Hollow

District D of Neo-Tokyo.

It was a dark and quiet area. The streetlights were not much for illuminating the path, casting only weak circles of pale hue on the ground. A few people here and there, a few lights.

Tucked in between two old buildings was an alley.

There was barely any light there, a very dim yellow light at the end was all that lit up the area. There was thrash littered on the floor, bags of junk stacked up on top of each other and some pipes going here and there. A few dumpsters had their lids up and the smell of rotting trash could be faintly be found in the air. There was no one except for one person in that alley.

A extremely tall man, with black hair, pointy ears, wings coming out of his back — This was Hayate Sato. He was sitting against the wall, waiting for any lone person to pass by so he could use his magic on them.

He had lots of doubts about what he was going to do — and, they weren't all ethical.

The first and foremost was his ethical and moral code.

He had always believed that freedom of choice and individuality was the most important thing in any society. If he ever made a nation with him as its leader — it would be a total utopia. A free nation where everyone had the freedom to choose what they wanted to do, etc.

"that's an absurd thought" he said to himself and dismissed it. Him as the leader of a nation? He wasn't fit for that at all.

He had only been a leader two times in his whole life. One time was when he was the leader of a club back in his high school days and second was that he was the leader of Angels of hell — His group. His beloved group.

But those two positions of "leadership" didn't mean much. The first one was just a mere club and the second one was well, a team made up of his friends. If you want true leadership, you need to lead a country or a large organization of something at least. That's the only way to truly lead and make people listen. Second doubt was about his mind control itself. This specific kind of mind control could be considered as "immoral" and wrong by some people.

He was just a normal man, with above average intelligence — he isn't a genius. If anything, this was more like a pun. In a sense, he was a king.

In "HOLLOW" his race was a higher demon — the top of the demon race line. And a higher demon is the ruler of all demons (atleast, that's what' was said in the hollow guidebook)

In Hollow when choosing the race you could choose your base race. Then, later on, you could upgrade your race every twenty levels.

He chose a "demon" as his base race and was later upgraded to a "Higher Demon."

Upgrading your race gave you many racial benefits.

One racial benefit for him was that he was immune to all fire damage or fire spells.

In the game, all races had their strengths and weaknesses. Like, demons and all of the undead had the biggest amount of racial skills — in sense they were considered "overpowered" only if you got them to level 100. But then again, everyone had their own style and playing style — he never used high level "racial skills" unless he was out of mana because he was a mage so he preferred spells.

The following were all the skills he had — [Death (instant death)], [Fire immunity], [world ruler], [create demon — tier 1 to tier 5] twenty times a day, [create demon — tier 6 to tier 9] six times a day, [create undead — tier 1 to tier 5] ten times a day, [create undead — tier 6 to tier 9] five times a day, [create elemental — tier 1 to five 5] twenty times a day, [create elemental — tier 6 to tier 9] eight times a day, [demon domination], [Dark vision], [Infernal], [Claws], [Hourglass], [rapture], [tough], [Armour spikes], [clean body], [no man's land], [healer], [sunbather], [Hell's gates], [Asura's blessings], and many many more.

The five best skills which he had were : [World ruler], [Rapture], [hourglass], [Doomsday] and at the fifth spot was either [Death] or [Hell's gates]. These five skills were the most overpowered skills he had with the strongest being [world ruler]. but if he had to use a combo of skills then he would use ; [sunbather] and [no man's land].

He wanted to test if he still had any of his skills, it would be an utter shame if he wasn't able to use any skills and only spells. "Let's check something really quick" He said to no one in particular, before doing so he looked both sides to see if anyone was coming.

After seeing the coast was clear for atleast the next couple of minutes. He decided to use a simple skill, [inferno].

This skill was an Aoe skill. It could be turned on passively or turned off — it set anything flammable around a 10 meter range of the user ablaze, and gave the user fiery steps so wherever they walked, fires would start.

And that was the only use of that skill, there were other skills which were better and more powerful than this one, like [Doomsday], skill much more deadly than [inferno] where it rained hellfire in a aoe but he would attract too much attention using it. [Inferno] was a skill he had got at level 15 so it was a very weak one and it's flames would be gone the instant he turned off the skill.

So, he turned the skill on. In the following three-four seconds, Hayate could slowly see as the surroundings of the area around him started to catch fire. It wasn't like a massive fire but the area near him, which was like 10 meters or so, was slowly started to catch fire, and then he turned it off.

This was the confirmation he needed.

His skills worked too.

These weren't the only skills he had — his items and rings had skills too.

For example, the skill which his strongest item — a mythical rank item possessed was so strong it could one shot a level 95 player.

"let's not let that thing out for now" He thought to himself, the fact even having a single item which could one shot a level 95 player just gave him an immense feeling of security, it was a trump card of sorts. Well, not really.

At the end of the day — all that mattered was the players strength and skill, but his item helped.

Enough of that.

His second concern was for his own safety

A : The crime of mind controlling an Npc.

Non.player.character's or NPC in games were character's which could interact with the world around them but they didn't have life in them. They were in simple words mindless shells just programmed to do stuff. There were two types of NPC's — Player made NPC and NPC's which were already present when the game had launched. For example : The NPC's in the towns, cities and villages — these were already in the game world. But people in a guild could make their own NPC's using gold.

They could design the NPC and make them whatever they wanted as they weren't sexual in appearance, the gold for making one ranged from 1 billion gold to 2 billion gold depending on their level and class. That's why most people preferred to make only top rank NPC's and never even bothered making a normal or low rank NPC as those were useless, but they were cheap. Like 10 million gold. Except for role playing guilds, they had a ton of them.

Now, the thing was that NPC's could be mind controlled — but it's a bad thing to do and could be seen as an act of war to an guild, if the npc was their's.

Now, mind controlling an npc wasn't exactly against the rules and some players did it but it wasn't exact appreciated even by the Dev's.

Now, it wasn't that he was saying that these people — these human's walking around the city in what was most likely japan were NPC's and not real people.

There was a chance that they were real human's but there was also a chance that those weren't. He was considering every possibility here.

He sighed.

He was thinking too much.

He needed to calm himself.

Should he just go out like this?

"No, that would be stupid" he muttered to himself. "I should prepare countermeasures for my own safety just in case whoever i control turns out to be strong."

"[Emergency translocation], [Magic nullification field]."

The two spells would work in tandem.

[Emergency translocation] was a 7th tier spell, it's effect was that it automatically teleported the caster 100m away from their current location if they took any damage be it magical or physical within 150 seconds of the spell being cast.

[Magic nullification field] was a 6th tier, small AOE spell with an area of 10m, it formed a barrier around the caster which extended to 10m from the caster in all 4 directions, it nullified any magic below 7thth tier 60 seconds.

Upon casting both spells, Hayate's body was momentarily enveloped in a red glow, indicating the success of the spells. Following this, a green circular barrier materialized around him, extending 10 metres in all directions. The barrier was translucent and served as a visible indication of the spell's activation.

Although, he felt a bit exhausted — mostly because these were the first high tier spells he had casted after to this (another?) world. Both spells had used up 30 M.P and 25 M.P each. Fortunately, he had two passive abilities from his items, "The Ring of Envy" and "Supreme Sorcerer's Ring," which reduced his magic power consumption by a combined total of 40%. But back in the game any passive buff or any buff spells that stacked was Halved, so for the first one you will get the original amount and then for the second one it will be "X% of buff/2" so instead of a 40% reduction in total he only got a 30% reduction.

So, instead of the original cost of 30 MP and 25 MP, the spells only used up 21MP and 17MP respectively, a significant reduction

In the game, the buff stacking division mechanism applied ONLY to buffs of the same kind, not the first buffs.

For example, if you casted three buffs that all increased your Strength, then the stacking division mechanism would kick in and the buffs would be halved. But if the buffs were all different – say, one increased Strength, one increased health points and one increased mana points- then the stacking division mechanism wouldn't apply, and the buffs would be full power.

The stacking division mechanism worked by dividing the effectiveness of buffs of the same type. For example, if a player casts multiple buffs that each increase their strength by 20%, the buff stacking division mechanism would take effect and divide the effectiveness of each buff by 2. This means that instead of receiving a combined total buff of 60% (20% + 20% + 20%), the player would only receive a buff of 36% (20% + 10% + 6 %). This mechanism is designed to prevent players from stacking too many powerful buffs at once.

He leaned back against the wall, taking deep breaths to calm down. After he was somewhat satisfied with himself. He looked out at the road and used, "[Detect].

He was using it to monitor the heat signatures of people — everyone he could see was orange and no one had a blue colour to them meaning they didn't have mana.

It was normal, no one in this city as far as he knew right now with his limited information except for him had mana. He used [Detect] for a minute longer till he saw someone he wanted to target. Hayate observed the area closely again, making sure the coast was still clear. This person was alone.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the universe, apologizing to the person he was about to control. "I hope you forgive me for doing this."

He peeked out of the alley, this person was a lone man in his mid-twenties with a pale complexion, a typical Japanese face, and a lean frame. The man was hurrying down the street, dressed in the standard outfit of an office worker. There was no one else nearby, the perfect victim.

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He was going to use [dominate] on him but he held some doubts about how it would work.

"Would it work the same..as in hollow..?"

He thought to himself.

The [Dominate] spell was a 4th tier spell. It worked in hollow, thusly; when cast on an adversary, they had the ability to resist the domination effects if they had a counter-spell, a magical item that granted resistance to mind magic, or if they were innately immune.

It consumed 8 points of MP while in its operational state. Upon successful utilization, the target individual would lose all ability to counteract or move, while the caster would be empowered to access the target's stats, possessions, and inventory.

On monsters, the spell's implementation was slightly different. Once employed on a monster, it would result in the monster succumbing to the player's control, thereby permitting the player to utilize the subjugated entity in combat against other adversaries.

The spell itself operated with a time limit of about 2 minutes, making it ineffective against opponents with superior levels. Consequently, it was more commonly employed during the late-early to middle stages of play. The only reliable methods for negating its effects were through possession of specific Items or knowledge of counter-spells. Alternatively, raising one's "int" stat significantly could reduce the spell's success rate or even render the target immune to its effects.

That's how the game worked, but in reality he wasn't sure what would happen.

It wouldn't cause any harm to use it though, so he waited for the man to pass him and a few moments later once he was just a step away, he casted the spell, [Dominate].

Knowing the spell's parameters, he considered the possible counter-measures and realized that the man would most likely have nothing to counter it. Having confirmed the man's status with the [Detect] spell and established the absence of any magical abilities or mana, Hayate was confident that the likelihood of the man possessing any counter-measures was low to none.

The coast was clear, and he had made his decision.

He casted the spell upon the man, who froze in place as soon as the dominate spell activated. Hayate could feel a connection between himself and the man, as well as a small depletion of his MP.

A satisfied smile tugged at the corners of Hayate's lips.

"it worked..."

Hayate waited for a few seconds, watching to make sure the man was well under the spell's control. When he noticed that the man was completely still and not reacting to anything it confirmed that the spell had completely taken effect. The expression on the man's face was blank, his eyes devoid of any signs of life, as if he had become a mindless puppet who's strings were controlled by Hayate.

Hayate couldn't help the sense of accomplishment welling up within him. Despite his doubts a moment ago, the spell had worked flawlessly.

Satisfied with the result, Hayate mentally commanded the man, it was like taking to himself in his mind except that he wasn't really talking to himself.

"⟨Walk over to me⟩"

Upon hearing the command, the man's expression remained blank and emotionless, yet he promptly obeyed. Slowly turning around and walking towards Hayate, moving deliberately and mechanically as he stepped into the alley through the barrier set up by [magic nullification field].

As the man stepped through the transparent green barrier, Hayate felt a wave of reassurance. He was now truly safe from any attacks.

"⟨Stop⟩" Hayate commanded again, and the man halted in his tracks immediately.

Hayate took a moment to observe the man, sizing him up.

"good evening, tonight's quite a cold night. Isn't it?"

Hayate couldn't really feel the cold but since it was showing outside he could probably guess it was cold.

The man didn't respond.

All Hayate could hear were faint sounds of breathing.

"don't be so stiff, would you."

Hayate said to the man as he walked a few steps and stood in-front of him, towering over him.

The man's expression remained blank and blank only.

Hayate sighed.

"Well I apologise for mind controlling you, that was rude of me but I have some questions so you wouldn't mind answering them, would you?"

The man replied with a monotonous voice, devoid of emotions. "I don't mind."

Hayate was honestly surprised that the man's reply was so simple and obedient — at first he had thought maybe this person either couldn't talk or they didn't understand japanese but this person was understanding him and even replied in Japanese.

This also removed the possibility of this man being an NPC because NPC's couldn't verbally talk.

While thinking about NPC's he subconsciously remembered Valhalla — the biggest non player made guild in Hollow ie it was already there when the game started and it was made up completely of NPC's. Hayate and his friends, the angels of hell had once raided it and since back then it was in really early stages of it's development as the plot of the story hadn't even began they were weak so they were completely decimated by them. But, because of this he and all his friends got a massive warning from the Dev's..that was around. An year ago now?

He wondered what happened to those NPC's.

No, now's not the time for these things.

He shook his head.

"Can you tel— Ah, no. I apologise, i haven't even said my name. I am Hayate sato. May I ask your name?"

The man simply replied with another monotone voice. "Satoshi Takano."

"I see, thank you for telling me your name, Satoshi-san."

Hayate looked at the man's appearance, it was a face he hadn't seen anywhere before.

Satoshi was on the paler side, it was more like the pale type people have when they don't get enough sunlight.

That was weird.

Japan was literally called "the land of the rising sun."

Why was this person so pale? Perhaps it was just because he worked a 9-5 and was cooped up in an office with almost no windows?

Possibly, the work culture here was terrible. That's why he didn't get a job as soon as he got out of high school and instead only did a part time job.

"Satoshi, are you a player?"

By player, Hayate meant someone who also played 'HOLLOW' and was transported to this place like him.

Of course, most player's would answer this with a no if they were cautious but he wanted to ask nonetheless, since he was under mind control he couldn't lie.

"I am not a player, I was here from the start." Satoshi replied after a moment or two of not saying anything, this was a bit surprising to Hayate since that meant Satoshi was an original resident of this world and had no idea what 'HOLLOW' was.

HOLLOW was a global sensation, hell even his father used to play it sometimes with him. So it was weird this man didn't know about it, it wasn't like he was in an really rural area as well — no, this place was even more urban than Tokyo.

"Interesting."

Hayate muttered while rubbing his chin and looking down at Satoshi.

He was silent for a while, thinking about how to ask the questions about the world's current state to get a full understanding of this world.

The basic question to start this off with would be ;

"Hey, Satoshi-san. Where are we right now?"

"We are in Japan, in the capital city — Neo-Tokyo."

This answer was simple and to the point, a perfect one that confirmed what he feared..He was in Japan..but that was expected. So he wasn't in hollow, this much was confirmed by now. That's was good.

Since this man specifically said "Japan" and not anything else he was still on earth but what surprised him the most was, "Neo-Tokyo? Neo means new, right. So, Neo-Tokyo? Huh, what is that supposed to mean. What happened to the old Tokyo?"

"Did something happen to the old Tokyo for this to be named 'neo-'? Can I ask you that?"

Satoshi took a moment or two to answer, his blank face expressionless. But when he finally did answer he said,

"Tokyo was nuked years ago."

That was something Hayate was not expecting at all.

"What?!" Hayate was really surprised, his jaw would've fell down if it weren't attached to his face that is.

"Tokyo was nuked?"

He had so many questions suddenly pop up in that one moment that he felt overwhelmed.

He couldn't believe it — how could such a thing happen? What was this all about? Who even dropped a nuke?

"How long.." Hayate muttered as he tried to maintain his composure. "How long was this ago?"

"65 years ago in 2044."

"65 years ago!?"

This was the most surprising thing Hayate had heard till now. He was so baffled he couldn't speak properly. This was shocking news.

Tokyo was nuked and it was 65 years ago?

So the current year should be...2109?!

"It is 2109 at the moment." Satoshi clarified.

It was truly a shocking fact that the year had already reached 2109. This meant he was 85 years in the future.

"That...means a lot.."

Hayate was having a hard time wrapping his head around this fact.

He had landed here 65 years after Tokyo was nuked into oblivion. The Tokyo Hayate knew, didn't exist anymore. The neon lights, the lively downtown, the famous stores, the people walking around with their office bags. Everything. Destroyed.

What a disaster.

He had expected being transported to another world — he had seen a lot of anime's after all. But, he was not at all expecting to be transported to the future.

"Satoshi-san, how was..Tokyo nuked? Like, who dropped the bomb or whatever.."

Hayate finally decided to ask the main question on the top of his list. He had to know who was crazy and stupid enough to detonate a nuke on Tokyo, of all the cities.

"China."

"It was China..."

Hayate muttered

China, his country's rival.

He always knew that China had issues with Japan but they never thought it would go this far. Dropping a nuke?! They were mad, absolutely out of their minds.

"Was there..any war?"

It was the first thing to come to mind, considering the circumstances.

"there were tons but the ones that started it all was World war III which started in 2030."

"World war..."

That word left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Just what the hell happened in these 85 years.." he thought to himself.

"Dad was 43, and mom was 41," he thought. "They'd be 128 and 126 now. That's nearly impossible. They're ...dead." he spoke out-loud.

For a moment, he couldn't accept that fact. The two most important people in his life were long, long gone.

That...hit him hard.

He couldn't accept it — how cold-hearted had time treated him. He closed his eyes for a bit but then he felt, Hollow?

Empty.

Most of his sadness was suddenly gone.

"Wait — what was that feeling.."

Hayate muttered to himself, he didn't feel as sad anymore. It wasn't that he was ignoring the fact his parents were dead — it was like his sadness was being suppressed — like he wasn't supposed to feel these humans emotion — because, he was a demon. Not a human anymore.

It felt weird.

Just a moment ago, he felt so sad and depressed that he almost felt like crying. But, those feelings were suddenly suppressed.

He wasn't completely sad, but he still felt sad. But not enough to completely have a breakdown.

He didn't like this feeling at all, it felt unnatural to not be completely sad as it was one's natural response to feel this way when they thought of their loved ones who were long since gone — he was sure any normal person would react this way, yet he couldn't.

He felt so lost.

"Satoshi-san, what happened during WW-III?"

"The war ran from 2030 to 2050 and was fought with nuclear weapons, it left the world in chaos and famine due to blocking of the sun rays by radioactive fallout. After the war, three corporations helped the Japanese government and now they're the three main mega-corps in Japan — the Kusonoki conglomerate and its two branches — nagata technologies and ishimaru industries."

"Three main mega-corps huh."

This was quite interesting.

"Satoshi-san, which one controls Neo-Tokyo? Kusonoki or someone else?"

"The Kusonoki conglomerate controls Neo-Tokyo."

"Kusonoki, I see."

Hayate took a moment to process this.

Then he wondered how these three mega-corps managed to rise to power after what he assumed to be a devastating world war.

He would find out that later.

If only he got access to a phone or a pc..then he could find out whatever he wanted.

"Satoshi-san..do you happen to have a phone on you?"

Satoshi shook his head.

"That's unfortunate." Hayate sighed but he couldn't do anything.

He had to do something, he needed information. A smartphone could give him exactly that, but he had no money.

"Satoshi-san, do you have any money on you?"

Satoshi shook his head again, he had no money it seemed. This was a very unfortunate turn of events.

Hayate had no money, no documents, no one to reach out to. He was stranded, 85 years in the future.

All of this was true except for the no money part. He had money, a lot of it but that was gold — gold from hollow. He had more than 2 trillion gold coins in his inventory.

But, that was useless here.

In Japan, people used yen.

Sure, if he wanted to he could go to an exchange shop if those existed still but there were two major problems with that.

1 - it required documents which he didn't have

2 - he was a demon, not a human. He couldn't just go in there looking like a anime character, sure if he wanted to he could use say he was a cosplayer but would they belive him?

No, they would never believe him.

That wasn't even the main worry right now.

He had much more important problems at hand, like where the hell would he go?

Just, where would he go?

Hayate considered the idea of finding his extended family but quickly dismissed it. They wouldn't recognize him even if he did managed to track them down. He wasn't in his original body and he had never been particularly close to them.

Even when he was alive, he had barely spoken to his extended family. They had always been embroiled in petty feuds and disputes. It was unlikely that they would provide any comfort or support for him in his current situation

Hayate then thought about the possibility of reuniting with his childhood friends. Though it was a long shot, they had a better chance of being alive than his parents since they were all around 18-19 years old. Even if he did manage to find them alive, what the hell would he tell them?

"Hey guys, remember me? We used to play games together 85+ years ago, but then I was playing the game and woke up in my in-game body 85+ years into the future..."

It was just too ludicrous. The mere thought of trying to explain that to his friends was almost laughable. It was highly unlikely that they would believe such an absurd story. They would probably just think he was delusional or crazy. And even if they did manage to believe him, what then? What could he hope to accomplish by reconnecting with them?

It was just a pointless endeavor. No matter how he looked at it, there was no point in reconnecting with friends from 80+ years ago. Hayate had been gone so long that any connection he had once had with his friends was most likely gone. Even if he were to track any of them down, the relationship they once had would not be the same. 85 years was an incredibly long time and it would be foolish to think that he could just waltz back into their lives like nothing had happened .

Hayate sighed, feeling deeply frustrated.

It seemed highly likely that he would have to start from scratch. He would have to build relationships that he lost all over again, and he wasn't excited about that at all. It was exhausting just thinking about it.

"This isn't looking good." He muttered to himself as he continued to think about the possible outcomes of his situation.

"Maybe I can revive my parents if they're..dead?"

Hayate knew of the [True Revival] spell, a 7th tier spell that could revive any being that had died and also negate any detrimental effects. However it cost 40MP to use and required a fresh corpse. Hayate knew that by this time his parents' corpses had decomposed. Even if that wasn't the case, it was also impossible to know exactly where they were buried. It was a hopeless endeavor to even think of such a plan.

[True Revival] was an extremely powerful spell that posssed the ability to resurrect any individual, irrespective of the circumstances of their passing. However, the spell's capabilities didn't end there. It didn't just revive the person, it also completely negated any negative effects such as curses or stat reductions. In terms of cost, the spell consumed a significant amount of mana, at 40MP per use. In hollow, the penalty for death was significant. Not only would all items be lost, but players also received a 10-level reduction. However, the spell could negate these losses if used correctly. If a player was dead and their body was still present within 10 minutes, casting [True Revival] could completely remove the penalty. However, this would still result in them dropping all their items. It was important to note that the spell could still be effective even after the 10-minute window. However, under this circumstance, the spell only mitigated a portion of the penalty, resulting in a 2-level reduction instead of a full negation and all of their items would still be lost and were free-for-the-taking by anyone who stumbled upon them.

It was a stupid thought, the thought of reviving them.

The odds that their bodies still remained in the first place were astronomical.

Not impossible, just extremely unlikely. Even if their bodies miraculously survived, the chances of finding them were still next to none because he had no idea where they were buried.

In the end all of it was a pipe dream.

Now the next question came into his head.

Where would he go?

He couldn't go out on the street looking like this. He didn't have any--

No, he did.

His home.

He should go to his home, his old home.