Infinite Realm

[[ System notification :

Locating server...

Server located.

Beginning Neurolink connection process…

Connecting to server Heavenly System Universal server…

Connection successful.

Verifying connection…

Connection verification successful.

Beginning mind transit in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 ]]

With a soft bright flash of white light, Sato saw himself back at the room he logged out from.

"Hah. 6:16 PM. Made it a bit too early but it's not bad." Sato said as he stared at the System clock on his interface. After Sato had left the Campus grounds with Yato, it didn't take him long to reach home as his house was a lot closer compared to Yato. He just had a very small meal before taking an energy drink and logging into Infinite Realm. Th reason for his hurry was because every second counted in a game that was on par with another reality. Even if Sato was one of the, if not the highest levelled player, if he didn't work hard enough to keep this gap from the other players they could reach up to him. This was even more so for those pro players who were always online for at least 20 hours a day.

Sato left the room and knocked at the one opposite his, which happened to be the one Fudo was in. After knocking three times in special pattern without any response, he finally gave up.

"He's not online yet. Well I did tell him 6:30 PM so it's my fault for expecting that he would be online." Sato sighed before exiting the lodge.

Because it was already evening in real time, it was still dawn in Infinite Realm

Sato had not yet gone 5 metres away from the hotel when he noticed a commotion in front. A bunch of players were gathered round another while yelling curses and raining insults on the target. The passing players all stared at the sight in front but none of them had any plans or interest in interrupting it. The reason was quite simple; they didn't want to attract unnecessary trouble to themselves. In Infinite Realm, the guy beside you might be the heir of a million ALD company or even a professional player of a big guild. It was impossible for one to track the whereabouts of all the famous people [1] or even all the professional members of a guild starting from the outer members to the core members. Because this, the trend of 'Minding your business' (MYB) became the culture of majority of the players. Only those 'men of justice', 'heroes' or the troublesome ones, actually go about interfering in different situations.

'Who knows what might have happened…' Sato thought as he walked towards there. He wasn't actually heading to the scene to interfere or anything, but the path he had to follow happened to be where they were.

"You stupid girl! Trying to rob me of my belongings?! What do you take me for even?!" A man's angry voice reverberated.

*Pa*

*Thud*

A loud sound was heard as a body fell to the ground heavily.

"I didn't…" The girl who fell to the ground whimpered weakly.

"Hmm?" Sato was originally intending to pass by ignorantly when he happened o catch a sight of the player that fell down.

It happened to be a young girl with an innocent look and a kind face. Like an innocent angel sent to bless the world, though her beauty wasn't as exaggerated as the Snow Goddess, Akihira Yukino, she was still a beauty of her own class. She was indeed pretty but the slap she had received from the player caused a bit of injury on her face. Nonetheless, it only reduced her appeal by just a bit. But what drew Sato's attention to her was the green hair she had.

'She looks familiar…Isn't she?!'

Sato tried to recall where he had seen her before he finally remembered. She was one of the players who signed up for the Blacksmith exam back when Sato registered [2].

"You b**ch! Stopping acting innocent and hand it over!" The man yelled at the lady who fell down.

"It's not yours…" She responded weakly.

"What happened here?" Sato stopped and quietly asked a player who was standing by the side and watching the 'show'.

"Huh?" The player glanced at Sato. He was originally didn't want to say but recalling that the incident would neither affect nor concern him, he did so.

"That girl is as thief. Well, that's what they said anyway." The player said.

"A thief?" Sato asked with surprise as no one would actually expect such an innocent looking young girl to be a thief.

"I know right? You just can't judge people based on appearances. Apparently she went on a quest or something with those guys and she tried to run away with a loot. She thought she would be safe in town but they sill caught up to her." The player sighed. "Such an unbefitting thing to do for a pretty girl like this."

"You sure?" Sato asked him.

"We can't ever be truly sure of something but even if she isn't, who would dare to help her? See those guys." The player pointed at the 6 men surrounding the girl. "They are a bunch of pro-players. They might not be that famous but they're still quite strong with their leader being a level 6 along 3 others. Even if the girl is innocent, no one intends on offending such a line-up of players for a weak girl. It's just unnecessary trouble."

"Indeed." Sato commented before turning around to leave. He never had any intention of helping her just because he had seen her before. They weren't even acquainted with each other much less friends. Sato didn't have a reason to go out of his way to help someone he didn't know. He wasn't a good Samaritan or anything. As for whether if the story told about her was true, Sato didn't care to know.

"Wait. Why haven't the Town guards shown up yet?" Sato suddenly asked. In previous VR games, once a player gets injured by another player or a fight occurs, the NPC security personnel usually show up but from the crowd gathered here Sato believed that this must have been going on for at least 5 minutes but there was still no sign of a Town guard or anything. The girl was obviously a [Cleric] and the guy bullying her was a [Guardian] so she would inevitably receive damage from his attacks just as Crimson Scar received damage from Sato's punches. The only difference would be the damage value.

"Huh? Now that you mention it, I don't know. A few guards had shown up earlier on but they didn't interfere." The player replied while being surprised himself.

"Fufu." Another player who was close to them smiled. "Infinite Realm pursues reality and just like reality, the police wouldn't interfere in every single scuffle they spot now would they?"

"That's…!" The first player was dumbfounded. But upon focusing more on those words, he seemed to understand a bit. Indeed, despite claiming to care for the security and well-being of the people, the police don't really pay attention to every single incident.[3]

"I see…" Sato responded with a strange smile. 'I really have been underestimating this game's, no, this world's features.'

Having gotten an answer to his question, Sato turned around to leave. He had only taken 3 steps forward when he heard another commotion break out. This time, the reason he turned back was because he heard a familiar voice.

"What's going on here?" A female voice sounded out. Contained in it was a bit of dominance and pride stemming inherently within from the speaker.

"Who are yo-" The guardian yelled as he turned. However, once his eyes came into contact with the speaker, he suddenly went mute and astonished. In front of him was a lady as beautiful as the moon in a dark night and as white as snow. Walking alongside her were 5 other players but the main reason for the man's astonishment was the lady at the lead.

"It's, It's the Snow Goddess!" Someone from the crowd shouted with passion. Immediately some players broke out in cheers while others were shocked at her appearance. Whispers went about as those who didn't know her were informed of her achievements.

The Snow Goddess, Yukino, had finally made a public appearance after the Goblin arc incident. It was inevitable that her fans would cheer at her sight. Even though she had taken 5th position in the Most Kills Individual category, her strength was still one worth taking note of, especially after it was revealed that she was held back by the Savage Tribe during the war. What was even more impressive was that despite being outnumbered 1:7 in an environment set to benefit the Savage Tribe players, she managed to defeat 6 of them with the last one, Maniac Chief Goro, running with his tails between his legs. With the reveal of this event and even still being able t take 5th position, the Snow Goddess' reputation had reached a new height.

"What's going on here? Don't you know that you're blocking the road?" Yukino said the player in front of her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The man hurriedly apologised. He might be a big figure in the eyes of average players but in front of a true expert, he was nothing but a slightly bigger ant.

"Don't blame me miss. I'm just trying to deal with a thief." the man tried to push the blame to the green haired girl.

"Hmm? It's you?" Yukino stared at the weak individual behind the man. Because his figure had blocked off the view, she didn't notice the girl until now.

The green haired girl lifted her eyes to face Yukino and said weakly "Big sister..."

"Hey you!" Yukino glared at the man. "What did you say she did?"

"She, she…" The man became all fidgety as he broke out in sweat. He knew he was doomed when Yukino recognized the girl and he became even more scared when the girl called Yukino 'Big sister'. Right now, if there was a heap of cow dung close-by, the man wouldn't think twice before burying his head in it.

"She what?"

Realisingthat he couldn't escape this predicament, the man was about to surrender but when he suddenly remembered that he was still in Town, a sense of boldness and courage was suddenly instilled within him.

"She stole from me so I'm just punishing her for what she did."

"Stole?" Yukino glanced at the girl. "Is what he's saying true?"

"No big sister! He's lying. We went to an abandoned ruins and I found a strange object there. But he forced me to hand it over even though we had agreed to keep whatever we found by ourselves."

"So it turns out that he was lying and he was a thief."

"Such a terrible person. He deserves to die for bullying such a nice girl."

With her confession, the public turned their attention to the Guardian with anger and disgust clearly visible in their eyes.

Feeling the increasing negativity aimed at him, the man roared at her, "Shut up!"

He moved his hand to slap her but suddenly discovered that he couldn't feel a thing. "Nani?" He turned to look at his hand when he discovered that it was missing.

"You dare attack me in Town?!" The man was stupefied. The punishment for fighting I Town was even worse than dying. For a famous pro player like Yukino to actually do such was totally unexpected.

"I would have done worse if you had slapped her. Now scram!" Yukino said to him with her sword pointed at his throat.

"...tch! Let's go." The man left with his teammates, leaving behind the green haired girl.

'She still has such a feisty attitude.' Sato smiled while watching from a distance. 'With no guards being present, I think she shouldn't be in so much trouble. But to have taken such a risk, she should be quite close with that girl.'

As Sato thought this, he noticed that Yukino was glancing through the populace as if in search of someone.

'Time to go.' Sato quietly sneaked out. He didn't have any intention of meeting the famed Snow Goddess again after all, the last time they met, he had rejected her invitation. Prideful people like her would surely have be irked by his attitude.

"You didn't need to do that captain. You could have just scared him off." A female player beside Yukino quietly said to her through a voice call.

"True but Chesces and the rest are away from Town. They did say that we need to attract the other guilds attention on ourselves. This should be able to do that." Yukino replied in the call. It was a private voice call so no one could hear them. Their lip control was also exquisite such that if one didn't focus well, they would barely notice them speaking.

"Ai~ Captain, you really like doing things the wrong way."

As the girl concluded, she noticed that a squad of patrol guards where heading their way and so ended the call. Yukino also noticed that but she still remained calm despite attacking a player in town.

'Let's hope that I'm right.'

Infinite Facts :

In order to cater for those who work in the day, 6PM real-time is dawn in Infinite Realm while Night begins at 6AM real time. In other words, inverse time.. That is 6AM RT = 6PM IGT, 6PM RL = 6AM IGT.