Fantasy Jigoku Fūkei Online

[Siren77]

Jigoku Fūkei Online
地獄風景


Brave Warriors…. Saranthia lies in ruin at the hand of the Void…. The Nemesis of Mortality has made itself known…. There is not much time before none can be saved…. They are coming.
Die with honor

July 14, Year 0 - Floor 1
Link Start!​

 

[Siren77]

“Ack!…… Damnit!……. Son of a…. BITCH!“

Mordecai damn near threw his controller, but caught himself just as his right arm was cocked back with the device in hand.

“It’s not worth it. It is not….” He took a handful of deep breaths, finishing off the last with an irritated sight as he slumped back into the chair situated in front of his Computer. “Worth it….”

The sound of aggressive button mashing was heard for a moment longer, one distinct angry tap heard louder than the rest. What wasn’t worth it? Combo trials. Any lover of Fighting Games will tell you that the in game Combination Trials for each character is one of the greatest atrocities known to mankind. Their difficulty is absolutely unmatched with how frame perfect the taps of specific buttons needed to be or the whole attempt was fucked up. And the tap that stood out among the rest? The reset button to bring everything on the stage back to center.

“I… am going to commit a hate crime.”

Defeated, Mordecai set the controller on his desk and proceeded to rub the crease of his nose as the game shut down. Skullgirls was clearly not his forte. He’d bought the game for little more than the tits on the cover and a handful of recommendations from friends, but now he was suffering for his ignorance. Granted it wasn’t kicking his ass any more than other games in the past had with this game mode, but he’d been anticipating easy. And this was NOT easy.

In response to his false threat, a tired ‘mrrow’ could be heard grumbled from the back corner of his room. On a cat tree in one of the many pockets for one’s feline friend to rest, small orange tabby kitten was currently stretching and almost glaring at Mordecai. As if to say, ‘Thanks for waking me up dipshit.’

“Oh quit your whining. You’ve been napping all fuckin’ day. I atleast had the integrity to go and workout this morning.”

The cat once again responded in its native tongue.

“No, chasing a red dot does not count as a workout, ya friggin’ smartass.” Mordecai stood from his desk, stretching and groaning for a moment. “Well, what do you think? Lunchtime?” No response, just a lazy blink. “Yeah you’re right, it’s too late for it to be lunchtime now. May as well wait a bit and cook dinner here soon.” A chime sounded from the phone tucked in his pocket. “Hm?”

An alert was displayed on his screen, the saver of which was a drawing of Ryu and Akuma from Street Fighter mid combat. ‘JFO Release’

“Oh damn.” He looked back up to Samson, “I forgot all about that…” The cold blue of his eyes slowly trailed back over to his gaming set up, where a brand new Reiki Gear System sat with a thin layer of dust collecting. “Hell I forgot about this damn thing in general.”

Virtual Reality wasn’t exactly his speed. Mordecai much preferred being conscious while he games, as the idea of taking on the appearance of a character and seeing a world with his own eyes just felt wack to him. The only reason he had it in the first place is it was that he won it as a “mystery prize” for competing in and winning a Tekken 7 tournament a few months earlier. The caveat? JFO was the one title he had interest of making that wack transition to play. Because JFO was going to be so much different. He’d seen test footage, talked with a couple of beta testers. The game sounded legit, and he wanted to be one of the first to experience it. So in preparation he pre ordered the software, but in his emotional absence from the headset itself, he entirely forgotten.

“Alright, if the games live, I’ll take a couple hours to try it out and see if this was a waste of time. Then you and I can talk about it over dinner. Deal?” Another lazy blink from the tabby. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

It took a brief bit of adjusting, moving the headset and it’s respective wires over to his bed so he could lay down, before Mordecai rolled onto his bed and slid the strap on over his head.

“Gear Activate.”

“Greetings Kaizo, state your password and software of choosing.” The voice had been set by Mordecai to sound like V.E.G.A. from Doom.

“Password: C-C-Combobreaker! Software: JFO.”

“Searching... Software found, link is ready on your command.”

“This is gonna be so damn weird…” Mordecai braced himself. “Link Start!”

The world almost burst asunder in a flood of pixels, with the real world then fading into oblivion as Mordecai’s consciousness was pulled away into the depths of the Reiki Gear System. For a time he saw nothing other than a black void, until yet another array of pixels began filing past his view and assimilating into a menu screen.

“Welcome, please input a username to identify yourself. This cannot be changed later, so choose wisely!”

No sense in mixing things up from the norm, so as per usual Mordecai took on his typical Alias that he was known by in competition.

“Username accepted, Welcome Kage_Kaizo! Please design an avatar, select a class, and select your equipment! Depending on your choice of class, you may or may not start off with magic focused abilities. Choose carefully, as they won’t be able to be changed until your characters next rebirth!”

Huh, simple enough. Kaizo selected a preset build similar in stature to himself before going through the hassle of editing every little detail to ensure that the character looked almost exactly the same as himself. Given he had free reign, he was doing this his way. He wasn’t about to look in the mirror and see someone completely different. He wanted to look like himself, and that was the end of the story. Though, after a little fiddling around and seeing what all he could change, he decided not to be completely basic. His general and overall appearance was left the same, but his blue eyes were swapped for crimson, and his teeth were made to be a tad bit sharper, aiming for a slightly demonic look. The muscles were changed to be a perfect aesthetic in appearance, giving him that overall fighting game character look he yearned for. Top it off with a stylish black outfit, and he was set! The look was saved as a favorite preset, and he moved on.

Next came to the classes, and for a hot minute Kaizo was unsure what to go with. He could be the agile and stealthy Ninja, or perhaps a range focused sorcerer to take advantage of the distance between himself and foes? There were many builds he could fiddle with, but the Oni above all else caught his eye, purely for its emphasis on hand to hand combat. If he was gonna be controlling this character himself, perhaps he ought to stick to what he knows. He could always experiment with the others later, but for getting a handle on things it would be better to play to his strengths. Besides, he liked the references on this one.

A pair of black bracers were chosen, simply called Striker Gauntlets. There would be an opportunity to score some flashier weaponry and armor later, so he didn’t mind starting off simple. A fire rune seemed like a good option for his starting magic, just because it would be an engine for increased damage and volatile magic attacks. As a plus, he heard there’d be magic skills to reference Akuma, so that was a must have should he ever receive them. That was just the tip of the iceberg as far as references though. Gouki Reiki had promised there would be a plethora of homages and nods to other works that fans across the world would love. Admittedly, it was one of the biggest reasons Kaizo had gotten interested.

But one step at a time, first he had to actually get in the game and see what this title had to offer initially. He just hoped it hadn’t gone to shit in the six months of development that he’d waited through. With his character selected and everything seemingly prepared, Kaizo accepted the changes and watched as once again his screen filled with pixels. This time, a screen full of text faded in first.

“Brave Warriors…. Saranthia lies in ruin at the hand of the Void…. The Nemesis of Mortality has made itself known…. There is not much time before none can be saved…. They are coming.”

Just as the screen began to fade, the text glitched out and for a split second one could see the bottom right of the text fade to a red color. Kaizo unfortunately noticed it too late and never did read what it said. An Easter Egg well missed, but maybe he could ask others if they were able to read it.

He was still a little wigged out by what was supposed to happen in taking on a true first person perspective. What’s worse is the deaths in game were supposed to be “lifelike” making the permadeath aspect of it more brutal as you could watch your character be torn limb from limb. Realistic gore like this wasn’t for the faint of heart, but it just made the game that much more intense and immersive. He felt bad for anyone that didn’t try to get their hands on it quick though for the preorder, as he’d heard there would be a special launch event. So hesitating was just a punishment in itself.

Once the first set of text disappeared, a brief loading screen came up with a tip.

“While JFO is a single player title, it is encouraged that players form teams and guilds as a means of having strength and safety in numbers!”

It wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe if any of his buddies had the title he could meet up with them later and form a party with them. Or he could settle for Rando’s he met on the way. Either way, he was game for some team action.

For the last time, a mass of green pixels flooded his screen before Kaizo found himself standing in a large hill zone with grass covering it as far as the eye could see. Little cotton plants grew amongst it all and let microscopic particles graze past him in a lifelike breeze that he swore he could feel. Looking down at his hands, he’d see the bracers he’d picked out earlier. No doubt his body fully represented the character he’d created as well. Wiggling his fingers, bending his knees, and reaching to touch the grass, he’d get a grasp for just how real this all felt! It was freaky…. But he couldn’t say it wasn’t cool as hell.

In the distance, a row of banners colored orange and yellow could be seen. For as dark a game as this was supposed to be, this place sure was bright… It almost looked out of place from the test footage he’d seen.

“Guess that’s the way...” Kaizo grunted to himself before looking about some more and seeing nothing but the grassy zone, loading characters, and some strange purple creatures fluttering in the air. While he wanted to test some combat, first he wanted to get to the hub and see what he could find. Anything he could get before the mass wave of players would be great, so without further hesitation Kaizo began walking through the fields toward the banners and followed their trails.

Once he reached the first set of guidons, just over the hill he could see a large mountain with a very obvious city and castle adorning it’s side. There was his first goal, so further on he marched.

 

[Lunawolf1]

Yawning some, a white-haired male rolled out of bed and face planted onto the floor. Groaning, Niko sat up slowly and sighed. Having spent all night celebrating getting into the university of his dreams, he even had his first class yesterday. Glad that there was no classes today, he slowly got up and walked over to the coffee pot. Starting to make a pot of coffee, he stood on his stool and sighed. He didn’t know what he was going to do today.

Grabbing his cat mug with painted on whiskers, the small male sipped his coffee as he went to his gaming set up. Having spent a long time making this set up, he mostly did this for his class. If anyone looked at a price tag on the setup, they would ask how he got the money. Not having to pay rent and getting scholarships to the school helped him save a lot. Now even as he lived alone, he made some money from people buying a few indie games he made. Using that for rent meant he could stay at home and just relax making games. His newest one, Nekoman 2 and the cat diamond burglar had done well after his first one was nominated for an indie award. Not winning was fine with him as that still made people look at all the cure cats in the game. Checking how much he made, he grinned a lot. Just enough to order a pizza later.

Checking his email as he sipped more of his coffee, his eyes went wide as he saw what he was waiting on. The new game JFO was finally out. Finally, he could play this game and have a lot of fun. Better yet, he saw in the trailer that you could customize your avatar and even saw a few cute features from people leaking stuff online. Finishing his coffee, he started downloading the game as he got his virtual headset set up. He grinned. Hopefully his voice changer worked as he laid down. With the pizza coming later, he had a few hours to kill. “Link… start!”

The whole world blurred. Entering his username, NikoCatFan1 and password, kittykittycatsarecute1, he got started with character creation. The only thing that bothered him some was it matched his real-life height. Oh well it just made him look cuter. Starting with a base, he started with soft cute looking skin. He then did a few other features from purple hair, pointed ears, and orange eyes. For his outfit, he equipped anything cat related from having a bell collar, a neko black hoodie and even a black cat tail accessory. He even grinned when the tail swayed with its purple bow on it. Testing his voice, he blinked when he heard his own regular voice. Realizing he didn’t put on the voice changer, he decided to deal with that later.

Next up was to pick your class. This one took Niko the longest time. Spending the next 5 minutes, he tested each of the classes. Starting with knight, he yelped as he fell over trying to swing the weapon. Nope not for him. He tried ninja and just realized his squeals would be bad for this. He tried Oni but didn’t get into it much. Trying priest, he found it alright but didn’t want to be known as the holy cat of healing. He tried Oni and yelped at how uncute it made him look. Finally, he picked Sorcerer. His costume didn’t change much at all which made him instantly like it. He even got a simple wooden staff that he would change later. Maybe even get a skin to make it look like a cat staff later! Grinning, he picked the sorcerer class before he felt himself being put into the game. Being to distracted by his cute self to notice anything going on as he appeared in the starting area.

Grinning, Niko ran around a bit to get used to the avatar. Acting almost like a little kid, he squealed when he looked into a puddle at how cute he was. He even had cat accessories which was a huge bonus for him! Seeing the signs pointing towards a direction, he grabbed his staff and starting to head towards that direction. Seeing the big city coming up, he grinned some. “This is going to be a purrfect game for me!” With that final cat pun, he walked pass others joining the game or getting started as he headed towards the city.

 

[hamuko]

Uta Yoshikawa

A soft breeze swept through the hallway by the courtyard, saving students from the sweltering summer heat. The air around Kasugayama High was lax, naturally; it was July 14th. Students would hide in the shade or in classrooms to discuss their plans for their summer breaks, Uta Yoshikawa being one of them. She was tucked away in a corner of class 2-B with a group of girls, chattering away at what beach they could travel to on their motorcycles.

Suddenly, the door slides open, alerting all inside of the band of delinquents. The student body doesn't regard them in a negative light, but they didn't respect them all too much either. It was a small handful of students, of which Uta was a part of, that kept this coexistence, so it was no surprise when the delinquents ran up to her with a gift.

"Happy Birthday, Boss!"

Sonoko Kawakami, a smaller girl in long skirt shoved a box into her hands, one of the girls she was talking to smiled with a hand on her mouth. "We all pitched in." Uta couldn't help but burst into laughter as she put the gift on a nearby desk. "You shouldn't have, oh my god!" She struggled to speak as she was smiling so much, "This is so nice." The click of a phone followed by 'send it to me!'s signaled that the film club's Haruto Takaoka had begun recording.

"Alright, then, let's see what stray cat you losers picked off the street for me." Off camera were the students tensing up in anticipation as Uta pulled at the ribbon. She could hear Sonoko's muffled laughter as she lifted the lid. "No!" She gasped as she lifted the Reiki Gear System from the box, "Damn idiots, now I'll have to up the ante tenfold for your birthdays!"

"Thank you so much..."

The light feeling in her chest stayed with her into the night when she found the time to set up her new console. A quick google search enlightened her of its mechanisms and... sleep inducing feature? Modern technology is crazy. A soft notification muffled from under her skirt signaled a message from Haruto. 'Uta!!!'
Around fifteen unread messages, ten of which were from Haruto, one of which wasn't a call to her attention.

'We went the extra mile because we love you WAYYYYYY more than the class does. Don't forget, kay? From Sonoko and me.'

Jigoku Fūkei Online? What a corny name! She snorted at her friends' gift.

'Where I belong, yeah?' She typed as she began downloading the game.​

 

[Spoiled Bread]

The City Park was a place where people can spend their time to relax after a hard day and play with their friends and family. Among the happy chatters, energetic joggers and dog walkers that wandered around the park this afternoon there's a small woman sitting alone on one of the park bench, bundled inside a few layers of jackets that make her looks like a walking pile of clothes. Her long hair was rather unkempt and she had a blank look on her face. Her hands were awkwardly holding an extra large cup of black coffee on her lap.

Erio Miko was forced to take her break after she skipped hers for almost six months. If she didn't take it her manager would be fined by the upper echelons for worker exploitation. He practically begged her for it and even gave her a brand new game to occupy herself for the next few days.

She used the first day to clean up her apartement but now that every chores had been done she found herself with nothing to do. She went to the park with the intention to socialize a bit but her anxiety kicked in and that's how she ended up in this situation.

Let's just go back. Letting a long dejected sigh, the woman gave up on her social attempt and went back to her apartement.

"I'm home." Said the woman to the darkness before she light her apartement with a flick of a button. Stripping all her clothes other than her shirt and shorts, the woman proceed ro rummages through her refrigerator and pulled all short of snacks and beverages she bought yesterday. Chips, bottled beers, pocky, canned beers, cigarettes, beers and many more. Screw the coffee, she will waste herself so she could pass the day quickly.

A beeping sounds interrupted her. It was coming from her phone, an automatic E-mail telling her that JFO had just been released. Ah, yes. The game that the manager bought for her, apparently it was supposed to be much more advanced than any other virtual game and also cost a bit more so it would be rude for her if she didn't at least try it. Though she was wondering if her old VR headgear would be sufficient to run it. Hopefully yes. She didn't want to buy a new model just so she could play the game. After a few preparations Erio finally lay down on her bed with her headgear on and the game installed.

"Link start."

Erio opened her eyes and found herself now as a rather undetailed jellybean figure of herself on what's looks like the control command of a spaceship. The main computer on the room projected a large holographic screen on it that functioned as interactable interface for Erio to choose her game. Kerbal Space Invasion, Monster Crossing, Dead Space 7, Inside 4, SOMA: Deep Dive, Pokemon Yes & No and many more. All were games she used to play a lot. Scrolling through her game list made her cracked a sad smile as she realized that somewhere along the way for she just stopped caring for herself. Maybe playing this game would be a good experience for her.

Pressing the button for JFO, everything seemed blurry for a few moment before her jellybean avatar was warped into what looks like a white wormhole filled with colorful lines and shapes going past her at very high velocity. She kinda missed this loading screen. It's said that the newer model had simpler UI to avoid overstimulating the user or triggering epileptic seizure. When the loading finished Erio found herself in the middle of literal nowhere with nothing but a menu in front of her.

[Welcome, please input a username to identify yourself. This cannot be changed later, so choose wisely!]

"Miko."

[Username unavailable. Please choose different name.]

...

Erio let out a sigh. Of course generic names would be filled by whoever log in first. She had no choice but to alter it a bit.

[Username accepted, Welcome Sister_Miko! Please design an avatar, select a class, and select your equipment! Depending on your choice of class, you may or may not start off with magic focused abilities. Choose carefully, as they won’t be able to be changed until your characters next rebirth!]

Erio usually likes customizing her characters, but after looking at the sheer amount of options presented in the menu she couldn't help but get overwhelmed by it. It took her several good minutes before she found a preset that somewhat looks like her. Though, she didn't want to looke like her real self that much either so she made some noticable change on her looks.

First, height! Erio keep pressing the up button until she was pretty much 30cm taller than her real self (there's a pop up window that warns her about potential perceptive discongruity but who cares about that). Second, bigger chest! No question! Next on! Third, shorter hair. It didn't suit her real self but it suits this avatar.

"You looks like me if I grow up properly. Heh." Erio giggled at her own comment before confirming her avatar.

Next was the class. After looking at each one, the answer came surprisingly easy for her. She wasn't a tryhard at games (except that one time where she shiny hunting almost 2000 pokemons) so she would pick the class with the least pressure. Priest! Or priestess. Whatever. Choosing equipment was even easier. She just picked the 'Outer God Worshipper' preset, change a few details of the garb and done! She's ready.

[Brave Warriors…. Saranthia lies in ruin at the hand of the Void…. The Nemes-]

"Skip."

...

What??

She just could never takes MMO's story seriously. The last MMO she was into there's two kids roleplaying as a couple and throwing cringy pickup lines, or that dude with clown setup and banana sword skin taking the top leaderboard, or people who named themself various variant of testicles. They're not designed to be finished anyway, the story will never be finished until the developers wring out every last yen from the players. Single player game were much more superior at telling story.

Dropped at the starting area, Erio Sister_Miko took her time to get used to the control. Mainly, the fact that she's now much taller than her real self. She also spend some time groping her own chest and concluded that it's not as good as she thought it would be. Now that her personal question had been answered, onward with the adventure! She gleefully walked towards where all the banners were pointing to.

 

[Vagabond Spectre]

[Link start]​

The surroundings of his small room were devoured and replaced with appears to be colored pixels. Animating themselves to transition it’s users into the digital space. The outside world has morphed into a digital environment, customized interface circles him.

[Welcome, please input a username to identify yourself. This cannot be changed later, so choose wisely!]

Username: Espoir_451

>Confirm
Cancel

[Username accepted, Welcome Espoir_451! Please design an avatar, select a class, and select your equipment! Depending on your choice of class, you may or may not start off with magic focused abilities. Choose carefully, as they won’t be able to be changed until your characters next rebirth!]

Class selection

Knight
Ninja
Kensei
Oni
Sorcerer/Sorceress
>Priest/Pristess

With hesitation, the backline support class was chosen. The selection for this process barely took 5 seconds.

Weapon Selection

Staves
>Tomes

This process however did take a small chunk for the upcoming priest player. The next slide shown a few tomes floating around, circling him. Each Tome appears to have a different set of spells for players. It was a little overwhelming at first, given the chosen class, these library of tomes are maybe smaller than than other magic-based classes. Using his formless hands to scroll right by multiple books, reading a few Tomes that were advertising their potential usefulness to the man. Through the scrolling and skimming, one caught his eyes. An rather thinner looking tome titled “Enero Tome” on the UI, it has a short briefing it’s capabilities and by skimming through. The Enero Tome has been taken from the library.

Avatar creation in progress...​

Before setting foot into this new world, a new body must be born, a vessel to for the player, an avatar to represent oneself. The game’s programming has now involve the player’s physicality, wrapping it’s graphics and design to form the Avatar of their choosing. The physical body was morphed first, albeit appears to be 3 inches shorter from his real height, a small misalignment they didn’t seem to mind. The features of the avatar’s face was that of a younger boy, rougher facial structure as it’s face appears to be morose by default.

The Avatar customization process was not Espoir_451’s specialty. The game’s character is customization is refined with details that he could possibly manage. Sadly, the character was baked poorly in physical face, the final step into the hair was unfortunately came to a decision that they should just have little to no hair at all, to save the struggle of haircuts. The character was nearly bald, only little hair was shaved off from his left side of his head, a double 3 inch fade line is noticeable.

For clothing, he has chosen preset available into the selection UI, the following equipment he wore were a red removable hooded cape, adventurers garbs with refined leather boots, leather belts (to holster Tomes and other items), and a white coat over top. Taking a few extra effort to take liberty to customize the preset costume to his, by selecting a few more clothing preset designs. He added a bit of gold to his clothing which to his surprise, he thought such design may have been only accessible through micro transactions given it’s gold status. Either way, despite the rather quick breeze through the customization screen. The clothing data was downloaded to the his Avatar and now he can progress further.

“Brave Warriors…. Saranthia lies in ruin at the hand of the Void…. The Nemesis of Mortality has made itself known…. There is not much time before none can be saved…. They are coming.”

The screen fades into texts which at first, Espoir_451 has nearly missed as they tried to look around the dark screen. VR is quite a different than the usual gaming experience for him. Trying to get used to the environment takes a few minutes for him. The dark begins to peel away as pixels load and immerse the player to the world of Jigoku fūkei online. Hurting his a little a little bit.

Opening his eyes into the new environment. Green grassy hills and blue skies met his gaze. The nature breeze sounded layered as if one were really outside, even the distant sounds are caught and kept as a background ambience. The graphics of everything, near flawless. No pixel out of place or distracting to the eyes, and not forget to mention. The controls, everything he was experiencing so far is without the controls. His own physical body is the controller. Looking into his digitized hands and feet. Each locomotive function was running smoothly like the real thing, even the small mannerism are recorded also.

Testing movement wasn’t an issue, barely an instruction. Just take your first step. He’s grounded into the game, now trying to pickup a nearby cotton plant stem, he plucked one nearby with little effort and look at that, tangible. He examined the in-game plant . Rotating and plucking a bit of the cotton, until the wind finally confiscates the plucked cotton away from his hands. Watching the cotton fly by, he noticed a row of what appears to be banners leading some place, as the plat flew by one. Now curious to where that, naturally, he approached the flag path while performing hand waves gestures, perhaps trying to figure out the access to UI.