April 15, 2035 | 1:30 PM | Bangkok, Thailand

  Khaosan Road

  “Aieee!”

  The high-pitched scream of a beautiful girl in a sheer, braless white outfit echoed through the alley. She was being swarmed by a dozen water guns, the water soaking her clothes until they clung to her body, highlighting every curve for all to see in the middle of the street.

  “Enough... kill the stream!” Toffee, a slender trans woman in a fabulous Songkran outfit, grumbled in irritation before abruptly ending the live broadcast.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Toffee?!” May, a famous net idol who rose to fame from her provocative hip-swaying on OnlyFans, stormed over to her friend in a rage.

  “Even with you literally showing your nipples in the middle of the street, the viewer count didn't even hit a hundred!” Toffee snapped back, shoving the screen in her face.

  “Let me see that!” May snatched the phone, unable to believe her eyes. The viewer count was stuck at 27. Likes and shares were a flat zero. “What is this? Where the hell did my three hundred thousand fans go?!”

  “That’s what I’m wondering... usually, men would be swarming us like flies,” Toffee said, her eyes scanning the surroundings with suspicion.

  “What am I going to do? If the views don’t hit two million this month, my sponsors are going to pull out for sure!” May began to lose her mind, screaming at her crew. “Think of something! If I don’t have money, none of you get paid!”

  The crew looked at each other with grim expressions. The atmosphere was thick with pressure. And if you were to zoom out to a wide-angle shot, you would discover a bone-chilling truth...

  On the streets that should have been overflowing with crowds for Songkran, the men were gone. The streets were populated mostly by groups of women desperately dressing up to show off their bodies for ratings, with only a handful of men scattered among them.

  ***

  7:50 PM

  On a sidewalk late at night.

  “Two thousand five hundred! Any position, any style, sir! A special Songkran promotion!” The sweet, coaxing voice of ‘Am,’ a girl in skimpy clothes standing in front of a famous entertainment venue, called out to passersby. But not a single man spared her even a glance.

  Beside her, ‘Cream,’ a petite girl, cursed under her breath in frustration. “Dammit! Even when I say five hundred, nobody cares! Where did all the customers go?!” She had been calling out since morning but had come up empty-handed. In the past, someone with her body could easily command five thousand, and men would fight for a chance to pay her.

  “Sir! Sir, don’t leave me! Sir!” A desperate plea rang out as a luxury Mercedes-Benz tried to drive away, leaving a girl in a university uniform stranded in the middle of the road.

  “Scumbag! Piece of trash! You fat, stinking pig!” As soon as the car vanished from sight, the girl in the uniform spat out a string of curses.

  “What the hell is happening to the world...?” Cream stared at the younger, prettier girl who had just been discarded as if her beauty had no value anymore.

  ***

  8:30 PM

  At a dormitory in front of a university.

  “Yawn... why are the views so low today?” ‘Ray,’ a fresh-faced gaming idol, complained as her livestream struggled to hit a thousand viewers—a far cry from her usual hundreds of thousands.

  “Maybe they’re all in that ‘GREM’ thing,” ‘Miew,’ her roommate, suggested.

  “GREM? What’s that?”

  “A male friend told me it’s a ‘Neural Computer’ that takes you into a virtual world for real. He said every guy has one now.”

  “Really? Did you ever ask to try it?” Ray asked curiously.

  “I did! But as soon as I tried to connect, the system gave an instant alert: ‘Under testing. Does not support female gender.’”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “They actually have that...?” Ray made a face. Shouldn't something like that be playable for everyone?

  ***

  9:10 PM

  At a real-world bar.

  “What’s wrong, Pang?” Auntie ‘Luk,’ a grocery store owner, shouted to the bar owner next door who was sitting with a face full of sorrow.

  “It’s the customers, Auntie. This is the last day of Songkran, and I’ve only had ten groups. The beer girls are just sitting around doing nothing!” ‘Pang,’ a middle-aged woman, complained bitterly. If this continued, she was going to face a massive loss.

  “Same here. Only a few bottles of liquor and beer sold. I don’t know where everyone went,” Auntie Luk sighed.

  “Maybe Thailand really is going to ruin...” Pang muttered sadly, looking at the street that was as quiet as a graveyard.

  ***

  9:15 PM

  At a house where the second floor had been converted into a wide open space.

  “Can you really get drunk in there?” ‘Tum,’ a muscular guy, asked his friend as they helped carry dozens of GREM units to line them up.

  “You bet! Others have tried it. You can choose any level of intoxication you want. Whatever brand of beer or taste you want, it’s all there... and you don’t have to spend a single baht,” ‘Toy,’ a small, dark-skinned man, pitched enthusiastically. Once everything was set up, he shouted, “Hey! The goods are here! Time to get... virtually wasted!”

  Dozens of other men who had been waiting grabbed their GREM units and put them on. They leaned back on the mats they had prepared and logged into the system instantly.

  “Mee Mi! Mo!” Toy turned to shout to his daughters, aged eleven and eight, who were watching TV downstairs. “Watch the house, kids! Daddy’s going in!”

  “Okay, Daddy!” the children replied brightly.

  Inside the private server hosted by Toy... At a beautiful moonlit beach.

  “Holy shit... this tastes amazing. And the vibe is incredible.” Tum shook his head in delight as he downed an incredibly expensive beer, served directly to his mouth by a beautiful Chinese girl.

  “So? Those thirty thousand you paid for the machine—worth it, right?” Toy asked his friend.

  “Totally worth it! Just the brand of beer we’re drinking right now—if it were outside, it would cost hundreds of thousands,” Tum looked at the crates of premium beer piled up like trash.

  “Hey! How do you change this girl? I don’t know how to do it,” ‘Por,’ a thin man, stumbled over to his friends in a drunken stupor, accompanied by a large-chested Korean girl.

  “Just say ‘Change Girl.’ The hologram menu will pop up for you to choose,” Toy advised.

  Por did it immediately. As soon as the screen popped up, he deleted the Korean girl and summoned a provocative Chinese girl instead before leading her away to a secluded spot.

  “Por is hammered,” Tum watched him walk away. “But will the drunkenness disappear when we log out?”

  “Don't worry. As soon as you leave this server, it vanishes instantly,” Toy replied like an expert.

  “And eating in here... will it actually make you full?”

  “It won't make you full. In fact, if you eat in here on an empty stomach, you’ll be starving when you log out,” Toy explained, summoning a hologram screen advertising real-world meat. “But there’s a fix... look. You can order real food through this screen. Choose something filling, like ‘Jackie Meats’ wagyu. Once you’ve eaten your fill in the real world, you come back in here. That way, when you log out, you won't feel the hunger from the ‘virtual’ food you just ate!”

  Tum followed the advice immediately. He logged out to eat the grilled meat he had ordered until he was stuffed, then hurried back to party with his friends in the virtual world.

  ***

  11:00 PM

  In the vastness of Space within the GREM virtual world.

  A red starship soared through the void, unleashing a barrage of lasers that turned an enemy’s blue starship into space dust. The pilot shouted in triumph, “Songkran bullet-splashing! You know how it is, boys! Whoooo!”

  Space was currently filled with hundreds of warships divided into factions, locked in a brutal, unending conflict. Those who were destroyed would respawn in their mothership within 10 seconds, returning to seek revenge in a cycle that never ended.

  In another world... On a magnificent fantasy plain.

  The sound of clashing swords and giant hammers echoed. A massive Minotaur Demon King swung his hammer at a young hero with feral rage. However, the knight moved as fluidly as the wind. He parried the attack with his sword and leaped high into the air.

  Slash!

  The Demon King’s head was severed in a single stroke. The knight dragged the head back to receive his reward from the King: a stunningly beautiful princess, to live together in a luxury castle as he desired.

  And in another world... In a lawless metropolis.

  On the crowded streets, a young man in a leather jacket rode a motorcycle, shooting people for fun. Elsewhere, a man in nothing but his underwear dragged an NPC girl into an alley to assault her, completely disregarding any sense of morality. In another area, two tanks were firing at each other until buildings crumbled into dust—only for everything to restore itself in the blink of an eye.

  All of this was the freedom that GREM provided... a place where everyone could be a ‘God’ or a ‘Demon’ as they pleased, without having to care about rules, morality, or any consequences that might follow!

  Do men like us truly have the right to choose? Perhaps not... but that was only because, until today, we simply didn't have enough options." The world is changing.

  See you in Chapter 16.