Chapter 2: The Kusoge Maniac Sets Out to Challenge a God Game
For a while after clearing a kusoge, I feel like I can forgive just about anything.
Right now, I'm tolerant enough to smile and let my homeroom teacher's words wash over me even though he's taken something that could be summed up as "don't go too wild during summer break" and diluted it out to dozens of times its necessary length. At least what he's saying doesn't contradict something he said a few minutes ago, and being long-winded doesn't mean every little thing he says gets on my nerves. Compared with Faria's (the bitch's) incredible logic—where, for the sake of the world, she has no problem killing a mob character she was arguing against killing about a minute earlier—this is downright reasonable.
Teacher: "...So that's how it is. As long as I'm still alive, if any of you try pulling some summer-break debut stunt, it's an automatic student-parent-teacher conference, no questions asked. Be ready for it. All right, dismissed!!"
At those words, the class—which had been giving off such an aura of lethargy that even a horde of zombies might have had more life in it—suddenly comes back to life.
Go somewhere during summer break.
This is what's going to be popular this summer.
Go on a trip with your boyfriend.
This year, finally get a girlfriend.
At the same time as I hear topics from people whose real lives are completely fulfilled, I can also hear the topics of people who aren't that kind of person.
(...What should I do this summer?)
Last year... during summer break in my first year of high school, I spent the whole thing grinding through three blockbuster kusoge back-to-back, an insane way to spend summer even by my own standards. But now that I've cleared the gigantic kusoge known as Fuckaria, I'm certain ordinary kusoge won't satisfy me anymore.
(...Well, I was planning to stop by today anyway. I'll decide after I have a look.)
I decide to head to the game shop I haven't visited in a while because I'd been busy clearing Fuckaria, pack up my things, and leave school.
???: "........."
Without noticing the gaze fixed intently on me.
What is a kusoge? Speaking as someone who has conquered countless kusoge, a kusoge is "unfairness."
Elements player skill can't do anything about—the story, bugs, the game system... I'd say the measure of a kusoge is how many of those bad elements it manages to pile up.
By that standard, a game that's simply stupidly difficult is different from what I define as a kusoge.
...Though things like Fuckaria do exist in this world: deadly poisons on the level of aqua regia, combining stupid difficulty with unfair elements.
By that same standard, this game is the exact opposite of a kusoge. You could call it an unquestionable god game.
Sunraku: "SLF, huh..."
???: "Whoa, whoa. The kusoge hunter is actually trying a blockbuster god game? Are tanks going to rain from the sky tomorrow or something?"
Not even spears? Still holding the package, I turn around with half-lidded eyes to find the woman who owns the shop looking at me in amusement. Every game I buy is leftover stock the shop has trouble getting rid of—kusoge—so at some point we'd become familiar enough to chat casually.
Sunraku: "Well, yeah... I cleared Fuckaria, so I'm kind of full on kusoge for a while... And since it's summer break, I thought maybe I'd try a game the masses actually rave about for once."
Shop Owner: "Wait, seriously? You actually cleared Fuckaria? I heard the final boss takes at least two hours if you're playing solo."
Sunraku: "I punched it in the jaw barehanded and killed it in thirty minutes."
Shop Owner: "That's the dignity of a legend right there. Though I think you're pretty outrageous too, Hizutome-kun, for actually clearing the thing."
This independently run game shop, SHOP RockRoll, has countless kusoge sleeping on its shelves.
These days, full-dive VR games are mainstream and games played on displays are called retro, but back when VR games had only just started coming out, games were being released in such chaotic profusion that even calling it a mixture of gems and stones would have been too mild. If ten percent were god games, forty percent were ordinary games, and fifty percent were kusoge, then the market back then was like muddy soup with stones and a few gemstones sunk inside it. To an aberration—a kusoge maniac—like me, it was a kind of mythic age.
Shop Owner: "Still, SLF really is amazing. It still sells out, and it'll probably start flying off the shelves again around tomorrow."
Hizutome: "What are you doing this summer, Iwamaki-san? Didn't you say something like, 'This year's a bumper crop!'?"
Iwamaki: "Yep. So this shop's going to be temporarily closed for a week starting at the end of the month."
Hizutome: "Ah..."
I get it.
If I, Rakuro Hizutome, am a picky eater whose staple diet is kusoge, then Mana Iwamaki, the woman who owns this shop, is a picky eater whose staple diet is otome games.
The regulars mostly know why RockRoll closes at irregular intervals—though there is a certain pattern to them.
Rakuro: "Whatever. I'll take this."
Mana: "Thanks as always. Use the bathroom before you start playing, and make sure you get some proper nutrition too."
Rakuro: "And don't forget to take a break every two hours."
Since we're both hardcore gamers, we trade VR safety reminders with each other, and I leave RockRoll.
On the way home, I pass a girl wearing the uniform of the high school I attend, but with my attention completely stolen by the game in the plastic bag, I don't bother wondering who she is.
Mana: "Welcooome... Oh, hey. It's you."
Mana: "Good news. That gamer with the terrible appetite is finally going to play a mainstream game."
Mana: "Yep, the SLF I recommended to you before."
Mana: "Hehehe. Hizutome-kun is the type who uses the same player name everywhere, so if you look for him, you'll probably find him."
Mana: "...Man, a maiden in love is strong."