I heard the short tone signaling the phone on the end of the figurative line is ringing. And then someone picked it up.

“Hi, Mama. You wanted me to call when I get out of the game.”

“Hi, yes. Would you please buy a few things before I get home, the shopping list and money are on the shoe rack? And don’t forget to eat and stretch too.”

“Sure. Already ate. Gonna stretch to the store and back.” laughed Ren.

“You know what I mean. Get out more, not just when your mother calls!”

“Technically it was me who called you.” Ren laughed again.

“...You still need to take care of your body. Please, I’m worried, you’re already thin enough as it is. You’ll get sick if you lose any more weight!”

“Yes, mom…” he said.

‘Ugh, wish I could put on some weight, without putting on any, just so I could get this to stop and still feel light...’ Ren thought.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No. I think that was all. I’ll call you if there’s something new.”

“Ugh…Ok.”

‘One of these days I swear I’m going to hear 「Pause your game, and come help me with dinner, Ren.」 I should probably prepare a special why-you-can’t-pause-an-online-game speech for the occasion…’

With this we said our goodbyes and I set course for my room, to change into some more presentable clothes, than just socks and a stained T-shirt.

Once I was equipped with a clothes, portable inventory(backpack) and mount(bike), everything was ready for me to go slay that monster, the shopping trip. I put the quest notice(shopping list) in my jeans pocket(quest log) and departed(fast travel).

Parking my bike to its rightful place in the garage. I headed back upstairs to our apartment on the 5th floor with my strained knees under the heavy load of all the loot(groceries) I collected on this quest. The boss was tough(lady at the counter), but I prevailed. And now I need to unload all of this before I depart for the underworld…

‘Damn heavy. Shouldn’t have bought all that extra milk and chocolate all at once…’

While putting things to their places around the house, rice and flour under the stairs, sugar in the sugar jar, perishables in the fridge, my mind drifted back to the game and the life I was building on the other side.

‘I wonder what would be best to do next. I already established a base of operations, sort of. And obtained more than enough info about the general geography, economy, and political situation of the region. Even made a few connections in the Merchant Guild and some of the Crafting guilds that belong to it as well. Maybe I should convince Mend and Aleya to send me to the Academy? Or move to a bigger city? No idea how I’m gonna convince them to do that! Uuu, magic is so very interesting too! Aaaah, so excited! Waah, I got addicted… again…’

Voicing his thoughts inside his mind, Ren finished putting the purchases away. And arrived in his not small, but not very big either bedroom, where there were also a wide bed and a long bookshelf with a stereo in the middle of it. There was also a desk, couple of chairs and two wardrobes. Yes, two. One of which led to a magical kingdom. And Ren spared no time to dawdling. Headed straight for the black coffer, opened the top and jumped inside.

The “pod”, even though it looked nothing like a pod and everyone still called it that way for some reason, detected his presence and exited standby mode with small lights coming online on the inside of it.

‘Seriously why do they call them pods... they’ve read way too many fan fictions from the VRMMORPG genre....’

‘Ok.’ he thought.

“Update image.” echoed dully his voice on the inside of the machine.

The pod began humming and the lights slightly increased in intensity. For best experience in the virtual reality a 3D image of the user body, with a timestamp within the last twenty four hours, was required. A full scan was required every other week and it would take about half an hour even with the high performance models, which Ren, or rather his parents, couldn’t afford anyway. So the full scan usually took about an hour and a half. The daily update required about ten minutes to be completed. Of which about three had already passed in idle thoughts..

‘That humming is really relaxing, one of these days I’m so gonna fall asleep before I manage to log in.’ he laughed inside his mind.

Ren was thinking about earlier the same day when he went through the exact same thing, lying in the pod and waiting for the scan to complete. Then logging in, in one of the most popular games in the VRMMORPG genre at the moment, named Worlds, for the first time. How everything around him went completely dark and how he found himself standing in a completely empty space, devoid of anything.Then suddenly the game intro cinematics greeting him, and he immediately falling in love.

The Worlds intro cinematics consisted of The Big Bang(B.B.)! The birth of a universe! In the beginning, there was nothing, and it exploded. Time and space stretched around Ren and outwards. The universe aged on fast-forward. And a message greeted him.

Welcome to the universe of Worlds.

While stars, galaxies, nebulae and other astronomical objects surrounding him in all the majesty of outer space.

When Ren finally managed to gather the pieces of his scattered mind he realized the message that greeted him is long gone, so he asked himself.

‘Ok, what now?’

As on cue a disembodied voice, neither male nor female, answered his voiceless inquiry.

“This is character creation, or rather, for the first time in your life you get to pick where you’re born. Anywhere in the universe, any form you’d like. The only condition is you can pick either the place, the time or the form you enter Worlds with.”

“Whoa, that’s a lot of choices!” he exclaimed.

‘I don’t actually need to say it out loud, do I.’

“No, you don’t.” Ren heard.

‘Hmm, do I have to pick anything? And who might you be by the way?’ Ren thought.

‘It is indeed optional deciding where, when or who you become. As for that, it is irrelevant.’

After the voice finished I realized the last answer actually sounded inside my head, I guess it is to be expected from the (almighty) virtual reality. Later I learned the B.B. is actually part of the pod synchronisation sequence, and for once there’s an actual reason one can’t skip the intro.

‘Hm, another two minutes left from the scan.’ a hologram let me know.

‘Why did I even start it… It clearly said in the manual “Less than twenty four hours” for the image. Ah, right… I wanted most recent image in the hopes the character synchronisation will take less time than what it claimed it would. I guess that theory is out of the proverbial window.’

‘So any requirements?’ asked the voice in my head.

‘Are there any limits, constraints or restrictions the more items I pick?’ I thought.

An amused feeling that was not mine appeared inside my mind.

‘There might be.’ was the simple answer I received in return.

‘Are the restriction applied to starting conditions or potential for evolution?’ I aimed a question at the other entity.

‘Just starting conditions.’ I got back.

‘That means not any super super powers from day one then.’ I mused.

“Would you tell me what will be the restrictions given a certain situation?” I asked.

“Some.” I received in return.

“Then let's say I wanted to be born in a world of magic where babies inherit some power from their parents, what would happen and what restrictions will apply to me?”

“Well in that case you might be born as an insect or some other magical beast, or in the case you actually luck out and be born a human, there’s a chance you might be unable to use the power you’re born with for various reasons.”

The above being just one of the cases I came up and discussed with the disembodied voice. But after a while I eventually went back to it, because we all know how awesome magic is.

“Ok then. Send me, no rather, I would like to be born in the house of couple with just the family of a repairman and an adventurer’s daughter, and the people assisting the process.”

When I said that all the galaxies around dimmed out of existence. Or so I thought, but there were a very few, very small white dots left, far far away. While I was trying to focus on one of them it actually also disappeared. A moment later it reappeared again.

While I was looking at it quizzically the disembodied voice sounded again.

“Those ‘white dots’ are stars or worlds, where you can find a situation matching your description.”

When I looked around there were quite a few of those for a description not really that precise.

“Hee.” I said intrigued.

“Oh, right, I forgot. I would like something as close to human body shape as possible”

When I said that, even the few dim lights still shimmering, disappeared. All but one. I noticed it was actually getting brighter and brighter. Also I wasn’t certain but appeared like it was growing a bit too. Then I was, it was definitely growing. In a moment it was the size of a grain. Then when it got closer I noticed there are actually 2 dots. One was slightly larger than the other, but there were still qutie a bit distance from me.

The binary star was getting closer and closer, but as it grew to be the size of a pea I realized they were actually drifting sideways to the left of where I was headed to. In the next moment the giant spheres of plasma zoomed past me at an astonishing speed. And once the light sources were behind me I was finally able to see where I was headed to.

A small purple, green, and blue jewel, with a single reddish moon near it. The planet quickly got bigger.And bigger. And I started to panic, because I was definitely not in low orbit and instead was heading very fast for the surface. By the looks of it I wasn’t even aimed at the huge mass of water!

‘Ok, only one thing you can do when free-falling towards a giant ball of dirt without a shuttle or any other spacecraft around you.’ I thought back then.

Spreading my arms, and bending my knees taking a skydiving posture, I opened my mouth.

“I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYY~!” I started.

“I'LL SPREAD MY WINGS~…” I sang with the volume knob pointing at eleven while taking screenshots of the globe below.

Eventually instead of the initial pull towards this star system, I felt like I was falling through mud and managed to come to a complete stop after passing through a roof of a two-storey house in a small town not far from the west coast of the giant mass of water I observed on my way down. Small was of course relative to the other signs of civilization I witnessed. Considering I flew across the universe and went skydiving without a parachute just prior to landing on something similar to an electromagnetic cushion I didn’t have a lot of time to compare it to many other things…

I forcefully calmed down and hurriedly studied my surroundings. In the room besides me there were what I assume the medical staff I requested from the voice in my head. And what I’m guessing my definitely-very-good-looking would-be parents. Gradually a realization hit me.

‘There was gorgeous half-naked lady right over there. And she’s not even half-naked from the waist up.’

‘I’m so gonna enjoy bath-time here.’

Purging any additional perverted thoughts I noticed it is just about time for my new self to make an appearance. With a lot of screaming and pushing and breathing, and yelling, and…

‘Damn, this is tiresome just to look at. I imagine if I had to actually go through that…’ Ren thought.

Then many things happened happened in rapid succession. The nurse mentioned something about a head, and soon after I saw a baby in her hands. I nearly forgot to power the screenshot machine! It is not every day you can be the cameraman of your own birth. After a few pictures, something felt off and a nagging discomfort invaded my mind. I felt a connection form between me and the baby, and suddenly it hit me.

“Hey! ISN’T THIS A BABY GIRL?!” I attempted to shout.

But instead what left my mouth was a piercing cry.

“What is this?! I don’t remember signing up for the gender exchange program! Hey, the voice in my head, I want to return the goods, they’re still in a perfect working condition!” but again what could be heard was just a lot more crying.

‘You can’t, you have already damaged the wrapping.’ I heard a snicker inside my mind.

Before I could continue protesting a thistle colored mist heading for my mom caught my attention. I’m so easily distracted. I know. When it reached her in my head exploded with information. A timer in the form of emptying bar appeared in my field of view, but the endless stream of what looked like picture frames were avalanching inside my mind so I couldn’t really spare much attention to some simple-looking timer. After a bit I realized all the frames are memories, skills, or other nifty perks I could chose for my character by concentrating on retaining the information before it flies away off to somewhere.

‘Neat.’ I thought and started focusing.

The whole process felt both like the love child of an arcade shooter and the shopping trip I went to. You pick something, focus on it long enough and after a while it gets added to your character semi-permanently. I realized some of the new items would alter what I already had so I had to go over it again a few times and organize it a bit. Getting rid of any redundancy.

The stream of images were starting to slow down a bit and I saw a boy running, stumbling, planting his face in the dirt and plowing the earth with it.

‘Lame.’ I laughed inside my mind.

As I should’ve figured out already at the beginning the connection between the player and his/her character is not really that stable yet. Which in turn led to….

“Memory Rein.” Ren, or rather now Memory heard someone say.

‘Oh, great. I should’ve listened when told not to laugh at people misfortune’ Memory thought.

And that marked the disappearance of the bar-timer from my field of vision.

‘Ooooh, great. The connection was bidirectional… Why didn’t someone let me know earlier!’ Memory raged.

“Update complete.” a voice rebounded off the walls of the pod Ren was lying in.

===

AN: In the end I never managed to figure out if it should be ‘good looking’ or “good-looking”.