Chapter 1: The Orange Book
The Concept of VRMMOs was just a pipe dream. Of course, taking existing games and converting them to VR to some degree has been done, and countless products branded as VRMMOs have been sold. However, every single one falls painfully short of what we all dreamed of.
You can’t touch things.
Battles just involve waving your hands up and down.
It’s easier to play with a controller than motion controls.
And so on. Technical and financial restrictions meant that no game could solve these problems, or so we all thought.
「Whoa, I can actually grab the sand! And the haptics feel so real…are they calculating each individual grain?! Amazing!」
I toss aside the dirt I picked up and draw my starting equipment, a handgun. In most games, you can’t physically draw your weapon – you just input commands and your control scheme switches to a gun. But in 『Hereafter Apollyon Online,』 I can actually draw my gun from its holster. It reminds me of old western games where that was a key feature, but those were gun specialist games where you’d expect it. This game isn’t just about guns, yet still achieves that level of quality and more!
As the tagline says, 『Find the key to save the future from a broken world! 』The game is set in the near future, 2050 – just 10 years from now, when the world ended. Looking around this tutorial area with collapsed apartment blocks and scattered machinery, it’s clear this isn’t a nice world to live in.
And in this game, anything goes. Shockingly announced as an R-18 title, it allows full uncensored adult content and gory violence. The devs set the tone early by highlighting playing as a prostitute or serial killer as endorsed playstyles. You can also be a delivery worker taking goods between survivor camps, a bandit raiding convoys, or a security force stopping thefts.
Freedom applies not just to backstories, but also combat and making money. You can use guns, strap on powered suits and slash away with knives. Or make and sell crafts, or even trade slaves – it’s all permitted.
―――And since this is a sci-fi world, you can even pilot giant robots! I glimpsed one in the trailer. With this level of freedom, I can make my dreams come true!
If you’re human, you’ve probably thought before that you want to build or pilot a giant robot after seeing them in anime at least once. I, Mishima Kanji, have had that desire strongly ever since I was little. I love model kits, tinkering with machines, that sort of thing – I’m 18 years old, about to start college this April. When I saw this game, I got so excited – I don’t know how accurately they’ll simulate it, but the level of detail looks very promising!
So as soon as pre-downloads were available, I grabbed it, and logged on right as the servers went live. My player name combines the Mi and Kan from my name to make Mikan (Orange), and I kept my real face for the most part when customizing my avatar.
『Character creation beginning. Please select your race. 』
A holographic display pops up. The options are Powered Armor Human, Esper, Cyborg, and Beastkin. Each has the following traits:
Powered Armor Human: No remarkable abilities but gains skill point bonuses.
Esper: Unlocks the “Psychic Powers” skill tree, but has lower base stats.
Cyborg: Mechanically augmented human that can equip a prosthetic right arm.
Beastkin: Genetically engineered human with higher base stats.
This game has no traditional leveling. Stats only increase through skills, items, and events – or so the official description said. But I don’t care about that right now. I need to grab the 《Piloting》 and 《Production》 skill trees no matter what.
Without hesitating, I pick Powered Armor Human and dump all my free points into 《DEX》. A pop-up appears with a dizzying array of skill options filling the tutorial space. I select 《Piloting》 and 《Production》, and the choices I want are there among them.
「《Apollyon Control》 and 《Apollyon Production》 – that’s it! 」
The official site said the giant robots were called Apollyons, so this must be it. The skill trees seem to hide actual robot production deeper down, but what really catches my eye is 《Apollyon Control》.
《Apollyon Control》―――《Apollyon Control Manual》
「That’s it!? Are you kidding me!!!」
It doesn’t even give me piloting skills! Other piloting skills offer improved maneuverability, balance assistance – things that boost the player’s technique. But with Apollyon it’s just an operations manual. And looking closer, there’s an 《Apollyon Design Specifications》 book amongst the production skills too. Why are there just in-universe documents listed as skills? And choosing just those two eats up 100 of my 200 starting points for a Powered Armor Human!
『Obtained: 《Apollyon Control Manual》 and 《Apollyon Design Specifications》』
Well, I obtain them, I guess… For my last choice, I select 《Starting Equipment: Apollyon Mass Product type》 to round things out perfectly.
『Welcome to 『HAO!』 It’s up to you to find the key to the future! 』
With that message, the space destabilizes and ghosts start appearing from the crowds up ahead – looks like the tutorial is over, and now they’re just throwing you out on your own. Not the most user-friendly game, but before checking out my surroundings, there’s something I need to do first.
I turn around and there’s the beloved giant robot I chose as my starting gear, looking totally dilapidated. The info window says 『The 2055 campaign ended in failure. But useful parts can still be salvaged from the wreckage. Like with this mass-production model AP.』 …Come on, you really don’t need to go that hard on the post-apocalyptic detail just for flavor. And they’re abbreviating Apollyon as “AP”?
The aforementioned AP is a roughly 5m tall humanoid robot with long limbs. Way smaller than those dozens-of-meters behemoths in the trailer, but I guess maintaining something huge would be a nightmare, so it makes sense for mass production models to be smaller. Its armor plates are patchy, with parts of the red frame exposed entirely. It’s covered in splotches of green rust, with one hand still clutching an oversized blade.
But it’s still the giant robot of my dreams! I eagerly clamber up and squeeze into the cockpit. The interior is filled with countless switches and control sticks, and the seat has suspicious stains. As I poke around, I dislodge some weirdly ancient newspapers that were stuffed under an oil-leaking crate to soak it up. March 1st, 2040 – that’s tomorrow’s date, since today is February 29th.
『At around 3:21 AM on March 1st, 2040, an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck off the coast of Indonesia. In Indonesia, this quake――』
The center is obscured by oil, but I can just make out that much text. Why is there a newspaper from almost tomorrow in this future wreck? I guess the cultural traditions of print media are fading nowadays. They wanted the authenticity of running a physical paper, but to keep things plausible it had to be set right on the cusp of collapse. Still, going so far as to detail newspaper contents – the devs clearly are sticklers for detail!
I toss aside the paper. Of course just sitting in the cockpit won’t let me move it. I try hitting switches at random but get no response. With no choice left, I sigh and activate my skills.
『《Apollyon Control Manual》《Apollyon Design Specifications》! 』
As I declare it, two absurdly thick books materialize in front of me. I mean, yes it’s a “control manual” skill, but does it really need to spawn actual books!? And way thicker than you’d expect! Skills like this should just give piloting success rate bonuses or something…
They’re musty old tomes with the RE Corp logo on the cover – the company known for powered suits. Surely they’d need permission for officially using a corporate logo? As I ponder that, I open the thousand-plus page manuals.
「This – this is in English! Isn’t this supposed to be a Japanese game? 」
Yes, English. …Are the devs stupid or something? They must be! This game is trash! I mentally scream. At this point:
・Despite having a pilotable mech, I can’t control it.
・I wasted tons of points just to get unreadable manuals.
So much for the vaunted freedom when they clearly don’t want me doing anything freely. I’ve completely lost patience with this style of operation. I was so excited to finally pilot a giant robot, just to get slapped in the face like this? Don’t mess with me!
「I’ll definitely make this thing move no matter what! 」
After logging out of 『HAO』, I quickly post screenshots on its strategy board:
【Unfriendly】HAO Strategy Thread Part 12【Trash Game】
452 Anonymous Player
Current Summary:
・No proper tutorial
・Temp login ban if killed
・Get shot on sight for crimes
・Still temp banned for starving
・Hyper-realistic graphics are amazing
・R-18 is serious – gory vids already uploaded, some claim to have had successful “interactions”
453 Anonymous Player
How is this not trash? Got PK’d and temp banned from logging in. They stripped all my gear too it seems.
454 Anonymous Player
I heard you can get combat training by joining the security forces, but their serious aptitude test wrecked me and I got rejected…what gives?
455 Anonymous Player
＞＞454 That’s just like real military screening tests. Get some study guides for the SPI and personality evaluation sections.
456 Anonymous Player
＞＞455 Screw the security forces, I quit. Couldn’t get in anyway.
Well, it’s just day one so no one’s made any real progress figuring things out yet, we’re all confused.
457 Anonymous Player
Looking at foreign boards, seems they have some intel about security and delivery jobs at least. Too little data to make sense of anything else. There are apparently machine lifeform monsters outside the cities that will wreck you if you’ve just got a handgun.
458 Anonymous Player
10 beastkin working together with knives managed to take one down. Get a referral to the Adventurer’s Guild if you defeat even one apparently.
459 Anonymous Player
http■■■■■■■■■■■■■
Here’s all 2000 pages of the 《Apollyon Control Manual》 and 《Apollyon Design Specifications》 screenshots. Posted on foreign boards too, but I’m Japanese and bad at English so please help decode!
460 Anonymous Player
＞＞459 Massive data, lol. Also nice job showing your Orange username in the screenshots.
461 Anonymous Player
＞＞459 Dude these are actual technical documents, crazy specialized vocabulary reminding me of uni classes right now haha.
462 Anonymous Player
＞＞Been running the Orange Book through translators, this is really interesting stuff. The red switch on the top right is the activation button, box under your feet has a spare generator. Launch the operation program to get access to piloting assists apparently?
463 Anonymous Player
＞＞462 Nice! I looked at the production side too, they seriously detail lore, maintenance procedures etc. Are we actually expected to do this stuff for real? My condolences…
464 Anonymous Player
＞＞459 Crazy intel right on day one huh. Gonna read through the Orange Book myself.
…Well, that settles that. The 《Apollyon Control Manual》 and 《Apollyon Design Specifications》 screenshots I painstakingly captured and uploaded have been collectively dubbed “The Orange Book”, entirely thanks to my username showing up in them. They’re even called The Orange Book on foreign boards now. I didn’t know screenshots displayed your name by default – total accident on my part.
Nothing more I can do now. Looking outside, dawn is breaking – luckily it’s spring break, or I’d definitely be late for school. I’ll get some sleep for now and take on those translation programs tomorrow…or rather later today.
『At around 3:21 AM on March 1st, 2040, an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck off the coast of Indonesia. In Indonesia, this quake――』
Ignoring the new phone notification illuminating my already bright room, I drifted off to a sound sleep. Of course, at this point I didn’t have an inkling that this upload would greatly alter my life.
『In today’s news, it’s been discovered that secret RE Corp documents were leaked via the recently posted ‘Orange Book’ files. These books originate from screenshots of the newly launched game ‘HAO’. RE Corp claims much confidential data is contained therein. The poster is believed to be Japanese based on forum activity, with the in-game name Orange.』
RE Corp
America’s largest powered suit manufacturer. Mainly produces industrial models, but recently bought some military contractors – rumors suggest they’re developing something big! Then they got slammed by that outrageous Orange Book attack out of nowhere! We Orange Books Victims Group #1 are just trying to corner the Apollyon market here… Leave it to some random Orange messing everything up.
Incidentally, HAO’s Terms of Service allow freely sharing any screenshots with player consent, and actively encourage information exchange.
The devs clearly don’t think anyone can clear this unfriendly game WITHOUT sharing intel!
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