Putting your life at stake.

I learned that it was a very difficult thing to do.

Be it work, sports, hobbies, gambling.

The subject matters not, but in modern day Japan it's very difficult to accomplish something after having lost everything.

Livelihood, funds, society, other people, your body, they all get in the way.

I skipped school, and even as an adult, I did not work much.

All I did was trying to aim for the "top".

I literally bet everything.

Everything except for the bare minimum such as meals, sleep and excretions were dedicated to "it".

『World's Rank 1』

And this is the result.

The pinnacle among millions of people.

Really, really exhilarating!

What a pleasant sensation!

I felt as if all my efforts, all of my life was finally rewarded.

The world's rank 1, recognized by everyone in this planet. The same as the presence of God, giving everyone a sense of awe. The strongest existence, the summit in all history, the one who never allowed defeat. That is me.

That is the result of my life.

That is everything in my life.

The rank 1 in the world ladder of the VRMMORPG『Mobius Online』.

Everything I ever did became history.

「…………」

Being lost in a daze would be exactly like this.

The other day, my main character 『seven』 was hacked.

Not only my character, but everything from backups to personal data.

I wasn't the only victim in this attack. From what I heard, around 3,000 other players were affected.

And what's more, those were the "top 3,000 players".

The culprit was already caught. He too was one of the top players, and it seems, according to him that "it all started from simply jealousy and turned into a crime". Hacking the character data of 3,000 players can't be done by someone with such a lighthearted excuse as "simply jealousy", it was the obsessive work of a deviant, but the media and general public seemed to think lightly of this.

Well then.

This was the announcements from Mobius Online operators following the incident.

It is impossible to recover the affected characters. As compensation, the affected players will get preferential billing treatment at the time of creating a new character.

"……………………"

Gastric juices flowed through my throat as I vomited, trembling with rage and feelings of emptiness, but how about the other players?

The public opinion was in favor of Mobius too, saying "Mobius management were also victims" and even in online forums they were saying stuff like "Mobius response is a reasonable one".

On Twitter and YouTube, famous personalities whose characters were erased got crazy and rampaged, spreading rumors against the development company after that notice was announced.

However, with time, the fuss died out and the Mobius hacking case was completely extinguished.

You got to be kidding me.

"…Haaah…"

I got no motivation left.

I can't think of anything left to do.

All I could do was sigh.

I haven't eaten anything but water in the last three days.

The world's rank 1 would never come back.

"……Alright! "

Well, I can't keep being like this all the time.

I cleaned my knees of the bread crumbs that lied on the ground and stood up.

"Let's die! "