Living Inside a Game (5)
Living Inside a Game (5)
The very first time
I regained awareness inside the game, my surroundings were entirely filled with garbage.
The mountain of trash towered so high I could not see where it ended, which meant I also could not make out anything else around me.
The stench that pierced my nostrils was something I had never experienced in my life.
A smell in which everything seemed to be mixed together drained my spirit.
'Where the hell am I?'
Even when I muttered to myself, there was no one around to listen.
Wondering if it was a dream, I slapped my own cheek, but the stinging pain only made the reality more vivid.
'Is anyone there?'
The voice that came from my throat was not my natural voice.
It was the voice of a young child, which I was hearing for the first time.
My hands had shrunk to tiny little things.
I could not get used to the lowered field of view.
With every step I took, sharp shards of garbage tore into the soles of my feet.
But I did not have the leisure to even care about such pain.
Oblivious to the pain in my soles, I frantically wandered around, looking for something.
Even now, I am not entirely sure what I was searching for as I wandered.
My mind was so panicked that no coherent thought came to me at all.
I simply wanted to find anything, anyone.
Like that, I wandered the garbage dump for a long time.
Eventually, around the middle of the trash mountain, I was able to spot a few people rummaging through something.
I ran straight toward them.
'Hey! Over here!'
They kicked me away without ceremony.
Reflexively, I clutched my solar plexus against the pain that snapped my dazed mind awake.
My lowered head refused to rise.
Before I knew it, my knees were touching the ground.
Because of that, I cannot quite recall what they said now.
Yikes. Who's this? Doesn't look like they've got anything. Just kick 'em away.
Amidst the pain, I caught such words here and there.
A moment later, kicked once more, I tumbled even farther down the trash mountain.
Lying on the ground and looking up at the sky, a gray sky filled with clouds naturally met my eyes.
I gritted my teeth.
First, I needed to figure out where this was.
And so I began to climb the trash mountain.
Was I about ten years old?
It was hard to move due to my youthful body.
I had thought that if I looked around from the highest point, perhaps I could figure out where I was.
'... Fucking hard.'
And then, at the summit of the trash mountain I had only reached after such hardship, I met the 'kid.'
Because of her filthy, matted hair, I could not even see her face, let alone tell her gender.
But her eyes, gleaming with a shining gold, remain in my memory as a singular, vivid scene.
The kid stared at me coldly.
Afraid I might be kicked in the solar plexus again, I hunched my shoulders, lowered my stance, and braced myself.
The height was on another level compared to before.
If I tumbled down again this time, I might die.
That was when.
The kid opened her mouth.
'What're you staring at? Wanna die?'
'... ... ...'
That was how it was back then.
And so, somehow or other,
I became friends with that kid.
Even though this was a world inside a game,
over the span of roughly ten years, that brat was the only person I kept running into and stayed closest with.
And today,
toward that 'her,' whom I can no longer call a kid, I bowed my head.
"I'm sorry I didn't contact you! But what can I do when the game was so fun!"
"Gah, just go out and drop dead!"
1. Living Inside a Game (5)
In the mercenary industry, the nickname Shooting Star had been given to her because she appeared suddenly, like a star fallen from the sky.
Known only to those in the know, she was the pivotal figure who resolved an incident in which the entire city of Neon City nearly got blown away by a nuclear bomb — the game's main story — a living legend.
The true protagonist of the cyberpunk game I had played.
And my longtime friend.
Her name was Catherine Lee.
I did not raise my bowed head.
Momentum was important for an apology.
I tried to soothe her mood — Catherine's mood.
"I'm telling you, it's not that I meant to go out of contact. There were unavoidable circumstances."
Of course, there had been no such circumstances.
"What kind of circumstances."
I would get hit if I said I was playing a game, wouldn't I?
I don't know how she grew up to be such a violent kid.
... Come to think of it, her being violent seems like it has been the same since the old days, too.
"They were that kind of thing."
"...You really wanna die?"
"Seriously, seriously. If you let it slide just this once, it won't happen again next time."
"That's what you said, and this is the how-many-th time your contact has been dead."
The trait of a true man.
Not remembering that kind of stuff well.
[I testify that it is recorded as three times in the database.]
...Be quiet, you.
It was a relief that Catherine could not hear what Eve was saying. Otherwise, would it not have taken even longer to calm her anger?
"Seriously, I'm sorry. Going forward, there absolutely won't be a second time of going out of contact like this."
"...Really?"
"Really."
[I learn that the saying you mentioned before, 'lying without even wetting your lips,' is used in times like this.]
You should not be learning things like that.
Of course, even now, I did not think I had done anything wrong.
I also thought that there would inevitably be occasions where I went out of contact again.
But what if I honestly said that?
I wanted to walk home safe and sound on my own two feet today.
It was simply a situation where I had no choice but to lie for my own survival.
No matter how close a friend she was,
a shitty personality was still a shitty personality.
...But.
Thinking about when we roamed the garbage dump together, she also seemed to have grown up well, without any rough edges.
Was this what a parent's heart felt like?
"...Hah. Seriously, if you ignore my contact again next time, you figure it out yourself. I'll find a way."
"Understood. My dear nuna."
"Don't 'nuna' me, fu-. Just do something that deserves getting hit."
It seemed like the matter had been smoothed over well enough.
Of course, an image of my future self getting scolded again for the exact same reason automatically played out in my head, but that was a matter for future-me to deal with on his own.
Getting out of this situation right now was far more important to the current me.
Only then did I raise my bowed head.
Golden eyes stared me down.
"So."
"Huh?"
It was not over?
Catherine stretched out her legs and propped her feet up on the high-grade ceramic table.
Her golden hair, neatly tied back, swayed lightly.
My gaze almost involuntarily drifted toward her black stockings, but I held it in with superhuman patience.
Catherine's gaze shifted out the window.
Bright neon sign lights turned on in a regular pattern.
Was it because of the lights outside? A faint red glow lingered on her cheeks.
Since this was a 2nd-floor personal booth, no sound from the surroundings could be heard.
The soundproofing was solid, as befitting a place where people took requests away from prying eyes.
I stared blankly at Catherine, who had suddenly gone quiet, and waited for her to open her mouth.
What now.
"... ...So."
"So?"
Our Goldie.
What is the problem that has you like this?
"...So where did you move to?"
"... ...Huh? All of a sudden?"
Simultaneously with my meaningless answer, Catherine thrust her head quickly toward me.
I instinctively pulled my own head back, pressing my back against the chair in the opposite direction.
Her face getting so close startled me.
"What do you mean, all of a sudden? Who moves without even saying anything?"
"... ...Haha. Well, that was."
I had done it to create some distance because I felt a bit burdened.
I probably should not be honest about this either, right?
"And you didn't even pick somewhere nearby. Everyone else says they don't know either. ...If something really did happen to you and you could not be contacted, I should at least be able to come find you."
"...Mmm. I suppose you're right."
Well, a home address should not matter much, should it?
It was not as if there was a reason I absolutely had to keep it from her.
After a brief deliberation, I sent a message with my home address entered to Catherine.
"Hmph."
Catherine, after checking the message, gave a short laugh.
Getting angry in an instant and then calming down in an instant — such a quintessential Goldie.
Now that her anger was resolved,
this time I opened my mouth first.
"So why were you trying so hard to find me?"
I was curious about the reason for the messages that had been flooding in for a week.
At first, I had wondered if she had received a somewhat important request or something, but it seemed that was not it. If it had been, there would have been a mention in the messages about a request coming in.
"At first, I just wanted to see your face."
"Mm."
"And then after that, I got angry because someone did not answer contact for a week."
"Ah."
I had asked about something I did not need to ask about.
To quickly change the mood, I nodded my head rapidly.
"Well, it was, it was worth worrying about."
"Tsk. As long as you know."
Come to think of it, normally, there had never been a time when my messages went unchecked to this extent.
I would usually check at least once every two days.
This time, it was because there had been unavoidable reasons — I had been too focused on a game.
With a much more at-ease heart, I asked Catherine.
"So can I go home now?"
"?"
Oops.
Was the mood still not right for that?
I bowed my head for the second time today.
* * *
"...Hoo. Wrapped it up?"
[I ask why you are saying something completely out of context.]
"...Just because."
It was a K-joke.
The sorrow of a prophet who is not understood.
I was only set free from Catherine after making a promise to 'definitely pick up next time.'
Naturally, it was already night outside.
Neon City's nights were deeper than those of other regions.
Especially in the lower layer, even more so.
The shadows of tall buildings and the bright lights of neon signs inversely sketched out the dark ecosystem of the city's backside.
The brighter the upper and middle layers shone, the darker the lower layer became.
It was a natural principle, if you thought about it.
I felt the chilly night air.
I walked slowly along the quiet main road.
Was it because it was late?
There were even fewer human shadows than during the evening hours.
Though I could occasionally feel the gazes of vagrants eyeing me from the back alleys,
I was not staggering around drunk right now, anyway.
The probability of getting into a fight or attacked was low.
"Hey, you there!"
"Come here for a sec!"
Low, that is.
I did not say it was zero.
Haa.
Could they not just let me go home in peace?
I roughly scratched my head.
When I did not even have enough time and desperately needed to go home and play games.
I looked toward the back alley where the voices had come from.
"... ...Those bastards from the elevator earlier?"
[I concur.]
There stood the two male mercenaries who had been bad-mouthing me earlier, standing with slouching postures.
The color of the cigarette smoke they exhaled was strange.
It was painted with both red and blue at the same time, which strangely did not mix together.
For starters, it looked insanely unhealthy.
I approached them in the back alley.
"What?"
At that, they blew smoke at me without a word.
I could hear the sound of the purification filter activating in my mask.
"We just wanna make some good friends too, y'know."
"Yeah, yeah. Called you over to get friendly."
"Really?"
[Voice evaluation module activated. I assess that the probability of a lie is over 90%.]
I could tell even without you saying it.
The fact that one hand was hidden behind their backs, and that.
The fact that I could feel mockery in their expressions, and that.
Add to that the fact that they had been bad-mouthing me earlier, and that.
Would the probability not be 100%, not 90%?
Oh dear.
Nothing but sighs piling up.
I was truly sick and tired of it.
I subtly moved the 'mana' in the atmosphere.
A mage in cyberpunk was still a mage.
Mana saturated with smog was still mana.
This was one of the good things about being a mage.
Since mages themselves were almost non-existent,
even if I prepared magic openly, nobody knew.
Not that they prepared for the danger, either.
It was a perk of a niche class, in its own way.
"Earlier in the elevator, you saw me and said my temper was nasty, did you not?"
"...Huh? You heard tha—."
"It IS true."
Immediately after.
I detonated the mana I had gathered beneath their feet all at once.
KWAANG-!
""UWAAAAAAACK!!""
A knifelike gust of wind swept through instantly.
The generated blast shook the entire back alley.
The lights of the surrounding neon signs went out in an instant, and garbage swirled around, flying in all directions.
As a bonus, the two people flew up into the sky.
"If they're lucky, they'll live."
[I appreciate it as a fine view, I remark.]
I had almost ended up wasting time on something pointless.
I had better hurry back home.
'This time, once I get back home, I should not come out for about a month....'
I made that resolution.
* * *
The next day, someone knocked on my door.
Catherine was standing there.
"Hey, hey, so I looked into it, and the place next door was empty. So I moved in — two birds with one stone."
...Ah.