In the year 2022, a secret and unknown company made its first appearance in the modern world after secluding itself in a secret facility at the North Pole to create its first product. This product was known as the Virtual Reality Necklace. This "secret company" also created a game to go along with it. The game was known as Second World Online.

The only thing that we knew about this company was the name it went by. Simulation.

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Los Angeles

Wade weaved through the crowd surrounding the supermarket as he left the square with a box in his arms. That box contained an item he bought through his entire life savings. A Virtual Reality Necklace.

'Damn', he thought as he finally escaped the crowd. 'There weren't supposed to be so many people.'

Wade had traveled for 3 hours just to go to a slightly abandoned district near his home. After that, he had waited in line for 2 hours straight just to get a Virtual Reality Necklace. It was about 5:30 in the afternoon as some time had elapsed while he was waiting.

When Wade went to call a taxi to take him back home, he noticed a blonde woman in front of him. She looked somewhat rich. She had curves that not many women had as well as decently sized cups with a nice plump ass.

A suspicious man stood behind her. He looked a lot like a pickpocket. Wade decided to help the woman because as the indifferent person, Wade was, he only helped others if there was some kind of benefit to it. Wade thought that in case he met the woman again, later on, she would owe him a favor for helping her. Wade casually walked up to her and whispered in her ear.

"The man behind you looks somewhat like a thief. Be careful."

After Wade said that, the blonde looked behind her and realized he was talking about her bodyguard as her family had assigned one to her and wanted him to look inconspicuous. Unfortunately, the man beside her had noticed him and thought he was a thief.

This was the only man who stood up to tell her that her bodyguard was a thief.

As Wade left in a taxi, the blonde mumbled a word that only she could hear, "Interesting."

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As Wade arrived home after another 3 hours of traffic, he looked at his apartment. It was neat and tidy with a nice vibe to it. He walked up to a table and put on some music before turning to the box in his hand and opening it up. As he opened it, he saw an instruction manual and a necklace that looked like it was made out of crystal.

Wade had ordered a black necklace so the "crystal" necklace looked like pieces of obsidian with blood-red veins inside with dark chains connecting them. He thought that if he was going to spend all his life savings on something he had to get something that looked worth it at the least, so he customized it online by adding those blood-red veins. The blood-red veins pulsated when he wore them.

When he wore his new necklace, he looked in the mirror and saw his black hair with a silver streak on the left side and a red streak on the right. He had a red iris on his right eye and a silver one on his left eye. This combined with his hair earned many looks of interest whenever he met someone new. Despite that, he didn't make any new friends as they all thought he was too boring compared to their other friends. His lean physique made him look like a well-exercised person but Wade never had the time to exercise as he did day and night jobs just to pay the rent and food costs.

Wade decided to take a nap after he finished his daily routine of the day and night jobs. The day and night jobs he did actually trained his body quite well when compared to actual body training. When Wade slid into his bed, he started snoring immediately. When he slept the necklace with blood-red veins lit up in dark red light and surrounded him before going dark again.

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Wade suddenly saw 5 words in front of him when he opened his eyes.

"Welcome to Second World Online."

The words were system formatted like the screens you saw when playing a video game. Wade then heard a high-pitched female voice behind him.

"Would you like to create a new avatar?"

When he turned around, he saw a small fairy.

"Yes," Wade replied as he snapped out of the small trance he was in when he saw the fairy earlier. Suddenly, a transparent holographic screen appeared in front of him as it displayed the instructions of how to use the system in-game, as well as showing him customizations he could use to change the look of the screen as well as himself.

This screen was supposedly the system that was in almost every MMORPG game. He could deviate his in-game look from his real-world look by 10 percent. However, Wade kept his avatar and real-world self the same as well as changing the system's look to a dark red background and silver words, just like his hair and eye color.

"You done yet?" asked the fairy in an impatient and demanding tone.

"I'm done. Show me the background story of the world after that, I'll spawn in," replied Wade in an indifferent tone.

After he said that, a rectangular hole opened up in front of him and a giant screen rose and replaced it. The system displayed a timeline that showed every event that had happened since the creation of the world and now. After he finished reading the timeline, he saw that 7 world wars had been issued in the past years and only 3 empires were still standing out of the 10. The Lanx empire, Reed empire, and finally, the Alcazar empire. He swiped left and moved on to the next page which showed him the basic instructions of how to play the game. It would be a free world and one could do anything he or she wanted.

Wherever the person spawned would be random as he could spawn in any of the beginner villages ranking from 1-1,000,000. Calculating that there were 8 billion to 9 billion people in the world right now, he knew there would be at least 8,000 people in each village if they all played the game.

Wade had to wait 2 hours before the game officially launched and he would spawn in so he logged out and after eating some basic food, he went outside. As he walked outside, he noticed it was already 6:15 in the afternoon. So almost an hour had passed since he had bought the necklace.

When Wade looked up into the sky, he thought of the memories that had happened to him before and how he had to survive many ordeals just to get how much money he had now. Long story short, Wade was 21 years old currently, and during and after his high school years he had made a bad life decision. He joined a gang.

'That was probably the best and the worst decision, I ever made.' Wade chuckled as he remembered how the gang was the most popular one in Los Angeles. It was called the Searing Snake. Wade remembered how they lured young people like him to join them and when they joined, they would be put through training with different subjects to support the gang. The gang made sure that they couldn't leave as they wanted them to be able to learn the criminal ways that the gang employed. The Searing Snake gang delivered many different services than those usual small-time gangs around the city.

Wade had even worked one of those services. He worked in the assassinating district. Many of the recruiters noticed how he was always a person who was indifferent and seclusive. One could even say that Wade was a talent in keeping himself unseen and unknown. Wade remembered that he used to think that learning the skills of the Searing Snake gang as well as the experience of assassinating others would help him if he needed it. Little did he know the fortune of a peaceful life was taken away when he decided to join.

Wade went back inside his apartment after thinking about his past. He walked into the small, compact living room and sat down on his inexpensive couch. As he turned on the TV, a news channel popped up. The news channel talked about the new game that was launching, unsurprisingly.

"The trending new game, Second World Online will launch very soon and we will be the one providing details such as the differences between this game and similar VR games. The creator of this game will also be joining us as a guest to explain a few different things. As the creator prefers his identity to be anonymous, his voice and face will not be shown on screen. We will now invite the creator of Second World Online."

The second the news reporter said that a holographic screen appeared beside her and showed a tall man wearing a black robe and a Guy Fawkes mask. "I welcome all of you to Second World Online. First of all, I would like to say thank you to everyone who has bought the game and I can guarantee you will not be disappointed when you play it."

The voice sounded monotone as he continued explaining various mechanics of the game for a few minutes.

"One more thing, I would like to explain to everyone before I leave, that in all truthfulness, Second World Online is perfect and will not be bugged as you people say. It is fair in every way possible with your actions affecting what happens in the future.

The screen showing the man then disappeared as he cut the connection.

"Well, it seems that we're all done here now. We'll provide news about the updates as soon as they come out so stay tuned."

The news reporter said her words in an excited tone before leaving the stage in a hurry.

Wade looked at his watch after turning off the TV.

"Hmm, it's already been 2 hours. Well, I guess it's time for me to play this new game."

Wade slid into his bed. As he drifted off to sleep, a menacing red light surrounded the necklace on Wade's neck.