บท 63: Playing for the first time
The Gaming Club members started to show the Mercenary Club members how the game was played. After showing them one game, the two clubs headed out since it was already 17:00, and they needed to get home.
Once Alex got home after escorting Rachel as per usual he headed to his dad's study. After reporting the day's happenings, Carlo reminded his son that tomorrow was the meeting of Rachel's family and their lost father Dan Regius.
When Alex was reminded of this fact, his face grew serious and he saluted, before leaving the room. Alex was walking towards his room, the anxiety he was feeling was something even more than the anxiety he felt as he faced death.
Alex gritted his teeth and calmed his mind by repeating the chant he kept on saying to calm his nerves.
'I need to be strong, I need to be more than human. Fear and anxiety bring nothing but hesitation, hesitation brings death in the battlefield.' This was the chant that kept him going from one battle to the next.
Alex kept on repeating this chant in his mind, but for some reason, it wasn't working like it always did. That was when Alex remembered about the game he saw awhile ago. He needed to practice playing that game anyway so might as well play it.
Alex approached one of the maids and asked where the game room was located.
"The game room? Isn't that beside the young master's room?" When Alex heard the maid's answer he immediately headed towards the room beside his own, and like the maid said this was truly a game room.
It was a large room, that was filled with a library of games, and in the middle of the room, where four TV sets, with surround sound. All of the past and current consoles were plugged into different forms of television. Finally behind the TV sets was a PC with three monitors.
The feel and look of the CPU were like it came from a sci-fi novel, the PC itself as also sci-fi-ish. There was even a VR set laying there at the side. Alex was overwhelmed by the new world he had entered, he was both confused and excited.
Alex had used a computer before, but that was just for training purposes. This time he was going to use the computer for entertainment purposes. Alex sat in front of the computer, turned on all of the screens, and the PC's start-up button. When the computer got booted up, Alex stopped moving.
'How do I play that game?' The library of games was astounding but at the same time, it made things difficult. If one wanted to find a specific game, it would take hours to look and check the whole thing. The order of the games was not chronological, nor alphabetical. Alex had no time to find out how the games where placed and in what order.
So the fastest way to find the game was to call the maid or butler that was assigned to clean this room, surely he/she would know where the game Alex was looking for was placed.
Alex took the phone located beside the computer and dialed the local number for the head butler. The call connected and Alex asked for the person in charge of cleaning the gaming room. After a few minutes, a maid came into the room, Alex asked her if they had the game called Perfect Soldier.
The maid enthusiastically answered Alex and started to explain how wonderful the game was.
"No need to explain how good the game is. I will find out for myself. So first I need you to find the game, and then install it." When the maid heard Alex's request she immediately found the game from the massive library and started to install it.
When Alex saw how fast the maid found the game, he was surprised since that means there was a pattern to how the games where arranged on the shelf.
"How did you arrange the games? It's not chronological or anything simple like that... So how did you arrange them?"
"Huh? I arranged the games depending on how much I love them. The best games for me, are placed near the center. Since Perfect Soldier is one of my top 10 favorite games, I placed it near the computer. This way whenever young master felt like playing he could enjoy the games I like." The maid happily replied.
...
After the game was finished installing the maid taught Alex the basic controls. Once she was done explaining she wanted to stay and watch her young master play, but since she had other duties she reluctantly left.
When the game started, Alex was given the option to start with story mode, or multiplayer. Since Alex didn't know much about games, he started with the story mode.
The game started with a cutscene, a man was in the middle of a war zone. The man who seems to be Alex's game character was hiding in the trenches. Suddenly another soldier pops up out of nowhere, Alex reflexively pulled out his gun, then he remembered he was playing a game.
Alex put away his gun and continued watching the cutscene. The soldier that approached him seem to be an ally, he then proceeded to teach Alex the basic controls of the game. When that was done, he gave a mission objective, it said to give support fire to allied troops.
It was a simple enough mission, and Alex had done it numerous times in real life. So when he headed to an ideal position, he was blocked by something like an invisible wall. He tried as hard as he could but failed to go through the invisible barrier. So when Alex tried to turn his character around he got shot in the head and died.
MISSION FAILED
Alex stared at the screen dumbfounded, he couldn't process what had happened. He couldn't hear the enemy coming since the game had too many background noises, he couldn't feel the killing intent of the enemy since it was a game. All in all, he couldn't notice the enemy approaching him before it was too late.
Worst of all he saw in the screen words written in big letters, the words were MISSION FAILED. Those words struck him the most, he who had a 100% completion rate in real life, was bested by a game. Even though this failure wouldn't reflect his actual record, just seeing the words MISSION FAILED made Alex feel like something wanted to come out from deep inside him, and destroy everything in sight.
How could he accept such a result? Ever since he had become a mercenary this was the first time he was told he failed, and the feeling he got from it was not pleasant.
Alex proceeded to press the restart mission button and this time, he will win.
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