Beyond the beautiful game of Oasis, adored by countless people on Earth, lay the real world of 2045—a world increasingly teetering on the brink of chaos and collapse due to the wealth gap, resource shortages, unrest, plagues, economic meltdown, and countless other problems...
At that moment, on the rooftop balcony of a dilapidated apartment building converted from an abandoned factory, Artemis and Parzival were busy preparing what looked like refreshments for guests. Their rooftop had been decorated to resemble a little garden, and from there they could see IOI headquarters and the shipping-container homes in the Lower City.
They didn't have anything particularly fancy to offer, just some things that might taste good: snacks, cookies, nuts, and a small amount of fresh produce, like strawberries and tomatoes, which they had grown themselves in the greenhouse on their balcony.
Of course, calling them Artemis and Parzival now—those overly chuunibyou game names—probably wasn't quite appropriate. After all, their real names were Samantha Cook and Wade Watts! And this place was Samantha's secret base, shared with her like-minded allies, a group of rebels determined to resist the "tyranny" and monopoly of IOI Online Industries.
There were at least several dozen of her teammates here, both young and old. Most were poor souls who had once been persecuted by IOI, or whose family members were being persecuted by the company, and who had been forced to fight back or were trying to change their tragic fates.
"??"
"Samantha? I've been meaning to ask—there's something I don't understand. Don't we need to log into the game today?"
"Art3mis just messaged me about it!"
"Apparently, people from IOI and the other egg hunters have discovered that we got the key in The Shining. That secret's an open secret now. Shouldn't we hurry up and work out