Slap, slap, slap…
Lunaria regained consciousness after being smacked on the cheek a few times. She had intended to cut the man’s arms off from the elbows with one flash of Brynhildr, but instead she felt only the sensation of the sword swishing through air.
“Oh, you can slash okay, huh? You don’t hesitate at all. Good, good.”
“No, it’s not good! What is this place? Where am I?”
Leaping to her feet, Lunaria saw that she was in a domed, hemispherical space with little to nothing in the way of decor. No entrance or exit was visible. There wasn’t any clear light source, either, though she could still dimly make out her surroundings. The walls and floor were made of a strange, slightly rubbery material—not stone, not wood, and not metal, either.
“This stage was picked automatically for us. People call it ‘virtual reality’ or something. I don’t know if I can explain all the details.”
Was it that he couldn’t explain, or that he didn’t need to? One thing was clear to Lunaria, though—she was currently being held captive.
“You said something about how she trained in here. Was that just an excuse to drag me inside? Did you plan to lock me in here…so I would miss tomorrow’s match?”
“I wouldn’t do something like that. I brought you here to win. In fact, I plan to help you win.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“I had them set the number of reps to infinite, the sensory level to ‘real,’ and the pain level to ‘one hundred percent realism.” You shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between this space and reality. In other words, um…”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I didn’t quite understand.”
“Oh, the details don’t really matter. Basically, if you get slashed, it’s gonna hurt, and dying will be really scary. That’s what I meant.”
“Well, isn’t that a given? Why go out of your way to inform me about something so obvious?”
The man held up a sword. What is he going to do? she thought—and then the sword came thundering down.
“Heyyy! Wakey-wakey! You’ve revived already.”
Slap, slap, slap…
The sensation brought her back. She’d intended to cut the man’s arms off from the elbows with one flash of Brynhildr the moment she opened her eyes, but she felt only the sensation of her sword swishing through air.
Just like before, she thought. The next moment, Lunaria leaped to her feet.
“Huh?! Wh-what…?! I… Did I die?! Was…was I dreaming?!”
“No, not dreaming. I definitely killed you. See? With this sword right here.”
He showed her the weapon. It looked brand new, like it had just been taken out of the forge. Lunaria was pretty sure he’d used it to kill her a moment ago…
“Oh, maybe I’d better keep the blood visible… Change settings: Continue body repair, but keep any scattered blood, flesh, and bone in place. Right, ready to start again?”
“Huh? A-again? What?”
He came at her, sword raised—and before she knew what was happening, Lunaria had been cut down once again.
“Hellooo! Wake up, already.”
Slap, slap, slap…
The sensation brought her back. She blinked a couple of times, and instead of slashing away with Brynhildr, she leaped back, keeping a prudent distance between herself and the man.
“You…you killed me just now! You killed me! With that sword in your hand!”
The pain still lingered. That was no dream. She really had been killed! Cut in half, even!
“Yeah, I sure did,” he said, like it was no big deal. He showed her his sword. It was dripping with a hefty dose of fresh blood. Her blood. He gave the sword a big swing, sending all the gunk flying. It splattered on the floor.
There was something strange about the whole motion. He seemed almost too used to this. The way he shook the blood off was far too natural…like he had slashed people down hundreds of times before. Or maybe even more—thousands or tens of thousands.
“Um…”
“Okay, wanna try dying again?”
“Whoa! Please wait just a minute!”
Sword in hand, he smiled brightly at Lunaria as he approached. She held out her hands, desperately trying to stop him.
“What’s wrong?”
He stopped, much to her surprise. He understood speech after all! He wasn’t a brutish orc incapable of language!
“Please stop killing me! I don’t want to be killed! Why are you doing this?!”
She attempted to appeal to his kinder side, holding out faint hope that he could be persuaded. If he could comprehend human language, surely there was room for negotiation here!
“Why? Well, I mean…”
He took a moment to think, tapping his shoulder with his sword.
Yes! Keep thinking! Think about how it’s not good to keep killing people!
“…You said you wanted to get stronger, didn’t you? Like…am I wrong?”
He was wrong. Completely wrong. Killing people over and over again in the most gruesome of ways… Of course that was wrong.
“Where is this place, anyway?!” she demanded. “Why do I keep getting resurrected even though I’m supposed to be dead? And why do I keep getting killed in the first place?!”
“Ohhh, okay. Right, I haven’t explained all that yet.”
“You’ve been massacring people without even explaining why? Have you lost your mind?!”
“Well, dying’s pretty scary, isn’t it?”
“Listen! Listen to me! Please! …Yes, it is scary, okay?”
“And that fear slows down your movements. You’ve got only one life, after all, and you don’t want to lose it, right? When you’re fighting someone you know you’d never lose to, you do great…but as soon as the possibility of defeat enters your mind, you can’t give it one hundred percent anymore, can you?”
He was right. It hurt. He had her dead to rights, and it hurt. Though the only opponent in Lunaria’s life that had a nonzero chance of defeating her was Earnest.
“Because of that, when you fight an equal opponent, you wind up weaker. You can’t even use half of your actual force. If you’re evenly matched, you should have a fifty percent chance of winning—but with you, that winds up closer to zero. At that rate, you’ll never beat anyone stronger. I bet you’d lose every time if you thought a fight was hopeless. Am I right?”