The Transmigrator's Night
I liked the night.
Not because the day came with a fixed role and the night came with none, or because some beautiful girl only appeared if you pulled an all-nighter. Nothing like that.
It was simply that there was no time to game during the day, and there was at night—so the hours spent playing became the ones I naturally preferred.
And when you game long enough in a dark room, you start to notice things. Everything from the practical—this monitor is way too bright, my eyes are going to give out—to the stories themselves, and the whole spectrum of human nature on display within them.
Because it was dark, the monitor stood out all the more. That particular flavor of focus was something I loved.
"What should I play today…"
It was just another night of hunting for a game worth staying up for. The last one I'd enjoyed had been a raising sim—a maker-type game, as people called them—so I was browsing titles in a similar vein.
"…Oh. This one looks pretty good."
Scrolling down the store page, one game caught my eye.
The name is Luna Elin, and the price is… reasonable. Nice art style, and it looks like there's a solid amount of content.
Price, playtime, art—all of it cleared the bar. On top of that, the developer must have had some kind of universal translator on staff: thirteen languages supported, full voice acting included. Honestly, they could have charged more at this quality.
How had I never heard of a game like this?
Ah—it launched yesterday. And they barely promoted it, huh.
It was strange that something made with this much care had gone out with almost no marketing, but if that was how the developer wanted it, there wasn't much I could say.
With that thought settled, I bought the game on the spot. No information meant a chance to enjoy every single element without a single spoiler. I wasn't about to let an opportunity like that slip by. As the download started, I began reading through the character introductions on the store page.
It started with the protagonist, Elin, then the player's avatar—Elin's father. Academy teachers and friends, even the named NPCs among the villagers. And among all those pretty, striking illustrations, one character in particular drew my eye.
"Name: Lily. Childhood friend from the same village as Elin…"
The second-heroine seat that makes every otaku's heart flutter—the childhood-friend position. Of course, given that this was a raising simulation, there would almost certainly be a route that led to her. With a character this perfectly matched to my tastes, I didn't even need to consider the possibility of her losing—
"Huh? She dies?"
I'd been determined not to think of her as a losing heroine. But whether it was because this was a brand-new studio, or because a developer who wouldn't even promote their game had zero consideration for the player…
They'd plastered a spoiler right on the introduction page.
And not just any spoiler—a massive one about Lily dying.
"No, I mean—ugh…"
I held back the worst of what I wanted to say about the developer and slowly read through the spoiler.
Elin, born in the countryside. A few days before her birth, the player—Elin's father—receives a prophecy in a dream. On the night of a full moon, a child born on the empire's frontier will carry a momentous destiny—a prophecy befitting a protagonist.
And the children born that day are Elin and Lily.
Whether it was because they shared a birthday, or because both had lost their mothers, Elin and Lily stuck together like sisters and became the closest of friends.
Then the incident happens.
The Black Wave—in game terms, a monster wave—sweeps over Elin's village. The villagers flee the beasts together, but not everyone makes it. Lily, running hand in hand with Elin, loses her grip. By the time Elin realizes and turns around, it is already too late. All that remains in the wake of the monsters is Lily's torn handkerchief.
The grief of losing Lily, and the resolve never to lose something precious again, are what drive Elin to the academy…
"Ugh… that killed the mood cold…"
From there, the game is about the player managing Elin's schedule, earning money, and raising her through to the ending. They'd probably written it out because it was the prologue story—the kind of fixed plot that wouldn't change even on a second playthrough—but still.
Having the character who matched my tastes die was bound to leave a bad taste.
"If she was going to die, why bother drawing adult illustrations of her?"
Was there some story I didn't know about? Of course there was—I hadn't even played yet! But whether I'd played or not, writing this out was the problem! I hadn't opened the store page to get hit with a spoiler like this!
"Ah. Download's done."
My internal fuming didn't last long. A notification popped up in the corner of the screen: the download was complete.
"…Still. I should play it, right?"
Having my prospective favorite character die before I'd even started the game sat poorly with me—but the art was good, and the gameplay looked solid. I had to try it.
"You never know, right? Maybe there's a miraculously surviving Lily out there?"
I didn't know yet. Until I observed her, she existed in a state of quantum-mechanical Lily. Until I'd cleared every ending and unlocked every achievement, Lily was a microscopic Lily—dead or alive, undetermined!
Spinning that happy little circuit as hard as I could, while privately nursing the complaint that I'd refund the whole thing the second it got boring, I hit the play button.
And the monitor blazed with light.
—My vision flickered.
"Hmm. So this is possession."
A blue sky, and grass jutting into my peripheral vision on both sides. My first words, steeped in the fragrant scent of the grass.
My voice was thin. A cute little voice, with that slightly short-tongued pronunciation unique to children.
I stretched both hands up toward the brightly shining sky where a monitor should have been.
Small. Ten short fingers, so small I'd need both hands just to pick up a single pebble. Purple hair spilled between them, tickling my face.
…That was the color from the character intro.
Why.
"I haven't even sent a support email yet. I haven't played. I haven't refunded out of spite. I was just excited about a normal full clear…!"
Sure, I'd gotten angry about the spoiler that Lily dies—but that was a perfectly reasonable thing to get angry about.
…I still don't know.
I'd turned on a game and immediately become a little girl in some strange place, but that didn't mean I could conclude this was the world of Luna Elin—
"Lily! Are you okay?!"
"Ah. It's Elin."
"Huh? It's Elin!"
"Yeah. It's Elin."
"…? Lily's being weird!"
Never mind.
This was the world of Luna Elin.
I had become the childhood friend whose death was already confirmed: Lily.
Now that I'd become Lily, I had two options.
The first: deny reality, hole up in my room, die exactly where the spoiler said I would, and become Elin's personal power-up material.
Obviously, I had no intention of dying, and no intention of denying reality until my mental state collapsed. That left only one option, naturally.
The second: survive the monster wave.
In one sense it was hard; in another, it might be easy. I could convince my parents to move. Or just leave the village for a while. Of course, if a couple of kids announced they were leaving town, the adults wouldn't stand for it—so it'd have to be a secret escape…
No, wait. Couldn't I just hold on to her hand properly and survive?
The intro said she'd died because she lost her grip. So if I just clung to Elin's hand with everything I had, or stuck close to the other adults the whole time, that should be enough.
Somehow, even thinking like this already feels like I'm stacking flags.
Until the moment arrived, there was no way to know how things would go. And to assess the current situation at all, there was one piece of information I needed most.
"Elin. How old are we?"
"Huh? Umm… sooo…"
The little platinum-blonde kid wriggled her short fingers, muttering things like "one, twooo…" Adorable. So this was how people ended up as doting parents.
Going by the spoiler, the monster wave hits after Lily turns eight.
I couldn't pin down the exact timing, but the omen was clear: a red moon would rise. The cycle, the other signs—none of that had been written down. Even so, knowing it was a matter of years was a significant harvest.
At least I can prepare myself mentally.
At last Elin finished her counting and held up her fingers to me.
"Seven!"
"Elin… you're holding up eight fingers…"
"Eight…?"
Elin looked down at her own hands. Please. Please let her have just miscounted her fingers. I'd been transmigrated for less than five minutes—I was nowhere near ready for this.
She folded and unfolded her fingers, recounting, then seemed to realize something. She looked up with a bright, beaming smile.
"Ah! Ehehe, eight years old!"
"…Really? Not seven?"
"Yep! Not seven! Lily's super smart! Elin still can't even say all the numbers up to ten!"
"…Thanks."
And the moment Elin's fingers came down, translucent letters bloomed in front of my eyes, accompanied by a sound far too cheerful and lively for what they said.
…The contents, at least, were nothing I could call cheerful.