Chapter 1: Prologue: Departure to Iruna

    The year was 20XX. The world had entered a new era. It was a time of constant and chaotic technological advancement. Every week some new thing was discovered, some new breakthrough was made. All fields of science that had been plagued with stagnation were advancing at break-neck speed. The game industry was one of the places that had benefited most from the new technologies.

    The game market was dominated with photorealistic 3D open world games. On the anime side of things, there was massive improvement too. Using the new technological breakthroughs in Computer Science, games were able to project a 3D open world game as a truly 2D anime game and retain the 3D movement abilities. Even the 3D anime games that remained, they were nothing like games from old era.

    Though the graphics, and mechanics to lesser extent, saw massive improvement, the predatory nature of gaming industry had worsened. The MMORPGs were the leaders of this predatory industry. Most new MMOs were subscription based, and even then, they paywalled half of the game content through a tier based VIP membership system, gachas with abysmal rates, long server queues and of course, a plethora expensive DLCs that are supposed to be optional, but they try their best to force you to buy them anyway. 

    In such a age, the games of old had mostly shutdown. The old MMORPGs had it worst. Such games sustain themselves through their playerbase, and if that playerbase were to dwindle, it would spell death of the game. This was in contrast with single-player games that turn into collectibles and classics. Most old MMORPGs made before year 2020 were shutdown. Only few that remained were in a state of constant decline too. One such game was Toram Online.

---

    Ren sighed. He looked at his computer screen. There was a email from Asobimo. It talked about various things, like how he is one of the few oldest remaining players that have played since closed beta tests, how the active playerbase of Toram has declined to a few hundred players across the servers and what not. But all those weren't important. The most important part of the email was the last few lines.

"... The game will be shutting down on 00:00 March 3rd, 20XX (JST). Thank you for playing."

    Ren sighed again. He looked at the corner of the taskbar. It was 20:32, March 2. The email had actually arrived a week ago, but he didn't dare to open it. He knew what it was about. He didn't want to open it and face the truth. Yet, truth cares not for whether he is ready or not. Truth is a lion; it comes roaring and tears the weak into shreds.

    Ren closed the browser and logged into the game. The familiar title screen, the familiar loading screen. The familiar cute blue monster turning pages of a book. He had seen them for over a decade, and now they would be gone in mere 2 hours. Forever.

    When loading screen faded away, he found himself in Sofya City, near the consignment board. For a moment the game lagged before returning to smoothness. The reason was players. Lots of players. Lots and lots of players. So many players that the sea of name tags created a white region in his screen. It seems every player from every server, that stayed in every region had come here. They were dancing, talking, flirting like always. The huge amount of special effects caused the game to lag. It seems they were partying. He thought for a moment before deciding to join them. He couldn't stop the game from dying, but atleast he could make it go with a bang.

    Ren switched to his alt character that had minstrel skills. It was a female character with short blue hair and amber eyes. She wore a sleeveless collared white shirt with short blue kipper tie. Over the shirt, she wore a blue waist corset which was fastened at her waist by a black belt. The corset extended down to form a cloth tasset over her short white pleated skirt. For her legs, she wore white thigh-highs and black Mary Jane shoes. As an accessory, she had a half-worn white lab coat that hung from her arms. This avatar set was called "Empire's Researcher". Although he had no idea what the "Empire" here refers to, she did look the part of the researcher at least. He had many completed avatar sets but he liked this one in particular. The reason being that it made his characters' breasts bigger than any other avatar set he had. He used a minstrel skill and joined the street party.

---

    Time passed quickly. As clock hand approached midnight, players that had been singing and dancing began to leave one by one. In not too long, only five people were left. Ren looked at the top right corner of the screen. The in-game clock told him that it was 23:45 already. He chatted with the 5 that remained. Silly talk that didn't matter. Then one left, and then another one. When only 3 remained, a system message appeared.

「The game will shutdown in 5 minutes. Any players that are still logged in will be disconnected automatically.」

    The three remaining left him too when they saw that message. Not Ren however. He wanted to truly witness it's end. If they wanted him to leave, they will have to make him. 

    It's really shutting down... He sighed. Only a minute... no only seconds remaining. 30.. 20.. 10.. 5.. 1.. 0.

    "...?!"

    Ren was assaulted by sudden drowsiness. His vision blurred. His thoughts muddled.

    What's happening...?! He tried his best to keep his eyes open, but the drowsiness was too overpowering. His eyelids grew heavier by the second. He felt so so sleepy. He didn't realise when he had closed his eyes. He fell asleep immediately after that.

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