People love November.
It's the month right after Halloween and just before Christmas, a month where autumn and winter meets in the most enchanting way. From the chilly but not freezing weather all the way to the paths covered with golden fallen leaves, people love November.
Even in London, where November is known for its constant drizzle and early snow and people are known for complaining about the weather, they love November. As a novice teacher starting his first year of learning and teaching in a particular Elementary school in London, Arthur Kirkland too, loves November.
However, this year's November meant a little more to him than any other in the past, and he had been eagerly waiting for its arrival; along with the new game device he ordered. Little did he know that this November would mean a lot more to him in a long run.
Arthur had never thought of himself as a gamer. Sure he had played a few online games in his life, but never as intense as he thought a gamer would be. He had never thought of buying any game device either. As far as he was concerned, a laptop was more than enough to support his light gaming habits.
So to be precise, he was eagerly waiting for the new game device that his friend had asked him to test out, a device which his friend claimed would be an eye opener.
By the second day of November, the package containing the device had arrived at Arthur's house. Having signed all the forms and waved the deliveryman goodbye, Arthur immediately turned to examine the package. It was a box a little smaller than four regular shoe boxes stacked up together, and felt rather heavy in his arms. He shook it out of habit and heard some rustling sound inside. Then, grabbing a penknife, he opened it without hesitations, and dug a helmet-like device out of the box of Styrofoam pellets.
Arthur stared at the device in his hands as he flipped it about. The basic structure of the device resembled a fancy cyclist helmet, but other features like the eye piece with a digital screen fixed on it and the several switches and plugs at both sides of the helmet gave Arthur the feeling that this wasn't any normal helmet.
Well he could understand that this probably wasn't a helmet, but the thought of this being a game device still felt weird to him.
Turning to his laptop, Arthur turned it on and switched to video chat straight away. As expected, his friend was already waiting for him.
"Good evening Arthur Kun." The person on the other end of the chat smiled politely at Arthur.
Arthur smiled his greeting. "Pulling an all-nighter again? It's four am in Japan now, right?"
The person, Kiku, smiled again. "I'm afraid so; such is the unfortunate life of a programmer."
Arthur laughed.
"If it makes you feel any better, the life of a teacher in training is a sleepless one too."
"Ah, but rewarding, nonetheless?"
"To speak the truth, nothing is more rewarding than enough sleep." He joked, "Enough about jobs. I got your package. The… Helmet."
Kiku's tired eyes brightened at the mention of the helmet. "That is great news, I was a little worried that it wouldn't arrive on time. Have you tried it on?"
"Well… No, not yet." Arthur muttered, holding the helmet in his hands for a second round of evaluation. "How does this work anyway? Do I just wear it?"
Taking Arthur's questions down, Kiku spent some time explaining the basics of the helmet.
"The helmet is a new gaming device that I have been working on. We named it the "Dreamer", and by wearing it, you obtain first-hand experience in the games that you are playing. When you first wear the Dreamer, some scanning and movement recognition will be carried out. After which, you will be free to begin your game."
First-hand experience he said…
"Is this device safe?"
"Hai. Even though the Dreamers are still in the Beta stage, they have passed all possible safety tests for such a device. It is absolutely safe." Kiku nodded rather confidently. "On a related note, I would like to thank you for agreeing to test the Dreamer out, Arthur Kun." He bowed.
"No need to thank me, we've been friends for a long time now, this is nothing. " Arthur smiled, waving dismissively at Kiku. "Rather, you mentioned that for better data collection, you decided to go for users from different countries right? Any luck?"
Kiku nodded, rather elated. "Thanks to the company, we have located one to two user in several major countries. However, due to the nature of the game program used, the users had to fulfill some basic criteria."
Arthur didn't know what Kiku meant by 'basic criteria', but seeing that he got the Dreamer, he probably fulfilled all of them. What bothered him, however, was the nature of the game program.
"So, what kind of game are we playing?"
"Since the Dreamer works on a different system, new games have to be specially made to suit this program." Kiku explained.
Arthur nodded; different devices need different game systems, he knew that much.
"The development of the game program was handled to a company in a different country. From what I've been told, a skilled programmer was 'enthusiastically working on it, and finished the whole system in less than two weeks'. In exchange for the satisfying work, he was recommended as the user in that country."
"So I'll meet him in the game? I'll meet you too, right?" Arthur knew nuts about a programmer's work and progress, but he guessed that creating a whole new game system in two weeks sounded pretty impressive. Just for that, he was interested in meeting this skilled programmer.
Kiku nodded once again.
"The game seems to be about surviving a zombie apocalypse."
…
Scratch that, he's going to avoid the skilled programmer in every way possible. A zombie apocalypse? Really?
"Location? Goal? Duration?" Arthur started his train of questions again while Kiku raced to catch them.
"The location seems to be in America, and as for the goal and duration, we can only be certain of it when we enter the game."
Arthur had started regretting his choice of helping test Dreamer now. It's not that it's troublesome or anything, but more due to the fact that the game of choice here wasn't of a genre or type that he fancied. Of course, he could not just back out now, not when the Dreamer was already with him. There's no other way, he's going to have to play the game.
On the bright side, the beta period lasts only for a month, and he's only free to play games during weekends. In other words, he would only have to play the game for eight days max.
"Excuse me, Arthur Kun. I forgot to mention this, but for the convenience of the users, the Dreamer is built in a way that you can use it and rest at the same time. Hence, you can simply continue your game as you rest for the day."
Wow would you look at that, using it in your sleep, a literal Dreamer.
"So… You mean I have to play it every day?"
"If possible, that would be great."
"Can I at least start after I received the game card?"
"Arthur kun, the game card is included in the box along with Dreamer."
…
Well, that shattered the last bit of his hope.
People love November. It's a month of constant weather change and lovely scenery, a month with the most of Nature's magic at work.
Arthur loves November too, but he had a feeling that this particular November, things are going to be different for him.
A/N: Back to fanfic writing after a long near 6 months break. I hope some of my readers still remember me. I read about the game scenario in many books and the anime SAO, so I thought why the hell not. It's a little cliche yes, but what the heck. Let's try it.
Reviews are loved. Thanks for reading.