Outbreak Company: Volume 14

by Ichiro Sakaki

  Somehow the inert letters on the screen didn’t raise my guard quite like a face-to-face conversation, and gradually I started to answer them. Via chat, I could manage it.

  I could practically picture Myusel and the other girls, hunting and pecking their way around the unfamiliar keyboard as they typed up messages in hiragana. I could tell how much time and effort it took, and my heart prickled at the thought of just ignoring them.

  But even so, it still made me a little queasy to think of seeing them face-to-face. I didn’t know exactly what Minori-san and Hikaru-san thought about the dribble of answers I was sending to the girls, but all of a sudden they invited me to play an online game. They had loaded some special software onto the mansion’s server and set up a simple MMO.

  “Don’t even have to leave your room to play it,” Minori-san had messaged me. True enough. I was starting to get a little tired of mainlining one gal game after another, so I decided to play along with her. You could enjoy an MMO without having to actually see anyone, and our avatars would provide a kind of buffer for dealing with the others. Some people acted so different online that you could talk about an “irl personality” and an “online persona.”

  So here we were. I was getting sucked into an online game for the first time in ages. Heck, MMOs were the one thing I’d had absolutely, totally no access to ever since coming here. But now that I was back on the wagon, I was finding it pretty fun.

  I imposed just one condition on Minori-san and her plan: that we not talk about real-life things while we were playing. We had to completely become our alter egos.

  Setting conditions? I know, even I sort of wanted to snap You’ve got some nerve! at myself. But Minori-san was surprisingly quick to accept the idea, and we got things rolling. Anyway, no better way to get the most out of an MMO than some good role-playing.

  Kyouya (Minori-san): “Okay, the boss is up next. Everybody ready?”

  As our warrior, Minori-san was on top of this. After a second, the chat balloons began popping up.

  Miyuu (Myusel): “yes!”

  GalGaiGar (Petralka): “any time.”

  Yakiniku (Elvia): “meat!”

  The Eldant contingent generally wrote only in short sentences composed entirely in the simple hiragana script. Myusel and Petralka could read and even write some kanji, but it looked like they weren’t entirely comfortable yet typing on a Japanese keyboard. They were probably over there somewhere, poking away at the keys with one finger at a time.

  I paused. They were making this effort out of consideration for me, and I have to admit it made me feel a little guilty. It was really my own indecision and dithering that had ultimately led to me being used as a punching bag.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” I shook my head vigorously to chase away the guilt.

  Right now, I had a boss fight to worry about.

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “Let’s go!”

  I—or rather my avatar, Gen’ei Setsuna—headed for the 3D shadow looming on the horizon. My perspective was looking sort of downward at my character, so running beside Gen’ei Setsuna I could see Yakiniku (Elvia) and GalGaiGar (Petralka), along with Kyouya (Minori-san). I assumed that Miyuu (Myusel) and †Obsidian Fallen Angel† (Hikaru-san) were bringing up the rear.

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “Yaaaahhh!”

  Gen’ei Setsuna rushed in to strike the first blow. The dragon targeted me and got ready to attack, at which point Yakiniku came barreling up, drawing aggro so Kyouya and GalGaiGar could hit the monster from both sides. The dragon lashed out with its tail and front legs. I knew those things could take a chunk out of your health even with just a glancing blow. Miyuu would try to heal us, but for the dragon, simply sweeping with its tail was essentially an area-of-effect attack, and there was no way she would be able to heal us all fast enough. These boss characters were nothing to sneeze at.

  Meanwhile...

  GalGaiGar (Petralka): “by our renown as a brave we shall defeat you! Go-lu-den Earth Han-mer!”

  Geez, Petralka was really into this. I remembered how back when she played the lead role in our movie, she almost seemed to forget she was supposed to be an empress, and threw herself into the part. It was almost like some sort of game to her. Stress relief, if you will. Even if the movie itself did end up banned by royal decree, a chapter of her history she wished would be forgotten.

  It seemed like Myusel was enjoying herself just as much as Petralka. She had deliberately taken a Japanese name, with kanji and everything. Unlike Elvia, who called herself... Yakiniku. Yeesh. I could just picture it: her sitting at the computer, saying, “Name? Don’t really care. Hey, how about my favorite food?”

  Yakiniku (Elvia): “meat! like! so good!”

  Don’t you have anything else to say?

  At least you knew who you were talking to.

  This boss, though. We were pounding away at it, but it had such massive HP that it just wouldn’t go down. Myusel was healing left, right, and center, but the dragon’s attacks did a little more damage than her spells could heal, and those of us on the front row were left to watch our health drain slowly but surely.

  I wished Hikaru-san would hurry up with that spell and hopefully turn the tide. Even a powerful magic attack probably wouldn’t one-hit a boss, but it might eliminate his tail or horns and take a chunk out of his attack power. But instead...

  “What the hell is Hikaru-san doing back there? I mean, uh, †Obsidian Fallen Angel†?”

  He was our spellcaster, so why wasn’t he casting any spells? We weren’t even getting buffs up here. I set my character to attack semi-automatically, then let go of the mouse and pounded out a message on my keyboard.

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “Angel, buff? need atk or def”

  There was no answer from Hikaru-san, and his avatar didn’t move. Was he lagging? But how much traffic could there possibly be on a game that didn’t even have ten players? What was happening?

  Whatever was going on with Hikaru-san, our party was headed for a total wipe if something didn’t change. I could see the dragon getting ready to unleash a spell.

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “Tactical retreat! Use your Angel Feathers and get out of here!”

  Boss characters’ attacks usually had wide areas of effect, but their magic spells tended to be outright MAP weapons, if you will, vast waves of destruction that filled the screen and could easily take out an entire party at once.

  I activated my item and warped out, returning to the town that served as our base. “That was a close call...” I mumbled as the scenery changed from the craggy dungeon to the innocuous little city.

  Miyuu (Myusel), Yakiniku (Elvia), GalGaiGar (Petralka), and Kyouya (Minori-san) soon followed me.

  “Huh?”

  There was one person I didn’t see. †Obsidian Fallen Angel† (Hikaru-san) didn’t show up. In fact...

  “Oh...”

  Then †Obsidian Fallen Angel† (Hikaru-san) returned. But he was just a transparent, spirit version of himself—i.e., he had been killed. I guess he had just stayed there, not doing anything, while the dragon murdered him with its magic. He didn’t come back to town by using his item; his avatar had just reappeared at his last save point after he died.

  “Arrgh...”

  What was he even doing?

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “†Obsidian Fallen Angel†, what happened?”

  Hikaru-san didn’t respond, not that I expected him to. He’d been talking to us just a few minutes ago, though.

  Kyouya (Minori-san): “Think he got booted?”

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “But then wouldn’t it have happened to all of us?”

  If there was some kind of problem with the server or the network, I would have expected all of us to be affected. We probably wouldn’t even have been able to play the game or use the chat app. So maybe it was an issue with Hikaru-san’s computer.

  Yakiniku (Elvia): “wonder whabs up.”

  Miyuu (Myusel): “i will go look at him. i have his key.”

&
nbsp; Elvia had clearly made a typo, but Myusel hardly seemed to notice. She must have gotten up to check on Hikaru-san without waiting for an answer from us, because her avatar was standing stock still.

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “Something weird is going on.”

  GalGaiGar (Petralka): “Mm.”

  I typed the sentence, looked at the screen—and then I stopped.

  ........................

  This was a problem. I had nothing to say.

  When you couldn’t see each other, but you ran out of discussion topics, you were left not even knowing if the other person was still sitting at their screen or not. Our avatars, waiting for something to happen, didn’t move. Working the keyboard was hard enough for Petralka and the others that she couldn’t just toss in some chitchat, either.

  But the thought of just sitting there, not saying a word—it was strangely... lonely.

  There’s got to be something to talk about...

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “Say, GalGaiGar, is it even okay for you to be here?”

  When I thought about it, I realized Petralka had been at our mansion playing this game ever since this morning. Should she really be away from the castle for that long? Maybe she had snuck out again. I knew I was breaking my own rule about real-life topics, but I was at a loss. I would shelve the role-playing until Myusel got back.

  GalGaiGar (Petralka): “we are a brave. fighting is what we do.”

  Er, that was certainly true of her, uh, character, at least.

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “I mean for real. I mean you, Petralka.”

  GalGaiGar (Petralka): “hm? did you not forbid talk of the real world?”

  Gen’ei Setsuna (me): “Pretend I didn’t. Just for now.”

  Huh. When a hiragana-only sentence got too long, it started to turn really difficult to read. I decided to throw in a few kanji, just to make life a tiny bit easier.

  Me: “Are you really okay spending all your time here, Petralka? Isn’t Garius going to be angry?”

  Petralka: “Garius does not have time to worry about us. there is strange plague at the castle and he is responding to it.”

  Me: “Wow. What kind of plague? Geez, are you guys okay?”

  Petralka: “there are no deaths yet, so we think okay.”

  Elvia: “scary”

  Elvia knew even less about the keyboard—or for that matter, the Japanese language—than Myusel and Petralka, so it was all she could do to offer a word here and there.

  Minori-san: “Frankly, I think it’s scarier that no one has died yet.”

  Me: “Stop that.”

  She made it sound like we were just waiting for the real trouble to start, when people would be dropping like flies.

  Me: “Seriously, what kind of illness is it?”

  I was feeling pretty anxious as I typed the question. Then...

  ........................

  ........................

  Me: “Petralka?”

  Huh...?

  I waited a moment, thinking maybe she was struggling to type out an especially long sentence, but no matter how long I waited, there was no response from her.

  What happened?

  Minori-san: “Hey, don’t you think Myusel’s been a while?”

  Minori-san had a point. It had been a good five minutes since Myusel had left her keyboard. I would have thought that was more than enough time to go to Hikaru-san’s room and back. Had something happened? I figured that even if, say, Hikaru-san had collapsed or something, Myusel would have come rushing back to call Minori-san and Elvia. The fact that she didn’t come back at all was... strange.

  Elvia: “majesty, no talk”

  Yep. When you’re right, you’re right.

  But what the heck was going on?

  Minori-san: “I just had a thought.”

  Me: “Yeah?”

  Minori-san: “We’re downwind of the castle. If that sickness is airborne, maybe it could reach us here.”

  Me: “Please... don’t threaten me.”

  But even as I typed out the words, my mind was spinning. An infectious disease. Okay, so even most airborne pathogens couldn’t survive a trip of several kilometers. I was pretty sure I had seen a movie once where they’d explained that with an airborne illness, it wasn’t like the virus or bacteria went around flying after people. Instead, the pathogen was capable of surviving outside the body temporarily, and drifted along on the breeze for as long as it survived. If someone breathed on you while you were talking to them—or for that matter, got saliva on you—the pathogen might get around that way. It could also be in sweat. But none of those things, I figured, was going to just fly through the air forever. So it wasn’t going to spread explosively for miles around by air or anything. I thought.

  But... Petralka. She had come from the castle this morning. The castle that was at the epicenter of this infection. And an infection usually has an incubation period.

  “No way...”

  What if Petralka, or one of her bodyguards, had been an asymptomatic carrier? And then they had come into the mansion, and...?

  “No, no way. Can’t be.” I was just overthinking it. I shook my head.

  Me: “Pretty sure that’s just overthinking it.”

  Elvia: “yeah!”

  .......

  ......

  ......Huh?

  Me: “Minori-san?”

  Minori-san was at least as quick a typist as I was. So why wasn’t I getting any answer from her? There was no reaction at all. Her avatar, Kyouya, just stood there, still as a stone.

  .............

  Hey hey hey hey hey!

  Me: “Hey, Minori-san? Don’t scare me like this. What’s going on?”

  I typed as fast as I could, but there was still no answer. Hang on, could something seriously be wrong?

  Elvia: “what’s wrong minori-sama”

  That was what I wanted to know!

  Elvia: “everyone not come back why?”

  Me: “No idea. Can you tell what’s going on, Elvia?”

  Elvia: “nob know”

  Her response seemed a little off. Maybe a sign of how uneasy she was. What in the world was happening?

  ......... Wait.

  I furrowed my brow as a possibility occurred to me. For the last two weeks, I had been shut up in my room. Hadn’t opened the doors or windows, hadn’t had physical contact with anybody. Including Petralka, of course. But what about the others? Say for the sake of argument that Petralka, or maybe Garius or one of the royal guards, was a carrier of the disease. Could the infection have spread while everyone was together in the house? Petralka and Garius, in particular, shared meals, had tea, and participated in other social niceties with the rest of the household, or so I had heard. Maybe the infection could have spread... then...?

  The members of the household had dropped out of the game in the order: Hikaru-san, Myusel, Minori-san. Elvia and I were the only ones left. Was everyone (excluding me, having never left my room) succumbing in order from weakest to strongest?

  Hikaru-san was a guy, but he was awfully slight (helped with his cosplaying, at least), and didn’t come across as the hardy type. Myusel, on the other hand, was surprisingly tough: she used a lot of energy doing housework, and had even been in the military for a while.

  All that led to just one conclusion...

  Me: “Elvia, you okay?”

  I was starting to feel really uneasy.

  Elvia: “Yes. hTT”

  Me: “Elvia?”

  What kind of response was that? And a moment later:

  Elvia: “mi oky”

  Her messages were hardly even making sense anymore. I knew she was prone to typos, but this...

  Elvia: “okk”

  She seemed to be trying to type I’m okay, but she kept sending it when she was only halfway through. I waited for what I hoped would be a complete, coherent sentence, but nothing showed up.

  Me: “Elvia...?”

  There was no answer.

&n
bsp; Me: “?”

  I tried sending this one, lone symbol, but nobody responded. Everyone’s avatars just stood there, looking weirdly almost lifelike the way they breathed in and out as they waited. It was like they were in some strange place between alive and not alive, and I found it unsettling.

  Could this really be...?

  Just as I was starting to seriously worry, another message from Elvia popped up.

  Elvia: “Itchy. Tasty.”

  And that really was the last thing I got out of her.

  I could only stare stupidly at the screen. All the avatars were there, but they might as well have been empty husks.

  “I can’t believe it...”

  Had the epidemic spread to our mansion? Had every single other person caught it and collapsed? And if they had... this was, like, really serious, wasn’t it? I didn’t know exactly what disease we were dealing with, but I did know this was a different world. I had no idea what kind of bizarre, terrifying illnesses might be lurking here. What if this was an emergency, something that was deadly if not treated immediately?

  This is bad. This is so bad.