1. Chaos Start
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Chaos Year 1, Day 215, 3:12 pm.

Tsuriyama Household, Gifu, Japan.

"Onii-chan, I'm coming in." 

Tsuriyama Riko, my 12 years old little sister, abruptly entered my room. Pausing the game on my computer, I rotated my rolling chair to face her. 

She wore an old yellow t-shirt of mine that I bought from Comicon a few years back. It had the sentence "I ♥ humanity" printed on the chest. It was quite large for her size, reaching till her knees.

"How many times did I tell you not to enter the room without knocking?" I asked, glaring at my sister.

She just rolled her eyes, completely disregarding my authority. Then she said, "Sora ojii-san came home today. He was looking for you.I tried calling but you never replied. Even the door was locked." While relaying the news, she skipped across the room, with her two-side-up dark brown hair flapping behind her. 

Nearing my PC desk, she jumped onto it and made herself comfortable. As her gaze shifted toward my PC monitor, she yelled out, "Ah! Did you just pass my best score? It took me months to get that score."

"Heh! You are 10 years too early to reach my gaming skill level." I smirked.

"Hmph!" Riko pouted, folding her arms.

It was kind of satisfying, to watch her getting ticked off. 5 hours of mindless grinding, totally worth it.

Satisfied, I focused on the matter at hand. "So why was he looking for me? You didn't ask?"

"Yeah, I did. Well, he brought something home. What was the name again?  Ah right, VR Studio or something." She replied.

"Oh, is that so? Alright then, Let's check out this VR thingy first."

Trailing behind Riko, I left my room. Just as we took a left towards the living room, I caught a glimpse of an oval-shaped capsule. And right away, I recognized it. Finally, it's here. A new beginning.

"Ah, that is called VRSC, short for Virtual Reality Station Capsule, not VR studio.." I corrected my sister.

"You know about it?" Riko asked me, her big green eyes sparkling.

"I did a little research on it last year when Chaos got launched," I said with my eyes glued to the capsule.

"Ah… the game that you were so obsessed with." Riko walked around the machine inspecting it and then tilted her head in confusion. "What's that got to do with this huge thing?"

"You play the game using this capsule. I'll show you later. Now..." I groaned while shoving the capsule forward with all my might, but failed to move it even an inch. "Help me with this!"

Damnit, I need to start going to the gym again. I stopped working out quite a while back. Sigh~ A small breath left my mouth, recalling an old memory.

After an enormous amount of struggle, we finally managed to drag the capsule into my room. It stood out like a sore thumb among the other furniture. It's like an oversized egg with a door lid on it. Did they lack designers or something? 

"You know how this thing works? I think ojii-san brought a manual book too, It should be somewhere in the livi…"

"Don't need it." I cut Riko short. "I know how it works."

I read the manual for the capsule many times before to feed my curiosity and thus knew almost everything about its operating system. 

I began working on it immediately. But Riko's constant staring and awkward dawdling started to annoy me, ruining my concentration. 

Turning back, I scowled at her. "Don't you have anything else to do, Riko? You don't play games anyway, so what are you hovering over here for?" 

"I want to watch the virtual thing too." She replied.

"It's not a TV. You enter into a different world." 

Ah, wrong words.  I intended to repel her but messed up instead.

"Eh, what do you mean by that? Wait…like Kirito?" Her eyes glittered, reaching climax excitement. For some reason, like every other girl from the series, Riko also worshipped that dumb annoying guy. She babbled on, "I wanna get into that other world too. You have to let me use it, please Onii-chan. I even helped you and all. I'm your only cute little sister, right? You will let me use it, won't you?" 

Considering her personality and excitement level, I could pretty much tell that this pestering would continue for hours. Rather than tolerating this until the end only to give in, I should just surrender early on.

At least, let's offer her some peace of mind.

"Okay, okay, I will. Now, get out. I can't concentrate with you here."

"Okaay, it's a promise." She spun around and hopped out of the room. 

Hey, when did I promise? Whatever, finally, I can work in peace.

After setting up everything, I sat inside the capsule and wore the headgear. It connected me with the virtual reality world. A loading scene appeared before my eyes. It read,

The Altus Town, named after a great magician known as Altruino, is a prospering town known for its friendly and welcoming neighborhood. But the greatest attraction of the town is the Altrus Academy, established by Altruino himself. At first, it was a magic arts academy. Later on, it opened up to all kinds of basic combat and craft arts. Since then the academy has produced many great warriors over time.

I read the description three times already. By then, the loading bar progressed to 42℅ only. As I kept staring at the bar, I recalled a past memory. My consciousness drifted off to a scene that even haunted me in my dreams.

The scene visualized the day 'Chaos' got released globally. They broadcast the in-game world on a big screen, inside a conventional hall in my town. I still could remember it crystal clear. That day, standing among the sea of people in that hall, I muttered some words I couldn't hear because of the commotion shrouding me. Even though the ears couldn't pick up, the heart knew very well the indistinct sound I murmured that day. It fluttered, burning with a fiery passion.

There were people everywhere in the hall, gazing toward one screen exclaiming with excitement and wonder. Everyone was busy trying to get a picture of themselves, selfies. They wanted to create memories. But they had no care for the ones they came with. That memory they wanted was not about enjoying the moment together with their beloved ones. They just wanted the world to know that they were in front of that big screen, at that moment, busy with themselves.

There were people everywhere, yet there was not really any human. Because humans supposedly had hearts full of emotion and compassion, but these people had none. Wherever I observed, all the relationships were built on lies after lies. On the surface, they all seemed very happy, but deep down they all knew nothing would last. They acted to get along until that last day came. In reality, they were all alone in their vast solitary worlds, living inside a make-believe society.

Once you recognize these small details, you can't live in the bliss of ignorance anymore. Your heart aches. You start longing for...no, you start craving for something.

I wanted Chaos to suck in all the chaos of this sham of a society. I believed that only Chaos could lead me toward what I desired.

As the loading completion notification buzzed, my consciousness sprung back to the present time. It was the moment of truth. Henceforth, I began a new journey toward my dream.

At the end of the loading scene, my vision clouded up again, and everything turned deep dark. Right away it brightened up again bit by bit. But this time, I could breathe and feel the air around me, see my arms and legs. I listened to the breeze whistling, not just some background music. 

So, this is Virtual Reality.

However, It was white everywhere, even the floor, just like the Construct from The Matrix. Is someone standing behind me too?

Looking around, I found no one. As I pondered what I was supposed to do, suddenly a screen appeared above my head. I gasped out, jumping backward.

"Ahahaha… Did I scare you, Master?" A child giggled inside the screen.

A girl, at an age of 7 or 8 years, began calling me "Master" for no apparent reason. As if I was being served by an underage part-time worker in a maid cafe. However, she wore one of those short kimonos instead of the usual maid dress. But her red kimono decorated with flowers quite well matched her fluffy peachy hair.

She seems like a support system anyway, most probably an AI. She should be the one giving out directions. Maybe, my own Paimon.

"Where am I?" I asked, "Is this the character creation room?"

"Well, we call it the Chaos Initiator though."

We? Who's we? Whatever, it's not important right now.

"Wait, if I didn't create my character yet, what am I right now?" I asked.

I extended my hands forward a bit. The hands look like mine though.

"It's a character look-alike your real self, created by the system, scanning your entire body." She explained. "In your case, it was me who did it. Meaning I have already seen everything about you, Master." Her face wore a mischievous grin. "Eve...ry...thing. Hehe."

What the heck? Is that the behavior of a 7-year-old kid?

"Is that so? Well good for you." I said, recollecting myself. I needed to put my attention toward the new world right now. "Now then, what do I do?"

"You can recreate your character here if you like or you can progress toward the name selection part."

Nah, I don't wanna spend hours on character creation. It's too much pain with all those details. Good that, the system did the work for me.

"Okay, let's move on to name selection," I said.

"Alright Master, What do you want your character's name to be?" the girl asked.

"Ryoki… R-y-o-k-i."

"You can't use this name, Master. It has been taken already."

I began this journey really late. Chaos was more than 7 months old already. So it was reasonable that someone had already taken my name. but I did want to beat that guy up for some reason.

"Okay then, let's just go with Ryo. It should be available, right?"

"Nope."

"Tsuriyama?" I frowned.

"Nope."

"Maryo."

"Still not available."

"Mario." 

C'mon dude. Let me in already.

"Same." 

Fucking hell….

"Rio?"

Even the AI got tired. She just shook her head left and right this time.

Just what the fuck is going on? Now, what do I do? Nothing's coming to my mind anymore. Ughhh, fuck everything.

"Rio-002"

"Ah, that one is available."

Of course, it's available. Or else I would have logged out and cursed everyone on the forum until I cooled off.

"Do you confirm your name to be 'Rio-002', Master?"

"Yup"

"Now you need to create a password first for safety issues. I like to call it the Magic Words. It's kinda catchy that way."

"Hoh…Hmm, let's see… Alright, it's 'El Psy Congrii'."

"Okay then, I set it as the password, please don't forget it, master," She said. "So, Are you ready to enter the Chaos world?"

"Wait, I don't choose the class now?"

"Not yet, Master. You will get to choose your class during the Main Quest."

"Oh, I see." Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Here we go. "Okay then, let's log in" I confirmed, opening my eyes again.

"Alright. Welcome to Chaos, Master."

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