July 1st, 20XX.
“It-it’s all your fault. It’s because you were trying to cheat on me…!”
A voice called down to me.
I laid on the ground, a knife thrust deep into my chest.
(I can’t believe… over something like that…)
Thus, I, “Souma Sagara”, died.
However, this was all in a game!
The game that I, Souma Sagara, was playing is called “New Communicate Online”, or more popularly known as “Nekomimineko”. It is in many ways a famous VR game, and in a certain sense, you can say that it once took the world by storm.
A VR game is quite literally one that takes place within a virtual reality. It’s a game where you play by moving your body as if you had entered the game world, but in the end no matter how realistic it seems, a game is still a game.
Unlike reality, dying does not mean that it’s the end. By reloading the game and returning to a save point, you can continue playing as if nothing had happened.
As if proving that point, the words “Game Over” floated into view in the darkness, and below it a menu with the options “Load” and “Return to Title” appeared. I unhesitantly chose “Load” and selected the latest save data, and involuntarily muttered to myself.
“Still… as expected of Nekomimineko. To think that I would get killed over something like that, it’s sure living up to its name of the shittiest game of the century.”
What I had been working on until just a moment ago was a quest that involved getting friendly with a certain female NPC and exploring a dungeon together. After much hard work, I somehow managed to gain the affection of the character (named Layla), but as I dropped by the item shop to buy some torches before heading to the dungeon, her attitude suddenly changed and she stabbed me to death.
Now that I think about it, she probably didn’t like the fact that the shopkeeper was female.
…Just how high is her jealousy setting, jeez.
As I was once again being impressed by the unreasonableness of this game, the game data finished loading and I returned to the last save point, only to hear a light beep informing of an incoming call.
“Ah. It’s from Maki.”
I was still in the game, but that was fine. Calling out the menu screen, I pressed the accept call button. Immediately the call connected, and the sluggish voice of my cousin Maki echoed from thin air.
“Souma? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”
One of the features of these VR games is that even while in-game you can communicate with the real world through calls and texts. Being inside a VR space meant that you could call hands free without any particular need of a physical device, so communication might actually be more convenient than in the real world.
“Don’t what’s up me. Didn’t you promise to help organize our storeroom today!”
“Eh? Huh, now that you mention it…”
I had a faint feeling that I might have made such a promise… Or maybe not… In the first place, ever since starting to live alone I spent pretty much all of everyday gaming, so the sense of each passing day had started to fade.
“Even after I told you not to forget that many times!”
“Uh, uhm… sorry.”
“…Fine then. I thought it was probably something like that, so I had already started by myself.”
“A-Ahh. I see, sorry.”
Maki is my cousin and two years younger than me, but even then she holds quite a cheeky attitude towards me.
Her short and slender body conceals an abnormal amount of strength, and while she wears a harmless expression she is actually quite the troublemaker. Frankly, if I were to count the number of times that I’ve fallen prey to Maki’s antics, the fingers on my hands and my feet wouldn’t be enough.
I took advantage of starting university to go live on my own, and things became a bit quieter, but even then we were close enough that we would occasionally correspond through calls or texts.
“So yeah. I started cleaning, but I found something strange…”
“Something strange?”
“Mm. Uhh, it’s orange colored, and ball shaped?”
“An orange ball?”
It’s not just an orange right? Ah, but if an orange was in that storeroom then it would have rotted a long time ago…
“There’s quite a few of them. Uhm, one, two, three, four… there seems to be around seven?”
“Seven? …Seven orange balls?! H-Hey, they don’t happen to have stars inside them right?”
No, such an absurd thing can’t be possible…
“Mm? Let me test that.”
“Huh? Test? What do you…”
The sound of a crash immediately answered my question.
“Uhh… there doesn’t seem to be anything inside?”
“W-What did you just do…!”
“Eh? You wanted to know if there was something inside it, so I cracked it open to check…”
Maki answered nonchalantly. This is why you can never be too careful around her. The things she can do with a calm face have always been quite extreme.
“Maki, you know, that could’ve actually been…”
“Actually been what?”
“…Nevermind.”
Now that it was cracked open, there was no point in saying anything. I swallowed the words that I was about to say.
“Is there anything else interesting?”
“Nn? Let’s see.”
Maki replied to my words with sounds of her fumbling through objects.
“Ah. What… is this, a mummy’s hand? But it’s so small. It might not be a human hand. Maybe from something like a monkey?”
“C-Could that maybe be that famous monkey’s paw that grants the owner three wishes…?”
The words I spoke were drowned out by the ruffling of a plastic bag.
“Eh? What? I was just about to put the mummy hand into the burnable trash.”
“You… ah whatever.”
If I remember correctly, the monkey’s paw was supposed to be some kind of cursed object that fulfilled the owner’s wishes with unintended consequences.
Although it’s probably not the real thing anyways, it’s better not to get involved.
“Anything else?”
“Mm.”
After a short while,
“I-I found something that’s really hard to describe!”
Maki’s surprised voice rang out.
“What kind of thing is that?”
“U-Uhh, how do I describe this. It’s golden, and it’s shaped like a watering can, but it’s also like a kettle. But it’s too small to be a watering can or a kettle…”
Gathering together Maki’s ramblings, I tried to imagine the object in my mind. Starting with a small golden kettle and morphing it as described, the shape of a certain object that frequently appeared in folklore took form.
I involuntarily raised my voice.
“Could that maybe be that thing with a djinn in it that grants three wishes, that magical la…”
“I know! It’s a curry pot!”
Even then, my voice was covered up Maki’s even louder voice.
“Eh? A curry pot…”
She probably means those specialized things that pour curry. It’s true that the shape seems similar. But still.
“At our place we use ladles for curry, so guess I’ll throw this away.”
“Ah, wait a–”
I was too late. Crash, the sound of something breaking could be heard.
“Nn? Did you say something?”
“…No, nothing.”
It was too late anyways. I could only give up and wish the lamp luck in its next life.
“Okay then. Let’s continue!”
“Don’t immediately break the next one!”
Just in case, I put out a warning.
Of course I didn’t believe that they were real, but it’s definitely curious that these wish-granting items would appear one after another. With Maki destroying them all as soon as she found them, if possible I would like to investigate the next one a bit more without it being destroyed. Even if they were just randomly created replicas, it could still become the topic of a conversation.
What would appear next? I slightly looked forward to finding out.
“Ah, found something!”
It seemed that she found something new because Maki’s voice hit my ears.
“I found another one! This is… what is it? It seems like a long, thin strip of paper.”
“A strip of paper?”
A strip of paper and wishes… Ah, it must be that!
“Hey, isn’t that a Tanzaku? You know, the one where you write wishes for Tanabata?”
“Tanzaku? Ah, mm, yeah, it seems like it might be!”
Still, suddenly it turned a lot more reasonable or less exotic or something. Well, not that it really matters.
“Since I found it, maybe I’ll write down a wish.”
“Ah, wait! Don’t be so hasty…”
I hurriedly tried to stop her, but,
“Done!”
“So fast!”
I was too late. Normally there wouldn’t be any dangers associated with writing a Tanzaku, but after seeing all these strange relics, you can’t be too sure. I was slightly wary of it, but it seemed that Maki wasn’t worried in the slightest.
“…Nothing’s happening.”
That’s why, when I heard her response, I was honestly slightly relieved.
“Of course. How could something like that actually grant your wishes… So, what did you wish for?”
“I wished to become a princess.”
“…I hope you’ll always be filled with dreams.”
“Yeah!”
She completely missed the sarcasm. Well, that’s part of what makes her Maki.
“For a moment it seemed like it was going to work. I guess the problem is that it’s not Tanabata.”
While spewing such nonsense, Maki’s search continued.
“Ah, I think I found something amazing. What is this again… uh… a Pico Pico Hammer?”
“Pico Pico Hammer?”
I didn’t know of any legends about a Pico Pico Hammer granting wishes. As I was tilting my head in confusion, Maki swung the conversation in a completely unrelated direction.
“You know. Speaking of Tanzaku, isn’t it almost Tanabata?”
“Hm? Ah, yeah…”
Well, since other than going to class I spend the rest of my time holed up in my house playing video games, that had nothing to do with me.
Or so I thought, but Maki followed with a strange request.
“Hey Souma. Come play at our place on Tanabata. You know, to make up for skipping today’s storeroom cleaning.”
“Huh!? No way no way no way! I have class on Tanabata! And after class I have games to play so I have no time to visit!”
I refused the unexpected request with a rather harsh tone. However, I immediately regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth. The aura on the other side of the phone changed.
“…You’re always like that, Souma. Even when I invite you, it’s always games, games, games, games, games. Even today’s cleaning, I worked so hard to finally get a yes from you, but in the end you forgot about it because of your games…”
“Ah, uhm… Maki?”
Maki’s voice was low. That was a sign that she was angry.
The moment when I plugged my ears in the VR world was almost exactly the same moment as when a voice loud enough to echo through the whole world rang out.
“If you like your games so much, why don’t you just go live in one, you jerk!”
At the same time, an exaggerated sound of something breaking could be heard from far away.
Stunned by Maki’s sudden assault, what reached my ears was the voice of an equally stunned Maki.
“Huh? The Pico Pico Hammer broke. Even though it looked like it was made of pretty sturdy wood.”
“A hammer, made of wood?”
Hearing those words, something clicked within me. Speaking of a wooden hammer that can grant wishes, only one thing came to mind.
In other words, that was not a Pico Pico Hammer…”
“Hey, could that maybe be the Lucky…”
However, I was unable to finish the rest of my sentence.
My vision wavered.
The virtual world collapsed inwards, losing its appearance.
(What’s g…)
My words made no sound.
Everything started swirling around and being sucked into a big something.
Right before I lost consciousness…
“If you like your games so much, why don’t you just go live in one, you jerk!”
For some reason Maki’s shout once again echoed clearly in my head.
I opened my eyes to the wind brushing my cheeks.
While feeling something slightly off about that fact, I glanced at the surroundings.
“This is…”
I was standing on a wide road. On the left was a forest, and on the right a grassy plain could be seen. It was a scenery that I vaguely recalled. At least, I clearly remembered the signpost visible nearby as well as the vegetation in the forest.
Most likely, I was near the low level area called The Forest of Beginnings on the outskirts of the first town, Ramlich.
(I was in the middle of the Capital a moment ago though…)
Exactly what had happened in that instant? Even if this game “Nekomimineko” – “New Communication Online” – is called a department store of bugs, I hadn’t yet heard of a bug being discovered that sent you randomly flying somewhere just by standing in town.
(Could it be an undiscovered bug?)
For a moment that was what I thought, but the irregularity wasn’t simply limited to a change in location.
“Maki?”
I tried calling out, but there was no response. The call seemed to have been cut.
I faltered slightly, then decided for the moment to call Maki back.
“The menu won’t appear…?”
I realized that I could no longer use network based functionalities like calls or text. I couldn’t open the menu.
(Is this a bug? But it’s a bit…)
It was weird that I couldn’t even use the phone. That was not a feature provided by the game, but rather a common functionality supplied by the VR environment. It was not something that a bug from a game could affect.
(Then, a problem with the VR machine itself…?)
Perplexed, I reflexively tried to open the game menu.
But, that was also met with no response.
“What’s going on?”
Inadvertently muttering to myself, I caught sight of a further abnormality.
Scanning over my own getup, what I was wearing was not the equipment that I poured my heart and soul into collecting. I had on some flimsy leather armor and leather boots, and hanging from my waist was a worn leather scabbard that contained a sword as well as a small pouch.
There was no need to dig through my memories. However you look at it, these were the lowest rank equipment. I haven’t seen such frail equipment outside of the starting equipment from when you begin the game.
(Thinking about it, this place too…)
I looked over the surrounding scenery once again. I had thought this looked familiar. Of course! This was the starting location of Nekomimineko.
Though I couldn’t confirm my stats without opening the menu, I could tell that my body felt different from before. It was possible that I had been reverted back to level 1.
(My save file couldn’t have been wiped… could it?)
I immediately shook my head at my own question. It was true that with Nekomimineko it wouldn’t be strange even if such a bug would occur, and that would explain warping back to the start location with starting gear. But in the end that still would not explain why the menu screen could not be opened.
In addition, those were not the only anomalies.
I couldn’t quite explain it, but something felt off about the surrounding scenery. Like… everything I was seeing was subtly different from usual or something…
“!? Who’s there!?”
However, my thoughts were forcibly cut off. Further down the road, what sounded like someone yelling could be heard.
“Could it be…”
Thinking for a moment, I immediately remembered.
If this was right after the start of a new game, then that might be happening.
“!”
If that was the case, then I couldn’t just leave it alone. I dashed towards the direction of the voice.
My body was light. The virtual body in the game world could move much more nimbly compared to my body in real life. The difference could be felt even in the initial state at the beginning of the game.
“Step!”
Saying this, I “ordered” the skill name set in the system. My surroundings blurred, and I was assaulted with an intense acceleration that couldn’t be experienced in reality.
Floating for a few moments, I landed, and was faced with the after-cast stun – the short stun after a skill finishes. After the after-cast stun ended, I started moving again.
It seemed like I was able to use the Step skill. I was wondering what I would do if, like the menu screen, I couldn’t use skills anymore, but it seemed that worry was unwarranted.
Step is one of the basic skills that everyone is able to use from the very start, but its broad range of uses means it’s not just a basic skill that can be easily replaced. Though my inexplicable unease did not decrease but rather increased, knowing that I was able to use this skill offered me relief that could not be understated.
In that case, the next thing to test would be…
“Highstep!”
I tried to use the advanced movement skill that could be learned after mastering Step, but,
“…Nothing’s happening.”
The test was a failure. At least, it seemed like all of my character data had been reset to its initial values.
Actually, rather than the data being reset, it might simply be the start of a new game from the very beginning.
“There it is!”
Moving onwards while confirming my body’s condition, before long I was able to see the location of the battle. The first thing I saw was a large wagon. An old-fashioned horse-drawn wagon that you would be hard pressed to find in the real world was stopped in the middle of the road.
Around the wagon were people fighting.
They numbered five. The first to catch my eye was a female wielding a sword, her back facing towards me.
Following that, the outlines of four lizardmen wielding weapons could be seen, their backs facing the wagon, positioned as if trying to surround the female.
Seeing this, I was convinced.
This was, without a doubt, the first event of the game.
The unreasonable starting event that was said to be the cause of over 90 percent of first time player deaths, the infamous “Lizardmen’s Trap” awaits!
—Bandits! Someone, help!
As you reached the Kingdom of Licht, the destination of your travels, a yell reached your ears.
After a brief moment of consideration, you dashed towards the direction of the voice with your trusty sword in hand.
The sound of swords clashing and people fighting echoed.
Squinting, you spotted an intense battle taking place.
The bandits were assaulting a stopped wagon, and the merchants were trying to defend it.
One of the merchants yelled out to you.
—Thank the gods, an adventurer! We will reward you, so please help!
Giving the merchants a silent nod, you engaged the bandits.
Thus, your adventure had started…
This was the intro story written on the official homepage of Nekomimineko.
Matching the words that resurfaced from the back of my mind with the scene in front of my eyes, I focused on the battle unfolding ahead. It was just as I remembered.
The event nicknamed The First-Timer Killer, the “Lizardmen’s Trap”. The official name was “Protect the Merchants” if I remembered correctly. As the nickname “First-Timer Killer” would indicate, it was said that most of the players encountering this event for the first time would end up experiencing their first death.
I was no exception. During my first time I had been swiftly killed, not even having understood what had happened. It was probably only after my second death that I was able to figure out what was going on.
What made this event so tough was not just that the enemies were rather strong, but more than that it was difficult to take in the situation at first glance. What’s more, the more familiar a player was with games, the easier it was for them to fall into this trap.
For now, let’s try taking stock of the situation.
The one closest to me was a sword-wielding female with her back facing me.
Further away, with their backs to the wagon, the four lizardmen stood with their weapons at the ready, as if surrounding the female.
…Now, do you understand?
At first glance, this situation seemed as if the lizardmen were attacking the human female. But, the lizardmen were fighting with their backs to the wagon.
Taking another calm look, in comparison to the proper equipment the female was wearing, with leather armor, a scimitar, and a shield, the lizardmen were wearing what looked to be regular clothes, and they were merely holding items for self-defense like knives and wooden sticks.
—In other words, this was a scene of kind lizardmen merchants and their wagon being assaulted by a frightening armored female bandit.
If you were to carefully read the story written on the homepage, it does in fact mention that there were multiple merchants, but the important part about the merchants being lizardmen was not included.
The majority of players, struck with the misconceptions of either “lizardmen are enemies” or “the side at a numbers disadvantage could not be the aggressor”, rushed in towards the lizardmen.
By doing so, the lizardmen who had been friendly NPCs ended up turning into enemies, and as you were fighting the lizardmen, the female bandit who you thought was an ally ended up stabbing you in the back.
This was indeed the fearful “Lizardmen’s Trap”.
Actually, the lizardmen themselves were not to blame in any way. They merely played the pitiful role of being attacked just because they looked scary, even though they had done nothing bad.
There were players who got stuck in this “Lizardmen’s Trap” and died over ten times without knowing what happened, and it seemed that there was even a grade schooler who was traumatized by this event and could not play VR games for a while.
Whether it was made on purpose or if it was something that just came to be, this absurd starting event was one of the reasons why Nekomimineko was commonly regarded as a niche game.
Of course, now that I knew how it worked there was no way I would fall for it again. But, even though I understood the trap, the difficulty of this quest was still high.
After all, even without taking into account the difference in our equipment, the female bandit was someone capable of taking on four merchants alone. If one didn’t coordinate and try to fight together with the lizardmen merchants, a beginner would be quickly killed.
That said, I was not a beginner. Even if my stats had been reset, I hadn’t been playing so casually that I’d have a tough time with an early game opponent. It was impossible for me to lose.
Or so I thought…
(Something feels strange.)
The insecurity I had been feeling for a while reached its max.
Where I was now, I could see the faces of the lizardmen as well as the ferocious smile of the female bandit in clear detail. This time, I was able to clearly identify the source of my unease.
—It was too realistic.
The texture of the smoothly connected lizardmen’s scales. The drops of sweat that flew every time the female bandit moved. The feeling of weight every time two weapons collided. Everything was, compared to a few minutes ago before I was transported to the Forest of Beginnings, incomparably more realistic.
Even in a VR game providing realistic video data, there was a limit. No matter how realistic the developers tried to make it seem, in the end a game is just a recreation and one could immediately tell that it was a game.
But right now, the scenery in front of my eyes did not give off any sense of being from a game.
Even though it was an extremely unrealistic scene of lizardmen fighting against a female bandit, I could only see it as something that was happening in reality.
Actually, that was not all. The sunlight shining on my face, the wind that brushed against my skin, the sound of rustling leaves, the rich smell of grass, everything my five senses were telling me screamed out that this place I was currently standing in was undoubtedly a part of reality.
It was as if this was not the creation of a computer processor, but I had actually entered a real fantasy world…
(A fantasy, world…?)
Something clicked.
Right before this happened, what were Maki’s last words?
“If you like your games so much, why don’t you just go live in one, you jerk!”
Could it be, could it be, those words…
“Ah!”
Consumed with my own thoughts, I committed an unbelievable blunder. With a loud clatter, I dropped the sword in my hand.
“!?”
Both the female bandit and the lizardmen noticed my presence, and simultaneously turned towards me. I hastily picked up my sword, but it was already too late.
Exposed to five gazes that could hardly be called friendly, I froze in place.
Oh crap—I thought.
The hostility emitted by the female bandit could only be described as a killing intent, and together with the stares from the lizardmen’s emotionless eyes, I felt feelings I had never experienced in a game before. For the first time, I became acutely aware that the scimitar, knives, and other weapons that they wielded were indeed actual weapons capable of claiming people’s lives.
My sweat dripped onto the sword that I picked up. This was supposed to be where I fought together with the lizardmen to drive off the female bandit, but given the current situation, would the lizardmen really consider me an ally?
Like the female bandit, I was a human. Furthermore, I came from the same direction as the bandit. Thinking about it logically, wouldn’t they mistake me as an ally of the bandit instead?
The NPCs in this game moved according to a program, so there was no need to ponder so hard about it. I used to placate myself by thinking this way.
But, if this was a just a computer game, then the female bandit and lizardmen would not care about something like the sound of a fallen object, and would have continued fighting. The fact that they turned around on hearing a sword drop was extremely strange.
In any case, it would be bad to stay silent. Driven by that sense of desperation, I tried to say something, even though I could think of nothing to say.
“…Ah, um.”
However, there was no need for that.
“-Tch!”
Clicking her tongue, the female bandit took action. Without hesitation, she turned away from the lizardmen. It seemed like she was about to retreat, aware of the dangers of a pincer attack.
I’m saved, I thought, but I was too naive. She had not given up on fighting. She merely changed the priorities of her targets. Her next target was…
“M-me!?”
In order to avoid the dangers of a pincer attack, it seemed that she planned to first eliminate me, the unpredictable factor, before later moving on to the lizardmen.
It was a decision like one that a real person would have made. But, I had no time to dwell on thoughts like that.
(Is she really coming for me? You’ve got to be kidding!)
I felt a ferocity that I had never felt before in my life from the approaching female bandit. This was probably what is called a murderous intent.
I willed myself to do something, anything, but my numbed body would not move.
“A-ahh…”
The female bandit drew closer. The scimitar in her hand exuded a sinister glow, while her ruthless smile told that she was all but certain of her victory.
Seeing that impending figure, my instincts called out.
(If I don’t do something, I will be killed!)
Thoughts like “it’s just a game so it’s okay even if I die” or “the opponent is just an NPC controlled by a program” were blown away before the overwhelming reality of the approaching female bandit.
(It’s okay. If I just handle this normally, handle this like how I always do in the game, it should be fine.)
I desperately tried to reassure myself, but my body, overwhelmed with nervousness, still would not move.
During this entire time, the female bandit loomed closer and closer. The gap that had been at least ten meters was now close to zero.
“Die!”
Having reached right before me, the female bandit swung her sword with the intent to kill.
A real killing intent. An authentic blade. Seeing those, I…
“Step!”
At the impending attack, I half-reflexively activated the movement skill , retreating backwards.
The swing by the female bandit was actually not all that fast. At least, if I had been playing the game as usual, I could probably have dodged it without using any skills.
Even if I were to use Step, normally I would have probably jumped to the side instead of backwards.
But, driven by fear, I moved backwards.
“Hah!”
In response, a sneer appeared on the female bandit’s face.
A shiver ran down my spine.
(The after-cast stun!)
From her ominous smile, I could tell what the female bandit was aiming for.
Step is an excellent evasion skill in emergencies, but it leaves an opening during the after-cast stun after its use. Letting out an attack expecting to be dodged with Step, then following up with the real blow was the opponent’s plan.
However, knowing the opponent’s intentions still does not let me undo a skill that was already cast. Step gives a huge instant burst of speed, but outside of the initial burst it wasn’t all that fast.
Dashing, the female bandit easily caught up to me.
“This is the end. Slash!”
Wearing a victorious smile, the female bandit activated an offensive skill.
Slash was one of the starting skills, but its power could not be compared to normal attacks. Taking into account the difference in stats between the female bandit and me, this one strike was more than enough to claim my life.
As the blade approached, I thought to myself.
Ahh, why am I hesitating over whether my experience in the game could be used here?
That, in such an overly realistic and severe situation, knowledge and experience from a game…
“Slash!!”
would end up being the only thing protecting my life was something that I had never doubted!
“Wha!?”
The Slash that I unleashed a moment later than the female bandit ended up reaching its target a moment earlier than her Slash. Though my blow was blocked by her armor and did not do much damage, as a result of the impact it interrupted the opponent’s strike.
Why did my skill hit first even though it was activated later?
As someone with no game knowledge, the female bandit probably couldn’t even imagine how. There was no way she would even think that connecting a Step into a Slash would omit the wind up animation and speed up activation.
What’s more, my attack did not stop there. No way I would let it end there.
The Slash cut splendidly across the opponent’s body, and just as the strike was coming to an end, in that instant,
“Step!”
I did not miss that cancel point, as I cancelled into a Step, overwriting the Slash’s motion.
Once more, the female bandit’s face was filled with surprise.
Both Slash and Step, though basic, were both considered skills. As skills, in return for powerful effects, they are accompanied by openings during the long wind up animation and the after-cast stun that comes at the end. Even in the instruction manual, it was written clearly that “skills are powerful, but due to the strain it puts on your body you will be unable to perform any actions for a short while”.
Normally one wouldn’t even be able to move after using a skill, so to use another skill that forces your body even further beyond its limits would be unthinkable.
…That is, if you thought about this realistically.
But, I am the only one who knows this world is a game.
In games, there is a technique, or rather a system, called cancelling.
Originally born from fighting games, this system had recently become incorporated into various games with action in them. Its effect is that during the middle or perhaps the end of an animation, by starting a new animation the gap from the first animation could be skipped.
Of course, being one of the newest VR games, “New Communicate Online” came equipped with this system.
Thus, having wrapped diagonally behind the female bandit using Step, the moment my two feet touched ground I yelled once again.
“Slash!”
Ordinarily, both Step and Slash come with a short, less than 1 second, but fatal opening. Due to that stun, it is also impossible to combo them together.
However, I was able to use cancelling to connect the two together and avoid the opening.
“!!”
If, at this moment, the female bandit was able to spare a glance over her shoulder, this time her eyes would probably have been wide open with shock.
In the first place Slash was an attack that involved swinging from top to bottom. But my arm was already facing downwards after the first Slash, so it should have been impossible to move my arm back up in such a short time.
Even I don’t know how exactly my arm moved. All I know is that the moment I yelled Slash, my arm was already in position above my head.
“G-ah!”
Empowered with the skill, my sword was sucked straight into her unprotected back.
The unforeseen attack from an unexpected location left the helpless female bandit collapsed on the ground.
“I’ll leave the rest to you!”
Hearing my yell, the astounded lizardmen watching our fight came back to their senses.
“G-get ‘er!”
With a command from what seemed to be the leader of the lizardmen, time started flowing again. The four lizardmen all came flying and captured the still immobilized female bandit.
I gazed onwards at that sight, unable to move. My heart beat fast and my breaths were shallow. These were obvious signs that I was out of stamina.
Through cancels you can chain skills together, but the resulting impact on stamina expenditure can be harsh. While breathing heavily, I focused my efforts on recovering my strength.
It was harder than normal to breathe. A sense of suffocation that I had never experienced in a VR space assaulted my chest.
Even then, I looked towards the captured female bandit surrounded by the lizardmen and spat out towards nobody in particular.
“How many tens of hours do you think I spent practicing Step cancelling? Don’t underestimate us hardcore gamers!”
As the battle passed and the excitement died down, the weight of the matter slowly dawned upon me.
After ensuring that the female bandit was secured, the lizardmen merchants offered me a ride to the town on their wagon. Taking up that offer and riding together with them on their wagon, I grabbed my head in my mind.
It wasn’t just the scenery outside the window, the smell of the forest, or the sound of the wind. The human-like responses to the changes in situation from the female bandit; the solid feeling of impact as your strike landed on the opponent; the chest pains from the loss of breath that should have been controlled and limited by the VR machine; and furthermore, the vibrations and the small vertical movements that could be felt as this wagon advanced.
Various small things that could have been, or rather probably should have been, omitted from a game now manifested themselves in front of me as reality.
I could no longer ignore the matter anymore.
Right now, I was not “playing a game”.
I was “in the world of the game”.
It may be hard to believe, but I could not think of any other explanations for the current situation.
The changes that made this world seem like reality were at a level that couldn’t be explained by a surprise patch, yet on the other hand, this world followed the rules of the game surprisingly accurately.
But more than anything, what brought me to this conclusion was the conversation that I had exchanged with Maki right before this all happened.
At that time, Maki was holding what could have been the Lucky Mallet. According to legends, the Lucky Mallet possesses a power that can grant any wish as it is swung.
Right before the changes happened, this was what Maki had said.
“If you like your games so much, why don’t you just go live in one, you jerk!”
Considering the situation, it could be deduced that Maki, being fed up with what I had said, yelled out those words while swinging the Lucky Mallet in anger.
Fitting the requirements of “saying a wish while swinging the mallet”, the Lucky Mallet did as Maki’s words directed and sent me into the world of a game.
“Ugh, this is absurd…”
Considering all this, I thought to myself.
Even if alternate worlds existed somewhere, it was hard to believe that there would just happen to exist such a place that was identical to Nekomimineko. If that’s the case, then probably in the moment that Maki made her wish, the Lucky Mallet created a world identical to that of Nekomimineko, and on top of that it sent me there.
In which case, just to grant the wish that my cousin said out of spite, a whole new world was created. Seriously, how absurd.
Even ignoring all that, to be sent to some random world just because of some stupid gag-comic-like incident is seriously not something to laugh at.
Actually, thinking about it more, this is really a situation that can’t be laughed at.
(Why, out of everything, did it have to be this game!!)
Nekomimineko was not your ordinary game. Events that were made just to trouble the player sat waiting around every corner, the game balance was ridiculous from start to finish, and as a bonus instadeath level bugs were scattered everywhere. It was the worst game.
I don’t know exactly how many times I had cleared data and restarted from the very beginning, but my deaths probably easily numbered in the hundreds. Including the mid-game resets and loads, that number definitely surpassed a thousand.
In this game, where even level 300s regularly die, right now I had only a beginner’s status, starting back at level 1.
It was as if I were being told to conquer this game with no mistakes and no resets with the fear of death looming in my mind in this game world that had now become reality.
(There’s no way I could do something like that!)
Facing this sudden reality, my face turned pale.
“Wass wrong? Are syou alright?”
One of the lizardman merchants called to me in concern.
“No, I’m okay, Mr. Reinhart.”
I somehow gathered my thoughts and replied with a smile to the leader of the merchants, Reinhart.
“Is that sso. Well, if theres anything bothering syou, les me know. Yous are our ssavior. We wills do what swe can.”
In the hard-to-understand accent unique to lizardmen, the actually quite handsome-looking Reinhart said.
Actually, with a cool name like Reinhart and his accommodating personality, could this person be a hunk of the lizardmen world?
(…Hmm)
When this was just a simple game, nobody would call out to me when I was down like this. There might be many other differences now compared to when it was a game.
It’s a good chance that I was able to meet someone friendly. If I let this opportunity pass by, then I’d be sure to regret it.
“In that case, there are some things I’d like to ask.”
Deciding to gather some information from Reinhart and the lizardmen, I opened my mouth.
Having spoken with the lizardmen, I was able to understand a few things.
From the conversation we had in the wagon at least, it seemed that they, who were supposed to be simply AI-controlled NPCs in game, were now equipped with knowledge comparable to a human in the real world.
Rather, Reinhart who had journeyed to a variety of places had a knack for storytelling, and even with his blunt tone of voice I found myself getting sucked into his stories.
That said, not all of their knowledge was the same as in reality. They accepted things like HP, levels, skills, and such game constructs as normal. As expected, they were not able to open the menu screen, so in order to determine these values they needed to use certain items.
However, even though they accepted the various “elements of a game” that filled this world, they did not seem to have the notion that “this world was a game”. Though, this was something that was true since back when this game was a game, so it’s not really something surprising.
Touching on subjects outside of the people, this was most definitely in the same setting as the game I played, the Kingdom of Licht.
Not just the geography and place names, but when I tried to confirm what I remembered about Licht’s history and customs and such, what Reinhart spoke of matched everything in my memories, except that he was able to tell them with a much higher level of detail than what I remembered. It perfectly matched the game’s setting down to the minutiae, even the parts that were just randomly decided by the game staff and made no sense when thinking realistically.
By the way, the language used in this kingdom was the Continental Common Language, which in essence was just modern Japanese. Given that New Communicate Online was a Japanese game, this decision seemed obvious, but either way I was grateful that I did not need to worry about a language barrier.
From their side they also asked quite a few things about my background, but I just dodged the questions saying that I was a traveller from afar. In this world filled with demi-humans and people with weird hair colors oft seen in games, black hair and black eyes were possibly rare in return, but it didn’t seem like they thought it was something worth prying into.
The question from Reinhart that troubled me the most was with respect to the skill comboing I did when I defeated the female bandit, but I just replied in turn that it was my trump card so I couldn’t talk much about it, and if possible they were not to speak of it to anyone else, and he obediently complied.
Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen NPCs use skill cancelling in the game. Since there doesn’t seem to be any merits in standing out too much, I silently decided to control my usage of cancelling as much as possible when in people’s sights.
“…We’re almoss there.”
After having chatted for a while, Reinhart suddenly jerked as if having felt something, and gazed out of the window.
Following his lead, I also stuck my head out of the wagon and looked forwards.
As I did so, I was able to take in a familiar giant gate, and the outer walls that surrounded the town in front of us.
“That’s…”
The entrance to the Kingdom of Licht, and the very first town of Nekomimineko, Ramlich.
…I wonder why.
A giant gate that one would not be able to find in Japan. A sturdy wall that protected people from the threat of monsters. Behind those were tall European-style buildings that I had seen before in game.
More than the female bandit and the lizardmen, more than even seeing real weapons and armor, these felt overwhelmingly “real”.
It was at this point that finally I came to acknowledge it.
It seems…
(…I’ve really come to “another world”.)
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login