Spending my retirement in a game

chapter 3

"Wow... That's insane! I had no idea this was even possible! I can't wait to get out there!" Benjamin said excitedly and looked around to find the door. In response to this, Ari covered her mouth as she began giggling softly, "I'm happy you're so excited! But before that, there's some stuff we got to go through!"

Ari walked toward the table standing in the middle of the room and sat down at one side of it, pointing Benjamin toward the other chair. He did as told and sat down, while Ari leaned back in her chair.

"First, before we are allowed to continue with anything else, you have to agree to Prime Industries' Terms of Service!" With a slight sigh at this boring part, Ari took out a contract from under the Table and handed it to Benjamin together with a pen.

"I see, so I have to sign some things first?" Agreeing with Ari that this is something quite boring, Benjamin swiftly looked through the contract and signed it at the bottom.

Following his signature, to Benjamin's surprise, the contract lit on fire and disappeared from the table.

Ari then breathed in deeply to seemingly prepare for a long monologue. "Rule number one! While normally illegal acts like theft or murder are allowed in World of Magic, things that will affect a player's psyché are prohibited! That includes torture or non-consensual sexual acts, such as ****. Rule number two! Any attempt at trying to take over another player's account or capsule via remote connection like illegal hacking is prohibited! Rule number three! You are not allowed to inform the NPCs in this world that they are inside a game! I may know about it, but the normal people living here do not! We want this world to run as realistic as possible, so telling people their life is a lie does not help with that. If any of these rules are to be broken your account will be locked until further notice, and legal action may be invoked depending on the severity of the rule-break." Ari finished her speech of the rules and tried to catch her breath.

Benjamin obviously understood the first two rules instantly. **** and torture are completely despicable acts, and it made sense for it to be prohibited to illegally take over someone else's real-life belongings, in this case, their account and capsule. He was still somewhat confused about the last rule, however. "What do you mean? I'm not allowed to talk about any part of this world being a game?" He asked while stroking his white beard.

Ari simply nods and begins to explain, "There are some parts that even the NPCs know about since they have access to these things as well. Status, Attributes, Skills, Levels, etc, but they are not allowed to know they are artificial existences, or that you are playing a game. Thus, simply avoiding the words, NPC, Virtual Reality, or Player would be the best choice, except if you are sure there are only other Players listening to you."

Benjamin closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair. It wouldn't be hard to avoid it if everyone seemed like a real person just like Ari, is what he thought.

"Now~ Since Papa told me you aren't a big game-player, do you want me to explain some important basics to you?"

"Yes, please. I wouldn't want to miss important parts of the game after all."

"Alright~! First off, Status! Just by thinking of showing your status, or character-sheet, you will be able to pull it up! You can't yet though because you're not officially in the game yet~. On your Status, it will show your name, Level, Race, Occupation, Attributes, as well as your skills!" She explained happily. Benjamin nodded while closely listening to her, trying to connect her words with something.

"Your name will be set later, so don't worry about that for now! Your level can be increased through either killing monsters, fulfilling quests, or certain special actions! Every level, you will get five points, which you can use to increase your attributes! There are five attributes that you can increase like that. Strength, Endurance, Agility, Intelligence, and Wisdom! However, depending on what you do, you can unlock more attributes, most of which you won't be able to increase with your points, but instead only through special actions. Then-" Without taking a break, Ari continued explaining all the basic parts of the game, although Benjamin wanted to know something she was about to skip over.