Chapter 1: Welcome to the Virtual World

A sudden cluster of varied colors flew towards my eyes leaving white space for a brief second then five cyan circles each labeled touch, smell, sight, taste, and sound rushed at me one by one, the rings flashed sky blue moving to the right of the space then dispersing left and right, presenting me with a login window.

As a gamer, I am very intuitive, so I imagined typing on a qwerty keyboard, recalling each letter location from Q to M, and typed "Damian_connolly24" in the username section as Cambell instructed me to do then proceeded to input the password.

A few seconds passed, I blinked and realized I wasn't in the white space anymore; it caused me to rotate my head in all directions.

The area seemed to be a vast field that looked like a botanist's fantasy.

Clusters of tulips, bluebells, roses, lavender, daffodils, buttercups, and dandelions covered the surface I stood on.

I was greeted with a white, floating text box that reads "静かな庭園へようこそ."

-Eh?

A brief moment of confusion circled my mind.

"...?"

-Oooooh!

I rolled my eyes, brushing off my forgetful mindset.

Cambell mentioned something about a Japanese server, I thought.

By pure coincidence, I had studied the Japanese language, which meant I understood the ideographics in front of me; I revised the text again.

"Ahh, Welcome to The Serene Garden," I read aloud, slapping my forehead, giggled then continued talking to myself.

"Goodness... aren't I stupid for not realizing sooner." I carried on chuckling to myself.

"Who are you talking to?" a soft but severe voice pierced my left eardrum. I froze. Rotated my neck 45 degrees anti-clockwise, and locked eyes with a girl who looked confused.

-She looks at least two years younger than me, I assumed.

The girl had short dark-brown hair and milky-white-pinkish skin and a faint hint of light-purple that mixed with the blush on her cheeks. She wore a beige-colored headband to keep her fringe from invading her sparkly, brown eyes.

She was wearing a light-colored grey shirt that was tucked into the dark blue shorts on her thin, smooth legs.

-I-Is that an NPC? An AI? It looks like an actual person.

I began leering at her.

"Uhh... how long are you going to keep staring like that?"

"O-Oh! Uh, sorry about that!" I leaned back, averting my eyes to avoid further suspicion.

"No, it's fine!"

The cute girl tilted her head, prodded her chin with her right index finger, and looked slightly upward, "From what I can tell... You've just got here, right?" she reviewed my appearance before closing her eyes with an ear to ear smile.

"Err... yeah?"

-She seems way too pleasant and kind... wait, why is she speaking perfect English to me? Isn't this a Japanese server?

An endless stream of questions filled my brain.

"You're staring again!" the girl snapped me back to the current moment.

"Sorry again. I have a habit of flying with the clouds."

-And she completely understands me as well.

The last irrelevant thought crossed my mental finish-line.

The girl made an angelic smile that blinded me. "So... that means you're the same as me, right?"

-Come again?

Before I could reply, she galloped towards me, gripped my right wrist, almost crushing it.

"...!"

She turned to face me, burning my eyes with another smile as bright as the sun.

"Oh, by the way, I'm Yuuki!"

I couldn't reply, for my forearm was experiencing extreme levels of pressure.

An agonizing ten minutes of pain went by as we both stood before a black painted gate. My agony continued as Yuuki was still holding my wrist.

"Can't... Hurts... Too much..."

Thankfully Yuuki noticed my painful expression and let go and giggled to herself.

"Oh, I thought you could handle that since you look real tough!"

The pain in my wrist was too much.

Turning to Yuuki, I fell to my knees, feeling as though my hand had been amputated, "Do you even know the concept of holding back?!" My voice broke as I yelped like a dog paw had been jabbed by a thorn.

Yuuki fried my pupils with yet another angelic smile then apologized while still giggling to herself.

She turned to the gate and yelled, "Nee-chan!"

The volume of her yell was much louder than I had anticipated.

Another girl, the same height as Yuuki, approached from the other side of the gate.

From what I could tell by both Yuuki's and the other girl's clothes and appearances, I concluded they were siblings.

Yuuki's sister, supposedly named Ran, unlocked and pushed the gate doors open.

With a loud creak, the gate doors parted.

-Is there a setting to adjust the audio, so my ears don't bleed?

I quickly stopped complaining and stood attention to Yuuki's sister.

-Wow, she's just as cute as Yuuki.

She made a expression like she knew what I was thinking.

"Yuu, who's this?"

"This is Damai!" Yuuki answered.

"It's a plea-"

-Hold on a minute, Da-my? Isn't my name-!

Intuitively, I looked at the top of my HUD, and to my horror, noticed Damian wasn't there and felt a slight jab in my neck.

-D-Damai?! No no no no no, this can't be right, that's a terrible name!

then remember Cambell telling me about why I have a terrible title as my avatar name.

"The technical staff said they couldn't input your name, so they tried something else instead."

-Damn, I forgot!

Yuuki was oblivious to what I was doing while her sister stared in disturbance.

They turned their backs to me and whispered to each other but just enough for me to hear what they were saying.

"What's with him?"

"He probably just noticed his name, just like what you did when you saw the word Ran."

"But I didn't act like that," Ran claimed.

After my tragic episode, Ran allowed me to enter the gate as I was guided around the town area of "Serenity" by Yuuki.

"So... is this your first time in VR?" Yuuki asked with her signature, goddess-like smile.

"Yep! although I did expect more fantasy-like concepts in VR."

"Oooh, you mean like other VR games?"

-Pardon?

My expression clearly stated confusion.

"Yeah! there are more VR games out there, y' know?" She spoke in a prideful manner before looking at me, "D-Damai...?"

Once again, I felt a slight painful jab in my neck.

Yuuki was amazing by how little I knew of VR, which was a bit insulting, "You seriously didn't know? I never expected that just by looking at you. You look like you know a lot!" she said with a

-I appreciate your assumption of me, but please don't think of me as a VR guru.

As frustrating Yuuki's unintended teasing was, I still forgave her.

"Say," I prodded Yuuki's shoulder, "These alley-ways and streets remind me a lot of the town I grew up in."

"Really?" A spark of curiosity flared in Yuuki's hazelnut eyes, "How so?"

"Hrm... maybe the architecture? I don't know, but it reminds me a lot of Europe."

We carried on playing twenty (million) questions about eachother, I answered most of them since Yuuki inquired at least seventy percent of the questions, I didn't share too much, though.

Cambell warned me not to give too much information.

Especially regarding the Medicuboid.