Putting your life at stake. I learned that it was a very difficult thing to do. Be it work, sports, hobbies, or gambling. The subject matter ndoes ot matter, 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 try to aim for the “top”. I bet everything. Everything except for the bare minimum, such as meals, sleep, and excretion, was dedicated to “it”. 『World’s Rank 1』 And this is the result. The pinnacle among millions of people. Really, exhilarating! What a pleasant sensation! I felt as if all my efforts, all of my life, were finally rewarded. The world’s rank 1, recognized by everyone on 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. These were 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 was 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 went 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 extinguishedYou'veYou got to be kidding me. “…Haaah…” I've 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 lay on the ground and stood up. “Let’s die! ”