Act III

The huge Goron roared one final time before collapsing onto the earth. Even though its strength had failed it, its eyes glared furiously at me. Deep seeded hatred ran through those beaded eyes, making me hesitated – why did something like this had to be so real?

"Nothing personal, the quest demands that you die so you must die," I explained as icy sphere swirled in the space between my palms. I didn't bother to let it ask what I was talking about before I freeze it and blast it into sharp shards. A notification popup appeared in my mind while the ice fragments bounced around the cavern.

Optional Quest: Eliminate Sage of Fire (completed)
Primary Quest (updated): Corrupt the Goddess

I had wondered why the main quest was updated every time I killed one of the seven sages, but I guess the little princess could feel their agonizing death, being their leader and all. She must be sobbing in her room, unable to stop me. I wanted to see her cry – she was always high and mighty in all her incarnation – something else popped up in my mind.

IceQueen666 wants to talk
Accept?

"Yeah, sure," I said as the communication link was setup. An apparition of a teenage girl wearing some kind of runic outfit manifested near me. She was holding a magical staff with spinning heart. Since her avatar used her real appearance as base, I instantly recognized her without looking at her id. "Hey little sis, what's up?"

"Do you have some GP?" my little sister asked before staring at my new strange look. She had no clue what character I was and didn't seem to care. She didn't let me say anything before shouting: "I need some ASAP! Give me!"

"Nope, I'm out," I lied while rolling my eyes. I wasn't about to transfer her some so she could buy those vanity sets. While they were outfit, without expiration date, they still went out of fashion rather quickly. My parents already frowned on her spending all her allowances on attires that she only wear once, and now she was spending them on virtual ones. Granted, digital wears were way more sexy and exotic than the real ones. They ranged from full body armors to only vines. Her runic outfit covered only the modest spots. If she wasn't my little sister, I would have taken some photos and shared with my buddies.

Images saved
Name?

"Stop lying, George said he gave you some!"

"If you already know I had some, why did you bother ask?" I snorted and named the photo in my mind and added to my collection. I wondered why George did not give her any money, being her boyfriend – likely he was out. Did he spend all of his cash already? Considering the game he was in last I saw him, he probably would have. Chinese loved to scam us. Korean came second with their stupid grind-fest Maple Story MX.

"Please, I just need 5k," she pleaded, making puppy eyes at me.

"5k!? Nope, nada," I said. 5,000 GP were a lot of money even if I had over 300k on my account. I'd rarely use any GP in game unless it was to set up an in-game automated shop, and George dumped a bit of GPs on me every now and then – just because he had money to throw around. If I could exchange them back for real money, I would have enough to buy a decent car. Too bad that weren't allowed legally.

"Why!? It's only 5k," she sobbed while stomping her foot. "Stop being so stingy!"

"Because you're going come back in an hour, asking for another 5k; and another 5k after that," I pointed out. She had fooled me twice before, and she wasn't going to fool me again. "What outfit are you buying anyway?"

She looked at me and snapped her fingers. Her clothing shimmered and vanished right before my eyes – maybe I should tell her that she had the privacy setting incorrectly. White, blinding light enveloped her body as it reformed into an angelic outfit with matching set of feathered wings and halos.

With a wide grin, she asked: "do I look pretty in this?"

"Uh huh," I said, checking her out and feeling my eyes burnt to back of my skull due to the majestic light the outfit was emanating. The brightness was insane, and she was supposed to be a dark mage of sort if I remembered. "Just wait until tomorrow then George can gift you it along with several other outfits."

"I can't," she growled, throwing her fists in frustration while the arch-angelic outfit changed back to her previous one. "They are limited! And every one had them!"

"You do know you're a dark mage, right?" I deadpanned.

Dark mage was just a general term for magic users who practiced in the dark art, thus weak against the light. There were thousands of classes that considered dark mage in the game she was playing. It also overlapped with other classes from what I had read. For example, Diablo Dragon was considered as dark mage. Dragon race were magical, and Diablo prefix made them dark, hence dark mage. Diablo Dragonic Paladin was also a possible class. One of the top ranking players was of this divine class.

She stared at me as if I was stupid. "Can I please have 10k, dear brother? I will give you a kiss on the cheek."

"Kiss my ass," I snorted. "Please don't. And wasn't it 5k just a moment ago?"

"I mean 5k," she corrected hastily.

I stared at her before narrowing my eyes as she was up to something. She might have borrowed money from other people and return the favor through various means. D.E.U.S. allowed total anonymity if one chooses. Many players still used their real appearance as base since they wanted to be themselves. Of course, they could change the age of their avatar at any given time. My younger sister was younger than her avatar.

If you must know – sex was possible in virtual space – some people even crafted their second life around their virtual marriage since they lived too far apart in the real world before D.E.U.S. deployments. It also was safe sex as you couldn't really contract any diseases.

Social networking had dominated our lives for hundreds of years. We spent more time chatting to our friends than actually doing anything productive. With D.E.U.S. rapid availability, everyone could now live the life they'd always wanted. Have children with whoever they wanted.

Having children in virtual space was a controversy.

D.E.U.S. was only available for several months, there were quite a bit of controversies surrounding its stances in social media. Considering that some virtual spaces were at time compression of 1 to 10000, meaning decades passed inside while only days passed on the outside. Such high compression gave people hope of immortality. Some even went as far as asking if they could digitize the brain so people could live forever in a world of their choice.

No answer came, but the census was that AIs – or any form of AI found on any servers – were more or less slave, constrained by the environment in which they were programmed to. In other word – sure, we could digitize your neural network and produce an AI that resembled you exactly in every way. It might be incredibly complex AI, but it would never be you, and therefore should never be treated as such.

Nothing could ever replace a human life, no matter how advanced it may be.

So AIs were treated like dirt regardless of how realistic they had behaved, and everyone treated them as commodities. AI mapped after celebrities were the best kind of commodities. In the gaming world, NPCs were no different. NPC, non-playable characters, was just a fancy name for AI. NPC were exploited until GM (Game Masters) decided to erase it and replace it with a brand new copy or a better version. People (players) could not be duplicated, but AI could – should they ever be damaged or corrupted. You could have hundreds of the same NPC but a player truly only had one life.

No one could argue with that.

Speaking of unconventional romantic relationship, I wasn't sure what to think about a player and NPC. The online community seemed to be divided until a fat dude said a NPC was way sexier than his equally fat wife. A shit storm happened afterwards with more people saying they fell in love with an artificial intelligent – girls more than boys since the perfect prince could be created within D.E.U.S. environment.

At the moment, there seemed to be no restriction on creation of AI within D.E.U.S. – allowing everyone to craft a perfect slave/assistant with ease. With such great flexibility, many people had spent years in virtual spaces to map out characters from their anime and movies. Some went as far as creating a virtual space based on the world they came from. People naturally wanted to share the virtual world they had spent countless hours to create. Sword Art Online was one such case.

"Go away," I said while wondering why I thought so much about NPC. It probably was because I was torturing one for fun. Princess Zelda felt so realistic, but she was simply an AI. Her programing told her what to feel and how to behave under certain conditions. She could never be real because that would make me a monster, wouldn't it?

"Stop being so –

When my sister was forcibly ejected by me, another popup appeared my mind. I looked at me and rolled my eyes.

IceQueen666 wants to talk
Accept?

"Hell no," I said.

IceQueen666 wants to talk
Accept?

IceQueen666 wants to talk
Accept?

IceQueen666 wants to talk
Accept?

It went on for a while before a different popup appeared.

IceQueen666 no longer your friend

I rolled my eyes and continued out of the cave, blasting some Gorons that tried to ambush me from my blind spot. There were no blind spot. The map in my mind could see everything. A minute later, another popup appeared.

IceQueen666 wants to befriend you
Accept?

Since my communication was set to private, only those on my contact list could request conversation with me. It was to prevent being spammed with popups and annoying ads. When she unfriended me, she couldn't request a conversation thus required to befriend me again. I ignored her. Soon enough, another popup came up. This one was private messages.

IceQueen666 sends you a message
Read?

"Nope," I said when more messages flooded my inbox. I winced as the number in my inbox climbed to several hundreds. I opened one to see what the content was.

Jeremy! Befriend me, you jerk!

"If you don't stop, I'm going to block you," I said and sent. A full minute later, another message came back into my inbox while I was deleting the audio messages.

I'm sorry *sniff* I can't join the party *sniff* if I don't have the outfit *sniff*

"You need new friends, little sister," I muttered to myself.

I eventually sighed and open the global inventory. Items in my global inventory could be taken into any virtual environment as long as they were using D.E.U.S. as their engine – so instead of having multiple localize economy, there was only one. GPs was the standard virtual currency across all severs, gaming or otherwise. It could be used to trade anything within the system. Virtual outfits could be used anywhere regardless of whoever had designed them. As long as they were patented, they could be sold.

Transfer 5,000 GP to IceQueen666
Confirm?

"Attached this message as plain text: stop hanging about those that only want to take advantage of you. They aren't your real friends. Play with George more often. He might be stupid, but he very sincere in his feelings. And stop asking him for money. It makes us look poor."

I sent her the requested GP along with the attached message. Why do I spoil her? Maybe it was because she was my little sister – my only sibling – so I adored her. The outfit she shown me did look nice despite its light trying to burn my eyes out. I wondered what outfit available in this game.

"Cash shop," I said.

"Hey! Hey! Welcome to the cash shop," a fairy appeared in front of me. "Sorry, but our cash shop isn't connected to the global economy, therefore any item you buy in here will only be available here. Since we are not connected to the global market, we cannot charge GP to player. That is nonnegotiable. Since we cannot charge GP, all items were free of charge."

I stared at the fairy. "Assist?"

"That is my name, call me when you need assistance. No matter what it is, I will come," Assist said. It hovered in front of me. "Who are you?"

I snatched it and gave it a tight squeeze. It struggled in my palm. "Remember who I am now?"

"Of course," Assist moaned in a squeaking tone of voice as its tiny body was being crushed. It squirmed in my palm. "What would you like to buy, oh great King of Evil, Ganondorf."

"Are you being sarcastic?" I asked as I let it go since its voice was getting to me. It sounded like a little kid being choked to death.

"No, no," Assist said, hovering in front of me. "Great Ganondorf has defeated the hero before he could start his journey. The Great Ganondorf has eliminated 5 of the Sages effortlessly. The Sixth Sage is safe because he is protected by the Sacred Realm, but he will be defeated soon. The Seventh Sage is within Great Ganondorf's palm. Her life and death is dictated entirely by the Great Ganondorf. Hyrule belongs to him. All kneeled before him. Long live the King of Evil! Long live the Great Ganondorf!"

I stared at it before laughing. "Hehe, this fairy is pretty funny. I wondered who programmed you. Can I see the cash shop? I want to dress up the little princess and take some pictures."

"Of course," Assist said as a menu appeared in my mind. "We have all kind of outfit for the hero, the demon, and the goddess. Since the Great Ganondorf wants to make a slave out of Princess Zelda, these tools are needed."

I widened my eyes at all kind of torture tools available on the cash shop. "Oi! Is this legal? And what you meant I want to make slave out of her? I'm not into those kinds of things!"

"Since our cash shop is not connected to the global economy, there is no rating system. Since there is no rating system, all kind of items are available for purchase," Assist answered. "If Great Ganondorf doesn't want to enslave the princess like a true King of Evil, what does the Great Ganondorf want to do with the princess?"

"Eh… how? I don't know," I said with a frown. "I'm just doing the Quests so I could see the ending."

"So the Great Ganondorf will do whatever the Quests said?"

"Uh huh," I responded. "Isn't that how I progress the game? If I don't do the Quest, then what do I do in here?"

Assist floated there for a while. "Then is the Great Ganondorf having fun?"

I thought for a moment before blinking. It just did an illogical leap. Only extremely advance NPCs could make such a leap, thus making their memory requirement enormous. Come to think of it, Princess Zelda seemed to very advance. Her thought process as well as behaviors felt very natural for someone of her age and intellect. Whoever created this game must have taken a great consideration into her creation.

"Is the Great Ganondorf having fun?" Assist repeated the question.

"Yep, very," I said. I looked at the cash shop again. Assist was right. Games were created for players to have fun. "I will take this and this… hang on, they all cost 0GP so I will just take them all."

"Great Ganondorf is so greedy, taking all our items without paying us a single GP," Assist said sadly. "We will go bankrupt at this rate."

"What was that?" I asked. I actually felt guilty for a second. Before I could questioned it further, the world swirled around me, and I found myself staring at the menu screen.

Thank you for using D.E.U.S.

"Ah shit, time's up," I said before opening my eyes and found myself back in the real, boring world. I yawned loudly while my arms and legs were freed from their constraints. The room was air cooled so I didn't feel sweaty at all – which was a blessing in disguise. When D.E.U.S. was first released, the amount of heat produced was enormous – enough to cook someone alive. Now the heat was used to drive the complex turbines for additional power generation. I stretched my stiffed arms and legs for a little before heading outside.

"When will the next session be available?" I asked Marge. I wanted to return to the Hyrule since I'd just brought a bunch of toys to play with Princess Zelda. I'd leave that your imagination.

Marge smiled at me and checked her holographic screen. I noted that it was actually half an hour passed my allotted time on the clock display, meaning I was in Heroes of Hyrule for a while. I thought the time compression was very high, but I guess that was not the case.

"At 2am to 3am," she answered.

"Ah, can't stay up that late," I said. "Is there no two hours slot?"

"Due to an influx of demand, two hours slot is no longer offered as standard. The next free slot is 10 am to 11am. Ah… it's no longer available," Marge said as she tapped on the console rapidly. "The next one is 3pm to 4pm."

"I'll take it," I said. If I'd idling for too long, someone else would take it. There were thousands of rooms available in this complex alone, but they were constantly booked up. Some room was booked an entirely day so a player could spend years – decades – in their private virtual world.

"Yo!" I called when I reached the waiting area, finding my best buddy watching the massive holographic screen. Another guy was sitting next to him. "Hey Gary, how's school?"

"So you guys were hanging out here. Why didn't you invite me?" Gary said while watching the battle on the scale that he had never seen before. Thousands of players battled against each other with hundreds of thousands NPCs roaming about in the background, giving supports.

Perfect Conquest was the game's name. It was based on the classic Total War series, where battle was fought on incredibly massive scale. And like its popular predecessor, the war game emphasized greatly on empire building with many factions fighting for supremacy across the virtual landscape of medieval earth. Unfortunately at the moment, players would drop in and out during the battle at random, making it very chaotic.

"What? You would skip class to play with us?" I asked skeptically. Gary was a cadet. There were only a few things the academy taught these days. Militarization was more common, but only when you were eighteen. This was because modules for training were too massive to have at home.

"Hell yeah," Gary called out. "I'm not learning anything there anyway, and all the seniors are hanging around here anyway. Also, have you seen my brother? He said he going to meet me here an hour ago. It's already past 10."

"Nope," I said. "Just got out and I'm pretty exhausted."

George eyed me. "Where were you anyway?"

"Was in Heroes of Hyrule," I answered and stretched my arms a bit.

"Hyrule…? Is that a place in Legend of Zelda?" George asked. He was more knowledge in gaming than I was. "That's a really old game; never heard there was a multiplayer version except for that god awful co-op one."

"Nope, single player," I answered. "It's just me against a bunch of NPCs. Killing them wasn't all that fun at all. Even the strongest died in a few hits."

"Lame," George snorted. "What kind of idiot still enjoy single player?"

"I do," Gary said, raising his hand. "CPU is getting very challenging."

"CPU!? Get out of here!" George said and pushed Gary, who was chuckling. After messing about, George faced me and slammed a wide poster on the table. "Hey Jeremy, we should join this game: YGGDRASIL! I heard it's great! You can play as a monster! You get to kill those fucking heroes!"

"Stop signing up to every game you sees!" I said with a sigh. "And I'm going home. You should take my sister home too, wherever she is."

"Uhhhhhh…" George mumbled while I walked away.