Back in the familiar house, Sora Aratō turned on the living-room lights.
Familiar furniture.
Familiar mineral stones.
That ordinary scene pulled his drifting mind back out of gorgeous fantasy—and into reality.
Alice Kuonji's figure in the park still lingered in his thoughts.
It wasn't "love at first sight" or anything like that…
It was simply that something beautiful had left a deep impression.
"The world of mystery…" he murmured without meaning to.
His curiosity toward that dazzling, otherworldly realm only grew stronger.
He'd always had a preference for dreams that stood apart from reality.
And that fairy-tale witch had made him yearn even more for the unreal beauty of the hidden world.
"But if I want to explore it," Sora sighed softly, "the first thing I need is… power."
The earlier conversation with Alice had gone "fine" in a broad sense—
but the sensation that she could kill him at any moment had been genuinely unpleasant.
Ordinary society was a cage—binding you, binding everyone.
The world of mystery was wild—
it didn't just free you, it freed others as well.
If Alice Kuonji wanted to, she could kill Sora as easily as plucking a flower—without paying any price.
And after killing him, the hidden world wouldn't punish her.
Because mages killing each other was nothing unusual.
No report, no case.
No case, no crime.
…Well, that wasn't entirely true.
If Alice killed him, Aoko would absolutely pursue her to the death.
"Thinking about it like that," Sora joked to himself, "I'm basically only alive because of Aoko's face?"
But emotionally, he didn't relax at all.
He sat down on the living-room sofa, leaned back against the cushion, and slowly loosened his body.
A transparent screen appeared in front of him—
the interface of the Dream Game System.
[Game charging. Please wait until charging completes before starting again.]
[Extracting magical energy…]
[To ensure player safety, the Dream Game System will calculate the optimal charge amount and charge duration.]
[Countdown: 00:05:06]
Ever since discovering that entering the dream game could produce real rewards, Sora had tried to use it again.
But when he did, he found it in a "charging" state.
Just like the first activation required energy…
using it again also required sufficient magical power to be poured in.
Magic wasn't created from nothing.
It was energy produced by squeezing the user's life force through Magic Circuits.
In a sense, the Dream Game System preventing him from dumping too much mana into it at once was actually protecting him.
"If I improve my physical conditioning," Sora thought while staring at the countdown, "the charging time should drop a lot."
With only five or six minutes left, he didn't bother doing anything else.
He simply leaned back on the sofa and waited in silence as time flowed past.
Soon, the familiar voice sounded by his ear.
[Energy fill complete.]
[Welcome to the Dream Game System.]
[Before playing: the meaning of a game is only a game. Fantasy is fantasy; reality is reality. Do not completely confuse the two.]
Sora slid his finger across the screen.
Compared to last time, there was now a new icon—a shopping-basket symbol.
[Purchase page launched.]
A string of game images and descriptions unfolded before him.
He skimmed through it and realized that even the cheapest games cost 10 points.
[Tip: Each time the player completes a game task, the player gains 1 point.]
[The player can spend points to purchase games.]
[Current points: 1]
"So the store is basically just a carrot on a stick," Sora muttered. "In that case… I'm obviously going to freeload."
After flipping through a few entries and confirming he couldn't afford anything, he closed the purchase page outright.
Then the weekly featured title appeared:
[This week's limited-time trial game — "Dungeon World"][
[Summary: Dungeon World is a world filled with all kinds of monsters. Here, you can become an adventurer who hunts monsters—or become one of the monsters. Devour prey and strengthen yourself; survival is the only path.]
[Rating: Very Positive]
[Tags: Survival, Multiplayer, Co-op, Open World, Adventure, Combat]
[Price: 50 points]
[Countdown: 1:03:21]
[Detected: Player has cleared the instance "Giant Bee Hive."]
[The game is now officially open to the player. The player may explore and discover within the dungeon.]
[Enter this game?]
[Yes / No]
Without hesitation, Sora tapped [Yes].
Even if he had the points to choose freely, he would still prioritize Dungeon World right now.
Because—
closing his eyes, he recalled the magecraft Touko Aozaki had taught him—techniques inherited from the Coal Witch, Liddell.
After Touko's full night of instruction, his theoretical understanding still wasn't perfect—
but copying the procedure and forcing it out was doable.
"A magecraft that uses other beings' lives as fuel… continuously fattening yourself up and growing stronger."
And really—what could possibly be a better hunting ground for that kind of magecraft than the divine-age creatures inside Dungeon World?
Since his real body wasn't entering, Sora definitely wouldn't be able to bring back everything he gained when he logged out.
But if he could find a creature strong enough inside the dungeon and turn it into his own strength—
"At least I should gain some ability to protect myself," he said with a weary edge. "So I'm not like this anymore."
It was obvious: the encounter with Alice Kuonji had left him with more than just an impression of beauty.
Her danger had burned itself into him as well.
[Starting game…]
A mechanical voice rang in his ears.
In the real world, his body gradually became transparent and unreal—like a mirage inside the room.
And at the same time—
July 1995 — Reien Girls' Academy
Compared to the slow passage of time on Sora's side, Asagami Fujino had already lived through five or six months here.
Following Sora's instructions, she had tried to insert herself into the internet industry she'd only just begun hearing about.
Just as Sora said, she acquired a software development company and focused its projects on instant messaging software and search engines.
But the cost of all that…
Asagami Fujino—originally Asakami Fujino—was an adopted daughter who entered the Asagami family after her mother remarried.
In the past, the branch-family Asagami—who had risen by overthrowing their superiors—still needed the connections left behind by the main Asakami line.
They treated Fujino decently, and she was even granted a degree of inheritance rights.
But now, with her mother dead—
and with the era becoming increasingly modern—
everything the old Asakami line had left behind became expendable.
In other words:
Asagami Fujino no longer mattered.
Fujino—who had never asked for anything before—had recently made a request.
The Asagami family had no reason not to "grant" it.
Or rather… they'd been waiting for this moment for a long time.
Using a portion of assets as bait, they cleanly kicked her out of the family entirely.
"Will the future really get better…?"
Lowering her head, staring at the documents and letters in her hands, the "Lady Who Feels No Pain" whispered to herself.
In this moment, in the real world, she truly had nothing.
And that was one of the reasons she had never wanted to change things in the first place.
Once she chose to change, she would become exactly like this.
She leaned back on the bed, curled up, and sank into confusion.
That uncertainty was natural—because right now, she had no idea when she would be dragged into the instance again.
What if she never got pulled in again?
And just as that thought swallowed her—
[Ding — match complete.]
[Detected: Host has started. Join the game?]
[Yes / No]
The crisp mechanical voice rang out at her ear.
In an instant, her lifeless red eyes widened slightly—
and a joy too hard to describe surged up within them.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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