Episode 9: With Him, I Can Fight, Even at 'The World's End'

"Kiryu-san! You keep clipping into the wall! It's making you look less than human—are you okay?!"

"...! Sera, you managed to get here somehow. Good."

Without faltering a single step after landing, Kiryu-san turned to me and said that. His face was slightly contorted, probably because hitting the wall still hurt.

"My forces have reached a point where they don't need my help anymore."

"The enemies here can be handled if we leave them to Nick and the Army of Hell. The area's clear now."

"You truly never cease to amaze me... I did ask if you had any ideas to hold them off temporarily, but I never imagined you'd actually create a system to do just that."

"It's thanks to your Zombie Lure plan, Kiryu-san. If I'd been alone, I probably wouldn't have coped and would have died."

I shrugged, a wry smile on my face.

"If anything, you're the amazing one, Kiryu-san. I'd completely forgotten about the wall-clipping bug. I couldn't believe it when I heard about it, but so there really is a way out of this game world, huh..."

"Yeah. If you keep hitting this wall from this spot, your position seems to shift forward, bit by bit, allowing you to get outside this wall."

Kiryu-san gestured towards the wall with his chin. I nodded along.

"I see, that's amazing. But... um, Kiryu-san. Nick and the Army of Hell are doing their jobs perfectly, so it feels like we can have a strategy meeting safely now, without having to force our way out of the game's boundaries."

"..."

"..."

"...B-But I still want to try and get out."

"Ahaha, alright. I'll go with you."

When I couldn't help but burst out laughing, Kiryu-san scratched his head, looking awkward.

"I mean, I just want to see it. You can wait if you'd rather, you know?"

"Now that you say that... hmm, what should I do, I wonder."

It looks like it'll give me a headache though, I thought, giving a wry smile and tilting my head.

"Why do you want to go beyond this wall, Kiryu-san? Is your game developer instinct kicking in?"

"That's part of it, but more than anything, I want even the slightest hint about how to escape this place..."

As soon as he said that, Kiryu-san sighed, a melancholic air about him.

"...The more I consider what this place is, the less I understand. If this really is a game world, then games always have bugs. Just like this wall here."

As he spoke, Kiryu-san tapped the fence's wall.

"...A hacker doesn't just forcibly punch a hole through a solid wall. They slip into the system through pre-existing glitches, test all sorts of behaviors one after another, find more bugs, and hunt for an exploit they can control.
...I still don't really get what this world is. But bugs definitely exist here. If that's the case, then by patiently verifying every bug, perhaps we can find a path back to our original world... That's what I'm thinking right now. And, Sera,"

Kiryu-san, a head taller than me, looked down with a serious gaze.

"I believe... you have the ability to survive in this world. The ability not to give up even in this desperate situation, to keep acting until an opportunity arises, I suppose. But that alone won't get us back to our original world. Just surviving isn't enough. So, I want you to leave finding the path to our original world to me, the game developer. Together, I'm sure we can handle this. ...You know this game inside out, and cracking is my specialty, after all."

"Kiryu-san..."

"It'll be alright, Sera. We'll definitely make it back to our world."

Saying that, Kiryu-san smiled at me. It was the slightly clumsy smile of someone unaccustomed to smiling.

"...You're right. Let's definitely make it back alive."

Kiryu-san's smile was infectious, and I couldn't help but smile back.

Even if Kiryu-san weren't a handsome otome game character, I think his smile would have reassured me.

It's only been a short time, but his presence has helped me so much. The thought of what might have happened if I'd been wandering here alone is terrifying. I turned my gaze behind me, looking up at Downtown where zombies and NPCs were slaughtering each other.

A hellish landscape spread before me, black smoke coiling upwards and monsters rampaging.

I've been thrown into an unbelievable world, and it's still terrifying, but at least I'm glad I met this person...

...With this person, I can fight.

Making small talk, searching for a way to escape.
Even in a world so steeped in despair, if I'm with him...

"...Let's go see what's outside the wall together, Kiryu-san."

I said, turning back to face him. This was my declaration of a united front. Whether it's clearing a game or verifying bugs, it's better with two people than one.

At my words, Kiryu-san looked pleased for some reason and proposed, "Thank you. As a token of my gratitude, I'll let you go first."

"...Kiryu-san, why do you look so happy?"

"Well, I was just so pleased to find someone who understands my hobby, I couldn't help it."

"Hobby? You mean poking at bugs?"

"Things are always more fun when you can share them, right?"

"You like poking at bugs that much...?"

"Honestly, it's insanely fun. I don't think there are many things in this world more interesting... But well, enough about that for now. Sera, you ready? Stand right here. Press yourself right against the corner of the fence... yes, that's it. And from that position, jump towards the wall with all your might, over and over. Then, you'll gradually pass through the wall."

"Got it... sounds painful, though."

Though slightly scared, I did as Kiryu-san said. I squeezed my eyes shut and began repeatedly banging my head against the wall.

"Ugh!! Uuuuugh..."

Yep, my head really hurts. But since this seems to be the only way, I'll just keep popping medicinal herbs into my mouth and jump with a blank mind.
...Then, at a certain point, my head suddenly stopped hurting.

"Sera, you don't have to jump anymore! You've passed through safely!"

I heard Kiryu-san's voice from the other side of the wall. I slowly opened my eyes.
And there, an astonishing sight spread out before me.

—The 'end of the world' Kiryu-san had spoken of.

"This place is...!"

I opened my eyes and stared, dumbfounded, at the world unfolding before me. There was a cluster of apartment buildings, far more dilapidated than those in Downtown.

I know this place... It's the Slum District...

From the cracked glass windowsills, several pieces of laundry, the color of dirty rags, hung out to dry, and an abandoned bicycle lay on the narrow street. Anything sellable had been stripped from it; even its wheels and saddle were gone.

The Slum District.

An area I'd seen several times but never actually played in spread out before me.

If I remember correctly, it only appeared in a pre-release promotional video and ended up being a scrapped stage... right?

Rummaging through my memories, I looked around. Perhaps because it wasn't an official stage, there were no zombies or enemies in sight. But an even more abnormal sight greeted me.

The background is floating in the sky...

A chill ran down my spine. Numerous crudely drawn images of trees, buildings, and the like were literally floating in mid-air. I recognized every single one of those images all too well... Of course I did. I'd seen these images countless times as the 'distant background' while playing the game. It was an abnormal scene, yet I understood what it meant... I couldn't help but understand.

I knew the scenery here was like this from videos of people glitching into the Slum District that were uploaded online, but...

The clusters of buildings and trees, looking as if drawn on thin wooden planks, vaguely reminded me of stage props. But... no matter how you looked at it, stage props wouldn't float in mid-air. This place definitely wasn't Japan. It was an abnormal world.

—Can we really escape from this overly abnormal world?

"...Seeing it like this really forces the reality of it on you, doesn't it?"

A voice spoke, and I instinctively glanced to my side. Kiryu-san, who had arrived sometime after me, was standing there. He was pressing a hand to his head and grimacing, likely from banging his head repeatedly to get through the wall.

"Literally a game-like otherworld, huh..."

"A game-like 'otherworld'? Kiryu-san, isn't this inside a game?"

I tilted my head, and Kiryu-san closed his eyes as if enduring pain.

"Yeah. The bugs seem to be intact, but for a mere game, the level of polish in 'everything else' is strangely high. That bothers me. For example... look, I have a crowbar and an Infinite Machine Gun stuck in the belt of my pants on my back, right? A game character couldn't do that even if they wanted to."

Saying so, Kiryu-san spun around to show me his back, and sure enough, a crowbar and a machine gun were indeed stuck there.

"Whoa, that's dangerous, Kiryu-san. ...Well, you're right, a game character couldn't pull off a move like something out of that shonen manga Hibi█o Hare█uya. Wait, you even brought my weapon for me? Thank you."

"You're too careless. You know what kind of world this is. You shouldn't let go of your weapon."

Kiryu-san sighed. Then he cast a melancholic gaze at the surrounding scenery.

"...Things that shouldn't be possible, are possible. Things that shouldn't exist, do exist. If you were to actually create a world like this in a game, the number of parameters you'd have to calculate would be enormous, the physics engine would break down... it wouldn't even be a game anymore."

"Hmm, true. For zombies to roam so freely, and for us to move around so freely... I've never seen a game with this much freedom."

I shrugged, looking around again.

"So it's technically impossible, huh?"

"Yeah. It's better to think of such an outrageous world as a fantasy otherworld rather than a sci-fi one."

Kiryu-san narrowed his eyes and spoke, his sharp gaze fixed on the empty space.
We were silent for a moment. I gazed at the flimsy-looking buildings floating in the cloudy sky, vaguely pondering our chances.

Can we make it back alive, I wonder. And what's happening at the ward right now? Are they in an uproar because I disappeared? Or has real-world time stopped until we can return...

As I was thinking such things, Kiryu-san next to me started banging on the wall and throwing pebbles he'd taken from his pocket onto the ground. Then he looked at his feet, at his own strangely distorted shadow, and muttered,

"...The shadow map resolution is still high even after passing through the wall... Same as before I passed through."

He was muttering things I couldn't understand at all.
Is he verifying bugs or game specs...? Just as I was thinking that, the pebble Kiryu-san had placed at his feet phased through the floor and disappeared, making my eyes widen.

"Wha... Whaat?! The physics engine isn't working here?!"

"...So it seems. If you walk around too carelessly, you might clip through the floor and fall forever, ending up in what the bug-hunting video community calls the 'can't die, right?' state. So it's best to be careful."

"N-No way..."

"Well, if you fall, you fall. No use worrying too much."

"...Just a moment ago you were telling me to be super careful... So even for you, Kiryu-san, curiosity can outweigh caution, huh? Right now, your face is practically screaming, 'Poking at bugs is so fun I can't stand it!'"

"Ugh."

After giving a wry smile to a chagrined-looking Kiryu-san, I looked around. I didn't really understand what Kiryu-san was saying, but I could tell this place was even more abnormal than the last.
I have to be careful...

"...Ah. Ah, something just occurred to me, Kiryu-san."

"What is it?"

Kiryu-san, who had been violently bashing some trash with his crowbar like in a Har█Life bug-testing video, turned towards me.

"I still think we shouldn't rule out the sci-fi angle. What if we're actually trapped in a world like Lanceart Online?"

I said to Kiryu-san, sitting down as close to the wall as possible (a spot I hoped was safe). At that, Kiryu-san looked exasperated.

"You and I were both swamped with unpaid overtime until just a little while ago, weren't we? When would we have found time to play a game?"

"Um, well, maybe our memories are just mixed up about that part. You know how VR—Virtual Reality—games are all the rage, right? What if bad guys captured us without us realizing, knocked us out, and now we're being used as test subjects for the latest VR game developed by some secret underground government organization! ...How's that for a theory?"

"Impossible."

Kiryu-san chuckled and lightly patted my head.

"You can clearly feel that I 'touched' you just now, right?"

"Yes, I can."

"Me too. I can clearly feel that I'm 'touching' you right now. In a normal game... it's impossible to get this level of haptic feedback. If a player pushes or hits something with their hand in a game, you need an actuator that can push back with the same amount of force. If you can't create a device that generates that kind of force, you can't reproduce the sensation of 'touching' or 'being touched.' And no game console has managed that yet, nor is there any prospect of one doing so."

"Grr, sci-fi is pretty deep, isn't it?"

"It's not sci-fi. It's cutting-edge technology that can be achieved to some extent even now with large-scale equipment."

"Hmm... I don't really get it, but it sounds like a lot of trouble. It seems hard to cram such a complex mechanism into something like game gloves."

"Yes, that's exactly it."

Kiryu-san nodded.

"So, if we really were trapped inside a popular VR game, the texture of objects should feel much more hollow, and collision detection for walls and people would be cruder. The field of view, or FOV, shouldn't be this wide either, and the entire view would be much more pixelated."

"Hmm, I don't really get it, but it sounds like it would be pretty shoddy. That's a shame. I thought it would be interesting if we were inside a VR game world."

Kiryu-san gave a wry smile at my words.

"I agree it sounds interesting, though. But first, if this were a VR game, shouldn't we be able to get out just by taking off the HMD—the Head-Mounted Display—on our heads?"

"Didn't Lanceart Online involve connecting the game directly to the brain? That's why they couldn't get out even if they wanted to, or so the story went."

"That's the most impossible part. How would you connect a game console to the brain? The technology they had in that story doesn't exist yet. Are you going to crack open skulls and stick electrodes directly into the brain, or maybe grow a USB port on the back of someone's neck?"

"No way—that’s lame and gross!"

"Besides being gross, I doubt anyone would want to do something like that 'just for a game.'"

"Huh? But maybe a few people would!"

"A few people wouldn't be enough for a game company to turn a profit. ...Something with no clear demand will never be developed. I think we can dismiss the 'trapped in a VR game' theory for now."

Kiryu-san shrugged, laughed, and dismissed my speculation. Then his expression suddenly turned serious.

"Still... this is bad. If we've really wandered into some game-like otherworld, then what on earth is the key to escaping...?"

"..."

At Kiryu-san's words, my face twisted as if I'd bitten into something bitter.
—How can we get out of this world? ...I have absolutely no idea either.
The utter lack of prospects made me want to cry. But right now, something else was bothering me even more.

"Also, um, Kiryu-san. I've been wondering about this for a bit."

"What is it?"

"Are we... stepping on someone?"

"..."

Kiryu-san and I looked down at our feet at almost the same moment. A purple mass lay at our feet. Our feet were firmly planted on it.

"Whoa, we really were stepping on them!"

Not her body, just her skirt. I hurriedly moved my foot and helped the fallen person up... It was a girl. Judging by her opulent appearance, she probably wasn't an NPC. She was like us... a human borrowing the appearance of a game character.

【Character Introductions That Are Utterly Unhelpful for Understanding the Main Story】

■ HMD
Read as Head-Mounted Display, or HMD.
It refers to that bulky, box-like machine thingy you wear on your head when playing VR games. The VR boom once fizzled out in the 1990s, but it was reignited in 2012 when a certain young man unveiled a handmade HMD and launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise development funds, leading to a resurgence of the boom.