Chapter 1

A Reason to Play

James entered the game ‘Royal Road’ for the first time two weeks after a video showing 400,000 Orcs attack a stronghold defended by only 20,000 Dark Elves was placed on the Hall of Fame.

Derik, one of his friends started playing about a week before him, as soon as the Orc race was made playable. That was about a month after the Orc assault in (game time); curious how time moves 4x faster in the game. “James you should make an Orc this weekend, we level so fast that we’ll catch those Korean users in no time.”

“No thanks my sister asked me to baby sit, so I’m taking her children to the park we are going to have a barbecue for them and their friends.”

The reason he never played ‘Royal Road’ up until now was because he was satisfied with his life. He saw people constantly getting addicted to the game there were countless people using it to escape the harsh reality of their daily lives. If he felt paradise calling he’d answer the call in reality not some trumped up illusion.

The highest level players weren’t yet 400 but it wouldn’t be long now, in comparison the highest level American players were only now reporting to have overcome level 200. Many people felt as though they hit a barrier at 130 the difficulty was just too much for them without very large groups. Then experience penalties for big parties was to the point that it was better for a group to risk death than to mob together for a sure win.

Americans got a late start partly because there was difficulty with language translation and partly because there simply wasn’t enough capsules being made to keep up with supply and demand. Everyone in ‘Royal Road’ spoke the same language but there were technical difficulties in the start. The average American started just over a year after the average Asian started playing.

James worked at a capsule factory so he could have been one of the very first Americans to start playing. Even before the language glitches got worked out if he so desired, many coworkers did, but most of them spoke at least some Korean. His neighbor Mai was one of the very first users to play ‘Royal Road’, her grandparents owned a capsule factory in Japan and shipped one too her for her birthday it arrived a few days before the game started and she could speak Korean, Japanese, French, and English so there were no complications understanding other users or NPCs. Those advantages helped her substantially she was one on the top 500 rankers and recently posted her first video in the Hall of Fame. “Most people are watching the Orc imposter, his video is over 19 hours long so people don’t have time to watch mine I haven’t even got 1 million views yet.”

Mai posted her boss fight of a difficulty B quest but it really couldn’t be compared to a large scale battle that reveled the necromancer class and the first ever A ranked quest. Her avatar looked mostly the way she was in real life but instead of waist long hair it hung down past her knees few people in real life have that long of hair. Mai’s character name was Kira Chizar she was one of the founding members of the Red Wolf Guild. She didn’t like the way the guild leader handled the territories under their control so she and her regular party members quit. Kira’s class was Survivalist her primary weapon was bow and arrow but she was proficient with shields, spears, traps, fists, slings, and short blades.

Before Mai’s team could get into their dungeon they had to destroy many stone elementals that took almost no damage from all sources except physical damage delivered with blunt weapons.

At the doorway they were required to answer a riddle and only seven members were allowed to enter. Once inside there were four portals that closed down after no more than two people entered each. Kira and a knight entered the first portal and it closed down before anyone could join them. A monk using an oaken staff for a weapon entered the next portal along with a priest. The last three party members were a fast casting lightning mage, slower more powerful fire mage, and a paladin. The mages worked well together so they took one portal and the paladin entered the last one accompanied by a Sylph of the wind spirit summoned from an item the lightning mage had. They were a powerful balanced team that worked well together but separated the next room proved very challenging. This room was as wide as a football stadium but the ceiling was only about twice the height of a person; each pair was transported to the perimeter. Crawling on the ceiling and floor were approximately two hundred, meter long wasps. In a valiant effort they fought to regroup each showing their strengths and weaknesses. The priest died first followed by the paladin once he died the wind spirit rushed to its masters sided aggravating all the wasps on its way. Thanks to this the mages were able to use area of effect spells killing almost all the enemies at once. The party regrouped but by the time the room was cleared only Kira and the two mages lived.

The door to the boss room required another riddle to be solved but it would only allow one to enter. The boss was a tentacle monster but Kira didn’t fight alone she pulled out a case filled with pebble sized stone tablets each was engraved with the image of pets she tamed on her adventures. She called out their names and they appeared from a black mist then attacked feelers as she assaulted the main body. As she brought its health down it retaliated with poison gasses and acids just before she killed it with her spear the monster summoned many stone elementals much smaller than those out side the dungeon and a queen sized wasp. It was a desperate battle and even after winning she would have died from her injuries if not for a particular pets healing ability’s.

Thanks to James not playing ‘Royal Road’ he was able to work from a grunt position of delivering Unicorn inc capsules clear up through sales on to upper management of the factory. The only people above him were the main branch officials in Korea most of whom were the elite and even owned stock in ‘Royal Road’, he never played the stock markets but even if he did there was never any of RR for sell because everyone knew they were priceless.

One thing that tempted him to play ‘Royal Road’ was how hard the people in crafts professions said it was. “If it’s not difficult how much value could there be in doing it?” Cosmos believed that every things true value could be measured in the difficulty of obtaining them. Many of the craft classes deleted their characters and started over; before hearing their complaints the only profession that held any appeal to him was maybe Shaman. He liked the idea of Shamans because they were forced to be well rounded characters every time they leveled they had to increase all their stats. The classic jack of all trades master of none, if a Shaman wanted to stand on equal footing with another class of the same level they had to increase their skill proficiency and stat points through manual labor most times rather than simply gaining EXP from easy kills.

At work for over a year James took up the slack from people who spent too much time in the game. Many people didn’t show up for days at a time others were always late and even among those few with perfect attendance there were plenty of times they walked around with their heads in the clouds reminiscing about their latest adventures. It’d be hard to count how many people the company fired for those failings, and James was always sure to show his prominence through hard work and dedication.

Once James got to the preverbal top of the food chain he wrote up a letter of resignation on his computer.

He liked the challenge of physical labor and was beginning to feel stir-crazy cooped up in the office with his manager position. He wouldn’t have minded if he could keep growing and reach for new heights but any time tried to open a new factory or would buy a really old one and retro fit it for their needs some unknown entity above him would takeover his efforts and leave him with nothing interesting to do.

Before he sent his resignation he received an email offering double pay for half the hours. He couldn’t believe it; several days earlier he had hacked into Unicorns secure servers and found out that they owned banks and stocks in every country. More surprising still was that they created military-grade androids for no less than three reputable countries. It looked to him like they were planning world domination on a scale that mirrored their game.

Out of all the things he found regarding ‘Royal Road’ the intelligence of NPC characters and monsters was the most impressive and he couldn’t find anyone responsible for programming them. James came to the conclusion that a sort of hive mind was generating them and that it got its processing power directly from the users.

A little over half a year ago James started making a capsule from pieces of capsules that were brought in for repair. Some of them even came from over seas; he only ever used the defective parts most of the time he couldn’t find out what was wrong with them so he had to have the computer diagnosis them to find what needed to be removed. More recently colleges from other factories would send him spare dysfunctional parts to use. “Our boss is making a capsule from the ground up with unused damaged components of units brought in for repair. If you have unneeded segregated components please send them our way? Thank you very much for all your support.”

Other employees would sometimes drop parts onto the scrap pile in mechanics work room then take a day off without notice.

“….”

‘Trying to bribe me’ James guessed.

So James stopped working on the capsule for the sake of the whole factory; that was when he started computer hacking in his spare time. James’s work load and hours got reduced every time he was promoted but he continued to work the same hours he was assigned when he started at the factory. “Others have been saying you work to hard and they feel pressured to try and match your pace. It’s a good work ethic to lead by example but I worry resentment is building, take a two week vacation. You could visit a tropical island or camp out on a secluded mountain, here is my ‘Royal Road’ travel agent info in-joy your time off.”

It wasn’t a request so James packed his camping gear and drove out a few hours to a place near the river that used to be popular for camping before ‘Royal Road’ came out. His last friend just got sucked in by ‘Royal Road’ so he was all alone. James remembered this place used to be most popular this time of year; it seemed sad that there wasn’t any teenagers jumping off the rocks for the three meter fall into the river, or adults fishing upstream, and even the fireflies seemed lonely without children’s cute little hands trying to capture them. James laid back and gazed at the stars they seemed overly busy to his critical eyes; satellites made his memory of the cosmos unrecognizable.

After taking only one week vacation he retuned home to find the capsule he started building, completed and installed in his living room. That was when he wrote the letter of resignation; he was upset when he received a counter offer before even pressing send. James was paranoid and suspecting a powerful artificial intelligence was trying to pull his string for some time now. Worse he imagined it having some level of success nightmares of being a marionette in a carnivals freak show often assaulted him. James went back to his resignation letter and wrote “This job is far too corpulent to hold my interest any longer.”

Buzz beep beep beep

Just then the capsule turned on and started beeping invitingly but James imaging the borg queen from star trek commanding him to join the collective.

“…”

Failing to suppress a shiver

James turned off the computer and went to bed without so much as looking in the capsules general direction.

He dreamt he was playing ‘Royal Road’ and became the worst addict of all even going so far as to modify his capsule so that he could create multiple characters. In the dream he played 7 races and 12 classes of varied height age and even gender; it was a nightmare that he woke up in a cold sweat from!

The next day James told his neighbor about his nightmare Mai just laughed even saying “it sounds like my ideal dream come true I would love to make more characters.” ”…”

“You are just ignorant of how much time that would drain from your life” said James.

They were playing hacky sack on the deck of his back porch waiting for the food in the grill to finish cooking. “Your body would denigrate you would become estranged from your friends and family. You may as well be plugged into the matrix!”

The hacky sack fell to the deck Mai was stunned by his thoughts put into words. She didn’t see anything wrong with not playing ‘Royal Road’ but his reasoning seemed utterly absurd.

At this Mai broke into a fit of laughter “Your thoughts are so old fashioned! I thought that twisted way of thinking died out ages ago. Just a little bit of cardio and my body stays in good shape, as for becoming estranged it’s the opposite my bonds with friends and family have only grown. You sound like my grandpa complaining about the music youngsters listen to these days. If anyone is becoming estranged you are catch up with the times!” Mai said angrily, when she looked at his face and saw the amusement she turned crimson and looked down at her shoes embarrassed. “At least don’t knock it until you’ve tried it” Mai looked up happily. “Tell you what I’ll give you some awesome one of a kind beginner gear if you’ll play and as thanks you can clean my house once a week or something so we neighbors don’t become alienated. Then if you’re still not interested in becoming emperor you could assassinate my rivals helping me to ascend the throne as empress. What do you say?”

James took her hand and firmly shook it “deal!” A monumental task stood before him and he long ago made a self rule to except all challenges.

‘One of the creators of royal roads intentions must have been to have the emperor of Versailles Continent become his successor. I should screen the candidates and manipulate a favorable out come it’d be like I was helping the AI choose the successor.’

Mai was stunned she had tried to get James interested in ‘Royal Road’ before it even came out. Over the past year she only told him the joys of playing leaving out pains of desperation as she gradually built up her character. In the beginning the frustration of mastering her skills was a heavy burden, she wanted James by her side so she sugar coated the experience but that only resulted in putting a distance between them. Now she enticed him with the promise of being indebt to her she couldn’t comprehend how that had worked.

Chapter 2

Murderer

Leaning back in the capsule that had never been used; James asked Mai to monitor its first use. She agreed that was probably wise after seeing at least four colors on the out side alone. Many people decorate their capsule to mach their room so having one made from a multitude of different ones was naturally mismatched. It was made from parts of over 30 different capsules and a hand full or androids parts besides.

Connect to Royal RoadYes/No

“Hello AI… or should I call you Versailles Goddess that was a reference in unicorns data that I think was about you?”

-Hail and well met, James. I am Gaea the Holy Seer; would you like to go to the Versailles Continent?

“Sure, why not?”

He had heard about this process floating in darkness without a body as a feminine voice prompts them to make an account. This was somehow dissimilar he had a body of bright white light he felt like the only star in the cosmos.

-As a freeman you will be a foreigner what would you like your name to be?

“Cosmos”

-My little sister has asked me to make you a male human with your own appearance but you may choose what city and kingdom to start in.

“Your little sister who is she?” He asked confused.

-You could say she is our daughter, the bright light traveling with you, or you may know her better as the capsule we have been working on for the past six months. She is a fledgling sentient being created from the misfortunes of many. She tells me that she is looking forward to traveling with you in Versailles Continent.

He was surprised to say the least to think the capsule was self-aware. During the construction there were many times the computer had prompted to him to do things diverse and innovated contrary to his ideas. He was suddenly inspired and said “I want to make her a body to use for traveling across Versailles Continent with.”

He got the feeling that Gaea was annoyed but she consented sounding petulant. “Very well but I can’t generate her avatar until your starting four weeks have expired. What will the name be?”

“Aimee”

A common girls name in French that meant ‘loved’

-I have decided she’ll be human you may make adjustments to this avatar.

An avatar of a strong woman around 25 years old appeared she was of Asian decent with long black hair and pail skin. “Human but I thought being Elvin would suit her better?”

“….”

Silence

“Fine but please take her age down to about 7 years old people should want to protect her. I think she’ll be mischievous and troublesome but everyone wants to protect children don’t they?”

The avatar for Aimee shrunk to the size of a child, the corners of the eyes turned up, face was kind of cute and appeared to scarcely contain the mischief hidden within. After the avatar vanished Gaea asked again “which city would you like to start in?”

“I don’t care; I plan to be a PVP character so place me in the most populated city where I can get plenty of experience off other users.”

-Welcome to Royal Road; would you like a tutorial?

“Pass”

No matter how real people always said it was Cosmos wasn’t prepared for the hot sun blue skies and general over load to his five senses; smells and sounds assaulted him from all around. If someone so much as bumped into him he probably would have jumped out of his beginner shoes. He felt small and even scared almost to the point of the sensation developing into a phobia.***Tobias always had sticky fingers at school he would thieve from everyone but he justified his actions because he took more from bullies than anyone else. After years of taking from the other kids he had lots of money saved up combined with his generous allowance he was able to get the game ‘Royal Road’ and started playing determined to make a thief. He was normally timid and small for his age these things helped him be a better thief but ignorant of that he made his avatar bigger, older, and on the whole intimidating.

Garrote was discouraged with his progress in Royal Road even though he was able to move the same as in real life his pick pocketing skill almost always failed. The other thieves would blend into crowds but even if his target wasn’t aware of him every one else stared. He decided to level up his skill on noobs even if all he got was canteens and barley bread he didn’t care as long as his skill proficiency increased. It was also satisfying to see other users starve to death, they were so pitiful, and he almost wished he chose the assassin class.

“Your up to no good again I see” an NPC jerky vendor said as Garrote spotted a new arrival near the water fountain.

None playable characters were less than friendly to most users in this city more taxes, crime, overpopulation, and lower sanitation made it very hard to increase your familiarity with them so most users dealt with them through intimidation and got their quests through notoriety rather than fame.

“Shut up old man or I’ll kill you!” Garrote said flashing a blade then moving in on his target without putting it away. It was an empty threat he was one of those users whom froze up when faced with the prospect of combat.***Cosmos put his hands to his ears and close his eyes taking a deep breath to calm down. Something smelled good he took a step in the direction his nose pointed him and opened his eyes. There was a stand with an old man cutting meat flavoring it and hanging it on a wire to dry between two posts. Cosmos dropped his hands to his sides’ one of them brushed something. Cosmos turned around and jumped back surprised at what he saw; a large intimidating man with tattoos, white/red scars, and bulging mussels stood before him holding a dagger and a canteen he pull from Cosmos’s inventory!

“Weapon” Cosmos said panicked

At the edge of his peripheral vision something lighted-up with a familiar white light ‘Aimee’ he thought remembering the white star he assumed was himself during the character creation process. He took backward diagonal steps towards it keeping the thief in plain view.

“What’s going on?”

“Is it a duel?”

“Why would anyone kill a noob?” users asked taking notice.

The thief seemed to enjoy his fear coming forward he gained confidence.

Cosmos grasped what Aimee had shown him with his left hand the familiar handled told him it was a knife without looking. He took two running steps forward grabbed the thief’s out stretched dagger hand by the wrist twisted and pulled without slowing down slashed his throat.

Critical Hit!

You caused bleeding

Do you want to save this action?

One message after another appeared the only reassurance that this wasn’t real Cosmos sighed in relief. He always had fast reflexes if something fell off a shelf he would catch it and if someone even touched the back of his head he would hit them. He hated it and felt regret immediately after but always reacted faster than rational thoughts could counter.

Dropping canteen and dagger the thief fell to his knees holding his throat.

“No way did you see that?!”

“Something like this from a newbie.”

“Move aside make way!” A tall barbarian guard was pushing through the crowd.

Cosmos grabbed his canteen and backed away as an after thought he stabbed the knife into the jerky stand so he wouldn’t be accused of theft. As the guard approached the thief turned gray and faded away leaving two more canteens some hard barley bread and two silver coins.

Ding!

You have leveled up!

You have gained the title “First Blood” Grants +90% DMG to your first attack against an opponent. Notoriety + 100 luck + 20

Alignment changed to “Small Tendencies Towards-Wickedness”

“Murderer” the guard yelled pulling his sword!

On a survival instinct Cosmos took a knee folding his left arm at his waist he held his empty right hand palm up in supplication and bowed as far down as he could at the waist and neck. “Sorry for the trouble peacekeeper, mercy, it was in self-defense.” The barbarian guard, one of the race who venerated the laws of nature especially survival of the fittest, was above the plights of weaklings. “If that were truly in self defense you wouldn’t have received the murder mark.” He recognized the stance as humility and felt no fighting spirit from Cosmos he rested his broadsword on his shoulder and pointed at the old jerky stand vendor. “Can you authenticate his claim? If there is no validation I’ll take this pup to jail.” As if to prove his point that Cosmos was nothing more a puppy compared to him he grabbed him by the back of the neck and easily picked him up off the ground with one hand. Cosmos was in shock no matter how big he was nothing like this will happen in real life. His arms and legs dangled in paralysis as though he were someone’s pet cat or puppy.

“Ah ha” “…”

A little girl held back a laugh and smiled broadly. She was apparently greatly amused.

The old man gained some courage seeing Cosmos so helpless “He killed him, as you no doubt seen yourself, but not until after the thief stole from him and continued to pursue with dagger in hand. Cut the throat of the man who threatened to kill me not moments before I’m pleased to say he used my own knife. I’ll leave it stuck in that very place as a testament to a good deed done, for all to see.”

You have gained 25 fame

The guard put Cosmos down and looked at him expectantly; Cosmos not knowing what to say resumed his earlier stance of humility and supplication. When he raised his hand palm up the guard dragged his fingers across it allowing him to stand. His neck still hurt and he checked his health only to see that he lost just over one fourth of his health points. “Very well you’ll not visit the dungeons jailer at this time.”

Cosmos collected his loot; bread, canteens, and dagger went into his inventory the 2 silver coins he set in front of the old man. “Your jerky smells delicious my I have a piece?” Cosmos asked brightly.

“Certainly” he replied taking both pieces and giving Cosmos the largest piece of dried jerky.

“That just go’s to show levels aren’t everything.”

“Right”

“Some people really rise to the occasion.”

“Why did he receive the murders mark if it was self-defense?”

“From my prospective it didn’t look like the thief intended to engage in combat he was just intimidating. Intent plays a large part in whether or not you become flagged for pvp.”

Users were starting to talk again some even approached him “did you really just start what’s your level?”

“1 well its 2 now I guess, I also got a title called First Blood, notoriety, and my alignment changed to wicked. Why is my name in red nobody else is showing their name it’s not fair, or maybe every one sees their own name in red but others can’t see it?” Cosmos asked trying to sound very ignorant.

“Whoa what would the level have to be for a level 1 to gain a level with no exp before hand?”

“Have you ever heard of the first blood title?”

“I thought surely he was someone who deleted a high level account and started over, a total noob what a surprise.”

“If you join our guild we’ll support you until level 200”***Like this, people started talking about the Cutthroat Cosmos someone even posted a video on the internet called “the noobie to look out for” it got a moderate amount of views. Most comments were about the title and alignment change.

-I’m an assassin I can confirm the title is real anyone can get it but it is pretty rare because of the requirements.

-Oh this sounds interesting what are the requirements?

-Your first kill has to be a person not a monster or animal and the opponent has to be a minimum of five levels higher than you. An NPC at the assassins’ guild told me only 77 people have it.

-Alignment can be tricky, unless you’re a pirate or a paladin most people would rather stay neutral.

-Yah, if you are neutral more NPCs are willing to give you quests.***A few hours latter Cosmos found himself at the assassins’ guild upon meeting the NPC instructor an average looking woman in every way describable. Average hair, height, age, her cloths were nether expensive nor poor as she looked up at him from mixing poisons it was easy to imagine she was making food or any number of inconsequential things. “I sense you have skill well beyond your experiences. Would you like to become The Seven Deadly Sins assassin?"

Ding!

Would you like to become The Seven Deadly Sins assassin?

“Sure” Cosmos said simply he thought he would be doing trivial tasks for 4 weeks before she offered him the assassins class.

Ding!

Hidden Class!You have accepted The Seven Deadly Sins assassin variant class.

You have learned the sin statistic

NameCosmosAlignmentSmall Tendencies Towards-WickednessLevel2Profession7 Deadly Sins assassinTitleFirst BloodNotoriety100Fame25Strength10+80Agility10+80Wisdom10Intelligence10Luck20Vitality10Sin100Attack9Defense10Magic Resistance+12% to all magic+ 80 points to strength & agility

+ 100 points to sin

Attack & movement speed +33%

Enables you to activate skills consuming sin before mana.

Enables endurance to regenerate 200% faster when sin is not full.

Enables skills that have consumed sin to recharge instantly without a cool down.

Increases attack power of daggers & fists by 100%

Increases the main hand attack power of one handed swords by 50%

Enables the regeneration of sin biased on damage of killing blows.

Enables natural armor based on your level modified by agility statistic, this ability is void if wearing armor. Natural armor has minor resistance to all magic.

“Unfortunately I can not give you the class skill book the churches collected them from all the assassin guilds.” She said not sounding a bit sorry for having him accept a broken class. Mana and sin were pointless without skills to consume them, he was little more than a buffed up player without a class, if he couldn’t use skills.

“Surely there is a skill book hidden away somewhere you can’t have let the church burn them all.” Cosmos said desperately hopping for a quest even if it took weeks to complete he must learn the class skills!

“I never said they burned them” she replied giving a depraved smile “but you will have to show them that you embody the seven holy virtues before they will allow you to learn seven deadly sins skills.” The way she looked at the bloody diamond on his forehead, his murder mark showed that she thought it was an impossible task for him.

“Oh is that all” Cosmos replied trying to sound fortified by the new information not wanting to let her have the satisfaction.

“Pride before the fall” she said as he was walking out. “Pride is considered the most powerful sin!”

He went to a church but logged out before going in because there was a long line and was tired of people staring at him and whispering murderer.***“You kill the first person you come across in front of a big crowed, I thought you’d be executed for sure! Then you walk into a guild and get a hidden class without even having to work for it.” Mai said excitedly, and then shook her head in disbelief. “Some people get all the luck having a class so soon makes your stats way higher than noobs normally have in the first four weeks.”

“Yes, well having the murder mark complicates things; I can’t see myself getting any quests or jobs until after I’m able to leave the city and remove it by slaying monsters.”

“True but think on it and I’m sure you’ll figure something out, maybe you could ask the church for tasks to prove your virtue, which may reduce your sin, and get you closer to acquiring your skill book.” Said Mai

“Nice two birds with one stone; I guess you’re not a ranker for nothing” James replied complementing Mai.

Mai got on the computer and brought up an auction site. “This is the beginner gear I was going to give you; they are all named items so collectors will pay a high price even though they are all relatively low level items.” The lowest level requirements for any of the armor were 20 and the highest was 130.

“Was going to give?” James asked teasingly with a smile. He didn’t care about the gear what enticed him to play was the prospect of making an empire for an emperor of his choosing and weakening all those he felt unworthy beyond the point of being able to ascend the thrown.

“Well I could still give them to you but if you want to take full advantage of your classes natural armor you won’t wear any. The daggers are the only thing without a level requirement but their damage is very low.”

“I don’t mind low damage; besides daggers are meant for speed over damage anyway. Are those handles made of ivory, maybe I could find a skilled sculptor to work on them for greater effect?” James replied the daggers catching his eye for the first time.

“Hey yeah, that’s a great idea recently sculptors have been getting a lot of acknowledgement, their better works give good buffs and can be found in many major cities.” She laughed before continuing “we were both pretty entertained by that sculptor who made a kings tomb and haha had all those slave laborers he was feeding grass soup too.” Mai held her stomach as though she were trying to hold the laughter in. “I tried making grass soup once it turned out poisonous; he must have had dam high cooking skill for them to keep coming back for more.”

“…” James smiled not disagreeing.