Grimm chatting with Neidhardt in ESO, and mentioning their guildmate Sister Centipede
Empire Sweeper Online (エンパイア・スウィーパー・オンライン, Enpaia Suwīpā Onrain), or ESO for short, is a popular MMORPG in ChäoS;HEAd (not to be confused with the real-world ESO MMORPG, The Elder Scrolls Online, which came out five years after ChäoS;HEAd). The real-world MMORPG it is actually modeled on is Phantasy Star Online, or PSO for short. Playing this game is Takumi Nishijou’s favorite pastime.
Known info[]
Empire Sweeper Online runs on the operating system Grouchosoft Mindorz, and the game world, called Baselard, is modeled after medieval Europe. The game world is split into mutliple locations, such as a volcano and a forest, some of which are mentioned by Takumi in his inner monologue at various points in the story.
There is an in-game chat and Takumi often chats with other ESO players, especially those in his character Neidhardt’s guild.
Some character classes are mentioned to have requirements before a character can change to it, such as the Paladin class, which Takumi says is the strongest class in the game, and therefore uses for his character Neidhardt.
ESO has rules against Real Money Trading (RMT), PKing, and stealing other players’ items, among other things. While Takumi pretends to be an upright player who abides by all the rules when playing as Neidhardt, since Neidhardt is the most powerful player in the game and looked up to like a god by the other players, Takumi regularly violates the rule against Real Money Trading and earns a decent side income off the game, which he uses to buy things like food and his collection of figurines of characters like Seira Orgel, Arcueid Brunestud, Rin Tohsaka, Saber, and Rider.
Notable players and characters[]
Neidhardt[]
Lightning-Fast Neidhardt (疾風迅雷のナイトハルト, Shippūjinrai no Naitoharuto), in some translations known as Neidhardt der Blitzschnelle or Lightning-Fast KnightHeart, is Takumi's main playable character, a level 50 Paladin who is considered the strongest player in ESO and part of the most powerful guild, and he plays this character from his base where he lives. Takumi mentions having nearly every rare item in the game as Neidhardt, and is shown getting an extremely rare Angel Halo during the first chapter of the story.
Takumi claims to be respected like a god in ESO, but it is never shown in the game, and when Takumi mentions keeping a cool image of himself to Grimm, Grimm immediately laughs at it, so the reliability of this claim is questionable.
Neidhardt inviting Takumi into the 2D world in a positive delusion
In one of the delusions in ChäoS;HEAd, Takumi hallucinates that his character Neidhardt from the game is just as real as him, and in the positive version of it, Neidhardt tries to welcome him into the 2D world of Baselard where Takumi can be a hero too, while in the negative version, Neidhardt expresses contempt for Takumi and for being stuck with the pretentious-sounding name “Lightning-Fast Neidhardt”.
Takumi also uses "Neidhardt" as his handle for the chat room in which he talks to Grimm, and in later games such as ChäoS;Child, he is active on the microblogging service Twipo as Neidhardt in Robotics;Notes.
Liselotte[]
The computer at @café that Takumi uses to play as Liselotte
Liselotte (リーゼロッテ, Rīzerotte) is Takumi Nishijou’s secondary character, who he plays as from Room 37 of an Internet café called @café. In contrast to Neidhardt, she is one of countless low-level player characters in ESO who is not well-known.
Takumi only ever plays as Liselotte when he is at the Internet café @café, and only ever plays as Neidhardt when he is at his base. This is to avoid the ESO server admins or anyone else tracking his IP address and finding out that the same person controls both accounts. While Takumi avoids violating rules unrelated to RMT most of the time as Neidhardt, he (like anyone else) has exceptions to this virtue, adding another example of realism in his character (as this showcases his "grey" morality) by violating the rules against PKing and stealing items from other players when he plays as Liselotte at @café. Also, while Neidhardt has a male avatar, Liselotte has a female avatar, so sometimes other players assume he is a girl when he plays as Liselotte. Unlike Neidhardt, Liselotte is not a part of any guild, and typically joins up in parties with other random low-level players, sometimes helping them out, sometimes ruining things for them, depending on Takumi’s mood.
Grimm[]
While Takumi chats with many of his guildmates, the most common player for Takumi to chat with is his online friend Grimm (グリム, Gurimu), who likes to frequently talk about the New Gen serial killings. This character is controlled by the nurse Shino Hazuki, and as Grimm, she tries to act as a supportive friend and guildmate to Neidhardt while having a male persona. Grimm helps out a lot with the guild and is very good at gathering useful information for Neidhardt. However, Grimm’s insistence on talking about the New Generation Madness really annoys Takumi, along with Grimm picking up the annoying habit of saying “Whose eyes are those eyes?” regularly as an Internet meme.
Sister Centipede[]
The only other player in his guild besides Taku who refuses to join a FrePara community about the New Gen killings due to lack of interest is Sister Centipede (in some translations also known as Geji-nee). While not having any real significance in ChäoS;HEAd, she later has a major role in the third Science Adventure Series visual novel, Robotics;Notes. Sister Centipede's name is sometimes shortened to siscen.
After ChäoS;HEAd[]
By the time of ChäoS;Child in the year 2015, the sequel Empire Sweeper Online 2, is out and all the ESO players have switched to ESO2 (equivalent to the real-world Phantasy Star Online 2, or PSO2 for short), even though old character data cannot be transferred. The maximum character level is still 50 and it is still set in Baselard. The ChäoS;Child character Hana Kazuki, playing as KatsuoHana, is level 50 in ESO2 and very good, while Takumi Nishijou, playing as Neidhardt, is not as good as he was in the first ESO.