This Ability's Name... Let's Call It Creation!
Data Salvage.
When people shortened it to just "Salvage," everyone knew exactly what they meant — the umbrella term for any work that recovered data from before the Great War.
Finding a book, a CD, or a flash drive that still held its original form counted as salvage. Hacking into a pre-war server by some means and pulling the data out also counted as salvage.
Some people apparently looked down on the former as mere "physical salvage," treating it as a lesser craft.
Even in a situation like this, they still drew sides? Looking at it that way, humans really were a curious sort of animal.
Anyway. Listening to all this, you might naturally find yourself wondering one thing.
Wait. There was a war, and so much time has passed — how are the servers still around? Does that even make sense?
…Surprisingly, it did make sense. At least in this world, it did.
"The Brain World, huh."
About ten years after I died, in the 2030s, the nations of the world had apparently joined forces to conceive a single experimental project.
That project was the Virtual and Brain World Project — commonly known as VCP. Its goal was to create a data shelter that could persist semi-permanently even if humanity were to go extinct.
By the mid-to-late thirties, climate anomalies had already gotten severe. Maybe at that point they were already half-convinced humanity wouldn't last much longer.
The Brain World was completed as planned, and within a few years the Great War broke out and human civilization collapsed completely — so their prediction had been pretty accurate, I guess. Those people might have hoped a war would never happen, though.
"Not a bad situation. If I can somehow reach this Brain World, reviving Nia's videos isn't just a dream."
But if you carefully read what was written in the encyclopedia here, the Brain World seemed to be a far more dangerous place than I'd expected. Apparently fatal accidents happened from time to time, and permanent disabilities weren't unheard of either.
No, but how do you even die or get hurt while browsing a data shelter? Isn't that the kind of thing you just do with a mouse and keyboard?
"Ah. So you can't access the Brain World through a computer. For various reasons, only indirect access through virtual reality is permitted…"
The encyclopedia didn't explain why access was limited to virtual reality methods. It just stated it as if it were obvious. Wow, is this what information control looks like? Petty.
After that, it went on about how if you got seriously injured during a VR connection, the effects would carry over into reality, which made it dangerous.
…So you get hurt. The way it casually stated that getting injured inside virtual reality was only natural sent a chill down my spine. It was just like one of those creepy urban legends. I hate scary stuff like that.
"When accessing the Brain World through virtual reality, the default setting is motion recognition. You can open the settings window by gripping the opposite wrist with both hands. …Like this?"
Scrolling down the screen with a rattle of the mouse, I suddenly spotted what looked like advice. Gripping the opposite wrist with both hands to open the settings window. It wasn't a particularly difficult pose.
Still, I'd need to try it someday if I ever went to the Brain World, so I decided to give it a practice run and clasped my wrists with both hands.
Like this? It's not that hard… huh?
The moment I casually locked my wrists together, something shocking unfolded.
A translucent blue display. It rose into the air right in front of my eyes, as if pulling itself free!
"Wh… what? What… what?!"
I was so startled I scrambled up from the chair, letting out a scream of pure shock. Of course I did. I'd just been practicing for later without thinking much of it, and suddenly something popped up right in front of my face. It would have been weirder not to be surprised!
"No way. Is this… the settings window?"
But after a little time passed and I slowly regained my composure, I realized that the thing floating in midair was exactly the settings window I'd just read about in the encyclopedia. And when I carefully clasped my wrists again, the translucent settings window melted into the air and vanished with a soft fade.
…I didn't particularly want to admit it, but this phenomenon pointed far too clearly to one single fact.
"…This place is the Brain World?!"
I muttered it blankly in a somewhat stupid voice. But no one answered. Well, there was nobody here, so of course not.
"Logout! Status window! Status! …Haa, nothing works."
About thirty minutes after realizing that the world I'd fallen into in Nia's body might be the Brain World, I was sprawled on the bed staring at the ceiling, shouting those words.
…Yeah, still nothing.
From what I'd researched thoroughly, the Brain World wasn't a game — it was a virtual space built to store data — so convenience features like that apparently didn't exist. On top of that, the settings window I'd summoned by clasping my wrists had its font so thoroughly smashed that I couldn't make out a single character, rendering it essentially useless.
Aside from learning that this place wasn't reality, nothing had been helpful at all.
"If you're going to dump me into a corner room like this in Nia's body, at least give me one cheat ability."
I muttered it like I was whining to someone, shifting weakly on the bed with a rustle. Right. Finding out this is the Brain World is fine. But then what am I supposed to do from here?
I can't even go outside. The computer's slow as hell. There's nothing worth looking at on the internet.
My ultimate goal was clear.
I want to watch the Nia streams I never got to see.
But the path to that goal was far too murky — so murky that I almost found myself thinking there might not be a path at all.
"Haa…. At times like this, it'd be nice to have a doll I could punch the stress out on. Something like a teddy bear."
I couldn't punch the wall. My fists right now were soft as cotton — if I went wild on the wall, I'd only hurt myself. The pillow was soft enough, but it had no satisfying punch to it, and I couldn't exactly take it out on the poor computer.
So what I needed here was a doll. If I was going to hit something, I wanted to thoroughly thrash an ugly teddy bear….
"Uph."
Just then, something fell onto my face.
If I hadn't known this was the Brain World, I would have jumped out of my skin and made a complete fool of myself…. But I was exhausted in every possible way right now. My shoulders did jump in surprise, but I didn't have the energy for a full freak-out.
"What the hell all of a sudden. I'm sad right now…. Huh? This is…."
I lifted the object that had fallen on my face and looked at it carefully. It was a teddy bear — a rather crudely made one.
…Huh?
"This… definitely wasn't here before."
Goosebumps rose on my arms at the completely unexpected turn of events. When I'd thoroughly searched this room earlier, there had been no teddy bear anywhere. So where on earth had this thing come from?
With a half-believing feeling, I opened my empty other hand and murmured quietly.
"Teddy bear."
Then something unbelievable happened.
With a small flash of light, a teddy bear suddenly appeared on my palm — which had been completely empty!
Imagining an object and thinking about creating it, and then that object actually popping into existence. I stared blankly at the result of that impossible phenomenon, then dropped the teddy bear on the floor. I had to clap both hands over my mouth, which had fallen open on its own.
"Can I… create whatever I want whenever I want?"
Sorry for complaining so hastily. To think you'd give me an ability this absurd.
I offered that apology toward someone whose name and face I didn't know, then clenched my fist tight.
With this…. It's possible! With this power, recovering Nia's streams is absolutely not a dream!
It felt like I'd seen a light — hope that someday I would surely reach the destination hidden in that deep, dark fog.
"This ability's name… let's call it Creation!"
I forcefully sat up from the body that had been limp and listless just moments ago, and picked up Creation Specimen No. 1 and No. 2 rolling on the floor.
What met my eyes were an ugly teddy bear and an even uglier teddy bear. The less ugly one was probably No. 1.
"…But why are they so ugly? I didn't want results this hideous."
The fur was matted and dusty-looking, and the stuffing inside was so thin the body was all crumpled. Something was off. The result was just a tiny, tiny bit different from the teddy bear I'd imagined in my head.
Maybe there were more conditions involved?
Looking at the very ugly teddy bears No. 1 and No. 2, I couldn't help but tilt my head.