Then Die, Starting Now

Oceanus.

In ancient Greece and Rome, the god who ruled the sea before Poseidon, and the name of the river said to have girdled the earth. In Ashen City it is one of the final pieces of content: the only legitimate way to look on a beautiful landscape of living nature instead of the game's bleak world of ash.

To see Oceanus, a player has to finish gathering information on every material, every technique, and every beast that exists in the game, and complete the mapping of every region. Do that, and a single quest notice arrives for whoever earned the feat. Its contents are not fixed. They are chosen at random. You might be told to catch fifty fish in the Ash-Gray River and raise them for two in-game weeks, or to survey every region again in the reverse order of your mapping.

Natchan and I had just satisfied every precondition for reaching Oceanus, and the notice bearing our special condition arrived.

"...Huh?"

A quest that made no sense.

"U-um, by any chance, did y-you get one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too, N-Natchan..."

"...Yeah. It says to kill every current ally."

That's insane.

Why would a condition like that even exist? An ordinary one would have been perfectly fine. Her head spun.

"Ah! M-maybe if we drop the alliance and form it again..."

"Th-that... th-that won't work."

The special condition on the road to Oceanus is random, but once it is set, it never changes. The only way to alter it is to set off a nuke and roll the game all the way back to the start. And there was no world in which anyone would allow that now.

"Then what if the two of us dissolve the alliance first, and ask the others to understand..."

"O-Oceanus only opens once in a single game. J-just once."

Oceanus is a privilege granted only to the first player to conquer every region and every item in Ashen City. What matters is not the conquest itself, but that you were first. Once Oceanus has appeared on a map, it never appears there again. Seeing it a second time would mean using a nuke for that, too, and resetting the game to the beginning.

"...I see."

Natchan's hollow voice, after she heard the answer, brushed against her ear.

"Haa... Both of us really did try so hard."

As she said it, Natchan's character came up beside hers and dropped to the ground as if the strength had gone out of her. She looked like someone for whom every effort they had made had just turned meaningless.

The chat filled with sour remarks, and the mood of the stream darkened with them.

"Fwaa..."

"A w-way..."

"Hm?"

"Let's f-find a w-way...!"

But she did not want to give up. Not if her quitting was what let Natchan see Oceanus, and not if Natchan's quitting was what let her see it. That would not do. The two of them had to see it together. She refused to let the end of four days of memories and effort with Natchan become a waste, even if it meant starting the exploration over from nothing.

"There has to be a w-way. We've t-tried this hard so we could see Oceanus t-together...!"

"Izumi..."

Honestly, nothing she knew pointed to an answer. Still, if trying harder here could show them something beautiful, that was better than giving up.

"Izumi. We're friends, right?"

"Uh... Y-yeah! We're f-friends, so if we look for a way together...!"

"I'm glad."

Shunk!

"...Huh?"

An ugly sound of steel sinking into flesh. And her screen, for reasons she could not grasp, had gone the color of ash.

What was spilling across the ground was blood. The place the knife had punched through was the chest.

"N-Na-Natchan...?"

Her head refused to take it in. She could pray for someone to tell her this was a dream, and reality would still stare back, cold. Under the gray-washed screen her character crawled, and above her Natchan's character looked down. The answer was obvious.

"H-hey, w-what is this..."

Natchan had stabbed her.

"You said you've already seen Oceanus, so yield it to me this time!"

"L-looking for a way together until the v-very end is..."

"Oh, come on. The condition doesn't change, and Oceanus only opens once, right? Then if the condition is to kill every current ally, there is no other way. One of us, you or me, absolutely has to die."

Natchan's words were calm, and objective. So calm they were frightening.

"If one of the two has to die, isn't it better that Izumi gives up? You're the one who's already seen Oceanus."

"Th-that's true, but..."

An ending like this felt like the memories they had shared for four days were being ground underfoot.

"Y-you said we were friends..."

"Because we're friends, I'm trusting you to sacrifice without resenting me."

"U-waaaaaah...?!"

"I-I! I'm the one who... started this journey...!"

"You told me last time, didn't you? Ashen City is a survival-of-the-fittest game where alliances mean nothing. Get betrayed, and it's the victim's fault."

"But Natchan, of all people..."

She had been sure that she, at least, would never betray her. She had thought they would be together until the very end.

"I'm sorry, Izumi. I'll be sure to screenshot it and send it to you, so forgive me?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Ah..."

Once more, the ugly sound of a blade sinking into flesh. What rose on her screen were two words that left no room for denial, announcing her character's death.

"No way..."

This has to be a dream. Natchan betraying her at the end and killing her was absurd. The real Natchan would never drive a knife into her back, laugh in that cute voice, and ask to be forgiven.

The chat she sent afterward forced the cold reality on her anyway.

"...I'm leaving."

Ashen City no longer meant anything to her.

Christmas.

The day that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ. In Japan, though, Christmas is not a holiday. She could not begin to describe how sad she had been when she first learned that. Look it up, and in all of Northeast Asia the only country that made Christmas a public holiday is South Korea.

He brought the dead back to life, and they still won't give us the day off? Was the Lord's majesty worth only this much? Do better, Christianity. She was not religious, of course.

That did not mean she disliked Christmas now. She liked it, actually, because Christmas came with winter break. Jesus really was incredible.

"All right, everyone—rest well over the break!"

"Yes!!!"

The classroom was packed with social kids, noisy with plans for who would meet whom over winter break. She obviously had no place in that, so she packed faster than anyone, stood, and made to leave.

"Kayano!"

The one who caught her was Miyauchi.

"We're all thinking of having a Christmas party today, so come with us!"

"...Eh?"

Miyauchi was looking at her with eyes that had already decided to refuse any refusal.