Prologue- The World: Halkeginia
"I can't wait to get home to play The World." Hiraga Saito idly commented as he walked back from school. Being an avid gamer, he was planning on grinding out some more levels and clearing some more zones before the weekend. He'd at least want to get enough gear to participate in a guild based event. He arrived at his home and immediately proceeded to his room.
"Hmm, looks like Ryu wants to party today." Saito murmured as he checked his email. "What's this?"
Congratuations Hiraga Saito,
You have been selected to participate in a new game from CyberConnect. New mechanics will be tested as well as a new class system. The new mechanics are as follows, advanced day and night cycles, more action orientated battle system, and smarter, more interactive NPCs. You will also test a contestable world map with large scale battle and pvp with a story driven system. The classes you are able to choose is the Left Hand of God (Gandalfr), the mind of God (Myozthirirn), the Right Hand of God (Windalfr), and Heart of God (Rivusurashiru).
"This sound cool. I can download this now and try it out. Who knows, this might be pretty awesome. Okay, time to get to the Gott Statue I want my new twin blades."
It was getting late in the afternoon as Colbert logged down the last student that summoned. Roberts summoned a bugbear, it was not too impressive as they are good for scouting only. Now who was next on the list?
"Louise Valliere?" the fire professor called out.
From amidst the crowd of students, a short pink hair girl walked out from the group. She had an arrogant looked to her as she walked into the circle. It was her summoning and she was going to summon the most powerful familiar. After all, she was a part of the Valliere family.
"Look, Look, the Zero is summoning!"
"She's going to fail as usual!"
She was not going to fail. If anything was failing, it was her fellow peers that failed to keep their mouths shut. She was going to show them that she's going to summon a dragon or a griffin. Calmly, Louise raised her wand to the sky as she chanted.
"My servant that exists somewhere in the universe! Beautiful and powerful familiar, answer my call! Please protect and serve me!"
The area exploded in a flash of light. To the girl it seemed to be a failed spell once again. As the light died down, Louise could see a figure standing next to her that wasn't there before. He was wearing black sleeveless vest with some black pants. Great, she summoned a commoner.
Saito finally finished the download and logged out of The World. It was time to test out the new game. There wasn't really much of an opening CGI as it just showed a green portal on the title screen. Logging in his username and password, he started up his new character. He wanted to keep the same look as a multi weapon user.
After choosing his appearance, the screen flashed to the class selection screen. Gandalfr seems like a good choice, good melee type character with the ability to use all weapons. He didn't like playing a pet class like Windalfr or long range artifact class Myozthirirn. Rivusurashiru sounded like a nuking class, he would be okay with it, but melee sounded more fun.
After he made his selection, the screen of his visor lite up as Saito heard a tone of a note that was played A in C major. Text was flashed on the screen depicting an opening chant for a summon before fading away. He looked around at the scenery and saw that he was surrounding by people dressed in some magic academy uniform.
"Ugh, it's in first person view." Saito said in disgust as he fiddled with the settings. After a couple random keystrokes, he now had it on third person view. Satisfied with the view and zoom, he looked around only to be asked a question by an NPC with pink hair.
"Commoner, who are you?"
"Huh? Oh right, I haven't entered by name in yet." In an instant, his view was replaced with a transparent view of a keyboard. For a few moments, Saito thought a of a good name. It was beta testing, might as well go with his name. "Saito."
"Saito? Where are you from?"
"Uh… Tokyo?"
"To-kee-yo?"
Wow, this NPC is pretty life like. Even had to sound that out. Even better is that this NPC said his name. There's even a small breeze. Saito zoomed his camera in closer and saw that there were even individual follicles of hair moving about. Talk about an awesome graphics engine, even runs pretty smoothly on a mid to high end machine. He doesn't even know how his machine was running this perfectly.
"Look Louise summoned a commoner!"
"Commoner? Is that what they're calling me? Maybe I'm supposed to start small and rank up?" Saito said to himself. He had to hand it to the developers; this is some pretty amazing voice acting.
"It's just a mistake!" Louise yelled out. She was close enough to hear this familiar mutter. She definitely summoned someone crazy. Oh no, if this commoner is her familiar, then no one was going to respect her, especially the crazy talk she had been hearing. "Mr. Colbert! Please let me try to summon again!"
"The summoning is a sacred ritual, it is not something that should be performed again when you had summoned a familiar."
"But…"
Colbert tapped his staff to the ground to cut off the small girl. "Miss. Valliere, it is a sacred. You cannot change your familiar once you summoned it."
Louise scowled at that comment.
"Wow, that NPC actually can display emotions on her face. She looks kind of cute with that look." Louise glared at her soon to be familiar.
"But Colbert, I never heard of having a commoner as a familiar!" There had to be some way to get out of this. That familiar is starting to creep her out.
"No exceptions, finish the ritual Valliere." Colbert demanded. "The time for class is almost over."
The girl wilted like a flower as she made her way toward her familiar. Her familiar was a foot taller than her so she pulled him down until he was eye level to her. "Commoner, you should consider yourself lucky. You'd normally have gone through your whole life without a noble doing this to you."
"Whatever you say?" Saito replied as he rolled his eyes. This was pretty scripted, it was also getting a bit boring listening to this stuff. What the? Is that NPC responding to that statement? She looks a bit more angry after that comment.
"My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers; bless this humble being, and make him my familiar."
Louise tapped her wand on her new familiar's forehead after the chant and leaned forward to kiss. Saito, who still believed that this is a game, just moved with the flow. Not to mention he even zoomed in for first person view for this. The kiss lasted for about a second before breaking.
"It's done." Louise said with a blushing face. That only made Saito move closer to her face.
"Whoa, this NPC is even blushing. This has some pretty detailed elements in the game." Louise ignored this comment. Better not acknowledge the remarks of a crazy commoner.
"You managed to complete the 'Contract Servant' in one try." Colbert said happily.
"Well of course, if the servant was powerful then she'd fail like usual!" As soon as that was said, the students erupted in laughter.
The pink haired girl stopped blushing from embarrassment to glowing red in anger. "Stop making fun of me. I can get things right."
In the meantime as Louise was defending her own dignity, Saito was examining the rune that was inscribed to his hand. When it finished, the screen flashed and it said that he acquired the ability to wield weapons. His screen flashed once more and showed that he was linked to an NPC called Louise the Zero. Apparently, he can get a game over if his summoner loses all her HP. "Geez, when will this opening end?"
After a few moments of listening to the students bickering with Louise, the teacher broke it up and dismissed class. One by one, they all flew away toward the castle in the distance. Saito looked on in awe at this, it looked like there was a flight system in this game. That is awesome; there wasn't any active flight in The World. One of the things he had also noticed was that the grass, castle, and even clothing looked detailed and realistic. He wondered how detailed this is?
Louise was grumbling. Not only summoned a commoner, but a crazy one at one would take her seriously if they heard what this commoner was muttering. NPC, game, opening? All these terms flew over her head, but from his attitude this seemed to be more of a game than anything real. Suddenly she felt a shift on her skirt, like someone lifting it up.
"Whoa, there's even real panties!" Saito said as he couldn't resist doing that. It was like some kind of law that drove him to do that. It's like joining a mass naked dance in the middle of town in an MMO. Even better, it looked like the NPC reacted to that.
Louise face is flushing with anger as she pulled her small skirt away from his grip then violently kicked the pervert in the face. Luckily, it was an easy target to hit as he was still crouched low on the ground doing the deed. She watched him fall to the ground then kicked him in the stomach a few times for a good measure.
Saito's screen turned black as he read the combat log. It seemed his got hit a couple of times with a critical hit. The last entry was that he had fainted. Hearing a knock on his door, Saito took off his visor.
"Saito, dinner is ready."
Well, he can continue this later tonight. It says he has some time before he can revive. Hopefully, the NPC he is linked to has a battle rez later. He should start grinding soon after they get to the tutorial for battle.
End Prologue
AN: Just for a measure, I'm not continuing this over Grand Sorceress. It was an idea that I thought about when I was writing a bit on Tarbes RPG. It's pretty much a 'what if' Saito was a gamer and that he was pulled into Halkeginia as a player. As such, I'm making him out to be a big pervert in the sense that he had played dating sims before as well as be a big grinder for leveling. I added in .hack for the plausible reason of how the game is screwy. If I do return to this, I'll probably clean up this prologue.