The Death Route Heroine
Death Route HeroineStarlight. An open-world action RPG—the kind of genre that’s all too easy to botch if you get even one thing wrong. It once dominated PC bangs with the highest occupancy rate, and now, more than eight years after its release, it remains a game with an enormous cast, sky-high freedom, and thousands upon thousands of possible endings branching from every choice. A true masterpiece of the 2010s gaming scene, worthy of the title “universe-tier god game.”
Yet even the greatest hit of its era stubbornly refused to follow the changing times. Stagnant graphics, a steep entry barrier, gameplay that had once felt fresh but gradually became familiar, and an almost nonexistent level of communication or management from the developers. The once-reigning king of open-world games had, before anyone realized it, become “a game only the dedicated still play.”
It was a little frustrating to watch people chase after newer, flashier titles, but then again, after years of the same hero-versus-demon-lord story, anyone would get tired. If that was the case, then the real lunatic was the one who had been staring at that same story for eight whole years…
“…Looks like I really am the only one left.”
After imagining the game’s bleak future, I let out a small chuckle and booted up my computer like always. The routine had long since become second nature: wash up, go to work to make a living, come home, and dive back into Starlight. Sometimes I wondered if it was really okay to spend every free moment glued to this game without ever going outside, but…
“…Because I have to save my lady.”
The lady who dies in every route, every situation the game offers. No method, no scheme, no amount of effort can ever keep her alive. No—cannot keep her alive. In this world of endless save-and-load cycles where the ending never changes, she is an ironclad rule. The game’s official “Death Route Heroine.” Violet Floyd. Commonly known as “Vi.”
“A tragic character whose very name feels like the developers designed her to die no matter what.”
While “Vi” is short for Violet, the community mostly uses it as a cruel pun for “Bye,” mocking her inevitable fate. She is the reason I play this game—the very pillar that has supported my life for the past eight years. Laughable, perhaps, to call a game character something so important, but this broken character had, ironically, become the mirror that reflected my own past self.
“Dying over and over from chronic illness, suicide, drug addiction, assassination…”
After my parents passed away suddenly, I had become a shut-in with no dreams or desires, lost in old fantasies and simply dragging myself through each day. The lady with those same dead eyes I once saw in the mirror—eyes that kept dying, again and again—had acted as a kind of shock therapy, pulling me out of that swamp of aimlessness. Those lifeless eyes I encountered every time I played forced me to plant my feet back in reality instead of unreachable dreams.
“In a way, she’s my savior.”
Some people say a single sentence or a single book can completely change a life. I don’t blame those who don’t believe it, but for me, this game’s lady was exactly that—one line of text, one book that held my past within its pages. Thanks to her, I closed the door on Starlight and the fantasies that had trapped me, and began living fully in the reality where I existed. Time passed like that. Once I emptied out the past and filled my life with the present, I reached a point where things were bearable again. Only then did Starlight and my lady re-enter my field of view.
Unlike me, who had finally found my footing, she was still dying over and over. The thought came to me then:
“I’ve managed to stand on my own two feet and live decently now. So why does she still have to die?”
Just as she had once saved me in my powerless days, I would save her in return—even if she was nothing more than pixels made of zeros and ones. She was the shepherd who had helped me grasp that thin rope called life again. I immediately put the thought into action, and before I knew it, she had become everything that kept me tied to this game. Most of my thoughts, most of my time, revolved around her.
“If I put the saw here like this… there, done!”
So what exactly was I doing right now? Torturing one of the game’s four Demon Lords—the Demon Lord of Pleasure, Ankille. I needed a drug that could replace the hallucinogenic Pentanite my lady was so deeply addicted to, something strong enough to make her forget reality. I figured that if I tortured this Demon Lord, who traps people in illusions and feeds on their satisfaction, I might be able to extract something useful.
“Hmm. Another failure today, huh?”
But no matter what I did, he refused to reveal the secrets behind his illusion-crafting methods. Regrettable, but this approach would have to be scrapped. If I counted the sheer number of times I’d tried to torture information out of him…
“That’s nineteen failures now.”
Twenty attempts. Enough pointless effort. Last time I tortured a different Demon Lord, he actually gave up information, so I thought this one might too. Apparently not.
“Haa…”
I sighed and tapped the capsule-shaped torture device I had personally modified by embedding saws into it.
“Maybe I should stop trying to take the easy way out and just make the drug myself…”
While the game had plenty of convenience systems, they were unnecessarily detailed. Things like magic formulas and potion crafting could be done with personally developed recipes. Even without going the chemical route, there were plenty of devices I could create in-game. I’d already built this saw-covered torture machine, and I’d even seen veteran players craft guns inside the game.
“And I’ve spent years digging into this particular field. I can’t give up now just because it’s frustrating.”
It wasn’t something to brag about, but by torturing Demon Lords for information to save my lady, I had become the top expert in torture among all Starlight players. In other words, I knew next to nothing about the game’s alchemy or magic combination formulas. Since this game required actual study to accomplish anything, it felt awkward to abandon the one thing I was good at and start learning something new. That excessive level of detail was also one of the reasons this “universe-tier god game” had so few new players. It had its own charm, but only for people with enough patience.
“Anyway, this clearly isn’t going to work. I need to develop something with better performance.”
I pressed the open button on the capsule-like machine and dragged out the Demon Lord’s corpse—already dead—and dumped it on the floor. The basics of torture were to inflict maximum pain without killing the subject while extracting information. This device, however, had apparently been a little too effective. This wasn’t torture anymore; it was straight-up execution.
“Time to share this on the community and go to sleep…!”
Since the test subject had died before I could finish the experiment I’d planned during work hours, I decided to upload the specs of my new torture device to the Starlight community and then sleep. I opened my browser.
“Huh?”
There was a new email in my inbox. Who could it be from? I only used this account for secret Starlight-related activities, so no one should be emailing me. I cautiously opened the inbox.
An email I never could have predicted had arrived.