09:40 A.M.

「All players around the world! We proudly announced that the ‘New Horizon Online’ server will open in 20 minutes!! Prepare your VR Pod! Prepare your character! But more importantly than all, Prepare for the adventure!!」

The announcer of the news was excited. The sound of the news came from a semi-transparent screen in front of a girl lying in the bed of her room.

The girl was watching the news while snacking. On the left of her bed, is a VR Pod that was mentioned by the announcer earlier, except this VR Pod, was the latest edition from Atlas.

Atlas was the biggest game creator company, the creator of the game ‘New Horizon Online’ that was mentioned earlier. But that was not the case 5 years ago.

The girl looked at the VR Pod while sighing.

“I buy some of Atlas stocks because I was interested in their game 5 years ago, to think it become the biggest game company. My 50.000 Yen turned into a billion in an instant. And it keeps increasing because I keep buying their stocks until I had a 5,2% share of it…”

The girl lying on the bed was Aliel Gran. She is a lucky girl with a chance to obtain luxury. Now that she had everything she wanted, she wanted to find a different, interesting thing.

“I wonder if they tell the truth about the ‘New Horizon Online’ freedom. They make the minimal login age as 18 years old because of the said freedom.”

The new game ‘New Horizon Online’ promised freedom for their players. The players could play whatever they want. They could be a mage with a sword, or a Warrior using a Magic staff.

Most importantly from those above is a sense of realism.

“They promised 100% realism, that’s including a sensation of touch, smell, and pain. But they said we could set the pain intensity from 10-80%.”

「This game was anticipated by a lot of players! Not only casual players, but a lot of professionals players also migrated from their game to ‘New Horizon Online’!!」

The game gained a lot of support from other companies and managed to rope in the interest of the professional player. Because of the rate of the players increasing each year, right now a professional player is the same as a star and celebrity.

They are featured in magazines, TV Show, even appeared in movies sometimes.

“I never play seriously until now, should I try to aim at the top and become a professional player? I think that’s more interesting than laze around my room all day and night.”

「It’s really unfortunate that Atlas only released 500 thousand copies for the first batch. The players all around the world were waiting for its release since they announced it can’t help but be disappointed after the news.」

Atlas only released 500 thousand copies for the first batch. Aliel, as a shareholder naturally get 1 copy for herself. The game was released worldwide because of Atlas’s language translation function.

The game had a function to translate every word that players said into their mother language in real-time without any delay. This function was implemented since the VR Pod was released, that’s what made it popular.

“Real Money Trading (RMT) isn’t implemented until the 2nd batch. I guess Atlas want to make it fair to the players, let them farm as much as they want and they will be able to sell it to the new players in order for the new players to catch the 1st batch easier.”

「What’s your opinion about it, Mr. Lisrem? As a CEO of Atlas, why you limited the copy of ‘New Horizon Online’ to only 500 thousand? Usually, when a company released its game, it will make a million copies at a minimum.」

Aliel was also interested in his reason. Even as a shareholder, Aliel was not informed as to why the CEO decided to only release 500 thousand copies.

「My opinion about this matter is actually quite simple. Because this game has a lot of freedom like the promotional said. We want to maximize the quality of our games, that’s why we just release 500 thousand copies to see what we need to improve or what we lack by observing the 1st batch of players.」

「So what you are trying to say is, Atlas still want to improve ‘New Horizon Online’ even when the game is released?」

「Something like that.」

「Do you hear that players?! Atlas still wanted to improve ‘New Horizon Online’ even when their game was perfect!」

The announcer said vigorously, almost all VR Games were perfect the moment they were released. Sometimes a bug was found and the game company will fix the bug, that’s why a VR Game that has update after they were released was rare.

“So that’s the reason, seems pretty okay for me. Then I’m lucky to be one of the first players, I can explore it earlier than the 2nd batch players.”

Aliel get out of her bed and approached the VR Pod. She touched a button with the word ‘Open’ and the VR Pod’s lid was opened.

Inside the VR Pod, there was a chair similar to a relaxation chair with a device on the headrest area. Aliel lies down in the chair and puts the device on her head.

After everything was set, she pressed a button on the device on her head and the VR Pod’s lid was closed.

「Is everything ready?」

A mechanical feminine voice could be heard from the device on Aliel’s head.

“Yes, proceed to login” Aliel said and her consciousness was robbed from her.

「Starting the login process.」

Aliel saw a familiar meadow, a lobby area after someone login to the VR World. The meadow could be set into anything someone wanted. They could add trees, houses, even farms. But, Aliel Meadow only had a tree and a table set.

Aliel sat on the floor and make a hand gesture to bring out a semi-transparent blue window. She looks at the ‘New Horizon Online’ website and saw a countdown of the server opening.

The countdown was nearing 1 minute left when Aliel opened the website. She was prepared to log in anytime the countdown hit zero.

The countdown on the screen keeps going down until.

3,

2,

1,

0.

“Login to ‘New Horizon Online’.”

「Affirmative.」

And Aliel entered the game.