Artificial Fantasy

Chapter 6: Character Creation

Ugh... If that was how <Diving> into the ADVR world felt like, then I was not going to do that again on a full stomach. It took a while to open my eyes and clear my vision. To my surprise, I wasn't lying down in my bed anymore. Now, I was standing in a strange black empty room. There was no furniture, decorations, or even appliances. Just a featureless black room. Thankfully, my brotherly instincts hadn't kicked in yet, because when I looked around the room, I saw Kazuki right in front of me. He was in awe of our new surroundings as much as me.

"W-Whoa! I-I can't believe this! We're actually inside the virtual world!" Of course, those would be his first words right after being brought into some kind of a strange virtual room. The real question was if this was really the world of <Isekai Online>. But I didn't have time to think about this as Kazuki turned around to focus on me with his big smile of his. "Hayate! Can you believe this?! We're inside in a virtual reality world! Together! Isn't this great?!"

"Y-Yeah... That's nice..." I tried to reply very calmly, but I was too busy wondering if Zac and Damon said about this game were true. "But where are we? Isn't the fantasy-themed virtual world supposed to be... You know... B-"

All of the sudden, a strange orb quickly popped out of the floor as I screamed and jumped back at the sight of it. [Hello! Welcome to <Isekai Online>! Thank you for registering and purchasing the game!]

A... Greeter? In a form of a strange orb? And I was the only one who was startled by it.

[Before you can create your character, we detect a minor in our <Character Creation Chamber>. To the registered minor player, please confirm your age and the username of your <Guardian Player> to proceed.]

Great... And I thought embarrassing myself in front of my brother with those memories was enough... I even saw him chuckling at my latest embarrassment regarding the orb. At this rate, I was going to make a fool out of myself again. "Can you type in your age and my username before I have to do something stupid again?"

Eventually, Kazuki finally stopped chuckling as he followed the instructions, as well as typing my username in a holographic window right in front of him. Then, a new window appeared right in front of me, this time showing the terms and conditions of the game as well the form of agreement of my role.

As a <Guardian Player>, my role is simple. Keep an eye on the minor, which is Kazuki, and make sure he doesn't stray off from me during gameplay. Also, I was given more information about the special stray feature that we mentioned before. I have the power to give Kazuki 30 minutes to an hour to play the game alone. If I disobey this and leave him alone past the allotted time, the system will report me to the company and government officials and I would get banned from the game. The process might be a little too stern, but with the laws against child abuse and neglect that were passed a few years ago, due to a few cases involving ADVR, I can understand why they have to put this complicated process in the game just to give the minor players a chance to join any VRMMOs in the market.

After I read through the forms, I typed in my password before I reached out for the holographic pen to put in my signature into the forms. Once I put the pen down, it disappeared along with the window as it was replaced with a window with a single word: [AGE AND GUARDIAN PLAYER CONFIRMED]

[Thank you for your confirmation. You are now free to proceed to the next step.]

Just before my eyes, two human figures and windows appeared right in front of me. Upon a closer look at them, they seemed to be lifeless and had no distinctive features other than their matching clean brown haircut and emotionless expression on their faces. It's as if I was staring right in front of a corpse. It sort of creeped me out for a second.