[Life's Anomalous Notice Start]
A fantasy-based game with a multitude of elements, first launched by a no-name corporation known as Halcyra Interactive with the collaboration of a giant, Ebonreach where the game was officially designed as a computer game at first.
Ten years ago.
That was the original game version of [Crystalline Meadows: IX].
The game had many older versions that were said to foreshadow the current version in the last ten years, with fans speculating on social media platforms and praising the developer's ability to create such as a so-called 'masterpiece of the era', but to be honest, I don't think I gave a shit.
The only reason I played this game was at the request of that same 'close' friend.
Of course, I hated spending a single penny on unnecessary goods, spending it instead on either buying a delicious meal or testing my luck on this weird game I found online one night that let me randomly click button that gave me a change of either losing 25% of my spent money or gaining an extra 25%.
Definitely not gambling .... Ok? Do not mix things up.
Anyways, it took a few months for my friend to convince me, albeit barely, to purchase it with a discount of around 85% in early Winter, after he had gone on his knees, begging me to give it a try with his earnest expression.
And how could I say no to that face? I mean, although he wasn't a pretty woman as I had wanted, it didn't sit well for me to just ignore his request so coldly.
He had even invited me to a small meal and a cup of coffee, and offered to pay half the price for the game, as he tried to invest me in the game all he could as if his life depended on it.
Thus, with the meal, and half the price covered by him, I agreed to give it a try.
It's been exactly a year and three days since I've purchased the game off the gaming platform after my friend had made me an account, and disinterested, I had scrolled down the reviews, hoping to find anything helpful that could guide me through playing my game.
Truly, motivational in my own way, I must say.
It was a habit of mine to check the reviews despite knowing that most four-star reviews would be just paid for by the Devs, but it was inevitable.
But all I found were complaints from players, to my surprise, and many of them were either boasting their achievements or criticizing the game's mechanics and difficulty level, with just around less than 0.02% to get a happy ending, out of thousands of horrible endings.
It was mentioned that the only way to pass successfully and see the good ending was to purchase a DLC that was unbelievably expensive, and even so, many of those that had purchased it were unable to properly attain the good ending.
What a hell hole.
They had stated that unlike older games the corporation had launched, apparently this game was made almost as if it was rigged.
No, it was most definitely rigged.
Well, welcome to the new modern day and age. I sometimes get the urge to return to the past, so I can enjoy the days back then.
... Huh ...
Seeing the oil rig that they had hit, the corporation decided to add some mods that improved the graphics, and later on even adapted the game to a web novel.
A role-playing game that seemed to be a mixture of the typical Korean-like academy fantasy games, yet an odd mix of noble hierarchies, dating sim, continent-spanning empires, demon invasions, and secret organizations.
The newest edition of the game had just released a new patch, but sadly, not many people could be seen playing the game anymore.
Despite the high-quality eroge content, stunning visuals, detailed stories, and political issues, the game's rating had dropped to 2 stars by around 900 million globally.
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Enough of the informational dump.
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Throwing my cigarette that had shrunken to the filter, I continued observing the lively city, the lights hung on the streets looking like little dots twinkling gleams from where I was.
People walked and talked, laughing, all sorts of emotions displayed on their faces.
Oh wait, I can't see that from up here. Anyways.
They all looked like ants under the tall skyscraper, no, even smaller.
I leaned my chin on my palm.
I was one of the few that decided to continue playing the game. In fact, its difficulty was what pulled me towards it in the first place.
I rummaged my pocket, searching for any cigarettes I may have dropped, but sighed when I couldn't find any.
Just then, something small and white drifted lazily from the sky, landing on my phone's screen before melting. And then another. And another.
My gaze flickered towards the sky as I watched the small white-cute particles moving down slowly to earth.
"... Its snowing"
The snow continued drifting, a light breeze pushing a few strands of my hair to my forehead and covering my face.
Shaking my head to clear my vision, I heard the door behind me slowly open with its click.
A pretty looking slightly older-looking woman with light makeup, walked in a yellow jacket, her black ponytail shaking.
The woman had small lips that contrasted with the dark weather, her dark ocean-like blue eyes drifting to meet my impassive gaze for a moment. She strolled to the rail beside me and leaned on the railing similar to me, looking down at the city, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear.
I stared at her for a few seconds before looking back to my phone that buzzed, marking that the screen had finally loaded.
My brows formed a simple frown as I soon realized that I did not have an internet connection, and neither did I have the money either to buy a data package.
".... Ah"
I really should've stayed at that part-time store downstairs for their free public Wi-fi. Damn it.
Massaging my throbbing headache, I closed the app and opened the webnovel of the game that I had downloaded off a pirated website in epub fomat. It originally costed around 15$ for unlocking the newest chapters, which I did not want to spend.
The novel consisted of a compiled total of sixty five thousand pages and a total of 4,765 chapters. I had stopped at chapter six hundred and seventy nine, so I had quite a long read awaiting me.
My eyes lingered on the title of the chapter for a moment.
'Castorice's Showndown: Monolith [1]'
'Hm, how cliche. If nothing else, South Korean's have a good writing style in their novels. If only they lessened their genderbending content.'
'Still, they always write the same plot somehow creatively with different names. They really know how to recycle properly, I reckon. How boring'
However, just as I was to start reading the first line of the anticipated chapter, my phone suddenly blacked out. A battery symbol with a red base glew for a moment, before disappearing from the screen.
'....'
I stood there for a moment in a state of disbelief.
''.... What just happened?'
I moved my thumb busily, tapping on the now dark screen that had went black with no warning. After a few moments, I gripped my phone as if I wanted to throw it off the rails into the sea of people and cars down.
Damn it.
Suppressing the desire that tempted me to dispose of the Devil's tool, one that would lead me to regret me doing what I was about to do, I silently put my phone back in my pocket in ire, my gaze flickering to the woman for a moment who was gazing at the city.
The sky had begun to darken considerably, the buildings lighting up in the distance, and even the rooftop lighting in a yellow-orange color, highlighting the now slush-covered ground, with traces of white.
Oh, well.
Just as I was about to turn around, pondering on which street to sleep tonight, the edge of my eyes caught the woman pulling out a silver box from her pocket, flicking it open.
She placed a blue-paper colored cigarette on her lips, before she took a second one and closed the box.
"Mn"
She tried to zip her jacket's zipper with her hand.
However, her lips formed a thin line as she tried to while holding the cigarette box in her hand.
Oh, her eyes met mine.
Oops, looks like I got caught. Was I staring too blatantly?
Though she doesn't seem to mind much.
Blinking for a moment, she reluctantly offered me the cigarette. Me, as the ever-being gentleman, didn't turn her down and took it from between her fingers silently, observing the cigarette for a moment. My eyes widened in surprise.
She really bought a whole pack of this type of cigarette. She must have quite the savings, or her parents are willing to spend on her this much. Though, I am not sure how much they would like the prospect of having their daughter becoming a chain smoker.
Still, I appreciate her hobby of smoking. I got the chance to taste such a thing in my lifetime.
The Advokita '58 was quite the expensive type.
The paper was smooth. Quite precious from the highest grade paper. Not like the ones I bought by the dozen in off-brand convenience stores after an ID verification because of how young I looked, like a handsome young man who had decided to smoke for his first time.
Back ... to the current situation.
"... You seem quite rich for a lady," I remarked, not judging her appearance. I decided avoiding mentioning her family. Most rebellious women like the kind of thing where they are independent after all.
She didn't respond and stared at me for a moment. Pointing to my cigarette, I went on gesturing to her, tilting my chin shamelessly.
"Mind lighting it, by the way?"
The woman smirked in a way that made me frown, but she first lit her cigarette after a few tries and ultimately threw me the lighter that I caught. I placed the cigarette on my lips and tried lighting the lighter.
One, twice, thrice.
Yeah, it doesn't seem like its working. This f*cking woman.
I kept trying, my thumb sending pain signals from my brain because of how many times I tried, but I relentlessly tried nevertheless.
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----------Well, F*ck.
It seemed that the lighter had reached its permanent vacation early.
I licked my lips, holding back my torrent of curses that were about to come out. All I could do was let out a sigh of pure exhaustion as if I was done dealing with life.
"Sigh..."
Hearing my sigh, the woman giggled playfully, before she slowly walked to me, leaning back on the rail, her back covering the skyscraper view.
Seeing my impassive look of pure exhaustion, she tilted her head, her face inching closer to mine. I smelt the smell of lavender coming for her.
'What a f*cking bitch'