Chapter 14: Those Who Rise Up
<Southern Dark Continent, Gramfil, the City-state of Slaves and Criminals >
SHACKS dotted the barren land. It was too much of a shantytown to be called a city, much less a city-state. It was barely hospitable enough for people to survive, and those who did lacked any semblance of energy to call it a life. The city was originally established as a refuge for political prisoners, criminals, and escaped slaves from all over Idoragya. But contrary to the fierce ambition they once held, their refuge had become a place of death and finality for the many listless losers who extended their miserable lives there.
In this ending place where losers tended to wash up, one man did nothing but loudly sob and lament his lot in life.
“Uh-aah…wuaaaaah….!”
He was slightly too young to be called a man. His black hair was shortly cropped, and his clothes were too nice for this country. The design didn’t even seem to be of this world.
Was he around middle-school age? Tormented by something, the boy had been letting out anguished wails in his shabby hotel room for the past few minutes.
“It’s over. I’m over. It’s all over.”
Tears spilled ceaselessly from his bleary eyes, and his cries of despair echoed painfully in the dim room.
The boy’s name was…
“There’s no way this trash could ever win. It’s always like this with me. I can’t win when it counts. No, I can’t even win when it doesn’t count, so there’s no way I could when it does!”
The young man’s name was Keiji Kuhara.
“I’m soooo sorry, Soalina. I’m soooo sorry, Fenne. I knew you had high hopes for me. I know I told you to leave it all to me. I’m soooo sorry for being a pathetic loser! I wanna die! I just wanna die already!”
Keiji’s life became that of a loser’s once he had suffered defeat at the hands of Takuto Ira. He had picked a fight with another Player without ever showing himself, and ended up losing his subordinate, Witch Erakino, and almost losing all his powers as a result. Ultimately, Takuto had to withdraw so his fangs never turned toward Keiji, but Keiji had lost nevertheless.
“And…and…aaaaaah, I can’t. I’ll remember what happened again. Why am I still alive and well when you aren’t? You were the strongest woman! The ultimate woman I created! Your settings, your manner of talking, your clothing, your skills…all of it born from my imagination. The first woman I ever made and loved, even though I can’t do anything but lose at gambling!!” he wailed.
But there was an entity that would not allow him to lose. The god assigned to the TRPG faction: the Dice God. Outraged by his disappointing results, the Dice God sealed the majority of Keiji’s abilities, turned him into a boy, and hurled him down to the land of man.
Keiji could rot here, or he could rise up and try to make a comeback. Such was the capricious decision made by the dice, and it resulted in Keiji’s survival. Although the man himself was already in a broken state of mind…
“I wanna dieeeeeeeeeeeee! Lemme die, Erakino! Just lemme die already, ERAKINOOOOOOOOO!”
But even a loser like Keiji had something left to cling to.
“SHUT YOUR TRAP!”
“Ooooof!”
A powerful kick connected with Keiji’s abdomen, sending him tumbling into the rickety wall. Surprised by the sudden attack, Keiji, his face crumpled and distorted with tears, turned toward the culprit. It was a girl he knew well.
“Do you want some cheese with your whine?! Pathetic! You’re still a Player, no matter how much you suck at the game! Sure, most of your abilities were sealed and you’ve been turned into a shota as a penalty, but you’re still the Game Master, aren’t you?!”
Witch Erakino.
She was the TRPG faction’s Witch, and the NPC Keiji had created. She was his most trusted and unrivaled subordinate. Her existence was definitively lost during the battle with Mynoghra. And now that Keiji had most of his GM Authority sealed, he couldn’t resurrect any characters.
How could Erakino be there?
“Ugh, sorry, Erakinooo…”
“Penalty Kick!”
“Guaaaah! Wh-What was that for, Erakino?!”
The girl called Erakino landed another solid kick to Keiji’s stomach. Eating a direct hit from an NPC like her would inflict serious wounds to even a Player. But since he got by with just a few tears, a cry of pain, and a word of complaint, she obviously went easy on him.
Her purpose seemed to be to scold this pathetic man into shape. She crossed her slender arms and glared down at Keiji, displeasure written all over her pretty face.
“Injecting you with motivation! And would you stop calling this aberration Erakino already?!”
The girl had repeatedly told Keiji to stop. Yet he made the same mistake constantly. This was a reality he couldn’t ignore.
“What you see here is just residue. A remnant of the Witch’s settings. An empty shell left by a bug the Dice God couldn’t be bothered to erase.”
The girl standing before him, as she had in the past, was no longer the girl he knew. She was lost long ago, and what he now saw was merely an afterimage. Her cache.
Erakino was…
“Erakino is…already dead,” she reaffirmed.
She had disappeared right before his eyes, after all.
“Uuaaaaaaaah…” Keiji wept and curled in on himself.
He didn’t normally possess such volatile emotions. To begin with, Erakino’s origins were unique. She was a character he had created through tireless trial and error using his GM abilities.
The twenty-second Erakino he’d created. The twenty-second Erakino he’d poured his heart and soul into.
That’s all she was.
But that’s where things went wrong. A man who had been unable to do anything, unable to create anything, whose self-esteem had hit rock bottom, and whose pride had rotted away, had finally created something that he could be proud of. That he could boast about. That’s why he couldn’t forget about the twenty-second Erakino—the girl who was already lost.
“Call this aberration Echo. That’s the agreement. Get it through your thick skull that she is different from Erakino. This is important.”
No matter how much this girl called Echo tried to reason with or scold him, he just continued to moan and cry, unable to forget the woman he’d lost.