PROLOGUE I One summer day, I returned to the battlefield. In fact, I was sent there. That was when I learned a valuable lesson. That no one should make the battlefield their home. Home is where family is, where a normal life awaits. That gambling is not the most important activity in existence. What’s most important is to live life to the fullest. I had never realized these things, and so I died on the battlefield. On that day, I was able to return to my normal life. But never will I forget the events that took place one summer day.
PROLOGUE II August 16th, 2026 (Sunday) 8:20 PM “Wait! Whoa! Help!” Llenn yelped in distress. Her companions offered words of comfort. “Sorry, no can do.” “Nope, this isn’t gonna work. Sorry!” “Uh-oh, I’ve got a sniper on me. I still can’t move.” Pitohui, Fukaziroh, and M’s voices came in that order through the communication device Llenn had equipped directly into her eardrum. “Ugh! You heartless cretins! May a witch turn you all into frogs!” Llenn cursed. She was dressed in her pink battle fatigues, with pink magazine pouches on either hip and a pink P90 in her hands, as her back pressed against a stone wall—its dull gray color, standing out against all the pink, the same as the sky above. The wall was only about thirty feet across and three feet tall, but that was plenty big enough to hide someone Llenn’s size. In its original state, at least. But then… Ba-gomp! “Eep!” A terrifying explosion blew a huge hole at least one foot across straight out of the wall, causing Llenn to scream. Pkooowwww! The sound of the gunshot, like a wolf’s howl, came after a delay.
It was only because the blasted part of the wall hadn’t been in front of Llenn that she had the luxury of screaming. If it had happened right before her eyes, chunks of the wall would’ve hit her in the face and taken out half her hit points. There wouldn’t have been time to scream. “Pheeew!” Llenn wheezed, thanking her lucky stars. Ba-gomp, ba-gomp, ba-gomp. “Hya! Bweef! Ahew!” Each blast on the wall bit off more stone and elicited a fresh shriek. Llenn’s hiding space was growing smaller by the moment. For a hundred yards around the wall where she was hiding, there was nothing but dark, damp earth—not a single spot to run to or hide behind. Llenn’s famous speedy sprinting might be enough to evade enemy fire in most cases, but not this time. She knew it wouldn’t work, because she’d been in the process of running across this map when a hail of machine-gun fire forced her to hide behind the wall. She managed to take cover, but no sooner had she decided she’d be safe for a while than a huge gun started blasting pieces out of the wall. Ba-gomp. “Hya-eee!” Llenn was small, but her hiding space was getting smaller. There was maybe ten feet of solid stone to take shelter behind now. She thought that her distant companions would be able to help her. She was wrong. “At that level of destruction, it’s a .50-caliber, bare minimum. Must be an antimateriel rifle. Lucky SOB.” “What about the one you used in SJ2, Pito?” “Oh, that one? Well, the owner’s not selling it to me. After I busted it up in that event, I heard that I was never allowed to borrow it again.” “I’ve been hunting around the wilderness looking for the kind of monsters that might drop one specifically for you, Pito.” “Pito, if I find one, will you buy it off me for a ridiculous price?” “Of course I will, Fuka! Pleasure doin’ business with ya!” They were all enjoying the conversation from the security of a safe location. Not one of them lifted a finger to provide cover fire for poor Llenn. But she knew they were very far away, so whatever backup they could offer would be unhelpful anyway. “Dammit!” The wall burst open right next to her, leaving her only a tiny spot to hide in. The next shot to hit the wall was clearly going to blow her up along with it. “Taaa!” She leaped out into the open. Trusting her own ability, searching for life in the midst of death. She got shot. Right before she jumped out, a swarm of machine-gun bullets had flown into the spot where Llenn landed. They were waiting for that moment and anticipated the timing perfectly. “Awww!” The bullets riddled her tiny body before she could stop herself, tearing chunks out of her HP bar. The gauge went from yellow to red, and its descent did not slow in the slightest. “That’s it… Dammit! They’re just too tough!” Llenn swore, sensing her fate in the moment that it dropped to zero. The strength went out of her legs, and her little body flopped to the side. As she died, Llenn looked off into the distance, across the damp ground toward the quiet, ancient European-style castle, which stood at an imposing distance of over five hundred yards away. The devil’s castle, where she would find the foes she needed to defeat but which rebuffed all approach. In the upper left corner of her vision, one of her teammates’ health gauges vanished, replaced by an X and the number 180 flickering to life. “Okay, Llenn’s dead,” Pitohui murmured.
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