Thank you very much to Dan for Proofreading this story for me! :D

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Now York, downtown

Paris had long arrived at home and finished setting up her game system. She had taken a hot shower to get rid of the last remnants of work that lingered in her body and now lay down onto her bed to connect to NeoPangea for the first time.

The calibration hadn’t taken as long as she thought and so she happily logged in, only to find herself staring up at a white space, she felt as if she was floating for a moment but then…

“Ouch!” she complained as gravity kicked in and she landed, sitting up and rubbing her throbbing backside. Even pain was recreated in the game, huh…

Ignoring the fact she had just been dropped from about 2 metres in the air, a cheerful voice rang out and made her lift up her head.

A smiling girl about her own age with two pink pigtails was greeting her. “Welcome to NeoPangea! The update today has successfully been applied!”

While listening to the girl talk, Paris had looked around the area. Apparently the loading process had finished. She could now make out her surroundings. She was sitting in a large lobby with checkered floor tiles and a long red carpet that led up some stairs to a pair of massive wooden doors. The stairs seemed to continue upwards to the left and right of the door but she couldn’t tell, since the stone railing was blocking her view. The girl before her was probably a program. She was wearing red transparent glasses that covered half her face, making it impossible to tell her eye-color and a modern pink-white school uniform that was moving along with her excited gestures.

“Dear user, we couldn’t find any character backup data on your hardware. Since you don’t seem to have a character yet, would you like to create one now?”

Some suppressed annoyance could be felt in the girl’s words. It seemed that she hadn’t asked for the first time. Paris snapped out of her daze and quickly replied “Yes, please.”

“Alright, let me explain the creation system to you then!”

Just as the words had left her mouth 5 huge mirrors appeared and formed a circle around Paris. The girl walked over into the circle as well.

“There are 5 basic races in NeoPangea that users may start as. Many others are still undiscovered and therefore unusable. Let me show you a sample of each of them.”

She snapped her fingers and an image appeared in each mirror. Just as Paris was about to look at each one more closely, the girl spoke again.

“For now we basically took all the data from your system calibration and used it as reference to create a virtual image of yourself as each race but you may customize your body later if you wish. Although I say that, we only allow a certain degree of modification so you will still resemble yourself, no matter what. This measure was taken to make the game seem as realistic as possible. That’s also the reason we haven’t removed the feelings of pain completely, although the pain settings have been lowered compared to in reality~"

"Now let me give you a brief overview of each race.”

Actually Paris had already decided on her race, but she was still curious, so he let the cheery NPC go on with her explanation.

“Firstly the one directly in front of you is the Human race. No changes have been made to your original body for this race at all."

"Originally a weak race, humans have gained power through their natural craftiness and adaptability. What they lack in strength they make up for with their cunning.”

Still listening to the girl, Paris took a closer look at the image in the mirror. A young woman with blond medium long wavy hair and green eyes curiously looked back at her. She was wearing a simple white shirt and short pants. Her body looked lean and elegant, her skin slightly tanned and she didn’t seem to mind her gaze as she stretched amply.

The NPC moved over to the next mirror. Confused, Paris didn’t notice any difference to the image in the first one, but just as she was about to ask about it, she noticed. The body looked almost the same, but her features were more delicate and elegant, her face looked more radiant and the form of her ears was different. The ears of herself in this mirror were a little stretched out, ending in a beautiful tip. The character was smiling back at her brightly.

“This is an image of yourself as an elf. This is a race of the forest with radiant grace and beauty, living in harmony with nature and its inhabitants. They have pointy ears as proof of their ancestry and live within trees and groves.”

She now moved on towards the third mirror. She looked more childlike in this one, her features in general got softer and her face brighter. The character was very radiant, dancing around behind the glass like a child. As she watched herself move around, she noticed some small white wings growing out of the back of the character.

The girl had started explaining again.

“This image displays you as an Angel. These are pure creatures with white wings sprouting from their back. They often have a childlike appearance and live on clouds. Otherwise they can’t be told apart from human beings.”

Swiftly the girl now moved to the 4th mirror, holding it from behind cheerfully and looking at Paris from above the frame.

“This one portrays you as a Lycan! A hybrid race between humans and animals. They often settle within forests and live secluded from humans. A wild and charismatic race. Their appearances differ depending on their ancestors’ race as well as the density of animal blood so they often have a human body with only some parts resembling animals. Like additional limbs or body part substitutions.

As an example you’re now displayed as a Lycan Cat. We only switched your ears and eyes and added a cat tail in this example.”

‘This… is a bit scary’ Paris thought honestly as she watched herself claw at the mirror glass.

“And finally! Let me introduce you to yourself as a Devil!”

Paris finally turned towards the last mirror and gasped. She looked very pale in this picture and had two horns on her head. When the character in the mirror turned around two bat-like wings and a black tail could be seen growing from her back.

‘Wow’, Paris thought. ‘This looks so real, and somehow dangerous. I bet it will be fun to scare people with though.’

“Let me tell you about the devils~"

"They are a cunning race of evil creatures that escaped from hell. They assumed humanlike forms and

live apart from other races as renegades. They can’t completely hide their true forms, so as you can see they sometimes have horns, black wings or tails befitting of devils.”

After a short pause the girl continued cheerfully. “Please firstly decide which of these basic races you’d like to play as!”

“I’ll be playing as a devil.” She said without hesitation.

The other mirrors disappeared and only the devil remained, smiling evilly at her as she showed off her pointy teeth.

“Alright! You have decided to become a devil! You may now customize your hair and eye color. Small customizations in your face and on your body are also allowed, so please let me know what to change and I’ll apply the changes to your character!”

Watching herself in the mirror, Paris thought quietly and then asked the girl for a couple of changes. After a few minutes Paris was satisfied and excited. ‘I always wanted a tattoo!’

She had given herself yellow eyes with slit pupils like a reptile, and modified her hairstyle slightly. She now had short pure white hair. She decided to also darken her skin color as much as possible. It was now a dark brown color, similar to milk chocolate. She had two sharp fangs in her mouth and two short black horns were growing out of her temples. Her pointed ears were sticking out of her hair, giving her an elegant touch. Two small black leathery bat wings were growing out of her back as well. Her character flapped them nervously as she touched her horns. She had chosen not to have a tail. It would feel weird to have a limb there…

Lastly she had gotten an extensive white tattoo that ran over half of her body. It was a dragon that snaked itself over the whole left side of her body from her ankle ending on her eye that seemed like it was gripped by the dragon’s claw while the head and most of its body were on her back, proudly curling around a ball that represented the earth.

‘This is it.’, Paris thought.

“Are you satisfied with the changes to your character?” the girl asked a little tired from all the modifications.

“Yea”

A notice appeared before her.

Character appearance has been set

The girl turned around cheerfully and finally said:

“Then please choose a name for your character!”

Just as the girl had uttered those words a virtual keyboard appeared in front of Paris, floating just in

front of her chest.

She glanced over at the character in the mirror again, who was just turning around and glanced into the glass as if looking at her own back, exposing her bat-like wings.

‘Name, huh… I’ve aready decided on one, so…’

“Mirabelle”, the girl said, as if reading out what she had just typed into the keyboard, “Are you sure you’d like to take this name? Once you’ve chosen a name it can’t be changed anymore so think carefully before you choose. Please press enter to confirm your choice.”

Paris quickly pressed Enter.

“Your character has successfully been created. Since this is your first time playing NeoPangea, I have initiated the tutorial dungeon for you! Unless you’d like to apply any more changes, please step into the mirror to merge with your character and enter the game!”

Hesitantly Paris stretched out her hand towards the mirror, unsure whether she’d hit solid glass or not, but her hands slid through the surface, causing small ripples in the surface that flowed toward the mirror’s frame. It felt like touching a water surface. Holding her breath and closing her eyes, Paris carefully stepped into the world behind the mirror with her whole body.

She was floating again, in bright white space when a message popped up in front of her saying

Character synchronization in progress

She closed her eyes, waiting for the feeling of zero gravity to fade.

At that time Zayvin was paying for the completed repairs on her equipment, this time munching on some chocolate coated fruits.

She didn’t have anything to do while waiting so she had kept on eating sweets and other snacks to kill some time.

Luckily you didn’t gain any weight in game…

She put her items back into the inventory and thanked the tailor for a job well done. Then she left the shop and shortly afterwards stepped into the plaza. She pondered about the situation for a moment, then decided she would never find Paris in this crowd. After all she didn’t know what the nurse actually looked like…

She quickly ate the last of her fruits and then searched her inventory for a flat piece of ore. She soon found a piece that would do for her purposes and took out the small knife she usually used for cooking.

Then she slowly and clumsily carved ‘PARIS’ in capitals into the metal plate.

Ding!

Finished horribly engraved name plate

There were so many things she wanted to retort to that system message… but… she took a look at her finished work with a complicated expression that clearly showed just how poor a job she had done at engraving the plate… well, this had to do. She quickly cast a small spell to make the letters shine brightly. The effect made her failure even more apparent but she was determined to ignore it and instead silently complained about how a simple glow spell cost way more mana than a small meteor shower.

How did that make any sense?

She flew up to the roof of one of the buildings surrounding the plaza and settled down on it. She then pulled out her fishing rod and hung the plate onto the end of its line to let it hang down. Then she extended the rod as far as she could and waited. Due to the spell she was sure that Paris would be able to spot the plate if she only looked around a little.

She relaxed and dangled her feet from the edge of the roof, humming a small tune.

Slowly growing bored, she decided to strike up a telepathic conversation with her demons to kill some time.

That was when it happened. The event that would change the world as everyone knew it.

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Here... weeeee.... goooooo! The cliffhanger! A little!

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EDIT: Check for my writing progress as well as interesting bits about my world here