Inside the game company, Anshera, who had finally found where the helmets were stored, had sparkling eyes. After directly stowing away over a dozen helmets into her storage bag and casually tossing down a piece of gold weighing several pounds, she looked at Rikka.
"Let's go."
Seeing this, Rikka wanted to say something, but after noticing the massive chunk of gold on the floor, she just nodded.
The two girls came and went silently, leaving without a trace.
Just as they walked out of the company's main entrance, Kayaba Akihiko, who had also finished all his preparations, walked out with them. He headed alone to his car, silently making his way toward his already prepared safe house.
What Kayaba Akihiko didn't know, however, was that as he left, his junior—who supposedly felt incredibly apologetic toward him—silently lowered his head.
In the man's hands was the business license for this company, Aincrad Co., Ltd.
On the license, besides the various gaming qualifications, the name Kayaba Akihiko was written next to the legal representative.
This Aincrad Co., Ltd. owned the rights to the game Sword Art Online, which included various unpatented core technologies.
But even though this company belonged to Kayaba Akihiko, its largest shareholder was him, Koizumi Koichi.
And his identity was that of a transmigrator who followed Kayaba Akihiko around, previously discovered by the evil cultivator whom Chen Changsheng had casually killed before the worlds had merged.
Without any cheat abilities, and with only a half-baked understanding of various games, anime, and world politics, Koizumi Koichi didn't have a smooth time even after transmigrating.
Fortunately, his identity in this world wasn't bad. After experiencing the classic transmigrator trope of both parents passing away, he inherited enough wealth to live a life of complete laziness and comfort.
Originally, that was exactly what he planned to do. He lived day by day without immense wealth or power, but relying on his parents' savings and his shallow knowledge from his past life, he invested in many future corporate giants, thus living a very prosperous life.
Because he knew the most about games in his past life, the majority of his investments were in gaming companies.
As his massive investments yielded substantial returns, his status gradually rose.
Especially among small and medium-sized gaming companies.
Thus, during a certain banquet, he met the president of a medium-sized gaming company who wanted to get to know him. He didn't know this president, but at the time, the man was accompanied by a blonde girl named Yuuki Asuna.
At that moment, Koizumi Koichi finally realized what kind of world he had transmigrated into.
However, as a hardcore gamer in his past life, he didn't care at all about Yuuki Asuna, who was still in elementary school. Instead, he used his connections after that to find Kayaba Akihiko, who had already graduated from college. He spent some money to get into Kayaba Akihiko's alma mater, and then approached him as a junior, expressing his willingness to invest in him.
Moreover, Koizumi Koichi showed extreme sincerity, willing to spend a fortune to invest in Kayaba Akihiko to open a studio and a company, with the promise that the company would be entirely led by Kayaba Akihiko. He swore he would never seize power or interfere with any of his decisions.
Kayaba Akihiko was incredibly thrilled by Koizumi Koichi's appearance and felt deeply grateful to him.
However, he had no idea that Koizumi Koichi simply wanted to play virtual reality games.
Thus, over the years, the two collaborated closely. Eventually, when Kayaba Akihiko felt his technology was mature, he founded Aincrad Co., Ltd. Although Kayaba Akihiko was the founder and leader of the company, he gave 90 percent of the shares to his angel investor, Koizumi Koichi.
Seeing this, Koizumi Koichi instantly knew that Kayaba Akihiko was still planning to create that death game.
But he just let it happen.
He knew very well that once the game was fully developed, Kayaba Akihiko's life would enter its countdown.
Thanks to the abundant funding, this version of the game was even richer in content than the one he knew, better optimized, and the open beta even had a hundred thousand spots.
Yet Koizumi Koichi still never thought about stopping Kayaba Akihiko.
Because from the very beginning, he never considered himself a citizen of this country. Aside from Kayaba Akihiko, whom he had known for years, he didn't care much about anyone else in this nation.
Moreover, after that, he would completely inherit Kayaba Akihiko's legacy. He believed that, when the time came, he would definitely be able to create the most fun game in the world.
Compared to the boring real world and a Japan that had its spine broken by America, he was much more willing to immerse himself in the gaming world and live a life of intoxicated dreams.
However, he did not know that this world had already quietly undergone a massive change.
The destruction of more than half of Tokyo earlier was, in his memory, merely a massive gas leak that triggered a huge explosion, followed by an earthquake.
Therefore, in his understanding, this world was just an ordinary technological world.
...
After Rikka and Anshera got the gaming helmets, they didn't go straight home. Instead, at Anshera's suggestion, they went to find Rikka's friends.
On a large bridge, Rikka held Anshera's hand and waved from afar.
"Sanae! Over here!"
Hearing Rikka's call, a girl with long blonde twin-tails, the ends of which were tied with mysterious cloth spheres, excitedly trotted toward her while hugging a book.
"Master! As soon as I heard you say there was something great, I immediately brought my familiar, deth!"
Behind the girl, another girl with short chestnut hair, slightly older than the blonde, had her face darken.
"Hey! Who are you calling a familiar?!"
These two girls were none other than Rikka's little shadow, Dekomori Sanae, and Rikka's high school classmate, Nibutani Shinka.
Because she had joined the chat group, even though Rikka still had her chuunibyou personality, she was no longer interested in establishing any chuunibyou clubs. After all, she was forced to spend most of her time cultivating, leaving her with very little free time.
Even so, she hadn't cut off contact with Dekomori Sanae, and miraculously, Dekomori Sanae had still met her frenemy, Nibutani Shinka.
However, because of Rikka, Dekomori Sanae had found out very early on that Nibutani Shinka was the true identity of her idol, Mori Summer.
But Dekomori Sanae was extremely dissatisfied with her current normal appearance, so the young girl decided she absolutely had to help Mori Summer find her lost true self.
To do this, she had even stood at the gates of Rikka's school several times, holding up the dark history quotes from Nibutani Shinka's chuunibyou phase and reading them aloud.
Thus, the destinies of the two girls became thoroughly intertwined.
...
Seeing the two girls approach, Rikka smiled and held up the two boxes containing the gaming helmets.
"Sanae, Mori Summer, look!"
"What's this?"
"Don't call me by such an embarrassing name! But this thing... could it be the gaming helmet for the soon-to-be-released Sword Art Online?"
The two girls had different reactions. Nibutani Shinka looked especially awkward upon hearing the name Mori Summer.
Hearing this, Rikka nodded and looked at the two girls.
"Sanae, Mori Summer, let's all go on an adventure to another world tomorrow!"
...
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
] This is a dark fantasy-themed dating simulation game. The main gameplay involves containing various monster girls and investigating the truth of a world shrouded in mist alongside your companions. However, due to his love for the dark and bizarre atmosphere, Luo Wei ended up turning a dating game into a detective mystery game. Women? Women only slow down his quickdraw! To Luo Wei, the female leads in the game are more like tools to perfectly clear levels and squeeze out rewards. For Luo Wei, flirting with every girl he meets and then discarding them is standard procedure. Worried about characters losing affection points? No need. With his maxed-out charm stat, Luo Wei is practically a "human incubus." A little psychological manipulation and those points come right back. It's a bit scummy, but the paper cutout heroines in the game won't actually come at him with real cleavers. However... Luo Wei has transmigrated. He's accidentally entered the second playthrough of this game. His past actions have caused all the girls to transform into terrifying yanderes. Due to the game's setting, most of the heroines he once contained are "troubled girls." Obsessive, twisted, mentally unstable, all aggressive yanderes... The type who will kill you if they can't have you... Luo Wei wants to cry but has no tears left. "I really just want to survive..." In short, this is a story of battling wits and engaging in a love-hate relationship with yanderes.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
