You'll All Remember This Before You Sleep
Standing over my fallen character was Namikawa-senpai.
She had a sniper rifle a full tier better than the one I'd been using a moment ago, and the barrel was leveled at me.
"Hnn. Killing other people in a survival game whose whole point is staying alive doesn't make sense, was it."
"U-um, uh, th-that— N-Namikawa-senpai...?"
"It's certainly the right thing to say. And yet, why is it? When you put it like that, Izumi, all I can do is laugh. What do you think?"
"H-haha..."
It was the correct argument, which left me with nothing to say. Not thirty minutes ago, I had put a round straight through Namikawa-senpai's head.
"M-maybe this makes us even...?"
I just wanted to enjoy Ashen City like a normal person. We'd each killed the other once. Couldn't we leave it there?
That was the question, hope and all.
"Hmm. I'll think about it."
Namikawa-senpai answered with a sneer.
I didn't need to see her face to know. It was the look that showed up so often on her streams: shadowed, cold, only the corners of her mouth lifted. She was wearing it now. I was sure of it.
Bang!
The shot cracked a second time, and my character's life went with it.
"...N-nothing I can do."
The Iztomo were right. This was my fault for ignoring Namikawa-senpai—who hadn't known a thing—and killing her anyway.
If I'd realized the first person I shot was senpai and simply done nothing from the start, none of this would have happened. I had misjudged the distance. A plain, obvious mistake of mine.
All I could do was take it with humility.
If it had been Koga, she would have smiled kindly... and not killed me. Right?
"Th-there's no hope in this world..."
Faced with reality, I let out nothing but a quiet sigh.
...Shut up.
In Ashen City's multiplayer, saving your position at a base meant you revived there even if you died. But if you hadn't saved anywhere, the way I hadn't, you came back at a random spot that wasn't a base, somewhere inside a region the players had already finished exploring.
This time I revived at the Ash-Gray River—a place that had been useful even when I played Ashen City alone, stocked with all sorts of materials for building a base.
"Lucky..."
Wood, the thing you needed most when raising a house. Steel, for reinforcing outer walls and crafting weapons. Oil, required to unlock the next tier of tech. Nearly every material an early build called for could be found here.
Reviving in this spot meant the area was already fully mapped, and yet when I looked around I couldn't feel another person anywhere. Clueless players had probably wandered through, explored, and moved on.
"Th-then my base goes here..."
In truth, it was a fine place to mine materials and a poor one to call home. Being beside the river, wild animals raided it constantly. It was good for coasting through the early game and a stretch if you were thinking any further ahead than that.
But I had already died twice and was as good as late to the start. I needed a foothold that would get me to the next stage even a little faster. A base could be moved once I had something under me, and animal raids were well within what my skill could handle.
Grrrr...
"I-I know."
A wild dog was nothing the starting dagger couldn't handle. They weren't among the wildlife dangerous enough to matter in Ashen City. This one was on the large side, judging by the bulk of it, but nothing that would turn into a real problem.
"H-here, I just slip around behind, like this..."
A wet shunk, and my dagger sank into the dog's back. Its HP dropped hard enough to see. I didn't hesitate—slid sideways, ripped the blade free, and drove it up under the jaw.
Kwoh— aagh...
The dog collapsed with an ugly cry.
What it dropped came to three things: leather and fangs, raw meat, and wild-dog blood. Leather and fangs went into crafting everyday gear. Raw meat could be eaten. Wild-dog blood, scattered around a camp, could keep animals weaker than the dogs from attacking, at least to a point.
Wildlife dropped loot too, so hunting them whenever they showed up wouldn't be a bad habit. But—
"I-I don't even have a house yet, so for now I'll go ahead and use this blood..."
The first priority, as always, was a house. Having a main base or not changed the stability of the whole game.
"Mmm..."
Even so, it was a little boring. The way I was playing had drifted far from what I'd wanted, and there was nothing to be done about that—but even accounting for it, the audio was far too empty. Played straight, Ashen City was a survival game, and a survival game was hard to put on as a show.
Given what the game was, going the whole session with zero PK—Player Kill—was impossible. Still, if all I did until then was play normally, wouldn't the people watching get sick of it? That was why I'd meant to paper over the weakness with a fast PK at the start.
Of course there were Iztomo who would enjoy whatever I did, all-affirmers who praised everything. Even so, I didn't want the stream picking up a reputation for being boring.
...Worrying about things like this. Was I a pro VTuber now?
I was making money, so of course I was a pro.
Anyway. That left only the secret weapon.
"Hmm, ahem... Ah— ah."
"E-everyone, you know. I p-prepared a secret-weapon pun..."
For some reason, the Iztomo were not taking this well.
But this was a secret pun I had worried over for days on end. Even the ones saying they didn't want it would love it the moment they heard. I was sure of that.
"D-do you know why my name is I-Izumi?"
"Th-the answer is, Izumi is me. Heh... heheh..."
...What? I was sure everyone would enjoy it.
Seeing that reaction and then unveiling stage two and stage three of the secret pun—that had definitely been the plan.
Oh. Maybe they just hadn't understood it?
Well, it was a pun even I had struggled to come up with. If that was the problem, I'd simply have to explain it kindly.
"S-see, if you t-translate 'I am ○○' into English, it's '○○ is me,' and the ending is pronounced i-is me, right? Hehe..."
"S-so it's a pun that uses the fact my n-name is Izumi—"
Bang!
"...Huh?"
The shot rang out, and my character—mid-swing, axe buried in a tree—collapsed.
"W-why...?"
"...Sorry. I already killed you once, and it seemed like you were trying to play normally this time, so I wanted to let it go. But if I listened any longer, I thought my ears would rot."
The one who had come up slowly behind me was Namikawa-senpai.
"So. Izumi. From now on, let's never make puns again..."
...Why?
Shooting me wasn't enough. Now she was shutting down the secret pun every Iztomo was enjoying. Senpai or not, wasn't this too far?
"I'll heal you for now. And I'm living with Rinze at the moment, so you should move your base over near us, Izumi..."
"N-Namikawa-senpai..."
Right. Senpai was holding back her instincts as a reaper—and still she had laid a hand on me, the one only trying to live an ordinary life.
"Hm?"
"Th-this is war."
Shut-in loser, communication disorder and all—senpai or not, this was more than I could take.
I-it is a little scary, though...
"...Huh?"