Chapter Text
It is early morning on a Sunday when Dan Heng finds himself in a predicament. He has been actively playing Honkai Stars Online – one of the hottest massively multiplayer online role-playing games – for about twelve hours straight as of this moment. He double-checks the date and time at the lower right of his computer monitor again, and indeed it is already 4 AM, Sunday.
LV8 GUILD [Astral Express]
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: guys
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: it’s 4 am
[Guild] ★Caelus: ok and
[Guild] ☆Stelle: lvl 110 boss jst spwned near the mines
[Guild] ☆Stelle: i can see it
[Guild] ☆Stelle: no one else here yet
[Guild] ★Caelus: hit
[Guild] ★Caelus: first hit achievement go
[Guild] ☆Stelle: i died
[Guild] march_7th: LMAOO I SAW THAT
[Guild] ☆Stelle: why didnt u tank then wtf
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: we’ve been boss hunting since 4pm
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: yesterday
When he first started playing this online game, Dan Heng thought he would be responsible enough not to get addicted. He installed it after seeing a random advertisement during one boring weekend afternoon, signed up on an automatically-selected server based on his location, and had fun playing casually on the first few days of the game’s release. However, upon spending some time (and money) on the game and due to the nature of MMORPGs, he had made several new online friends that made him continue playing.
ASIA - Nanook Server [World]
[World] MissKin: lolol theyre still online
[World] maid0009: whalers plsss sleep
[World] ok_FY: top guild players give us f2p a chance to hunt bosses challenge
[World] march_7th: ^^v
[World] x007xXO: omggg march ily
[World] tankm4ster: @march_7th ADD ME BESTIE IM A FAN
LV8 GUILD [Astral Express]
[Guild] ☆Stelle: why does march have fans
[Guild] ☆Stelle: she let me die . bad tank
[Guild] march_7th: world chat is fun you guys should chat there too
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: muted
[Guild] march_7th: but i agree maybe we should rest now
[Guild] ★Caelus: NO
[Guild] ☆Stelle: NO
[Guild] march_7th: give other players a chance u two
[Guild] march_7th: they cant enter rankings when we;re online LMAO
[Guild][System] <User Welt has logged in>
[Guild] Welt: Why are you kids still here
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: i’m going to sleep now
[Guild] ★Caelus: NOO OUR DPS
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: night
[Guild] Welt: Morning…
[Guild][System] <User 丹恒_DH has logged out>
Dan Heng sighs as he turns off the computer. He has no specific plans for the day, but it is still a bad habit to play online games for such a long time. Especially so when he has academic papers to turn in, although doing schoolwork is generally easy for him.
He recalls the last time he stayed up to do boss runs – with his old competitive guild, before he joined the relatively peaceful yet strong force of the Astral Express – back when he still cared about being the best player in terms of assist and heals in the whole Nanook server.
That was a whole year ago.
In his current guild, he is mostly responsible as the main damage dealer. Although he isn’t the top player in his job class anymore because of his role change, his guildmates are very strong on their own. Led by Himeko, one of the most popular AOE damagers in the game, the Astral Express ranks consistently at the third place on weekly guild rankings. It’s such a feat, that the members aren’t even competing actively yet they always rank so high.
Dan Heng stands up from his seat and stretches for a minute. He is only starting to realize how tired his body is now that the monitor in front of him is blank and the game music is no longer reverberating inside his room. He walks a few steps towards his bed and prepares to sleep.
Tomorrow (or Today, as it is already Sunday morning) is another day he plans to waste playing Honkai Stars Online . Better get some well-deserved sleep in.
Dear Adventurers,
The all-new Shining Stars event is here!
Partner up with your in-game friend or couple and do missions together, help each other with daily objectives, and earn points that you can exchange for level-up and gear materials! Partners who can achieve the most points at the end of the event can get Diamonds up to 50,000 and exclusive couple costumes!
Event starts right after maintenance (today, 12NN) and can be accessed on the main menu interface.
See you at the Shining Stars!
Honkai Stars Online
Oh no.
As soon as he reads the event post, Dan Heng shoots up from his bed and turns his computer on. The maintenance has already ended hours ago as he slept through it. Even though HSO has an existing in-game coupling system, this is the first time that the game is implementing a two-person/player event. Usually, the events or game modes focus only on 4-man parties or whole guilds.
His game downloads the updates fast, and he is also quick to log in and open the guild chat, ignoring the notifications from new incoming private messages. He has a feeling he already knows what or who those messages are about or from. He needs to act first.
LV8 GUILD [Astral Express]
[Guild][System] <User 丹恒_DH has logged in>
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: LF partner for the event, anyone free
[Guild] ☆Stelle: im with march already
[Guild] ★Caelus: my sister betrayed me
[Guild] ★Caelus: i sent partner request first
[Guild] ☆Stelle: L ripbozo
[Guild] Himeko: I paired with welt
[Guild] Himeko: You dont have a partner yet danheng?
[Guild] 丹恒_DH: @★Caelus pair with me i can do all the missions alone
[Guild] ★Caelus: it’s a partner event for a reason why would i want that
[Guild] ★Caelus: and i already paired with someone, i accepted a random request just now
[Guild] ★Caelus: named Sampo from JariloVI guild you guys know him?
[Guild] march_7th: :O
[Guild] march_7th: Cae thats a famous scammer in this server!
[Guild] ★Caelus: WHAT
Dan Heng is late. Seems like everyone in the guild has already paired up, and he has no other choice but to open up his private messages.
Private message with 刃_REN
[Private] 刃_REN: accept
Dan Heng sighs. He hasn’t chatted with Ren for months, and now here he is telling him to accept his partner request for the new event.
[Private] 刃_REN: event
[Private] 刃_REN: accept
And now he’s being spammed.
[Private] 刃_REN: i can see you’re online
[Private] 丹恒_DH: :)
[Private] 丹恒_DH: i already have a partner, thanks
[Private] 刃_REN: liar
[Private] 刃_REN: married couples cant pair with anyone else but their couple
Dan Heng sighs, again. Sometimes he forgets that he made a mistake in his early days of playing this game. When he was still a relatively new player, Ren was the one who invited him to the Xianzhou Luofu guild and helped him build his healer set. They both used to be members of the most competitive and strongest party in the server, but that was all before the fallout.
[Private] 丹恒_DH: just accept my divorce request
[Private] 刃_REN: you think i’ll pay 1000 diamonds for that?
[Private] 丹恒_DH: we married before just for the couple buffs
[Private] 丹恒_DH: we dont even play together anymore, we dont need that marriage buff now
[Private] 刃_REN: come on, dan heng. just for this event
[Private] 刃_REN: we’re going to be the strongest pair in the whole game
As much as he wants to deny that, Ren might be right. Currently, he is the main DPS of the Stellaron Hunters guild, the rival guild of Xianzhou Luofu. They both take turns in being the rank 1 guild of the server, interchanging almost every week and at almost every guild war events. If they pair up together, they may have a chance of becoming the pair with the most points earned in this event.
Hesitantly, Dan Heng hovers his mouse pointer to the event page. He opens it, and sees that Ren is indeed the only player allowed to send him a pair request. Slowly, he clicks the accept button.
[Private] 丹恒_DH: we better win
[Private] 刃_REN: cooperate with me and we will
[Private] 刃_REN: ;)
[Private] 丹恒_DH: we’ll win the 50k diamonds and then we can use that for divorce
[Private] 刃_REN: OK bet