Chapter Text
“Uwah... she actually sent it...”
Kaede felt a lump go down her throat, her fingers intermittently tapping the side of her bed frame as her eyes zoned onto the thin book-like box in her hands. Sitting down on her bed, surrounded by the evidence (haphazardly scattered packaging peanuts) of a package having been devoured like a kid’s Christmas present, her eyes maintained a tenuous, fliting gaze upon the colorful yet provocative box, which from what she could initially see from its cover, held inside a game that sent her guarded cheeks into a state of heat, spreading a slowly growing redness across them.
Another lump began to form in her throat as she pulled an arm up to wipe her brow. It hadn’t been more than a few seconds since she had plopped into her forbidden chambers (also known as her bedroom), unwrapped, and taken a look at the game now in her delicate hands, and yet she could already feel her loose, pink pajamas begin to cling just a bit too much onto her skin as even just by knowing what was on the cover, made her increasingly aware of the weak, yet consistent brushes between her state of dress and her skin as the normally airy and comfy pajamas began to cling to her body.
“Hah…”
A loose sigh left her lips as she let herself fall back into her cozy blanket, eyes staring at the ceiling with little rhyme or reason as indecision wreathed around her heart like a ravenous python, her mind jokingly visualizing a comedically chibi Risa strangling her, game in hand, telling her to just do it already.
“Uuuuu... Risa, you dummy... why did you buy me this...” she whispered to herself, her ears picking up the tickling sounds of packaging peanuts falling off the bed as she brought the game box in front of her face. Flipping the box over, she struggled not to sigh internally as three solid black X’s stood out among the colorful illustrations on the back, showing without a doubt exactly what this game was and what it was for.
Though she had a sinking feeling that it would be the case since she saw that ominous package this morning, it was now official.
Risa had sent her a porn game.
In her era, games had finally gained a standardized rating system that both gamers and parents could agree on, with tons of different factors that could accurately rate the games with little to no complaints. However, at the same time, because of this rating system, a lot of barriers that stood in the gaming industry and its culture had suddenly come down like the Berlin wall. One of such consequences of such a change was the accommodation of mainstream porn/hentai games. With a large player base and lack of resistance due to the rating system properly preventing younger people from accessing them, bigger companies were now fully active in the development of such games.
Adding in the technological revolution of reality diving technology that allows one to enter a VR world with little to no medical risk, and the result was a new generation of ero-games that dominated the Japanese gaming market.
Kaede sighed again, dropping the game onto her bed. 3 X’s was second from the absolute highest rating a game could have. It essentially meant that the game was not only extremely pornographic but also delved deep into the den of debauchery of extreme fetishes. The only thing that would be missing from such games would be the absolute extreme of human debauchery, essentially the worst of humanity’s lust.
Normally this wouldn’t be too much of a problem for a game, but this was a virtual reality game.
Games that weren’t virtual reality never got ratings above ”A”, or “Adult”.
This was because virtual reality games directly affect the player’s sensations, forcing adult games to require careful attention to safety and lots of administration to prevent abuse in such games. There were many crimes you could commit in games and VR sensations allowed people to be on the physical receiving end of them after all.
For a game to receive its rating as an X game, The game needed to be thoroughly tested to prevent safety issues and if it failed, all sensations would be removed and it would be released as a 20th century VR game, lacking sensations altogether, thus becoming “A” rated.
Knowing this, apprehension practically dominated Kaede’s heart, with only the thought of Risa’s happy, sparkling eyes and cute waggly arm movements falling dull and motionless at her rejection of a gift that probably cost her friend at least a few weeks of allowance stalling her hesitancy at playing the game. In fact, If it wasn’t for Risa personally sending the game over to her in person with a certain… promise… if she played, she would’ve probably thrown it out the second she looked at it.
Slowly sitting down on her bed, she decided to take another look at the packaging of the game. When she first saw it for the first time it looked quite normal. The game was called New World Online and the cover consisted of various men and women holding swords and staves. It was only upon further inspection she noticed the people in the background which she could only describe as “slaves”.
Aside from that, the cover also had minor details about the game including which hardware it ran on. And unfortunately, she also happened to own the exact console, given to her by Risa two years ago.
It was almost as if she had meticulously planned through various stages of distribution to force her to play this game from the moment the game was announced… well… two years ago.
…
“Uwa… there's really no choice here isn’t there…” she concluded, her eyes closing in resignation as the situation began to reveal itself in her mind in full.
“Mou… it’s not like I can refuse her… if I do she’ll just guilt trip me with those puppy dog eyes on me until I play it…” Kaede finally declared to herself, her eyes staring at her closet door with a reluctant determination.
Slowly she got up from her bed and walked towards her closet. After moving a few pink body pillows out of the way, she pulled out her old console from out of the closet. It was quite dusty due to being abandoned for a few years but it was still in functional condition.
Then, after setting up the console and plugging it in, she opened up the game box to grab the disk inside.
However, to her surprise, awaiting her on the inside of the box was a set of sticky notes and a handbook. A short and quick handbook that was personally written by Risa.
Taking a quick look at the handbook, Kaede was surprised to find instructions and advice written down on it, alongside the instructions on how to start the game in the first place, something she didn’t really know how to do because she had never used the console before.
Her eyes shined with vigour. “Hahhh… It can’t be helped then… Well if Risa wrote down instructions then it's not impossible for it to be fun.” she reassured herself as she stretched the device's gloves onto her wrists.
With so much preparation on the side of Risa, Kaede decided that she would trust her. Clearly, she recommended this game to her for a reason. Besides, it would be rude to not play something that a friend bought you.
While she wasn’t exactly a gamer, it wasn’t also as if games weren’t fun either. So playing the game for a little bit would probably be fine. If she didn’t like it, she figured could probably barely manage to get Risa off her case.
With those thoughts in mind, she loaded up the game and placed her headset on her head.
“Configuration Start!!!”
With Risa’s handy guidance on many suspiciously specific sticky notes, as if she knew ahead of time exactly what Kaede would find confusing, the configuration of the game passed by smoothly and she quickly managed to enter the game after successfully configuring all of her VR settings.
Now she was in a blue space, in the middle of an empty void. Despite having completed the configurations for her VR headset, she still had to customize her in-game character for this specific game.
Unfortunately, it was at this point that Risa’s guide ended, meaning she was on her own from now on… Not that it mattered to Kaede…
“Uwaaa!!! It’s so bright!”
…who was more interested in her surroundings, having not experienced VR much in her life.
As she looked around her empty surroundings, suddenly a small pop-up appeared in front of her. It was a small transparent blue screen with an empty text box and the word “Username” written in large bold letters.
“Uuuu… So the first step is the username huh…”
Kaede paused.
“Uwaa… it's triple X right? So using my real name might be a bit… Hmm…”
Kaede thought for a while, before quickly realizing she wasn’t exactly a genius at naming and simply decided that her English name, Maple, would suffice for her username. After typing it out on the small text box, the text box suddenly changed into a large screen that surrounded her.
On the screen were various different forms of equipment which she could choose from.
“Hm… Starting Equipment’s next huh…” Kaede commented, before turning around to look at her options.
There are a surprising amount of options she could choose from but she quickly noticed a small trend with most of her options. Each weapon was paired up with an extra piece of equipment that clearly wasn’t designed for combat.
All except one.
“Large shield and sword? No odd equipment and low attack power, but…the defence power is the strongest…Eh?! Wait… Can I nullify damage if I increase my defence enough?” She wondered out loud, before impulsively clicking on that option. There were many options she hadn't explored yet but this one seemed to resonate with her, so she decided to pick it without bothering to look at the others.
Of course in doing so, she had unintentionally defied the logic of almost all games as most people don’t choose equipment assuming that they are going to get attacked, especially in VR games where dodging is a very real option, but she pressed on anyway, oblivious to what this haphazard decision would do to her in the long run.
After choosing her equipment, a new screen popped up telling her that she now had to choose where to allocate her status points.
But we all know where those points are going to go.
“Kukuku! I don’t want to get hurt so I’m gonna put all of them into VIT!” Kaede cheerfully declared, unknowingly participating in the act known to most gamers as “Min/maxing”.
Perhaps in another world, this foolish decision would exploit itself into absolute greatness, turning her into a walking fortress that would be indestructible.
But this is not that universe.
Kaede was a slim, young woman who hadn’t changed much in recent years. Ever since she entered high school, she had always been an adorable, yet alluring figure. While she wasn’t exactly class madonna levels of beautiful, she was still a frail-looking Asian girl with unblemished skin, a modest bust and an overall very girly physique. Combining that with her ditsy but cute personality, she was well-liked in school, and had many secret admirers. As a result, one could say she drew one of the longest sticks of the straw when it came to her physical appearance.
But she didn’t see it that way.
“Eh? No option to change height… ah that sucks…” Kaede said to herself as she mulled over the remaining settings of the game. Sadly, Kaede had a height complex. Being only 145 cm, she had always ended up being one of the shortest girls in her class and as a result, it was something that many of her peers joked about through head pats. And as with most loli’s, she didn’t exactly enjoy all that teasing, causing her to wish she was taller and bustier, like the other girls. Unfortunately, when her growth spurt occurred, she only got one of those wishes fulfilled as her A cup became a C cup.
As a result, when her in-game character was finished and all that was left were miscellaneous settings, she had hoped one of them would be the ability to change her height. Unfortunately, due to the change causing people to vomit after leaving VR, changing height wasn’t an option here.
“Hah… can’t be helped. I guess I’m done setting up then.” Kaede declared with a sigh.
And with a click of a button, Kaede’s body was enveloped with light.