The latest craze in the gaming world is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game called NINJA GENERATION. It is extraordinarily popular, not just for its outstanding gameplay, its robust plot and its gorgeous graphics. No, none of that is the major reason. It captivates the old and the young, the weak and the strong, the experienced gamers and the newbies, the forum spammers and the lurkers. It is so extremely adored because it is absolutely, entirely, definitely and one hundred percent free to play!
Sakura, a medicinal chemistry (Hons) university-graduate, now a retail assistant in a pharmacy, is one player of many in this sensational MMORPG. After experiencing her daily dose of abuse from astonishing customers, she releases all of her rage and fury by atomising monsters until she achieves inner peace. Some people call this a lifestyle, you know!
Since she works hard at everything, she has made it into one of the biggest guilds in the game! The guild's name is "Five Nations", supposedly named after the violin concerto "Four Seasons" by Vivaldi. Sakura doesn't really understand why, but she will not question the people who hired her. She really dislikes confrontations with colleagues, after all.
Because of the guild's size, it is impossible to know every single player in the guild personally. Everyone has those friends in their friend list added after a dungeon run solely for the sake of adding everyone in the party in case of future requirement. Considering that the active guild chat is always calling for other players to join dungeons, and that Sakura is actually good at the game, she has no difficulty getting into parties at all! Consequently, she has plenty of those faceless friends on her friend list.
Unfortunately, the mid-levels of every MMORPG is susceptible to slowness and gamer fatigue. To combat this, the Game Masters have recently introduced a unique feature known to no other game! As soon as the player reaches level 45, they are added to a party together with two other players who have also just hit the same level. These specific three players will stay in this party for 5 levels, with the choice to renew this fixed arrangement at level 50 for another 5 levels if desired. To boost the social aspect of the game and maximise relationship-building chances, the party will not disband under any circumstances, including but not limited to: logging off, server reset, temporary ban, and others. The only situation where the party disperses will either be serious misconduct or permanent deletion of character. Essentially you are stuck with your teammates for good until you level up a certain amount. How exciting!
Sakura, a level 44 wizard, is pretty darn excited about this. She doesn't really have time to talk to her real-life friends nowadays, and during the past year of full-time-work she has unfortunately realised that your colleagues are not your friends. She really hopes that the two people in her party will play frequently, otherwise it will be the same lonely existence, progressing through it in grinding isolation.
The EXP bar is now at 99.9%. Her heart is beating wildly. The boar's HP has hit 20%. One more attack until she discovers who will be her comrades for the next joyous days. She fires another powerful surge of water at the boar.
The boar grunts, falling to the ground as its HP diminishes to 0 and its name disappears. The brilliant light of LEVEL-UP immerses Sakura as she finds herself teleported to the wonderful place where she will meet the members of her new beginning.
The light gradually fades as the screen finishes loading. On the left side of the screen, the newly formed squad bar sparkles like a thousand diamonds. Sakura barely contains a squeal of excitement before…hmm? Why are the other two symbols the same as her own?
Sakura turns her attention to the middle of the screen and finds herself facing two male players. One has eyes blue like the sky, hair yellow like the sun, and skin tanned like the leaves of autumn. The other has eyes and hair the colour of onyx and pale skin as fair as a maiden's complexion. This is great! Her new teammates are so easy on the eye! However, all three of them seem to be wizards?
The three of them stare at each other. Each seems to realise at their own pace that their squad will probably die, many times. Wizards aren't clerics! Wizards aren't tanks! Wizards are just squishy wizards!
"Um, h—" Suddenly, before the blonde man can finish his sentence, the world erupts in another rush of white light. Sakura almost breathes a sigh of relief; perhaps the game system realises their unsustainable party characteristics and is adjusting the members. However, as she breathes the sigh of relief, the perimeters of her vision blurs and rapidly closes in towards the centre, until all she can see is white. She blinks rapidly and rubs at her eyes to no avail. As she nears the verge of anxiety, the cloud over her eyes clear and she finds herself facing the same two players. Except, this time, her surroundings are not that of her bedroom. This time, she is in a forest, and what surrounds her are groups of thick, tall, verdant green trees.
"…Um, hi, my name is Naruto," the blonde man finishes.
"…"
"…"
'It's okay Sakura, breathe,' Sakura thinks to herself, 'stay calm, think peaceful thoughts, this is just a game… LIKE HELL THIS IS JUST A GAME!'
"Where are we?" The black-haired man asks, looking left and right at the true-to-life image of the word 'environment'.
"I think we're inside the game," Naruto replies, observing the HP bars above the nearby deer with scrutiny.
"I don't need you to tell me that, dumbass," The black-haired man sneers.
"Hey! You stupid Sasuke! That's the seventh time you called me dumbass today!" Naruto exclaims, brows knitting together as tightly as a sweater and right fist speeding towards Sasuke's tender white cheek. Before his fist makes the mark, however, his hand unfurls and lands on Sasuke's shoulder. "You've grown," He says with gravity, nodding and smiling the way a teacher acts to his beloved student.
Sasuke shakes his hand off in a scandalised movement, "Don't turn me off."
"Ooooo Sasuke, are you sure that's what you want to say?" Naruto wriggles his eyebrows, his expression a gleeful fox.
Sakura is getting seriously grossed out. But she doesn't know how to interrupt.
From the corner of her eye, she notices a distinct shape — this is the class symbol of a wizard! Above that, she sees two long bars, one red and one blue… She looks over to her companions and sees the same thing above their heads. Behind them, the deer gently graze at the grass. They have the same red bar above them, but in the place of a class symbol is a circle containing a dark green 21. She looks up into a clean blue sky — there, she sees a tawny bird fly past, an identical red bar present beside it, albeit next to a yellow 48.
"I think we're inside the game," Sakura says in a moment of aghast realisation.
"That's right!" Naruto chirps, "that's what I said, Sakura-chan!"
"You know me?" Sakura wonders aloud, no energy or surprise in her voice as she gazes forlornly at the artificial sky. Which, although artificial, is remarkably real-looking. As expected of the most popular MMORPG's graphics.
"We partied together that time to catch Tora, remember?" He chimes, jumping towards her with a big, friendly smile. "We're even friends!"
Catching Tora is an event quest available every Saturday that players can repeat weekly. Given the ease of the quest, it gives more experience and coin than one will expect. GM's implemented it to promote socialising, since only one member of a squad needs to catch Tora for the entire squad to complete the quest. Obviously, six people searching in six different directions will be faster than one person searching in one. It doesn't require much action between squad members and players usually join any random party recruiting in world chat. Sakura marvels at the strength of his memory. How can he remember her from just a Tora party? She certainly doesn't remember him!
"Oh," she says, the epitome of eloquence.
"What do we do?" Sasuke says, marching to them with his hands in his pockets.
"Dunno," Naruto whirlwinds around to face Sasuke, "this is my first time."
Don't say misleading things please, Sakura facepalms in her head.
Speaking of her palm, Sakura realises abruptly that her hand is empty. Where is her sword!? Her magic sword!? Her 3-star magic sword dropped by the level 39 dungeon boss!?
"Where are our weapons?" She carps. Then, thinking of her weapon, she looks down at her body and realises that she has no armour because she had switched to the fashion view when she bought that scarlet one-piece jumpsuit from the boutique yesterday. "Where's my armour? She wails.
"Well, now it looks like our first step is to find our weapons!" Naruto nods to himself. "We can't play the game without weapons after all!"
"Play? What play?" Sakura agonises, "Is this really a game? Why are we here? How do we get out? How did this happen!?" She drops to her knees, grabbing her head with her hands.
"Annoying," Sasuke muses.
Sakura glares at him from her dejected position, unconvincing in her ferocity as her green eyes held tears of despair, "Don't be a jerk, who are you anyway?"
"You don't remember?" Sasuke stares, a genuinely dumbfounded expression on his handsome features.
Sakura narrows her eyes and gawks back at him. Again, she supposes he is quite easy on the eyes. "…Not really?"
Sasuke seems surprised at this. He opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes it, then opens it again. Sakura waits for him patiently.
"…" He isn't saying anything, but his cheeks are looking healthier.
"…?" Sakura is curious now.
"It's nothing." He finally says, his gaze leaving her face, making her oddly disappointed. Oh well, it's probably another Tora party or something like that. Even though he's handsome, it's not worth spending effort on someone that won't spend the effort back. That's a hard lesson she learnt in full-time-work this year! Really, some realisations only form after being betrayed a few times, ratted out to other colleagues, talked about behind your back and other similar events. A large part of adult life is learning to work with people that don't think or see the same way as you. That's the difficult and unpleasant part.
And that's why Sakura loves this game; she can be true to herself, explore the skies to her heart's content, never constrained by the cages of hierarchy and disparity. Part of her has always wanted to escape, to delve into a beautiful world of freedom and energy, a never-ending adventure to live, friends real in a way that some in-real people are not, fellowship and comaraderie tied and strengthened by meaningful growth in character and in skill.
So maybe this is a blessing in disguise, a silver lining in the rain-cloud called life.
"We're in this together now, boys and girls!" Naruto grins, as if seeing her revelation on her face. "Let's go on an adventure!"
Sakura offers a weak but hopeful smile. She raises her head and looks at the sky again. The clouds are fluffy white balls of cotton, soft and dry. The sun rays peak through the cotton clouds like teasing glimpses of future, landing on Naruto's yellow head, trailing down his arm to his extended hand, offering its support to bring her up from the ground. This is now, this is real. This is the journey of life. She takes his hand and stands with the strength of her new teammate. For the first time in a jaded year, her eyes crinkle in childish joy.
Clippings from the adventures of Team 7
"You have the most VIT points, Sasuke-kun! Only you won't be one-shotted! GO GO GO!" Sakura cheered.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Sasuke ejaculated.
—
"Just kite it, Sakura-chan!" Yelled Naruto. "You're the only one with slow levelled up! You're the only one that has a chaaaaaaance!" He called, cupping his hands over his mouth like he was calling over a ravine.
"You stupid idiot!" Sakura shrieked.
—
"There's no wind in this cave, just use the dirt or something."
"Earth isn't my nature! You know that's not possible!"
"Aren't you really close with that Gaara kid?" Sasuke snarled, with a hint of what Sakura could swear was jealousy. Or maybe it was his normal fond irritation when to talking Naruto to his heart's content.
"Gaara's nature is wind as well! Besides, he uses sand, not earth!"
"It's pretty much the same thing, all of it's from the ground."
"No, it doesn't work like that!"
"Just try! You can do it!" Sasuke exclaimed in a rare moment of encouragement.
Naruto tried, and he could do it.
—
"Sakura-chan, do you think we'll die?"
"If we do, then at least you and Sasuke won't have to face the injustice of politicians against your relationship."
"Hey, me and Sasuke aren't like that!"
"Yeah, right."
—
"Naruto, I've never told you this, but I really, really…"
"NOW IS NOT THE TIME SASUKE-KUN!"
—
"Sakura, the one I like is actually you."
"Yea oki."
—
"Look on the bright side—"
"No."
—
"I will look straight ahead and not give up. That is my gamer way!"
—
"How ridiculous is it that your armour determines your durability! You have to work for that kind of stuff!"
"I did work for it! I bought it with my own money!"
"I meant it as in strengthen your body in training!"
"I did train, you can't wear this if you're not my level!"
—
"Sht," Naruto said, wary of censorship.
—
"We made it! We made it out alive!" Naruto cried.
"For once that's not an exaggeration, you dumbass!" Two voices yelled in unison.
—
"Strange, what's this scarecrow doing here in this abandoned shack?"
"Boo."
"AHHHHHHH!" "AHHHHHHH!" "AHHHHHHH!"
To be continued? :3