THE ASSASSIN GAMER

The most mystical and ancient of magickal skills and powers co-existed side by side with the latest and the most sophisticated technology ever created by humans.

Gods and goddesses of various pantheons all over the world cohabited the world with the humans who used to worship them in the ancient times, up to the present day, along with mythical beings from various myths and legends ever read by modern man.

Such was the situation when the gaming scene exploded and grew popular among people globally.

A few professional computer geeks, die-hard gamers, and digital marketers who shared a burning passion for gaming, banded together to create a video-games company, hoping to capture a vital spot in gaming, and make their mark in the gaming world.

As they are based in Tokyo, Japan, they named their company Tokyo Gaming Solutions.

Some of the game pioneers are ancient, and super powerful deities, or even mythical beings with powers in disguise, while the rest are ordinary humans.

While the company has a vast stock of successful video games in it's portfolio, one game that stood out among the games they created was VRMMORPG Fantasion, which they touted as their flagship video game, with its own specially made gaming capsule.

They successfully created an online game that they named VRMMORPG Fantasion, which became a hit globally after a few years of debugging, updating, and fine-tuning.

They raked in billions of dollars in profits from the advertising of the game alone, not to mention billions of sales on a global scale.

Due to the company's success, the value of their stocks and shares rose to skyrocketing heights.

The game is played by buying a special Virtual Reality gaming set created by Tokyo Gaming Solutions that is basically an enclosed gaming capsule.

The gaming capsule will only work when connected to a power source, and connected to a strong and steady Internet.

It required the gamer to get inside the gaming capsule, sit down, and play the game by means of touchscreen controls, with a touchscreen keypad.

The player has two options.

One, to start as a regular player and grind up the levels until he has the chance to become an elite player, thus making it easier for the player to play and finish the game.

The next and the costlier option, which became instantly popular with the wealthier gamers that the game catered to, is to purchase an Elite Badge, which gives the player instant access to rare and legendary skills, items, weapons, supplies, and armor.

Players with the Elite Badge had a major advantage over regular players, as they could clear quests and kill monsters faster, and climb up the levels of VRMMORPG Fantasion with next to no difficulties at all.

Players with the Elite Badge also have another advantage.

They earn money while playing the game in real time, by finishing quests and participating in special events, and by selling in-game items anywhere they wish to sell it.

One of the early pioneers of VRMMORPG Fantasion is Hashioki Ashima, who was a gamer and a former professional game creator from the Nintendo company.

He helped to create and fine-tune VRMMORPG Fantasion, straight from the planning stage down to the debugging and marketing of the game.

He also had a 20 percent share in the company shares, aside from his regular salary.

At first, all went well.

All the pioneers of Tokyo Gaming Solutions agreed on one main point, that is they will do all they can to level the field and make the game fair and easy to play for players who had no elite badges.

But as time went on, disagreements always happened in board meetings, and the pioneers became split into two factions, the Majority faction, who wanted to retain only the players with the Elite badges, and the Minority faction, who wanted to keep the gameplay fair for the players who didn't have the means to purchase an Elite Badge.

Tension started to increase among members of both factions, and there was never a time when everyone erupted into a shouting match when the question of whether the gameplay should be kept fair for players without an Elite Badge, or not at all.

When such shouting matches happened, there was always a time when more than two or three of the game pioneers left the boardroom table and walked out of the office building, as they are unable to endure the opinions of the other side and pent up with anger.

It came to a head when the leader of the Majority faction,a strong and fierce spirited lady from Wales, took the matter into her own hands.

Without consulting anyone, and acting without the permission of the rest of the board members, she snuck into the office headquarters one night, and drastically changed the codes that Hashioki made that allowed all players to log out of the game safely.

With one stroke of her hand, she turned what should be a safe game into a life or death game where the players, unable to log out, can only finish the top levels of the game, or die trying.

But fate had other plans.

It turned out that Hashioki, who was used to staying up late often to monitor the game from his house, caught her in the act of drastically changing the game.

Hashioki wasn't pleased.

He tried to minimize the impact, but it was too late.

The damage had been done.

He swore to himself that he will confront the leader of the Majority faction, and make her pay heavily for what she has done.

Hashioki acted swiftly.

He imposed a heavy penalty on the leader of the Majority faction, disabled her coding access to the game, and took away her 40 percent share of the game profits.

When it became known to the leader of the Majority faction, the leader of the Majority faction flew into a rage.

She siphoned off Hashioki's share of the company shares for herself, and turned off Hashioki's developer access to the game.

She hired goons armed with enchanted metal pipes to break into Hashioki's house, and beat him senseless.

The goons broke into his house easily, as he had forgotten to lock the front door of his house at that time.

They found him in a deep slumber in the living room, with his laptop computer still turned on in the coffee table.

They stole the files on his laptop computer, and beat him senseless until he was left bloodied with serious injuries.

Hashioki's wife was away attending a birthday party, but when she returned she was shocked by what she saw.

She immediately called an ambulance, and Hashioki was sent to the emergency room of the hospital.

She didn't live long afterwards, as the task of caring for their two sons while looking for money eventually drained her health.