Command Game

[Unless something unexpected happens, updates will be weekly. If there's no update for a long time, it's because I'm writing side stories or fanfiction. Check the collections on my profile or follow the serial on Xiaodigua.]

In the New Era, the Human Alliance has established state-run parenthood and child-rearing. Humans cultivated in artificial wombs are assigned to various production zones, where they are raised by official institutions.

Huo Longtang, an unambitious boy from Production Zone 11, is randomly selected to join the "Command Game."

When he first enters the game, his longtime buddy tells him, "The winner of this game, the Commander, gets an entire new world."

Little Huo: "I think I heard something about that."

He finally dredges up a fragment of a news story from the back of his mind: his world is competing with five others for ownership of the new world.

Little Huo: "Let them fight over it. What does that have to do with me?"

But when responsibility really falls on his shoulders, he can't simply refuse to be the "leader."

From a clueless drifter of a player to a genuine powerhouse who can stand on his own, Huo Longtang enters countless instances. More and more companions gather around him, and together they share laughter and weather hardship.

Even now, Commander Huo still sighs when he recalls those days:

"I'm just an ordinary person."

"But countless hands lifted me up and carried me into the clouds."

"Everyone thinks the title of 'Commander' is a crown of victory. Only we know it's a crown called 'responsibility.'"

Current instance progress:

Volume One [Hide-and-Seek] Complete

The familiar school becomes an amusement park for a game of hide-and-seek after you wake up. Could it be real?

Players who are caught become "the ghost's companions," but don't forget, you have one chance to find a "substitute" to take your place.

Volume Two [Empty Tombstone] Complete

It's supposed to be a training instance where players have a "get-out-of-death-free card," yet a player is eliminated on the second day!

Volume Three [Secret Realm] Complete

What a shock, you have to enter a world for two with a player you've known for less than two days! And you can't leave until you figure out who the murderer is.

Volume Four [Mist] Complete

In a forest blanketed by dense fog, the same footsteps can often be heard. Monsters lurking within silently eliminate unlucky players.

But an unexpected visitor from the sky throws everything into chaos.

Volume Five [Sink into the Deep Sea] Complete

Everything aboard the luxury cruise ship is yours to enjoy, no questions asked. As players lose themselves in a world of excess, they fail to notice the hands in the shadows, ready to drag them down to the seafloor.

Volume Six [Doll Factory] Ongoing

The quiet and peaceful Baderon Sanatorium specializes in housing patients whose minds have been disturbed by medication. It has a special kind of doctor, known as a "tamer," who uses unusual treatments to cure these agitated patients.

But can the patients really be cured?

The strange "click-clack" sounds in the middle of the night seem to say otherwise.

Reader advisory:

* Set in a futuristic alternate world with a somewhat complex setting. The worldbuilding will be explained gradually in the story and shouldn't affect your understanding of the instances.

* Although tagged as top-focused, both characters' perspectives will appear.

* The couple is a goofy puppy x a mischievous kitty. (My good friend affectionately calls them the Goofy Cat couple.) The romance is a slow burn, and the kitty appears in Volume Two. (Actually, maybe it's not that slow: by Chapter 66, they've done everything they should and shouldn't.)

* Warning! The characters' values are products of their era, shaped by society, their experiences, and their genes.

Thanks to the friend who came up with the name for the Goofy Cat couple for the cover. She did the line art, and I colored it myself, haha!

Theme: Strive through hardship