FPS 154

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“Good morning, Shaft-sama.
I heard last night that you’d be visiting today.
Is there anything you need?” 

I was guided into a room in the office.
Marida-san greeted me and asked for my reason for coming.

“Actually, can you rent me a room where no one can watch, or maybe a warehouse?” 

“A room or a warehouse? In that case, we have a room at our mansion that you can use…”

“Thanks, but I would like a place that nobody other than myself is allowed to enter so long as I rent it.
Would that be possible?”

“Yes, of course.
I’ll have Amy or Presera guide you there.
Please wait a moment.” 

Soon, the two girls who’d guide me to the aforementioned room arrived.

“Shaft-sama, the Madam has asked me to guide you, so I will.”

“Hey, you little – Presera! I was also asked to guide Shaft-sama!” 

These two were always together, aren’t they….
While I watched the two with a hidden smile, I went to confirm the room.

The two guided me to the mansion.
From there, they escorted me to one of the guest rooms, in which I confirmed with them that nobody else but me would be allowed to enter the room.
Afterward, I asked them to leave.
Although reluctant, they left with ‘Please call us if you need  .’ Once I was alone, I began to make preparations.

I set the sofas and tables aside to make room for the transfer circle.
Then, I activated the TSS and brought out a gift box from my inventory.
I took out the circle and installed it on the floor.
The circle lit with a faint glow that indicated that it was ready for use. 

As Ashley had told me, in order to use it, it required a space-attribute manastone to power it.
The faint light signified that there was enough fuel to execute a transfer.
If the light went out, that meant it was out of mana.
I will have to replenish it. 

Now that preparations were completed, I stood on the circle. 

“Transfer.”

For a moment, a curtain of light blocked my view for a moment, then I found myself inside VMB’s garage.
The sight was nostalgic.
A quick check of my surroundings confirmed I stood on the secondary transfer circle in the bed of the type-74.
The garage remained the same as the last time I’d been here.
The garage was dedicated to vehicles with one car per space.
Here, you could take perform various functions such as take screenshots, recover fuel and armor, as well as change the color schemes.
The interior of the space could also be changed, and my garage interior had wooden panels. 

I jumped off the loading bay and walked toward the door that connected to the rest of the space where I could operate a keypad.
I could apparently change what lay beyond.
Something like a pirate room, a shooting range, dock, etc, was selectable.
However, the choice that led to the briefing room was diabled.
It was not connected to the VMB world.
It was pretty much a perfect replica of my VMB section that was isolated from the world before and the world I was living in. 

I selected the destination for it to open to my private room.
The door in front of me slid open on its own, revealing my old private room.
It was a white concrete interior with a simple interior design.
There were several chairs, tables, sofas, a black desk, etc. 

In this room, up to 6 people could enter, including myself.
That said, there was not much one could do in the room.
It was basically just a social space.
Players could also change the interior as well and freely move around the furniture. 

I looked around the sparsely decorated room, pulled out a magazine from a nearby bookshelf.
I tried to read it, but all the pages were a mozaic of censored pictures and lines of unreliable characters.
Still, in the original game, the magazines were fixed objects that could not be interacted with.
The fact I could pull them proved I was not in the game. 

The next thing I checked was the notebook PC at a desk.
In addition to having the same functions as TSS, the PC also functioned as an internet connection to the previous world within the game.
You could also watch friends play games with a bird’s eye view perspective… The only additional function was the shop functions for the private rooms and garages.
But that was enough for me.
Consumable items such as furniture and vehicle color changes were not in the regular shop like the material box. 

This material box was a loot box in function.
You didn’t know what you’d get and you could get up to 6 items.
It could be a mobile vehicle, an avatar costume, a firearm, and so on.
There were many weapons and vehicles that could only be obtained from this box, and most had a special design.
Some super rare guns, like the futuristic laser gun PHaSR (Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response Rifle)

I’ve purchased the box plenty of times in the past. 

I thought about buying some more, but I came to the royal capital to earn money and CP.
To splurge it on a loot box… Eh, in the end I didn’t buy it.
I ended up leaving and going back to the keypad and selecting the shooting range.

The door opened to a small wooden hut built on a private island.
There were several different ranges on the island, a mix of outdoor and indoor.
The coastline was connected to a TSS dock where you could practice maneuvering and naval gunfire.
There was an unmannered target drone that patrolled the sky so you could practice with anti-air weapons without worrying about the cost of ammunition since it was simulated. 

After I confirmed the training grounds I was used to had manifested, I checked the first hut.
This hut had a magazine for practice, which had no offensive power.
It was not a live bullet, but was an energy-type round that traveled the same as an actual bullet.
The area had a function that left a temporary bullet hole that faded over time on the targets.
Basically acting as a normal round.
The magazine would also refill once you removed and reinserted it, simulating a reload. 

All kinds of simulated ammunition was prepared in the hut, including some boxes with rockets inside of them.
When VMB was a game, it wasn’t possible to take this ammo out of the range. 

It was a perfect replica of VMB… And I could easily store the magazines in the TSS Inventory without an issue.
With this, it would be possible to fire the simulated bullets in the outside world as well.
I don’t know what would happens until I tested it on something. 

When I checked the time, several hours had passed, but it should be okay to stay a few hours longer.
Thinking so, I took out a training magazine and headed out into the training grounds.