1 Prologue

My name, as you'd already guessed by reading the synopsis, is Joe. Jonathan Joseph Juan Diego Gonzales Ricardo Ramirez Joe. I am a gamer. I lived with games all my life. From my childhood full of thrown slippers and dad's belt to my working adult life. Born and bred here in Japan, I was acquainted with a lot of game genres like RPGs, MMOs, shooters, tabletops, strategy games, MOBAs, and more. However, the one genre that managed to captivate me was strategy games. I played them a lot when I was younger, and I played them even more as I grew older. It was a staple in my life. You see, what made strategy games my favourite was their capability to train the mind and how you can make people "suffer" by playing them. That's why I can't call those games that won't let me create a creative stage or level, with the term strategy games, while I praised those games that grant me the capability of making other people suffer with my designs.

Cue in Dungeon Maker 10, the latest instalment of my favourite series Dungeon Maker. It boasts a whole array of traps, minions, and a slew of new mechanics that will certainly make others suffer. Maybe a vat of acid will drop on top of their characters or a sudden pitfall could give them a huge setback. What made this game different from the other Dungeon Makers was the capability of uploading the dungeons you created into other games, as long as they had the concept of dungeons. I grinded hard on that game. For every second another player played in my dungeons, I will get 1 DP or dungeon points that I could use to buy more stuff in the store. The other usage of DP, and it was one of my favourites, was creating your own trap or minion from scratch. Your DP will decrease according to how high you set your trap or minion's parameters.

With my devious designs, my dungeons became known as the Circles of Hell. It was very popular not because it was impossible to beat, but because it was very difficult to beat. Others streamed inside my dungeons as content, and they quickly became the game's top recommended dungeons. Because of that, I created more dungeons using the DP I got from the players, and more players flocked to my dungeons for their novel ideas and the legendary loots other games added there. That means I got DP and the players got legendary gears, a virtuous cycle.

Today I didn't play Dungeon Maker 10. A good friend of mine visited me for a birthday party he planned, it was my birthday. We bought some pizza and beers along with a small cake. I had fun and was thankful to him. He even gave me a game for my birthday present. It was called World Firmament, an RPG with eastern aesthetics. I have never seen such a game in my whole life. Not because it was a good expression or something, but because I can't find any information about it online. The box doesn't contain any useful information either.

"Bro! Hey bro! What the hell did you give me, bro?"

"It is a good game that hasn't been released yet, bro."

"Are you sure? Because I can't find any company name or anything here."

"They told me to not give out any information since it was in an experimental stage."

"Alright, alright. I'll try this game later after you go home."

He gave me a thumbs up.

The small party continued to the night. It was 01.00 AM when we finally finished. I brought my drunk friend to the taxi I called using my smartwatch. The city was still bright and lively even though it was already late. I could see people walking around with cybernetics installed in their bodies. It was an overall good piece of technology, but people also used it to commit crimes. I remembered reading about a guy who attacked the big corporations using only his modified silver cybernetic arm in a small city. It really makes you think that no matter how good some things were, if the people themselves were problematic then it will be nothing but problems. Same with my dungeons. I created them for fun, and people also played them for fun. But it could also be militarized, and I've received offers. I rejected them since my pa and ma always told me: clean deeds, clean thoughts, clean words. The offers were relentless, until around three days ago they finally stopped coming. Good riddance.

I closed my apartment door. Since tomorrow was Sunday, I thought of playing the game my good friend gifted me. Opening up the box, inside was an unassuming data chip. Quite strange, I thought. Since around three years ago game companies disfavour the usage of the data chip because it was prone to failure. It was either this company had created something ground-breaking, or it was something they slapped together after losing ideas. A frankenstein of a game if you will.

I shook the box, trying to find anything else inside it. Two pieces of paper dropped. I took a glance at them and found out one was a usage instruction, and the other was a note from my friend. I smiled and put my friend's note on my table. I will open it up when sober. Meanwhile, I read the game's instructions. It was said here that they managed to complete a full-dive game, and I should use a VR machine to use it. I don'y believe they managed to create a full-dive game, because it had been theorized to be impossible to do. But because I am a curious person, I did what was instructed. I put the chip on my game chamber's chip slot and went inside it.

A gust of wind opened the window, and along with it, my friend's note. If only I had read that first. It was a simple happy birthday note, but there was a secret code that only we knew. By decoding the message using our secret code, it would be read as a warning. Don't play the game, my family was held hostage, I am sorry Joe.

I started the game. A logo that reminded you of an oldies game came up. I didn't really feel anything at all, considering it was supposed to be a full-dive game. I was right. They only created a frankenstein game and not the real full-dive game. I should have known. It was theorized to be impossible to create, after all. But since the game had already started, let's just play it.

That day, the news program tells a story about how the "dungeon-designer" Joe died in his personal game chamber. The cause of death? Electrocution by faulty machinery. They also told the story of a family of three who died in their sleep. The police were still searching for the culprit, but the causes of death had been revealed. They died from poison, and since there was an injection wound from a syringe their deaths had been filed as a homicide.

The people at a bar across the street from Joe's apartment which was cordoned off by the police, all thought of the possible culprit of such a situation. It was all too easy. It had happened every time, and the police force themselves was useless against the real villain. It was the corporations. They always did something like this, and it won't be the last time it will happen.