At that time, Modern day 1

This is the story of when Makoto first entered high school.

Makoto had a lot of hobbies, archery is obviously one of them, games, reading, movies , gardening, watching historical stage plays. There were also a lot of hobbies that he had but does not do anymore because he either no longer had any motivation for it or just got bored.

Makoto also liked trivia and wanted to know various things about the world. This has become kind of detrimental to him, as he learned knowledge that gets in the way of learning important knowledge related to school. Makoto’s hobbies change as the seasons change. But there is one hobby that he has yet to discard no matter what, appreciation for historical plays. Archery for him has exceeded a hobby at this point and has now entered the hall of fame in his mind. He learned too much trivial knowledge and too much knowledge concerning the Edo era of japan…It has gotten to the point where he once taught the teacher in japanese history. Though when we moved onto an era other than Edo, his vast knowledge become completely useless, and he almost got a failing grade in the test.

He started a new hobby in the early summer of his first year of high school. He started to play a MMO with his friends. He had started due to being invited by a friend and then casually started playing using his own computer at home. The game was normal but talking to friends in real time and playing with them was fresh to him, so he had fun. Although he did not understand why they had invited him and he did not get as invested into the game as his friends, he still enjoyed chatting with his friends and hunting for materials.

One day, after Makoto finished dinner and gathered at the meeting point in the game. They moved to their hunting spot and started to collect materials.

The job he played in the game was a fighter. It is the best class in the game per pro players. The level of the character was also very high. However, this level was achieved by tagging along with his max level friends and is not because of his own skill in the game. His skill in the game was quite bad, the healer in our group is the support role and Makoto character is supposed to be the firepower of the group. But due to his skill, they could only have him play the middle range role, instead of the full frontal role that his character specializes in…..it is quite sad. The two friends he plays with does not care since they are already max level, they are only helping train and helping another character get materials.

The other friend they were helping was someone from Makoto’s archery club and started the game the same time as him. His name was Ibuki Masamune. When Makoto first started the game, he called out to his club friends and wanted them to play with him. Ibuki was the only one with a computer so he was the only one who could play the game with Makoto. However, the man named Ibuki was different than Makoto; he was a man with many different tastes. He had a busy lifestyle that was full of dates during the weekends. He had a great personality, but his real-life status made Makoto’s other two friends say something to Makoto when Ibuki was not with them.

“The people with a life can go die and explode.”(Makoto’s Friends)*

Tlnote: this says riaju explode, which if you have not seen any of those types of anime or read any of those types of manga,LN means. The people who have a life can go die.

Makoto coughed when they said that and wondered with a bitter smile why was he invited then? This is something Makoto wonders later on too.

Ibuki, even though did not play as much as Makoto, he still had better skills in the game. They did not know whether it was that he could guess how the AI would operate or he had a better game sense, but whenever he played vanguard, he would smoothly dodge and attack the enemy. Even though Makoto had a higher level than Ibuki, Ibuki’s player skill was on a much higher level.

The dps members of the group were deleting enemies instantly.

“Ibuki-shi, you are strong like usual.”(Afternoon Cat)

The group healer, Afternoon cat said amazed.

“Ibuki-shi is too abnormal, I definitely do not want to face him in PvP.”(Night Cat)

The other member of the group who was a knight named Night cat said as he tried to help Ibuki. These two people have the same name in many other games, that is why many people who play the game know both of them. Unlike Makoto and Ibuki, they play the game with a passion, having recognition is something they take pride in having.

Them recognizing the strength of Ibuki’s character shows how high Ibuki’s skill level is. They have yet to fire a single shot towards the enemies yet. Ibuki possessed a high attack speed of seven attacks per second which enabled him to take down enemies in less than a second. Successfully doing this meant you had to hit commands specified by the game and those command had to be entered within a second. His hand speed and sense for the keys was quite impressive to be able to keep up with that. Ibuki, himself also knows the attack speed of the enemy and this was just from his own ability as a person.

Ibuki Masamune’s house was a very wealthy house. This game, like many others, lets you buy in game content. Ibuki did exactly this. He used money to buy many healing items and rolled the Gacha* which contained many items that ranging from the lowest grade to the highest grade. He rolled until he obtained all the highest grade items. The drops from rare bosses? He obtained them with money. The skill quest items you get from winning PvPs? He obtained them with money. The limited rare items that have long past its due date? He obtained everything with money. Right now, the color of his character’s armor is golden like a certain King of heroes in anime.

Tlnote: the gacha if none of you have ever played a mobile game or Japanese MMO’s is were you use the in-game currency you obtained to acquire characters or items. You purchase in-game currency using money. The certain king of heroes is of course Gilgamesh from Fate/Zero.

“Oh, but I thought they left this kind of shortcut for people who do not have much time to play the game.”(Ibuki)

The shortcut Ibuki was talking about is spending actual money for the items. He is right that this is the shortcut for those people. If we all went in an all against one match, there is no doubt that he would come out on top in the end. He may lose a couple times, but his ability to learn is quite outstanding and very fast.

“………I knew it, I am the weakest.”(Makoto)

“No, no, Makoto-kun is among the top when we are talking about the people who started in the same time frame as you.”(Afternoon Cat)

“Using Ibuki-shi as a reference is completely wrong too.”(Night Cat)

Both Afternoon and Night cat tried to cheer Makoto up. It was true that Ibuki is abnormal, he was able to catch up to both the cats in a matter of two months of play time. Although the two cats did not know how many millions Ibuki spent on the game, they knew he had the power of money. Occasionally, they did spend some money on this game, but it was on the level of a measly few hundred yen. They had never gotten the highest grade item from the amount they had spent. In fact, they had always thought S and A grade items in the Gacha was a legend.

“Oh, I leveled up.”(Ibuki)

“I also leveled up.”(Makoto)

“Nice.”(Both Cats)

Makoto and Ibuki both leveled up. The two cats congratulated them.

“Ok, then let’s stop for today.”(Afternoon cat)

“Agreed, it is also time for the boss to come out, I think it is better to stop for now.”(Night Cat)

The two cats had said that their hunt for today is over… or it was supposed to be.

“What? There is a large number of enemies coming this way?”(Ibuki)

“Wow, true.”(Night Cat)

Ibuki looked at the edge of his map and saw a horde of enemies coming in their direction. They were following something, but the map did not show what.

“Oh, I heard that sometimes, idiots come here to PK because PKing is allowed on this map, then they get chased by the monster mobs.”(Night Cat)

“Are they trying to get themselves killed, a monster mob like that will kill you instantly.”(Afternoon cat)

They seemed disappointed after finding out the reason of why this phenomenon happened.

“Wait, why did we come to such a dangerous map?”(Makoto)

Makoto makes a genuinely good question. Being killed by other players makes you drop your equipment and lose experience. This field was risky for someone like Makoto.

“Well then, shall we take down the PKer, After Cat?”(Night Cat)

“Yes, let us take it down, Night-chan.”(Afternoon Cat)

The Healer made a barrier that only party members can enter. Then used a skill to make sure that it was impossible for enemies to move when they reached a certain distance from him. The barrier was made instantly. The knight used a skill that increased his defence by a lot.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye.

They waited for the PKer to come.

It was a race against time between whether the spells effect ran out first or they kill the PKer.

“Oh, as I thought, it was a cloak…though it is pointless in front of us, I guess it would work on people who are busy attacking monsters and then you come behind and kill them.”(Afternoon Cat)

“Namu amibda*”(Night Cat)

Tlnote: he says a Buddhist prayer to the PKer.

At the moment the effect ran out, damage appeared and we could see red splashes of blood. The light of recovery item was there and stopped the next instant. It was all done within an instant, truly trampling down on the PKer. Night cat said a prayer to the PKer to mock him.

Numerous items were dropped from the PKer, it looked to be equipment.

“What the hell, you guys PKed me.”(Pker)

A bubble comes from the dead body…..it shouldn’t be able to talk, it is just a corpse.

Makoto and Ibuki seemed to have been rendered speechless from the unreasonable words of the PKer. This is actually the first time they have encountered a Pker, so they did not know how to react.

“Well, we are PKK.”(Night Cat)

PKK, Player Killer Killer, as the names implies, they kill player killers.

“Well, just wait, I will revive you and kill you again to make you drop more items.”(Afternoon cat)

The afternoon cat uses the skill to revive him and then killed him again. It will take an instant to kill a 1 HP character. If you’re surrounded by enemies and you have 1 HP, there is no way to survive. The two of them seemed accustomed to these situations.

“Hey! Stop that, I will get Despena!”(PKer)

The killed player talked to them on open chat and tried to make them stop killing him. The cats used the funny face emoji at him. The Despena is the loss of experience and money when you die.

“Night Cat-chan, this guy is really well-equipped.”(Afternoon Cat)

“Afternoon Cat, it seems he has been Pking for awhile.”(Night Cat)

The entire body’s armor dropped, from head to toe, they were S to A grade items. Night cat had already killed all the enemies that were coming at them and was back with the gang. Makoto also saw an item that he has been saving in-game money for and was going to buy soon.

“Why does he not teleport, why is he still here, you two?”(Makoto)

Makoto found it weird that the Pker did not teleport away. He knew Afternoon Cat had placed a spell to stop them from moving but it should not have blocked teleportation. He thus, wondered why this did this guy not teleport away? He did not understand the reason.

“Oh, this is a skill Night cat-chan possesses, Shield Efe, it is a knight skill that acts as a teleport seal. The MP usage is quite bad but it is a top-notch skill in harassment.”(Afternoon cat)

“Why does this guy not log out yet? If he did then we can’t revive him, so why?”(Ibuki)

“Oh, this is a logout restriction PvP map…well, there is the ALT F4 command to quit the game but it seems this guy does not know about it. I wonder if the reason he does not logout is because he wants the items that he dropped here.”(Night Cat)

The four people were conversing on Skype. Even though the game had a text chat, it was too troublesome to use. Since they were all acquaintances, conversing in real time was much easier and more fun.

“All of these items are quite high grade, I guess he bought them with a lot of difficulty”(Afternoon Cat)

“Well, I am pretty sure that it was bought with the money he obtained from Pking.”(Night Cat)

“……I feel wrong picking something up, should we just sell it?”(Makoto)

Makoto told them exactly what he thought. He felt wrong using an item that someone stole from someone else. Thus, he did not want to pick it up and use it.

“Makoto-kun, then he will not reflect on PKing…well, we will reveal his name on the open chat later, but for now we will leave the items just like this.”(Night Cat)

“Yes, just like this.”(Afternoon Cat)

“Just like this…….you mean let it disappear?”(Makoto)

The items dropped from monster and players will disappear after a certain amount of time.

“Exactly, disappear…this guy has a lot of good items and seeing them disappear will be the most painful thing to his eyes. That is why when it disappears it will affect him the most…even if it doesn’t affect him, we will reveal his name so it will be harder for him to PK from now on.”(Afternoon cat)

“He needs to understand that being a PKer has it’s risks.”(Night cat)

The two cat’s punishment was quite severe. They even used some skill to speed up the item disappearance time and showed it like a countdown.

“Stop it, pick up the items!”(Pker)

The Pk started to spam lines on the chat and filled the entire open chat with those as he saw the countdown happening.

“I am sorry, I am to full from all the Sardines.”(Afternoon Cat)

“Also, 1,2,3 and gone.”(Night cat)

As soon as Night cat said gone the items disappeared.

The spam became infinitely much harsher and was now, completely swear words towards them and their family. Makoto and Ibuki both felt that it was unsightly and closed the open chat.

“Thank”(Afternoon cat)

“You”(Night cat)

“For” (Afternoon cat)

“The”(Night cat)

“Hard”(Afternoon cat)

“Work”(Night cat)

The group of four returned to the city after afternoon cat finished his speel.

Makoto felt a weird fear of MMOs from this incident. He eventually distanced himself from MMOs and even though he still hangs out with the two in school he did not play MMO’s actively anymore. It calm down to the frequency of if he was invited to play then he would but any other time he would not.

“I really have to thank that PKer “Tomoki”, if not for that incident then I would have been stuck with MMO’s for a long time.”(Makoto)

Makoto looked back on that incident while he watered the mint grass in his garden.