A Certain Terra Tale

Red spills beneath my feet

The light from the two screens illuminated the room, where a man had been sitting for hours in front of them, typing on his keyboard frantically.

The darkness around was not unusual. After all, it was nighttime. He wouldn't open the window anyway; it was too bright for him when the sun visited his face. Like a caveman or maybe a vampire, he would hate that.

Connected with his friends in an online voice chat, discussing games and some silly topics, it had been this way for 10 years already after finishing school and obtaining a seemingly useless degree without putting in any effort.

Already displaying this talent at the age of 13 when he played his first MMORPG, his skill was in playing games for hours and avoiding any form of work.

Well, he earned money in his own way, a legal one for sure if you know the loophole, or maybe he knew deep down inside that this loophole was actually the situation he was in. It doesn't really matter when he's wearing his best grin of the day while pulling a cruel prank on one of his online friends.

"Really you die at this trap? You know, you can just walk around it. Look, the hitbox doesn't activate if you go there" he said, laughing at his mistake like an idiot

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!! You were behind me and pushed me onto the trap!!! You son of-" 

"Leave my mom alone!"

"I don't care! You!! Whatever..."

"But man, you are so loaded! I can't carry all this loot. I'll just take the best stuff you have and give you back your items in the next game, okay?"

"Yeah yeah! If you can extract alone!"

The two were playing and Darker, a game that was really challenging. After 5 minutes, he exited the game after trapping a pair of players with mobs he had lured to them.

His friend told him to stop here. He is not surprised because, well, that was not a good game for him and it was late. He feels a little bad, but he knows that the next day they will play some other games and have fun. A solid friendship.

He left the game after his friend. Then, the notification sound of the voice chat made a loud, familiar noise, and a new voice could be heard. It was the voice of another one of his friends, an Arknights Enjoyer a real giga chad who had been playing the game since the beginning.

Well, our deranged player also started playing the game from the beginning, but he was not as good as the confirmed player and not very active in the game. He struggled with completing daily tasks, occasionally seeking advice or lore from his friend. He didn't read the story much, except for the tale of Orca from Counterside, another gacha game. He really enjoyed her story and character.

"Hey man, what are you doing?"

"The Update for Arknights is complete, and we have a new event!"

"I spent all my money on modules. The shop will save me!"

He loaded the game and entered the game hub. Welcomed by Skadi on the screen, he clicked on the new event, but it's taking a long time to load.

 "Weird my emulator is not responding"