Virtual Reality. It had been half a century since that system was implemented. It was a technology that today's world economy could not do without.

Schooling was done by accessing dedicated terminals at home and then connecting the individual, through the internet, to a virtual reality to attend lessons. Without the possible risks that could be encountered during a student's commuting, and because the virtual educational institutions did not require any of the maintenance costs for the school building, today, physical schools were in the process of becoming extinct.

Similarly, with work, meeting clients was also done through virtual reality. Since electronic programs had been used for everything, the cost of paperwork also disappeared. Even when it came to a company's buildings—like its headquarters, for example—the renting and maintenance costs of a private server in the virtual reality was overwhelmingly cheaper than their real counterparts.

As everything outside of physical needs could be satisfied with virtual reality, the VR technology continued to develop by leaps and bounds.

Of course, there was no way that such a technology wouldn't be targeted by the game industry. Although its required equipment was still a little expensive, that technology grew so popular it wasn't uncommon for the general household to buy them as a way to celebrate a child's coming of age, for example.

It happened over different periods, but a number of VR games started being developed. Sakimori Kagami was also one such common youth who received a VR machine for his transition to adulthood.

Using his own machine, he did his job at home. For his lunch breaks, he would eat the food prepared by his mother. Working for a typical, small-to- medium firm that barely required overtime and had no need for commuting, Kagami spent his days without feeling any particular dissatisfaction

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One day, a VRMMO-RPG1 called 『Ark Earth Online』 appeared.

It began very quietly, with the Closed β starting and ending before anybody even knew it existed.

The reason that Sakimori Kagami became aware of such a minor game was because of a commercial that had aired late at night. It had neither sound nor video—it was merely the game's personal VR access code aired for 15 seconds.

Out of curiosity, when he started up his VR machine to take a look, a white virtual space with the title 『Ark Earth Online』 appeared around him. The only

other things were two lines: Begin Open β. Download.

Interested by that simplistic approach, that did not try to butter him up, he touched the Download text. Then, after choosing "yes", the installation process began. Going by the only clues given at the moment, with those characters written in a fairly common font and floating around a world of pure white, he had absolutely no idea what kind of graphics or world the game would present.

Yet, Kagami was somewhat charmed by that. Although he could hardly explain it, if anything, he felt as if something was compelling him to install the game.

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The installation took roughly fifteen minutes. When he immediately tried to activate it, what appeared was a title screen that looked almost like reality.

Thus began Sakimori Kagami's days of addiction to 『Ark Earth Online』.

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Four years had passed since the Open β had finished. News and advertisement of the game were almost non-existent in gaming magazines or even the internet, but its large player base had already approached, in size, to that of the online games from major corporations. On the contrary, considering how many people were playing the game, it could be said that it was rather strange how Ark Earth Online wasn't appearing on the internet.

The game itself had a typical fantasy setting, but because of its overwhelming degree of freedom, it was hugely popular. Still, as an online game, it had one extremely mysterious point about it:

Its management.

In the four years that the game had been out, there were only two updates, and because there was no official home page, no one knew about its management policy and even the developer's name was an incognita.

That said, it was still an extremely attractive game; rather, there were people who even thought that such a laissez faire attitude from the managers was the right idea, one that opened a whole range of opportunities for the players. And above all, what seemed more important than anything was its lack of bugs.

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The character that Kagami played was an old magician that overflowed with dignity. With white hair and a white beard that brought to mind a veteran magician, what Kagami spent a day creating was a character with incredible presence. The avatar's name was chosen from two of his favorite fictional wizards: one was the principal of a magician's school that appeared in a world- wide famous movie, while the other was a wizard from an adventure film about a ring.

Dunbalf was the character's name. His class, the Summoning Expert. In the Open β he had chosen the Sorcery Expert, but he had no idea how he was supposed to learn sorcery. No matter how many enemies he defeated he couldn't learn sorcery, and there was nothing like a tutorial or a manual to fix that problem.

Although it was a ridiculous game that left the person completely on their own after suddenly dropping them into the world, it was fun searching for one's own playstyle, so the players were completely drawn in.

Even so, no matter how hard he had searched, he couldn't figure out how to learn sorcery.

A Summoning Expert gained summons through defeating spirit-type enemies and forming a contract with them, or through actions like clearing class-specific quests. The latter option was much harder to learn, but since a small part of its methods was already available on bulletin boards, Kagami had the basic ideas of what he had to do.

Of course, because of the lack of explanations for the game, there was a lot of grumbling amongst players, but it was discovered that the game had a system where, if one passed very strict conditions, they could even create a country, so their passion went strongly in that direction.

Becoming a king, developing a town and building an army. Invading neighbouring countries, building defensive forts, hiring mercenaries, etc.; towards the ability to do things that they had only ever seen in fiction before, the players went mad with enthusiasm.

Ambitious players who founded nations, players who looked up to those founders and followed them, adventurers who loved freedom, people who established secret societies, as well as merchants, mercenaries and, on top of all that, even assassins; because of such a wide range of playstyles available for their own enjoyment, the players' dissatisfaction eventually died down.

Moreover, the degree of freedom was not limited to just that. For example, despite the fact that, including legendary-class items, there was already a great variety of weapons, armors, potions and others, with some ingenuity the players were able to create completely new items. It was possible to produce not only legendary-grade items, but things that even surpassed that class. It reached a point that people began saying that there was nothing you could do in reality that you couldn't do in the game.

Some players who delved deeply into enjoying blacksmithing became known by all players, and even a single sword of theirs could be sold for millions. Others, who managed to master woodworking, developed building construction techniques that allowed them to create castles. People obsessed with digging holes found hot springs, and were now managers of massive onsen resorts. There were even those who devised their own sword techniques and opened a dojo to teach them.

What kind of skills were there? How far could they go with their creativity?

There were those who freely used skills to develop new sports, people who realised their dreams of becoming pirates, people who risked themselves by

collecting information from around the continent and becoming information brokers. Attempting a great number of things, the players were successful in every single one of them—even the most ridiculous ideas worked.

Amongst those players were also people who formed skill lists by organising the absolutely great number of known skills. They would meet with each player and ask about the particular details of the techniques they had developed, collecting everything in a book. The skills encyclopedia published by them became a massive best-seller, earning a fortune for its creators.

In fact, Dunbalf was also a famous person who had developed a number of unique techniques. One of them was a technique he created through trial and error, designed to make up for the weak points of those who acted in the rearguard. It was the development of a secondary job, called as "Second Class" by the players. Dunbalf's main class was the Summoning Expert, while his other job was a close-quarters specialist of the Expert classes, the Xian Expert. By going through training such as sitting under waterfalls and hanging upside down from trees for an entire day, a Xian Expert could learn their skills.

Incidentally, the way for a Sorcery Expert to obtain their skills was discovered little by little in the month since game officially began; the players were supposed to place a catalyst on a piece of paper with a magic circle drawn on it, and then use the only skill that Sorcery Experts started with, the [Sorcery: Flame], to burn it up.

Four years after the start of such a miraculous game, Kagami had become a part of the Nine Sages, a group that was considered one of the pillars of a certain country.

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One day, Kagami had gone off to suppress monsters that had appeared near the border of the nation he belonged to. That type of subjugation mission was very common, and other members of his nation took turns to do it. And it was now Kagami's turn.

Leaving the tower he used as his main base, Kagami listlessly headed towards the national borders when, suddenly, he heard a call from the real world and his sister's shrill voice, indicating it was dinner time.

After eating, the man dived back into the virtual reality. Immediately, he noticed that there was a message for him. Checking its contents, Kagami found out that the online cash he had bought for Ark Earth Online was about to expire.

Just like other online games, Ark Earth Online also had a cash shop. However, the things sold there were just minor items to support one's gameplay.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that, amongst the cash shop items, there was a classic product that all players had bought: the 『Vanity Case』. Each one was sold for ¥500 and allowed the player to reset their avatar's

appearance; the reason it sold really well was because of the abundance of changeable options for the character.

At the start of the game, the number of appearance parts one could select for free was in the thousands, but with the Vanity Case it numbered in the tens of thousands. It was basically already common sense that, first of all, the player would log in with a random character appearance and then use a Vanity Case to setup a new look for that avatar, one that would actually suit their tastes.

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Besides the Vanity Case, there was another classic item, the 『Floating Continent』. It was roughly the size of a 100 meter track field, and was considered a convenient item because a player could do most activities on it. In addition, since it was able to travel by flying through the air, people used it as a vehicle that could move while ignoring the terrain.

The cost of a 『Floating Continent』 was ¥2000. As the online cash could only be bought in multiples of ¥1000, after deducting the costs for the case and the continent, Kagami had been left with ¥500 that were now about to expire. It was just a mere ¥500 from four years ago so, as one would expect, he didn't have much lingering attachment to it. Still, because he felt—out of stinginess, perhaps—that it would be a waste to let the money disappear, he opened up the cash shop menu.

For crafting-related items, there was a craftsman room complete with high class production equipment, priced at ¥1000. Then, in the category that included the Floating Continent, there were other topography-related items that could be placed on that flying land, like buildings and lakes, for example; each being sold for ¥2000. Finally, to complete the cash shop line-up, there was the 『Vanity Case』.

In the end, the only thing he could buy was the case. In addition, even if someone had the desire to obtain just a single Vanity Case, they were forced to buy the minimum of ¥1000 in online credit. That was the harsh reality of the world of adults.

Since it would just be a waste at that rate, Kagami bought a Vanity Case in the end. As a result, his VR money balance became 0.

He then logged into the game to finish his subjugation mission. Using his bracelet-type terminal, he activated the item menu. There, Kagami found a small, lacquered box—the Vanity Case he had just purchased. It had already been four years since he had last used one.

In those days he was completely obsessed about whether or not he could create his ideal male avatar, and so he remembered nothing about the other appearance parts that were available.

Now, Kagami found himself feeling a little curious about them, so he used the Vanity Case and was brought to the avatar creation page, a screen he had

not seen since four fears ago.

The parts one could choose from were separated into categories, such as the group that defined the "impression a character could give to others," that included characteristics like "lively", "reserved", "strong-willed", "cowardly" and many others. Additionally, there was even a category for the "atmosphere" or "presence" expressed by the avatar, like "mysterious", "solemn", "gloomy", "bright", etc. To help the player, every category and characteristic could be found through searches in the menu.

What Kagami felt from having a skim through the list was that, as expected, his current avatar Dunbalf was simply the greatest.

There was probably nothing greater than that avatar. After all, it was something created from his very ideal of what a man was supposed to be. Whilst gazing on in satisfaction at the work of art he had created, a word in the corner of Kagami's eye caught his attention:

Male

It was the word that stated the avatar's sex.

And suddenly, a thought rushed through his mind. His ideal male image had already been perfectly created, right? Then, what about his ideal female image?

He changed the sex from male to female, and Dunbalf became a girl.

On the spot, a slight awkward feeling welled up in his chest. Even though it was a game, staring straight at a girl's figure gave him this difficult to describe sense of shame.

Whilst firmly suppressing that shame... or rather, with a little bit of arousal still affecting him, he chose the character parts.

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Just how long had passed since he began creating his ideal female? By the time Kagami finished the avatar exactly as he had desired and turned to gazing at it with a smirk, he was already being called for breakfast.

When he looked at the time, it already indicated 9 in the morning.

Not even a second later, he was assaulted by an intense feeling of sleepiness. As he tried to touch the logout button, the world went dark, and Kagami's consciousness promptly left him.