Chapter 1

0831 Revised

0916 Revised

That day became a special one for me, Tono Akiyoshi.

I began to tackle the latest and deepest map of Retro Fantasy Chronicle, an MMORPG I had been playing since its early days—commonly abbreviated as RFC.

The thought of being at the forefront of RFC's current challenges made my grip on the mouse tighten.

There are many fantasy novels that feature VRMMOs, where players dive into a virtual reality to play, but as of now, that technology has yet to be realized.

While some games can partially achieve a visual immersion, the technology to reflect commands to the avatar through the five senses or the brain's nervous system is still far from practical use.

So, the RFC I'm playing now is just a regular online game.

I sit in front of my PC, looking at the screen while using the keyboard and mouse to control my character.

And... on that screen, two male characters were shown battling a monster in a slightly open space within a cave.

One was a knight-like character wielding a longsword.

This was my character.

A frontline-type knight, as his appearance suggested.

The other character, a dark elf male who commanded beasts in battle, was named Isato.

Commonly known as "Uncle."

Despite his beautiful appearance as a young dark elf, his speech was that of a fully matured old man, hence the nickname. He didn't deny it, so it stuck.

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Isato: Ah, this is bad. I'm gonna die.

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A new message appeared in the chat log.

"Wh-What!?"

I groaned involuntarily as I checked the message.

Glancing at the party member list in the top-left corner of the screen, I saw Uncle's HP was already a vivid scarlet.

His remaining HP had dropped to a critical level.

If he took one more hit from the monsters around here, he would die.

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Aki: Uncle, use a healing potion!

Isato: I used them all, hehe.

Aki: Uncle...!!!!

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There was nothing cute about Uncle's "hehe."

Especially not in the deepest part of a dungeon no one had ever reached, possibly just before clearing it. It only fueled my anger.

Incidentally, "Aki" is the name of my character in RFC. Akiyoshi, hence Aki. Don't say it's a simple name; I know it best.

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Isato: Aki, do you have any extra healing potions?

Aki: I'll give you some, but first, try not to die...!!

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Uncle was so prone to dying that I wanted to comment on whether he was a manatee, but his attack power was abnormally high. The monsters in this area, which even I, a frontline character, couldn't one-shot, were easily torn apart by the beasts Uncle commanded.

So, if Uncle died here, his beasts would disappear, and all the monsters that were attacking them would rush towards me.

I would die. Plain and simple.

Even if I died, if someone nearby used a resurrection item, I could come back without any penalty. However, if either of us died, it was highly likely that the entire party would be wiped out.

After all, there were only two of us.

...How did we manage to get this far?

It had been a week since the official announcement of the new map.

The demonic cave that many hardcore players had challenged, only to say, "What kind of ascetic practice is this?"

The experience points weren't that great, the monsters were abnormally strong and spawned in large numbers, and the boss was constantly being healed by two minions.

If you tried to take down the minions first, they would continuously drain HP from the boss. If you damaged Minion A, it would suck HP from the boss, and Minion B would heal the boss.

If you attacked both Minion A and Minion B simultaneously, another problem arose. The minions wouldn't attack unless attacked first. So, if you attacked both Minions A and B at the same time, you would be targeted by the boss and both minions, totaling three enemies. The boss alone could easily cut my heavily armored HP in half with one hit. Add the minions' attacks, and you can imagine the outcome.

Given the chaos, it was hard to understand what the developers were thinking when they added this map.

Maybe they were just sadists.

Rumors were already circulating that the developers would patch the boss's stats soon.

The reason no one else was in the new map besides us was likely because everyone was waiting for the patch.

On the other hand, Uncle and I, being enthusiasts, thought we might as well enjoy the developers' sadism before the patch, so we decided to explore the dungeon on a weekday afternoon.

Uncle was a mysterious freelancer, and I was a college student with plenty of free time, which made this impromptu plan possible.

I swung my sword widely, activating a skill that knocked back enemies, and simultaneously clicked on Uncle to transfer items.

I gave Uncle about 70% of the healing items I had.

Relieved that the transfer was successful, I exhaled. I recalled the last time Uncle and I attacked another boss together. When we tried to transfer items, we both stopped, and Uncle was killed by a direct hit from the boss's laser beam. The sense of futility when I saw the system message, "No target to transfer items to," was overwhelming. I, too, became a victim of the laser beam. It was a disaster.

While Uncle often ran out of healing items, it wasn't because he was unprepared. If that were the case, I would have strangled him long ago. It was simply that Uncle used healing items about three to five times more frequently than I did.

Of course, Uncle was the one who used them more often.

Uncle probably came with the maximum number of healing items he could carry, but they still ran out.

In real life, this would be more than just a minor inconvenience.

Imagining the beautiful dark elf youth clutching his crotch and complaining about the urge to urinate, I couldn't help but smile.

"Uncle, you're hopeless."

This had become my catchphrase since I started hanging out with Uncle.

After all, Uncle had the firepower to one-shot enemies 20-30 levels higher than himself, yet he was as fragile as paper armor against enemies 10 levels lower.

Despite his troublesome traits, Uncle was always invited to parties, including mine, because of his personality. He was entertaining, and even if he wasn't much help in combat, playing with him was fun.

I could see Uncle's HP rapidly recovering thanks to the healing items I had given him.

It was now a war of attrition.

Would our healing items run out, or would we make a fatal mistake and be wiped out before we could deplete the enemy's HP?

Our current strategy was a straightforward and relentless frontal assault.

Uncle and I would attack the minions simultaneously and endure the attacks from the boss and both minions.

My fingers never stopped using the shortcut for healing items.

Even I was doing this, so Uncle was probably spamming the shortcut for healing while issuing attack commands.

We could endure this much because both Uncle and I had leveled our characters to a relatively high level.

Perhaps it was also because we didn't take the challenge seriously.

We were just sightseeing, thinking, "Let's see how far we can go."

The lack of pressure to clear the dungeon might have worked in our favor.

Or maybe it was the whims of the gods.

Looking back, it was a moment that could be called such.

Endless, almost sleep-inducing repetition of simple tasks.

Tapping the shortcut for healing items before my HP ran out and using the skills registered on the shortcut.

Skills had a cooldown period after activation.

During this time, we would spam normal attacks.

Once the cooldown ended, we would use the skills again.

How long had we been doing this?

I was starting to feel the urge to use the bathroom.

Of course, not in-game, but in real life.

However, as anyone who has played an online game knows, there is no pause function.

As Uncle would say, "No one can stop time, young man."

No, I couldn't hold it.

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Aki: Need to pee.

Isato: Hold it.

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It was a relief that "pee" was understood as a noun, but the response was even shorter and worse.

There are hardcore users who use bottles, but I hadn't reached that level and didn't want to.

I still valued my dignity as a human being. Of course, peeing in the room was out of the question.

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Isato: Well, we can't stop, and the left minion is about to die, so let's take it down.

Aki: Got it.

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Uncle seemed to be losing his composure, giving up on kanji conversion.

Getting distracted by chat was a common issue for Uncle.

From my bladder's perspective and the remaining healing items, it seemed like a reasonable suggestion.

Even destroying one of the minions of that insane final boss would be a good story to tell.

Once we decided, we didn't hold back and used all our power to attack the left minion. Uncle was casting spirit magic on the right minion to prevent healing.

Uncle's main skill was commanding pets, so even as an elf, his spirit magic wasn't very powerful. However, for this situation, it was enough to disrupt healing.

The higher the better, of course.

Uncle's griffin changed its target from the boss to the left minion, and the left minion's HP rapidly decreased under the combined attack.

The left minion was just a floating stone pillar, so it was hard to tell how much damage it was taking.

Finally, the red line indicating the left minion's remaining HP disappeared from the gauge.

The cracked stone pillar shattered dramatically.

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Aki: Uncle, I'm going to teleport before I die!

Isato: Okay!

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The items dropped by the enemy would automatically be stored in our inventories, so all we had to do was escape.

I confirmed that Uncle was within the range of my item's effect and opened my inventory to click on the teleport item.

I double-clicked the emerald-green teleport gem.

If this worked, we would be transported to the last safe zone we visited.

"...Emerald green?"

I frowned, speaking aloud.

If my memory served, the teleport gem had a light blue icon.

I might have made a mistake.

It was a common error to use a similar-looking item in a hurry.

The problem was that I didn't have any items that looked similar to the teleport gem.

This meant I had just used a rare item I had just obtained.

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Aki: Uncle, I'm sorry. I might have accidentally used a rare item that just dropped.

Isato: Kill it.

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"You're right."

Laughing at Uncle's reasonable reaction, I opened my inventory again and double-clicked the teleport gem.

"...Huh?"

Something was wrong.

Usually, a system message saying "Teleporting" would appear immediately after double-clicking.

It didn't appear.

Click. Click-click. Click.

I clicked a few more times.

"Teleporting"

It appeared.

But something felt off...

"...!?"

Suddenly, the PC screen turned white.

I had experienced a blue screen before, but a white screen was a first. Either way, it was bad for my heart. I started to have a bad feeling that I might need to replace my PC...

But the situation was even more chaotic than I imagined.

The white light from the screen filled the room.

It felt like a flashbang had gone off in front of my eyes.

Would this burn out the screen?

With that thought, my vision turned completely white and then went dark.

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