Two years later, the first portable game was released in Game&Watch, and a scant three years after that, the NES appeared. Another seven years, and it was time for the SNES. The PlayStation came out four years after that, and from then on, every time gaming advanced a generation, there’d be a new set of consoles.
And what surprised players every time was the progression of graphics. From the 8-bit NES to the 16-bit SNES. And once we entered the age of PlayStation, CG started to throw its weight around. Every time we went into a new generation, the CG lost its awkward movements and looks, and started to look much more natural and real.
Once, a nationally famous game company released their first game for the PS2; the kids back then must have been really surprised, like, “Oh man, look how real the CG looks!”
By the way, kids nowadays’ll look at the same game and say, “Wow, this CG does not hold up.” That’s just how far CG has come and how discerning people’s eyes are now.
But still, the evolution didn’t stop.
Graphics and games got better every generation, becoming closer to the real thing. Fictional worlds that could be mistaken for real pictures on the screen, and in that world, fictional people moved about, looking so real people might think that they used real models for it. It hasn’t been realized yet, but the VRMMOs that are the subject of so many novels might actually come to life one day.
But that was just the stuff of dreams right now. Doing something like moving all your senses into a game was still far too dangerous to do. It might actually happen someday. But that someday was, in fact, ‘some day,’ which means not now.
—So why is it that I’m currently the character I made in a game world, being shaken around on top of a carriage? If I knew this would happen, I would have made a dude.
“We can see it now, Miss Lufas. It’s the next city!”
“Yes, We see it, too. Don’t make such a fuss.” Dina, who was sitting in the next seat, shook me, making the already bad shaking of the carriage even worse.
The money I earned from killing orcs and the money Dina got from selling their meat somewhere came to 5500 el in total, so we were currently on a carriage traveling to the country of Svel.
Of course, Dina didn’t sell any of the best meat that raises HP, but just the other parts. (Well, it does seem that she also sold the fillets that had been damaged and lost their effect.) I did wonder just where she sold all that meat, but she does have the ability to teleport. It wouldn’t be surprising, no matter where she sold it.
Being able to move around so easily is enviable.
Moreover, it seemed like she was unable to teleport other people along with her. Apparently, in order to teleport someone else with a will, you had to either render them unconscious or have them agree to the teleportation. According to her, as long as there was some sort of sense of rejection or distrust in the target’s heart towards the user, the magic wouldn’t work.
Ahh, oh right.
As for my HP, I ate the other pieces of orc fillet, and now my HP is at 336100.
It’s kind of an ugly number and it does bother me a little, but whatever. I can ignore it.
“Thanks fer da patronaaage!”
I paid the driver and got off the carriage. And we started walking towards the gates protecting the capital.
There were several soldiers standing guard before the gates, and they seemed to be guarding the gate strictly.
Oh yeah, this place was under attack from one of the Twelve Heavenly Stars right now. Sorry for causing so much trouble.
“Stop there, you two!”
Stopped by the guard, we waited for him.
Yeah, of course we’d get stopped. I mean, I’m wearing a hood and mantle. No matter how you look at it, I’m suspicious.
“Past this gate is the country of Svel. Show me your entry passes.”
Entry......passes? Oh no, this is the first time I’m hearing of that.
There wasn’t anything like that back in the game...... —No wait, there was. Back then, the game was all about armies and countries, so in order to get into other countries, you had to go through your own and gain permission from the other country’s king. Now that I thought of it, that probably was this entry pass thing.
And right now, unfortunately, I had no such thing.
But unlike me, who’d made no preparations, Dina responded calmly, taking out several papers from her person before handing them over.
“Here. These are our entry passes. Please check them.”
“All right.”
What the heck is this super-competent advisor? She’s way too prepared!
She even got mine ready, too. She even winked at me, as if to say, “Don’t worry about it.”
“Hm, so you’re free merchants without any citizenship? Your names are Dina, and Sfalu. Looks like your papers are real.”
“There’s been more people around forging papers recently, you know? Well, anyone who’d be tricked by those has pitch-black holes where their eyes should be. Hahahah!”
Nice job having pitch-black holes.
I don’t have any sort of ID of my own, so that’s without a doubt a forgery.
Actually, isn’t my fake name way too simple? Sfalu......that’s straight up just a simple anagram of my name.
“Hm, you may pass.”
“Thank you very much.”
Having gotten permission, Dina put on a full-faced smile. But as we tried to pass, once again, a voice stopped us.
“Ah, wait a second. Just in case, you need to take off that mantle and show us your face. Sorry, but we need to make sure that you’re not a monster or a devil under there.”
Ahh, yeah. Of course this’d happen.
But, to be honest, I figured this would happen, so there’s not actually much reason to panic.
It’s true that I was world-famous in a bad way, but people only remembered my black wings. This world didn’t even have pictures or anything, so nobody would remember my face if they didn’t have long life spans and weren’t alive back then.
To put it simply, if Oda Nobunaga were to put on modern clothes and get a modern hairstyle, nobody would point at him while he’s walking through the streets and go, “That’s Oda Nobunaga!”
And these guards didn’t have wings or fangs. Their ears weren’t even pointed; they were clearly human. That meant that I should’ve been able to at least show them my face.
“Ahh, sorry about that. ......Here, is this fine?” I removed my hood and smiled at them.
I’ll say this now; I’m no narcissist. But I was a guy before, so I’m aware of just how earth-shatteringly beautiful I am right now.
The ones who know what guys like best are other guys. Like, just what kinds of movements, expressions, and attitudes make a guy’s heart race. I just know how to move to shake up a guy’s heart. It happens a lot in games, where guys who pretend to be girls online are more popular than real girls. This is why.
There’s no reason not to use this weapon.
“Forgive us, guard. If We don’t hide our face there will be no end of trouble in the streets.”
“Y-yeah......that’s true.”
“So? We want to go already, so may We pass now?”
Personally, I wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on a beautiful girl. Even if I was to never meet her again, if someone like me were to say, “I don’t want to get near that guard, he stinks,” I’d get pretty depressed.
Of course, there were differences between people, and, depending on the situation, he might even be a really brazen guy who’d say something like, “Come now, woman, don’t be cold like that.” But any healthy, upstanding man would have only one answer here.