Daemon quickly opened the door of the house and entered. He threw his backpack into the hallway, ran into his room, and slammed the door.

He laid back on his bed and clicked Whatsapp on his phone:

He went into his high school group messages:

"Mitsuri: Bro, send me the photos we took at the party today.

"Shou: Ok bro I'm sending it, hold on a second.

"Shou: There you go:"

Daemon looked sadly at all the photos:

In the 1st photo, Mitsuri and Yui are kissing passionately. Daemon zoomed into the background.

A few girls were playing karaoke in the background. Most of the guys were playing arcade games in the back.

In the second photo, the girls posed by carrying each other on their shoulders.

In the third photo, the whole class posed. The boys were crouching on the ground, the girls were standing and teasing each other. They looked like they were having fun...

A tear from Daemon's eye hit the pillow and split into smaller drops.

Daemon took the VR Headset out from under his bed and tried his best to smile...

"I've been waiting for this for so long! Here I come!"

Escapia, the first VRMMORPG has officially been released now! And Daemon was excited about it.

Daemon continued to talk to himself:

"Well, which loner needs friends anyway? When you have a sweet role play stuff like this…"

Daemon's imaginary friends also cheered him as he clicked "Start"

"Now, what should I choose? Hmm… Oh, there is a DPS-based blademaster class, generic but neat!"

Daemon suddenly teleported into a field, first, he looked around then read the map's name: [Main Floor: Starter's Point ]

Daemon's sadness slowly began to subside as he saw this world. Daemon was in a grassy area. The sheep were running around, bleating, and eating grass. Daemon raised his head, and there were huge trees above. Birds perched on the trees. Daemon found a stone from the ground and threw it at the birds. The birds reacted and fled and landed on another tree.

"Woah! That's so good!"

Daemon then opened the inventory and saw himself in the avatar. He was surprised. He stared at his short, straight black hair waving slightly, his brown eyes, lips, chin, and body.

His starting clothes were almost the same as the ones he wore in real life. Only his red jacket and black trousers didn't have the brand logos on them.

Nothing was off, this was exactly himself.

Then he picked a random flower from the ground:

[Item Obtained: 1x Dandelion]

Daemon smiled and shouted:

"This is epic! This game is awesome! Nothing can stop th-"

Something did…, Daemon's smile was gone after he turned around and looked the other way.

On the other side, there was a village. He saw wheat fields, tiny village houses a path in the village. The villagers all had yellow exclamation marks above their heads.:

"Hold on, a village theme and lame NPCs with exclamation marks… Oh God, please don't be a grindy MMO…"

Daemon inhaled and walked to the quest NPC:

"Alright, now let's talk to this NPC, finish all these quests and start fighting-"

——————————————————————————————

30 minutes later Daemon was collecting woods for NPCs'.

He was obviously sighing and dying inside. As he reached the NPC, he encountered another player. He read her name: Lockheart.

"What an edgy name, lol." he thought while being a loner himself.

After reading her name, Daemon started watching the girl. He saw a tall girl with long purple hair, light blue eyes, and a fit body.

"What is this beautiful girl doing in this Neetland?" he thought.

Lockheart greeted Daemon:

"Hey, what's up?"

Daemon wearily replied:

"Hey, I'm doing… ok. Except for the fact that I'm grinding for minutes."

"Yeah, yeah I got you fam. Wanna talk while auto questing to save time?"

Daemon got excited, he finally had someone to talk to after months. He was pretty sure this girl he just met would respect the opinions he developed indoors:

"Sure, what could go wrong-"

——————————————————————————————

An hour later Daemon and Lockheart were arguing:

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL WOMEN ARE EMOTIONLESS GOLD DIGGERS? AND YOU SAID YOU DIDN'T EVEN TALKED WITH THEM!"

Daemon wasn't expecting this reaction, so he was stunned.:

"I mean they all rejected me so-"

"And how did we even get here? We literally met like an hour ago…"

"I just wanted to debate…"

"That's not debating Daemon. That's being an incel. And maybe there is a tiny chance that I don't know... You being wrong."

"Well, if you didn't like my "debatable" opinion, why didn't you just leave the party…"

"Because we are auto-questing and even though I hate to admit it, you are leading all these quests very well. I mean, I'm just auto-following you, and sometimes clicking the "accept" button, I appreciate it. But that doesn't mean I agree with you, weirdo!"

Daemon started to whine to himself:

"I thought someone finally could understand me…"

Daemon stamped his foot, remembering the photos Mitsuri had sent:

"I thought, I would get accepted, at least in here..."

Lockheart was confused:

"A-are you crying right now?"

She looked at Daemon in surprise. She was trying to understand the emotional breakdown of this man she had just met.

Lockheart continued:

"Bro you're just weird, also why didn't YOU leave the party either?"

"Well, I still need a member for 2-player quests and-"

"And you thought that nobody could team up with you, if you left, right…"

"Yeah…"

Daemon lowered his head and started to sob:

"I thought we would become friends… I thought things would be different from real life…"

Lockheart sighed and asked:

"Geez fine, would you like to add me as a friend?"

"S-sure…"

Daemon clicked the "accept" button.

Lockheart whispered to herself:

"I wouldn't certainly call you a friend but-"

"What was that?"

"N-nothing, Daemon."

Daemon wiped his tears:

"Oh, ok. So anyways we are done here. We FINALLY cleared all the daily quests. So uhm… you know-"

"Stop mumbling and just ask me?"

"Do you want to teleport to the Forest and kill some wolves with me… I want to level up with you more…"

"This is identified as a virtual date for MMO neets, isn't it?" Lockheart thought to herself.

Lockheart rolled her eyes:

"Well I would love to, but I have a real-life, you know?"

"Yeah right…"

"Anyways I'm gonna log out now. See you later, I guess…"

Lockheart tried to log out but that button was just blank:

"Uhm Daemon, I can't log out…"

Daemon laughed:

"Girl are you serious? Just press the log out button and-"

Daemon clicked the "log out" button and when it didn't work, his smile disappeared.

Wait a minute… I CAN'T LOG OUT EITHER!

Then, Daemon and Lockheart suddenly teleported to [Main Floor: Starter's Point ]

There were thousands of people running, talking, and clicking random skills at the same time, realistically the game was lagging like hell.

Lockheart glared at Daemon.

"Goddammit Daemon! Why did you teleport us here?"

"I didn't do anything!"

"Then who-"

Suddenly everyone stopped running and talking, a voice message came:

"Hi everyone, Kuudere Dev here, I'm the official developer of this game. Some people might remember me from the Kuudere Chalice Simulator but it's been canceled after 25 years of delay… But anyway, I've muted y'all because I have an announcement to make. You have probably realized that you can't log out of the game! That is because I trapped you in here after my patrons left me…"

Lockheart, Daemon, and everyone else looked at the developer with horror and panic. Lockheart tried to scream, but no sound came out. Daemon, on the other hand, was trembling.

"At least I'll have a better life now." he thought.

Then he shook his head, what he wanted was to play this game, being trapped in this game meant sleeping with the same people, in the same MMO every day, so everyone would know and understand what he was like, and they would recreate society and exclude him here as well.

While the Daemon pondered all this, Kuudere Dev continued:

"And here are the rules. First, you won't be able to leave unless you finish the game. If you die in this game, you'll die in real life. If you took your helmet off without finishing the game you'll be dead with deadly signals from the VR Headset. No memes about Kuudere Chalice Simulator or you'll be killed instantly. In safe zones, people can only attack the enemies, not other players. However, in unsafe zones, everyone can attack everyone and loot their items."

When people heard this, they began to distance themselves from each other. Everyone being able to kill each other meant that people could start massacres just for a few items.

Dev cleared his throat:

"Any questions?"

As Kuudere Dev unmuted people, everyone just shouted in panic and chaos instead of asking questions:

Daemon shouted from the back:

"GET ME OUT OF HERE! PLEEEEASE!"

Kuudere Dev muted everyone and continued:

"Fantastic! Now let me explain how you're gonna complete this game."

Daemon looked at Lockheart in horror. Lockheart (she) was wiping her tears as she cried. Lockheart's purple hair was messy from crying.

Daemon panicked, thinking that this girl would leave his team. He will be alone. In this game where everyone should be united, Daemon will be left behind...

Kuudere Dev giggled:

"As you level up, you will unlock new floors which will unlock a specific boss for that floor. When you participate in any floor's boss event and somehow stay alive, you'll get in-game rewards. Also, a person who killed the boss will get an extra valuable reward for killing the boss. When you beat those bosses, you'll gain access to that floor's area and its events, dungeons, and hunting spots. And on the last floor: you'll fight the greatest thing in existence: Me! The Kuudere Dev! Any questions?"

Kuudere Dev unmuted everyone again, and people continued to shout. Daemon was furious:

"YOU ARE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE! STOP MESSING WITH US!"

Kuudere Dev muted everyone again:

"Good, good. Now one more thing. At first, we were going to make this a mobile MMO and since my Patrons left me, I was going to add a crapload of monetized systems to the game! But then trapping people in a game and stealing dead players' money made more sense. But those systems are still there, have fun upgrading every single one of them! Now you can move and talk…"

Daemon screamed one last time:

"DIE YOU FEMINIST!"

Daemon turned to Lockheart with one last hope:

"Now, we need to be united, Lockheart. I know you hate me but, please-"

Daemon cried out:

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

Lockheart nodded. She was too scared to say anything.

Daemon continued:

"Now, we need to grind to survive, ok?"

Lockheart nodded again...