It's been almost 2 weeks since the game came out, most people knew about it by now, even the grandma living in the countryside. Heck, some people even used the capsule to meet up with their family members who live far away from them, making the video game an intermediate between them. After all, even people with disabilities were able to experience the life of normalcy through the virtual character they made. Miko never thought someone's childish dream could benefits a lot of people and be looks upon positively by the society. It almost makes her forget that Kousuke is a peculiar senior with beautiful harem by his side.
After finishing her food and paying for it with some of the gold coins she earned through completing quests, Miko exits the tavern-like restaurant and heads to the alchemist store to restock her potions like every players after a successful hunt. The game was pretty immersive in the fact that injury does hurt like hell, there's no pain reception settings like in fiction, so potions are very much important even if one is not combat oriented player. However death here is not the end. Fortunately there is a revival mechanism that player could respawn in the last saved location, at a cost of some percentage of EXP and small drop of durability from any equipped armory.
Even Miko with her cheating eyes have tasted death a couple of times in this game. After all, not every party started on good terms from the beginning. As she walks through the crowd street, Miko occasionally came across players of different races like Demonkin and even Demiwolf. However, the rest of the players are all humans. Of course this was within reasonable development if one considered how much the developer seems to be especially biased toward the human race. Despite different races offer differ benefits, they all have something in common, and that is each of them have at least one flaw/weakness tied to their chosen race. Such as vampire and their weakness of sunlight and silver weapon.
Does it stop players from picking races other than human? It doesn't, however, it is true that they might have to put up with some suffering early to possibly mid games before they could fully enjoy the privileges of chosen race. But unlike them, human race have no imposed flaws. They were even granted some benefits, such as experience boost for limited time in early game, and most importantly, an additional stat called Adapt—it didn't seems to do much at first, and most players couldn't even understand what it does just from the flavour text alone. However, only few reckless players could smell that this stat could be a game breaking one and choose to invest heavily on it.
The game even gives the players a big clue that only the human race could later change into half-human, the other half being other races of their chosen. At this point, it would be stupid to pick other options, unless the player themselves have already decides from the get-go to become something else. After all, it's just video game, there's bound to be players who still went ahead and pick the worse possible race like Goblin, because they can. Miko remembered the shock she felt upon running into such a peculiar player, the players around her even thoughts a monster had somehow stepped into the safe town due to bug or something. But the nametag above their head proven their identity as players.
It didn't take long before Miko approached the entryway of the town and stood behind the short line until it was her turn, and handed over her ID card to the guard. It takes a few seconds before she passed the checkpoint and was allowed to leave. It was rather strict but that's what the full immersive experience looks like. She begins jogging her way through the road until the pathway was split into two, only then did she went straight in the middle, charging into the forest like a reckless person. Before long, she came across a sign nailed to a big tree, warning anyone from advancing any further but she ignored it. However, that wasn't the end of it.
"..."
As Miko progress deeper into the forest, one sign appears after another. Each time, it gets progressively worse, almost comical even. At first, the warning looks very convincing, like the monster marking on the tree, the strangely fresh excrement and carcass. But that stopped completely and the sign changed to emoji instead. It was a rather strange-looking humanoid creature with snake as the head. It put up a palm forward as if telling the lost wanderers that they shouldn't be here at all. However, that too quickly turned into the cute chibi version from realistic. At this point, she simply rolled her eyes at this sight.
Soon after, she saw a man-made cave under the mountain cliff. She pretends not noticing the twitching skeleton on the ground near the entrance. Not just that, there are countless broken/fragments weapons litter everywhere, giving off a rather ominous impression, as if something evil lurking deep inside the cave. Miko didn't show any sign of fear at all as she begins walking into it. Sensing her approaching, the skeleton on the ground were about to launch itself up until it froze midway before slumping back like a disappointed puppy.
"...Seele wasn't lying about the whole dramatic flair." She muttered softly. As Miko begins descending down the stairs, she recalled the matter at school a few hours ago. Seele had told her that her brother, Kousuke wanted to meet up with her later. Not at school, but inside the virtual reality. It was a rather strange request, after all, it's not like they didn't go to the same school and live so far away. Still, she decides to check it out anyway and followed through the navigation after putting the coordinate on the map. It was what led her here.
Finally, after a few minutes of descending, Miko stood before a tall door with strangely detailed depiction of giant demon against a group of humans embedded on it. 'He really went all in for that evil boss theme for this huh?' she thought internally before putting her hand on it, and slowly pushed it open. Once there was enough gap for her to slip, she did exactly that rather than pushing the door completely open. It was pretty heavy for her build.
"I see. Thou art mine first intruder."
Darkness reigned within the chamber until a deep, reverberating voice shattered the silence. Blue flames erupted along the walls, torch after torch igniting as if answering his call, flooding the room with an unholy light. At the far end of the hall sat a lone figure upon an ornate, imposing throne.
Goat horns crowned his head, and where the whites of his eyes should have been lay only black voids, pierced by burning crimson pupils. One glance was enough to make fear seep into the bones of any who dared meet his gaze. This was no mere demon. He was the Demon Lord.