Loneliness
It was past nine in the evening when Xiayu finally finished the overtime work her boss had dumped on her and prepared to head home.
On the subway back, the cars were nearly empty at that late hour, and the handful of passengers scattered across the seats all wore the same hollowed-out exhaustion she did — one look was enough to guess they, like her, had only just escaped the office.
The air conditioning made the car comfortably warm, and with the rhythmic rumble of the train washing over her, Xiayu found herself drifting toward sleep. She glanced blearily at the time, saw there was still a while to go before her stop, and let her eyes slip shut for a quick nap.
Before long, she had sunk into a deep sleep.
It felt like an enormously long dream. In it, her life from childhood to now played out before her, vivid and unblurred.
She had grown up in an orphanage, without any close friends. The director would occasionally show her some concern, but with so many children in the orphanage — and younger ones who needed looking after — the attention Xiayu received was inevitably limited.
After she grew up and started working, her relationships with her coworkers weren't much better. They often chatted about things she knew nothing about, so their conversations rarely went beyond what work required.
From within the dream, Xiayu watched herself grow up alone like that — living alone, studying alone, playing alone — quiet and solitary. Sometimes she wanted to change it, but never knew how; other times she told herself being alone wasn't so bad.
She was just beginning to wonder why she would dream something like this when an electronic voice sounded.
“Xiayu, are you all right...? Xiayu, wake up...”
Startled awake by the voice, she snapped her eyes open.
The light was almost blinding. Xiayu raised a hand to shield her face, squinting until she adjusted to the sudden brightness, then lowered her hand to take in her surroundings.
She was not in the subway car she'd boarded. She was sitting on a bench beside a path in an amusement park, close enough to see a Ferris wheel, a carousel, a roller coaster. Crowds of visitors streamed past in an unbroken flow, and shrieks of delight and cheers drifted into her ears every few seconds.
As she stood there bewildered by the sudden change, the voice that had woken her spoke again, this time directly inside her head: “Xiayu? How are you feeling? Are you awake now?”
She froze. The voice had appeared in her mind — and immediately, she thought of the systems from the novels she used to read.
She opened her mouth to answer, but the electronic voice stopped her. “Xiayu, you can just talk to me in your head. No need to speak out loud.”
She gave it a try. Hello? Who are you?
“Hello, Xiayu. I am a System, Unit 111. Let me explain the situation,” 111 began. “You actually passed away in your original world. The System detected your information and found that you met the requirements for binding, so we brought you here to give you a second chance at life — on the condition that you complete the System's tasks.”
Tasks...? What tasks? And where is this place?
Xiayu registered the fact that she had died without much grief. She had lived this long without a single close friend — maybe no one would mourn her much. That was fine, really. There wasn't much in her bank account either; whatever little was left could go toward improving life at the orphanage.
“There's no need to rush. We have some time, so I'll explain everything properly,” 111 said. “In fact, you haven't actually bound with a System yet. We can't bind a host unilaterally — once I've outlined the situation, you can decide whether or not you want to bind.”
First, 111 explained the world she now stood in. “This is the world of Detective Conan. You're familiar with it, I take it?”
Yeah... I am. It had been one of the few anime she'd watched as a child, so she remembered it well enough — but the series ran so long that she'd given up partway through, and she didn't know how the later story unfolded.
“Good enough. This world has run into some trouble, and it needs a host to resolve it in order to keep the world stable.”
Trouble? What kind of trouble?
“This world revolves around the contest between Conan's Red side and the Black Organization's Black side, so the gap in power between the two cannot grow too large — at least not before the story's ending. Right now, that balance has broken down. The Black Organization's demonstrated strength is clearly falling behind the Red side. If this continues, plot logic will develop holes, and that will gradually destabilize the entire world.”
“Rebalancing the power gap between Red and Black will be your task once you bind with the System.” 111 paused, then asked, “Is there anything else you'd like to know?”
Yes — am I really supposed to do this alone? Xiayu felt a wave of confusion. There was no way she could pull this off by herself. Wasn't this just being sent to the Black Organization as cannon fodder?
111, aren't you Systems supposed to provide some kind of help?
“Of course there will be help,” 111 said reassuringly. “The moment you choose to bind, the System will draw a specialized system suited to your circumstances — one with all sorts of functions. It's what you'd call a 'golden finger.' It will absolutely guarantee your safety.”
Oh — so it's not you, 111, who binds with me?
“That's right. You'll have your own specialized system. So, Xiayu — have you decided whether you want to bind?”
Let's bind. Whatever time I've got now is borrowed anyway — might as well have something to do. With that, Xiayu confirmed the binding.
Xiayu has confirmed system binding. Now drawing her specialized system —
Drawing complete — Xiayu's specialized system is the Genshin Roleplay System. Binding in progress...
Binding 1%... 2%... 50%... 100% — Binding complete.
Your specialized system will take over from here. Good luck with your task.
Xiayu called out to 111 in her mind several times, but there was no response. That was a fast exit.
“Hello there, Traveler!” Suddenly, another voice rang out in her head — a familiar one.
You're... Paimon? Xiayu was astonished. She'd braced herself a little when she heard she'd drawn the Genshin Roleplay System, but actually hearing Paimon's familiar voice still filled her with delight.
Genshin Impact was the game Xiayu had been playing constantly lately — probably the very reason she'd drawn this system. She'd play a bit whenever she had free time after work. She'd started because it was essentially a single-player game, one where she didn't have to deal with socializing. But the longer she played, the more she came to feel that Teyvat was a real place — that somewhere out there was a whole circle of friends living in it. It was in the game that Xiayu had found most of her happiness.