1 CH 00: Whether it's game or life, you will always find a bug

"Super Ultimate Plumber Jumper 64? Now that is a game I haven't heard in a while."

Holding the physical disc in my hand, it's been a long time since I played this game. It's a game that truly made my childhood remember how I keep playing this game repeatedly with all the different difficulties. There is even the time when I want to speed run this game, considering how much time I spend finding the exploit in this game.

But that idea never comes to envision.

After I grew up, I left the game behind and started to play all other "grow-up" games out there, leading me to play the Grand Eternal Phantasy or GEP for short. I admit I was not a massive fan of the MMO genre initially for a simple reason.

Time, or more specifically, how much time investment it was to play a single game. I understand the appeal of a time-sink type of game, but I do not have the luxury of playing the game every day, seven days a week.

While I would certainly call myself a gamer, I am not that hardcore of a gamer because, unlike most gamers worldwide, I have something called... a life.

Crazy, I know.

So anyway, all of this change when GEP introduces something that nobody expects, which is the exchange of the game currency into real-world money.

At first, people didn't overthink it. Still, when the game slowly grew, it suddenly seemed to be everywhere in the world due to how much money it had made. The game company started to buy other game companies left and right before creeping into other entertainment industries worldwide.

The game company was like the second coming of a particular animated company with a mouse mascot in the far past.

While the game they made is undoubtedly one of a kind and truly unforgettable, the movies they make, on the other hand... let's say the new trilogy of Planet War was not good, no, it was terrible.

But hey! They are not movie companies; they are game companies, so I can at least overlook that.

But back to GEP, when people learned that you could make money by playing the game, people started to treat the game very seriously, and I was also one of those people.

I never introduced myself, didn't I? My name is Hao, Hao Greval, and I will not become the next shaman king.

So anyway, at age 21, I started to play this game seriously and determined that playing GEP would be my job. While my parent disagreed with the decision and thought it was a mistake, I still went with the plan.

And boy, what a mistake it was.

At the start, farming for game currency was a chore, and an absolute pain in the ass, the gold I earned was enough to pay for my rent and daily life, but for me, that was not enough; I wanted to make a thousand if not hundred thousand from the game.

Day and night, I played GEP repeatedly until one day, I was invited into a guild called Olympia, one of the best guilds in the game. Thinking about it, I was thrilled; considering how the top elite player in the guild was a millionaire, I was sure to make a lot of money by being in it.

Joining that guild was probably the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life playing GEP.

I was nothing more than a single name in a pool of thousands of people in the guild who also had the same ambition as me. But hey! I thought, if I worked harder than everyone else, I would be recognised and promoted in the guild and earn more money, right?

So go a little foolish me, trying so hard to earn recognition from the top and stand out, but it never works because, to no one surprise, everyone in the guild also has the same idea making the competition even harder.

But I did not give in; I worked even harder and played more of the game, learning as much as possible in the game, strategy guide in dungeon and raid, learning weaknesses and strengths of class in the game as much as possible and finding exploits or bugs that would help me in the game.

I spent who knows how long in my life in the training ground learning every crook and cranny of the combat system.

Finally, I got recognition and was promoted to a middle-rank member. I was thrilled, seeing how my effort was paying off. So, I decided to try even harder so that I would have a chance to become a top member.

That was five years ago.

Now, I'm 26 years old. My earnings from the game were above average on the best day. Usually, it will be a minimum amount of payments; sometimes, on a worse day, I would achieve nothing.

It's pissed me off, alright. Trying to protest on the guild chat is like screaming into the void; complaining on the forum like a baby would never work because no one truly cares about a person's misfortune. Those higher up in the guild would look down on us, leach on the profit that we make, and always try to find an excuse to leap as much money from us as possible.

Do you know how it feels to work so hard to earn something for years, but all that hard work never pays off, no matter how hard you try?

Over and over, the same thing keeps happening to me; it probably would drive someone else crazy to do the same thing over and over again for years, but I guess you could say that I am not sane anymore after how much time I spend doing the same thing over and over again.

I hate that I wasted years working for this stupid guild. I hate spending so much time playing this stupid game, trying to find every possible exploit, weakness and strength of different classes, only to do it again when a new patch comes out and I need to readjust it.

All of that complaining only lead to other people asking, why don't you just quit the game if you hate it so much?

And you know what, they were right. I quit that stupid guild, the stupid and shitty game and decided that I would find a new job tomorrow, which led me into this situation.

A physical copy of a game is quite rare these days, considering that you can now digitally download the game, not to mention the popular game that is GEP that almost killed all other game franchises due to its success and how the GEP company bought out all other game companies.

While Plumber Jumper requires a functional PC to play, GEP is a VRMMORPG that requires a headset or a gaming pod to play; quite a big difference.

"It's been a long time since I played this game. Finding out it was as good as I remember would not be a bad idea."

Starting up my PC, I put the disc in and wait for the game to download, which is not that long considering how fast the internet in this apartment is, not to mention how small this old game is compared to games these days.

"Mouse and keyboards. Man, it's been a long time since I used these."

Starting the game, I was greeted with familiar music and a very familiar menu screen.

"Well, the music is still as good as I remember."

With it, I finally started the game. The game's goal is simple; you play as a plumber that will rescue a princess from a dragon; does that sound insane? Because it is.

So anyway, as a plumber, you would go around to collect stars in an area and then defeat the boss who holds the last stars so that you can unlock the door for a new location and do the same thing again.

While it sounds boring, the gameplay of this game is fantastic and feels good to play, not to mention an excellent map decide that looks different in every area. To put it simply, it's a great game.

Not deciding to do any exploit, I decided to enjoy the game as much as possible but considering all the experience and knowledge I have for this game, it only took me 5 hours to finish this game while collecting all of the stars. Indeed, not a world record, but quite fast for me, considering I had played this game for years.

"That was amazing." I mutter to myself while leaning back on the chair.

While the graphic certainly does not hold up with the modern-day game, this gameplay is solid and fun to play. The game is not challenging while not being too easy, giving or showing you that you always have a chance to beat the whole game.

What a great and fun game this is.

"Huh... I kinda forget what it feels like to have fun playing games."

Stretching my arms, I look at the time and see that it is pretty late already and decide to go to sleep and I will need to find a new job tomorrow.

Sleep comes to me fast; it is probably my best sleep ever.

Waking up the next day due to my phone alarm, I slowly reach out my hand before turning off the alarm clock and looking at my phone, which immediately causes me to frown.

"That not right."

The date seems wrong, it was supposed to be Monday today, but it said it was Saturday.

'I guess I forget what day it is...' I thought to myself before seeing the year on my phone, which caused my frown to deepen.

"Ok, something wrong with my phone here." I said. After all, the year it shows on my phone was six years ago.

However, something causes me to stop mid-way, and that is the notification. It was a notification that showed news, and the new headline was "Grand Eternal Phantasy headset release today!! Buy one now at a discount price!!"

I immediately sit up from my bed, eyes wide. I quickly went on the internet to check all of the articles about GEP, and the only thing I found was an article about how GEP is released or what type of game GEP is.

'What the hell is going on?' I thought

So I go on different websites and media and even look at the news, and all of them seem to have one thing in common: all of them seem to be talking about the massive new release game Grand Eternal Phantasy.

"No fucking way..."

It seems unbelievable; it should not be possible; it was like something that came out of a novel.

"I'm in a goddamn past."