’No wonder esports exploded here. Who wouldn’t want to experience this?’
A screen materialized in front of him, startling him despite the lack of actual danger.
[Integrating with System...]
The loading bar filled slowly, and Zeph watched with fascination as his vision flickered slightly. Not painfully, just... adjusting. Calibrating.
[Integration Complete]
His status window appeared, floating in the white space exactly as it would in reality.
```
[STATUS WINDOW]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Na: Kai rcer
Age: 16
Level: 35
Class: [Warrior]
Title: [Sole Survivor]
▼ ATTRIBUTES
Strength: 120
Agility: 156
Vitality: 220
Intelligence: 9
Wisdom: 7
Charisma: 4
▼ SKILLS
[List of skills...]
▼ RESOURCES
HP: 2200/2200
MP: 1560/1560
SP: 1560/1560
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
```
’100% accurate. It pulled my entire System profile.’
Zeph ntally reached for his Primordial Architect interface, wondering if—
Nothing.
The VR system couldn’t detect it.
’As expected. The Primordial Architect is soul-bound and invisible to System scanning. VR operates through System integration, so...’
He allowed himself a small smile of relief.
’My cheat stays hidden. Perfect.’
The status window minimized, and a new prompt appeared.
[Welco to NeuroLink Virtual Reality]
[First-ti user detected]
[Would you like to create your Gar ID?]
[YES] [NO]
Zeph’s heart rate spiked with genuine excitent.
This was it.
His identity in the VR world.
The na that would appear on leaderboards, in tournant brackets, in chat channels.
The na that could beco famous if he was good enough.
He selected [YES] without hesitation.
A keyboard interface materialized in front of him, hovering at the perfect height and angle for comfortable typing. He could interact with it either by touching the virtual keys or by thinking letters—the neural interface responding to intention.
[Please enter desired Gar ID]
[Character limit: 3-16 characters]
[Alphanuric only, no special characters]
Zeph didn’t even hesitate.
[GHOST]
The na he’d been called in the ruins. The identity he’d built over three years. His default userna in every ga he’d ever played in his previous life.
He hit confirm.
[Gar ID "GHOST" is already in use]
[Please select a different ID]
’What.’
Zeph stared at the rejection ssage, disappointnt settling in his chest.
’Soone already took Ghost? Seriously?’
He tried variations.
THEGHOST - Already in use
GHOST47 - Already in use
GHOSTKING - Already in use
GHOSTWALKER - Already in use
’You’ve got to be kidding .’
He shifted to other favorites from his gaming past.
SHADOWBLADE - Already in use
VOIDREAPER - Already in use
NIGHTSTALKER - Already in use
DARKPHANTOM - Already in use
’What the hell! How are ALL the good nas taken?!’
Frustration mounted as he tried increasingly creative variations.
SILENT_DEATH - Invalid: no special characters
SILENTDEATH - Already in use
DEATHSILENT - Already in use
SILENTKILLER - Already in use
’This is ridiculous. There are millions of players. Of course all the cool nas are gone.’
He sat back—or would have, if he’d been in a chair instead of infinite white space—and tried to think strategically.
’Alright. Unique na. Sothing nobody would have thought of. Sothing morable but weird enough that...’
His eyes landed on a feature he’d initially ignored.
[Random Na Generator]
’No. Absolutely not. I am not trusting RNG with sothing this important.’
He tried five more variations of nas.
All taken.
’...maybe one random generation. Just to see what it suggests. I don’t have to accept it.’
Zeph clicked the Random Na Generator button with the resignation of soone who’d run out of better options.
The interface spun like a slot machine, letters and numbers flickering past too fast to read.
Then it stopped.
[Generated Gar ID: DIRTYGRANDPA]
[Accept?] [Generate New]
Zeph froze.
His brain completely short-circuited for a solid three seconds.
’Dirty. Grandpa.’
’DIRTY. GRANDPA.’
’The random generator—the supposedly sophisticated algorithm designed to create unique usernas—looked at the entire pool of possible combinations and decided that DIRTYGRANDPA was the optimal suggestion.’
His hand moved toward [Generate New] automatically.
[DIRTYGRANDPA has been confird as your Gar ID!]
[Thank you for using Random Generation! This selection is final and cannot be changed for 90 days per Terms of Service.]
’WHAT.’
’NO.’
’I DIDN’T CLICK ACCEPT!’
[Welco to NeuroLink VR, DIRTYGRANDPA!]
[Enjoy your gaming experience!]
’IT AUTO-CONFIRD! THE SYSTEM AUTO-CONFIRD WITHOUT MY CONSENT!’
Zeph stood in the white space, staring at the cheerful welco ssage, experiencing emotions that couldn’t be adequately expressed through language.
Horror. Disbelief. Rage. Resignation. More horror.
’I’m DirtyGrandpa now.’
’I can’t change it for 90 days.’
’If I beco famous—when I beco famous—I’ll be famous as DirtyGrandpa.’
’Tournant announcents will say "DIRTYGRANDPA advances to the finals!"’
’Leaderboards will show "1st Place: DIRTYGRANDPA"’
’People will cheer "DIRTYGRANDPA! DIRTYGRANDPA! DIRTYGRANDPA!"’
’This is my villain origin story. This is how supervillains are created.’
He took a deep breath, trying to find calm in the chaos.
’Okay. Okay. It’s fine. Usernas don’t actually matter. Plenty of professional gars have stupid nas. It’s about skill, not identity.’
’Besides, 90 days isn’t that long. Three months. I can survive three months with a dumb userna.’
’And honestly, in a world where people have usernas like "LootGoblin_Official" and "TeethCollector," DirtyGrandpa isn’t even that weird.’
’It’s morable. That’s... that’s a marketing advantage. People will rember the na.’
’For all the wrong reasons, but they’ll rember it.’
Another breath.
’I can work with this.’
’I HAVE to work with this because the system won’t let change it.’
’DirtyGrandpa is my gaming identity now.’
’Ti to make DirtyGrandpa a na that strikes fear into opponents’ hearts instead of just making them question my life choices.’
The welco screen faded, replaced by the main VR hub interface.
[Welco, DIRTYGRANDPA]
[Available Features: Ga Library | Social Hub | Training Grounds | Settings]
Zeph stared at his new userna displayed prominently at the top of every nu.
’At least I’m still breathing. At least I’m still generating PP with every breath even in VR.’
’See? Silver lining. While I process this userna tragedy, I’m still making progress toward my actual goals.’
’DirtyGrandpa will beco a legend.’
’Just... maybe not the kind of legend I originally envisioned.’
’But a legend nonetheless.’
He selected [Ga Library] and prepared to dive into the competitive VR scene.
As DirtyGrandpa.
Definitely as DirtyGrandpa.
’My old guild would never let live this down.’
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