Chapter 1: New Game
…I’M dead.
Those were Takuto Ira’s final thoughts.
Darkness had consumed his consciousness and he’d long since lost control of his senses. Telling people he had an incurable disease sounded nice and dramatic, but it did nothing to help him accept a meaningless life confined to bed. Dying at just eighteen sucked, to say the least, but surprisingly, Takuto was at peace with his fate.
He was content with the years he’d lived and grateful for the miracle that introduced him to a game that he’d become so passionate about these last few years, it’d made his doctors and nurses worry.
He had so much more to say, but Takuto died satisfied with his life.
Or…so he thought.
“…Huh. Is this the afterlife? It’s kinda chilly.”
His consciousness sparked back to life.
Takuto opened his eyes to see greenery all around him. Shafts of sunlight spilled through the trees towering overhead.
His back was resting against something hard. He ran his hand over its smooth, solid surface and inferred it was some kind of stone dais. While he was still wearing the hospital gown he’d spent the better part of his life in, those burdensome IV bags and needles and ventilator mask were gone.
Heck; he felt healthier than ever.
“Haha! The air is so fresh.”
Cool air filled his lungs when he took a deep breath, and the vibrant green landscape sprawling in front of him prevailed over his memories of that suffocating hospital room.
Takuto was convinced this was the afterlife now that his illness-addled body felt as light as a feather. Just moving a finger had been a herculean task before he died.
“Have you awoken, my lord?”
Someone suddenly spoke to him as he patted down his body to ensure everything was in its proper place.
If his guess was right, the respectful voice belonged to a girl. Maybe she was an angel like he’d read about in stories. Sure, it was a ridiculous presupposition, but the impossible had already set in when he’d become self-aware after death.
I can’t be rude if she’s an angel here to guide me through the afterlife.
Takuto hastily straightened out his hospital gown and looked up in the direction of the speaker.
But the true impossibility was the girl herself.
Wait, what? What’s going on here?
Could his shock even be measured? No matter how many times he blinked and rubbed his eyes, the sight before him stayed the same. The girl stood there, silently waiting for him to come to grips with his inner turmoil, as if she knew what he was thinking.
Mousy white hair, somewhat like ashes, bore striking contrast against her jet-black dress. Gold accessories accentuating different sections of her body twisted in ways that seemed to defy the laws of physics, yet worked in perfect harmony. More than anything else, it was the fathomless depths of her inhuman eyes that confirmed her identity.
Takuto knew the girl. Not only did he know her, but she was the one thing he wouldn’t forget, even if he died.
She was one of the Hero units from the dark fantasy empire-management strategy game Takuto had played unceasingly throughout his illness: Eternal Nations.
“Could it be you…Atou?”
“Yes, my king.”
He could never forget his favorite character from the game he’d played to his death.
Whether she intuited his bewilderment or not, the girl called Atou answered him with a soft smile and a gracious bow.
“‘King…?’”
Takuto was overcome by a slight sense of uneasiness and a wave of confusion. He didn’t have enough time to figure out what was happening to him, but the one thing he did understand was that she was showing him respect. He didn’t want to disappoint.
Disappointing a character from his favorite game was the last thing he wanted to do. It was nothing more than vanity, but to the boy who’d lived knowing only the walls of a hospital room, not upsetting her meant everything to him.
Coming across as pathetic wasn’t an option.
If she views me as a king, then I must act the part.
Such thoughts hewed more toward deep-rooted delusion than sound thinking, but they quickly became Takuto’s conviction and the most important thing for him to achieve.
H-How do I do that though?! Roleplay?! If she thinks I’m a king, then I think that means I’ve become Mynoghra’s commander… Maybe I just have to act like one? But how?!
“Hehe…”
“…?”
Her soft laughter caused his heart to throb painfully. If Takuto had been in the hospital, a team of doctors and nurses would be racing into his room about now. Fortunately, his current body didn’t fall apart that easily. Not that it did anything to help him understand the meaning behind the girl’s smile either.
“It’s all right, King Takuto.”
Her gentle words were enough to diffuse the tension. But the next thing she said shocked him even more.
“You are the legendary player Takuto Ira! Renowned for being the first player to clear Nightmare Difficulty while playing as the hardest civilization, Mynoghra the Civilization of Ruin. Your brilliant strategies had you shining at the top of the official leaderboards!”
“H-How do you know that?!”
That was the legacy Takuto had left behind.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he’d spent most of his life in the hospital. He’d rarely had a moment to rest between all the tests and medications he’d undergone every day. His family was wealthy, but his parents didn’t seem to care about their sickly son. By the time they’d pushed him out of their minds, keeping their visits to the bare minimum, isolation had become his way of life.
But in his loneliness, he discovered his one joy in life: the 4x strategy game Eternal Nations. It was a turn-based game set in a dark fantasy world where players could play as various races and civilizations in their quest to conquer the world. A single playthrough requiring over a dozen hours made it an oddly ideal match for Takuto’s lifestyle.
He’d become so enthralled with the game, he’d eventually forgot all about his isolation—or rather, it left him no time to think about it. And then he’d made it onto the leaderboard, where he’d become so renowned, any player who took ranking seriously knew his name.
Indeed, Takuto’s greatest accomplishment that he’d prided himself on was clearing Eternal Nation’s Nightmare Difficulty, which was said to be unwinnable, with the hardest to use civilization, Mynoghra. He became a legend among players with his use of the unit called Atou—AKA the girl standing before him.