In 2043, brain-computer games began to flourish. The perfectly immersive experience drove countless gamers crazy, but as a new gaming device, the number of exclusive games was pitifully small, so bad that even a dog would shake its head in disapproval. "The future is promising," they said.
In this situation, there are always some bold players who are not content with the status quo. For example, Bai Shi, who is currently sitting in his esports room, connecting his brain-computer interface to his computer with a data cable. Bai Shi is porting a game from another gaming device to his BCI. His target this time is Elden Ring, which brought him countless shocks and fantasies in his childhood.
You ask how Bai Shi knows how to do this? Is he some kind of software genius? Of course not. He's a complete old-school otaku, who simply watched the endless porting tutorials on various online platforms and decided to give it a try. He had already ported several games before this, all without any issues.
Normally, for a BCI to be successfully released, its safety performance is fully guaranteed. The automatic protection system will shut down the BCI when a malfunction occurs. Simple porting is not a problem for the BCI; its powerful optimization can give various games a second life on the device, although they can't achieve the perfect immersion of exclusive BCI games.
Due to these various factors, Bai Shi finally felt "at ease" and died. With the crackling and burning sound of the BCI, he departed this world. Hopefully, this tragic case will teach a lesson to great inventors.
...
In an abandoned chapel, the lying Bai Shi slowly regained consciousness. He looked at the dirty carpet pressed against his face, his mind a little slow to process at first.
"A strange carpet... wait, my room doesn't have a carpet!"
Bai Shi jolted, and his not-so-bright brain started working again.
"I remember, I was... I was... right, I was trying to port 'Old Man Ring' to the BCI. Did I succeed?"
Bai Shi climbed to his feet. What greeted his eyes was a desolate scene: broken chairs, a dim room, and sparse, withered weeds between the bricks. That's right, this was the starting area of Elden Ring—the Chapel of Anticipation.
"I succeeded on the first try? Am I really a genius?"
Bai Shi excitedly felt the armor on his body. The cold touch, the damage from battles... everything was too real.
"Haha! Elden Ring, I'm fucking here!"
He walked, jumped, and swung his longsword at the surrounding chairs in the small chapel, watching them shatter before his eyes and enjoying this unparalleled "gaming experience."
The chapel was too dim, and it was only after a while that Bai Shi found the body of the Finger Maiden next to a dark wall, along with the words she left behind in her last moments.
'Even if the Guidance has long been shattered, I beseech you to become the Elden Lord.'
Looking at the maiden who died before he ever met her, Bai Shi couldn't help but sigh.
"Sigh, she's just an NPC whose name I don't even know, with only a few bits of related text... but it still feels a little sad to see her body."
"And taking on someone else's expectations like this is a bit overwhelming for me. I'm already sweating bullets, bro."
Bai Shi turned to leave, but then suddenly wanted to see what she looked like. He crouched down in front of the maiden and reached out to push aside the hat brim covering half her face. But the maiden's body was lying on its side, and this push actually made the hat fall off.
Bai Shi was startled and instinctively picked up the hat. At that moment, a line of small text appeared before his eyes:
"Finger Maiden Hat"
Bai Shi was immediately shocked. This piece of equipment is not supposed to be obtained here, but now, he got it from a dead NPC. He had simply and crudely ported the game and had not modified its content, so where did this hat come from? The game seemed to be getting a little strange. Faced with this anomaly, Bai Shi suddenly felt a bit afraid.
Recalling all the realistic sensations from before, this was clearly not what a forcefully ported game could produce on a BCI. Combined with this item that shouldn't appear, a terrifying thought surfaced in his mind.
Perhaps this was no longer a game.
He began to try to open the menu and quit the game, but what used to be a single thought now failed to work no matter what. No matter how much he called out, there was no response.
A vague memory also suddenly surfaced. It was the last bit of memory from before Bai Shi's death, a memory his body had forgotten for self-preservation.
He had forgotten it until now.
He had forgotten the pain of the current running through his body, and the sound of the BCI burning out as it malfunctioned, a sound that took his life.
Bai Shi suddenly remembered. He was already dead.
"To die like this... I just wanted to play a game..."
"I don't want to die..."