Ready Player Zero

Chapter 10: An Invitation

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Toshiro frowned, contemplating what to do, as he considered the possibility of sending an invitation to Sho for taking on a challenge together. Although he wasn't entirely sure what the etiquette surrounding invitations was, when he had first gotten on the leaderboard, some of the others had asked him to join them on a quest. It may have been a friendly "oh hi, nice to meet you" kind of thing, or a slightly more antagonistic "well, so it seems that you're a good player and want to see if you live up to the rumors." Maybe even both, he didn't really know. Social norms were probably something that he should've paid attention to, but at the time he hadn't cared too much.

He had been on the leaderboard for a year or so by now, and despite there having been a few others players that had ranked up onto it after him, he hadn't bothered to give any sort of greeting to them. To him, it seemed a bit too superficial to suddenly acknowledge the existence of a player that you had ignored before, just because they got a new high score. He did realize that ignoring them altogether may not have been the best solution either, but he wasn't here to make friends.

As a result, the few people he happened to somewhat know in the Oasis were either ones he was acquainted with beforehand or players that had invited him on challenges when he had first received a high rank. Although he did consider the latter as falling into the category of the slightly pretentious "I won't notice you until I have a reason to" group, he himself honestly didn't care that much what they thought of him. They were good players, and someone skilled having your back was helpful at times.

Generally speaking though, that meant that when someone like Sho showed up, Toshiro paid them no attention and went on nonchalantly minding his own business. But with all the rumors surrounding "the legendary player of the century," as some of the tabloids were calling him, even Toshiro had to admit some interest in wanting to find out who Sho was.

He pulled up the toolbar onto his screen and tapped on the envelope icon. Typing Sho into the search bar, he quickly found the profile and the invite button next to it.

Toshiro hesitantly clicked on it. He wasn't used to being the person to initiate an invitation, so he essentially had no idea what to do. There was a small text box above the send icon, to type a message to the player it was being sent to.

He spent a few minutes attempting to recall what usually happened when he received an invitation, but the results were fruitless, still leaving him with the lingering question of whether it was socially acceptable to not say anything.

He sighed. This was giving him a headache. Why did it have to be so complicated? Then again, he was probably the one overcomplicating it anyway.

Finally, he reached toward the text box, triggering the motion sensors that caused the holographic keyboard to appear. After a few more seconds of internal turmoil and debate, he typed out a short, simple message: Hi Sho, I was wondering if you'd like to take on a challenge together?

That sounded pretty fake, though, but there honestly wasn't much to say. Finally, exasperated at himself for how he had just wasted ten minutes of his life, he decided, You know what, I don't care. Before he could doubt himself any further, he deleted the words, tapped send on the empty text box, and closed the window, breathing out slowly as he leaned back and closed his eyes.