Professional Gamer: it sounds like a job others would yearn to have, to be able to use games to support oneself and even gain fame and fortune. Who wouldnt want to become one?

2055

In 2055, this has even become a socially accepted profession. In this industry, top talents have influence on par with celebrity athletes.

The age range for professional gamers is between fourteen to thirty-five years old. Of course there are experts who are even a bit younger, it's just that can't participate due to some games' age restrictions.

Generally speaking, professional gamers can be simply separated into two types: one is the celebrity gamer, and the other is the average blue collared gamer.

Generally, celebrity gamers choose to retire around thirty years of age. One or another, they'd play during their spare time or withdraw to become second-stringers. Basically, they're all preparing to enter the studio's administrative level. There are some who switch other professions related to the gaming industry. For example, commentators, referees, organizers, etc. Still others who'd earned quite a lot to fill their pockets would set themselves up as business proprietors.

All who've tread this path wish to become these kinds of celebrity gamers. But many people who start on this path from the moment after they graduate middle school (TL: This would be after 9th grade, so most kids are around 14-15 years old when they graduate.) and work until their thirties will still not amount to any fame. In the end, they'd still find some way to return to society (the non-gaming sort). You could say that these people made a gamble with their youth and and only they were clearest on how much they won or lost themselves. These nonentity players were just like the blue collars of this industry. They were the backbone strength behind the industry, without their support the studios would basically be unable to function. Those celebrity gamers also need their firm support. (TL: In case no one picked up on that, this is the author's nice way of say that these players are the nameless grinders for the celebrity gamers.)

And one of the most frustrating things in this line business is the savageness of the competition.

Any game that is able to be a tremendous hit all inevitably have this "rivalry". If in a game there is no way to let two players or two groups of players to separate the stronger or weaker of the parties involved, then this game wouldn't attract any studio to join and the scope of players it would would appeal to be extremely limited.

PK

In regards to MMOs, it doesn't matter whether you're a PVP character or even if you're wearing PVE gear, there are still things resolved by PK. (TL: Just in case there are any readers unfamiliar with the abbreviations: MMOs= Massively Multiplayer Online, PVP= Player Versus Player, PVE= Player Versus Environment, PK= Player Kill.)

The most simple and straightforward way for a professional player to prove their worth can be summed up with one wordwin.

Unfortunately, in this world, glory is fleeting, no such thing as a permanent general. No one can win forever.

Aging, the highs and lows of a person's condition during competition, the decline of some game, and other such factors have caused countless former elites that were regarded as "gods" by the players to gradually fade out of sight. The number of people who were able to fully retreat can be counted on one hand.

The more outstanding the Game Studios, the more cruel the competition. They always need new and fresh young blood. They need a horde who are highly competitive, new people who possess ambition and fighting mentality.The kind people that could drag a such lofty god-ranked player down from their their altar at anytime.

Simply putan ambitious genius. Such as Heaven Swallowing Daring Devil.

This time Regulation Studio invested in four labor force groups. Ten people per group, with one to two celebrity gamers per group. The rest of which are mainly veterans, seasoned blue-collar players.

And Heaven Swallowing Daring Devil is the only new player within these four groups under the age of twenty.

Regulation Studio placed high hopes on him, that's why he was added to the list of the first players to enter Thriller paradise. The group leader didn't give him any tasks; it was fine for him to just play according to his own whims. Who knew that during his first time in the mode Massacre Game, he'd incidentally meet the three man group led by Fearless Brave One and this punk killed them all in a manner that showed no consideration of his seniors. It's fair to say that since he executed this kind of willfully rash action, he deserved to be "sent on holiday" by the group leader.

Of course, Fearless Brave One also can't be considered on the level of the "strongest". Within the many celebrity gamers in Regulation, whether it's past gaming achievements or reputation, he wouldn't even be places in the top ten. Although his group succeeded in seizing the title for first to reach Level 20 in closed beta, Regulation's true strength far more than just this.

The four groups presently could only be said to be the "scouting squad", the strongest players in the studio only registered their accounts to reserve their usernames and haven't gotten online since. In other wordsRegulation's true experts at present haven't even officially been dispatched to this project. The studio executives had long made a decision to wait and see at least until after Dream Corp. opens the currency exchange and charging service before deciding whether or not to invest in those top talent reserves to go in.

Having said so much, everyone might be a little beyond words; how did you go off tangent there? What about Feng Bujue? What about Nooccar City's Scenario?

Please stay and I'll use three measures to bring matters back around.

Having spoke of studios, this time around in Feng Bujue's Scenario, there was also a studio member.

But he didn't classify as a lofty big-name subordinate of Regulation, he was the kind I mentioned previously that was a boss of a third-rate studio, simultaneously a manager of finance and a player.

He wasAtobe-sama.

Alright I believe everyone's guessed it already. That's right, his Studio is called "".

In the real world, Atobe-sama was twenty-three years old and just graduated from college last year. His dad runs a factory, so his family had a little bit of savings to allow him to set up.In anycase, the costs of opening a gaming studio aren't high it's just renting a place and buying a few game cabins, that's all. It, basically, isn't necessary to calculate the amount of manpower invested; his staff were all his college buddies.

Moreover, currently Atobe-sama only had three people in total under his control. One of them was the one currently in the same Scenario as himNames Are Really Difficult to Chooseand the other two are respectively calledChoosing Names is Really DifficultandReally Difficult to Choose Names. Even though Atobe-sama was deadly earnest in the past in demanding his three buddies to use names like Kabaji, Oshitari, and so on, he'd only met with merciless refusal. When he threatened them with their wages, he was met with Aruba. (TL: I unfortunately don't have an English link for this, but the other name for this is apparently the Happy Corner. Where basically a victim is lifted, his legs spread open and then forced into a pole, smacking the, uh, happy place. The victim is either smack into the pole or forcibly ground into it. Here's an uncomfortable picture for better depiction; you have been warned.)

Contrary to the image they give off, their Studio was also aware that they needed two shifts to alternate; that's why they split into two groups. Presently, the other two people are spending the time they're not in game to go eat some midnight snacks.

Atobe-sama's in-game appearance was that of a elegant, fair-skinned male with a lithe body. As a whole, there wasn't much disparity with his original appearance just that his face was clearly altered.

Names Are Really Difficult to Choose was of medium build, slightly shorter than Atobe-sama. This person's appearance was just like his name giving off a kind of "indifferent about appearance" feeling. Not only did he not change his appearance to be more handsome, but he instead gave himself a bald appearance, saying he'd like to experience for a bit what it was like to be bald in game. (TL: Vexed believes bald is beautiful.)

Atobe-sama's Title seemed to be a vicious taunt from the System,A Swordsman. His weapon was just a sword that looked just like the weapons especially used by miscellaneous bandits in a Wuxia soap opera. It's grade was Ordinary and didn't even have any attributes or special effects, but at least it was a decent weapon.

And unlike Atobe-sama's generic passerby-like title, Names Are Really Difficult to Choose's title was very recognizable. Just four wordsLooks Strong, Actually Weak. (TL: This is just a Chinese Idiom that means someone who looks strong but is actually weak. Very similar to the paper tiger idiom.) His bald and experienced image clearly contrasted with his Terror value performance. He didn't even have a decent weapon. He only had two baseball bats and one rusty iron pipe in his inventory picked up from who knows where.

Their luck wasn't bad, the place they landed was about only a block away from each other so they were able to quickly meet up.

Though these two didn't look very reliable, they actually were still a little bit better than others. If they really didn't understand a single thing about games, why the heck would they open a studio for. So Atobe-sama made a very appropriate decision, forget the mission for now, find a munitions store and arm themselves before doing anything else.

One look at the situation in this city, it is immediately apparent that this is the American Empire land of all corruptions, so it's very likely that there would be an arms store in the city. Even if there isn't any startling heavy artillery, but regulation pistols, shotguns, rifles, etc., and above all ample ammunition, it would all be extremely valuable.

The two headed the same way together and frequently ran into groups of wandering Blood Wolf Zombies in twos and threes. But these guys weren't very threatening. If they couldn't be bothered to attack they'd go around them, and if the monsters couldn't be avoided, then the two would just give them a knock to the head. Though, when they get within lunging distance of biting, the creatures' movement would abruptly accelerate quite a bit. But as long as they were a cautious and aren't both surrounded closely by three or more monsters, then these guys were still very easy to kill.

911

After traversing past two blocks, Atobe-sama entered a phone booth, he lifted the phone, and the line simply wasn't connected. Actually, even if it were connected, he wouldn't even know who to call, could he even dial 911? His main target for entering the phone booth was for the telephone directory. After searching for three to five minutes, Atobe-sama succeeded in finding the nearest munitions store. He and Names Are Really Difficult to Choose (I've decided to call him Lil' Name from now on) then sped up their pace, proceeding towards that place.

Several more minutes later, they approached their destination, but met with an extremely strange scene.

The only things they saw were the corpses of about thirty Blood Wolf Zombies spread. Each corpses' head were all smashed to pulp and their dead bodies led all the way up to the front door of the munitions store.

Unexpectedly, in the middle of the street in front of the store in broad daylight was a large cylindrical cooler with the Gatorade logo. The cooler was filled to the brim with a red liquid and the on the ground beside it were littered loads of empty plastic blood bags. The smell was so pure and strong that even humans could smell it from a long distance away.

Two stereos were arranged beside the "blood bucket", loudly playingMarch of the Matadors. Judging from the marks on the ground, they were apparently dragged out from the music store across the street. A circuit box on the side of the road was broken open. Its state inside couldn't be clearly seen, in any case, the stereos' power cable extended all the way until there.

"What's going on?" asked Lil' Name.

Atobe-sama also had yet to make sense of what was happening, but he didn't have the time to respond anyway, when he saw a Blood Wolf Zombie come flying out from a corner behind the blood bucket.

""X

Immediately following it came a man soaked completely from head to toe in blood. In one hand he wielded a dagger, a pipe wrench in the other. Around his each of his shoulders was a slanted strand of garlic bulbs. These two "garlic belts" that crisscrossed at the front of his torso, forming an X-shape, had all been dyed red by blood.

He stepped to the beat of the March of the Matadors, dancing like the Axe Gang inKung Fu Hustle. It looked like he had something like chewing gum in his mouth, gnawing on some vague white thing. He danced with quick and light steps toward the Blood Wolf Zombie, then lashed in a crazy burst at the monster that had yet to get up, beating it until bone shattered muscles and blood splattered in the air.

After ending the creature, he seemed to realize something. He suddenly straightened up, spun his head around, and just happened to spot Atobe-sama and Lil' Name's dumbstruck figures.

"Run!" "Quick leave!" After their eyes met Feng Bujue's for all of two seconds, they both shouted at the same time and turned to run.

Feng Bujue also didn't bother saying anything more and broke into a run, giving chase. He actually really wanted to yell, "The heck you running for? I'm a player!" but since his mouth was full of garlic, there was no way for him to shout.

"BOSS"

On the other side, as soon as he saw the harbinger of evil come chasing with a vigorous pose, Lil' Name's Terror Value shot up in an instant. He lamented to Atobe-sama while running, "We're done for, we're done for, we're done for. If this guy chases up to us, then we're screwed. This is all your fault! Nothing was wrong, why'd we have to go look for a arms store? Sure enough, a mini-BOSS was stationed at the door to the arms shop!"

Atobe-sama turned his head around from time to time, glancing at the ever encroaching Feng Bujue. "What does that have to do with me! How would I know that the situation would be like this!" He turned back around for another look, "That said it seems like this guy runs faster than us!"

"I'd long since knew that already! It's outrageously fast!" blurted Lil' Name.

Feng Bujue who was approximately twenty meters away from them heard all of their little exchange and thought to himself, "Bullshit. I, your father, am wearingJazz Dance, and you little lambs want to compete with me in running?"

Who knew, at this time, that the two people in front would suddenly have a mutual understand and speak in unison, "Split up!"

At the next intersection, they split left and right, each going in one direction.

Feng Bujue cried out in alarm to himself. "These bastards still have some tricks!"

He also didn't give it much thought and turned left, randomly chasing after one of them.

That one just happened to be Atobe-sama.

"Crap we didn't force him to hesitate at all!" Atobe-sama soliloquized, "Letting that damn baldy go, not chasing him despite being such an obvious target, and directly rushing at me, I must've been screwed over by my own dashing good looks."

BOSS

Eyes watching the pursuing Feng Bujue get closer and and closer, Atobe-sama's Terror Value climbed higher and higher. He knew that would probably get caught in the end. Instead of getting one-shot from behind by this mini-BOSS, he'd rather turn around and fight.

Having thought up to this point, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, raised his plain sword, held it horizontal in front of him, and slashed at the high-speed incoming Feng Bujue.

"Eh?" But when Feng Bujue rushed before him, Atobe-sama discovered the blade in his hands would simply not move at all. His movement was halted by the System.

Feng Bujue arrived before him, stopped, gasped, glared at him, and intermittently wheezed, "IhaahII amyourhaahone of you! YouBeep!"

"Moron" in the end this word was blocked by the System. Under normal circumstances, Feng Bujue would basically not be able to even try to say this word aloud, but since he was beeped this proves that he meant no insult whatsoever when he spoke, just meant it in a teasing kind of manner.

"Hah?" Atobe-sama just slumped and sat on the ground, his complexion deathly white, and the corner of his mouth twitched. "Ahahhssorry," he apologized unexpectedly.