In 2043, brain-computer interface games began to flourish. The perfectly immersive experience drove countless gamers wild, but as a new gaming device, the number of exclusive games was pitifully small—so few that even a dog would shake its head. The future, however, looked promising.
In this situation, there were always some bold players unwilling to accept the status quo. For example, Brandon Jenkins, who was currently sitting in his own gaming room, connecting his brain-computer interface to his PC with a data cable.
Brandon Jenkins was porting games from other devices to the brain-computer interface. This time, his target was Elden Ring, the game that had brought him countless shocks and fantasies in his childhood.
What, you ask how Brandon Jenkins knows how to do porting? Is he some kind of software genius? Of course not. He’s just a pure, aging otaku who, after watching the endless stream of porting tutorials on various platforms online, decided to give it a try. He had already ported several games before this, all without any issues.
Of course, under normal circumstances, the brain-computer interface’s safety features were fully guaranteed. The automatic protection system would shut down the device if any malfunction occurred. For the brain-computer, ordinary porting was no problem at all; its powerful optimization could give all kinds of games a second life on the device, though it couldn’t match the perfect immersion of exclusive brain-computer games.
With all these factors, Brandon Jenkins finally felt at ease. As the brain-computer made a “crackle~pop” burning sound, he left this world. Hopefully, this tragic case will teach inventors a lesson.
In an abandoned chapel, Brandon Jenkins slowly regained consciousness as he lay on the ground. Staring at the filthy carpet pressed against his face, his mind was momentarily unable to process what was happening.
“Strange carpet… wait, there’s no carpet in my room!”
Brandon Jenkins jolted awake, his not-so-bright brain starting to work again.
“I remember, I was… I was… right, I was trying to port Elden Ring to the neural interface. Did it actually work?”Brandon Jenkins got up from the ground, and what met his eyes was a scene of desolation: broken chairs, a dim room, sparse withered weeds poking through the cracks in the bricks. Yes, this was exactly where Elden Ring begins—the Chapel of Anticipation.
“Did I really succeed on the first try? Could I actually be a genius?”
Brandon Jenkins excitedly felt around his armor—the cold touch, the battle-worn damage… it all felt so real.
“Haha! Elden Ring, here I come, Malenia!”
He walked and jumped around the cramped chapel, drew his longsword and slashed at the surrounding chairs, watching them shatter before him, savoring this unparalleled “gaming experience.”
The chapel was too dim. After a while, Brandon Jenkins found the corpse of the Finger Maiden Witch by the dark wall, along with her dying words.
‘Even though the guidance is long broken, please, become the Elden Lord.’
Looking at the witch who had died before he ever met her, Brandon Jenkins couldn’t help but sigh.
“Sigh, she’s just an NPC with barely any text, I don’t even know her name… but actually seeing her corpse still feels a bit sad.”
“And having to shoulder someone else’s expectations is a lot of pressure for me, I’m already sweating, man.”
Brandon Jenkins turned to leave, but suddenly wanted to see what she looked like. So he squatted in front of the witch, reaching out to lift the hat brim covering half her face. But since the corpse was already lying on its side, the hat unexpectedly fell off.
Startled, Brandon Jenkins instinctively picked up the hat. At that moment, a line of small text suddenly appeared before his eyes:
“Finger Maiden Witch’s Hat”
Brandon Jenkins was instantly shocked.
This equipment isn’t supposed to be obtainable here, but now he’d gotten it from a dead NPC. He had only crudely ported the game, without modifying any content, so where did this hat come from?
This game seemed to be getting a little strange. Faced with this anomaly, Brandon Jenkins suddenly felt a bit scared.
Thinking back to the incredibly realistic sensations just now, this was clearly not something a forcibly ported game could produce in a neural interface. Coupled with this equipment that shouldn’t exist, a terrifying thought surfaced in his mind.
Maybe this isn’t a game anymore.
He tried to open the menu and exit the game, but what used to be a simple thought now wouldn’t work no matter what he did.
No matter how he shouted, there was no response.
A blurry memory suddenly surfaced as well—the very last memory before Brandon Jenkins died, one his body had forgotten for self-preservation.
He had forgotten until now.
Forgotten the pain of electricity coursing through his body, forgotten the deadly sound when the neural interface malfunctioned and burned out.
Brandon Jenkins suddenly remembered—he was already dead.
“So this is how I died… I just wanted to play a game…”
“I don’t want to die yet…”