Chapter 1 – The Boy in the Dome (Revised)
My name is Kurosaki Ren, and my lungs are allergic to the apocalypse.
That's not a joke. If I step outside this dome, I'd probably die before I could say, "What a lovely day."
The world's atmosphere is so thick with nuclear dust that even the sun looks tired trying to shine through it. The gray haze rolls like a dying sea beyond the reinforced glass wall of Dome-07, the largest biological dome in the East Japanese Sector.
And here I am — sitting on a floating wheelchair worth more than a small country's GDP, watching nothingness.
When people imagine the post-nuclear age, they think of chaos, ruins, survival dramas. In reality, it's just boring.
The rich live under glass, the poor live in gas masks, and the rest of us pretend that breathing filtered air counts as "living."
My parents — founders of Hino Industries, the largest synthetic food corporation on the planet — call this "the triumph of human ingenuity."
I call it "trapped gardening."
Inside our dome, plants grow under artificial light. Outside, nature is dead. But the company logo says:
"Hino Industries – Bringing Life Back to Earth."
That's cute. Especially coming from people who don't even notice their son exists.
I was born broken — neuromuscular degeneration. My legs stopped working when I was six. My parents stopped caring around the same time.
It's not tragic, really. It's just how things work here. Weakness is a flaw, and flaws are bad for corporate image.
So they gave me everything money could buy — hover-chair, neural implants, private A.I. caretaker — and then they left me alone.
And that's fine. Because solitude comes with bandwidth.
And bandwidth means games.
When you can't walk, you learn to live somewhere else.
For me, that "somewhere" is the virtual world.
I run a blog called "The MetaMind."
It's small, but in the underground VR community, I'm known as R3N — the kid who beta-tests new games and posts brutally honest reviews that sometimes get me banned.
I love games not because they're fun, but because they're fair.
In a game, effort means progress. Intelligence means victory. There's no corporate ladder, no fake smiles. Just rules, numbers, and the skill to break them elegantly.
And today, the game world itself is about to change.
YGGDRASIL (Closed Beta).
The first DMMORPG — Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game — that promises complete freedom. Infinite race creation. User-made abilities. Realistic physics and moral systems without restrictions.
The kind of game that could replace reality.
I smile as I adjust the neural interface strapped to my head. My A.I. assistant, HIME, hums nearby in her usual calm voice.
"Ren-sama, neural synchronization complete."
"Thanks, HIME."
"Reminder: prolonged full-dive sessions may result in temporal disorientation. Please limit—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be careful."
I won't.
The moment I press connect, my world dissolves.
Light floods my vision — soft, infinite, weightless.
[YGGDRASIL SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
Please select your race.
The voice sounds like the whisper of a machine dreaming.
The options scroll endlessly: angels, demons, golems, elementals, dragons — even bizarre ones like "Sentient Mist."
But one catches my eye:
Homunculus Scholar – a synthetic being designed to understand life itself.
A man-made creation trying to find meaning in existence?
Yeah. That's me.
I select it.
I design my avatar — not a perfect version of myself, just me, minus the broken parts. Pale skin, silver hair, faint blue eyes. No pretense, no mask.
Customization complete. Welcome to YGGDRASIL.
The first breath I take in the new world feels like… freedom.
Air that isn't filtered. Light that isn't artificial. A sky so blue it almost hurts to look at.
The forest before me glows with life — emerald trees, rivers like liquid glass, distant mountains dusted with gold sunlight.
For a moment, I forget to breathe.
Then I take a step forward.
And another.
And another.
I can walk.
It's such a simple thing, but my brain can't process it. My body obeys without pain or delay. Every motion feels perfect, balanced, right.
I laugh — loudly, stupidly, joyfully.
"Note to self," I say, activating my vlog overlay, "this might be the most realistic environment simulation I've ever touched. Sensory latency? Near zero. Neural link precision? Off the charts. And get this — I can actually feel the damn grass!"
Recording: "Yggdrasil Beta – First Dive Impressions"
"Hey everyone, R3N here, live — well, kind of — from the Yggdrasil beta. And holy server lag, this place is alive.
"I've played thousands of dive titles, from sandbox builders to hardcore VRMMOs, but this... this is different. Every sound, every detail reacts to you. The AI isn't just running scripts — it's thinking. The wind shifts when you move. The grass bends under your feet. It feels less like a game and more like stepping into another existence."
I pan the virtual camera across the horizon, capturing the way the light bleeds through the leaves.
"The devs weren't exaggerating about their world engine. This isn't a simulation — it's creation. The only thing missing is the smell of failure... though give me a few minutes and I'll find a way to die in the tutorial zone."
I chuckle, partly for the recording, partly because I'm genuinely overwhelmed.
"This is... what freedom feels like, huh?"
I wander for what feels like an hour — maybe two. I fight a few low-level mobs, test ability creation, tweak my HUD interface.
Every system is layered with complexity. There are no hints, no tutorials, no hand-holding. You learn by experimenting, failing, adapting.
When I conjure my first spell — a small orb of blue flame — it feels real. The heat, the weight, the sound it makes as it fades into sparks.
"This is insane," I whisper to my vlog. "It's like the game reads your thoughts and turns them into mechanics. If they commercialize this tech, other companies are finished. Seriously."
The camera AI records everything, but I barely notice. My focus is locked on the world around me.
Every sense screams real.
And for the first time in years, I feel alive.
Eventually, I find a cliff overlooking a vast valley. Rivers weave like silver threads through green plains.
I sit down, legs dangling over the edge, and just… watch.
"Maybe this is what the old world looked like," I say softly to the mic. "Before the bombs. Before people decided to burn everything they couldn't control."
Silence. Only the wind answers me.
I smile faintly. "If paradise ever existed, it's here — in someone's server rack."
I end the vlog there.
When I log out, the transition hits harder than expected — a tearing sensation, like being pulled from warmth into cold.
Light collapses. My senses go dark.
Then — reality.
My eyes open to the dome's sterile glow. The familiar hum of air filters fills the silence.
I exhale, disoriented but exhilarated.
"How long was I in?" I ask, voice hoarse.
"Welcome back, Ren-sama," HIME replies gently. "Neural synchronization terminated successfully. Session duration: fifteen hours, twenty-two minutes."
I blink.
"What?"
"Fifteen hours, twenty-two minutes, local time."
That can't be right. It felt like two hours, maybe three.
My heartbeat stutters. "Was there a system delay? A misread?"
"No errors detected," HIME answers calmly. "Your biometric data remained stable throughout. Would you like to review your neural activity logs?"
I just stare at the ceiling.
Fifteen hours.
That means I missed two meals, a medical appointment, and an entire day outside my window that looks exactly the same as before.
Time... slipped.
I laugh quietly, but it sounds a little wrong.
"So that's how it starts, huh?"
"Ren-sama?"
"Nothing. Just thinking how fast reality gets old once you've tasted a better version."
HIME doesn't respond. She's smart, but not that smart.
I look toward the dome's glass wall again. The gray wasteland outside still churns with slow poison. Nothing changes. Nothing ever does.
Except me.
Because now I've seen what a real world could look like — one that breathes, grows, moves. One where I'm not broken.
I upload the vlog file to my server. Title it:
"YGGDRASIL: The Game That Feels More Real Than Life."
Within seconds, my inbox explodes with notifications — messages, comments, shares. People hungry for escape, just like me.
For a moment, I smile.
Then I pause.
My hands are trembling slightly. I'm exhausted, but not from the dive.
Maybe it's the side effects. Maybe it's something else.
Whatever it is, I can't wait to go back.
That night, as I lie in bed staring at the ceiling's soft light, I can still feel phantom grass beneath my feet.
And for the first time in my life, I dream in color.
End of Chapter 1 – The Boy in the Dome