Evil Avalon - Volume 1 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A Man You Might Mistake for a Pig

“I would like to congratulate you all on your admission into our school,” a middle-aged man announced through a microphone from atop a stage. The broadness of his shoulders and the fierce glare he directed at the audience marked him out as a thug. He was a well-dressed thug, though, and one who was apparently a school principal. “Welcome to Adventurers’ High School, the pride of our country. Here you will find the latest knowledge and gain insight in the best environment to do so.”

As he’d said, this was apparently the entrance ceremony for Adventurers’ High. Why “apparently”? That’s because—

“You have all overcome many challenges in your efforts to secure a place here, and I have the utmost faith that we will further nurture your talents so that you can live up to the expectations of our people.”

I had no memory of being seated among the annular rows of seats in this lecture hall until a few moments ago. I’d tossed around the idea that I might be the victim of an elaborate prank, but I quickly ruled it out. No producer would waste airtime trying to wring out a reaction from a petit bourgeois schmuck like me unless they didn’t care about a hit to their ratings.

“You will each have aspirations for the path you wish to follow, whether you intend to advance to Adventurers’ University, enlist in the Special Operations Squad, or join the elite adventurers of the Assault Clan. Whichever you choose, I hope you strive together with your fellow students—”

Even so, I’d seen this massive lecture hall and the rough-looking principal before. I also recognized the cropped crimson hair on the boy a few rows closer to the stage and the girl with wavy, medium-length pink hair. Some students had come to the ceremony with lances, double-headed axes, and other weapons. A girl in a brightly colored kimono and a figure in a full suit of armor next to her were in the front-row seats at the center of the room. There was no mistaking it. It was the opening scene of that game.

“—to turn this into a valuable and fulfilling experience, one that you can look back on for years to come with no regrets.”

No way, I thought. All that stuff about entering the world of the game was true.

***

This was Dungeon Explorer Chronicle (or DEC for short), a VRMMO that was both a hardcore action and a school romance game. You could search the world for strong, rarer weapons and items to prepare to head for the deepest parts of the dungeon. There, one would brave grueling battles against vicious, mighty foes while enjoying a romance with one of a cast of cute girls. Or guys—a postrelease DLC* had added a few studs to the cast to attract female fans. In short, it was a dungeon crawler spiced up with romance.

*TIPS: DLC is an abbreviation for downloadable content. It refers to content developers distribute through the internet that the user can download and play. DEC regularly released free DLC.

The game was expensive to get into, requiring a head-mounted VR display, controllers worn as gloves on your hands, and a motion-capture camera. If you added that the game’s creator wasn’t a big name, it shouldn’t be surprising to know that it bombed on launch. Only the most devout gaming enthusiasts were aware of it.

Comment by comment, word spread about its gorgeous artwork, polished fighting system, and complex gameplay mechanics. The game’s popularity skyrocketed when the devs added extra characters for romance, enhanced customizability, PVP, and a battle mode that hundreds of players could participate in. Before long, every gamer had a copy.

I got hooked as a student and kept my obsession going after entering the workforce. The controls confused me at first, but I’d poured so many hours into boss fights and PVP battles that I considered myself an expert at the game. I was a hardcore gamer.

On the day this all began, I took a shower right after arriving home, microwaved a frozen meal, and wolfed it down. Later, I donned the controller gloves. I found a good spot to stand so I wouldn’t hit the wall or furniture while swinging my arms around, then I loaded up the game. I waved my palm and proceeded through the biometric login screen. An icon told me I had mail from the DEC devs.

“There it is, the update email.”

A few days earlier, the devs had hosted an in-game event where the winning prize was an opportunity to beta test the next major update. I’d leaped at the chance, but the event turned out to be pure chaos.

Tens of thousands of players gathered at the event’s location, brimming with excitement as they waited for the quest to start. The players greeted familiar faces they’d spotted in the crowd, chatted about their excitement, boasted about how well they’d fare, and at least one guy had proclaimed that he’d propose to his girlfriend after completing the quest. Everyone had feigned good-spirited camaraderie, but the keen look in their eyes had betrayed what they were gunning for. They wouldn’t let anyone stand in the way of winning the prize and accessing the beta test.

However, the sudden arrival of a colossal jet-black dragon that plummeted to the ground and crushed a swath of participants beneath its body cut short the frivolous conversations and subtle misdirections. The event had claimed its first victims.

Amid the ensuing confusion, the best players had regained their footing to mount a counterattack. But the dragon’s thick skin had repelled their strikes. Not a second later, the dragon fired a mad flurry of wide laser beams, each delivering enough damage to be an instakill, reducing players to ash.

The players who’d turned up had fought their share of battles before, and it showed. They’d regained their bearings and avoided total annihilation. After two intense hours of mortal combat, by which time half of the entrants had fallen, the players had come up with a strategy and slain the Balance Breaker Dragon. But that had only been the beginning.

As the survivors thronged around the dragon, aiming to loot its corpse, the floor of the event stage had collapsed. The next round had started, and the rules had been simple: escape or die. Picking the wrong escape route meant death, and undetectable lethal traps had lain around every bend. Boss-level monsters had waited on the paths in groups, launching attacks on players in perfect coordination. As if that hadn’t been enough, we had needed to escape within a time limit.

I’d made it through alive, but that had been luck more than anything else. The balancing had been shit. The difficulty had almost been too much, even for me, so nobody else had stood a chance.

Of course, luck was an asset too, and a win was a win.

I opened the email, read it, and checked the attachment that gave me beta tester access to the major update. I couldn’t help but smirk and wasted no time before installing the program. While I skimmed the terms and conditions, I noticed something.

“‘Once you have installed the patch and opened the game, you will be transported to the game’s world...’ Hang on, transported?” I said. What’s that supposed to mean? I figured it might be part of the backdrop to the game’s story. Or perhaps the devs were trying too hard to be imaginative with their wording. They could be weird like that, so I didn’t feel any need to dwell on it. “Looks like you can’t bring your existing characters in because it’s a test. Guess I’ll be starting from scratch then.”

I could use a random character or create a custom one, so I went for a random character. That way, it was less work, and I could always make one later if I got fed up with it after playing for a while.

“Cool, the installation’s complete. Let’s get playing!”

And with that, I pushed down firmly on the start button.

***

Hmm... After running through everything that’s happened up to this point, the only thing that could’ve caused this is the update. Is that even possible?

I knew I wasn’t being delusional, even if I’d often gotten carried away in fantasies where I was an OP beast in DEC’s world that everyone loved and who smooched with my favorite heroine... Which was nothing to be ashamed of! Sure, I was a grown-up, but adventure is what men of all ages live for.

I decided to clarify a few points in my head.

My first question was whether I was in a game or whether this was reality.

In DEC, the principal’s speech appeared as text in a dialogue box like in adventure games, as had other announcements, but I couldn’t see any. Plus, everything in sight was at a higher resolution than should be possible in a game, and it would’ve stored far too much information. DEC’s graphics were excellent, but you could tell they were computer generated if you looked closely. In contrast, every detail of this world appeared genuinely realistic. That was if I ignored the fantasy characters lugging huge weapons and equipment around. The clothes worn by a student sitting nearby rustled when they adjusted their position, and there was a faint creak as someone leaned back on a chair. The game hadn’t featured these minute details.

The natural conclusion was that I wasn’t inside a game but rather a reality based on the game. DEC had been conceived as a metaverse, a virtual version of the real world, meaning it contained an extreme amount of information. Even so, I had to admit that this was on another level. I still felt I could do with some more.

My second question was whether I could log out if I was in a game.

When I’d played before, there’d been an interface on my screen that featured a log out button, but it wasn’t visible. I always had the option of exiting the game simply by removing the head-mounted display from my head as well... I wasn’t currently wearing one though.

Actually, I remembered that the interface had only appeared after the school had handed out terminals to the students. That wouldn’t explain the absence of the dialogue boxes. Still, I decided to wait until I got a terminal before checking if I could log out.

My third question was: what had happened to my original body?

It wasn’t clear. It was conceivable that my mind was here while my body remained where it had been, but the update program used the word “transport.” If that was true, my body had disappeared from Earth. There’d be no way of knowing unless I logged out.

My fourth question was: did I even want to return to Earth?

I had reasons to go back. I’d only been at my current job for a few years, but with me gone, the work on my desk would pile up until it spilled over and ruined many people’s days. Also, I had rent and bills to pay. It didn’t cost much as I lived alone, but they wouldn’t pay themselves.

If my body no longer existed on Earth and was fully transported here, I should make the most of it and have fun. There’d be no point trying to fix an unsolvable problem. For better or worse, I had no family and nobody who would miss me. Should I ever make it home, I could cross that bridge when I came to it.

Plenty more questions popped into my head, rabbit holes to run down, but I had no clear answers. With my head a mess of confusion and excitement deep down, I desperately wanted to launch a barrage of questions at my unsuspecting classmates. Regardless, I knew that I needed to be rational. Calm down, I told myself.

On the stage, several teachers gave lengthy addresses that boiled down to “Best of luck,” and then the entrance ceremony was finally over.

“—And that concludes Adventurers’ High School’s entrance ceremony. Each class will now hold a homeroom. Will Class A please exit the hall first?”

In DEC’s storyline, Class A had been home to a few distinguished, elite students, one becoming the student council president and others apprenticing under renowned adventurers or at famous trading companies. Class B was the next to depart, with class C following after, where I spotted characters who’d have questlines revolving around them or who’d been the protagonist’s rival.

While I was scanning students’ faces and lining them up against my memories of the game’s main story, the announcer said, “And finally, will class E now head to your classroom?”

With that, the students around me all rose and began walking toward the exit.

That settled the question of which class I belonged to. I wondered whether I’d been assigned to a custom character instead of the random character I’d opted for. In the game, Class E was the starting point for the protagonist and custom characters.

The students fell into a nervous silence after they’d left the lecture hall. Their eyes flitted in every direction as they tried to orient themselves and find their way to the classroom.

The view outside the window was breathtaking. There was a gigantic training facility, a large on-campus shopping center, a workshop, and more. A lot of money had undoubtedly been invested into making these buildings.

It must be a dream come true for a student to study at such an incredible school, I thought. The facilities here were leagues above those of the old and utterly unremarkable school I’d attended in my world. I remembered mentions in the game that the government ran the Adventurers’ High School out of national concern to secure the fruits of its labors for commercial and political reasons. The treasury had also written a blank check for the school’s budget.

I ascended the stairs while reminiscing about my first journey through high school as a teenager and wondering with mixed feelings what my second one would be like. Before long, I reached a classroom with a sign outside reading 1-E.

For some reason, I was panting. That’s odd, I thought. I shouldn’t be this out of breath.

The climb up the stairs had taken a toll on me. I looked down and noticed that my belly was protruding more than I would’ve expected. My arms and legs also looked a bit plump...or more than a bit. They were positively chunky.

I’m not, uh, fat, am I?

Wanting to get a better look at the character I’d become, I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror... It took a second to realize that it was me in the mirror, not a pig! I had cheeks filled to the brim with fat. My body was almost spherical, and I wore a jumbo-sized school uniform. And I recognized my face...it belonged to one of the story’s villains, a pervy creep who’d constantly harassed one of the heroines.

He was known as...

“Oh shit, I’m Piggy!”