Chapter 76: Epilogue — Their Present and Next
Kei: "Nn, guaaah... man, I'm beat. Gotta get back in shape by next week, huh."
In a room that surpassed the gaming setup Rakuro Hizutome had in his own place — in both price and scale — Oikatzo... Uomi Kei pulled himself upright. He wasn't a pro gamer just for show or on a whim. As a player known not only in Japan but also in America and Europe, renting out an entire apartment room for gaming alone was a trivial matter for Kei.
Kei: "Man, Shangri-La Frontier really is an amazingly well-made game, though... I only meant it as a bit of time-killer."
Neatly ordered shelves of game software lined the walls. With a tournament coming up in a week, the kind of forced march he'd just pulled — energy drinks and all — wasn't something he should be doing. But it was true that the fearless grins of two friends had swept him right along. Kei downed a sports drink in one go, then checked his mobile terminal as he headed to the bathroom.
Kei: "My opponents are 'Ivy Express'... they suck at meta-gaming, so it'll probably work out. Which means... hm?"
Good news and bad news displayed on his mobile terminal. Kei furrowed his brow and thought. The faces that came to mind were those of the two people he'd just fought through hell alongside.
Kei: "No, that's a bit much, even so... but if we're throwing her at them, those two are honestly a pretty viable option... Well, it'll work out somehow."
He tossed the terminal aside and stepped into the bathroom. Just before it entered sleep mode, the letters "GGC" were displayed on the screen...
Rei: "Big progress... big progress for me...!"
Removing her headgear, Rei Saiga reached for a plastic bottle of green tea — likely left by the housekeeper (not store-bought, but homemade tea transferred into a plastic bottle) — and quenched her dry throat with a small victory pose. How many times had she passed him by? She'd started Shangri-La Frontier purely as a stepping stone to get familiar with the games he played, but now it had become a goal in itself. Not that she felt nothing about that. Still, it had paid off, and she was managing to communicate with him more than ever before. She had nothing but gratitude for her older sister Momo, who'd semi-forcefully brought Rei into her own clan as a player senior.
Rei: "A-At this rate, getting closer and closer, and eventually..."
Eventually, a real-life friendship. Some might say she could just talk to him in real life and be done with it — but Rei knew all too well that while it sounded simple, it was incredibly difficult. And there was another reason for her good mood.
("When I first saw that woman, I was really shocked... but gaming buddies, yes, just gaming buddies...")
Arthur Pencilgon. Rei — as a woman herself — recognized her natural poise, and from her sister's attitude, she was almost certainly Towa Amane herself. When Rei first realized this player was close to him, she'd felt a despair akin to crossing a crumbling suspension bridge only to have an obese giant wreathed in flames fall from above onto her. But friends? Friends were safe. Safe.
She couldn't shake the feeling that Pencilgon was several steps ahead of the position Rei was currently aiming for, but she averted her eyes from that fact.
Rei: "Do your best, me... no, seriously!"
Was it fortune or misfortune that Rei Saiga — Psyger-0 — didn't know that he... Rakuro Hizutome — Sunraku — currently had her pegged as "a dangerous individual who mercilessly obliterates players, even if it's PK, seriously bad news"?
After parting ways with Oikatzo in Thirdrema, I used the last teleportation-magic scroll I'd swiped from Pencilgon to warp to Rabituza.
Sunraku: "Alright... what are you doing, Emul?"
Emul: "Fwah! S-Sunraku-san?!"
For some reason, Emul had her head buried in a pillow on the bed. She sprang up at my voice and her eyes went wide. Ah, right — I hadn't switched my headgear back yet. Where's my bird mask... there, there.
Sunraku: "Look, it's me — the bird person Sunraku-san — back without respawning."
Emul: "Fweh... FWEEEEEEEEEEHH?!"
Sunraku: "Oof!"
With the leaping power of a rabbit — a Vorpal Bunny, no less — Emul launched herself straight into my gut. I barely managed to plant my feet and keep from toppling.
Emul: "That's amazing...waaaaa! I was so worried...wa! Sunraku-san, you beat Wethermon...waaaaa?!"
Sunraku: "Come again?"
Emul: "I'm gonna go tell Daddy...waaaaa!!"
And off she went. Not that it matters, but the slightly grubby echo of "...waaa... ...waaa... ...waaa..." bouncing through the halls gave me a weird sense of déjà vu and got a small snicker out of me.
A few minutes later, I stood before Vash with Emul on my head — still impossible to tell if she was sobbing or laughing.
Emul: "Hic... hic... ...phbbbtt!"
Sunraku: "Wait — did you just blow your nose?!"
That was a handkerchief, right? Tell me that was a handkerchief. Please let it be a handkerchief.
Vash: "Oi... you good?"
Sunraku: "Ah, yeah."
Vash: "Well then, let's hear it... How was that 'half-dead bastard'?"
Sunraku: "He was strong. At the very least... uh, well — incomparably stronger than that Losers Whatever thing."
Barring bugs, I could confidently say he was among the absolute toughest in all the games I'd ever played. With bugs factored in, the default difficulty already included attacks more unreasonable than Severing Wind, so the strongest-enemy rankings got complicated.
Vash: "Gahaha... figured as much. That guy... did he pass on satisfied?"
Sunraku: "He praised us with a ‘Splendid.’"
Vash: "Yeah... yeah..."
Vash nodded deeply, deeply, then closed his eyes and murmured quietly.
Vash: "Nurture and open... might be about time."
Sunraku: "About time?"
Vash: "That's our business for now. Let's just say... you wanna know the truth of the world?"
Sunraku: "...Nothing I'd want more."
Epic of Vorpal Bunny... ahead of anyone else, I was about to step into the frontier of this world, SLF...!
Vash: "For that, though, there's a li'l somethin' you're gonna need."
Sunraku: "Yessir."
So before I step in, it's a fetch quest, huh.
Thinking how remarkably light she had become, Pencilgon smiled wryly as she dashed from Firstia to Thirdrema, then to the Prismatic Forest Grotto. With practiced, unhesitating movements, she deleted every single friend connection except Sunraku and Oikatzo.
Pencilgon: "There. Now I'm restarting as a completely clean slate — player Pencilgon."
The place held no value beyond its location anymore. But that was a value judgment from a third party; to Pencilgon, it was still precious. Beyond the moss that had lost its light and crumbled, through the dark tunnel, lay the field of red spider lilies. Pencilgon walked past the carpet of blossoms and arrived at the base of the withered cherry tree.
Pencilgon: "I'm flat broke, literally. On my way here, I scraped together money from goblins and such to buy this... Next time I come, I'll bring something a bit better. First time I've ever used an NPC flower shop, too. Ahaha..."
At the spot beneath that dead, lifeless, yet still-standing tree where she had always spawned, Pencilgon laid down a bouquet of white flowers.
Pencilgon: "When I asked what kind of flower it was since I'd never seen it before, I couldn't help but laugh... They said it's called Setsunatowa."
Naturally occurring, it bloomed in full in five minutes and withered in five minutes — a subtly difficult-to-obtain rare item. But once harvested as an item, the flower would never wilt unless destroyed. A flower that lives a moment, yet remains for eternity... thus named Setsunatowa. The flower from this fictional game was so "well-made" that Pencilgon almost suspected the devs had peeked at personal information and orchestrated everything from behind the scenes.
Pencilgon: "You called yourself a manuscript copy. But to me... that was the original. That was the real thing."
Even if she was just a single game character... she had shown joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness at Pencilgon's words, had responded to her. And yet, she was a game character.
Pencilgon: "Setsu-chan... I think I'll enjoy this world — this game — a little longer. Especially since you gave me some 'homework' to do."
"—If you wish to learn the truth of your own roots, the truth of this world, then seek out 'Bahamut.'"
Pencilgon: "Challenge accepted. Bahamut or whatever it is — I'll drag it out into the light of day, down to the marrow of its bones."
With renewed determination, Towa Amane — Arthur Pencilgon — threw herself into the game in earnest.
Wethermon the Tombguard. The man who bound himself by oath, who spent an eternity as a Tombguard, now slept. The remnant of the woman — who had held a wish so great it became etched into the world itself, who knew her lover's clumsiness all too well — had fulfilled her role.
The world advanced to the next stage. The pioneers' hearts raced with new unknowns. A new land was opened, and the "Great Voyage" was about to begin.
Shangri-La Frontier was heating up even further...