Chapter 334: Reunion Doesn't Always Mean Shared Joy

Please stop! Every time I write your lines, the shadow of a BAN flickers before my eyes! (But I won't stop.)

One minute until the world ends.

Full-dive VR is, in short, something like a dream. Getting stabbed in a dream doesn't make you bleed in reality, and even if you scream until your throat gives out, once you wake up you'll probably be able to sing normally.

Even so, amid exhaustion that makes me instinctively think, This is definitely going to affect me in real life, the blade of magic I swung vanishes when the system judges that it has fulfilled its role, bringing a brief silence between me and that bastard.

Sunraku: "...It's all too late now, but I avenged you guys anyway."

There is no longer any way to overturn the fact that this world... Spell Creation Online, is shutting down.

The player I just cut down was the original cause of everything... I think the current name was "Nutcracker" or something... but in order to fight back against the damage Nutcracker caused, we also went and attached shitty, insanely difficult incantations to all kinds of magic.

It's not unusual for an online game to lose players and turn inward toward its regular crowd. But once it starts rejecting newcomers, it's already too late. Spell Creation Online reached the end of that road.

The game was saddled with the reputation of "toxic players causing trouble for newcomers while fighting among themselves" and officially decided to end service. The idiots of the Shimonetania Empire, and the morons who resisted them...

Some promised their friends they'd meet again in another game. Some disappeared without saying a word. Either way, neither this world nor the connections we spun within it would remain unscathed. Somewhere, something would be severed.

Thirty seconds until the world ends.

That was why, when this bastard sent me an invitation to "settle things" at the very end... more than wanting payback for all the taunting, I felt even more strongly that I couldn't let this asshole, who kept coming back with a grin no matter how many times they got banned, win and walk away from this game.

Looking back now, it was hopelessly stupid. Even so, the "magic" built by players with the same goal, all making a racket together, ended up helping defeat the mastermind at the very, very end.

With only a few dozen seconds left, there wasn't even time to bask in the victory. But at the very end, I had unquestionably slammed a defeat into them.

Nutcracker: "—Aha."

Sunraku: "...Tch. A resurrection spell? At least have the decency to despawn at the end."

Nutcracker: "Ahahaha! Amazing, amazing, Sunraku-kuuun... I can't believe you actually overpowered me at the very end!"

Fifteen seconds until the world ends.

Laughing. Sneering. Nutcracker laughs as though saying, This game is the best! right at the very end.

Nutcracker: "The full version of Death Metal was already plenty entertaining, but... I can't believe even I lost..."

Sunraku: "I wasn't going to let you win and run. Not if I could help it."

Nutcracker: "Kukukukuku... vengeance, is it? A good old Japanese tradition. No, truly magnificent."

The voice changes. From a deep man's voice to an old woman's, Nutcracker possesses the bizarre real-life skill of instantly imitating even the voice of the person they're currently speaking to, and stares at me with a smile that says they're having the time of their life.

Nutcracker: "This is the best... the fucking best, Sunraku-kuuun... I still can't believe there was someone who could keep up with me when I got serious."

Five seconds until the world ends.

These will almost certainly be our final words to each other.

There are endlessly many insults I could choose from, but the world would end while I was deciding. So I'll just tell them how I feel right now, as simply as possible.

When I raise my head, apparently the other side has reached the same conclusion... They look at me with eyes so clear you'd never believe this was the culprit who destroyed the game, and we speak at the same time.

Sunraku: "—I never want to see you again."

Nutcracker: "—Let's meet again."

A natural tone unlike any of the voices before it. The first time I've heard that voice. But the enormous mass of emotion packed into it feels as though it's being driven straight into my spine...

Zero seconds until the world ends.

Deep Throater: "I'm so happy... I'm sooo happy...! I searched for you in all kiiinds of games, but I couldn't find you anywhere and I'd just about given up... Guess camping out in SLF was the right call after all, huh?"

Well, before SLF, pretty much all I played were trash games—the sort of thing you had to rummage through bargain bins to find. And even before that, the odds of running into the same player again in another game are about as low as running into them in real life... and this freak was searching for me the whole time?

Sunraku: "Can't you put that persistence toward charity or something...?"

Deep Throater: "Ufufufufufu. Goodwill is nothing more than a whim of electrical signals in the end, Sunraku-kuuun..."

Why they're here doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that matters is what they're after.

Sunraku: "What the hell are you after...? Revenge? Fine. Bring it on."

Deep Throater: "That sounds good too... But you see, Sunraku-kun, this humble samurai would rather become good friends with a worthy rival such as yourself."

『Deep Throater has sent you a friend request.

"Let's have face-to-face chat sex!"』

Instantly rejected.

『Deep Throater has sent you a friend request.

"Let's have face-to-face chat sex!"』

Rejected.

『Deep Throater has sent you a friend request.

"Let's have face-to-face chat sex!"』

Declined.

『Deep Throater has sent you a friend request.

"Let's have face-to-face chat sex!"』

...Cancelled.

『Deep Throater has sent you a friend request.

"Let's have face-to-face cha—

Sunraku: "You're persistent as hell!!"

Deep Throater: "I'll chase you to the bottom of the earth until you accept... y'know?"

Report! Where's the report command!? While I desperately search for the report command I never thought I'd actually have to use... Hey, stop trying to link arms with me!

As I shake off Nutcracker-turned-Deep-Throater and work the window, a confused Tottori speaks to me.

Tottori: "Hey, I heard from Deep Throater-san that you two knew each other from another game... What happened between you?"

Sunraku: "So YOU'RE the culprit——!!"

This bastard was an accomplice... No, wait. It's not like Tottori clearly snitched on me, right? This is that dirty-joke bastard's specialty: building "good friendships" with complete strangers and creating a network of goodwill.

Operations leak because people act with good intentions, weaknesses get exposed somewhere you don't even know about—it's unbelievably troublesome.

Pencilgon tends to use businesslike connections instead. Money, items, things like that—bait people with them and make them sell out their allies... They're both awful in their own way.

Sunraku: "...Haaaaaah... How do I put this... it's true we know each other from another game, but we weren't friendly."

Deep Throater: "That's why we're going to become friendly from now on, Sunraku-kuuun..."

Sunraku: "Shut up."

This village is finished. There's no choice but to burn the whole place down along with this pervert.

Maybe Deep Throater sensed that I'd made peace with becoming a red name, because they raise both hands in a sign of surrender and start explaining with a stupid grin.

Deep Throater: "No, no, wait, wait, Sunraku-kun. I really, truly ain't doing anything outta malice. ...Sure, if you take the dirty jokes away from me, there ain't nothin' left, so I do use a name like this, but still..."

Emul: "The voice changed, wa...!"

Deep Throater: "I can do this too, wa?"

Emul: "Ah, th-that's my voice, wa!?"

The mature woman's voice changes after a single breath into the voice of a small-time, sleazy-sounding man. Then Deep Throater grins at Emul's words, and what comes out of their mouth is Emul's voice itself, reproduced through mimicry that goes beyond ordinary voice imitation.

So Voice Change is still their specialty...

Deep Throater: "Trust me... okay?"

It's not a question of whether I trust them or not. In my head, Deep Throater—Nutcracker—is categorized as an "enemy," so the problem comes before that.

Deep Throater: "Even I, y'know, am playing Sage, one of the highest-tier mage jobs that's still pretty rare in this game, so I can be useful... right? Well, it's not like I've gone and done anyone in one shot yet!!"

Sunraku: "Peh."

Deep Throater: "Hey, hey. If this were real life, I'd be collecting the spit you just spat out, y'know?"

Sunraku: "I really do have to kill you here..."

Deep Throater: "Waaah, joke, joke! It's just a dirty joke to liven up the conversation!"

That's the single least trustworthy line imaginable coming from someone who once destroyed a game with dirty jokes.

Tottori: "Look, I don't really know what happened, but calm down... Deep Throater-san is amazing. They use a Teleport Gate to move players between continents and stuff."

Sunraku: "Huh?"

A Teleport Gate...?

Deep Throater: "I kneeeew it. Looks like Sunraku-kun has some idea what a 'Gate' is too. And from what I can see, you're the one who can use it, aren't you? Cute little bunny?"

Emul: "I-I don't want you asking that in my voice, wa!"

Deep Throater: "...Je t'aime, adorable little bunny. Wanna have a nice, deep talk with meee?"

Emul: "Gyaaaaah! Stop using Sunraku-san's voice too, waaaaah!"

Hey, hold on. Screaming in terror at my voice—what the hell is that supposed to mean? Depending on the answer, we're holding the second Duxram, Blade of Aspiration trial session. That aside, Deep Throater apparently wants to die.

Sunraku: "........."

Deep Throater: "Oooh, Sunraku-kuuun. You've gotten awfully convincing when you hold a sword like that, haven't you? Let me guess... you're copying someone, aren't you?"

Tch... sharp as ever. Well, I guess that's only natural. After all...

Both copying by sight and role imitation. Trace them back far enough, and they're techniques I stole from this freak.

Sunraku: Balances adaptability and reaction speed at a high level.

Sylvia: Gives up some adaptability in exchange for extremely high reaction speed.

Deep Throater: An absurd monster of adaptability, but with ordinary reaction speed.

That's roughly how it breaks down.

If it's one specific game, Sylvia wins overwhelmingly. In any game, though, the more time Deep Throater gets, the more impossible they become to deal with, while Sunraku can generally fight reasonably well in any game from the start.