by Yuu Kamiya
“……How elegant…hee-hee.”
Steph whispered, beaming madly, despite the persistent muteness of all present. Ino chuckled as Steph reached enlightenment—or rather, resignation—and came to a greater understanding of the situation at hand.
In summary…it had been a whole load of nothing. Just like Plum, Sora and Shiro had read ahead to a certain extent about the game with the Old Deus before their memories were erased. And they’d had faith in everyone—in their betrayal, their mistrust—beyond a shadow of a doubt. While the Shrine Maiden had trusted that Sora and Shiro would certainly, better than anyone else, by means conceivable only to filthy, repulsive, twisted, broken lowlifes such as themselves, so grossly defective in personality and deplorable in both mind and face—
—succeed in betraying and beguiling everyone to win.
The Shrine Maiden had believed it. They themselves had believed it. Even Ino must have believed it. And so it was. That was all there was to it—a magnificent performance indeed.
“—Well, then.”
The two had betrayed and used them so thoroughly that it was somehow refreshing. Like everyone else, Ino squinted toward the rising sun as it started to flush the sky and thought:
That said, when it actually happens to you, it’s annoying as hell, you monkey bastards.
“Let us proceed with the game. I propose that we play Love or Loved 2. Have you no objection?”
Ino started walking with a cheerful smile on his face, and everyone else likewise proceeded with equally cheerful grins.
“No, that’s fine. But by the way, Mr. Ino, may I make a request?”
Everyone, questioner and questioned alike, kept smiling, but—
“Could we change the NPCs to resemble Sora? And as realistically as possible?”
“Why, I concur. I, too, would like to make such a request. ”
“Oh, me too! I’d be delighted to see you blow him to smithereens! ”
—behind their smiles, the four of them shared a rage that roiled within. Yes.
“Ha-ha-ha, that is no trouble at all. The game has stored specs on Sora from his last play, and from that, we can build a perfect avatar. But it would hardly be interesting if he were to perish too quickly, so let us set his endurance to the maximum value!”
Yes, we are friends. We were allies all along.
“Excuuuse me, Mr. Ino. I swear on my race we shall win this game, buuut…”
“Prince Plum, please be assured that no words are necessary between comrades in arms such as ourselves.”
Yes, now that they had gained a common enemy—
“I pledge to devote all the strength of my nation to hang King Sora up by his feet and smash him.”
—the comrades in arms walked off together as Steph and Laila saw them off.
Thus, at last the shocks from the Old Deus’s game board subsided, and the VR battle began. On that urban battleground where the continental domain and the Immanity Piece were once contested, this time the Eastern Union and a state of Elven Gard were up for grabs. Sora’s personal data from his last login was combined with Chlammy’s memory to simulate him as realistically as possible—in the form of a teeming throng of NPCs.
—Perhaps this was a mistake, Ino Hatsuse thought as he ground his teeth. Having long been away from the front lines, it was no surprise he’d lost his edge, but this—!
“Hey, old fart—I mean, man among men…”
Behind him! To think an NPC with Immanity specs could catch him unawares…
That’s what he got for using Sora’s personal data to spin up a lifelike representation. Just like the real thing, the nonplayer Soras read his movements to appear everywhere he didn’t expect. Ino clucked his tongue and spun his barrel around with lightning speed to spy…
“…Wh-what do you think…? I wanted to look like you even just a little bit. Does it look good on me?”
“Damn you!!”
There stood Sora, squirming and blushing with love in his eyes—in a loincloth. But the next instant, Ino’s fist moved with quantum quickness to deny his eyes from taking it in. That thing soared tens of meters like a cannonball and smashed into a building across the main road. That thing had eaten Ino’s fist, the boom from which, having transcended the sound barrier, was heard about the same time.
“…Dear me, I did it again… I must be more careful…”
In the heat of the moment, he’d forgotten his Lovey-Dovey Gun—and launched his fist of justice, bound to purge all the evils of this world.
Touching an NPC decreased your Love Power. This being a one-on-one battle against Chlammy, running out of Love Power would spell defeat. Though the contact had been brief, Ino ran in panic at the attenuation of his Love Power. He went to find the NPC Sora, now stuck in the wall like a stake, and pull the trigger to finish him (in a nonviolent sense, of course) and regain some energy. Ino leaped out into the street—
“Hey, you!! I never said you had to go that far!!”
—only to be greeted by Chlammy, screaming as she relentlessly fired at the raging Sora hordes.
The rules of the game, of course, had not changed. It hardly bears saying that if Chlammy hit Ino once or Ino hit Chlammy, the game would be settled. And in a one-on-one battle between an Immanity and their Werebeast, it was a given who would win—and yet—
“O—M—G! Look at that! It’s Ino! Squee! ”
“I can’t believe you guys! Weren’t we chasing Chlammy? What kind of sluts are you?!”
“What? It’s not like either of them have boobs! Go for the pecs, duh!”
Each and every Sora NPC—Sora A, Sora B, Sora C, and many others—caused quite a ruckus, all the while dressed in all sorts of outfits, from skirts to culottes to shorts. A rich variety of costumes, all designed for ladies.
—Just then, a whirlwind and a crash rushed past Chlammy, a storm she herself couldn’t even fathom.
“…Indeed, it is quite difficult not to punch them in this state… This was, after all, a mistake,” Ino groaned remorsefully as the Soras stuck into the ground and walls and soared through the air. But he smiled in inverse proportion as he shot them, blowing them away. Chlammy glared at him as she yelled, “And you didn’t really have to give them these actions and costumes, did you?!”
“I grieve to inform you, Miss Chlammy, that those are entirely the choices of the NPCs’ artificial intelligence.”
Yes, even the AI had been made as realistic as possible. In other words, even as a software simulation, Sora could not help but troll them.
And Ino could not help but punch him.
“Mr. Inooo, there’s [secret]! Kill them, kill them all— I mean, take them ouuut!”
To those outside the game, it sounded like Plum had said “secret.” Ino, however, heard “twelve Soras, eight o’clock, distance six hundred.”
“Heh, this will make sixty-four Soras. I leave the outside to you, Sir!!”
“Leave it to meee! Let’s make this as big and bad as we can! It’s so gooood!”
Ino ran off, accompanied by a shock wave, as Chlammy shouted, “Fi! I’ve still only got twenty-four Soras! How can I catch up?!”
“…I’m, just…trying to do something…! Just a bit more—”
At some point, this game had turned into a contest to see who could take out the most Soras. And it was only natural, Chlammy admitted, biting her nails.
Plum was so confident he couldn’t lose to Fiel, instead of finishing the game with a snap as he very well could, he chose to enjoy whaling on Sora first. Ino went along with it, buoyed by his trust in Plum. Chlammy couldn’t ask for more; it would give Fiel more time to get her rite through. All Chlammy could do, meanwhile, was run.
“…Honestly… I can’t believe how useless I am…”
“Yeah… Jeez, Chlammy, you’re such a dumbass.”
“!!”
One of the Soras responded to Chlammy’s self-deprecatory remark as he appeared behind her—but her reaction was a moment too late. Thou
gh she swung her gun around, he grabbed the hand holding it and pushed her against the wall. She was now trapped and unable to move, and the NPC continued. “…You drive me crazy. Don’t you realize your own competence and cuteness?”
“My—what…?”
Flustered, Chlammy tried to resist, but he plucked up her chin:
“—You’re just so innocent. Do you really think I’m the only one who’s after you?”
.
“…Uh, uh… Wha—what are you…on about…?”
He’d said all this to Chlammy with a straight face and so close that she could feel his breath, throwing her thoughts into chaos.
No one had ever called her cute except for Fiel. And to think that, of all people (well, of course she knew he was an NPC), Sora would say it… It made her blush and only furthered her confusion. Help came from outside the game.
“Why, Chlammy, you’d best kill him now. Remove his fingers and toes one by one until he dies. ”
“And what are you on about, Fi?!”
It came fully armed, in the form of Fiel the ruthless executioner.
Notwithstanding, Chlammy couldn’t shoot him when she was being held up against the wall. Sure, she was trying to resist, but this avatar of Sora’s had the specs of the real thing, that is, a man’s strength. She couldn’t break loose; she couldn’t overpower him—and that somehow made her heart skip a beat.
“That silky black hair… That porcelain white skin—”
Ffp… Chlammy couldn’t help but be entranced by the sensation of him brushing against her skin…
“Yes. That delicious flat chest is all mine—”
And suddenly, her jumbled thoughts came back together. He’d just been trolling her. The moment she realized this, she moved like a machine. Stone-cold, unhesitating, and precise, she lifted her knee and thought she heard a cylinder smashing into a set of bearings. Sora writhed and fell over. Chlammy dug her heel into him, regarding him as if he were no more than a stain on the floor.
“Fi, you concentrate on that rite… I’ll take care of myself…”
“Why, very well! Chlammy, you hang in theeere!”
Chlammy, now free of emotional distraction, knew what “hang in there” meant. It meant, Hang in there and murder the shit out of that Sora—which no one needed to tell her. Chlammy, eyes now completely void of light, answered the NPC by directing her muzzle at the thing under her foot.
“I have two bits of news for you… First, you’re about to die.”
In the meantime, her Love Power was dwindling, but screw that.
She fired repeatedly. The bullets tore into and ripped apart one garment after another, leaving Sora stripped naked. She kicked him onto his knees, inviting cheers from Fi and Ino and Plum.
“Second, how many times do I have to tell you…? They’re not done growing!!!!!!!!!”
She fired again. Sora disappeared in a blaze of pink, and she turned and thought.
Plum and Ino couldn’t lose if Laila was on the table. But even if they won, the spoils would fall right into Sora’s and Shiro’s hands; they couldn’t be too eager to wrap it up.
As for Fiel and Chlammy, the tables had already been turned all the way on them. Their plot to tear Sora and Shiro a new one—to beat them—had already failed. And look how Sora and Shiro had even used Plum, who’d tricked Fiel and Chlammy. The two of them had tried to prepare for the unlikely but dire event of Sora and Shiro’s loss, but what could they do?
…If those two were going to lose, it was beyond them.
“So if we can’t win…we might as well let it all out… Heh-heh—”
Yes, now it was simply a game of four—a two-on-two diversion. Having understood that at last, Chlammy’s smile grew more disturbing.
“We might as well enjoy ourselves… We’ll kill you all, Sora!!”
And so the NPCs that looked like Sora sailed into the sky, the ground, the walls—and exploded.
Steph could do nothing but twitch as she observed this ghastly spectacle occurring both in and out of the game.
“You call this realistic as possible?! How stupid can these people be?! Don’t they know my daaarling would never say anything like that? He’d only use the most foul-mouthed insults ever!!”
Meanwhile Laila, the stupidest of all, complained in her turbid bowl.
One perhaps couldn’t refute that it was natural, Steph thought. But seeing them each display their malice toward Sora so openly:
“S-still… A-at least no one has lost… Right?!”
Despite her fear of this unhinged assemblage, Steph summoned the courage to put forth her opinion, and yet—
“I wonder! I am losing years off my life to stress at Mach speed!”
“Look at how I’ve lost all the charisma I managed to buiiild! ”
“Why must I endure this physical toil? I feel it’s lost all meaning!”
“As for me, I feel my pride waning by the minute!”
The four promptly and roundly rejected it. Even so—no, for that very reason—Steph cracked a smile.
“But you all…look like you’re having so much fun.”
.
“If Sora hadn’t stopped you, I don’t think you’d ever have been able to play with those expressions on your faces.”
Steph looked down, and then—
“Miss Stephanie, may I ask just how much you knew?”
Ino spoke from within the game, and everyone awaited Steph’s answer.
Steph had been cloned and kept outside the game. How much did she remember? What did she know of the past—or the future? Steph answered:
“…I don’t remember what happened just before the game, myself.”
As one might well have guessed.
They turned their thoughts back to the game. Not even an Old Deus was above the Ten Covenants, which protected the Ixseeds from all injury and violation of rights. It was not possible to view or alter the contents of one’s mind without permission, and unauthorized reproduction was out of the question. So Steph must have agreed to be cloned, right there at the start of the game. And it could reasonably be assumed that her memory had been collected just as theirs. But—
“I do remember what Sora and Shiro said when we left Elkia.”
Yes, when Steph had left Elkia with what Sora called his “trump card”—that is, Laila—in her backpack, he and Shiro told her:
“—‘There will be some haggling over the game’s content’…”
They hadn’t known exactly what the rules would be, but conversely, it meant the two of them had known the rules to a certain extent.
“Then they gave me this sheet…and told me to read it when that time comes.”
Taking out the paper Sora and Shiro had given her—the directive—Steph remembered. Yes, that time, forty-one days earlier.
Steph had stood alone in the Garden of the Shrine, bemused. Laila must have woken up; Steph could feel her kicking through the backpack. But Steph had no idea why she was here—and realized she must have lost her memory. She rushed to open the piece of paper entrusted to her, and—
“…I nearly fainted. I am sure you can guess what was written.”
Steph’s sigh was met with a silent but universal chuckle. They could guess, all right. Everything. Every single thing from these last forty-one days was written there.
That it would be a game of deceit and betrayal. That their Race Pieces would be demanded as the buy-in. That Plum would betray them, and correspondingly, Fiel and Chlammy would attack. That, therefore, it would be a long game and that it was possible to leave in the middle. That the Shrine Maiden would surely have some trick up her sleeve, and thus, there would be no normal way of winning. Everything. It’s not hard to guess how Steph felt after reading all that.
“Mad, isn’t it? …Hee-hee…”
How in the world had she permitted this before she’d lost her memory? Was she just as insane as them? After all—
“I didn’t know why we should be playing a game of
betrayal against each other, in which five races would be doomed if we lost, when someone might die in any case… I didn’t understand any of these things. None of it.”
She’d been torn with anxiety and bewilderment, when—
“Then…I remembered what Sora and Shiro had said.”
Don’t worry. It’ll be okay, Shiro had told her.
No one’s gonna die, reassured Sora.
They’d made up their minds.
“—‘Trust us… Trust that we’ll all betray each other…’”
But remembering that, in itself, hadn’t told her much. Trust? In betrayal? They couldn’t be serious. And she couldn’t be optimistic. At least someone, at worst all five races, would be sacrificed…she’d thought. Anxious and worried—shaking uncontrollably—day after day, she’d looked up at that sky. From outside the game…all she could do was wait, week after week…
Yet, among all the things she couldn’t trust in, there was one thing—just one—that she could: her faith in the end of that slip—her orders:
“Steph, we’re counting on you to stop it all so no one loses.”
“Don’t let us down, Steph. Sorry, for leaving you out, but…”
She trusted in their faith in her.
That was what had brought her this far—but now…
“—Now, looking at you all, I’m finally able to feel relieved!!”
Steph shook her head and laughed:
“You’re all—having fun!”
Anyone seeing Steph in that moment would be captivated by her smiling face. And yet, that smile harbored just a twinge of loneliness…
“So now I have faith that the Old Deus’s game will be fun in the end.”
While Steph spoke so reassuringly, she thought about why she hadn’t been allowed to play. She could guess.