"I-I'm sorry. I won't do it again. P-please forgive me. Please..."
Sean instantly remembered this voice. It was the familiar obnoxious voice of bully 1. Curious, Sean took a peek from the corner of the wall while making sure that whoever made bully 1 say those words out loud couldn't see him and subject him to the same fate.
'I swear my curiosity will be the end of me someday.'
After pondering on that thought for a while, he shrugged his shoulders as if it was no big deal.
'Meh, satisfaction will bring me back anyway. If not then, so be it.'
Pushed toward the damp wall of the alley, bully 1 was apologizing profusely to a buff guy holding him hostage. If anyone took a swift glance at this scene, they might think it was a romantic scene from some BL comic where the MC kabedon (wall slam/pin seductively) another man.
However, a keen observer would immediately notice the bruises on bully 1's face and body. In this time of crisis, bully 2 who always followed him around was nowhere to be seen.
'Such a loyal friend. Serves him right, though. Wait, what's that in his hand?'
Despite the commotion, bully 1 was tightly holding a game in his hand. Gripping so hard that Sean could hear the crunches from all the way where he was hiding.
Whack!
The buff guy suddenly slapped the game right out of bully 1's hand, depriving him of his one and only pain relief item. The game flew in the air for a while before landing directly into Sean's reach.
It was the mysterious game that he saw the other day, the cause of the warm feeling he kept experiencing. Before his brain gears even had time to turn, his hands had already picked the game up instinctively.
He knew it was time to flee the scene as there were no more benefits for him to be there any longer, only risks. Shivers ran up his spine when he thought about what would happen if he were to get caught.
With the stealth of a crouched player and the speed of a startled rabbit, Sean successfully fled the scene.
'So long, suckers!' Sean shouted inwardly as he bolted straight home.
Kfttt Pfttt!
Greedily swallowing down a cup of water, Sean almost choked himself.
'That was scary.' He thought as he calmed himself down.
Now safe and comfortable in his humble abode, Sean could properly inspect his spoils. Completely disregarding "Boom", the game he longed for, his attention was all on that particular game that was the source of the weird warm sensations he kept feeling- at least according to his theory.
Despite the horrible damage done to the exterior, the game itself was unscathed, allowing Sean to heave a sigh of relief.
The cover of the game was simplistic only having a single dark red solid color, and some strange rune-like words were present on it- now barely noticeable and utterly indecipherable due to the rough shape the cover was in.
Bully 1 really must have had a hard and painful time considering how hard he must have gripped for the cover to turn out like this. Sean almost felt pity for the poor boy. Almost!
Despite the lack of any interesting features and the presence of a strange sinister aura that he somehow missed or ignored outright, the game was oddly intriguing for the young boy.
Without a shred of hesitation, he booted up the game and waited with anticipation. As usual, a long text of terms and conditions appeared on the digital screen. Of course, he scrolled through it and hit accept without batting an eye like any normal person would do.
A loading screen appeared in front of his eyes and a few seconds later, a deep contrast was created when blinding white words appeared on the sable black digital screen without any prior warning.
'Adventure beckons? It must be the name of the game.'
Indeed, the words [Adventure beckons] were displayed on the digital screen, further enhancing the young boy's enthusiasm. Adventure was a trigger word for most males after all. Especially for the young ones like Sean.
After a while, the menu screen came up. Still made up of white words on the dark background. It was true to the definition of "Simple". Only two words were present on the screen, one lit up and one greyed out.
[New game]
[Continue]
There was no exit button, but Sean was already occupied with the thought of experiencing the gameplay to notice it.
Click!
After selecting the only option available which was [New game], he was suddenly faced with a character selection section.
It said selection but there was only one character to choose from.
'Why say choose when there's no choice at all? Weird game!' is what Sean thought but he was still engrossed in this weird game nonetheless.
Despite there being only one choice, Sean still carefully observed the character, scrutinizing the goods like a seasoned merchant.
Jet black hair, a pair of sharp and narrow dark eyes that didn't seem repulsive despite the vast void that they portrayed, a lean and fairly built body which was a stark difference from Sean's, and a pale skin with a slight hint of yellow was all he could make out of the lightly pixelated young man.
His observation led him to wonder if the game originated from a place across the sea. Since there was nothing to compare the height of the character with, Sean had no way of telling how tall the young man was. In his heart, he secretly wished that he was taller than the young man on the screen.
Click!
With the character selection step done, the screen was suddenly overwhelmed with a huge amount of text.
[Long long ago, the world of Estania was in harmony. Then, everything changed when the dem-]
Instinctively, Sean pushed the holy button of all gamers.
'Skip!'
[...Estanians defended against the demonic forces but…]
'Skip!'
[...hero...sealed…demon lord...corrupted…another...future...]
As soon as a new passage dropped, Sean slapped the skip button without a shred of mercy. After all, who needed the whole dialogue to figure out the game? He could always learn about the story as the game progressed. It was just a waste of precious game time.
As if the game had realized Sean's unstoppable skipping action, the bombardment of dialogues ended abruptly and a new sentence hovered on the screen.
[Please pick a name for the character.]
'Skip! Huh? Oh, a name…'
Sean's skipping frenzy finally came to a halt.
'Hmm, let's just put whatever came to my mind.'
In his hazy mindfield, only the figure of a certain detective with a distinct goatee came to attention.
'Alright, Bob it is!'
Sean made up his mind and typed it out, accidentally adding an extra b. Now, the name floated halfway between Bob and Bobby.
'Meh, Bobb is fine.'
Ding!
[Bobb has been chosen as the name of the character. Connection established. Please enjoy your adventure.]
'Alright, let's go. Show me what you have in store for me, weird game!'
The opaque dark background was suddenly overwhelmed by a luscious green hue. A dense and vibrant forest rendered in as the camera zoomed in on a young man lying on a makeshift bed apparently made out of fallen leaves.
He seemed to be fast asleep despite the uncertainty and danger that might be lurking in the surrounding forest.
The resolution was astounding, almost lifelike even. This shocked Sean who was expecting a pixel game from the pixelated appearance of the young man he had seen during the character selection.
'This is unbelievable. I would totally believe it if someone showed me this and said that it was an actual video. Maybe, it's so well made because it's a cutscene or something. Still, my hopes are high. Keep it up, game!'
The young man wore a tattered white tunic that only reached before his hips contrary to its counterparts. A single brown loin cloth hid the family jewels of the sleeping young man.
Suddenly, he woke up and looked around before getting up and standing still like a robot with no instruction given.
'Oh, he's finally awake. Umm…how do I move? Maybe skipping everything was a bad idea…'
It took Sean several tries but he finally managed to move around. Unlike most other games, the game used a unique set of keys for movement. Despite being in the gameplay part now, the resolution of the game did not drop a bit. It did not let Sean down and hopefully will not in the future as well.
Assuming that the game had some survival aspects, Sean put priority on finding shelter and sustenance. Since the light rays were shining through the gaps between the tightly packed leaves of the towering trees around the character, Sean figured that he still had some time before night approached and danger loomed around.
But, he couldn't have been more wrong when a familiar-looking critter came into view. Despite its seemingly peaceful appearance, Sean knew it was hostile. Why? Because the combat music started playing as soon as the creature entered the screen.
'Combat, huh? Try me!'