Eros Isle, an island inspired by DOA Xtreme.

I felt very warm, like the sun was beating down on me. I heard the squawk of a seagull somewhere above me. A salty breeze blew past my face. A cloudless blue sky hung above me. I stood, completely awestruck at where I had ended up; a beautiful white beach framed by a sapphire blue ocean. This scene had completely replaced the valley I had been standing in mere seconds ago, but the baseball-sized Crystal Atlas was still in my hand.

I looked around. There was something familiar about the scenery, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But I suppose if this place was created from my imagination, it was probably familiar because it was a beach I had seen somewhere before, so the feeling wasn’t altogether too surprising. What was surprising was my outfit, apparently I considered a red Hawaiian shirt and a black speedo to be a good idea, but admittedly I did sort of have the body to pull it off now. I had a lean, athletic frame with subtle but prominent muscles. I was built like—rather appropriately—a swimmer.

As I scanned a horizon dominated by a beautiful blue ocean, I spied other people enjoying themselves in various ways. There were two women walking along the beach hand-in-hand, very cute; another pair were splashing around in the ocean waves, giggling as they did; one beauty was standing at the edge of a wooden pier with a Japanese-style umbrella to shield her from the sun; and there was even a bespectacled girl sitting at a nearby table with a sketchbook and a grin that I could only describe as “heated” while viewing the others and presumably drawing what she saw.

And that’s when it hit me; I didn’t just recognize the beach, I recognized these women. I was almost certain that I was on one of the Venus Islands along with the sexy and lethal ladies of the Dead or Alive franchise.

The couple walking hand-in-hand was Helena and Marie Rose, the rich tech CEO and her personal maid. The pair splashing in the water were Hitomi and Leifang, the inseparable duo. The one on the pier was probably Kokoro, the rebellious beauty. That meant the one sketching them was most likely Tsukushi, the introverted artist with an intense appreciation for the feminine form.

This was a dream come true. I couldn’t count the number of sleepless nights I’d spend wishing and fantasizing that I’d get whisked away to this island paradise. I looked back at the Atlas in my hand, intending to silently thank it for making these feverish desires a reality for me, but was surprised to find that it had changed. It was no longer the glass sphere, instead it was a sleek and sturdy-looking smartphone. Curious, I quickly thumbed through its contents.

Inside I found a lot of interesting stuff, including dossiers on all the island inhabitants, a map labeled with various points of interest—also discovering that this island was apparently named “Eros Isle”, a huge collection of notes which seemed to be centered around various things that supposedly happened before I woke up, and a security app which could connect to one of any of the many many HD cameras hidden throughout the island. It was a veritable buffet of information that one might need if their goal was to seduce and/or peep on the lovely ladies of the island. A true pervert’s paradise; in other words, a paradise for me. Cerosia hadn’t been kidding, had she?

There was also an application named “Island Control”, but opening it only brought me to a password screen and I did not know the code. Perhaps it was buried in the notes somewhere? Well, whatever, I had plenty of things to distract me right now—very jiggly things; no point in doing a deep dive. I decided to slip the phone into the breast-pocket of my shirt.

I looked over to the table beside me. Next to a can of soda was a very expensive-looking camera, a lanyard holding some kind of ID card, and a set of keys. The ID had my full name, Ren Smith and the title “Island Owner” on it. Okay, so my imagination and the hereto unknown archangel had basically given me the role of the silent, faceless protagonist of the Venus Vacation game. This was great; I couldn’t wait to dive right in!

The question was…