I Live To Play VR-MMORPG

Fire?

I've never heard that a fire happened around here before.

And you know I'm just a kid, right? What can I help?

Either way, that man was trying his best gathering help from anyone, he's still going to the next place asking for help, so I decided to go and see what can I help with.

When I finally got outside there's no fire nearby but I could see smokes rising, covering the sky. It came from the direction of our house.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Someone must have called the firefighter already right?

I ran up the hill, I was about two hundred meters away from my house. It took me a minute and a half to reach there.

While running I was getting more anxious as I got closer and closer and upon arriving, I was right, our house was burning!

The group of people was helping out putting out the fire, grabbing a bucket of water to prevent the fire from spreading.

Either way, there's no hope for our house. After all, it's quite old already and it's made out of wood.

Five minutes later when the firefighter arrived, the fire was immediately put out completely.

Afterward, they asked if the people around if they know the cause of the fire.

"This is the guy that starts the fire."

A group of people caught the arsonist red-handed.

They then explained what happened.

It turned out that, they coincidentally saw a suspicious-looking man looming around, walking back and forth. Since he doesn't look familiar at all, they became alert with that man.

It turned out they are right, that guy was up to something no good.

He was spreading gasoline around someone's house!

Though he was caught, it was too late.

A small fire from his pocket lighter was faster than them, it ignited the gasoline and immediately creates huge fire.

But more importantly for what reason, that guy tried to burn down our house?

This never happened before in my past life.

Did my action cause this?

I've never offended someone before, at least not a grown a.d.u.l.t.

Wait... that guy looks familiar.

I know him in my past life!

He's with the loan sharks!

In my past life, he's the one that came here and asks for money. If we can't give them, he would rummage the house.

That's when Mervin cut his connection with me after he paid the debt, he's gone.

As far as I know, Father hasn't quit his job yet, which means he hasn't borrowed money from them.

Then why would the loan sharks do this?

"We'll hand that guy to the police. For the one that witnesses his crime, you'll need to follow the police too."

"Lastly, do you guys know the people that live in this house? There's no human body found inside. So I assume they're out of the house."

"Hmm, it's Lee and his kids."

Hearing that the fireman asks for the victim, I went over.

"I'm the son of the victim."

'This boy?'

Somehow, the fireman looked confused.

'Is he not sad or anything that his house got burned down?'

"Do you know your father's phone number?"

"My father doesn't have a phone with him. He's currently working at a car workshop."

"Ah, this will be troublesome. I'll just leave it to the police."

Waiting for the police to arrive, the firemen could finally leave everything to them as they have finished their job.

Later I was interrogated along with the people that witnessed the crime happen.

I told them everything I know, including where Lee is working so that they could also interrogate him to get more information.

Without any choice, I went back to the convenience store to work. He needs to watch the store.

It was almost 6 P.M already, the old man should be back soon.

Standing at the counter, I wondered, how will father react when he heard our house was burnt down.

-----

[Lee's POV]

"Hello, we're looking for Lee."

Out of nowhere, three policemen walked in and said that they're looking for me.

"I'm Lee. Is there anything wrong?"

"Are you the father of Andy Lee?"

"Yes, I am."

"I'm sorry to say this but your house was burnt down by this guy. Do you know him?"

The police gave me a photo of a man, in fact, it's not just any man. It was his friend, Fadhul!

I can't believe what I just heard just now, so I asked the policeman to repeat what he said.

"I'm sorry but what did you say just now?"

"I understand that you're shocked but it's the truth. Your house was burnt down and this man was the person that did it."

"H-his name is Fadhul, we worked together at this place."

As I'm being interrogated by the police, my boss got nervous and asked me what happened.

When he heard that Fadhul was the one that burned down his house, he was also shocked.

"I see, you do know him. Do you know why he burned down your house?"

"That... I don't know sir."

"I understand, again I'm sorry what happened to you."

The policeman bowed and left.

I knelt on the floor helplessly, don't know what should I say to Andy and Mervin.

My mind was blank, I can't think of anything.

Why Fadhul? Was it because I rejected his offer? Was that it?

"Hey, here is some water. Calm yourself down first."

"After that, you should go and fetch your kids. They must be scared right now."

"Thanks."

The boss offered gave me a glass of water and left me alone to calm myself.

-----

[Andy's POV]

"I'm sorry. The game was on stalemate so it took a while before we could end."

The old man finally returned at 7 P.M, he returned much later than before.

I nodded my head and handed him the key, without replying to anything to him.

"What's wrong? Are you that tired?"

"Go back to your house and rest, this is your pay for today."

The old man shoved the money onto my hand and lifted me out of the store.

I didn't care how much money he gave me, I'm still thinking about what to do from now on.

"Old man, this building, by any chance do you live here?"

"No, why?"

"So upstairs, they're vacant?"

"Pretty much yeah, Why though? Don't tell me you want to live upstairs?"

If we don't find a place to sleep, we'll have to sleep outside but I can't just keep shamefully ask for his help.

I need to at least pay him the rental money.

"If I want to rent, how much will it be per month?"

"You sure? I haven't clean the second floor for very long already. If you want to live upstairs you'll need to buy furniture too."

Seeing that I didn't respond, he lifted one of his fingers.

"Hundred thousand rupiah per month, electricity and water bill, you'll pay for yourself and also you'll have to clean everything by yourself too. Furniture not included."

"I see, I'll think about it first."

"Oi kid, did you run away from your home or something. If you did I'm not renting it to you."

Sigh*

"My house was burnt down. I'll need to find a place to stay."

"What?! Today? Just now? When?!"

"Yes, just a few hours ago. Everything was gone."

Literally everything...

I should probably go back, Father should be waiting there already.

"Um, I'll leave the key of the store to you. If you want you can stay inside."

"Thanks."

I thanked the old man and then hurriedly ran toward my house.

Upon seeing me, Father embraced me first before I could say anything.

Maybe he thought that I would cry.

"I'll find a place to sleep. It's okay."

Father comforted me and I just nodded my head.

I wanted to ask many things, for example, the man that burned our house or the reason but seeing Father right now, I probably shouldn't.

Father was much more hurt than me as he was crying. He's probably worried about us.

The last time he cried was when Mother left him for another man.

That time, it was also the first time he drinks and smokes. If not because of that incident Father will not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.

For the next few minutes, we sat on the side of the road while waiting for Mervin.

"Dad, if you want, we can sleep at the convenience store I worked at. I told him everything and the owner gave me the key."

"...I guess we could stay there for a night. There's no other place I could think of."

When Mervin finally arrived, he was also shocked when he sees that our house was burnt down but for a 13 years old boy, he could be described as calm.

"Have you guys try to search inside?"

"Not everything was burned down completely right?"

Mervin wanted to go inside to search but was stopped by Lee.

"It's too dark right now. Nobody will touch it anyway. If you want we'll try to search, tomorrow morning."

"Andy found us a place to stay, it's a convenience store down the hill. We should stay there for tonight."

Mervin agreed with Father's suggestion. We then went down the hill heading to the convenience store.

Arriving inside, I turned on the light and the fans.

Lee sat on a chair and try his best to sleep. Tomorrow there are many things he needs to do.

As for Mervin, he slept at the corner on the floor.

While they're trying to sleep, I was using the computer at the register.

This wasn't the best computer, but it's the only computer available that I could use right now.

I will make a game using this computer.

I need money!

The first thing I need to think of would be what games should I make?

It needs to be simple and fun.

The games that I could think of which, fulfilling the requirement would be clicker-games.

The first clicker-game was created in 2013 named "Cookie Clicker", a game where the player clicks at the giant cookie available on the screen and each click earns you a cookie.

After you earn a certain amount of cookie, you could use them to upgrade the building, which allows you to obtain a cookie without cl.i.c.k.i.n.g it or you can upgrade the cursor which increases the number of cookies you earned with each click.

The game was easy to create but yet they're fun and addicting.

To create a game I need a platform for it. The platform I choose for making the game would be Adobe Flash.

It was the platform that I was familiar with and I used to learn to make games using this.

Though later on, after using it for a year I switched to Unity when I found out its inefficiency.

Then why not use Unity?

Unfortunately, Unity wasn't released yet. There's still a few months before Unity was launched by Apple. Inc.

I could just make my own game developing platform but it'll take a long time. Even with my game-making experience.

Only after Adobe Flash was installed, I started working on the game.

The plan for the game which I'll be creating is simple.

The scenario of the game is simple, a powerful hero called "Hero", which will also be the name of the game, was summoned to save the world.

The hero will fight against strong demons alongside other characters which I will implement as an upgrade.

The player will be playing as the hero, where cl.i.c.k.i.n.g will make the hero attack the demon.

Killing demons will earn you gold coins and those gold coins could be used to call upon other characters to fight alongside the hero.

The characters will attack, in other words dealing damage per second to the demons without the player cl.i.c.k.i.n.g.

In every multiple of ten areas, they will encounter a powerful demon, which has the chance to drop a c.h.e.s.t containing an artifact that could increase the power of the hero and other characters.

To prevent the hero from farming the powerful demon, I also need to implement a feature where each powerful demon can only drop one c.h.e.s.t.

Of course, to make things more interesting, as they advance further, the player will find it harder to kill the demons even with the artifacts.

So the player needs restarts everything or else he won't make any progress.

The requirement of restarting was simple too, the player needs to unlock the tenth character and unlock his third ability which upon learned it will restart everything.

The warning menu will be implemented in case the player accidentally learns it.

Another scenario will be implemented where the hero miraculously still has the artifacts with him even though time was restarted from the beginning but on the other hand, he needs to defeat the demons all over again to save the world.

Anyway... that's the plan.

Many different things other than coding, need to be done before I can create the game.

I first have to draw sprites for my games.

With my years of experience, in just a short time I created fifty different demons' sprites and ten characters' sprites and the hero's sprites along with their animations too.

Next was the map, menu, and every small detail that's needed to be put to make the games look smoother.

After I finished drawing the sprites and animation, I can finally start coding and create the game.

By the time it's morning, I pretty much finished the game.

All I need to do now was to find a place to upload the game.