BRRRRR. BRRRRRR.

  Max was rudely awakened when his phone arm suddenly went off in the m.

  “W-wha?” He groggily rubbed his eyes. ‘Right, the game es out today, but... I didn’t set any arm for it?’

  Reag for his phoo suppress the arm, he realised he was closer to the edge of his bed thahought and nearly fell out.

  “Gh.” He hadn’t fallen, but the brief panic of nearly falling had fully woken him. “Dammit. What the heck.” Sitting up, he grabbed his phone and searched for the arm under his clock app. It was currently three o’clo the m, so he scrolled to the top of his arms and found one named ‘Phone Rone’.

  ‘That bastard. No wonder he told me to get an early night.’ He went to call Rone while making a memo to ge his password ter.

  As if waiting for it, Rone picked up after . “Hey, you. You’re finally awake.”

  “I hate you so much. Why did you set an arm in my- no, how did you even know my password?”

  “Lina’s birthday is way too easy dude; you were basically begging for it. Anyways, are you ready?”

  “Ready? Why would I be ready, it’s like 3am in the m.”

  “It’s 3:01 actually, and character creation just opened a minute ago. The world opens at 4:00 sihat’s midday in the US.”

  Max groaned loudly into the microphone.

  “Hey, hey. Character creation includes usernames you know? Do you really want everyone else to snatch up the good names before you?”

  “...” Max didn’t really care, but now that he was already up, he might as well pick out a good name.

  “Fine, fine, what will your username be, so I block you when I get in?”

  “It will be ‘Cye_Rone’! And if that oaken, it will be ‘Blown_By_Rone’! And if that oaken, I’ll use ‘Flown_By_Courtesy_Of_Rone’!”

  “...I take it yoing with the wind magi css, then?” Max decided not to call out how obviously terrible the names were.

  “ did you know? You’re so perceptive... Alright, I’m logging on before the names are taken, add me in-game and we’ll vc!”

  “Wai- nope, he hung up.” Max wao tell him not to use that sed name, but Rone had already ehe call.

  “Alright, I should probably hurry too, I guess.”

  Max made his way to the living room where his nesule was installed. His old one was still there too, but he had little use for it now. Climbing ihe pod and closing the door behind him, he booted up the graphical interface while feeling gd he was not a custrophobic person.

  Ding!

  “Character creation is now open. Please ise your avatar.” An artificial voitered his ears as he synised with the capsule and appeared in a ft, white expanse.

  To Max’s surprise, the first thing he saw was himself.

  ‘Huh? A e?’

  Max raised his hand to test, and the other Max raised its hand in tandem.

  ‘No, it’s a mirror! But it’s 3D?’

  Max looked at his mirror self with some fasation; this hadn’t been in the previous Virtek game.

  A panel of isation options opened up to the side. Various options like hair style, face shape, build, and a whole array of other appearance features presented in front of him.

  ‘Woah.’ Max was impressed. He tested ging the hair style to bald and saw his e self instantly lose all his hair.

  ‘Oh no! Reverse! Reverse!’

  He looked much better with hair.

  After a brief battle with his inner indecisiveness, he ended up only ging his eye and hair colour to his favourite colour; red, before clig off the appearance se and moving onto other settings. There were a lot of options to gh, and they might mess with his hitbox, so he would just figure it out ter.

  Anyways, making a username was more important si would be first-e, first-served.

  After quickly flitting through various other settings like pain, sensory strength, gore, and subtitles, he eventually reached the username se.

  ‘Let’s see if just ‘Max’ is taken...’

  [ THAT USERNAME IS NOT AVAILABLE, PLEASE ENTER A DIFFERENT USERNAME ]

  ‘Oh well, expected. What about ‘Maxx’?’

  [ THAT USERNAME IS NOT AVAILABLE, PLEASE ENTER A DIFFERENT USERNAME ]

  ‘Damn, Rone said there were ten avaible instances of each userhese people must be seriously quick...’

  Max wao see what the prompt would say if the name was avaible, so he arbitrarily decided to test a random name.

  ‘How about ‘Gun’?’

  The loading system appeared as it ran the hrough its system.

  Max immediately spped his forehead. ‘No, that would obviously be taken, I ry something that’s really random...’

  [ THE USERNAME IS AVAILABLE, GRATULATIONS ISTERING, ‘GUN’! ]

  ‘Oh, it was actually avaible? That’s surprising. Now, what if I try something l-?’

  After a bright visual effect where ‘Gun’ appeared iext around some sparkles and fireworks, Max was taken to another s.

  [ THANK YOU FISTERING. SERVER WILL OPEN IN: (55) MINUTES ]

  “Huh? No, I didn’t want to lock it in, how do I go back?”

  Max looked around for a return button but found nothing. fused, he tried the audio interface too.

  “Hey, uh, return? Back? Previous? Undo? Escape?”

  “Escape. Would you like to exit the game?” A mae voice responded.

  “No, I want to ge my username.”

  ...No response.

  “Damn.” Max realised that he was locked in once he registered the username.

  “Return to character creation.” He tried to issue another and but still got no response.

  “...” Eventually, after trying some other things without any success, he had no choice but to just give up a the pod for now.

  ‘Welp. I guess I’ll have a shower and some food and e back...’

  There wasn’t really any point in waiting in the capsule if he would just be stu a tdown s.

  ...

  Drying his hair after sh, Max was deg what to eat for early breakfast when his phoarted ringing.

  “Max! Were you also locked out after registering your username?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t even ise my character. I even made a bad username by mistake.”

  “Pff-hahaha, what is it, what’s your username?” Rone ughed evilly at Max’s misfortune.

  “It’s ‘Gun’.”

  “...Gun what? What’s the rest?”

  “No, it’s just the wun’. I e randomly and it was locked in.”

  “...” Max heard some forcibly suppressed ughter on Rone’s side and stared at his phone in annoyance.

  “I’m so going to shoot you when we load in.”

  “Shoot?!” Rone couldn’t hold himself anymore and broke out ughing.

  Max realised the irony and narrowed his eyes before ing to a sudden realisation, “Wait, that’s actually not too bad.”

  “What is?”

  “I’ll be choosing the archer css so I really will be shooting people, that users somewhat well.”

  “Oh no, you’re onto the fifth stage of grief already?” Rone shook his head in pity.

  Max ignored him. “What about you? Did you get all the options you wanted?”

  “Yep, my character looks like a nobleman. I also gave him some fancy purple hair. You’re talking to the ‘Cye_Rone’ right now. Be honoured.”

  Hearing Rone’s username, Max suddenly felt less bad about his own.

  “Anyways, you picked Novus Town to start in, like we discussed, right?” Rone tinued.

  “Yep.”

  “Alright, cool. Add me when you get in. And don’t fet to record!” Rone hung up.

  “This guy...” Max grumbled as he grabbed some cereal. “He really just says what he wants and leaves.” Max shook the fkes tainer roughly, but nothing came out.

  ‘Hm?’ The cereal tainer was quite heavy, so it shouldn’t be empty.

  “Ah.” Max found a small card fitted ihe tainer, with some cute drawings and ‘MAX’ in big-lettered text.

  He smiled and stared at the card with some amusement. ‘How did she know I would eat fkes?’

  Ihe card was a set of Lina’s signature handwriting, which Max could read even though it was in cursive. “Dear Max, you’re probably w how I knew you would eat fkes, and the answer is because it’s Friday.”

  Max made a self-depreg face. Was he really that predictable?

  “I wao write a card because I probably won’t wake up in time, just know there is cake in the fridge if you want it, and you should eat something before you go to work ter. I hope yame is fun, make sure to tell me all about it ter!

  P.S. it makes me happy that you use my birthday as a password, but it’s too insecure; ge it!”

  “Ha.” Max re-folded the card and tucked it away in his pocket. “Always thoughtful.” He smiled. What good things did he do in his past life to deserve a sister like Lina? He really wao know.

  ‘How did she know about the password thing though?’

  Pulling out his phone, he ged the password to his uncle’s birthday and theo his browser to check if there was any solution to the game registration issue.

  Unfortunately not. There was only an annou from Virtek that they were w on it and would have a solution post-unch.

  “Mm?” A notification popped up from another app, so Max switched over to check it. Someone had sent a retly-taken picture of him, but with an AK-47 poorly photoshopped over his faeedless to say, the sender was Rone.

  Max smiled serenely as he tapped his phone s to reply, “Watch out for arrows today, there might be a bug where archers actally kill their teammates.”

  Rone responded with a keyboard smiley emoji.

  ...After looking at memes for a while, it was nearly time, so Max id his phone down a ba the capsule.

  Watg the timer t down, Max mentally sorted through all the information Rone had provided him. Apparently, he had to pass some sort of test in order to bee eligible for the archer css.

  ‘Hopefully I pass that test, or it might be embarrassing...’

  [ 00:03... 00:02... 00:01... 00:00 ]