Dayn had a little more to his life than his company, 9-5 job, and a girlfriend.
At every sunrise, Dayn would find himself rushing to work after a damned sleeping schedule, thanks to his game addiction.
Chaotic World—a little old, released VRMMORPG that had taken the markets by storm—remained the highest-selling even to date. It was one of the most played games in the world, boasting about 5 million active users a day.
Dayn was one of them.
All the money earned from the job would be spent on buying suits and costumes, avatars, frames, and many in-game items.
It had two modes: open world and arena—if training modes were kept aside. The open world didn't enable any pay-to-win advantages. Sure, you could have the wealthiest suit on you, but it would offer you no abilities.
If anything, it would be a liability, making one a target of the rest.
However, in arena… that wasn't the case. More the money, more the wins.
And those wins brought in money. The in-game currency could be exchanged with real currency at a 1:100 ratio.
Dayn was little better than any average Joe in the open world and worse than trash in the arena. To sum it up, he sucked even here.
"You suck," Leiya, Dayn's girlfriend, said as she had finished sucking… the drink, of course, using a straw from a small can of Coke.
"I wish you did."
Dayn momentarily peeked at Leiya's stats only to sigh and resign to his fate again…
This newbie, who had started just a few days back, was a little better than Dayn.
While he stood with his premium +4 grade bow with only 8 kills, Leiya had 19 kills with just a wooden stick that shouldn't even last after 5 swings.
Just a little better?
Dayn scoffed internally, a little proud, as he had just spotted a talent.
"It's a bug!" He hated to admit that she was better.
"No. It's pretty privilege."
Dayn knew that she wasn't wrong.
The society is morally twisted. What's right is wrong, and what's wrong ends up being right based on the person to whom it is directed.
Say a handsome man approached a woman and complimented her. How would she react?
– Thank you.
– Oh, you're handsome…
– Haha, you're funny!
As for an ugly bastard?
She would make it hell for him.
Poor guy would even end up getting arrested for harassment.
Maybe that's what created the monsters named introverts, and Dayn believed he was one of them.
He had no friends in real life. He was not handsome. Ugly? One could say that…
He did manage to pull a 10/10 baddie like Leiya, but that too was purely because of timely interest.
He thought Leiya would someday reveal that it was all a prank and run away, so he could never truly love her.
Leiya had recently moved in with him, but even then, he thought… it was because of some crappy truth-or-dare game…
She could leave anytime…
She could…
"Oh, look at the time! It's already ten! You gotta sleep." She stood up from her chair and stretched her body a bit, revealing her navel and thin, curvy waist. The soft, glistening skin would attract anyone.
Dayn didn't even bat an eye.
"Ten more minutes."
"For what? We've already finished the round! You're going to start another match?"
"Already started."
"…" Leiya could see the countdown in reverse on the PC monitor.
"You're…" She stopped herself and turned around.
"Whatever. I'm going to sleep."
"Yeah. Good night."
His focus returned to the game, watching the countdown reach zero and the match starting…
His character was a tall male with a good athletic build, wearing a gentle red royal outfit, and against him was just a female character who was a VTuber.
She was streaming.
Dayn didn't know that, and even if he did, he wouldn't care—at least, not after she put a DM saying,
"Brother, could you please lose to me? (Blushing emoji)"
"…"
K.O x1
K.O x2
K.O x3
The match ended in 2 minutes.
Dayn won, and he spat on the monitor after that while typing,
"Bitch, if you don't know how to play, don't play. Go take classes or smth."
And then he closed the screen, as he had promised it would be one last match.
What he didn't know was that she streamed and showed the message that he had sent…
It enraged the subscribers and followers… 15 million in total, out of which at least 10 million wished for something bad to happen, and the rest wished directly for his death.
Everywhere.
In their mind. Social media… everywhere—even with death threats loading…
And this was enough.
The unlucky life which Dayn was leading became worse as the karma hit a negative value, immediately pushing his life into the death schedule.
And even before he could enter the bedroom… Dayn fell to the ground…
He collapsed.
He died.
…
"…uron."
"Mhm…"
"…Auron."
"Mhm…"
"PRINCE AURON DAYN VELDOR OF HOUSE INDRALIS!"
"Y-yes!?"
Dayn jolted awake, eyes flying open to find a busty old lady looming over him. Her hair was tied into massive buns that looked like they could deflect arrows. The curves were suspiciously perfect, and the wrinkles… well, they looked like they'd lost a battle with Botox.
He blinked.
On either side of him were kids he'd never seen in his life, all wearing uniforms that might as well have come from a discount magical prep school. As for the woman in front of him…
"A milf?"
"Pardon me, what?"
She didn't wait for clarification. A piece of chalk snapped through the air and nailed him between the eyes.
In theory, chalk shouldn't hurt. Dayn had seen plenty of anime where it bounced off like a soft warning. Reality, it seemed, had physics set to hard mode. The chalk hit like a stun grenade, left a perfect white circle on his forehead, and sent him sprawling to the floor.
"Get out of my class!"
"Um, miss…" A thin, bony kid sitting next to Dayn raised his hand hesitantly.
"What? You want to join him?"
"Um, no, miss… I don't think he can go anywhere right now. He's… foaming."
"…"