Welcome to Planet β
“Intruder alarm!”
The piercing siren echoed in the military base of the valley, a dense flock of birds flied from the pine forest and fled into the night. Every NPC in the base had activated the combat state, ordered to fall in, searched for invaders inch by inch.
The siren lights flashed, the red light rhythmically illuminated the corner of the conning tower stairs, projecting on the sorry figures of Jason and Bill. They took off the NVGs, stepped over the gradually disappearing NPC corpses, and crouched under the stairs to avoid the patrol armored vehicle that ran over on the main road.
Jason leaned out halfway, raised his rifle, pulled the trigger, and took down the guard on the watchtower with a headshot, and began to think about why he was stuck in this shitty task.
“Don’t fucking stand still, run, Jason, right now!”
“Bill, I wanna rip your head off and shit down your neck!”
“Shut up, armored vehicle coming!”
“I fucking saw it...” Jason cursed and lowered his body, running quickly along the evacuation route, a black cat stuck its head out of the backpack behind him, stretched out a paw and drilled halfway, Jason hurriedly grabbed the cat and put it in his arms.
“Hiss...” The black cat raised his ears angrily to intimidate Jason. Bill slowed his pace and looked back. Just as he was about to laugh at Jason, a shuttle of bullets passed his ears, leaving a row of holes on the pickup behind him.
“Spot the intruders! They’re here!”
Jason shoot down the NPC who was reporting on the walkie-talkie. Bill picked up therocket launcher and aimed at the turning armored vehicle and pulled the trigger.
“Nice!”
The shell hit the machine gun position. Bill put away the launcher joyfully, picked up the M249 from his shoulder to repel the NPCs attacking from all directions with Jason.
The NPC corpses covered the ground, gradually faded to transparent, then finally dissipated into light spots, leaving only bloodstains everywhere, like a scarlet carpet. Jason and Bill moved their legs staggeringly and continued to raid to the evacuation point, no longer paying attention to the props that fell along the way.
“Our car is there!”
Bill roared and started running, Jason hold tight to the cat in his arms and followed closely. Just as he touched the car door, a whistling sounded in his ear, and a fire cut through the smokeand fell straight ontheir heads.
“Fuck……”
The shock wave from the explosion engulfed the voice, and the analog signal was sent to Jason’s brain along the brain-computer interface in the VR headset. His ears were buzzing, and his eyes were instantly pitch black. Jason waited for the prompt in the center of his vision to slowly appear.
“The task failed, please return to the map selection interface, or exit directly.”
Though sitting in a quiet apartment, Jason felt that the mortar shell had really fallen on him, and the old wounds in his back from many years ago began to hurt again.
“Load the revival point.”
The vision loaded slowly. The indoor image of the user center has just been formed, and Bill’s hearty voice babbled in Jason’s ear, ”Didn’t you mean to rip my head off?”
"Can you use your eyes and brains before you choose a task?”
Jason wrinkled his nose and opened the props warehouse interface, and began to count his equipment losses. Bill took off his battle suit, andchanged back to his normal avatar, black curls, bronze skin, fancy suit. He walked over to the mirror to admire himself, and caught a glimpse of Jason’s stinky face in the mirror.
Bill smirked and looked back at Jason, “Just roll the dice! That cat is some kind of rare pet, so valuable!”
“Fuck you, you told me the task was to find a lost cat, not robbing a heavily guarded military base!”
“A helpless cat is trapped in a cold military base, isn’t that just looking for a lost cat?”
“Bullshit, now you say it, this task is just courting death for two people!”
“Didn’t we almost come out...”
“Come, let’s calculate how much this trip had cost.”
“Going for a snack, see you tomorrow!”
Bill quickly signed out and disappeared, Jason exited the system, and stood up from his chair with a long sigh. The cold white light made the apartment look too tidy, even a little deserted.
He sat in front of the computer with a slice of pizza in his mouth, opened the website of the Plato company that operates Planet β , entered the trading system, and counted the game revenue, real income and expenditure in the past six months. The goal of 1 million EB was achieved by 5%.
Income in β today: -100EB, equipment loss
He felt irritable, even the blood flow in his body. The earning speed was too slow, but he promised not to break the law again, at least to be a good citizen in reality.
Planet β launching.
System loading completed.
User data loading completed.
“Welcome to Planet β, Mr. Jason Xavier, the weather is fine in the Otus area today, and you have 6 friend messages.”
Jason wearily slumped into the single sofa, waiting for the user center scene to load and then opened the information interface. It was Iris Xavier, his sister, who sent a series of messages.
“Hey Jason, I’m afraid you’re busy and didn’t call you.
I recently joined the Knights League.
Come to our Knight Town to have fun..."
Jason was at the information bulletin inquiring about the Knights League, Bill’s voice came from behind,“Hey, are you studying the Knights League?”
Jason didn’t bother to look back, “Heard of it?”
“Well, a league formed by a group of role-playing enthusiasts. They have built a medieval town called Knight Town, similar to Cowboy Town and the Pirate Bay.”
“Sounds healthy. Iris should be fine there.”
"Go check it out by ourselves?"
Jason glanced back at Bill, “I think you just want to see Iris.”
“Okay, knowing you are a good brother, don’t just make money, it’s time to visit her.”
“Alright……”
The Otus User Center teleportation station, destination: Otus Plain, Knight Town.
The Knight Town is not small. The gray city walls surround scattered medieval-style buildings. Users wearing retro costumes can be seen everywhere on both sides of the stone road. Whether it is a farmer, a blacksmith, a clothing store owner wearing a bright long skirt, or a saber knight on horseback, they all seem to be very involved in their roles. .
“Should we buy two sets of costumes?"
Bill looked down at his suit, then at Jason’s khaki jacket.
“No, just consider us as foreignvisitors.”
Following Iris’ message, they found the ring-shaped open-air arena at the back of the town. As soon as they walked to the entrance, they heard the loud cheers.
Hundreds of spectators sat around the stands built in imitation of the Colosseum, most of them dressed in medieval clothes. In the middle of the arena is the sand for horse running, and a jousting was going on. Knights wearing elegant armors, holding wooden lances, riding horses and sprinting face to face, the one who knocks down the competitor wins.
“I found Iris.” Jason pointed to the edge of the sand.
“Hey, bros? I’m on live, don’t get into the camera without the theme costume!”
Hearing the voice, the two turned their heads, and saw a young man in the upper stand stood up in dissatisfaction. He was dressed in too gorgeous aristocratic costumes and looked a bit funny.
Jason looked at him coldly, the boy sat back a little nervously, Bill said “sorry” casually, and pushed Jason to Iris’ direction.
Iris saw them and waved her arms excitedly, “Hey! I’m here!”
Her long honey-colored hair was tied in a high ponytail behind her head, the silver armor wrapped her well-proportioned body, and the metal edge refracted light like holy. Bill thought he saw Joan of Arc for a moment.
