“Ah—another day come and gone without any major disasters!”
I tucked myself into bed with a leisurely sigh of relief. There really was nothing better than going to bed with nothing to worry about and no work on your plate, knowing you’ll be able to sleep like a log. I always felt way healthier when I got a full night’s sleep, too.
Viva the highlands lifestyle!
That evening, however, a peaceful night’s sleep simply wasn’t to be. No sooner had I climbed into bed than a telepathic voice rang out in my mind.
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Hello there, Azusa!
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Ugh—that was definitely Godly Godness’s voice! Is she about to ask me to help her with something obnoxious again…? I really wish she’d stick to bothering me in the daytime, at the very least. Calling someone right as they’re going to bed is illegal, dang it!
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Oh, but this time, I’m asking you for something you couldn’t do during the daytime! In fact, it’s something you can only help me with while you’re asleep!
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Oh, I think I know what that means… Are you dragging me into another weird alternate world? What is it with you and these weird sleep learning-adjacent schemes…? You’ve already sent me to a world made up of nothing but slimes and a world that was basically just an action game, remember?
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Oh, I do indeed! And as a matter of fact, I’m currently developing another new training program for my followers. I was hoping you’d be willing to play-test it for me again! Thanks so much for being such a good sport about it!
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Being a good sport about what?! I haven’t even agreed yet! Stop assuming I’m in!
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This was another collaborative work between me and one of this world’s most renowned game designers, Pondeli! I wrote the whole story myself, and she helped with the programming! Now it’s all up to you, Azusa. Please get in there and save the digital world we created!
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Huh? You want me to save the world? That’s kind of a big ask, you know…?
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The next thing I knew, I found myself standing in a mysterious new world.
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“Again? Seriously?”
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Those two words summed up my feelings on the matter in a nutshell, honestly.
The last time this had happened, I’d ended up in a very pixelated, video game–like world. I found myself looking at a similar landscape now, but this time, the graphics had received a conspicuous upgrade.
The sky above and the town around me looked way nicer than before. Flowers were blooming here and there, and I could even see a river flowing off in the distance. In gaming terms, it was like we’d moved up to a new, more advanced console generation—like we’d upgraded from an Entertainment System to a Super Entertainment System, shall we say.
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“I see you’ve wound up in this world as well, Lady Azusa. I will do my utmost to help you overcome this trial!”
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I only know one person who’s that stiff with her greetings. That’s gotta be Laika!
I turned in the direction her voice had come from, and lo and behold, Laika was indeed standing nearby. Or, rather, a jagged, pixel-art version of Laika was standing nearby.
“Laika! You look like you belong in a video game world!”
“And your body is oddly blocky and angular, Lady Azusa!”
I took a look at my arms and legs, and found she was right. I was just as pixelly as she was!
Just then, writing started scrolling through the sky overhead.
“Dedicating an awful lot of space to the workers’ rights disclaimer, aren’t you?!” That is so obviously not the part of the backstory that’s most in need of clarification!
That said, I now had a pretty clear idea of what Godly Godness was going for this time. Most likely, I was in an RPG world. To clear this game, I would have to defeat its final boss: the elder god from the preamble.
My best guess, by the way, was that the elder god role would be played by Dekie, a literal elder god. She seemed easily powerful enough to fill the final boss role. As for the demon king, I had to assume she’d end up being a mid-game boss. She would be played by Pecora, because of course she would.
You know what? Compared to the unnecessarily hard action game I had to deal with last time, an RPG feels like it’ll be totally possible to progress through steadily as long as I take it slow. Psychologically speaking, this’ll be way easier than the last game.
Just then, the word “Warrior” appeared above Laika’s head.
“Looks like you’re playing a warrior, Laika. Counting on you to hold down the front line!” I said.
“Of course!” Laika agreed. “And incidentally, the word ‘Hero’ is currently displayed above your head, Lady Azusa.”
Oh, so I’m a hero, huh? Looks like I’m getting the real protagonist treatment.
“All right! I have a feeling the two of us aren’t going to be traveling as a duo for very long—I’d bet there are a few other party members somewhere out there for us to find. I’d like to track them down quickly, if we can,” I said.
Considering this game had character classes, it would feel very odd for us to be forced to go through the whole thing with only a hero and a warrior. Generally speaking, games like this would have other recruitable party members with other classes available somewhere.
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It turned out, though, we didn’t have to go searching for familiar faces at all. A pair of them found us before we had the chance.
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“Aha! I knew I’d find you here, Elder Sister!”
“T’would seem the two of you are unusually angular today, I see.”
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Pecora and Beelzebub came strolling up to us, just like that.
“Huh?!” I gasped. “Wait, the demon king’s showing up already?! Isn’t that a huge problem for us?!”
If this game’s working on RPG mechanics, there’s no way we could win that fight right now! We’re still level 1, for crying out loud…
“No need to worry, Elder Sister. Look, look!” Pecora said as she pointed above her head. The word “Wizard” was floating up above her.
Oh, so they’re party members? Beelzebub had the word “Cleric” floating above her, as well. It seemed the four of us were this game’s starting party.
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“So you’re telling me the real-world demon king is going on a quest to slay the in-game demon king…? Talk about confusing.”
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This seems like a pretty obvious miscasting, if you ask me.
“Please try to play the character you’ve been assigned, Elder Sister!” said Pecora. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m just Pecora the wizard right now. My dearly beloved elder brother was taken away by the demon king’s army, so I became a wizard and set out on a journey with the hero to search for him! That’s my backstory right now.”
“I guess you’re one of those types that goes all-in on the RP, huh?” Though the fact that the in-game demon king is deeply involved in her character’s history just makes this more confusing than ever.
“I, meanwhile, was born into a noble house,” said Beelzebub. “Being the youngest child, however, I was sent off to a monastery and forced to become a cleric. ’Tis an almost upsettingly grounded backstory, I must say…”
Yeah, she’s not wrong about that. It totally seems like something that could’ve happened to her in real life.
“If we’re sharing our backstories, I lost everything after a dragon attacked my village and burned it to the ground,” said Laika.
“Okay, again: That’s a serious miscasting! You couldn’t possibly have less in common with the character you’re playing!”
“Nor would I ever be so villainous as to burn down a village. I know very well those who commit such misdeeds will never amount to anything in life…”
“Ah, yeah, don’t worry. Of course I believe you, Laika…”
Part of me wanted to question whether having people from a world with actual dragons and demon kings play an RPG was a good idea, but on the other hand, there were plenty of TV dramas set in modern Japan back in modern Japan. Maybe it wasn’t that strange after all.
“What’s your backstory, Lady Azusa?” asked Laika.
As I considered the question, a backstory seemed to pop into my mind out of nowhere. “Um… Apparently I had absolute faith starting from a young age I was the hero. That’s…all? I guess…? I, um… I think I might just be some delusional weirdo who’s convinced herself she’s a hero?” Isn’t that a pretty weak backstory compared to the other three?
“Well, ’tis simply how these matters go. Becoming a hero is as simple as declaring yourself to be one before anyone else beats you to it,” said Beelzebub.
“That’s right,” said Pecora. “Plus, giving the protagonist too complicated of a backstory makes it harder for the player to self-insert! It’s possible the developers made your history deliberately simplistic.”
“I guess you have a point…”
Being consoled by two demons felt like it flew in the face of RPG storytelling as well, but it was high time I stopped applying real-world logic to this experience. And so our four-person party set off on our RPG adventure!