Vol 3. Chapter 106: Immersive Experience

You could only say that, for the sake of being fun to play, a game had to sacrifice a lot of realism.

Take this Dawn Saintess modeled after Selena, for example. It was obvious she wasn’t Selena. Aside from the similar face, Vinny couldn’t find a single point in common. Compared to the Selena he knew, this was basically a different person altogether.

“Woah!”

Clearly, this was Milian and Shicodale’s first time seeing magic used like this—or at least their first time seeing magic phenomena applied to a game.

“I have to admit, when it comes to making games, you humans really do have some imagination!”

“Well then, in order, Mirexia dear goes first,” Aesphyra said, passing the die to Mirexia.

“Vinny, what am I supposed to do?”

Mirexia took the die, looking somewhat at a loss.

Her Highness the Princess, always drowning in affairs of state and official duties, had never “indulged” herself like this. She was completely clueless about this kind of entertainment activity. Even seeing a die, she didn’t know what she was meant to do with it.

At the root of it, Mirexia had been trained too well. The strict rules and regulations engrained in her mind were forever reminding her what she was and wasn’t supposed to do. She didn’t dare cross a single line. That was why she always gave off such a rigid, by-the-book impression in daily life.

“You roll the die. However many points you roll, your character moves that many spaces,” Vinny explained.

“Like this?”

Mirexia threw the die in her hand. After a few tumbles, it settled on three.

Her role, the golden-haired man with dragon wings, immediately rose into the air and advanced three spaces through a district of towering palaces and high buildings.

“That’s right, just like that. You did great, Mirexia,” Vinny praised her.

It might have been a trivial action, but for someone as rule-bound as Mirexia, this was already a very difficult first step.

Getting Mirexia to voluntarily try to understand these games in the first place was an extremely hard thing to do.

Although, something felt a little off. Vinny couldn’t help feeling like what he’d just said sounded like an adult coaxing a small child, or a master coaxing a pet dog.

When she heard Vinny praise her, Mirexia’s face, for some reason, went just the slightest shade pink. Who knew what she’d connected it to in her mind. In any case, no one else noticed.

[Virtue +50]

[Current Virtue: 6574]

Seeing Mirexia being praised by Vinny, Shicodale, sitting opposite them, for some reason regretted not taking the seat next to Vinny instead.

And after all, Student Council President Mirexia hadn’t done anything. She’d just rolled a die. He could have done that too.

So was this what they called favoritism? No matter what Mirexia did, she could always get praise from Vinny.

Well, of course. Mirexia was Vinny’s childhood friend. They’d grown up together.

At that thought, Shicodale’s mood dipped a little.

[Virtue +50]

[Current Virtue: 6624]

There it was again.

Vinny knew it.

Things had been so peaceful lately that he’d almost forgotten about the Virtue system altogether. Aside from the lack of major incidents, the main reason, he felt, was that he hadn’t been around Mirexia much. Whenever he spent more time with her, her passive would trigger, and his Virtue would start exploding on its own while she just sat there, AFK.

See? There it was. All he had to do was sit next to her without doing anything particularly noteworthy, and Mirexia would start blasting out Virtue, twice in a row even.

It was only now that Vinny finally understood the principle behind Mirexia’s AFK auto-Virtue farming.

It wasn’t that the Virtue system was malfunctioning or giving Mirexia special treatment. It was because of her personality.

Maybe because her daily stress was too high, or because a rigid, rule-bound life had suppressed too many instincts, Mirexia’s inner drama was incredibly rich. For no reason at all, she’d constantly add scenes in her head. That was what caused her passive “auto Virtue gain” skill.

Then, above Mirexia’s position on the board, a giant question-mark box floated up. From inside it popped the symbol of a longsword and a plus sign.

“Lucky you, Mirexia dear. You drew an Attack Up,” Aesphyra said with a bright smile.

“Then I’m next.”

“Wait, everyone—how about we try an Immersive Mode run this time?”

Just as Vinny was about to pick up the die, Aesphyra suddenly made a suggestion.

“Immersive Mode? What does that mean?” Vinny didn’t understand.

“Literally what it sounds like,” Aesphyra replied. “I only just noticed that the Divine Authority Mission set here is the newest version. That means it includes the publisher’s brand-new Immersive Mode update. It’s been getting rave reviews.”

“Immersive Mode? How does that work?” Vinny asked.

Aside from him, everyone else stayed quiet.

“In that case, I’ll take that as everyone tacitly agreeing, okay?”

Aesphyra didn’t explain. Instead, she took something that looked like an eye mask out of the box and handed one to each person present.

“Put this part of the eye mask onto the base of your piece, then put the mask on,” Aesphyra explained.

She demonstrated as she spoke, attaching the little magnet at the back of the mask—printed with a symbol—to the base of her piece, then putting the mask on and adjusting it.

Milian, whose curiosity level was off the charts, followed suit right away. The moment she put the eye mask on, she let out a shriek on the spot.

“Eh, eh?! Wh-where did I go? Wh-what—??”

She quickly tore the eye mask off and found she was still in the room.

Vinny had more or less figured out what this thing was by now. Honestly, the moment he saw its shape and the complex magic circuit patterns inscribed on it, he’d basically understood what the eye mask did. The déjà vu was way too strong.

Sure enough, after Vinny put his on, his vision wavered—and then a new scene appeared before his eyes, towering buildings rising around him.

What he saw was the in-game world, a truly immersive experience. This was pretty much the same as VR from his previous life.

Vinny looked around and saw the others present.

If there were no surprises, what he should have seen as “Mirexia” ought to be a burly golden-haired man with dragon wings—the original model for the piece she’d chosen.

What he didn’t expect was that, after entering Immersive Mode, Mirexia’s appearance was just her usual self. Only her clothes had changed to match the outfit of the original model.

And honestly, the outfit suited her quite well. The original clothes were fairly androgynous to begin with.

Then Vinny saw Milian, bow in hand, dressed in Golden Elf royal hunting garb, and Shicodale, wearing Moon Elf ceremonial finery, hair done up in long braids instead of his usual single ponytail.

So that’s what long braided hair on Shicodale felt like? She was overflowing with princess vibes.

Vinny even felt that, back when they’d still been in the land of the Moon Elves, Shicodale had probably dressed like this.

Next were Aesphyra, clad in imperial robes, crown of crowns atop her head and scepter in hand, and Isatia, with her greatsword.

“Holy crap!”

After looking around and seeing that everyone else’s faces were unchanged and only their clothes were different, Vinny suddenly realized a very serious problem—his own appearance.

Didn’t that mean his current appearance would be the same as Selena’s, in Saintess robes??

Damn it.

He didn’t even dare picture how much of an eyesore he must look right now.

“White-haired nutball! You did this on purpose, didn’t you? I knew you were up to no good. You really have the most twisted taste!” Vinny shouted—only to realize, mid-shout, that his voice had changed. It was a female voice he didn’t know, and yet it felt faintly familiar.

“Eh?”

Vinny finally looked down at his own current form. The moment he saw the cherry-pink hair spill over his shoulders, his face froze, and his back broke into a cold sweat on the spot.

“Eh? Why isn’t the blue-haired one in his own form?” Milian looked at Vinny, asking in puzzled curiosity.

“...”

Vinny’s face was stiff, his lips trembling. He couldn’t say a word.

N-no way.

Had he somehow hit a transformation hotkey by accident??

No, how much of a scumbag would you have to be to change his keybinds like that?!

Wait, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t even tried to turn into Vanessa, so why—

When Mirexia and Isatia noticed Vinny’s appearance, a strange look flashed across both their faces. Their gazes grew more and more doubtful as they turned to him, clearly not understanding.

[Virtue +60]

[Current Virtue: 6684]

[Virtue +100]

[Current Virtue: 6784]

Mirexia, being the one closest to him, took in Vinny’s current appearance and, after a moment of thought, seemed to realize what was going on.

“Well now, Vinny, are you all right?” Aesphyra asked with a narrow-eyed smile. “I forgot to mention something. In Immersive Mode, you can choose whether to use your own appearance or use the original model’s appearance.”

“We all chose to use our own appearances. It looks like you picked the piece’s original model, Vinny.”

“...”

After a long silence, Vinny finally managed to breathe again and let out a huge sigh of relief in his heart.

Right. Of course.

The resemblance was strong, but there were still differences—like how Vanessa was taller than Selena. Selena’s height was on the shorter side, sliding right up to the edge of the loli range.

Of course, she was still taller than Aesphyra, the floorboard of girl height.

In other words, right now, his appearance was Selena’s??

“No, that’s not right. Why did you all get to be yourselves and I didn’t? Why couldn’t I change? Why didn’t I get a prompt?” Vinny asked, pressing his lips together.

“Ah, I forgot to tell you, Vinny. Even if you wanted to use your own appearance, you wouldn’t be able to. The Dawn Saintess piece doesn’t allow appearance changes. Anyone who enters has to use that form~” Aesphyra said, sounding like she’d just remembered.

“So you really did do this on purpose, huh?”

“How is that my fault? You’re the one who accidentally smashed all the other pieces. How does that end up being my responsibility?” Aesphyra replied, amused.

“Tch!”

Vinny had nothing to rebut with.

“It’s all right, Vinny. It’s just a game,” Mirexia said from beside him, trying to comfort him.

“Yeah~ Vinny, this form suits you really well,” Aesphyra added teasingly. “It’d be great if you actually looked like this.”

“Get lost. My gender doesn’t even match, okay?!” Vinny shot her a glare.

Mirexia and Isatia said nothing in response to that.

“Tch, as if this guy could ever look this good,” Milian muttered under her breath, unwilling to accept it.

“Honestly.”

Vinny subconsciously reached up and swept aside a lock of hair at his temple—then immediately realized that what he’d just done was kind of weird.

Shit.

Was it the perspective? Had he subconsciously slipped into Vanessa mode? Or at least into cross-dressing mode??

“Not bad, Vinny. You’ve really got that ‘Saintess’ aura going. Do you secretly cross-dress at home all the time~?” Aesphyra teased.

She was definitely hinting at the beauty pageant, wasn’t she?

“Tch, just keep running your mouth. See what happens,” Vinny said through gritted teeth, picking up the die and tossing it.

He rolled a five, and in everyone’s field of view, the staff-wielding Saintess girl moved forward five spaces with a slightly shy look.

“What’s my random event?”

Vinny looked at the question-mark box floating in front of him, hoping it would spit out some sort of item or a stat bonus. But what popped out was a cage.

“Huh? What’s that?” he asked, confused.

A huge shadow appeared at his feet. A moment later, an iron cage crashed down from above, slamming shut around him.

“Eh—eh?!” Vinny’s eyes went wide.

“Pfft. Oh my~ Vinny, you’re really unlucky. You managed to pull the most troublesome trap in the whole ‘Self-Sabotage Card’ set—the Iron-Thorn Cage.”

Aesphyra couldn’t hold back her laughter.

“You’re sure this isn’t rigged?” Vinny couldn’t help saying.

“So what now? How am I supposed to °• N o v e l i g h t •° get out?”

In everyone else’s view, the cherry-haired girl was gripping the bars of the cage, looking out.

And somehow, whether it was Mirexia or Isatia, seeing Vinny like this made them hallucinate Vanessa overlaid on top of him.

“Well, now you have to wait for another player to draw a key and choose to rescue you. Only then can you get out,” Aesphyra said cheerfully. It was her turn to roll.

You could only say the strongest child of fortune was still the strongest child of fortune. Aesphyra moved six spaces and promptly drew a luxuriously decorated sword.

“Oh my, a Legendary-grade weapon~ Sorry, everyone,” Aesphyra said, smiling even more brightly.

“Don’t worry, Vinny. I’ll come back for you after I make a full lap and buff all my stats. You just rest there for now.”

“And then, once you let me out, you’ll cut me down in one swing, right?!” Vinny said, laughing in exasperation.

“Don’t worry, Vinny! If I draw a key, I’ll come save you!”

In the end, it was still Shicodale who was the most considerate. The moment he saw Vinny in trouble—even if it was only in a game—he immediately shouted to him.