《Open Fantasy》


 Prologue

    The game [Open Fantasy] is a popular game that spread like wildfire the moment it was released. It was developed as a RPG/Simulation game where you can choose where your character begins and how they can procede in their life in the fantasy world Thuntera. For example, you can start as an upstart noble that brings fame and prestige to your household by various means like becoming a known adventurer or maybe becoming a teacher to the royal academy. Or you could decide to start as inhabitant from the slums and working your way up by working as apprentice blacksmith, later becoming the best with hard work. Or as born as a commoner you could start your own merchant company/business and play the game as economic simulator. You could even play the game as a dating sim if you wanted to.


    This premise of freedomwas new in the RPG category at the time and was a huge risk as it could either fail horribly or succeed unimaginably. The risk that my friends and I took paid off as the game was given great reviews and praised endlessly. At the end of the first week of the release, the game sold over five million copies worldwide. When this statistic was released, sales increased even further with seven million copies sold in the next week. After four weeks, sales indicated over 20 million were sold.


    To thank the players and supporters of [Open Fantasy] on the end of the second month after the release, I, Rian Yamato, one of the character developers on the team, along with the development team, released a free expansion. The contents included new items and quest for the RPG playthroughs, new rival company and businesses for the economic simulation players, and a whole new questline for nobles that followed the dating sim gameplay that involved the royalty of two countries from two different continents.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    As a personal thanks from me, together with a coworker and friend, we added a character that was only playable after playing through the slum inhabitant, commoner, and noble paths once. A hidden character if you will. This wasn''t put in the contents of the expansion released by us and as a bonus surprise for the fans. After finalizing the finishing touches, my friends and I went for some celebratory drinks and got drunk. And by drunk I mean WASTED, we were in a seriously happy mood after all. Well, I wasn''t ''wasted''as the others since I could hold my drink better but still pretty drunk. I somehow got back to my home, after driving nearly all of my friends back home safely, hitting the sack immediately with my conscience waning rapidly.


    ''Ugh, not looking foward to the hangover when I wake up. At least it won''t be as bad as the others, heh.''


    I didn''t think that thesethoughts were going to my last as Rian Yamato.

 Chapter One: Morning After

    ''Argh!''


    Pain reverberates inside my headlike it''s splitting it into two pieces as my conscience returns to me.


    ''Never getting drunk again.''


    As I start to open my eyes, I immediatly start squinting as light assaults them. To protect my delicate retinas, I procede to cover my eyes with my hands with the intentof allowing my irises to adjust. As my eyes slowly adjust, I noticed my hands, more specifically, the size of them. They looked...


    ''...Must be the morning groginess.''


    I close my eyes and slowly open them to look at my hands again. They stayed small. They look quite adorable if I say so myself. Smooth as well.


    "WHAT THE f*ck....."


    I began to freak out, but stopped as soon as I started. Why? Simple, my voice. It''s squeaky, like a little girl''s. Sweat runs down my entire bodyas I slowly reach down to hoping to confirmmy little brother''s safety, only to be dissapointed when I found out that any sign of my little brother''s well-being is void...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    A good 10 minutes must have passed before I accepted the death of my little brother in tears. Still depressed by the fact that the only male quality I had that confirmed that I was a male back on Earth is gone, I slowly take a look around me. Currently I''m resting on a amazingly fluffy queen-sized bed under a silky blanket. In front of the bed is a stylish wooden wardrobe. To the left is a small table with some books, paper, quill pens and what I believe to be a inkstone, and a door that I figure leads to the rest of the building I''m currently in. To the right is a body-sized mirror and a chest that looks like it came right out of a dungeon.Stolen story; please report.


    I get up and move in front of the mirror to see the accursedoffender that stolemy manhood from me. I could only stare in silence as I observed the small person that was on the mirror. On the mirror reflected a young girl that couldn''t be more than four or five years of age. On her head was a childish yet elegant face that gave others a feeling of anticipation to how beautiful the young maiden would look in 10 years. Eyes that compared to the finest amethysts money could buy. Silver hair with dark highlights on the endsthat gave an illusion that there was a tiny moon in front of you. If you observed closly, you could even say that there were small mounds already developing on the petite body.


    "Wow..."


    I could only sigh in amazement to the looks of the beautiful girl that was in front of me. As I looked at myself I heard footsteps coming closer outside the room until they stopped at the door to my room.*Knock*Knock*


    "Honey are you awake?" (Beautiful voice)


    "Yes, I just woke up. You can come in mum." (Me)


    What I saw shocked me just as much as my appearance did. From the door was a silver haired beauty that could easilybring down countries with just looks alone. Sapphire-blue eyes and a body that even modelswould jealous of accompanied by a beautiful yellow dress.She quickly looked around the room before landing her gaze onto me, a gentle smile blooming on her face. With finesse, she walked to me and just as I did moments before, looked atthe mirror which this time reflected two people on it. Mother looked at us before putting on a even brighter smile than when she came in.


    "My, Rina, you''re getting prettier and prettier as days go by." (Mother)


    "N-not as pretty as you mum." (Me)


    I gotted flustered when I heard what my mother said. Don''t get me wrong, its not that I''m new to compliments thanks to my adolescent days. It''s just that getting complimented by a peerless beauty would get anyone''s heart going. That''s also just a minor reason why I got flustered. The main reason was the nameshe called me, Rina. ''Isn''t it just a name, why does that have to fluster you so?''you might ask. It''s because that''s the default name of the female version of the character I co-designed with a friend from the free expansion we launched last night. I did the characteristics, personality, and traits of the male version while my friend, Irene, did the female version. As I was running this information around my mind, my mother spoke, breaking my train of thoughts.


    "Ufufu, thank you sweetie. Breakfast''s ready, come down and eat after dressing up nicely. We need to get to the church on time, today''s your big day after all!" (Mother)


    "Yes mum."


    Mother went back to the dining room after telling me breakfast was ready. I put on a simple yet charming white dress and after admiring myself again in front of the mirror, I left my room and went to the dining room, where I would be meeting the rest of my family over breakfast.

 Chapter Two: Meeting the family!

    As I walk to the dining room as my destination, I look around me and remind myself of informationabout the home that the I lived in for the past few years. The lead artist on the team, Marc, showcased the design for the home that the hidden character would live inand the concept behind it when the expansion was in development. The style was English like most games in the fantasy genre. The size of land owned by Rina''s family was around 14,500 square metres big, about 10 football fields in length and width. The center of the land would be a large fountain and the mansion right behind it. Near thetop right corner would be the food storage. Near the right boundary, in front of the storagewould be the servant housing. To the left of the servant housing are the stables. Behind the mansion would be an area for picnics or an outdoor gatherings. Towards the left of that area would be a huge garden, splitting into vegetable and flower halves. In the bottom left corner of the land would be orchards of variety of fruits.


    Speaking of Marc, he was the one that put that idea of celebratory party anyway. Sheesh, because of him this happened to me. I wonder the same thing happened to any of the team as well. If I do meet someone from the team, how should I act? Do I call them out or should I ignore them and try to live my life as Rina? *Sigh* I wonder if my family''s fine, mom and dad are always worried for me and nee-san... I just hope she doesn''t go running around townand making trouble for everyone if she starts searchingfor me.


    Right when I finish worrying about my friends and family, I arrive at the dining room on the first floor. I go in through the already opened doors and a devishly handsome yet stern man, my father Korrin Elwyn, the Duke of Elwyn, could be seen sitting at one end of the table. Black hair and violet eyes adorned the man. In [Open Fantasy] all inhabitants of Thuntera had mana and more than half could use magic. To use magic, your mana pool must be large enough to be able to cast a basic spell, and your pool size depends on two variables - lineage and divine favor. Lineage meant how thick royal blood runs through your veins and divine favor, like the name suggests, the amount of divinity that the soul contains when you''re born, and has three levels from lowest to highest - boon, protection, and blessing. My father, Duke Elwyn, is not only one of the few master ranked mages, he also has a protection-level favor. To clarify, the royal family and duke households can normally become adepts like how commoners become novices, and a boon-level favor gives about 15-30% increase to whatever the divine being represents while protection-level gives 30-60% and blessing-level gives 60-90%. In the base game of [Open Fantasy] Duke Elwyn was one of the strongest characters in the game on the same level as the |Hero| who had the option to gain blessing-level favor if the player wished, only weaker tothe few demigods in world. My father''s amazing right? To normal people he''s awe-inspiring and overbearing, but to me he''s...well...


    "Good morning Rina. Ah, my cute angel, papa''s very glad to see you healthy today as well." (Korrin)


    "Morning daddy, Rina''s very healthy!" (Me)


    In response to my father, I answered as energetically as I could based on how much I remembered on how I acted when I was a child. I figured it would be best as a child to behave like one. Speaking and behaving like an adult would be weird to people, even more so I don''t like that picture too much myself. Anyway, you see what I mean when I can''t really see him like he''s shown to the players of the base game? In the base game Duke Elwyn and his family weren''t shown on the personal level. In the expansion, because Irene worked on the female version of the hidden character, not just the father, but the whole family and household turned out to be like this. On the male version, family situation was a lot more complicated since he could compete for to be the inheritor of the household.


    "Of course Rina-chan''s healthy dad. Could it bethat you wished her to be sick in the first place? Ah, poor Rina-chan, to think our very own father would wish harm upon one of his children." (Femine voice)


    "Preposterous! I''d rather lose an arm than for Rina to be sick!" (Korrin)


    The girl that just made a sarcastic accusation to my father was the eldest missof Household Elwyn, Claire Elwyn who had black hair like father and sapphire eyes like mother. Other than Claire nee-sama, my siblings include eldest nii-samaAdrian Elwyn and second nii-samaKaden Elwyn. Claire nee-sama, just like the rest of my family, is incredibly smitten and overprotective of me. Not unlike our father, Claire also has a protection-level divine favor, from the same divine being to boot. Unlike our father, she aspires to be part of the Order of Royal Knightsrather than a magician. Claire was also born with a large mana pool as her lineage was good, but unfortunately she was elementless, meaning rather than having ease with one or more elements, she had increased difficulty with all of them. To not lose the dignity under the Elwyn name, she trained her swordsmanship and discovered that her talent with physical mana, or simply ''ki'' was at the genius level. Having a large mana pool does not mean great talent with magic,there''s two different ways to spend mana - spiritually and physically. Spiritual mana use ends with external spells while physical use ends up with internal ki.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    "D-daddy doesn''t loveRina?" (Me)


    I ask our father while putting on the saddest expression I can. ''Man can''t believe I have to behave like this again...''


    "O-of course not sweetie, your nee-san was just kidding around. Papa would never wish pain on you." (Korrin)


    "My dear, it''s great that you don''t want to harm Rina-chan, though it almost sounds like you don''t really care for the rest of your family." (Mother)


    My mother, Caitlyn Owsten Elwyn is the Duchess of Elwyn and eldest daughter of Duke Owsten, said to my father with an incredibly scary smile. Seriously it looked like there was a oni spirit behind her. Mother, as a direct descedent of a duke, also had a large mana pool, and although she wasn''t born with divine favor,she was proficient with the rare and valuable light element, which is comparable to a protection-level divine favor when combined with her large mana pool which allowed her to become a saintrank healer, the equivalent to a master rank magician. In [Open Fantasy] you could only become a healer if you chose to be a commoner or noble, but you the price of the rare and valuable light element is that you were forced to be a support character since most of light spells weren''t offensive. It''s not that you couldn''t learn or use offensive spells, it''s just that traininglight magic was as equally as hard as training two elements at the same time.


    "That was not my intention Cait. Come sweetheart, surely you know me better than that." (Korrin)


    "I am indeedquite sure that I know you better than that dear, just like how I''m sure that you''ll be sleeping alone tonight." (Caitlyn)


    "Tch, tch. To anger Duchess Elwyn and daughter of Duke Owsten. Father you sure are quite the courageousman." (Sarcasticvoice)


    "Nii-san, surely you meant foolish right? Though you deserve it for wishing harm on Rina" (Mischievious voice)


    "S-silence you two, what if Rina stops seeing me as anamazing,proud duke and loving father?!" (Korrin)


    No worries father! You don''t need to worry about that, since I never saw you in that kind of light in the first place, at least not the proud part. Anyway, the sarcastic one was my very charming eldest nii-sama Adrian and the mischievious one was second nii-sama Kaden. Adrian nii-sama, who has silver hair and violet eyes much like myself, is training to be the court wizard in the footsteps of our father. He was born with a large mana pool like the father, mother, and nee-sama, but only had a boon-level divine favor. However, he was proficient in two elements unlike father which gave him potential to be just as strong if not stronger than father. Kaden nii-sama was actually born with black and violet eyes like father, a normal-size mana pool which was uncommon and only a boon-level divine favor, however he was gifted a naturally athletic body and affinity with thelaw of lightning. Lightning, ice, nature, and gravity were the advanced versions of the elements fire, water, earth, and wind respectively. They''re considered laws because using them takes much more mana than normal elements and even when you could cast law-based spells they were incredibly hard to control so having affinity with any of them would make you a natural prodigy.


    *Cough* "Rina, today''s your examination at the church right? Do you feel excited?" (Korrin)


    "Ah, he''s running away. What happened to the amazing and proud duke, father?" (Claire)


    "No need to be nervous honey, no matter what daddy, mommy, and your nee-san and nii-san(s) will always be at your side and support you." (Korrin)


    "Ara, ignoring your eldest daughter are you dear? Seems like the amazing and proud duke isn''t getting dinner tonight as well as sleeping on his own." (Caitlyn)


    "Damn dad, you really digged your grave today huh." (Kaden)


    "Rina, are you done with eating? Let''s start heading towards the church then." (Adrian)


    "Un!" (Me)


    After responding toAdrian nii-sama with a lovable smile, the whole family got ready for the trip. Mother, Claire nee-sama, Adrian nii-sama, Kaden nii-sama and Iget on a family carriage to the church in good moods. Father was sentenced to sit outside of the carriage next to the driver, who in attempt to comfort, started patting the shrivelled back of a very dejected duke.