Author’s corner: Hello and welcome to the chapter two of my not-yet-so-epic story! As always, feel free to leave your critic/suggestion, and sorry for any idiotic error you may find here!

On this chapter we finally get to the VR part of the story! Still some way for the MMORPG part though… Anyway! I also introduce a new character here, but I’m seriously wondering if I did a good job describing her… To tell the truth, this was going to be one huge chapter, but I ended up dividing in three smaller chapters so it don’t feel too overwhelming. Also, my first table!

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Before me stood a long unending darkness, expanding to all sides. I could feel a firm floor beneath my feet, but couldn’t say what exactly I was standing on, as even the floor was obscure. If I watched myself from afar, it would look like I was floating on nothing. The only thing I could really see in this space was myself, strangely enough, I could see clearly, as if I had a light source nearby. It was just like my usual body, except I had white pants and shirt.

Just as I was starting to wonder what exactly was going on, a small window appeared before me:

Welcome to Insania OnlineWe are adjusting the final configurations of your game, please feel free to get used to your virtual body meanwhile.Completion rate: 5%

After quickly reading the window, I nodded to no one in particular before starting to stretch myself. Surely enough, there was a strange feeling when I started to move around, but soon enough I started to get used to it, and the feeling was gone. However, there still was one thing bothering me.

The no matter how much I moved around, the window always stayed right in front of me, seemingly immobile, and for some reason that annoyed me. A lot.

I extended my hand to try and touch the window and sure enough, it worked. It felt kind of like a really thin and firm paper, so I started to move it around like a kid who just found a new toy, pushing it around, throwing it in the air to catch it back and so on. With a random though, I tried crunching it like I would crunch paper, and once again I was left flabbergasted as it twisted and compacted itself in a ball a bit bigger than my two hands together.

I threw it from one hand to another a few times before trying to keep it in the air only with my feet. I failed miserably. When the window-ball fell flatly to the ground, I punted it in annoyance, seeing it fly in the sky, higher and farther than any other ball I had ever kicked.

Suddenly, it hit me. Won’t I need that window to log-in when it finishes loading? I looked back at the window that was still flying away, how far would I need to run to pick the window back. However, much to my surprise, the window simply disappeared when it reached the highest point in its path and was starting to fall down.

I became desperate after that. Did I just bug the game? Wait, how do I open another window? Am I stuck in here?

As I started to get increasingly worried about my situation, I felt an impact on the back of my head strong enough to land me face-first in the ground. Luckily, my dignity was the only thing hurting at that moment. Seems like I don’t feel pain in here.

Getting back up to my feet I finally saw what had hit me, and my face contorted into a look of pure annoyance. A small blue paper-like ball was laying in front of me. Somehow I felt that it was laughing at me.

I sighed once before patiently holding the ball and trying to straighten it back to it’s original shape.

Welcome to Insania OnlineWe have completed the final adjusts.

Welcome to the world of Insania! LOGIN

No wrinkles at all! Bow before my mighty decrunching skills!

Is that even a word?

…

..

.

With no hesitation, I pressed the login button, and, for a moment, the whole world flashed in a dark light. Is that even a thing? Anyway, there was some kind of flash, and after a few moments, four light blue lights started to appear from beneath my feet and expanding outwards forming squares on the dark grounds.

My somewhat faulty common sense sparked up, telling me that, sooner or later this whole room would light up. Feeling my inner chuu-nii wanting to run wild, I quickly glanced around, being certain that no one was watching, when I confirmed this, in one fluid motion I placed my left hand on my waist, stuffed out my chest and swung my right hand from left to right in my best “Arrogant god” impression and said in a deep voice.

“LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

And, as if waiting and watching my words, the whole world answered me… By staying dark.

Seems like my intuition failed me with the timing. Oh well, beginners mistake, I guess. Not letting myself be disheartened by my failure, I once again brought my right hand to my left shoulder and waited for a moment, until what I felt to be the right time and once again said.

“LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

…

Once again, nothing, I admit I felt slightly annoyed this time. I usually managed to get it right on the second try… Am I losing my touch?

I readied myself once again and waited. Suddenly I felt it. This time on my very skin I could feel saying that the time was right, so, in an even more intense motion than before, my voice almost a shout filled with confidence!

“LET! THERE! BE… OH COME ON!”

This time the lights did turn on, but far too soon, I was in the middle of my speech! Well, at least now everything was white instead of black aside the lines on the ground.

“Pfft…”

I heard a sound similar to a stifled laughter coming from my right, and when I looked, there stood a girl with long white hair dressed in white and black. She held her mouth with one hand and her stomach with the other, she was looking away from me, but from time to time she would steal a glance my way and start giggling uncontrollably.

At the time I felt a mix between embarrassment and annoyance while looking at her, but I patiently waited for a whole half minute before she finally managed to control herself enough to actually breathe.

“Done laughing already?” I asked in annoyance, she looked my way with a slightly apologetic look, but a small smirk still present in her face.

“Sorry… It’s just that… I came here to introduce you to the character creation, and then… all of sudden you made that pose and said that… You got me by surprise so I didn’t know what to do…” She giggled once more. “And at that last part… I just couldn’t resist to see your reaction… Sorry… But…” She went into a full blown laughter for a few seconds. I somehow managed to control my urge to hit her head once or twice.

I sighed loudly, getting her attention once again. She blushed lightly noticing the situation she was in and hastily put herself back together and straightened her clothes, trying to get back some shred of her dignity back. I also took the time to get a better look at her.

And was she beautiful!

Well, at least when she was not laughing at me.

Her hair wasn’t actually white, but a beautiful and lively silver, to the point that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was made with the actual polished metal. Her face had a strange charm to it, that had both the maturity and sensuality of an older woman and the innocence and purity of a young girl. Her eyes also had a peculiar appearance to them, having a light cyan coloration and seemed to shine in a mystical way. She was a bit less than one head shorter than me, but had a well-proportioned body capable of putting even actresses to shame. Her clothes weren’t actually all black, her dress was long and widened a bit on the waist area, forming a long skirt that split right in the front, showing a white and a bit shorter under-skirt, the dress also left her arms exposed. She didn’t hold any accessory besides a simple silver necklace with a small blue jewel embed in it, not even shoes, leaving herself barefoot. At this I also noticed that her feet weren’t actually touching the ground, as she floated a few millimeters above it, only furthering the mysterious feeling she gave.

I could say with confidence that this girl was easily the most beautiful I had ever seen in my entire life.

I noticed I was staring at her after a moment, and quickly went back to my annoyed face. Luckily, she was too absorbed into trying to recover her dignity to notice that I had completely lost mine for a moment.

“Well then, let us start from the beginning.” She said after clearing her throat once, but she was still blushing a little and avoiding eye contact. “Welcome to Insania online, where the world is yours to explore!” She said with a professional smile while extending her hand to the side. Following the cue, the ground flashed for a moment before becoming something similar to glass and showing beneath us a large projection of what probably was the game’s world. “My name is Cygnas, the acting main goddess of this world!” She said with a proud smile that quickly changed into a playful one as the next words came to her. “Creator of everything that the *snicker* light *snicker* touches…” Once again she held herself not to laugh.

I averted my eyes annoyed, and noticed that the window from before was still floating a few centimeters away from me. On sheer impulse, I grabbed the window and crunched it into a small ball again before throwing straight in the middle of her eyes. I also had noticed that the words had changed, but didn’t really care at all in that moment.

“WHA?”

Much to both of our surprise, the window-ball actually hit her, making her fall backwards. Well, not exactly, she actually spun around a couple of times in the spot before stopping with her head pointing towards me. I looked shocked for a moment, then started to laugh at her.

Whoever said that revenge is a dish to be served cold?

After bringing herself back up she looked me with an angry expression, but it actually looked kind of cute with those tears on the corners of her eyes.

“Two can play this game!” She said picking the window-ball and threw it in my direction with surprising strength. The window-ball flew in a straight line that I barely managed to dodge moving my head out of the way.

She puffed her cheeks in annoyance for a moment. But the best part was still to come, as I remembered my situation from before. And sure enough I saw the window-ball appear behind her a few meters away, flying in a straight line and hitting her in the back of her head making her spin a good ten times before stopping.

By now I was already slamming the floor while laughing away, not caring about anything. She looked at me angry for a moment, but soon enough her frown changed into a wry smile before she also started giggling.

“I never knew that status windows could do that.” She said after a while. “It was interesting.”

“Geez, for a goddess you are surprisingly childish…” I said clearing a tear from my eyes after calming myself down.

“I guess… Managing a whole world can be kind of boring some times…” She said with a small awkward smile.

“I see…” I answered absentminded before noticing something. “Wait, you said you are the goddess of this world… Does this makes you an NPC?”

“Well, technically, yes… Why?”

“Then, does that means you are an A.I.?”

She looked surprised for a brief moment before making a small but beaming smile.

“Wow, you sure are quick on the uptake!” She praised me with clear admiration in her voice. I stared at her in awe for a moment, seriously surprised. Basing on our earlier actions, I was sure she was just a G.M. using an edited avatar. “Actually, I think you are the first one to notice that I’m not just a scripted event…”

“Wait, you are also managing all the other players character creations at the same time?”

“I have a pretty good processing power, you know?” She said with a proud smile. Once again I was shocked, not only she was perfectly similar to a human, she still could hold countless different conversations at the same time? “Actually, we should be already doing that, right?” She said worriedly, and quickly put herself upright again. “Well, jumping all the whole yadda yada I prepared to fool the other players… So… Will you create a female or a male avatar?”

I won’t say something like I answered immediately, after all, in most MMOs I play, I end up creating an equal amount of males and females characters, however, this is a virtual reality, so I couldn’t help but be in a bit of doubt.

“How many characters can I create in total?” I asked her.

“You can have up to five characters, however you can buy a few extras slots with either in-game money or real money.” I nodded, then I guess I can create one without much worries for now.

“Let’s start slow then, I’ll go with male.”

She smiled brightly and waved her hand. Besides her and in front of me, a huge light appeared and just as quickly disappeared, what was left was a huge amount of people lining one besides the other, making a large circle that span easily a good twenty meters from one side to the other. These persons were of varied races and appearance, having humans, elves, dwarfs, orcs, undeads, gnomes, fairies and a whole lot more, some of them I had never even dreamed of. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a hundred different models lined up here.

It took me a good amount of time to understand what all of this was, and even when the idea started to form on my head, the sheer size of this made me reject the idea, but Cygnas words completely crashed my doubts.

“Now, please choose your race.” She said with a smile.