Chapter 1: Inside The Game
Sitting in front of his laptop, cross legged, Yenn pressed the ‘start' button. He recently became into RPGs. He had a hobby of playing computer games more than the mobile ones since he’s more versed in keyboard controls than joystick. The game in his laptop is called “Arcs of Shion” it piqued his interest because he saw a lot of his classmates and almost everyone around him play the game. He was a newbie of course, he started reading rules then some few instructions in the settings of the game. A player who passed the easy modes is categorized as “Newp” a player who passed normal modes are called “Pro” and the player who passed Hard Modes are called “Lord of the Games” and those players who belonged to Top 500 are called “Top Rankers” and those who are in Top 10 are the Top Tier players.
He clicked his then browse the store, his inventory was totally empty except the tradable ticket pass. After a few seconds of setting up his character, he tapped his fingers on the keyboard and casually clicking the mouse to try the moving function of the game. When he already felt accustom to it, he moved his character forward and it stopped in front of a large school that blatantly shows the name of the school in his screen “Wellington Academy” he chuckled and glanced at the map on the top right corner of his screen then he leaned back on his chair thinking about what to do next. A thought popped up on his mind while moving the character through the hallway. He browsed his map to locate the student council president after pinpointing it he moved his character towards that direction. What he saw next is a scene of slaughter, a student was bullying another student with a cutter pointing to the student’s throat. He stopped and walk toward them. The other students saw him and blocked his way through, saying “Mind your own business, scram!” then they threw a lot of things at his character. He shrugged and decided to just ignore the scene. After a moment, the screen was suddenly filled with confetti and a system message popped: “Congratulations! Blah blah blah” he clicked his screen aiming to clear the confetti but it filled the screen more so he just sighed and waited for the confetti to disappear in the screen.
On the other hand another player saw the announcement, she suddenly sit straight to her chair. Shang Huanyi stared at her screen with a flushed of embarrassment appeared on her face. “Clumsy Helper? Come on!” She accepted the rewards then she moved her character to follow the student council president which, she thought a bullied student that she helped. She was casually walking around to familiarize herself on the game when she ended up seeing a bullied student scene in front of her. When she approached closer, she saw that the bully was pointing a cutter to the student on the right front side of her. Although the help was about snatching the cutter, she ended up tripping and making the bully slip on his feet as the cutter flew away so the scene looked like a girl catching the bully by clumsily diving into him. They walked through a long corridor while her head down. When they reach the office, she saw two girls, one with glasses and one with a curly brown hair discussing with each other. She then saw the bully earlier talking with the guy sitting with a book and pen on his hand. When they entered, the student council members all looked at her with a smile. She bowed her character to them then the two girls approached her and let her sit. Suddenly a chat popped out on their head “Hey didn’t you know? We’ve been trying this social experiment for over a month now and you’re the only one who came and help a bullied student. We’re really grateful” the curly haired girl smiled at her cheerfully as she blabbed about the student council works. The book guy closed his book and approached them he introduced everyone to her then his dialogue turn into questionnaire in her screen. “What’s your name?” she tapped one of the choices. Leo glance at her as he mouthed an ‘oh’ sound.
He then told her a bunch of stuff about the school and the students. As a player, Shang Huanyi listened eagerly then asked a few questions regarding the school background, few student manners and teachers where she get a bit of info regarding the mission of the game. (The mission is to find the demon)
She entered the library searching for newspaper issues about the school or maybe catalogs but only find books about school’s history and subject lessons.
‘This is hard, why aren’t there signs of Demons?’
She walked aimlessly at the corridor then he bumped to a guy. She saw a long blue haired character that looks like a punk, it was the other character that was faced with the scene earlier. She saw a chat notification popped up on her screen.
:{What a coincidence to find you here, how’s the library?}
: {Nothing good inside (ب_ب)}
After a few chats they both exchange information about the game although she has gained the upper hand, she still leaked a few about the student council to make it equal to him.
Shang Huanyi moved to the Biology Class Hall to find Mr. Hawkins’ room. After asking few of his students, She was now sure no–she had her thought fix already and simply clicked the “Student Council President” button on the choices in her screen. She pressed the buttons answering the system questions, after a moment she heard a blip sound saying answers were wrong.
‘What? No way I’m sure he is the Demon how come?’ Shang Huanyi clicked [X] on the system message as she leaned back on her chair. A moment after, the screen was filled with confetti again followed by a system message: Congratulations…blablahblah”
Shang Huanyi was startled, but then she was filled with joy after receiving reward points although her title was once again “Clumsy”. She just smiled and leaned back on her chair while casually moving her character on the screen from here and there.