I ran back from the bathroom. The time was 8:02, two minutes since the game opened. Cursing under my breath, I quietly put on the headset and stepped into my capsule. Time to see if all the pre-launch hype was justified. I appeared as a translucent hologram representation of my real life body, half standing half floating in the character creation space.

Welcome to Eclipse Online.

Please select your name.

I wanted to pick something cool.

[King]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

Huh? The game only just launched less three minutes ago and names were already unavailable? It seemed like I was too slow. 1.6 billion people signed up for the opening day launch. I shouldn’t be surprised that people would jump on the popular names. I entered another name.

[God King]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[What the fuck]

Names cannot contain profanity.

[Sorcerer God]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[Mage Knight]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[Jesus Christ!]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[This Is So Stupid]

Names cannot contain profanity. Name is too long.

…..

Ten frustrating minutes passed. I wanted a cool name, so I would try for a bit longer. There were a few names I thought of during work earlier today that were escaping me at the moment. 

…..

An hour passed. I started trying less cool names, before all options were taken.

…..

Four hours passed. I underestimated how many people were playing this game. Every single name was taken at this point. I was losing my sanity. Eventually I started just listing off random words off the top of my head. Anything, as long as I could get it before someone else could.

[Guitar]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[Television]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[Sauna]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[Gun]

Sorry, that name has already been taken.

[Spoon]

Would you like to register your name as [Spoon]?

Every name under the sun was taken, and yet the name [Spoon] was so lame that nobody thought of using it. I laughed bitterly and hit accept. At this point I just didn’t care.

Please choose your race.

Human.

Do you want to register as a Human chara—

Accept!

Please choose your class.

I heard a lot about Eclipse Online’s state of the art character customization. Starting class options were generated by the supercomputer AI, which took into account your real life attributes, your personality and disposition, your intentions, and a bit of luck. Of course, there were options to change to rarer classes later in the game or even change races, but those were far off into the future. Starting off on good footing was important. 

The options in front of me were lackluster.

[Archer]

[Holy Priest]

[Warrior]

[Blacksmith]

[Sculptor]

[reroll]

Reroll!

Warning--each additional reroll decreases your chance at rare classes.

The only rare class here was Holy Priest, and that sounded like a basic healer class +1. I had nothing to lose by rerolling.

[Warrior]

[Archer]

[Fisherman]

[Baker]

[Fighter]

[reroll]

Shitty basic classes again. Reroll!

Fuck, the same basic classes again. Reroll!

Reroll!

Reroll!

Reroll!

I didn’t even know how much time had passed. The only non-basic class I was ever offered was in the very beginning. Maybe I should’ve just taken Holy Priest and been a damn healer… I could’ve just tagged along and picked up scraps from a mid sized guild…

I didn’t give up. The tooltip only said that rerolls decreased your chances at a rare class, but didn’t completely diminish them. That meant that it could be exponentially decreasing rare class spawns.

But even if the chance was 0.00001%, or even 0.00000000001%, it was greater than zero. I wanted to start this game on a good foot, with a rare combat class. Or maybe even a rare craftsman class that had hidden combat abilities from those popular manhwas. So I kept rerolling.

I didn’t keep track of time, but at least a few hours had passed. Not a single advanced class showed up. I was the unluckiest player in the world.

Reroll!

Reroll!

….

Seven hours later.

I was so busy rerolling that I didn’t notice a small animal was circling around my feet. I jerked back in surprise.

It was a black cat. It had to be something they added to the game for character creation grinders to pass the time, I thought. Kind of like that dinosaur hopping game when the internet goes down. Or those little mini games when a game client is patching.

“Scram kitty, I’m working here.”

I tried to nudge it away gently with my foot.

The black cat looked up at me. It was kind of cute…

And then it retracted its tiny claws and started to scratch me viciously.

“Ow! Ahh!!!”

The cat’s tiny claws actually hurt a lot. I tried to kick it, but it darted under my feet. I stomped the ground angrily, trying to step on its tail so I could smack it around and teach it a lesson.

I dove at the cat, but missed and slid on the ground comically. The cat turned its head and looked at me pitifully. Then it turned back around. A small portal suddenly opened, and the cat jumped through.

“What the hell is that?”

The portal began to recede.

“You’re not getting away this easily!”

I rushed at the portal and jumped through.

“Ouch.”

I landed flat on my back, onto an empty living room with a comfortable wooden floor and a big sofa in the middle. The room looked nearly identical to one of those traditional Japanese rooms I'd seen on TV.

“Welcome to the dimension room, nyang~”

The black cat was sitting in front of me, licking its fur.

“Huh? You can talk?”

“That’s right~”

The cat sounded like a young girl.

“You little rascal, you scratched me so hard!”

“You attacked me first nya~”

…

I looked around the empty room.

“Where is this? Why are you a talking cat?”

“This is my residence, the dimension room.”

The cat stood up and jumped onto the sofa.

“You know you are the last person who hasn’t picked a class yet?”

“??”

“Everyone else already moved on except one idiot, so I got curious~”

“I wanted to see which idiot still didn’t move on from character creation~”

How could I be the only person left? Surely out of 1.6 billion Eclipse Online players, someone else must still be in character creation with me.

“Are you sure I’m the only one left in character creation?”

“Of course~ Everyone else got a free hidden skill for completing character creation within 3 hours. You just weren’t offered because you took too long deciding on a name~”

I groaned. I suddenly remembered that the company behind Eclipse offered a random skill to every single player as a way give each player a unique identity. It was a heavily advertised aspect of the game, because it gave the chance for every player to have a unique expression.

“Shit… so I don’t even get the freebie skill?”

“Nope, the time limit has run out~”

My head felt like it was about to explode. This was just too unfair.

“Fine… let me get back to character creation. I’ll just pick basic warrior…”

“Oh, no. I already chose your class~”

“??”

“Open up your status, nya~”

I lifted my hand and opened the class information screen and status window.

It seemed like my unique skill was showing up as !@#$%^&, an error message.

An item appeared in my inventory.

[Dimension Ripper]

Mythical unique item.

An unassuming black glove for the left hand. Allows the wearer to briefly open a dimensional rift.

Cooldown: 2 seconds

Mana cost: Dependent on displacement

Soul bound.

Level restriction: Level 3 or above.

———

I looked over the class. It was definitely a rare class, but what were these stupid stat growths? 0 growth for strength, physical defense, and vitality? High intelligence growth on a thief? What was the AI thinking when it threw this class together?

My dreams of being a powerful warrior or a sorcerer king were extinguished. This was one of those gimmicky classes in MMO’s like bard or jester, which were interesting in concept but absolutely useless in combat and outclassed by better jobs.

“You stupid cat! Even the basic warrior class would’ve been better than this!”

“Nyaaa~”

I chased the cat around the room. On the third lap, I lunged and caught it in my hands. A status window opened up.

Would you like to assign a name to your pet?

… this stupid cat.

“Name me, master~”

Kekekek.

I knew the perfect name for this stupid cat.

“I name you Meat Shield.”

“Nyang?”

[You have confirmed the name Meat Shield for your pet]

The status window updated.

I smirked as Meat Shield tried to claw me again.

“This is what you get for scratching me, stupid cat.”

“I’m angry~”

….

“So, how do I get back to the game world?”

“This is the game world~”

I shook the cat vigorously.

“How do I get to where the other players are?”

“Oh, here~”

Meat Shield opened a dimension portal and jumped through. I followed her.

I landed face first on a grassy plain. How does that saying go? Look before you leap? I rubbed my nose in pain.

You have acquired the skill [Dimension Room].

Hm…

“Now you know how to go back and forth from the dimension room, I’m going to go groom myself. I’ll see you later nya~”

The cat jumped back through the portal, which blinked out of existence.

That stupid cat…

I could summon her again since I was her master, but decided not to for the moment. The cat was useless as anything but a distraction.

“Hey look. There’s another one that just finished the tutorial!”

Two men walked over to me. They were armed with beginner equipment and wooden maces. At this level, even wooden maces were deadly. The younger man sneered.

“Say your prayers, dumbass.”