May 19th, 2022 — Sapporo, Hokkaido

Thank you for being apart of Wishmaker BETA. We are extremely thankful that you have chosen us to be your home for the past three years. It is now time that we give back to you, our founders, with an invitation to try out our product.

Wishmaker BETA is a product that wouldn't exist without you; thank you. Click [Here].

What an opaque attempt at a phishing scam, Takehiko thought, absentmindedly tossing the email into his provider's bin folder. He hadn't signed-up for any beta test—and he certainly wasn't a "founder". Either this was a phishing scam, or he had a tangential email with another user. Takehiko thought this latter reason was unlikely—after all, his address was "takehero331". You'd have to be incredibly stupid to think that was a cool handle, and much more stupid to type it incorrectly.

I regret my formative years with all my might. If I could go back and redo the last ten years, I would accept that offer in a heartbeat.

A brief string of numbers caught Takehiko's eye just as he dropped the message into the bin. Curious, he quickly scrolled over to "More..." and readdressed the email with fresh eyes. Directly at the bottom of a message was a hash string—nonsense to most users without a trained eye for this sort of thing. But Takehiko had some brief experience serving as flex-IT in his high school; he knew a thing or two about computers. Perhaps less than he believed, but "some" nonetheless.

That's a hash-based signature. But for who? Did this company have imposters? Was there a reason for them to develop an identification key?

Regardless, hash keys can be forged. It's not even useful protection. Thought Takehiko, with the knowledge he had discerned through three five-minute YouTube tutorial videos he had been forcefully recommended. Still, Takehiko had confidence in his mixing pot of knowledge (although that confidence was severely misplaced); if anything, the existence of a key made the email seem even more suspicious, at least to Takehiko.

But, perhaps... His email service provider had starred the message for review, apparently someone thought the email deserved his attention. That must mean the address had been verified by the provider, making it legitimate. At least in the eyes of a bot.

Still, bots can be wrong. Real people don't do that verification stuff, anyway. Again, more second-hand knowledge that Takehiko had no way to prove—but still, now his interest was being peaked. Perhaps it was confirmation bias, but Takehiko wouldn't know, after all, a former online associate told him that he lived by it, and he's refused to acknowledge its existence ever since.

That former associate is a "former" for a reason, mind you.

Of course, Takehiko wasn't an idiot. Merely self-assured and arrogant. You'd think someone earning less than 3000¥ per drawing selling artwork on Skeb would be a bit more self-conscious, but Takehiko always had a confident streak. He would surely speak highly of his knowledge, even if whatever information he was spouting at the time was complete utter nonsense. He had that sort of twisted personality.

But Takehiko wasn't a complete waste of air—when it game to strategy (specifically RTS, FPS, and the "Art of War" books he could loosely quote), he was extremely proficient. Enough to earn him awe-inspiring amounts of street-cred within his small high school friend circle when he competed nationally for one of his favorite RTS games—Star Captains.

He had placed fifth. That tournament wasn't a joke, so it was quite an impressive ranking. Perhaps he could have came in first, if it wasn't for home strife he had been embroiled in during the start of the second inning. He had failed to show for two entire matches, and forfeited nearly half his point total—the mere fact he was able to remain in the top ten despite that goes to show just how far ahead of the competition he was at the time. A famous Star Captains streamer by the name of RuckHaru even rage-quit his match against Takehiko live on stream, surrendering at the start of the second match. Takehiko's in-game username "Takehero" had earned some fringe reputation on online forums that day.

Occasionally, people would still jokingly ask for the RuckHaru versus Takehero match on the 2ch megathread for the game. Not that RuckHaru ever humored them, of course—and thankfully, Takehiko never saw these messages, for surely his ego would have soared if he did. In truth, Takehiko had gotten embroiled in a flame war with a 2ch user back in 2016 that had angered him so much, he vehemently refused to visit that cesspool ever again. To date, he has kept his word.

Back to the current issue at hand: Takehiko was scanning through the email for the fifth time over, incessantly trying to find any obvious words that a scammer may use. Showcasing his IT prowess (to no one in particular), he even used the F12 button on his keyboard to hover over the link with developer tools, verifying that it wouldn't redirect him to any sketchy websites.

The redirect domain in question was wishmaker.co.jp—a link which returned no results, as if the website itself was unarchived from search engines at some point.

At this point, the Takehiko suspicion index was measuring about a five out of ten. He didn't have the skill to suavely navigate to a virtual machine, but he did have enough tact to at least start up a third-party browser that could disable Javascript pop-ups and alerts.

I'll just take a peek around, and immediately leave if anything is suspicious. There, that should be good enough, right?

And of course, he wouldn't actually download anything. Just check around.

The website opened up without fanfare, but that was a given, taking that he had disabled the primary language that allowed for fancy effects, bells, and whistles. If there was some kind of welcome animation, Takehiko unfortunately missed it.

The page was mostly blank, save for a few copy-and-paste testimonies and a navigation bar near the top. There were only two options: "About Us" and "Game Download". Naturally, Takehiko took some time to divulge through the game's About Us page before continuing.

Wishmaker is a game about making miracles come true. A simple wish can spiral into something greater—or nothing at all. Realism is at the core of our development, and we strive to make the world of Wishmaker as believable as possible. So believable, that you'll be second-guessing if it's real or not.

But of course, Wishmaker is not real. It's merely a window-in; to be real, we believe it must be accessible. The moment Wishmaker becomes accessible, we'll revise this addendum. But to date, nobody has proven it possible.

Wishmaker is as real as you'd like it to be. Explore our many systems, and utilize them to your advantage. There are several distinct stages you can reach through play—will you become our Hero?

Takehiko couldn't help but notice that the developers didn't actually say anything about the game. And anyway, isn't saying "Wishmaker is as real as you'd like it to be" completely contradictory to the earlier sentence?

He had elevated to about a seven on the Takehiko suspicion scale. But regardless, he continued on, clicking on the "Game Download" button next. A few seconds went by—a quick load time, likely aided by Takehiko disabling any server-side scripts—and soon the page transformed into your typical download showcase, albeit with poor formatting.

The game appeared to run on all operating systems, including iOS and Android. No consoles, but anyone from Mac to Linux could run the game "flawlessly", according to the specifications. In fact, it claimed that the game could even run on antique systems such as XP and western devices such as the Nokia. It had begun to dawn on Takehiko that this entire website could just be a needlessly-complicated joke.

Whoever finds this humorous though, I'll pray that your tastes recover.

Briefly, Takehiko flirted with the idea that this could also be a scam, preying on the NEETs of Japan who ate this kind of stuff up on online web novel publication forums. He quickly dismissed that option, though—those scams are usually pretty good at targeting people who would actually fall for them, and Takehiko wasn't a NEET—he made 3000¥ a week on Skeb.

So, naturally, Takehiko clicked the "Download" button.

We'll drop you in the D-Drive for now, in case you're actually a virus.

The process took a bit, not quick enough to be suspicious, but not long enough to be representative of something with "cutting-edge realism". The file the website downloaded was zip file, rather than an installer, so Takehiko was feeling significantly more confident. So much, in fact, that he was only a three on the Takehiko suspicion scale. He had seemingly forgot that there wasn't any vehicle to log-in to the website, so Wishmaker had no way to confirm he was actually a "founder".

Seconds later, Takehiko had extracted the files and booted up the lone .exe file that sat within. "Wishmaker.exe" started up almost immediately, coating his screen in a serene layer of white before slowly fading in to a very fantasy-esque room. If Takehiko had to describe it, he would almost say it looked like the room belonging to a noble lady from some fantasy anime.

A message popped up on his screen a moment later, contained in a semi-transparent dialog box with rounded edges. It was minimalistic, yet still fit with the vaguely "fantasy" aesthetic.

Welcome to Wishmaker BETA, Hada Takehiko. You are henceforth a god of the world you currently are viewing, and may enact your judgement as you deem fit. Of course, you must abide by Wishmaker's strict rules—you can only modify the world of the game with the tools at your disposal (the toolbar on the left of your screen).

These tools are called "Wishes & Miracles", and you'll learn more about them as you play through Wishmaker. We are looking forward to your feedback on the beta! You'll gain access to a developer forum upon reaching the second stage of play. Feel free to provide us with any information you think would lead to a better experience for you!

Also, it is important to note that Wishmaker is completely separate from your world. That means that nothing that occurs in your world can affect the world within Wishmaker, and there are no microtransactions to speak of. Have fun!

Welcome to the beta test of Wishmaker, Hada Takehiko—will you become our Hero?

[Okay.]

Takehiko decided to take everything in one step at a time. With a large breath and subsequent exhale, he began to list out all the things of relative note within his head:

• The game was incredibly realistic. After some preemptive zooming-in with his mouse to examine the textures, he could scarcely believe his eyes. The wooden dresser near the nightstand was extremely detailed, up to near-microscopic inspection. Naturally, there was a limit to just how much Takehiko could zoom-in, but it was jarring regardless.
• Takehiko could move the in-game camera around with significant ease, unimpeded by walls or obstacles. The range he could zoom was incredible, too—he was almost worried that he could go anywhere, but it appeared that the noble room he started in was contained within a town, and a few yards out from the gates was as far as he could go.
• There was no music, but there were plenty of sounds and sound-effects. High in the sky, the world was basically devoid of sound except for the occasional bird, but he could hear muted voices from the noble's room, and zooming through town resulted in a headache-inducing discord of jumbled voices and sounds.

After discarding the pop-up notice and exploring for a bit, a second dialog box opened a moment later.

An event is happening back at your spawn point. Would you like to view it?

[Okay.]

Contrary to the words displayed in the box, it seemed Takehiko wasn't being given an option—his only response was a mere "Okay". With a shrug, he clicked the button, and watched as his camera's zoom was refocused on the room from the start.

A girl with blonde hair and a white-fur coat stepped in. Her features were remarkably soft, giving her the image of a pure maiden or nun. Her eyes were a bright incandescent blue, and she walked with an elegance that was nearly indescribable. Takehiko was caught off-guard by two things: firstly, the woman was remarkably beautiful, or perhaps the proper adjective was "cute", although her brand of cuteness was completely otherworldly. At all his time in high school, Takehiko had never had his heartstrings pulled as much as when he laid eyes on her. Her hair likely fell to about her shoulders, but it was currently tied-up in a neat ponytail.

The second thing he was caught off-guard by was the realism. In front of Takehiko's eyes was a living, breathing girl. At least, that was his first conclusion. She was simply too lifelike. Even with games from the current generation, he had never seen a 3D-modeled body seem so fluid before, even with motion-tracking software. Textures? Forget about it—that was skin. And cloth.

Takehiko may have been forgetful, but he wasn't dense—he remembered how long the download took. Roughly ten minutes for everything, including extraction. There was no way the game could look this realistic while only taking up less than 0.1% of his computer's file storage.

At that, Takehiko's moment of awe was suddenly interrupted by a yelp—the woman's voice—as the room was suddenly blanketed in a white light. As the sudden flash faded, Takehiko noticed two things: the woman's eyes were tightly shut, and she was now leaning against the closed door with her back to the wall. The door was still ajar as she stepped in, so the sudden light likely caused her to stumble backwards, slamming the door shut.

The second thing he noticed was the golden book manifested in thin air over the fancy bed. It spun around as if it weighed less than air, its parchment-filled insides making a pleasant riffling sound as if a cool breeze had pushed the pages open. Suddenly, the book shut, falling to the bed and bouncing upon the sheets unceremoniously. At this point, the woman's eyes were wide open, and so she watched the book's display with abject surprise.

"Miss Charlotte, is everything alright? We heard a scream from the hallway! And what was that slamming noise?"

The woman—Charlotte—quickly cleared her throat and stood up, balancing herself against the wooden dresser.

"S-Sorry! I saw a mealworm and lost my balance! I'm going to deposit it outside the window, so don't worry about me! I'm fine!"

"Oh, thank goodness. Let us know if you need anything, Miss Charlotte."

"Thank you, Francine."

Charlotte and Francine, huh? The voice outside the door was clearly female. Panning his camera over, Takehiko flew through the wall to find the woman in question—she was dressed as a maid, and was also remarkably beautiful. Her head of hair was colored a fiery red, and fell down just below her shoulders in curls. The uniform itself was historical accurate, with some embellishments typical of anime-inspired media, including a garter belt, stockings, and detached sleeves. Since the blonde woman—Charlotte—was wearing thick winter clothes, Takehiko could only assume it was cold. As such, he said a small prayer for the maid under his breath; she must be freezing.

Moving back inside the room, Takehiko could see that Charlotte had now approached the bed with visible curiosity, feeling over the thick binding with her fingers.

<"It's rough...but also soft. And the outside appears to be trimmed with gold—is this an article of the gods?">

The voice was clearly Charlotte's. Takehiko was able to pick it up after her brief interaction with Francine. However, what was more important was that it hadn't emanated from Charlotte's mouth—it remained close as she stroked the book in awe. The voice also had an airy quality to it, one that Takehiko quickly picked up on with his knowledge of literary tropes.

I'm hearing her thoughts right now.

This game was something else. Seemingly coming to her senses, Charlotte picked up the book and began flipping through the pages.

Then the game froze.

Takehiko looked on for a few seconds, then began to panic. Had his game cocked up at the worst moment? Was his computer not powerful enough to handle it after all? That would've been embarrassing, since he had a 1070 and the game advertised it worked perfectly on the Nokia.

A few seconds later though, and his bated breath was proven unneeded, as a dialog box appeared on his screen.

Your first follower has opened your divine article! There exist many fundamental rules which govern this world: the Follower System, the Miracle & Wish System, and the Armament System. Before we get to those, though, you must choose which god you will become!

Our systems have detected that you maintain 60.2% male traits and 39.8% androgynous traits. Because of this, you will be able to select the gender of your god from the following options. Which will you be?

[Male God] [Androgynous God]

...Excuse me?

Takehiko had never considered himself to be androgynous in his life. Sure, some of his school friends back in high school had teased him by saying he had feminine features, but they were surely jesting. Someone as macho as him could never be mistaken for the opposite gender. His beliefs were proven correct since "Female God" wasn't on the list of options.

At this point, it was growing difficult to pick out whether Takehiko believed the results he had been given or not.

Regardless, Takehiko knew what he'd be choosing—he quickly selected "Male God".

Thank you for your selection. You will be known as a male god in Wishmaker. Please give us a few seconds while we calculate your statistics.

It was blatantly obvious by this point that Wishmaker was no ordinary game, so you may be wondering why Takehiko had yet to let out any unfavorable reactions—shouting in surprise, turning off the game, or calling up a friend were all valid and well-accepted options in the genre fiesta he had now found himself embroiled in.

The mere fact he did none of those things was for a mix of reasons. For one, Takehiko might have described himself as one with an aversion to otaku media, but in truth, he was a pretty big otaku himself. The term "closet otaku" was designed to describe people like him. He understood well the typical conventions of the genre, and was secretly hoping that if he remained composed, he might be transported into a fantasy world just like his contemporaries.

The second was that Takehiko wasn't a very loud person—it was something he developed from how he was raised. His mother often got migraines, and so loud noises were a no-go. He wouldn't shout for any reason unless the situation absolutely required it.

Finally, the most understandable reason of them all: Takehiko had no friends.

Your statistics have been determined. Welcome to Wishmaker. You have been chosen to be on the side of [Good], and so the following options are now available to you.

Which domain will you represent? Select a minor designation from the list below.

[Click here...]

Clicking on the button revealed a dropdown filled to the brim with names, usually accompanied by the suffix "God of". For example, "God of Fortune". Takehiko breathed in, then rapidly shook his head. He didn't know if this selection would immediately confirm his choice, or ask him if he were sure. But he was a risk-taker.

He selected "God of Fortune". The screen changed. The dialog box grew larger to accompany the new text which had introduced itself after his selection.

God of Fortune (Light Domain)

The God of Fortune is a god who controls causality, but is completely detached from the fourth-dimension. Time is not calculated onto their whims, and as such, the good tidings they bring can come in and any point. In part due to this restriction, the events they can manifest through "Wishes & Miracles" are much stronger than other gods serving under the Domain of Light.

[I am sure.]

[I want to rethink my decision.]

Tahehiko let out a sigh of relief. He wouldn't be blindly choosing after all—quickly, he hit the "rethink decision" option.

The downsides to the God of Fortune seem way too large for what it offers. Although in fairness, I don't exactly understand what it offers. While he might not be blindly choosing, it seemed Wishmaker was hesitant to give him much information despite this choice's importance.

As he returned to the former screen and scrolled through the dropdown menu, he couldn't help but notice that most of the options were grayed out. For instance, "God of Water" was unselectable, as were others. He jotted down some of the names which caught his attention:

• God of Artistry, God of Birth, God of Day, God of Men, God of Nature, God of Night, God of Performance, God of Prosperity, God of Rain, God of Sanctity, God of Skies, God of Space, God of Thunder, God of Time, God of Unity, God of Water, God of Winds

A lot of the grayed-out names seemed interesting to Takehiko, so he found it disappointing. Were his statistics not acceptable for these positions?

Or maybe someone already chose them.

For now, Takehiko moved on—it didn't appear he'd figure it out anytime soon.

He selected "God of Victory" next.

God of Victory (War Domain)

The current weakest minor designation, not just of the War Domain, but of all Domains. The God of Victory holds power over the act of victory, but has no ability to confirm victory himself, relying solely upon the strength of his followers.

In addition, the God of Victory can only obtain God's Dew through victory, and not through recruiting additional followers—this means that, unlike other gods, progression as the God of Victory is gated through a resource outside the God of Victory's control. While the God of Victory uniquely retains a x3.5 modifier boost of God's Dew from each successful victory, a weak starting follower may prevent the God of Victory from earning any points at all.

It is well-known that the last five Gods of Victory have achieved a Game Over before ever reaching the second stage, so much so that we've felt it necessary to add this addendum. Only select this option if you are completely certain of your choice.

[I am sure.]

[I want to rethink my decision.]

So I just need to win to get points then? That's easy.

Takehiko hit the accept option.

Wait wait wait, Hada Takehiko, are you certain? This choice is extremely important. Maybe you should overlook some of the other options before choosing?

[I am certain of my choice.]

[I want to rethink my decision.]

Oh, it seems someone is concerned for me. Takehiko blinked in surprise at the sudden interjection which interrupted his click. Amusement filled his eyes as he smiled.

And...click.

The game paused for a moment, as if processing his choice, and then...

Welcome to Wishmaker, God of Victory.