Artificial Fantasy

Chapter 11: Arthur, Knight in Training

After meeting Zac in Isekai, the two of us sat on the grassy ground of the plains as we caught up with each other. As he explained, he was playing as a warrior who dreamed to be a knight in order to protect the princess of his dreams, or at least for him, a girlfriend. Yeah, he needed to work more on his social (and courtship) skills... In any case, I'm just glad he was in the game as well. "So I told you everything about my build. What about you? What kind of character are you playing as in here?"

"Me?" I asked as I scratched my temple. "Well... I'm just playing as... me, I guess. I'm just here to keep an eye on Kaz. Besides, if I'm not available to play, he can't access Isekai, due to the [Guardian Player] rule. And you know how loud he can be when that happens." I'm not kidding. Kazuki has a terrible temper and I seriously don't want to get on his bad side, especially after what happened back during our trip to the science museum.

"Tell me about it. Which reminds me, why did I tag along on your family trip again?" Yikes. He was giving me that death glare again. I tried to be silent about it, but in all honesty, my Mom was too busy at that time, okay?! "Don't answer that. And don't worry, with you by his side, at least he won't suffer the same fate of some newbies in MMOs. Remember those scammers and trolls from those MMO news articles we discussed after school?"

Oh yeah... he tended to talk a lot about those news articles every day. People scamming oblivious players into buying useless junk, provoking players by sending controversial and off-topic comments... Even in an online world, there were people who liked to create chaos and commit shady deeds for their own gain. "Good point. The last thing I ever want during out Isekai Online experience is my brother buying something useless or dangerous to our VeilCons. I seriously don't want our Dad's gifts to be infected by malware or something."

"Yeah. And you should also keep an eye out for any bot avatars around here. They may be harmless to players like us, but they can be a bit detrimental to the game itself. I would go on and on about the unfairness of those autonomous players, but I'd rather not waste your time with my ramblings." Good call. The last thing I needed was to end up dozing off from it. "Seriously, they advertised Isekai as the first real ADVR MMO with a high-tech security system, and yet, they didn't bother to try finding a way to detect scammers, trolls, and bots."

"Why do think I was so paranoid about playing VRMMOs in the first place?" I mumbled as I let myself fall back onto the grass, yawning as I looked towards the blue sky. "But to tell you the truth, this game isn't half bad. It might actually be a good excuse for me to lie down and relax on a grassy field like this."

"At least you find something good about VRMMOs, Mr. Pessimistic. I told you that you needed to just relax and enjoy the game." I could only respond with a sigh. I seriously hoped he would stop calling me "Mr. Pessimistic". "By the way, should you be looking for your brother already? It's been an hour since you guys split up."

Now that he'd mentioned it, I hadn't seen Kaz for a while now. I hadn't gotten any alarms from my HUD, but he was supposed to meet me back here after a ho-

"WIND!!!"

I gasped and jumped up from the ground, before turning around to see Kaz running towards me. Zac also turned around at the same time as he noticed Kaz as well. "Kaz, there you are! Where have you been? I thought we agreed to meet here in an hour."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I got so caught up with the slimes that I lost the track of time. I even encountered a [Savage Boar] and a [Mini Python] on my way here!" Of course. Kaz wanted to get more experience whenever he had the chance, so it was no surprise to me hearing the reason for his tardiness. Though, I was surprised when Zac gasped and quickly ran up to my brother with his eyes wide open as if he found a beautiful girl or a brand new game console.