"More persistent than I expected. Or maybe you really know nothing at all."
The calm, flat voice was exactly the same as it had been two minutes ago, without the slightest change. But when the three players collapsed on the ground, that voice had somehow become the whisper of a ghost.
"You're only in your forties level-wise, right? Looks like you're nothing important after all."
Satoru sounded mildly disappointed as he pulled the Kur Statue Relic Blade and Flameforged from where they had been deeply embedded in the floor. As the curved sword and straight sword scraped across the crystal-like ground, they produced a harsh, piercing shriek.
"I got a little cautious and used a few trump cards, but it really wasn't necessary."
He lowered his gaze to the cracked floor where his weapons had gouged fissures into the surface.
The environment of a labyrinth zone could not be altered unless it was specifically destructible. That was dictated by the system's physics engine, an absolute rule like a law of nature. Even if someone unleashed every Sword Skill they had, the only result would be a purple system popup saying [Cannot Be Destroyed].
But the man's green blade and red sword had forcefully denied that iron rule.
Deep confusion and terror filled the eyes of the three players sprawled on the ground.
They were not lying on the cold floor because they wanted to.
They simply could no longer stand, or even sit up properly, by themselves.
All three of them had lost both legs.
Their virtual bodies were under the Amputation Debuff. Movement was impossible. At best, they could prop up their upper bodies with their hands, assuming a ridiculous pose like dying fish struggling upright.
They had not even been given time to react before this ghost-like man reduced them to such a miserable state.
"I'll ask one last time. You really don't know?"
The icy voice descended from above.
The three men struggled to keep themselves propped up, but their trembling posture looked more like begging for mercy.
"We don't know... We've never seen some weird guy wearing a rain cloak!"
An answer well within expectations.
Still, it irritated Satoru.
This was already the third time.
And his time was limited.
By using his position as Vice Commander of the Divine Dragon to strengthen himself, there was probably no second player in the entire game who could rival him in raw character strength during this period. Those people hiding in the shadows were also doomed to slower growth. If they faced him directly now, he had more than enough confidence.
Once this period ended, he would not be able to remain so free and leisurely.
Even if they seemed to have vanished completely afterward,
that would only be the moment of silence before a viper's ambush.
Satoru lit a cigarette.
"Just now, you were thinking of doing something to that little party, weren't you?"
"What? We don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm not asking. I may be an incompetent fisherman, but I still know a little about what kind of catch I'm after."
He looked down at them.
"The severed-limb state will wear off once enough time passes. Then you'll be able to move again."
The three glanced at one another.
"But I don't have the leisure to wait for you to recover, and I'm too lazy to waste expensive medicine on you. So just wait obediently."
He was not going to attack again?
The three of them quietly let out breaths of relief.
"Of course I'm not going to kill you. That would be troublesome. Even attacking you like this turned my cursor temporarily yellow."
Satoru continued.
"I only hope you can survive."
Huh?
He looked at their puzzled expressions.
"This isn't a safe zone. You know what you might run into here, don't you?"
The three instantly turned pale.
"No need to worry so much. You're all over level forty. Getting surrounded by Floor 26 monsters should be nothing, right? And your hands still work. It may be a bit harsh, but if you try hard enough, you should still be able to use Sword Skills while lying on the ground."
Satoru glanced toward a goblin slowly approaching from nearby.
"One last reminder."
He stepped around the three bodies and walked toward the labyrinth exit, tossing the words back coldly.
"It'll take about an hour and a half for the severed lower-half state to recover."
"Goblins call friends if you don't deal with them immediately. And you aren't low-level players who'll be defeated quickly, either. So it looks like the joke everyone used to make during the clearing days..."
He never looked back.
"A grand melee with all nearly one hundred goblins in the labyrinth zone might really happen for once."
Behind him came the shrill cries of goblins, mixed with the screams of the three nameless players.
...
Floor 36, Ruyekas, 6:00 PM.
Pushing open the door to his rented inn room, Satoru walked straight to the bed and slowly sat down.
The brilliant golden twilight shining through the glass window cleanly divided the room into two halves. One side glowed red beneath the lingering sunlight, while the other had already sunk into the dimness of evening.
Half of Satoru's body was covered in the afterglow of the setting sun.
His back remained gray, untouched by light.
He naturally lowered his head and stared at the patterned carpet on the floor.
Silent.
Impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Several minutes later, as if waking from a trance, he quietly materialized a cigarette and a match from his inventory, then struck a spark.
Sizzle.
The sound and effect of the tobacco wrapped in white paper burning were simulated with astonishing realism. The rising smoke became even clearer under the faint reddish light, drifting in free, wandering trails before him.
He took a slow drag, making the ember at the tip flare brightly. The old-fashioned hand-rolled cigarette, lacking a filter, somehow felt more real at that moment. The fullness in his lungs brought him satisfaction. He exhaled, disturbing the air before him and scattering the naturally rising veil of smoke.
This game experience truly was the worst he had ever had.
He closed his eyes and pressed a hand against his forehead.
No switching accounts.
Only one life.
And survival here was almost no different from reality.
Even so, he had still made a mistake.
After that mistake, a series of choices in true Satoru fashion had once again become inevitable.
How irritating.
Even though he felt a sense of déjà vu, he was still being forced to walk this road.
The mistakes people make, no matter how tiny or unnoticed, always leave traces.
Some people know how to plan their lives well, so they move more smoothly because they make fewer mistakes.
Others only wake up when it is already too late to turn back.
In games where you could live more than once, anyone could have endless chances to start over.
Because of that, someone could reach a future completely different from his own.
The irony was that this time, that chance no longer existed.
He silently inhaled the illusory nicotine.
What was the optimal move?
For someone trapped in this cat-and-mouse game, what was the optimal move?
For someone tied to a vague and accidental bond, what was the optimal move?
His eyes were hollow.
What he was doing now was the optimal move.
But the optimal move built on top of a mistake would, in the end, still turn into another mistake.
Yet...
There seemed to be no other choice.
It was like telling one lie.
To cover it, you had to tell many more.
Ever since that night outside the Town of Beginnings, he had moved forward carrying guilt.
Still, being selfish for the sake of survival could hardly be called despicable.
After all, were there not plenty of despicable people like Coper?
If he had not been more cautious, there would have been no future afterward.
Then after that, was it wrong to make use of his abilities in this virtual reality?
He opened the skill menu and looked uncertainly toward the final slot.
No.
Because the existence of that itself was proof of him.
Then what about removing threats to himself and becoming somewhat colder?
Was that wrong?
Had he not seen that kind of face far too often in the other world?
Had it not already become common sense?
As for her...
Under these circumstances, letting that guy who seemed reliable and unreliable at the same time meet a group of players, so that he would at least have companions to cooperate with in the future, was that also wrong?
None of it was wrong.
All of it seemed right.
But only seemed.
This contradiction spreading outward from his heart like thorns kept stabbing at his nerves.
So in the end, where had he gone wrong?
He frowned and gritted his teeth.
Then slammed his fist hard onto the bed beside him.
...
"Nero, when you were little, did you ever think about what kind of person you wanted to become?"
The two of them sat on a grassy hillside somewhere on the 20th Floor , planning to spend another night outdoors.
Leaning against the lone tree behind them, they gazed at the star-filled night sky. Even though the dark underside of the next higher floor loomed not far away, it could not diminish the brilliance of the Milky Way.
"When I was little... Ultraman, probably. Later I thought Kamen Rider looked cooler."
Satoru paused, showing a rare trace of embarrassment.
"That's pretty shallow," Sheeta said with simple honesty. "What about later?"
"Later... a rich person, I guess."
Satoru thought for a moment.
"Isn't that even shallower?"
"Actually, I also thought about becoming a rich lady's kept man. But I guess the conditions didn't allow it."
"Eh?! W-Wait! Isn't that becoming less and less of a dream?!"
"Because when you grow up, you realize there are no monsters in this world."
Satoru thought for a moment.
"And it wasn't just me. The boys in my kindergarten class all dreamed of becoming Ultraman. We even formed some kind of defense force and found a little place for our secret base. But later, everyone changed."
"What a short-lived heroic spirit!"
"That's true, but... maybe... from the very beginning, there were never any heroes."
Satoru spoke quietly.
"It was only the overly beautiful fantasy children had about the world."
When you were little, seeing light made you think of justice.
When you grew up, seeing headlights only made you think, damn it.
"So what do you do now?"
"Manual labor."
Satoru said it, then gave a faint smile.
"When I was little, pretending to fire laser beams, I probably never imagined I'd grow up hauling bricks."
"What about you? What did you want to become back then?"
Sheeta paused, a flicker passing through her eyes as she looked at him.
"I'm not telling you."
"It's probably something even more embarrassing than mine."
Satoru sighed.
Because the girls in his kindergarten class had all wanted to become Sailor Moon.
...
Satoru did not know how many absent-minded drags he had taken before realizing the cigarette was already gone.
Above them, the setting sun had long since given way to the bright moon.
He closed his eyes helplessly.
Then laughed at himself.
"A hero?"