Silence filled the room as, I stared at my virtual reality pod.

It had served me well for the last eighteen months. Let me rewind this for you. No, I did not go to save Enma. As I said preparation was due in order; details of which I will reveal later.

Hypothetically speaking, just because I learn about a game that’s sucked up my friend, erased his existence, wiped people’s memory clean….would I lunge myself into this game?

I mean, hello! There might be some crazed fanatic involved here! I mean how many times do we read mangas or watch animes and think 'whaaaat? The MC is so stupid! I would never fall for that!' or 'It is so obvious I would check A. B and C details before accepting blah blah blah.' Get my point? When adventure stares at us right in the eye, we must certainly blink and ask ourselves are we truly prepared to undertake this adventure? I knew for certain I wasn't ready.

This could possibly be a covert military operation! Who in their right mind would jump into this game without preparation; I wonder if this should even be considered a game?

I also wonder how many people will go this far for their friend too? I am not so noble doing this for Enma’s sake…I am doing it because I am just really really curious.

Haven’t you had that feeling of wanting to escape from your own reality to somewhere else? I could never go down that road because of my responsibilities as a son…but there is a glimmer of hope for me here…there is also the scent of an adventure here…most appetizing!

No more waiting! The world’s most intriguing game awaits me! I go to my study table and open the top front drawer; I remove a few books which had been gather dust (yeah…academics really isn’t my strong point), beneath it all was a dairy of mine (please tell me you weren’t expecting a false floor…this isn’t Death Note).

I opened the diary of mine. It had been hollowed out in the centre and contained a tiny glass vial containing some green liquid; don’t ask me what it is – let’s just say Chemistry class can be useful at times. Next, I unscrew the wooden pole from my bed and pour the contents of the vial on the wooden pole. Yes, it’s acid. The wooden pole was eaten away to reveal a small case containing a pen drive (some ancient relic)….Why the precaution? It may not look it but the Ruler of Rules is more than an urban legend. There is a craze for it on the web which is inexplicable….I am not exaggerating this when I say it; but people have been robbed and murdered for this game. Without the access key, that I hold in my hand’s right now…playing this game would be impossible. Although, it is unlikely that someone would know that I have the access key….but look at it like this…

I surfed the web looking for the game “Ruler of Rules”, how many people must have noticed that? Going incognito or using a mask like TOR is not going to hide me when I don’t know the strength of the opponent…If it’s the military or someone similar I am bound to already be on their radar….

If someone is so willing to murder for this game…then keeping an eye out on those searching for this game is not that hard. If anyone had brains then they would have done what I did; advertise that they have the game even though they didn’t and from then on learn everything there was too learn about the game. You would be surprised what all information people freely give away when they are blinded by their greed. Summary, people thought I had the game when I didn’t…so should I take a chance when I really do have the game?

I looked at my wrist watch; its 4AM. I have a small window here; one of the bits of information I got on the web was that you need to log in between 4AM to 6AM in certain pod in Zamfoon – a pod café. The name Zamfoon might sound really funny; but from what I gathered it was a start up by some prodigious child….but this isn’t the interesting bit, if you dig deeper…you learn that its seed investment was made AMOX Corporation which is a shell company located in British Isles….AMOX’s parent company is some weird firm in Madagascar…and if you keep scratching deeper…the address provided doesn’t exist…I told you its interesting. So a fictitious bordering non-existent company just happened to pour in millions of real money into some prodigious child’s gaming idea? Yup! It’s a mystery and a very suspicious one at that too!

I quietly sneak out of the house and walk towards the station. It’s a fifteen minute journey, before I know it, I am standing in front of Zamfoon. My legs are giving away. This might really be the last chance I have to turn back. I would have turned around had it not been for the red pixelated flashing light that I saw in the café… it read “Highest Score: Enma Ikeda…..1,500,000”. Tears rolled down my eyes…. “He’s a real person!” …. There were so many times during these months that I thought that Enma was in fact really a figment of my imagination….that I was going crazy …. But this was the first solid proof I had that he was indeed a real person…

This isn’t the first time I have been to this café…I have come here before during my investigations… but this is really the first time the RoR pod flashed Enma’s name. I wipe my tears and walk into the café. There is no one sitting inside but there is a board hung say “Open: 24x7 – Self Service”. I gladly helped myself. I went to the machine which had flashed Enma’s name and looked around for the USB port….I found one with great difficult….it was behind a panel which had been tightly screwed on…I plugged in the pen drive into the port and quickly hobbled into the pod…Time to log in.

The glass screen in front of me began to display images…

“Welcome to Ruler of Rules! – Would you like to play?” in BIG RED.

“What the f*ck is this?” I cried out. Wasn’t this a virtual reality game? Why the bloody hell did I spend so much time training in Royal Road if this wasn’t a virtual real…. My mind felt slightly drowsy… my nose was tingling in excitement…. ‘Crap! This isn’t a real pod…’ I could smell a faint familiar odor – anesthesia. I was out cold.

I don’t remember if I dreamt the next bit but in my translucent state I could see a dialog box flashing in front of me….

Welcome to Ruler of Rules! – Would you like to connect to Ruler of Rules?

This felt much more 3D and virtual reality type…am I dreaming this? I have no idea…a weak voice left my lips… “Yes.”