Manila, Philippines.
Inside a lively city, the sound of the vehicle engines roar within the atmosphere. an overly populated city that is a great place to live in. However, there are also disadvantages of living in here.
Pollution, traffics, Crimes and disturbing sounds tend to happen more often.
Well, it's the capital city of this country I shouldn't have to say the unnecessary information about it. its characteristics are already genuine after all.
A group of a high school students were walking beyond the streets on their way back home while having a conversation or a chit chat.
behind them was me, who was a so-called loner. A lot of things happened within me in my school life and became an incompetent loner after that.
I don't have a girlfriend and I haven't applied a part-time job yet. If I stopped schooling, I would probably become one of the so-called 'tambay' in the Philippines. if that were likely to happen in my life, it would be a game over for me.
Tambay is basically the same as a NEET in japan but the difference is, Tambays are the type of people who kept lazing around in the streets and do anything good to the community if it is something that can give benefit to themselves.
The aroma of the freshly cooked street foods is great as usual.
While walking to the direction of my home, I suddenly stopped by and took a glance at the decent store. I can see my gloomy face in the reflection of the dark glass pane. What's inside the store was an internet café.
I come there very often. After class, holidays and weekends to watch anime and stuff. It comforted me and makes me feel like I abandoned my harsh reality.
While staring at it, the cold wind blows towards me.
Without wasting a single minute, I went inside the internet café and checked in.
The internet café back then is called Piso Net. A device or a place where you need to insert a coin to make it work and good to go. Actually, I have my own Gaming PC at home for a daily use but I rather going inside the internet café to feel the inner peace, my little sister is annoying. She often comes in my room without knocking and making such a loud noise. Not to mention, I can ditch doing home chores and make my sister do all of it.
Inside an internet café, there are only few people are checking in. internet café nowadays in the Philippines are now like in No-talking zone. It is as silent as the library you often found in every schools.
While staring at the people doing their own business, the image of the gamers screaming and trashtalking at each other in the Piso Net revived in my mind. The feeling of nostalgia appeared within a few seconds.
I closed my eyes and opened it and then I started to find a seat.
I sat on a computer chair at the corner and laid my hands on the computer in front of me then lastly, I grabbed the headphone hanging in the headphone stand. My eyes are now in contact to a high-resolution monitor with high refresh rates.
I logged in my account and started to browse data.
The feeling of typing with a mechanical keyboard is like hearing some ASMR sound effects. My finger hurts if I press some keycaps for a long time.
Oh, I still have 340.2 hours left in my account. That must be a lot. If it runs out then it would be another monthly purchase for me. phew, another 40$ again.
I opened a browser software or an application and tried to check some recommended and relevant content.
Political issues again huh. I keep seeing this kind of news until I got sick of it. after that, I scrolled down watching some contents while listening to the music.
I guess i should watch anime.
At the past, after watching anime, reading novels in a couple of years made me say that I wish my life would be an anime cause its fictional in the beginning, living in reality is kinda depressing.
Remembering myself saying something like that makes me feel disgusted but on the other hand I can agree that its true.
Well, it feels weird watching an anime in the internet café in my opinion. Especially if I watch ecchi animes. Maybe scrolling down and find some updates might help.
I keep on scrolling down having a cringe feeling after watching cringy contents and irrelevant videos. Some of it are in wrong grammars and hate contents all the way to the bottom.
later on, my dry mouth was half opened.
It was an illustration of a newly released fantasy game, it has anime art style that delivers great impression to weebs or otakus. The details, designs and the shadings were all at the next level.
The game company said that it needs a good computer to run smoothly with the ultra-settings. Unfortunately, there are only 10 downloads since it was recently published.
How come there are only few people didn't notice this game. this is weird.
My curiosity went higher, I tried to check out more information and details about the game. it says that it is an open-world RPG and it has a gacha in it. I think mostly online RPG had a gacha system on it.
The company name was unknown and it wasn't written in the game info. This is getting much weirder than before. it made me think that this is possibly a scam or waste of time to install this game.
I tried to check also if there are some reviews or feed backs but unfortunately, there isn't, even the CS email address and the forum site didn't exist in this game
I also searched the game in the social media website to check if there are any game previews or any sample of a gameplay or a game reaction but it seems something like that didn't exist neither. Not even a channel nor a page exist in the social media.
The illustration was pretty well-made and I can sense there's a lot of effort consumed for that. this must be a stolen artwork.
My doubt tends to rise and started to think negatively.
If I install this game to a public computer and a virus would occur. I would probably be banned here.
My hand holding the mouse was hesitating to click the install tab. With curiosity fully dragged me, I ended up installing the game.
I averted my eyes from the screen monitor and set my gaze on the other customers. Surprisingly noticed that I'm the only one left in the internet café except the clerk.
I grabbed my smartphone in an instant to check the time and it was already 7:30 in the evening. A time like this isn't really late for me but however, my parents will yell at me right after I arrive home again.
Silently logged out from the computer, puts the smartphone on my bag and went away without glancing back.
I found myself taking a seat inside the bus while staring at the window with my mind going into other dimension telling myself I was having normal day today.
There are only few people wandering in this evening because of the curfew. Speaking of curfew, I'm deliberately surprised that I managed to return back home without getting caught by the police.
Door knobs clicks as I was trying to open it and I was now exposed to the light bulb after I went inside of my house.
Dad was reading a magazine sitting beside my little sister and my mother seems to be reheating the food for me. My little sister was lying down in the couch watching tv and her mood changed after I arrive home.
It was like a wide swing of an emotion.
"ahh ! my creepy brother has come! Lucky for you, didn't get caught by the police at this late. it would be better if you were and don't come back here"
She was talking to me harshly while glaring at me with her arms crossed. she looked like a spoiled child looking down on a person who has a lower standard than her. I slowly opened my mouth and gave her a reply.
"alright"
Then I went ahead to my room.
She pouted and tried her best to talk to him straightly. I don't have anything important to talk to her so I basically ignore her without leaving a single glance at my little sister.
"don't you dare ignore me or else I'll eat your dinner"
"....."
"idiot!"
I walked upstairs to go inside of my room.
The gamer's hand twisted the doorknob, opening the great, dark and a silent room. It was like a an abandoned room at first look.
The clanking noise slowly appeared my ears as I pushed the door widely. My room may be too dark but it is perfectly cleaned, so don't be bothered about that.
I sat on my gaming chair turning my computer as I did earlier in the internet café. Immediately downloaded the newly released game I found earlier and was about to be installed right now. Actually, I made a hard time searching this game because it isn't so popular or highly viewed in the game store.
[*** ****: ********* has been successfully installed.]
My disappointment ascended a little bit after installing the game for a long time. I have the fastest type of SSD that makes the installation faster but it took almost Fifty minutes to complete all the process.
Some of my games installed on my computer have almost same size to this new game. installed and completed all of it within 5 minutes. This is strange, this is the first time I've ever encountered something like this.
The Antivirus software showed no response about this 'game', no threats were found, warnings or basically nothing at all. I couldn't add the game to the game software to increase the performance and show all the graphs about my gaming experience.
Nah, never mind all of that, it would be better to take a try and see what's in it. uninstalling the game is easy. Now then, I should create an account since the game wont support logging in through social media account, that's unfortunate.
[username: lightmage281 password: ************* ]
After I logged in, the black screen appeared within few seconds. Did it crash? Don't tell me this game is a PC killer? No, there's no way the game store would allow something like that to be published.
I grabbed my smartphone and use it while waiting for the game to load or return back to normal. while I was swiping at my touchscreen, the monitor's light became brighter and I assumed that it worked well.
[verifying 1%.......20%........50%...75%.........100%....... START]
I clicked the start button and the game went on loading again. a half a minute after I pressed the start button, I felt something bad. I'm not feeling well all of a sudden. the image of a fantasy open world appeared in the display of my monitor in a moment and it suddenly went back into black screen again.
My visions are getting foggy for no reason, my heart palpitates as I was staring at my monitor, I can't breathe, it's so uncomfortable, I'm losing consciousness at this rate. My weak body cannot endure it and I.
I died.
My life was meaningless in the beginning, I didn't expect my life would end like that. at least let me feel what sex feels like or having a date with a cute girl.
Everything was dark, like I closed my eyes. It was like I was being wrapped by void while having a blank stare. I absentmindedly moving stiff as if I don't know what to do here.
I didn't expect that something like this would happen.
With my eyes getting blank within 15 minutes, I close my eyes and open it again.
The gleaming light appeared in my sight and its slowly getting bigger when a second has passed. It is like an anime scene where the main character was fighting his dark side or getting power up form fighting a powerful enemy.
I was floating in a dark place like I was outside of the planet I live in.
The voice of a young lady was calling my name. having a feeling of relief as I heard my name, I also feel like there was someone was patting my head with their soft palm.
I imagine having myself a lap pillow from a beautiful girl in a moment and disappeared later on.
"Magna!! Magna!!Magna!! oi wake up!"
"let me sleep more"
"Wake up!! big brother!!!"
While I was like having a good sleep, a small palm hit my cheek and managed to fully wake me up.
I opened my eyes, it was too bright to see everything inside a place where I was lying down. The light of the sun already kissed me in the face and forced myself to cover my face with a blanket.
When I covered my face with a blanket and attempted to return back to sleep, someone kicked me in the face and made me stood up having a little feeling of annoyance.
[uh]
an image of a young girl who was barely reached at an age of 10, she was staring at me sharply having her arms crossed. She was wearing an elegant dress, acting a little bit grumpy for a little girl.
at first look, I think of her as a daughter of a rich family or a noble or something like that. Not to mention, she called me big brother as she attempted to wake me up. could it be she's my little sister.
The image of my little sister in my previous life showed up in my mind in an instant and disappeared right away. I basically caught a glimpse about what my relationship with my little sister in the past life was. If I look at it, it was a relationship like we treat each other as strangers.
I couldn't remember anything after that.
It made me surprised and confused at the same time as I woke up in this place where I didn't recognize. That little girl beside me was staring at me thinking that was acting weird.
After that, I realized that I spaced out while staring at her.
I wandered my eyes and tried to touch anything strange inside this room. I don't know if these stuffs were mine or it was owned by someone else. At first, I woke up here in this room so I assume these things belong to me.
"big brother, it's time to eat your breakfast"
"oh, yeah. I'll go eat later"
She went outside of the room without closing the door and I managed to change come weird clothing in this closet. It really is my room after confirming that the clothes I tried fit the same size with my small body.
I took a peek at the window where the light of the sun was reflected within the glass. When my eyes went through the window, I was thinking about the names of my family.
Waking up in a room. I didn't recognize, being called a big brother from a cute girl I didn't know about. Not to mention, I didn't remember what happened when I was asleep or basically I was wondering why am I here.
I have a bad feeling about this...…