Chapter 1: The Long-Awaited VR Game
"Whoa… this is incredible."
The man couldn’t help but let out a voice of awe at the sight before him.
From the top of a gentle hill, his eyes took in an endless sea of grasslands, stretching out beneath a vast, piercingly blue sky. Not a single man-made object spoiled the view. What lay before him was pure, unfiltered nature—the kind of scenery he had never witnessed in his life.
"So this is… VR, huh?"
His murmur carried an unmistakable mix of excitement, wonder, and sheer joy.
When he was a child, a brand-new kind of game had just appeared on the consoles that dominated the era—RPGs, role-playing games.
The story of becoming a hero, battling enemies, honing your strength, and finally defeating the Demon Lord to save the world… That was the game where he first learned the words RPG and fantasy, and he was instantly captivated.
From those crude 2D pixel sprites, games evolved at a breakneck pace. By the time he was an adult in the workforce, it was possible to see worlds crafted so vividly on-screen that they rivaled—or even surpassed—reality itself.
Your avatar, a second self, moved freely through these intricate worlds.
You felt like you were there, yet deep down you knew it was only an image on a screen.
The more realistic the games became, the stronger the yearning grew: the dream to actually step into those worlds, to become that character.
It was a dream many shared. Even if the technology wasn’t there yet, surely one day people would be able to experience a game world as if it were real—through Virtual Reality.
But the years went by. Even as he reached middle age, VR games remained just that: a dream. Something impossible.
And yet… technology never stops. Sometimes inching forward, sometimes leaping ahead in sudden breakthroughs.
Decades later, when he had already retired from his job and was well into the years people called "old age,"… that impossible dream finally became reality.
"At last… we’ve made it."
Caressing the VR headset with trembling hands, the old man’s face overflowed with irrepressible joy.
The device before him was composed of a main unit about the size of a small cabinet, an attached monitor, and a headset connected via thick cables.
Because the VR system worked by directly interfacing with the brain, it wasn’t purely a gaming machine—it also functioned as medical equipment. With the right software installed, it could be used not just for games, but for therapy, athletic training, immersive education for students, and countless other applications.
Its effectiveness had already been proven in military and medical fields, so when VR devices finally became available to the public, they spread explosively, practically overnight.
But fate had played a cruel trick. Just as the rest of the world embraced VR, the man had been hospitalized with a serious illness. By the time he recovered and was discharged, more than a year had passed since launch.
And now, two months after leaving the hospital, he was finally about to begin—the VR gaming experience he had waited over half a century to see come true.
More than a year had gone by since release, and there were already over a dozen RPG-style VR games on the market. Instead of the popular MMOs, however, he chose a single-player RPG.
In reality, his body was frail and weakened by age. But inside virtual reality, he could move once again with the vigor of his younger years. That was one reason so many elderly people played games in this era.
Of course, the heart remained unchanged. No matter how much of a gamer he had been, he didn’t have the same fiery drive to compete with younger generations in an MMO.
He had lived alone all his life, never marrying, and still lived by himself. People often said single seniors kept a youthful spirit, but even that had its limits. Besides, with relatives and friends living nearby, he was far from lonely. There was no need for him to seek companionship through MMOs.
What he wanted was to enjoy this new world at his own pace, undisturbed.
The game he chose was called New World & New Life—a fantasy RPG set in the world of Astearia, where humans, demons, fairies, and beastkin all lived.
It featured a highly flexible growth system combining levels and skills, as well as a richly detailed world powered by advanced AI for NPCs and companion characters.
Despite being single-player, it offered a staggering variety of professions—from the classic adventurer to humble farmer—and over a dozen different main questlines.
You could enjoy it as a straightforward RPG, live a peaceful life tending to fields and animals, fight tooth and nail in the cutthroat world of commerce, or even ignore the main story entirely and simply live each day in peace.
The freedom it offered rivaled that of any MMO.
Naturally, being single-player, it had harsh penalties against crime, making "criminal play" virtually impossible. But that hardly mattered to this old man, whose heart was still steady and kind.
And so, at long last, his lifelong dream was about to begin.
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