Chapter 1 - Level 1: Unlocking Aria

“Chat, I swear I clicked his head! This game is trash!”




I droned out the incessant complaining that usually came with Valkyrae’s Valorant streams to continue adjusting the final touches on the character design I needed to submit by tonight. It’s never easy to work as an artist; especially as a freelancer. It’s always just deadline after deadline. To help in the crushing boredom of my monotonous tasks, I usually just pull up a stream on my desk monitor while I work on my tablet below it.




“One cat, I think it’s Kill–” 




The stream cut short as an ad popped up on my screen. “We’ve got a special surprise for the biggest fans of OfflineTV! Click here to receive it!” This message flashed on my screen. I sighed and moved my hands over to my mouse. 




God, Youtube is getting a little annoying. We got pop-up ads now?




It looked like some NSFW sketchy game ad too, so I just clicked on the x in the corner. I immediately started to return back to my tablet but to my horror, the ad opened a new tab anyways.




“Son of a–”




I went over to close it again but the advert was looking a little strange. “play! OfflineTV”? The font was done with an odd bubbly aesthetic as though it were a web browser game. There was only one UI element on the page, that being an orange button with the word “Play!” on it. Decorated around this button were pictures of women from OfflineTV and Friends, including the very same Rae that I was watching earlier. 




“What the,” I muttered.




The women were posing in ways that they would never be caught dead doing, and some of them had skimpy outfits on that I’d never seen on their socials or streams.  This has got to be fake, some virus probably… 




Well I mean. Doesn’t hurt to try. I was kind of down bad, to be honest. Maybe it was legit. I kept a hand on the ctrl and w keys, just in case something were to pop up, and slowly moved my cursor over to the flashing button. 




* click!*




I had my eyes peeled for anything changing. My hand was held steady. I looked across the screen for any differences, but it appeared that nothing happened. After a few short seconds of the tab showing a buffering circle, it automatically closed. 




Shit. Did I just install malware or something?




I looked through my folders but nothing showed up in my downloads folder. Weird. Well, whatever. The stream had resumed, so I guess I’ll just attribute it to some poll Youtube was doing or something. As I turned back to my tablet, my phone pinged. A notification flashed across the screen.




“Download Complete: OfflineTV.exe”




What.




A Windows notification sound rang through my earbuds, and I saw the exact same message. I minimized my tab to check what had happened and saw the OTV logo as a new application, titled the same thing.




Damn, I really did get a virus. Or maybe it was like a random gift given out to stream watchers? Uh… 




Fuck it we ball. I double-clicked the icon and prayed all my information wouldn’t just get immediately jacked. 




A new window popped up. The same familiar window appeared with the cute, bubbly aesthetic and play button surrounded by different OTV women. The women on the screen, along with what they looked like, changed since the last time. 




I clicked play again. It loaded for a moment, before transporting me to a completely new screen. 




There was a clear level bar at the top right. It had the number 1 on it and was empty. A gear on the right I presumed meant options. Slightly below it were three bars, labeled “Time”, “Space”, and “Change.” They were all at zero. At the bottom of the screen, there were panels of different characters blackened out as though I hadn’t unlocked them yet. There was information on their panels that wasn’t available either. Above the panels, in a horizontal bar, lay the words “Skills.” However, my focus wasn’t on any of those things. My focus was on the middle of the screen where, in an idle animation, was me. 




“Bro what?”




I looked around really quickly. They have to have surveillance on me; it’s literally doomed. I just lost everything.




“Welcome!” The app blared at me. A smaller window opened in the middle of the screen, covering me.




I jumped up. Jesus Christ that was loud. I quickly clicked the gear to open up settings and went into sound to adjust it. As I went back, I noticed that there was a build label in the settings. 




“V.0.0.1”?




Strange. I closed the options and looked back at the window. It had an arrow at the bottom, indicating that it was a dialogue box and that I needed to click to hear more. 




I hesitantly obeyed. 




“Welcome to OfflineTV.exe! This app will ensure you get the best experiences possible with all of our members. Complete missions and gain rewards to better your relationships! Would you like a tutorial run-through?”




Oh. Maybe it is a game. An OTV dating sim? That’s kinda interesting. I squinted closely at the screen. The character in the middle did resemble me a lot but maybe it was just a coincidence. 




I clicked yes on the tutorial.




“Great!” The window moved over to the right so that I could see my model again. “Clicking on your model will open up a set of missions you can do.” The dialogue box moved. It went up top to point at the level bars. “Each mission correlates with a bar at the top, and finishing one to the end will level you up in that category. Each category will give you skills you can use to help with future missions. You can learn about these skills in the labeled tab right below your avatar. Once all three categories go up, you gain a new level!”




A catchy jingle played. This seems extremely convoluted for a dating sim.




“At the bottom, you’ll find your catalog! These cards will have information about the people you meet. Increase your relationship status and you might obtain some rewards!” It started to flip through them.




All of the panels were still dim, but there were much, much more than I expected. I guess the “friends” in OfflineTV and Friends were broader than I thought. 




“Now go out there and have fun playtester!” The dialogue box disappeared. With the tutorial complete, I could see my model again. Underneath it flashed a new text. “Jake.”




Alright, was this thing just like scanning my computer OS for stuff or what? One coincidence I could believe but my name too? This was getting to be too much. 




I started to click around just to see what was being offered. Why exactly were all of the OTV members just blacked out? This would be kind of a shitty dating sim if I literally couldn’t do anything. Maybe there was just an introductory task or something.




I tapped on my avatar and a bulletin board popped up. There were three tasks, each with a certain amount of steps to them:




Introduce yourself to your neighboring apartment owner. (0/1)
??? (?/?)
??? (?/?)




Introduce myself? What? How would the game even know if I did that or not? That reminded me of something; there was also the download notification on my phone. I pulled it out and unlocked it, scrolling to the last page of apps. There it was again, OfflineTV.exe. It has access to my phone too?




I got out of my chair and began walking around my apartment, pacing in a circle to think. Alright, this was incredibly ridiculous. I don’t know if this is some complex virus or something that just hacked into my entire network, but it was getting a little freaky. 




Could it actually track me as I moved and record what I was saying? Well, there was really only one way to find out. I mean, what kind of “rewards” were we even talking about regardless? I do this and I get something? I held onto the app on the home screen, waiting for all of them to shake around so I could see if I could delete it or not. Much to my relief, there was the familiar “x”. 




Well, I could just delete it afterward. I’m in too deep to really have other options. After some deliberation, I put on a quick sweater and went outside my apartment. 




I live on a pretty high floor of a rather expensive building, being a bit of a famous freelancer and all, so I only had one neighbor since I lived at the edge. I went up to the door and knocked on it. The door opened to reveal a rather stunning beauty.




“Postmates?” She asked. 




I recognized her. It was Aria! Ariasaki from OfflineTV! You’re telling me I’ve been posted up next to her this entire time and I’ve never once run into her?




“Hello?” She continued, watching me blankly stare at her.




“Oh, uh, sorry, I’m not Postmates. I live next door and I just wanted to introduce myself as your neighbor.”




She stared at me for a moment before realizing what I was talking about.




“Ohhhhh. I see. Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly, “Are you here to complain about the noise? I just recently moved in so the entire thing must’ve been loud for you.”




Well, this explains the annoying noises I’ve been hearing all day recently and why I’ve never run into her. I do remember her posting online about moving into a new apartment, I just never guessed it’d be this one. 




“No, no you’re completely fine. It didn’t bother me in the slightest,” I lied, “I just wanted to be of some help if you need anything.” 




“Awww, thank you so much! I’ll definitely reach out if I need anything,” she said sweetly.




With that curt conversation, I waved and went back into my room. 




Alright, let’s see what changed. I checked my phone and, sure enough, the task had been completed. 




“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I wondered, both in fear and amazement.




I tapped on it to collect rewards and an animation played where blue little molecules flew up into the bar labeled “Time”. It filled up completed and reached level one. My overall level went up to a third. 




“This is actually insane.”




“New skill unlocked!” It blared from my phone.




Holy shit that was loud. I’ve got to adjust it on this device too.




I went into the tree for the first time and found a fairly lengthy list. It was separated into the same categories as the bar, and went down, overlapping at times. At the very top, a blue box lit up. I tapped on it and read the following:




Pause: You can stop and resume time whenever you want. In this state, you cannot move any of your body parts except for your eyes. 




The fuck? There’s no way.




I opened a stopwatch app and started it. 1…2…3… alright it was going up as normal. With a blink of my eyes, I willed for everything to just stop. I opened it and… 5…5…5!




Holy shit. I’ve been hacked by God. 




I willed it to stop. The timer continued on like normal. Grinning like crazy, I began to hop around like an idiot in my living room. Dude, this is sick!




Below, in the catalog, a new face popped up. 




Ariasaki

Angela Don

29 Years Old, Vietnamese

Relationship: Acquaintances (1/4)




Great! It’s giving me information I could literally find on a wikipage! But at this point, who cares? I’ve got a supernatural ability! 




I can… I can… I can do nothing.




Wait a minute. How on earth is this helpful in any way? Cannot move any of my body parts? So what, I can think ? Dude I watch time stop porn all the time I think I’m getting the short end of the stick here.




My second task fizzled into existence with the sound of a lock opening. I glanced at it.




Using Pause, find a way to have sex with an OfflineTV member. (0/1)




…what?