It Seems My Specialty Is Using My Body
I think my specialty is using my body…
Ordinary. That might be the best word to describe my current situation. There’s nothing particularly scary about the game, nor is there anything especially unique about it. From what I’ve heard, if you aren’t scared of it, this is just a regular action game… and even then, it’s at best a B-grade title. Still, it suited my tastes perfectly, so I was having fun.
The strange sense of discomfort I’d been feeling since earlier. I finally realized what it was.
Just like the chat said, I wasn’t hitting any walls while playing. When I debuted as the VTuber Lene, I told everyone not to expect much because I was terrible at games. So why was this happening…? The question was answered faster than I expected.
All the games I’d played until now, except for New Dimension, had been PC games. The kind you control with a keyboard and mouse. Or a gamepad. But the game I was playing right now, In This Desolate World, was a virtual reality title. It wasn’t controlled with a keyboard, mouse, or gamepad. You had to move your own body to play it.
In other words, I wasn’t bad at games. I was just bad at computer games.
I never knew my own thinking had such a blind spot. For some reason… it felt good.
“Puhuu…”
“Ah, no…. I was just thinking about it, and it seems my specialty is using my body, so…”
“…Huh?”
The chat had exploded again. Why did these people have so many complaints about me? No matter what I did, it was always that I did something wrong, that I made a mistake, that I was wrong, that I was bad. I hadn’t even said anything strange just now, yet they were calling me a female this and a female that.
Tyuni told me it was weird that I let them get away with this much. She said if it were any other stream, they would have all been banned already. Do these people know that? Of course they do, right? Then couldn’t they just speak nicely to me?
Well, the fact that they keep watching my stream means they obviously don’t hate me. If anything, they must like me. So I’m not particularly upset… but sometimes I can’t help wondering why they act like this. Later on they’ll probably complain even if I just breathe.
Before I knew it, nearly three hours had passed since the stream started. In other words, I had been playing this game for three straight hours. They said the total playtime if you didn’t stop was around seven hours, which meant I still hadn’t even finished half the game.
“Mmm…”
It felt like a good place to wrap things up. Setting the stream length aside, it was almost dinner time. Above all, the color palette of the background in this game… well. Honestly, staring at it for too long made me feel exhausted and drained.
Of course the game itself was very much to my taste, so I planned to see it through to the ending. Taking a break to eat dinner and catch my breath seemed like the right move.
“Everyone. After I defeat the next boss, would it be all right if I end the stream and go eat dinner…?”
Fortunately, the Lene believers gave their cheerful permission.
“Yes…. Then I’ll go eat dinner…”
Today’s dinner was the spicy pork rice bowl Bora’s mother made, so I was really looking forward to it.
“Then… should I go this way…? That path looks a little easier, but…”
As I kept playing, the BGM echoing in my ears suddenly changed. Up until now, that usually meant a boss was right in front of me.
Just as I expected. This boss was a blue-skinned woman with flowers blooming on her head. Long, thin threads extended from her fingers, burrowing into the ground.
[Aaaaaah….]
And the heretic didn’t just move while making breathing sounds. It was as if it were waiting for my attack.
…Then it was only proper that I move first.
Having made up my mind, I immediately crouched and stepped forward. It was still far from perfect, but thanks to the stats I’d strengthened while playing, it didn’t feel as stifling as it had in the beginning.
The heretic still didn’t move even as I charged. Was this some kind of bonus stage? It wouldn’t be strange if it were. Swallowing that thought, I swung my Warhammer at the heretic before me with all my strength.
“…Huh?”
It rose from the floor.
Since the solid impact against my fingertips wasn’t important at all, I didn’t even check the heretic’s HP before immediately pausing the game.
“Everyone. W-would it be okay to end today’s stream here…?”
As expected, the chat was filled with nothing but negative reactions to my suggestion. But I really hated it. I was genuinely scared.
“I-it really won’t work…? Hehe…”
That thought still hadn’t changed. The game itself wasn’t scary in the slightest…. What I was scared of right now wasn’t the game.
However, the believers had no intention of yielding. …Even though I usually did so much for them. I wanted to argue that this was really too much. But no matter how long this situation continued, nothing would change. In the end, the only way out was to keep playing the game.
“It really… really won’t work…?”
In the end, I had no choice but to yield to the stubborn believers.
“Hiiik?! W-why isn’t that thing dead?!”
In the end, I screamed and ran away. When I realized I couldn’t endure it any longer, I ended both the game and the stream.
Lene hates ba… No. She hates ba-whatever-it-is. To be exact, she loathes it so much that even saying its name is difficult. Even after all the experiences she gained during her time as an inquisitor, the place ‘that’ occupied in her heart had never changed.
To Lene, it was the worst kind of creature. A creature that should not exist.
And the reason Lene came to think this way was because of the influence from her previous life.
After running away from home, Lene… ‘he’ naturally ended up living on the streets. Since he had fled during his student days with no money, even lying down to sleep comfortably was impossible. It was normal to claim a spot in the subway or a park and spend the day there.
And… that incident happened.
When he woke from sleep, he saw ‘those things’ crawling right in front of his eyes. Startled, he naturally swung his hand to chase them away. Of course, if the story had ended there, it would have been nothing more than that.
But ‘those things’ didn’t flee from the arm he swung. Instead, they crawled straight toward him. Seeing them approaching at terrifying speed, he immediately jumped up and ran without looking back.
After running for roughly five minutes, he stopped to catch his breath. He crouched down, panting roughly… and discovered ‘that thing’ wriggling on the hem of his pants.
As if it had made eye contact with him, ‘that thing’ fluttered up with a sudden burst.
His memory of that day ended there.
That memory had firmly planted itself as the worst one he never wanted to recall. The trauma had crossed lifetimes and continued to affect Lene even now.
The house had to be kept spotless no matter what. She might not organize things, but she never skipped cleaning. No matter how lazy she felt, she cleaned every corner of the house at least once every two days, and she always took the trash out on the designated day if even a little had accumulated.
When she first met Bora and said, “It’s not that I don’t clean. I just don’t organize,” there hadn’t been the slightest trace of a lie in those words.
Anyway, the conclusion was that to Lene, it was the worst possible opponent. And when she saw ‘that thing’ in the game… No. When she saw a ‘that thing’ far larger than any ordinary one, the only choice Lene had was to run.
Of course, if it had been one of the heretics from that other world, the story would have been different… but since In This Desolate World was nothing more than a game, it was a meaningless thought.