Setting

This story takes place in Hiasel, a world similar to Earth but with key differences as stated below.

During 2015 AT, a lot of wars started out in the Middle East. By 2017 AT, these wars affected most of Asia and some parts of Africa. In an attempt to thwart the imminent World War, America tried many times to stop the warring countries. As a last resort, decided to threaten Asia with their nuclear weapons. Hearing this, North Korea took the initiative and dropped the first nuclear bomb which initiated the start of World War 3. This war became a global event and a catastrophic cause around the globe. By 2057 AT, though the war was no more, the population of 7 billion had been decreased to a mere 200,000 people, and much of the world had gone to shit from the effects of the war. Most of Antarctica had melted and Australia has been completely submerged. Japan would have drowned as well if it were not for the fact that the island merged back into Asia. South America and Africa had collided and most of the landmass was starting to revert back to the original Pangaea. The nuclear energies of the bombs were absorbed by the Earth and increased the rotation of it around the Sun as well as about its own axis. Days went by twice as fast and the Earth's surface was transformed into a mutated wasteland where no life could exist. The only signs of life that could be seen were curled up in huge underground bunkers or facilities. All of humanity had given hope of ever getting back the life they had. However, in 2060 AT, the remaining population saw a strange phenomenon take place which scientists still cannot explain and have taken to call it a divine intervention and blessing. All the nuclear radiation and gamma particles were erased from the atmosphere like it was a bad dream, the Earth's rotational energy went back to normal and even the ozone layer which was almost non-existent had been replenished. The destroyed flora and fauna of the land came back to life.

It seemed as if the world was given a second chance to rebuild their civilization again. What little remained of humanity was relieved by this discovery and many facilities from different parts of the world communicated with each other via radio-waves and helped recreate human civilization across the lands again. The spread out civilization was gathered into areas where they could prosper or rebuild again. These areas were the countries - Argentina, Algeria, Canada, France, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and West Russia. These countries then formed the World Federation that enforced strict restrictions on nuclear items of any sorts so that it's misuse would not lead to another World War taking place. Society had started blooming again and by 2572 AT, it had regained most of what it was before and had started to move to a more global economic system that worked on Credits. Even after five centuries, the memories of the world before the war was still mostly uncovered so in 2576 AT the federation launched the Expeditions Around the World. Since then, many companies have popped up to replace the companies that were there pre-World War 3 by using the same name or taking on a new name. In 2707 AT, a company, that goes by the name of FROM SOFTWARE, released a game called Dark Souls Online as a memorial to the pre-WW3 game series named Dark Souls. The game used the latest AR technology available to make a one-of-a-kind game. The majority of the community that played the game was between the age of 16-30. And that is where our player characters, Blair Colthearts, Daniel Roberts, Keima Hasegawa, Minato Hatake, and Raphael Thomas come in. These young friends decide to wait a year from the release date and after they completed their final year in high school, to let a proper community grow around the game before jumping into the world of DSO, and here is where this story begins...