Valley Of Innocence (MxM)

Level 1

Valley of Innocence

Volume 1

Takano Masamune

Chapter 1: V.O.I.

***

‘I’ve never been good at games…’ 19 year old Alphonse thought to himself as he walked past by a poster of one of the most popular games of their century: V.O.I. or otherwise known as Valley Of Innocence…

“Come on Alp! You have to come in with us this time, you’ll see it’s going to be freaking wild!” One of his friends who was walking in front of him called out to Alphonse.

“Right!” Alphonse responded with an enthusiastic voice. ‘How did I even end up here…?’ He wondered to himself. His friends had been pressuring him to try this game for the longest of time, but he was scared…

The game was first created over four years ago when the young soldiers were training for the upcoming World War III, however peaceful times came instead and those same soldiers who were only 15 years old at the time had nowhere to use the new skill sets they’d acquired. They were taught violence since a young age, they never got to experience the horrors of war and thus they were left… wanting to know what it felt like…

Then came in this game that allowed them to transfer into a virtual reality with monsters of their own creation... Nobody knows exactly how V.O.I. works, but it has the ability to bring ot your subconscious wants, desires and… fears to create the challenges you face, you also can participate in the challenges your teammates face.

But there was one more twist to it… the pain, the shock you felt within the game would be reflected on your physical body as well, thus you get the fear of experiencing death while still being alive. The ‘war children’ as they called the young soldiers were soon enough hooked on the came. Their piled up blood lust and training finally had somewhere to resolve itself…

But of course that wasn’t the end of it, soon after the games began being broad casted for other’s entertainment… and soon afterwards the pain and stress level of the game was lowered to a point where even people who didn’t have such pent up blood lust could have fun with it. It became a main stream game that most people over the age of 17 would be able to participate in safely. Even office workers that wanted to stress relieve would participate, along with high scholars with nothing better to do like Alphonse and his friends…

“Now listen up Alp! You have to put on the headset by the instructions, everything else will be handled by the assistance. Choose your in game name and we’ll meet you in the first level with everyone else, alright?” His friend explained as he pointed to the streets, there were what seemed like hundreds of rows of seats where all kinds of people were next to each other, playing the game.

“Y-yeah… just you sure you’ll be able to find me?” Alp asked with a nervous voice. He didn’t know much about the game but knew that the virtual world was huge and didn’t want to take any chances.

“Yes, we’ll make sure to tell the staff we all want to be in the same spot as a group. No problem.” His friend reassured him and headed out to find another empty seat.

“Are we really going to leave him there alone? He’s probably going to piss his pants…” Another friend whispered quietly as they walked away, the other nodded his head. “It’s going to be fun.” They took one last glance at Alphonse before chuckling to one another.

Alphonse sat down and soon enough a staff member came to help him hook things up. Then he closed his eyes and head a voice seemingly vibrating inside his head. “The game is about to begin in 10, 9, 8…”

As the countdown reached zero, Alphonse felt like everything around him shifted until he opened his eyes again to see he was in an old abandoned building. It looked like it was about to crash down and burry him at any second. “Guys?” He called out to his friends who were nowhere to be seen. “Don’t tell me you’re doing this again… jokes like these are no fun!” He heard something fall behind him. “AAAAAH!” He yelled out loud as he turned around to see it was a man with a mask.

Players in this universe looked like their in real life bodies, so that man who was wearing a mask was certainly not a player, but an in game character which meant one thing… Alphonse had to run, and run he did, he san out of the abandoned looking building and outside into what seemed like an endless field with no cover for him whatsoever.

“f**k, f**k, f**k… this is so f*****g scary, how do people even enjoy this s**t?!” Alphonse was muttering to himself while running, he could still clearly see the masked man following him. ‘I have to find cover somewhere… somewhere… someone help me… anyone…’ He looked around and ran desperately until he saw a man with casual clothing and no mask, but what’s more the man had a dark blue broche which indicated he was a player. “Hey!! Please help me!!” Alphonse yelled out while running at the man.

The man tilted his head to the side while looking at the one approaching him, then he glanced at the masked man walking after him. ‘Ah… another player… and he’s scared… Guess I’ll just leave him be-’ He thought to himself but then he took another glance at the player who was almost right next to him.

“Please help me!” Alphonse begged through teary eyes as he bumped into the man and held onto his clothes.

‘He’s… cute…’ The man thought to himself as he grabbed Alphonse’s hand and then they began running together. What seemed to be just a field with nowhere to hide actually had a couple of hidden spaces, underground that is… And the player knew just where to go, he headed down one of the holes, while pulling Alphonse with him and the masked killer stopped in his tracks after he saw the players disappear, then headed back to his initial position.

The player continued pulling Alphonse by the hand until they reached what looked like a bunker. The player opened up the door and let the man in, inside it was a safe space where they wouldn’t be bothered by the game, you could call it a way to technically pause the game for a bit, or to take a break as if in a lodge area.

“Thank you…” Alphonse said while out of breath and panting, his entire face was flushed red, he’d never been good with physical activities in the first place.

“N… no problem…” The player turned to look away. ‘He really is… cute…’ He thought to himself as he sat down on the ground and urged the man to do the same. “What’s your name?”

“I’m… Alp… just call me that…” Alphonse said as he sat down, still out of breath, you could almost see the sweat dripping down his neck. “Yours?”

“You can call me Dante.” The man replied as he picked out something from his inventory, which was stashed in his back pack. “Here take this to recover faster…” He said while handing the man a small bottle with green liquid.

“T-thank you… again…” Alphonse said as he drank the contents, instantly he felt much better and rejuvenated as if it was magic. A part of him actually forgetting it was all a VR set up and that you couldn’t actually eat or drink in the game.

After a few moments of silence Dante seemed unsettled “So… Alp what are you doing in a game like this if you’re so scared?” He finally asked him.

“My friends… thought it would be funny to take me here to play… they said it would be fun but they ended up leaving me knowing I’d be scared. They always do things like this, I was actually kind of expecting this would happen…” Alphonse explained as he sighed and brought his knees to his chest, hugging them with his arms.

“If you know that much about them… why’d you agree to come here?” Dante turned his head to the man again. ‘He doesn’t seem like the type to enjoy something like this in the first place… could it be he’s just really stupid?’ He wondered to himself.

“Because… because… I wanted to believe they were being nice for me for once…” Alphonse said as he turned to look at the man, finally making eye contact with him for the second time after being saved.

“Eh… you’re rather trusting…” Dante remarked, but something inside him made him feel pity for the man. ‘I guess I used to be like that as well…’

“I know it’s a bad quality of mine…” Alphonse remarked as he looked downwards.

“Hm… They’re not very good friends if they’re constantly bullying you like this… You might have died just now and your body might have had a bad reaction in the real world. Like pissing your pants or something like that…” Dante explained with an almost indifferent sounding voice, as he was only stating facts.

“That can happen?!” Alphonse’s eyes widened as he realized just what situation his friends had put him into.

“Yeah… well hopefully you wouldn’t get that scared or stressed but still…” Dante said as he looked through his backpack again, finding his phone to see if there is a new challenge available.

“This time they really went far, didn’t they… Then yet… I’m glad I bumped into you… you’re a cool guy…” Alphonse said as he smiled at the other. “If only I was good at the game I might have even been able to handle a thing or two…” He said with a bit of a saddened tone, when he realized his own helplessness.

‘Yes, he’s adorable…’ If Dante ever had a doubt in his mind before then right now he was more than convinced he was either falling in love with the man, or that he was just very attracted to him overall because of his sweetness.

“Say… I’m sorry to ask… Can you help me escape the game?” Alphonse asked as he grabbed onto a bit of the man’s clothing.

Dante felt the small thug in his shirt as he looked at the man. “I can do better… How about we level up together? We can play for a while… after all you came all the way here you might as well actually see if it’s worth your while.” Dante suggested as he stood up and gave the man a hand, helping him do the same.

“But… I’d only slow you down and you look experienced so…” Alphonse hesitated greatly. ‘Even though I kind of want to try…’ He thought to himself.

“You don’t need to do it if you don’t want to, it was only a suggestion.” Dante said as he looked as the man that was only a bit shorter than him with serious eyes. “It’s okay to say ‘no’ to things you don’t like.”

“It’s not that I’m not interested… I’ve been seeing posters of this game everywhere just… Am I not going to be a bother to you?” Alphonse asked while looking up at the man.

“Haha… you care way too much for a stranger you just met in a game… Come on, let’s go outside, the next quest begins…” Dante reached his hand out to offer it to the man. This time he had a smile on his face as he chuckled at the man’s actions that seemed somewhat silly to him.

“Let’s do it…” Alphonse felt somehow motivated to try and play the game for real this time, regardless of how it came down to it…