This would be my first time posting a fanfic in a long time; I spent some time in editing and re-editing as much as I can , I'm probably a little rusty here with my creative writing though for the most part this chapter will be mostly an introduction of one of my main OCs – though I decided to go ahead and post it anyway to see what you guys think – anyways enjoy my first draft
Aug. 24 Update: I notice there were a few context errors and misspelling, so I took care of those and added some extra details to the back story; but not to much as to bore the reader. ;3
It has been months since when the incident known as "The Apocalypse" – when players of the fantasy MMORPG known as Elder Tale found themselves transported into a parallel world identical to the game; at the beginning there was chaos and mass confusion, no one knew if this was for real – if the world they were in was reality, a game or some kind of dream.
For that reason, most of the players known as Adventurers in this world weren't too sure if it was safe to venture outside the walls of Akihabara; and if they died whether they would revive at the cathedral like they would in the game or die permanently – though this question was soon answered when one player died and was revived later at the cathedral as others thought they would.
Other players were so convinced they were in a game that they began pillaging and devastate the so called non-player characters known as the "People of the land", for this reason there was prejudice and oppression against the relatively defenseless folk – even lower leveled Adventurers weren't spared from the onslaught of player killers.
Such was the case for cities such as Susukino where the infamous PK guild 'Brigandia' quickly stirred trouble and brought nothing but turmoil as they took over the city and brought devastation to every player and non-player near the city; they even went as far as to enslaving both Adventurers and People of the Land alike.
Such tragedy and despair began to brew within Akihabara – at this rate abuse and disorder would have engulfed every city throughout the lands of what was once would of been known as Japan now known as the Yamamoto Islands.
A production guild known as Hamelin would lure and enslave unsuspecting players below level 30 – most of which who were children – and then covet their Exp boosting potions – or Exp Pots for short – and went as far as selling them in mass to higher level players so they could use them to reach pass the then level cap of 90 as soon as possible; of course the people who buy these potions don't question where they came from. They even forced slave like labor in some of the children they held captive.
It was when this fact was brought to the attention to Shiroe – a level 90 Half-Alf Enchanter/Scribe and a famous and at times infamous player, along with the other members of the guild he recently founded – Log Horizon – banded high ranking members of some of the city's other top guilds and founded the Round Table Alliance to put a stop to this.
And also by purchasing Akiba's guild hall building - which gave him the rights to ban and bar specific players from making use of the many guild halls with in, even from entering and exiting their own guild halls and making use of the bank vault.
Not only that Log Horizon's own Nyanta's a level 90 Cat-person Swashbuckler/Master Chef – discovered a new method of manually preparing and cooking food items.
Normally any food cooked with the normal method of using the menus to prepare food would normally left it nearly tasteless or unsatisfying and in most cases a black gelatinous mess which was not edible.
But with Nyanta's method, food can be prepared manually without losing flavor, a sense of normalcy was restored in the world of Elder Tale, although food had to be prepared with someone with the Chef subclass and must have the appropriate levels depending on which dish is to be prepared.
This new discovery also led to other similar methods with other forms of item crafting; such as building and carpentry – which lead to other devices such as steam engines that weren't originally featured in this world when it was a game. – bringing new trade and a rising industrial revolution throughout the region all of which literally occurred in just one day as well as overnight.
This also brought the attention of some of the People of the Land's highest ranking class of noblemen who immediately wanted in the new revolution; there for new hope and joy to both Adventurers and People of the Land alike, particularly those of Akiba and the Freedom Cities of Eastal
But somewhere in the wilderness just outside of town a new Destiny awaits; a bright blue spark of sorts occurred in the middle of a small meadow near a river stream, unsuspecting animals and even a few monsters where started by the commotion as they scurried away.
Bright blue transparent cubes began to form and assemble together and formed a humanoid shape; a hooded figure clad in light space-age looking armor materialized and landed on the dirt covered surface.
He landed on his wrists and knees, he stood up on his legs as he tried very hard to shake off the disorientation; as his vision came to he took a look at his surroundings surveying the wilderness that he found unfamiliar.
"Wh-Where am I, how did I got here?" he said in confusion.
"Greetings Guardian, perhaps I can assist with that deduction." A familiar voice said, he was startled when he saw a familiar silver polyhedron shaped construct materialize before him.
"Gh-Ghost…is that you?" he said with a hint of disbelief.
"Yes Guardian It is I. Who else would I be?"
He nearly jumped out of his boots with the AI's response; his eyes were wide open underneath his visor.
"Whoa, you actually responded to my words!"
"Why of course, why wouldn't I?"
He quickly regained his cool, in any survival situation there's no point in panicking or getting overexcited; he must remain inquisitive and vigilant especially since he's somewhere in what appeared to be some remote wilderness.
"Well that's beside the point – anyways where am I, am I on Earth – that is in the game?"
"I don't know what you mean by 'game' Guardian, but yes the unique atmosphere and the surrounding mineral composition do match that of Earth, but however it is much cleaner and virtually free of pollutants; and I can't seem to establish any contact with the Tower or even the Traveler."
"That so…? Kind'a think of it, this doesn't even look like the Russian wasteland."
"Indeed, judging by the position of the sun from this point – I have triangulated our location to be somewhere near the vicinity of what was once the Tokyo bay area."
The guardian was speechless for a moment, did he heard him right?
"Whoa, we're in Tokyo as in Tokyo, Japan?"
"Indeed yes, though it is also rather odd - the rate on which the sun arches across the sky and from what I can gather data in relation to the planet's orbit – it's as if the Earth has gotten much smaller."
"What do you mean, how is that even possible?" he said ever more in disbelief.
"Checking for satellite telemetry…telemetry confirmed – there are about three or four functional satellites detected up in orbit– though from what I can gather from the signals they seem rather gargled and dated."
"Dated?"
"Yes, the bandwidth are those of early 21st century communication and GPS satellites, I'm even receiving telemetry data from stations on the moon – but those stations are nothing like those found on our moon."
"Are you saying this isn't even our Earth?"
"All evidence indicates so, I just completed scans of the Earth based on information I gathered and comparing that against what data of our Earth I have stored in my memory; this Earth also appears to be in a state of post-apocalyptic trauma as I detected ruined cities and no traces of active modern communications anywhere."
"Are there no signs of any human habitation at all?"
"From what I can gather there appear to be some small and large settlements as well as a few nearby cities – but no apparent signs of any industrialization or advanced electrical activity."
The Hunter sighed, just what had he gotten himself into – one moment he was in his bedroom about to play the online shooter game Destiny, and as soon as he logged in he blacked out and woke up here.
"Can you direct me to the nearest city or settlement?" he asked, mind as well go to a place where he can rest and acquire more information and perhaps some supplies.
"Yes, just east of here there should be a large settlement where Akihabara would be." Ghost said as he displayed a map on the right upper corner of his HUD.
"Sweet, give me one moment while I check all of my stuff; better be safe than sorry."
The Hunter checked his gear; sure enough he was armed with his Bandit Mk 36 Handcanon, Trajan C Sniper Rifle, and an amped up Cydonia-AR2 Full Auto Rifle.
He also had a Darius B Machine Gun and PSI Umbra 1A Pulse rifle – but he normally reserves those as a last resort or when mowing down larger mobs, and the Pulse rifle although packs a punch is very cumbersome to use unless he's dealing with a single tough enemy such as a Fallen Captain or House Archon – or even a Cabal Legionnaire.
His current 'SUPER' abilities include materializing special grenades and his golden gun ability which enables him to summon a blazing pistol that incinerates or even vaporizes enemies with a single shot as well as his Ghost Gun ability which has a similar effect.
As for his appearance he's equipped with the Sojourn type tactical helmet, gauntlet and boot set – as for his chest armor he's equipped with the 'Chest of the Alpha Lupi' an ornate black and red silvery chest plate that depicts a golden wolf bust – he had won it in a Crucible tournament and was very lucky to have it as an award.
He also sports on a dark grey and white cloak with a stylized graphic that depicts a coyote's face – it was inspired by the cloak of 'the Six Coyotes' – this one was dubbed the 'Silver Coyote' but with a more close up on the coyote's face and is slightly oriented towards the upper right, this gives the coyote's eyes a more piercing look as its gaze appear to peer deep into the viewer's soul.
He had won a chance to have the cloak made for him in a 're-design this' contest held by the gaming company Bungie about a year ago in response to the latest expansion pack; thinking about that just right now he just remembered about the special shotgun he was also awarded that day as an added bonus.
"Ah – Ghost?"
"Already on it Guardian displaying an inventory window of all your gear right now."
With that a window popped up before him, sure enough it resembled the current window style you'd see when accessing the inventory menu from the game.
All his extra gear including a few other suits and such was all there where he left it, but he notice his capacity is now slightly more than what when he remembered – and everything he'd had stashed up over the years was all there.
"Odd, I even have all of my stuff from what I had stored in the vault."
"It seems I have suddenly gained more storage capacity, not only that but my loading and uploading speed seemed to have increased as well. Everything you had original stored in the vault is now stored on a separate folder and to our convenience in separate categories."
"That so, neat – man this is taking too long, there's so much stuff to go through even though they are categorized."
"Here let me help you with that, I can search directly for the item you're looking for."
With that his Ghost began to skim through his inventory, in a matter of seconds he had come across the shotgun he was looking for.
"Awesome, good work thanks!"
"Don't mention it Guardian."
Instantly, he had replaced the current shotgun he was equipped with and stored it in his inventory; not long after he extracted his weapon.
In his arms is an amped up customized shotgun with an added effect that releases explosives 'beads' that hover around and bombards the target much similar to the swarm grenade in addition to damage from standard shotgun shells – 'Angry-Hive' was what the shotgun was dubbed.
With all that settled – he now pressed onward to Akiba and hopefully all without a hitch; little did he knew there were a number of small humanoid figures with glowing red eyes trailing him from the shadows.
It was yet another uneventful morning in Akihabara, a city built amongst the ruins of the original city in which it takes its namesake; with an odd mixture of ruined and often crumbling modern looking buildings with newly constructed medieval/Renaissance styled ones – some of which were renovations of the ancient structures and have a mixture of both traditional and modern architecture. The rusted skeletons of cars also litter the streets and dialect highways.
The streets where modern electronic stores and anime/manga shops would normally be are teeming with medieval/renaissance styled stalls and vendors – some mostly manned by People of the Land others by Adventures or a mixture of both.
All the shops displayed their wears from food and luxury items to weapons and armor of all qualities – the majority of which are operated by large production guilds such as 8th Market District or Radio Market.
Almost at every block and corner were restaurant food stands run by the support guild Crescent Moon Alliance in which it shares a similar name sake – one of the very few of such shops that resembles something of modern Earth. The reason being why there are more shops was to accommodate for high demand and are normally co-operated with help from other guilds - of course for an exchange in some of the profits in return.
Walking about were the brunet twins Tohya a Samurai and Minori a Kanagi and Apprentice to the famous and somewhat notorious guild master Shiroe who she also secretly adores despite he being very much older than her– the head of the small but now prestigious guild Log Horizon.
It was because of his efforts that she and her brother as well as the other players who where once part of the oppressive guild Hamelin – are now free from their abusive clutches - which was instrumental in pushing Shiroe's decision into forming the Round Table Alliance so that no one else would be forced into living in such conditions - that and to prevent another repeat of another city such as Susukino.
Tohya was dressed in blue plated samurai styled armor and had two swords sheathed on both his sides, while Minori resembled your typical shrine maiden but with a mystical staff that allows her to channel spirits and invoke healing and attack spells as well as buffers – both negative and supportive.
Normally Minori would be helping out her guild master in his office sorting out papers and documents but this time Shiroe insisted that she should go out for the day – so now she's outside walking about the many stalls and shops with her twin brother.
"This day is looking great so far – don't you agree Minori?"
"Sure it's okay I guess – but I feel as though I should be helping out Shiroe with the paper work – he had loads of it – so much that I'm not sure he'd be done by the end of the day."
"Eh, don't worry – he'll get it all done – he all ways does; still life is sure tough without the convenience of a computer."
"Yeah, but the craft guilds Oceanic Systems and Grandeur are working on that – at least a mechanical one similar to what was used in the 19th century or something like that."
"Heh – I bet the first one they're gonn'a build is going to be big and clunky – like something right out of a – what's it called – oh yeah steam-punk novel or manga or something."
Tohya said as he imagined a big clunky steam powered machine and with the big hulking Oceanic Systems guild master Michitaka struggling to keep it together as it worked – this almost caused the young samurai boy to smirk.
The Monk/Blacksmith Michitaka not only wanted to build a mechanical computer for the purpose of tallying statistic but also for more accurate navigation for the big steam driven sea vessels such as the Ocypete – currently his guild is also in the works in building a fleet of four other vessels to expand trade all round Eastal as well with other nations.
As they walked on by passing the next corner – something peculiar caught Minori's eye – a tall hooded figure walked right past her left side, normally this wouldn't perk her interest since anyone would wear such attire – but what really drew her attention was what the rest of his gear looked like.
Though it appeared as though he had tried his best to hide it, his armor and gear looked like something right out a sci-fi game, she could of swore she made out a visor with a silver mirrored finish.
The real attention grabber was his black and red breastplate with a golden wolf emblem and what was printed on his silvery white cloak – it appeared to be some kind of wild canine peeking out from the right edge of his cloak with bright piercing eyes that seemed to gaze deep into her soul which was almost entrancing; as it fluttered in the wind she could of sworn she saw what looked like guns holstered behind his back.
"Minori!" she was pulled back in real time as she heard her brother's voice calling his name.
"Huh, what…?"
"Are you all right, it looked as though you spaced out there for a moment.
"Oh, sorry about that it's just that I saw this peculiar looking guy passing right by us."
"What peculiar looking guy?"
"The one with the cloak…" but when she turned to point out to the hooded figure in space-age looking armor, he was long gone.
"He was just right over there…"
"Hmm – what was so special about him?" Tohya asked, while suppressing a joke that would of teased her sister – such as 'Was he so good looking that you have a crush on him' type of joke even though he does suspect of her she adoring Shiroe even though she won't admit it – well neither would he for her sake.
"Well he…" she then spent some time to describe the hooded figure to Tohya in the best way she could, even giving detailed description of his cloak and the fact he had what looked like guns – very high tech looking guns.
"Whoa, are you sure you didn't just imagine the whole thing?"
Minori shook her head.
"No, I was very sure I saw him."
"Well, there's no way a guy like him could not – 'not stand out' – for very long once anyone takes notice of his gear. We might cross paths sometime again."
"Yeah I hope so, I don't want to seem like I was hallucinating the whole thing."
"Eh, who knows maybe he just had all his gear crafted to look like something from a different game."
The Hunter was walking about the streets of the town, he was amazed by the whole thing – everywhere he looked were stalls and people dressed in medieval looking attire and gear, for sure he's in a world set not only in a fantasy setting but one that takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth, not too unlike Destiny.
It wasn't long after he realized what game this world resembled – Elder Tale – a very prestigious and highly acclaimed MMORPG, he knew of the game from reading articles and watching trailers and gameplay footage on the net.
Though he'd often wanted to give the game a try since the latest expansion pack came out – nova sphere pioneers was what it was called – But because of it being a pay to play game didn't really gave him much motivation into doing so; He much prefers free to play or pay only once type MMO games.
Well, now not only he was here in this world that parallels the game – but as a unique character class ported from another world – or rather another universe based off another acclaimed MMO game.
"Man from what I read from reviews and the website – they got nothing on the amount of firepower I have." Which earned him a smile underneath his faceplate as gave more thought into it.
Earlier he had a run in with a bunch of goblins – typical small humanoids with very primitive weapons and gear – they were all ranged from levels 10-20 – entire mobs of them, he whipped them all out very easily most of which with his blades alone.
Not even the wolf riders and what looked to be their chieftains which were level 85 each where a match for him, he wiped out those instantly with one shot each with a single shell from his shotgun – they died and dispersed into what looked like glittering bubbles instantly before any of the 'swarm-beads' it released from each shot made contact with them.
Over all it was overkill, and he gained lots of gold and item drops – they are all now stored in his ghost on a separate folder labeled 'Fantasy Stuff' (which surprised the both of them when they realized more folders can be created and labeled in the inventory menu)
It was even discovered they could also add customized entries in the grimoire – for example logging detailed information of the different type of goblin hordes in it in a file labeled 'Elder Tale Lore'.
Though he has little much use for the extra added gear the gold would probably prove to be useful when needing to buy food and pay for a stay in an Inn for the night.
Though this wasn't the Akihabara he had wanted to visit in 'the real world' – everywhere he looked he could see a great number of goodies such as food, and even anime/manga items such as light novels, doujins and even figurines – of course all mostly handmade and constructed mostly from natural materials such as wood, natural paper and clay.
Though he gave them an A for effort in recreating some of goods from home – his guess is that the 'player-characters' of this world were spirited to this world like him – except in his case the wrong one.
It then clicked to him that he remembered an incident going on concerning the game in the news a week back – but didn't gave it much thought back then.
Never the less he enjoys fantasy type games, and overall it doesn't look like he would suffer here, if anything he would probably more than thrive here.
As he skimmed through all the player names that floated above their heads with his HUD, the players with highest level he saw were those who were level 91 – though he does not yet know how much that would compare to his staggering level cap of 120.
He'll have to compare the base stats of a typical adventurer with that of his own later after all the two game worlds probably use different standards.
He also took notice of all the different character classes and races; he admits which is quite more diverse than those of Destiny with even its own expansion packs.
His Ghost also spent time cataloging all this in the grimoire as well; mind as well as keep records of all the places, monsters he fight and the people they meet – After all, one of his tasks is gathering information; though he didn't want to waste time pondering futher about these details at the moment.
For now he spots a peculiar looking food stall labeled 'Crescent Moon the Refreshment Stand' he noticed these places where as numerous as a Starbucks back in the day – he was beginning to work up an appetite and so thought he mind as well as start with them.
Well I hope you enjoyed my work thus far, I'll try to do my best to update regularly – while I still have a lot of free time. Though I'm not sure they'll be as lengthy as this.
