful world of Strelitzia in this game 'Tale of The Unbound' will officially began!