[New User Is Logging In]
"Phew, looks like I won't have to wait then." With that thought, the dark space around him became almost blindingly white. Squinting his nonexistent eyes, he looked around.
"Ugh, was that really necessary?" Dags muttered under his breath.
After a moment, he saw that he was actually above someone. A short girl with long, light brown hair. She had a pretty face and green eyes, and was looking around curiously. She had what Dags assumed were beginner clothes you'd see in many games. A pair of light brown shorts, beige t-shirt, and a pair of brown boots. Not exactly an exciting color palette, but it was just starting gear that everyone probably got.
Shortly after, a voice rang out surprising Dags and the girl.
"Welcome new User, Cynthia, to Magitech Online. Please input a username to display for others in the game." Dags saw a prompt appear in front of the girl who's name was apparently Cynthia. She thought for a second, and spoke her desired username.
"[Formless Mist]." She said in a barely audible manner.
"It seems she's quite a soft spoken girl," Dags thought. "Wait, can she hear me?" Dags gasped, hoping he could get her attention after thinking about it.
"Heyyyyy!! Miss Cynthia, can you hear me?!" He shouted, but it was to no avail. She didn't react at all, so it seemed his voice couldn't be heard. Dispirited, Dags slouched his shoulders. Is there anything in my system that lets me communicate? He opened up his menu once again, and clicked the second button called [Processes].
[Processes]
[Text Box]
Send helpful messages to the User. A box will appear on the Users HUD to give tips on their journey.
Energy consumption: 0.1
Processing Power required: 0
Cooldown: N/A
[Detect Hostility]
Inform the User of that someone nearby has hostile intent towards them. (Passive)
Energy consumption: 1/min
Processing Power required: 5
Cooldown: N/A
[Scan Area]
Scans the area 5 meters around the User. Scans highlight hidden areas, valuable objects, and other beings. Able to be filtered to not overload eyesight.
Energy consumption: 5
Processing Power required: 15
Cooldown: 30 minutes
[Refresh User]
Once a day, refresh the User's state. Health, Mana, and Skill cooldowns will be refreshed back to their normal state.
Energy consumption: 10
Processing Power required: 20
Cooldown: 1 in game day
"Wow, these seem quite useful. I guess I'll be a kind of support for this girl." He rubbed his chin thinking about what he could do to help. "There's also the function I wanted! I can talk to the girl down there now." Dags smiled joyfully and immediately tried to message Cynthia who was still down below.
"[Process is not available. Process will be available once User has entered the game world.]" Dags shook his head and sighed at this.
"Guess I just have to wait a little longer…" He looked down at Cynthia, watching as she was mulling over what class and race to take. Dags could see everything on it as if he was right next to it, and he read it to himself.
"Human, Elf, Beastman, Dwarf, Orc, Gnome, and Sprite… Looks pretty interesting." For classes there's a mix that looked rather odd to him.
"Swordsman, Mage, Tamer, Thief, Cleric, Archer, Soldier, Gunner, Marksman, Medic, and Mechanic. The name of the game is MagiTech, so it's a game of magic and technology?" While Dags was talking to himself, Cynthia finally made her pick.
"I want to be an Elven Marksman." Her quiet voice was quite hard to hear, but the game's system and Dags still heard her. She was slightly shuffling on her feet, unsure of her choice, but she couldn't take it back now.
Cynthia's figure started to undergo some changes. Her ears became slightly longer and pointed, and her eyes seemed to shine with new light. Her outfit also got tweaked a bit. A new belt was added to her beginner gear, with a pistol stored in a holster. A few mag pouches were attached to the belt, and she gained a small trail backpack which looked like it too was probably filled with starter items.
As she was checking out her new items, the system made a new announcement.
"[Teleporting User to a starting town. Good luck on your adventure through the world of MagiTech Online, [Formless Mist]].
With that, another bright flash appeared and both Dags and Cynthia closed their eyes.
———
When Dags opened his eyes, he thought he was back in reality for a moment. Surrounded by large, modern looking buildings, he gaped in wonder. "Is this truly a game? It looks so… real! Even in my later years I never saw a game look this good…" As he was digesting the amazing progress technology has made, his perspective suddenly started moving.
"Huh? Why am I moving?" It was then that he realized he's basically attached to Cynthia as she moves around. Dags shared the same view as her as she looked around and moved.
"It's as if I'm looking out of her eyes… That's kind of weird. I guess it's like I'm watching a first person movie though, like that Hardcore Harry one." He shook his head, getting rid of the distracting thoughts.
"Let's try out that message system now that we're in the game properly. Bring up [Text Box]!" Once again, the blue screen appeared before him and had a text field for him to input his message.
"Only 50 character limit?!" He sighed and facepalmed. What was with this absurdly low limit? Surely his system was trolling him now, right? He looked at it once again and considered what he should say. After all, he didn't want to freak her out.
"Hey there Cynthia, I'm an AI living in your head!" He shook his head. "Much too casual and that will likely scare her." As he kept pondering about what to say to her, the person in question was wandering around the town.
———
Cynthia pursed her lips, unsure of where to go as she wasn't much of a gamer. Her father had wanted her to join, telling Cynthia that her older brothers had already entered the game a week ago. Going on and on about how the game was going to be huge, changing how society worked.
Cynthia didn't really understand how that was possible, but after her father gave her a new NanoPhase helmet, she decided to give it a shot. It looked a little different than the ones that her older brothers had, but maybe it was a new model she thought. Now that she had actually entered the game, she didn't know where to go, or who to talk to. She saw other players on the street, noted by the green names instead of white, which marked NPCs, hovering over the players.
She called out to a random player, "Um, excuse me I'm new. Can you point me to where I should start getting quests?" Her voice wasn't all that loud, and the player walked by without hearing her. She bit her lip, berating herself for not being able to speak up loudly enough.
This time, she went up to another friendly looking person and tapped their arm and said, "H-hello. I need some help. Can you tell me where I can get quests for new players?" She tried to speak a little louder, and it seemed the player was able to hear her this time.
The man looked her up and down and smiled. "Yeah, sure! Go down the road that way and head to a red brick building. That's the mercenary building The NPCs post new quests in there everyday. They could range from stuff even newbies like you could complete, to difficult stuff even big guilds might struggle with!" He pointed towards the road leading to the center of town, still smiling and checking her out.
Struggling under the person's intense gaze, she nodded quickly and said "Thank you," in a near whisper before taking off like a predator was staring at her.
Dags, lost in thought, saw none of this as he was turning the cogs in his head to come up with something suitable to say. Then, all of a sudden, he opened his eyes.
"Alright let's go with that." He said resolutely. Moments later, a screen popped up on the side of Cynthia's HUD.
[Welcome to MagiTech! I'm Dags, your AI assistant.]