Living Life As A Game: Through And Through

Adrian was what most people would consider antisocial. He wasn"t super good-looking or book-smart. He definitely wasn"t in shape — what with all the die-hard gaming he did. But, at least he never neglected his personal hygiene and his ability to waste his life away with games was unparalleled.

This walking embodiment of the slur "living in your mother"s bas.e.m.e.nt," did as the insult suggested. Only, instead of living in his mother"s bas.e.m.e.nt, he had the whole house to himself. His mom and dad were the CFO and CEO of Quantum Inc. respectively. They didn"t have time within their busy schedules to settle down and live at home like a regular family. But, that didn"t make them bad parents, as they would stop by whenever they had the time and "try" to act as a family with Adrian.

Unfortunately, the antisocial b.u.m would rather they never return, so he could spend his entire life idling away within his room; playing games until his hands fell off. Fortunately for him, they almost never came to visit. Thus, for the grand majority of his time, he didn"t have to act as a regular person with a personality and interests in others; he would behave somewhat like a regular person when they did visit, almost like a sociopath.

Now, for what seemed to be the thousandth time, Adrian he beaten yet another RPG (Role Playing Game). Still, he loved the genre and as his interest never died out, he searched and searched for the next game to 100%. And because it was currently summer and thus summer break — for american schools — his feverish gaming only became more ridiculous, proven by the fact that just on the current week he"d already spent 100 hours playing; it was only friday.

Adrian had already beaten every RPG that had been released (in the US) from a AAA studio for the last decade, so at the moment, he was surfing for underground gems that were not very popular. He had already found a couple good RPGs in that category, but they were too short; only requiring him to put in a couple dozen hours to beat.

But, just as he was coming close to calling it a day and getting another four hours of shut-eye, he chanced upon a link for a game called IRL (In Real Life).

"IRL? Tsk, Tsk, Is my service provider trying to roast me?" Adrian couldn"t help but think to himself. Alas, he was too much of an addict to resist and thus clicked on the link anyways.

Upon opening the game"s "official" website, Adrian became a bit bothered by the absolutely worthless graphics and outdated, minimalistic look it possessed. But, his valiant gamer heart held fast and he continued to read into the game as if none of it bothered him. The website had an almost comically bad introduction Adrian read before he could scroll down and start creating his character.

Noticing that the entire "RPG" was contained within the web browser was already a red flag, but Adrian entertained the idea of continuing as the introduction had lifted his mood from how ridiculous it was. The introduction read as:

"Ay, Boi-ohs and Girlies! Come one come all, Play IRL! The ultimate RPG~

Make whatever character you want! Customize Stats! Picks A Skill! And a Talent!!!

With endless possibilities, you can even make up your character"s own background!?!?!?!

Life is a game, so treat it as such~

What are yo(u) waiting for?"

"What a riot! The introduction is so short and random. Hahahaha… there"s even a typo on the last line." Adrian commented to himself. He was so used to being alone that even talking to himself out loud was nothing out of the ordinary to him.

He scrolled past the introduction and came upon the first tab for creating his character. Surprisingly, even though the introduction was hilariously bad, the creation page wasn"t too shabby. In the first page of character creation, Adrian would give his character their name and s.e.x, as well as change their stats.

First and foremost, he made his character a girl as it was a tradition. He reasoned that if RPGs were made to let the player experience a fantasy role within an impossible reality, why not be as out of the ordinary as possible. Naturally, Adrian wasn"t a girl, else he might have sued his parents for child abuse. Thus, after making his character a girl, he named her Elizabeth Ultimatia

— because… why not? He then messed around with the 21 free stat points he was given and reviewed his character before continuing to the next page.

[Name: Elizabeth Ultimatia

s.e.x: Female

Status Points Available (0)

Strength: 10

Endurance:10

Speed: 21

Defense: 10

Intelligence: 20

Luck: 10]

All the stats before he messed with them were set to 10 and given that he didn"t really know what kind of game IRL was, he just played it safe and built his character for the speed mage cla.s.s; a combination he had never played before. It kind of irked him that he could never see an image of what his character was going to look like in the game. But, considering the aforementioned red flag, Adrian didn"t have much hopes for this game anyways and was just messing around as a last treat before going to sleep.

The next tab of character creation was for picking an innate skill and talent respectively. Apparently, the choices Adrian made in the first tab affected innate skills, as everything available to him was the generic magics of mages. Things like: Fire affinity, Water affinity, Earth affinity, and so on. But, unlike most games, there was even affinity for odd elements like void and poison. In the end though, Adrian picked Time affinity as time magic was the best in imagination.

The selection of talents was infinitely more captivating to Adrian than the innate skills, as there was actually a wide variety of talents to choose from. Most seemed to be worthless like Cooking, Cleaning, or Singing, but there were a few that captured his attention. Adrian debated internally within himself over which of the three talents he found interesting — Alchemy, Forging, and Medicine.

Even if this farce would only lasted until he went to sleep, he really couldn"t help but be serious when making his characters. Adrian debated himself for over a whole ten minutes before coming to the conclusion that medicine would be best for his speed mage build as forging would probably require a hefty investment in strength and endurance, while alchemy was a profession he had taken way too many times in the past. It only made sense if he picked a profession as odd as medicine when making this off-puttingly bad character of his.

Finalizing his choice for medicine, Adrian moved over to the last tab and was surprised to find a blank text box. He guessed this was the part where he gave his character their background as the introduction suggested. Thus, he started typing the most random nonsense that would come to his mind for his speed mage.

"Elizabeth Ultimatia, heir to the legacy divinity of the 8th generation G.o.d of s.p.a.ce and Time was mercilessly exiled from the 9th layer of Heaven after all her hardships and triumph over the other candidates to the legacy. The reason? She was unfortunately a woman and that didn"t sit right with the council of Sublime Sovereigns. Though her master cared for her deeply as his most promising and capable student, he alone wasn"t able to thwart the intervention of the councils. Thus, he personally had to banish her from heaven and take away her cultivation. Now, as a faux-G.o.ddess turned mortal, Elizabeth descends onto the world of mortals in conquest of her return back to heaven; seeking revenge for herself and to once more see her master."

Adrian typed up the first thing that came to his mind and was surprised by how good the little backstory he came up turned out to be. He momentarily considered writing some other time in the future for fun as he had never really enjoyed it as much as he did at this moment, before his finger ever so slightly clicked the "End" prompt of the website and his character was finalized.

Suddenly, just as Adrian finished creating his character and was beginning to stretch in preparation for going to bed, the world visibly darkened and time seemed to stop. No, time definitely stopped as Adrian turned to look outside his window and found a bird"s silhouette glued to the sky in a fixed position while it was still in mid-flight.

Next, an ominous voice seemed to overpower everything around Adrian, even if most of the things around him were barely audible in the first place. Nevertheless, the voice seemed capable of penetrating through everything as it spoke to Adrian. It gave a chuckle before saying "Interesting… There"s finally a good one..." The voice seemed to continue speaking but its power was too much for Adrian to handle and as a result he blacked out.