Chuunibyou

It was Legacy of Raid's first dungeon, and aside from the last tank buster, there wasn't anything particularly hard about it.

No gimmick of the if-you-don't-know-it-you-eat-it variety, either. We cleared it on the first pull without a hitch.

"Whoa... I just got chills."

Kang Hangil clenched both trembling hands into fists as he spoke.

"The rush when we stopped that last tank buster was incredible!"

Handling the second tank buster had been a scene straight out of a comic. I chained parries in alternating succession, as if we were covering for each other, while Kang Hangil soaked the tank buster with a tank's sheer bulk and passed it off. Layer a tank and a melee DPS's aggro over that, then the ranged Mage's brilliant spells, and it felt nothing like the ordinary monsters or Field Bosses we'd faced so far.

Bringing down a dungeon boss with a presence so overwhelming I could never have beaten it alone, matching my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠party and taking it together—that was too much fun. And because we were doing it in a full-dive game, it truly felt like we were staking our lives on it. My heart wouldn't stop hammering.

"Arang! You were so cool!"

Pink Berry smiled as she praised me.

"Hehehe! Praise me more!"

"Okay! You were super, super cool!"

"Miss Arang, you were truly amazing. I've never seen a Sword Master pull DPS like that. And that parry, when you blocked the attack earlier—truly incredible. Would it be all right if I uploaded this to Ryutube?"

"Of course!"

Good. Time to check the drops.

Heart fluttering, I opened the menu window chiming with alerts, and the gear spilled out in a long list.

Ten pieces of equipment in all.

"Ah..."

"Uh..."

I read the descriptions on the gear in front of me one after another, and realized why every one of my party members had let out a groan.

Not a single piece of swordsman equipment had dropped.

"What the...?"

However many kinds of gear there were, ten pieces had come up, and not one of them was mine.

"A-Arang, d-don't worry. These days, so people can graduate the lower dungeons faster, clearing a dungeon puts one piece of your own class's gear into your inventory."

Gear was seven slots: head, shoulders, chest, waist, legs, shoes, and weapon.

Accessories were five: two rings, two earrings, and one necklace.

I was already holding a near-endgame weapon, the Heartstrike Sword, so that one didn't count—which meant I still needed eleven items.

So if my luck was rotten... I'd have to run this dungeon eleven times?

This dungeon, with those revolting monsters pouring out in heaps?

Blech.

"Thank you for helping today."

I bowed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my head to Kang Hangil and Mozzawapper as I thanked them.

If it hadn't been for the two of them, this heart-pounding dungeon clear might not have been any fun at all.

"Not at all. Thanks to you, Miss Arang, I found a whole new kind of fun. Today's clear was really enjoyable."

The first time Mozzawapper had typed an actual chat instead of an emoticon.

The mood was starting to tip toward everyone going their separate ways, so I opened my mouth at once.

"To celebrate a safe clear, want to go for a second round?"

"A second round, you mean?"

"A second round?"

"Yeah. Just hanging out and talking!"

Everyone agreed with me.

We ended the broadcast, went into a house Kang Hangil owned, and chatted over food from inside the game.

We were laughing about everything that had happened in the dungeon, the mood climbing, when Kang Hangil's gaze fixed on my arm.

I'd taken off the armor costume and was dressed like a brand-new player, in a T-shirt and shorts.

"If it isn't rude, may I ask whether there's a reason you deliberately put those boundary lines on your arms and legs?"

At his words I lifted my arm. A faint boundary line was drawn exactly where the arm wasn't. From that point down, the skin was just slightly different from the upper arm.

The reason was simple enough.

The game had automatically generated arms and legs for the parts that didn't exist in reality, and this was what came of it.

"Oh, this is—"

"W-wait!"

Just as I was about to explain why I looked like this, Pink Berry cut in, urgent, and blocked me.

"This is... something that's hard to talk about..."

"A customization that's hard to talk about... you mean?"

"Huh? It's not hard to talk about."

"Arang!"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Is it... okay to say?"

"...Huh? You're asking if it's okay to say?"

What? Pink Berry was looking at me with sad eyes. Why...?

Think. Had I done something wrong to Pink Berry? Had she not liked today's offline meetup?

But we'd smiled, talked about Legacy of Raid, eaten bossam—pork wraps—and gone our separate ways... Hmm.

No. Right now Pink Berry thought talking about this boundary line was hard for me.

Hmm... The reason she thought that had to be because, in reality, I had no arms or legs, right?

Sure. A person without arms and legs was likely to be sad, to struggle, to be inconvenienced, to find the world depressing.

And Arang had been like that too.

But I was different. Was it because this hadn't originally been my body, or because I still couldn't accept the present situation as real?

Even now, when I left Legacy of Raid and opened my eyes in the hospital room, my feelings got pushed aside by Arang's, and I sank into gloom.

But those weren't my feelings. They were Arang's...

Wait. I was Arang. Then, uuuugh... I didn't know. Thinking this hard about something was what you did when you were prepping a raid.

So what if I didn't have arms and legs. In here, they were perfectly fine.

Of course it was inconvenient and hard when I was in reality, but I spent most of my time in the virtual world, so I didn't really think of it as all that unfortunate.

Aside from family, Pink Berry had known me first, and she had seen me today.

Just like Mom, Dad, and Anna assumed I was struggling and in pain even when I was fine, Pink Berry seemed to be under the same mistaken impression.

No—I was incredibly happy...

I'd spent my whole life sitting in front of a computer, clicking a mouse and keyboard at a tiny monitor, and now I was playing a virtual-world game indistinguishable from reality.

How could I not be happy, playing the kind of full-dive game I'd only ever seen in movies, comics, novels, and anime!

It didn't even look like CG. I moved my actual body and played as if it were real—it felt like I'd been reincarnated into this world!

A gamer's soul was on fire!

"Arang... are you okay?"

"Miss Arang... are you all right?"

"Ah. I'm fine. I was just thinking for a second. Pink Berry, don't worry! I cleared a dungeon today, so I'm in the best mood ever!"

"Ah..."

I missed Pink Berry's sigh entirely, and told Kang Hangil and Mozzawapper that I had no arms or legs, so Legacy of Raid's own character creator had made me like this.

"I don't have arms or legs, so it ended up like this."

Hearing that, Kang Hangil and Mozzawapper...

"Aha. So that's the concept? There really are a lot of people in Legacy of Raid with a concept like that. And Miss Arang is fifteen, after all. Still an age where a little chuunibyou sticks around."

"Eh?"

Just like that, I had become a chuunibyou girl.