Chương 12: 12 - What an interesting story!

Looking at the Residual Devil data, Gabe was shocked!

[Residual Devil: Village]

[Downloads: 4.977]

[Average playing time: 2.2 hours.]

[Accumulated Mana: 10,950]

[Available for withdrawal: $2,423]

In the last 30 minutes since he had refreshed the page, the game had been downloaded by over 300 people, nearly hitting 5k downloads, and he already had $2,423 available to withdraw from purchases by those who bought the Collector's Edition!

Considering that he kept 70% of the revenue while the other 30% went to the platform he published the game on, after some quick calculations Gabe discovered that in just 5 minutes since the game was updated more than 1,150 people had bought the collector's edition!

"The goal I set out to achieve in a few days was achieved in just a few minutes…" Gabe gaped.

Seeing how fast the numbers were rising, Gabe got even more excited.

"Today I'm going out to eat something delicious!" he said excitedly, as he continued to watch the numbers go up.

While Gabe was excitedly basking in the money he was earning, Amoura had already hooked up her VR headset and had everything set up while booting up Residual Devil. As one might imagine, the start of the game this time was different. Instead of being immediately transported to the village like the other times she had played, now she was in a dark world, and in front of her two people appeared, a man and a woman.

Soon a message popped up in front of her:

[Do you want to follow the story with Ethan or Athena? Your choice will only change the gender of some characters, thus keeping the original plot without any substantial changes.]

"Can I pick a female character now?!" Amoura shouted out excitedly.

As a woman, controlling Ethan, who had a male body and a deep voice was a little strange for her, so despite getting more or less used to it over time, it was still something that took her out of the immersion from time to time. But now that she could choose a female character to play, it made her that much happier.

Without thinking twice, Amoura chose to play as Athena. This was one of the options that Gabe decided to develop for Chapter 01 that wasn't inspired by the original game from the other world. Since he watched Amoura's livestream a lot, he heard her comment that it was strange to control a male character several times. Initially he didn't intend to do this, but since he was getting so much Mana from players, and considering that female players made up 40% of the total players in this world, Gabe felt it was a worthwhile change to make.

As he was able to simulate the characters on the first try, the amount of Mana that Gabe used to make such a basic change in the game's story was only 200 Mana Units, which may have seemed like a lot to other Developers, but for him who intended to invest in players' immersion in this game, that amount was almost nothing.

After selecting her character, Amoura felt her surroundings change.

[A long time ago, a girl went out with her mother to look for fruit for her father, who was working.]

A very pleasant male voice came into Amoura's ear, while a 2D animation was projected from a paper book, causing a very new sensation.

"What a cool animation style," Amoura commented as she watched with interest.

[But the forest greeted them with cold, gloomy silence and empty bushes.]

[Determined to find fruit, the little girl left the mother and disappeared into the trees.]

[The mother's calls soon faded away as the girl ran over vines, under branches, and into the forest.]

Seeing the girl running away from her mother and entering the dark forest alone, Amoura was worried.

"Careful little girl, don't run away from your mother!" she tried to warn, but as this story was being projected from a book, Amoura understood that she couldn't do anything to change what was going to happen there.

[As she felt watched by strange eyes, the girl remembered the horror stories her mother told at night and her throat went dry.]

[…]

The story developed and Amoura became more and more delighted to see the adventures of the little girl who was exploring this wonderful forest and meeting such charming animals.

When the little girl ran into a big sea monster, Amoura was worried that the little girl was finally going to die, but when the monster gave her one of its scales to eat, Amoura felt that the fish was very cute. With each animal that appeared, Amoura was each time a little worried, but ultimately she was very happy to see them treating the little girl well.

That was, until the little girl took a golden relic from a metal horse's head, thinking it was a gift, but the horse was enraged and called the other animals to help her.

Afraid, the little girl backed away until a witch appeared, covering the monsters with shadows as she said:

[Gifts we gave, but you wanted more…]

When the narrator said this sentence, Amoura felt her vision changing from the immersive view she had of the book in 2D to the view of a warm and comfortable house. Sitting out front was a white man with brown hair and a serene expression. On the man's lap was the / a different little girl sleeping, while he held a book in his other hand.

"This is the house that appeared in the game's trailer!" Amoura told her viewers excitedly. Realizing that the man's position was the same as Ethan's wife in the trailer, she deduced that this man was Athena's husband.

Looking at the child in the man's lap, Amoura soon deduced that this little girl must be Rose, Ethan's daughter, or in her case, Athena's daughter, who they were looking for in the game's Demo.

"What a lovely little girl…" Amoura said when Athena's husband placed Rose in her lap.

[Awnnn, Rose is so cute!]

[Look at the size of this child's head! LOL]

[I can't believe they kidnapped such a beautiful girl.]

[What are they going to do with Rose after they kidnap her?]

With a lot of patience, Amoura decided to explore the house while carrying Rose around before putting the little girl in her crib.

Throughout the house she found several objects that told part of the story of Athena and her husband, and in the bathroom she found several antidepressant drugs that left her a little worried, especially when reading on a floating screen that they were Milo, her husband's, medicine which he had to start taking after "the incident".

"What is this 'incident'?" Amoura wondered, confused.

[Was it something that happened before the game?]

[I think we'll find that out in the story won't we?]

[Probably.]

[I'm loving how there are so many details in the house. It feels like EA has thought of every little thing for the game's story! This is so much better than a book!]

[I wish I was a Player so I could experience this…]

[Me too…]

[Maybe EA will release a book in the future with the complete story of the game?]

[It would be a great idea!]

Gabe, who was reading this l, thought of something.

'If someone can livestream in-game, they can also record, right? So it wouldn't be impossible to turn the game into a movie! Considering how realistic the graphics of the games made from Seeds are, in addition to being a very low-budget film, ordinary people could also enjoy the game and it could make some money for me…'

Thinking this would be a great idea for the future, Gabe made a note of it so he wouldn't forget, especially if he needed money at some point.

Amoura was enjoying the married life she never had in real life: the love Milo showed her, the photos of the two of them around the house. Well, that was until she sat at the table with Milo. Athena started talking about the supposed "incident", which Milo apparently just wanted to forget and get over, while Athena just couldn't ignore it.

But suddenly, the door of the house was blown up, scaring Amoura who was very busy talking with Milo. Quickly, an elite squad entered the house with guns pointed at the two while a man came and pointed his gun at Milo, who was lying on the ground unconscious, shooting him.

Seeing Milo shot, who a few minutes ago had been treating her so well, showing so much affection for Rose and her, Amoura felt her heart sink. But even worse was when the man grabbed Rose and started to take her away.

From the conversation that Athena automatically was having with that man, Amoura understood that they apparently knew each other and she had trusted him, but her thoughts were only filled with concern for Rose.

Suddenly the men handcuffed Amoura and took her to an armored police vehicle. She was still in shock, not knowing what was going on.

"How did this happen? They're the ones who kidnapped Rose!? What's going to happen to me to cause me to get to that village?!" Amoura was confused while trapped inside the police vehicle.

Even the livestream chat was confused.

Suddenly, she noticed Athena was getting drowsy and her eyes were getting heavy, until Athena apparently fell asleep…

But before Amoura could understand what was happening, Athena woke up with the car overturning. As she was not wearing a seat belt, she was thrown out when the vehicle door opened.

Fortunately, the ground was heavily covered with snow, which broke her fall. Still a bit confused, Amoura looked around and heard the phone of one of the police officers ringing.

[It's about time! What's the situation? Is the package safe?] - A voice came out of the phone.

Amoura tried to understand what was happening. "What are you talking about? Where's Rose?"

[Who is this? This is a protected channel! You are not authorized to-] The voice was cut off when the cell phone battery died.

"Fuck…" Amoura swore angrily.

Looking around, she found a clipboard.

[Mission Objectives:

- Eliminate the target, retrieve the body.

- Take Rosemary Winters e Athena Winters.

Take both Winters to Site C for further investigation.

Minimum 2 transport agents to take them.]

"What did they want to do to me and Rose…?" Amoura wondered, confused even more.

Seeing a flashlight on the ground, she began to search the guards but found no weapons.

Looking around, Amoura saw that there was a path like a trail in front of the place where the truck had overturned. Without much else to do, Amoura started to follow the path while trying to understand what was happening.

[Woah, this story is much deeper than I imagined!]

[How did EA think of something so interesting?! I'm eating popcorn while watching this.]

[Amoura, even my parents came to watch you playing with me after I told them the story of what was going on. lol]

[My mom also sat next to me and started watching too, she's asking me a lot of things trying to understand what's going on, when I told her what I knew she got very curious and came to watch too!]

[This game looks like so much fun!]

[I didn't know games could be this much fun!]

Amoura was walking very carefully. She had even forgotten to answer the chat, mainly because she was worried about some zombies appearing while she was walking through the dark forest. Her hand already had some cuts from pieces of wood that she had to deflect. From time to time she heard howls of wolves, which made her slow down a little to wait and observe if they were close.

In a few minutes the sun began to rise. On the way she had found a small abandoned cabin, but while exploring the place she hadn't found anything useful until she had searched the basement. Suddenly, Amoura heard a loud noise from the floor above. When she went back up the steps she saw that the house was overturned and half of the wall had been destroyed!

Amoura's heart was racing to the point that she was a little desperate, looking for a weapon to defend herself, but this small building had nothing! Leaving through the path that the hole in the wall left for her, Amoura continued following the trail, and when the sun was shining enough for Amoura not to need the flashlight anymore, she saw a small village.

Looking at the large castle on top of the hill, Amoura recognized this place.

"That's that village!" she said, shocked.

//NunuNote//

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