Artificial Fantasy

Prologue

Have you ever read light novels and manga or watched anime about Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game or MMORPG? Or about Virtual Reality MMORPG?

Well, I had read and watched them. But to me, I felt that those stories were another way for teens and college kids escape their mundane lives, especially in the US. Heck, those stories mostly pertained to being transported or reincarnated into another world and seemed to be just another type of escapism. In fact, those stories are very popular in Japan, to the point that a novel contest that banned them due to the premise being overused! To me, it was a very good call for them, because always having to read a new story about a lazy high-school student sent to a strange world to become a hero or reincarnated into a new being was enough to make me cringe.

But to be honest, those genres aren't too bad, and most people still enjoy the concept. And it seemed to be a dream come true for fans when a new kind of VR was introduced in 2047. It's called the Advanced Dive Virtual Reality system (ADVR) and thanks to its sense transferrence feature, you can able to not only see and hear, but also taste, smell, and feel the virtual surroundings around you without the use of any controllers. From what I was told, they said that you only have to wear the ADVR console helmet and let it's special operating system transfer your consciousness into the virtual world.

In other words, it's like lucid dreaming. You can dream and aware of your unconsciousness, except you're exploring the virtual simulation made by other people.

Obviously, the innovations of ADVR spawned several applications and of course, the birth of several VRMMOs. By the time 2048 rolled in, most people were hooked and demanded to have a true VRMMO experience, though some of the populace remained cautious about the dangers behind it.

I was one of those people since most of the anime I watched had serious downsides to these games and VRs. I thought avoiding to play them was a smart thing to do. That is until that fateful day...

But to my surprise, my story didn't start off with tragedy. It actually started with an interesting virtual adventure. An adventure that my brother and I recorded in our journal logs.