Chapter 1:
There are Nothing But Problems in this Game
The sound of surge was echoing beneath the orange sun.
It was the sound of the sea with the sea scenery spreading beneath Sasaraki's eyes. Though, it was a small sea, about ten kilometers into every direction. In it were a bunch of islands. On one of them desert and pyramids. Next to that, another one with a gigantic castle on it, covered in ice. Between those islands was a vortex, preventing travel between them.
All of those had been set up by our youth, Sasaraki.
For he was a gamemaster.
The creators of this virtual world, 'Sword & Magic Online,' its absolute rulers.
Why a boy would be a gamemaster? Because all the devs had run away.
This game was a kusoge.
They'd advertised that it'd have 255 floors, yet only one floor had actually been implemented. Sasaraki had filled in for the developers who had left this kind of kusoge behind and determined himself to become a gamemaster for the sake of his comrades— Lizna and Azrael.
"Hmm… I'm done arranging the islands at large, but…"
Sasaraki mumbled looking at the monitor in front of him while seated on a chair-like travelling device, called 'Air Master.' The implementation of the second floor, 'The End of the Endless Ocean,' was more or less going according to plan.
He was about 50% done.
"But… I guess I'd like to see some more 'enjoyments' there."
Such were the teachings of the mysterious girl, Alice, the one who had appointed him gamemaster.
And one of the most important teachings of her was...
"The 100 Rules of Being a Gamemaster, rule number 4— You mustn't unravel the secrets of the game!"
If the players would see its secrets— that is, if they'd understand the game in its entirety, they wouldn't be able to enjoy the game anymore. Obstacles they'd come to understand - a world they'd come to understand - would be boring.
Which is why they needed 'enjoyments.'
"Yeah, I kind of want a monastery at the shore, though it's got no real meaning behind it."
[U n d e r s t o o d .]
Popped up on the 'Master Screen' which opened itself in front of Sasaraki.
Thereupon, an island shifted. Smoke arose on the icy one.
And all of a sudden a small monastery had appeared on its shore.
Able to alter the world in the blink of an eye, such was the power of one of the main function of the 'Master Screen,' the 'Creation Mode.' It could spawn all kinds of buildings, events, quests, monsters; your imagination's the limit.
"Ah, wait a minute."
[W a i t i n g a m i n u t e .]
"The doorway seems to be stuck in an ice wall and can't be entered."
[I s t h a t s o ?]
"I'd like you to fix that."
[E e h ? T h a t ' d b e a p a i n i n t h e a s s .]
"........................"
It could do anything.
But the actions it undertook were only vaguely faithful, and on top of that whimsical, too.
According to Alice, "A fairy's in there," but that fairy was doing things way too half-assedly. And because of that, this kusoge became the kusoge it was. Who programmed this pointlessly sophisticated AI? It didn't appear to have been Alice—
"Please! Nobody will be able to enter it like this."
[W o u l d y o u l i k e m e t o w r e c k a w a l l ?]
"Of course not!"
[M a s t e r s u r e i s d e m a n d i n g , J e e z . . .]
He was the one who wanted to say 'Jeez' here. Thanks to that vague 'Master Screen,' the implementation of floor two was painstaking. If he ordered it to do something, it would somehow comply, but the way it took his commands to action was incredibly half-baked.
"...By the way, how's the clearing of floor one coming along?"
[U n d e r s t o o d , d i s p l a y i n g f l o o r o n e . . .]
He was creating the second floor of this virtual world right now. If someone were to clear the first floor, the game was programmed to let everyone move on to the second floor. It hadn't been long since the leading raid guild messed up floor one's boss, so there should've been time still.
The display shifted and showed floor one's final dungeon.
In front of the dungeon were three players.
"Alright! We're gonna clear this dungeon with just the three of us—!"
"B-But can we do that…? Even a raid group couldn't, right…?"
"I've got some intel, we'll be fine! There's hardly any trash mobs left, it's just the boss!"
"Our preparations are flawless. There's no reason to be hesitant, Sousla."
"Y-Yeah… if you two say so, I'll… do my best…"
It appeared to be a determined party of three .
"Ooh, I wonder whether they can do it."
[T h a t i s c o n s i d e r e d i m p o s s i b l e .]
"...Eh? Why?"
[L o o k f o r y o u r s e l f .]
When the girl, Sousla, touched the switch to the hidden dungeon entrance…
BOOOM.
The three of them exploded.
An explosion as violent as a fireball's took place and almost set loose an avalanche in the mountains.
Sasaraki watched it in a daze, seeing the death notifications of all of them pop up on screen.
[Player Sousla Died. Reason: Touched Forbidden Land.]
[Player Douglas Died. Reason: Touched Forbidden Land.]
[Player Gogoss died. Reason: Touched Forbidden Land.]
"........................The hell just happened?"
[F u r y - s a n d i d s o m e w o r k o n i t .]
Namely, that any player touching the switch to the hidden passage would explode.
"WHY?!"
"Eh? No particular reason?"
Suddenly, the few decimeters tall fairy, Fury, appeared.
"What have you done?!"
"You see~, didn't Master say so himself??"
"What?!"
"That this game needs enjoyments—?"
"That's just you enjoying yourself, isn't it?!"
Thereafter, he fought it out with the 'Master Screen' and somehow fixed the switch.
—This game's a kusoge.
The biggest of reasons being that the implementations were way too half-assed.
And those had been brought upon them by evil-minded developers.
* * *
After implementation in general had been done, Sasaraki returned to the debugging room.
The debugging room, an impassable area surrounded by jet-black walls. A girl was in one of the corners. Sitting on a chair tall enough for her feet to not reach to the ground, she was surrounded by numerous screens waiting on her, while she was playing a stare-down game with the text displayed and a frantic expression on her face.
Sasaraki and Lizna were watching that Azrael's back together.
"Azrael-san, what are you doing?"
Lizna asked, bewondered.
"I'm developing a 'divorce system.'"
Azrael was this game's programmer. She could change the rules of world to her heart's content— her imagination and skills were the limit. Her imagination was above average, her skills, though, weren't. Actually, she was an amateur.
But she was a hardworking person.
Which is why she tried to read the code carefully as much as an amateur could...
"I-I-I can't lose here…!"
...to implement a divorce system. More precisely, to arrange her own divorce.
"...It's a really… awful bug, isn't it?"
Sasaraki looked at his left hand. A silver ring graced his ring finger. It had
'Sasaraki & Azrael' engraved in Japanese. The same ring should be on Azrael's finger. Uselessly detailed craftsmanship, indeed.
They were newly weds.
The reason was a bug, for the most part. And the developer's ill intentions.
And so Azrael tried her hardest to develop a divorce system.
"Mhm, mhm, so that's how it is?"
Lizna nodded beside him as if she'd understood something.
"That's why Sasaraki's watching Azrael with that gentle expression of his which says 'no need for you to do all that,' right?"
Sasaraki fell off his chair.
"NO, I'M NOT?! I WANNA GET DIVORCED TOO?!"
"Azrael's cute when she's desperate, isn't she? I'd alos love to watch her forever like this~"
Lizna said, turning a deaf ear.
"But is this okay, I wonder? We don't have much time left, right?"
She took a paper from the desk close to her.
Written on it was 'End of Service Notice.'
"It's two more weeks until the end of service and we have to take measures."
"Fufu~ You've to think the other way around, Lizna."
A voice said from behind. When they turned round, it was the gamemaster girl, Alice, with her silver hair fluttering. She expressed a pointlessly confident smile.
Sasaraki knew that smile all too well. Basically, it was a smile signalling that she wasn't thinking anything good.
Alice pointed at Lizna sharply and shouted…
"IF THERE'S STILL TWO WEEKS LEFT, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU WASTE A DAY
OR TWO!"
"Nonono!"
When Sasaraki thought that that'd been worse than expected, Alice chuckled.
"I'm just joking. A divorce system wouldn't be a waste."
"But it's only Azrael and I who've been married here, you know?"
Thanks to the patch of a former malicious developer, for a whole hour, this game had turned into a world where people would get married just by holding hands. Only two people should've been affected by that. That only those two people would go all out to get divorced couldn't be helped.
"Look, there are much more other things we need to do."
Ten thousand active players. This was the condition for the game to continue.
And the current player count was 10255. Approximately 20 players quit per day, and if this kept up, they had 13 more days until game over.
They had to improve the game somehow and make the players stay. For that sake, they were doing two big things: Implementing the second floor, 'The End of the Endless Ocean' as well as adding new components; and at the same time crushing critical bugs (a lot of them there to crush!) which were the cause for the end of the world.
"We're the ones implementing the second floor, not Azrael, remember?"
"But there's a lot of bugs left, you know?"
In this game, laws of physics like gravity or attraction were computed by extremely half-assed algorithms and so if players performed just a bit of an unforeseen action, they'd break the heaven and earth. There'd been a case where it rained 'long swords' instead of water before, which went down as 'The Bladerain Incident.'
"It's fine, that one didn't make too many players quit."
"Everyone's already used to that kind of stuff, right…? But we can't leave things like this."
The habituated players aside, new players would immediately stop dropping by.
It was unlikely that there'd be people who'd want to come to a world where all of a sudden swords come falling from the sky killing them without knowing what to do.
"Wouldn't it be better if we had Azrael focus on fixing bugs?"
"Sasaraki, that's naive."
"How so?"
"An amateur can't fix bugs in a VRMMO."
"Did you just negate Azrael's whole meaning of existence here?!"
"Listen to people until they're done talking— especially if they're a gamemaster."
Alice laughed a "Fufun," and looked at Azrael.
"A divorce system is pretty complicated to make, you know? Managing the player relationship flag established by the wedding ring, the item sharing, or Youth Protection Code connections… if she can tackle this kind of complicated system with that passion, Azrael will soon be an amateur no longer."
In other words, she probably wanted to say, 'If you've got the motivation, learning's a piece of cake!'
"Plus, I've things to do, too."
"What things?"
"I've to make a roadmap on how we plan to improve our game, and prepare the application papers for the 'Neo Virtual World Funding Organization' financing offline, and— Well, boring stuff. Let's have Azrael master programming in the meantime."
If it's that... , Sasaraki also agreed.
Then Azrael mumbled…
"Alright… so this is the romance parameter… I got that much—"
Azrael raised her hands and stretched.
The revolving chair turned around. She met eyes with Sasaraki and the others.
"Ah, you were all here?"
"You didn't notice? That's some amazing… concentration…"
Sasaraki lost his words along the way; because a squall blew all of a sudden.
Even though it was a closed room. Azrael was wearing her usual black mini skirt, and so the skirt was swaying and fluttering in the wind.
Hence, if we were to put it frankly— he saw a white, tri-angled piece of cloth.
"—KYAAAAAAAAAA—?!"
She panicked and pulled down her mini skirt to conceal it.
"Wai—… Wha— D-D-Did you see 'em—?!"
Wow, what should I say now... but white, huh? Those were unexpected but they do suit you, do you actually wear white in real life too, they made my heart skip a beat, no wait, if I tell her those, Azrael will kill me, anyways I need an excuse fast—?!
"I didn't see anything! Nothing white for sure, alright—?!"
"So you totally did see them—?!"
"Waa~h! A standard lovers' quarrel, isn't it?!"
"Wind's nothing unpredictable here. You should've taken a harder look."
Lizna and Alice voiced their discontent and absurdities.
"Why—?! Why's there wind blowing indoors—?!"
"There's a reason to that."
Alice answered in a calm tone.
"If you're wearing a mini skirt within the test area, the squall chance increases by 20%."
"WHAT KIND OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT FEATURE IS THIIIIIIIIS—?!"
Azrael groaned while holding down her mini skirt.
"Wait, this was sexual harassment just now, wasn't it?! Fury! Fury, where are you—?!"
"Aye-aaaye? I'm Fury-chan, your fairy savior?"
The moment Azrael had shouted that, the small fairy in her dress appeared in the air. Her name was Fury, an AI acting as the contact for players to voice their complaints and bug reports. One of her duties was to bomb players who sexually harassed others, actually that was the sole duty she really made an effort to see through.
She just couldn't resist the pleasure she felt when killing players.
"Sadly, Fury-chan didn't see any sexual harassment here?"
Fury giggled and winked at Sasaraki in a cute pose.
"Sasaraki peeked at my panties, you know—?!"
"That's no sexual harassment?"
"Wha—?!"
"After all, in the system you both are registered as newly weds~?"
She pointed at Sasaraki and Azrael alternately.
Then her cheeks blushed and she concealed her mouth with her hands.
She said as if telling a secret…
"You can do those 'various things' listed in the Youth Protection Code Violations, you know??"
"Va—?!"
"rious—?!"
Fury chuckled while Sasaraki and Azrael's voices overlapped.
"Fury solved your problem, didn't she? I'll excuse myself, then?"
She spun in a circle and her figure disappeared.
Left were Azrael and Sasaraki, looking at each other simultaneously.
—You can do those 'various things' ?
Fury's words from now rang in Sasaraki's ears.
Mostly out of reflex, his gaze went from Azrael's breasts, to her hips, to her thighs.
Various things— picturing that, his cheeks flared up.
"Wai— Hey! What are you looking at?! Stop eyeing me, no fantasizing—!"
She said, hiding both her breasts and thighs, and turning deep red.
"I-I-I'LL DEFINITELY MAKE THAT DIVORCE HAPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN—!"
* * *
And so Azrael was as eager as ever to implement a divorce system. Sasaraki and Alice were in the middle of preparing the second floor, 'The End of the Endless Ocean,' set for release in two days. Lizna had taken on the role of the tummler who'd get the crowd excited and tell the players about its discovery, she held the script and mumbled her lines like an actress waiting for her appearance on stage.
In the middle of this chaotic debugging room…
Alice jumped on top of a mandarin box.
"Well now, we've to pull ourselves together!"
She sharply pointed at Sasaraki and shouted.
"LET'S STATUS-QUO-CHECK, SASARAKI!"
"Ah, yeah… Should we have a look at floor two's situation, then?"
As of now, Sasaraki was in charge of gamemaster-related matters. Alice was the
'General Management Assistant Goddess,' in other words, all she did was advising. Sasaraki had been nominated as the meeting's facilitator, but substantially, Alice - as the most knowledgeable one present - was the chairman.
He thought that Alice should be the supervisor then, but it seemed like she wouldn't yield there.
"Currently, we have a bunch of problems with the second floor."
"What problems?"
"First of all, this is the entrance."
Alice showed floor two's entrance on the debugging room's main screen. It was an island with waves surging on the beach. In the center of it gaped a huge hole and a steel-made spiral staircase led downwards. That was the structure allowing players to go up after beating floor one's final boss.
"The settings of this spiral staircase bugged and its duration's only 3."
"Meaning?"
"If someone attacks it, it'll collapse in a flash and no one will be able to move on to floor two."
"Game breaking as always, these bugs, aren't they?!"
This game was more or less game breaking in every way. Things could break instantly, people could die instantly, the economy was collapsing…
And yet there were still players enjoying this game.
People who still had faith in this world and lived on in it, more than ten thousand of them.
What could they do to make the world they lived in go on?
"What do you think we should do, Sasaraki?"
"Hmm, give me a second."
From the beginning, Alice had always asked Sasaraki for his opinion first. He thought that if she'd just decide it all, they'd obviously be faster and more efficient, but she seemed to have the ideology that, 'You shall be more independant as a game master!'
Somehow, she seemed to feel a duty to raise Sasaraki.
"How about an anti-gravity field that'll let people float up or something? I think there was something like that in the geography chip, wasn't there?"
"Mhm-mhm, sounds like good thinking. Then let's try that!"
For now, the three of them (Azrael decided to stay behind) teleported to the place in question.
Sasaraki gripped the pendant dangling from his neck and booted up the 'Master Screen.' He commanded, "Map chip, spiral staircase for exchange anti-gravity field," to the huge screen that had appeared in front of him.
[U n d e r s t o o d , M a s t e r . T e r m i n a t i n g . . .]
In front of him, the spiral staircase disassembled into electrons.
Instantly, an 'anti gravity field' in the form of a pentagram was placed on the floor of the dungeon.
"Heeh~, so it looks like this? I'll try it!"
Lizna said and jumped on the 'anti gravity field.' The next instant, Lizna was shot into the sky with absurd velocity. Seconds later, they heard the acoustically-delayed shockwave like a jet breaking through the sonic barrier.
When Sasaraki looked up dumbfoundedly, a 'GAKON!' sound echoed in the skies at last. Lizna came dropping down and crashed into the 'anti gravity field,' which bounced her up again. Rinse and repeat.
[Player Lizna Died. Damage: 680. Reason: Fall Damage]
It said above Lizna's corpse.
A short silence. Finally, Alice sighed…
"Maybe we should prepare parachutes."
"That's not the issue here?! Wait, why did Lizna deactivate the Invincible Barrier?!"
"Eh? Because a world with no one dying's boring."
He heard Lizna's voice, who was supposed to be dead. A special gamemaster privilege.
Thirty seconds later, Lizna revived and returned.
"Looks good! Let's keep it like this!"
"This is like those traps that are aiming for the lot who's careless after clearing a dungeon, isn't it?"
"We don't need those, okay?! Let's just do something normal, alright?!"
In the end, they went with Lizna's idea and made it into a rock-climbing challenge.
"Honest work, making stairs is honest work~?"
While Lizna was singing an enigmatic song, they put rocks on the wall. It were adjustments to make it into a rock-climbing scaffold. They could leave it to a fairy by using the 'Master Screen,' but the fairy's work would be half-assed, so there'd be hardly any testing or adjusting.
The gamemaster tools were one example of many of how half-assed this game was.
"I wonder whether this kind of work will become easy-peasy once Azrael-san did her best?"
"Actually, wouldn't it be better if we left it to adults, to begin with?"
As Alice had said already, Azrael and they, too, were beginners, after all.
He felt that within the player base there should be people a bit more resourceful than them.
"Sasaraki… unfortunately that's impossible.
Alice expressed a desolate smile. It was the smile of an adult.
"Why?"
"If an adult with decent judgement works as a developer in this world, they run away after three days in average."
"Isn't it plain sad that I totally understand?!"
"Also, if we hire an adult, we'll have to pay them, right?"
Will we be fine, though…? Well, at least we're not fussed about money.
"Well then, leave this to us, you have different testing to do."
"Yeah… Ah, it's about time, anyway. I'll go back to the debugging room for a bit."
In this game, a married man shan't talk to girls other than his wife for too long. A violation led to account deletion. According to Fury, it was an anti-infidelity measure. The developers had been true weirdos, indeed.
Alice winked and waved her hand.
"Please be gentle to Azrael, okay?"
"The way you're putting it is the worst!"
"You're also happy to have been able to marry that girl, aren't you?"
"This isn't a matter of me being happy or not, it wasn't mutual, it was a bug!"
"You think the bug was the only reason?"
"Heh?"
"Fufu," Alice chuckled and expressed a smile heavy with meaning.
"A love you embraced once doesn't easily vanish, you know? Even if—"
Alice extended her hands and said as if she talked to the whole world.
"—it was an incident within a kusoge, right?"
* * *
"Ah, she's still on it."
Once he'd returned to the debugging room, he saw Azrael still typing away on the keyboard.
Since she'd taken off her usual cloak, her body line was well-perceivable.
He'd been thinking this since the day they met, but her body was absolutely stunning.
"Not good, I can't become conscious now—!"
Sasaraki shook his head. It had been a mere misunderstanding that led to Azrael and him getting married, there'd been neither romance nor love involved. Fury said that since they were married they could do 'various things,' but—
Suddenly a question came to his mind.
In this kusoge world, where you'd get married by just holding hands—
How far might those 'various things' be implemented?
"T… That even this kind of thing's digitalized… No, that's probably only natural, but…!"
He could hear Azrael speaking to herself.
It appeared she was typing on the keyboard to process something.
"This is bad, seriously bad, if I don't get divorced, my chastity will…!"
Her voice sounded like she felt a serious thread coming at her. Her shoulders were trembling.
"...Azrael, what's wrong?"
"HYAUN—?!"
She jumped up like a surprised hamster and turned around immediately.
Her cheeks blushed a deep red, making a panicked face like a child who had their secret peeked at by their parents.
"N-N-N-N-Nothing at all—! Close your eyes for now, Sasaraki!"
"Heh…? My eyes? Why?"
"Just do it, hurry—!"
Then Azrael accidentally bumped her elbow against the console behind her.
It looked like she hit some kind of switch, the main screen started up.
And on it— was something unexpected.
"No, Wai— Stupid! Idiot! Don't look! Look away—!"
He didn't even notice Azrael's figure who wildly waved about with her arms. On the screen was amazingly detailed data. Azrael's data. Height: 156cm. Weight: 49,8kg. Three sizes: 88-57-83—
"Wait, what is this data?!"
"DON'T LOOK, PLEASE DON'T LOOK, STUPIIIIIIIIIID—!"
Azrael shouted, drew 'Magical Sword Gram,' and threw it at Sasaraki with all her might. 'Magical Sword Gram' came flying at Sasaraki spinning like a helicopter, deflected off of his Invincible Barrier, bouncebladed (*A phenomenon where 30
one's own blade comes bouncing back to oneself. A frequent happening in this game.), and killed Azrael instead.
"........................Uwaah…"
While Sasaraki was being speechless, Azrael revived and returned.
"WHY'S MY INVINCIBLE BARRIER NOT WORKIIIIIIIIIIIIING—?!"
"That's the difference in master ranks, you kno~w??"
A bright, explaining voice. Before they knew it, Fury had appeared at their sides.
"Fury, what's a master rank?"
"Those are the ranks among gamemasters?"
Fury pressed a button and the picture on the main screen changed.
It showed a pyramid diagram, divided into layers.
"The world of gamemasters is a strict hierarchical society? Starting from the bottom, the ranks are: 'Associate,' 'Coordinator,' 'Administrator,' 'Wizard.' And currently, Azrael is an 'Associate'? In other words, she's an underling, so her Invincible Barrier's useless in the face of her superior?"
"Wha—?!"
"Eh…? But Azrael can alter the code without issues, can't she?"
"That's because Master granted her the ability by his 'Wizard' authority?"
Fury pointed at the 'Immortal Pendant (Imitation)' dangling from Azrael's neck.
"It's no problem to grant temporary privileges?"
"Eh…? W-Wait a sec!"
Azrael hugged her own body tightly.
"Are you saying that I wouldn't be able to resist if Sasaraki turned on me—?!"
"Ah, it'll be fine, if something were to happen...?"
"...You're going to save me?"
"...I'll make sure to videotape it? As a momento of your first time?"
Azrael grew speechless. As did Sasaraki. *thumpthumpthump*. Even if it's just a virtual world, this is going way too far— Well, as long as I control myself, we'll be fine— Yeah, we'll... be fine, right?!
"C-Can't resist if…"
Azrael blushed and glared at Sasaraki, mortified.
Poor Azrael , Sasaraki thought and decided to ask…
"Hey, can't you put Azrael's privileges on the same level as mine?"
"There can be only one 'Wizard' in this world?"
"No way…"
"Ah, there's one method, you know??"
"Namely?"
"If Master would delete his account, that'd work?"
He took a deep breath.
"That's what my former master did and the privileges could be transferred, right??"
"That's…"
Account deletion. In this world, it held the same meaning as death. Sasaraki would disappear as a player. As long as you weren't banned, you could make a new account, but under the pretext of something like 'to avoid the creation of fraud accounts,' there was a restriction that wouldn't let you create another account for at least a month.
One month. At that time this game would've already ceases service.
"Uuuuuuh…"
Azrael grumbled frustratedly.
Not good. I've to get her to accept our situation.
I can't delete my account now, I've to make sure the game goes on.
"Hey, Azrael, I won't do anything."
"...Says the imposter who tricked me into marriage…"
"Ugu—!"
That one still stung. Although she, in a way, had reaped what she sowed, it was the truth.
Azrael stared at Sasaraki for a while.
Finally, she sighed.
"—Swear it."
"Heh?"
She said that.
"That you won't do anything weird, swear by something precious to you."
"...Err, you want me to promise it?"
Even if he did, there was no system in this game that'd make sure he kept his promise.
Azrael nodded and glared at Sasaraki.
"C'mon, just do it already."
"Y-Yeah, alright, alright. Err— by something precious to me—"
Precious.
Asked that, the first that came to mind were the faces of those two girls. Lizna, who had invited Sasaraki with a carefree smile when he first logged in and was all alone. And the girl who had been waiting on top of the castle walls with her cloak fluttering in the wind, looking like the heroine in a tale—
"—Azrael."
It came to him naturally.
"...Eh?"
Sasaraki smiled.
This world was beyond repair, but he had found something precious nonetheless.
Even just that alone was good enough to let him think this world had its worth.
"I swear by you."
"E-Eh—?!"
Azrael expressed surprise.
Sasaraki closed his eyes and slowly put his sword on the ground.
Imitating Azrael, who always did it like this, he kneeled formally.
"I swear by someone precious to me— I wager the name of Azrael that I absolutely won't do anything insolent."
"Eh? W-W-Wai—…"
Azrael's voice grew shrill for some reason.
"...Err, will this do?"
"Eh?"
Azrael busily shifted her gaze from left to right and back.
Finally, she shook her head, trembling.
"M-M-Me, someone precious…? E-Eh—?"
"Huh? Something wrong with that?"
"Not wrong, but, I, umm, that means…"
"Most precious to me is Azrael… as are Lizna, and Alice."
"Eh?"
Azrael's jaw dropped.
"'Cause, you know, you're the friends I'm playing this game with."
Azrael closed her mouth and stiffened for a bit.
At last…
"D— Don't put it so ambiguously, alright?! If you're talking about friends, say so from the beginning!"
"Eh…? What was ambiguous about that?"
"I don't care—! Idiot! Die from a bug!"
Azrael blushed and turned away.
She cast a sidelong glance at Sasaraki and said a few more words…
"B-But I'll believe it… that you won't do anything weird."
It appeared that it had had a bit of an effect, after all.
"Yeah, thanks… So did you come to understand something about how we can get divorced?"
When Sasaraki asked that, Azrael grew silent feeling seemingly awkward, "Uh~"
That was to be expected, but the progress seemed unsatisfactory.
"F-First of all, there seems to be a system called 'Tokimeki Points' (English: Palpitation Points)."
"'Tokimeki Points'... Somehow, this sounds like from some romance game, doesn't it?"
Azrael nodded.
"Looks like you can check up on them by tapping on the ring twice."
"Hmm. Have you tried?"
"It wouldn't work. Only boys can check on the girl's points."
"Sounds like a pretty unjust system."
"Wanna read the developer commentary? Seems like he holds a big grudge, you know?"
"I've nothing but bad feelings about it, but I'll read it anyway."
Azrael slammed onto a key on the keyboard.
A text appeared on the screen.
['TP' System Explanation
The TP system is a subsystem of the romance system. While visualizing fellow players' affection in the form of points, it strives to make riajuus (explode and die!) realize the truth that 'love = self-interest' by offerings merits.
You can gather TP by performing 'Tokimeki Actions.' What are Tokimeki Actions?
Don't make me say it, you scum, die. Who was it that brought something as boring as love into a virtual world? Anyway, die. And don't revive. My bad. I'll continue with the explanation.
Also, by using TP, you can make miracles happen. Love can make miracles happen. Once performed, it'll disappear. Love's a consumable. Save it up again.
Also, if you save up too much, you'll explode. Only your clothes. Love is explosions. Explode and die, you bastards, all of you, die a social death.
Girlfriend-less, 38-years-old Tanaka]
"........................Amazing…"
"I know, right?!"
He certainly could feel the grudge. It went down his spine as a chill.
They had totally been made to clean up other people's outrageous mess.
"So, Sasaraki, let's check the points for now."
"Yeah. Our clothes might explode, after all…"
For the time being, he did as Azrael had said and tapped on the ring twice.
Thereupon, a window appeared above Azrael's head.
[Current TP: 250 Count: 00]
"It says we're at 250 right now."
"Is that a lot?"
"Aye-aaaye? Looks like it's Fury-chan's turn, doesn't it??"
Fury fluttered above Azrael's head.
He had a bad feeling coming at him right there. This fairy caused him nothing but bad feelings.
"First of all, there are TP criterions: Above 100, you're acknowledged as lovey-dovey?"
"........................Right…"
Azrael glared at him with quite the amazing look in her eyes. Scary.
"If you accumulate too much, you'll explode, but there's no limit as such. You can gather a million or fantastillion points even? Your love's infinite?"
"Wouldn't that cause a system memory overflow…?"
"And when your TP are high enough, you have various benefits."
Fury continued her explanation with a smile.
"At 150, 'Fantastic Kiss' will unlock?"
"I don't think I wanna hear it, but what does that skill do?"
"Kissing your partner on the cheek will grant you a buff that boosts your attack power by 50% for 30 seconds?"
"............Gu…"
Azrael's gazed at him with upturned eyes. Reflexively, his gaze got drawn in by her lips. Her pink lips. While he did his utmost best to suppress the thought that it certainly did feel like touching those lips would up his attack power, Sasaraki laughed a deceiving "Hahaha."
Azrael averted her gaze, too.
Right, Azrael and I are (married but) no lovers.
I shouldn't forget that!
"E-Enough with that. We won't ever use that! We'll never gather any more points!"
"E~h?? And here I thought that the 500 points skill would be super useful to you?"
"Never ever! Gonna use that—!"
Azrael declared firmly while slamming her hand onto the console.
"By the way, what does that 'Count' thing besides TP mean?"
"Kya~? Master's such a lecher~ Oh you little, you~?"
Fury put her hands to her cheeks and shook her head while wriggling with her body.
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