This game is just way too real!

Moving bricks, running errands, picking up trash, delivering packages... At most, a company can let you experience the hardship of 996, but here you get to experience the super-charged 007.

Alright, enough talk, the great manager is calling me to move bricks.

That boss said, as long as we work hard and sacrifice our livers, next month he’ll be able to get a brand new set of power armor, and then he’ll take us to open up a new map, to scavenge even more trash in the vast wasteland!

……

After transmigrating to the wasteland world, Brian Carter discovered that he had unlocked the Shelter System, which allowed him to summon creatures called “players” from a parallel world.

From that day on, the entire wasteland stopped being serious.

Volume One: Springwater City

Chapter 1: How Real Is a 100% Realistic Game?

“...Just how real is a 100% fully immersive game?”

Earth, a university computer lab.

Looking at the group chat messages, the first image that popped into William Clark’s mind wasn’t the game, but a dazzling display of justice.

To be specific, it was like his Skyrim with 200+ mods, and over 100 custom-made waifus coming to life from his save files.

Any more detail and he couldn’t say it, or his account would be gone.

His nickname in the group was Up All Night, but since it was too long and not very elegant, the group bros just called him Ethan Reed for short.

“It’s real in the literal sense.”

“Sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste... all exactly like the real world. The flow of time in the game world is 1:1 with reality, with about a 12-hour time difference, and since the technology works by interfering with dreams, playing the game is basically like sleeping.”

The guy who typed these two lines went by the nickname “Brian”.

This serious, single-character nickname seemed totally out of place in a group called “Cattle and Horse Club,” so the goofy group members would sometimes call him “Superman,” “Noah,” or even Mr. Parker or Awesome.

Gale Force (admin): “Is this some kind of fantasy setting? (lol)”

Long Days Ahead (admin): “And it sounds a bit old-school, like the early webnovel settings about virtual reality games.”

Fleet Passage (group owner): “Haha, are you talking about wearing a VR helmet? I used to love reading that stuff back in school.”

Up All Night (admin): “Honestly, this kind of setting just doesn’t make sense. Would an operator really not care about making money, just to let players have fun? If it’s 100% real, how do you show off the prestige of RMB warriors? Everyone would just play for free!”

William Clark didn’t read those kinds of novels, but he felt that after nine years of compulsory education, he was different from others—he should pursue logic over just having fun.

So he preferred reading fantasy and supernatural stories.

Long Days Ahead: “Bro, you’re taking this too seriously. If you really want to talk about logic, isn’t it more reasonable for the readers outside the novel to have fun, rather than the fictional operators inside making money?”

Gale Force: “No meta jokes.”

The topic quickly went off track.

Although Cattle and Horse Club was a gaming group, it was rare for them to have such a serious discussion about games.

Especially about a “game” that didn’t even exist and was purely made up.

However, even though the topic had completely derailed, the one who started it—the guy called “Brian”—stubbornly pulled it back.

Brian: “I’m just saying if.”

Brian: “If there really was such a game, would you guys want to play it?”

Looking at the group chat, William Clark shook his head with a smile.

Did that even need to be asked?

Up All Night: “Of course! Why wouldn’t I? A 100% realistic game, why not give it a try, you know what I mean. (smirk)”

Gale Force: “+1, but I still have some questions about your setting. If game time is the same as sleep time... wouldn’t it make more sense to use this tech for work?”

Fleet Passage: “Damn, are you the devil???”

Long Days Ahead: “Then I’d rather just sleep honestly. (bitter smile)”

Quit Smoking: “You guys are up late dreaming in the group chat.”

“That’s killing me.”

More and more people started chiming in.

Some people didn’t send messages, but were lurking and watching with interest.

In a 200-person gaming group, usually only ten to twenty were active, and occasionally a couple of “I know you, but you don’t know me” new faces would pop up—turns out they’d been lurking for over two years.

But that guy called Brian didn’t care, continuing to immerse himself in his own world.

“In fact, the company I recently joined is developing a fully immersive virtual reality online game.”

The lively group chat went quiet for a moment.

But soon, as if on cue, a string of messages popped up.

“Damn?”

“Seriously?!”

“Bro, you’re awesome! I almost believed you. (smirk)”

William Clark thought this guy was really overdoing it.

A fully immersive virtual reality online game?

100% realistic?

What a load of crap.

Just like Mr. Gale said, if this thing really existed, would they use it for games???