“Hello and welcommme.”
Before I knew it, I was no longer in my room, but in a space that appeared to be the study of a Western-style, wooden building. The voice had come from a cat I had never seen before, which sat in front of me on a seemingly well-made, wooden rocking chair.
...A cat?
“I’m sorry for the intrusion,” I said. I was confused, but decided to respond with a greeting first.
“Yes, that’s niiice,” said the cat. “I like people with proper mannerrrs.” The cat spoke in fluent Japanese, but with a slow drawl at the end of his sentences.
“Is this like the game’s tutorial or something?” I asked.
“That’s riiight. You’ll be sent into the game after you finish configuring various settings herrre. Oh, I’m Cheshire, control AI No. 13 for Infinite Dendrograaam. Nice to meet youuu.”
Control AI... I see. No wonder it’s able to use fuzzy logic in its responses.
Control AIs are man-made cyber intelligences with entire modern supercomputers serving as their brains. Their primary uses, as the name suggests, are in control and management. It’s said that just one of them can perfectly, and at high speeds, manage the databases and networks of a small country.
If this one is No. 13, does that mean there are twelve other control AIs of equal ability involved in managing this game?
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said.
“All riiight,” said the cat. “First up is selecting the graphiiics. Samples of these will alternate, so choose which one you like the best, okaaay?”
After the cat... Cheshire... said this, the surrounding scenery completely changed.
The study I turned into a spacious area — a somewhat Middle Ages European townscape. There were many people walking about, and after a fixed period of time, their appearance would change. Actually, it wasn’t their appearance, but rather, the way I saw them was changing. It went from a realistic appearance to CG, from CG to anime, and then back to realistic.
“...Wait, how are you doing this?” I asked.
“Imagery perceived by sight is processed by the brain, after all, so there’s a waaay,” replied Cheshire. “And so, the way you see can be changed like this, but which one will you go wiiith? You can change it later by using an itemmm.”
“I’ll leave it as-is,” I said.
I thought it would be better to see normally until I got used to the game, so that’s what I did. Although I was interested in how it would feel to touch something that looked like it was from an anime.
“Okaaay,” said Cheshire, and the scenery reverted back to the study. “Next is your player naaame. What do you want your name to be in the gaaame?”
“I’ll go with Ray Starling.” This was a name I had often used in games before. It was simply a distorted version of my first name and the English translation of my last name, Mukudori.
“Okay, then I’ll set it to thaaat,” said the cat. “Next, the settings for your appearaaance.”
After Cheshire said this, a featureless mannequin and a bunch of window screens appeared before me. These screens contained words such as “height,” “weight,” “bust,” their corresponding sliders, as well as facial features.
“These are...” I said slowly.
“Use those parts and sliders to make your own avatar for the gaaame,” said Cheshire. “Oh, you can also make it into an animal like me, or even change your genderrr.”
No, I’m not so sure about changing my gender in a game this realistic...
“It’s okay to take your time and think it overrr,” said Cheshire. “We have three times the amount of time here than in the real wooorld. ...Oh yeah, there was that one time when someone repeatedly logged in and out and spent one month in Earth time making their avatarrr.”
That’s a tremendous amount of effort and concentration, so I don’t think I’ll be able to go that far.
It wasn’t just because of the sheer number of sliders and parts, but the values you could set for each of them were way too exact. It was almost like they were telling me to make a real human face.
For a beginner, that’s way too difficult, I thought. In that case...
“Can I just use my real appearance as the default and make some changes to that?” I asked.
“You can do thaaat,” Cheshire said and waved his tail.
The mannequin turned into me.
“Now you just need to make some changes using this as your baaase,” said the cat.
“Thanks,” I said.
It was fairly simple after this. I left most of the settings the same, but changed my hair color to blond, and changed my ethnicity as well, which altered my face. While I worked on this, I wondered about what my face would look like if I set it to anime or CG. I’d be able to see it if I played without changing any of the settings, but... no, it’s better that I don’t play online with my actual face.
And like that, I finished creating my avatar after about thirty minutes or so.
“And... finished,” I said.
“Okaaay. Then I’ll hand over your starting itemmms.” Cheshire waved a padded paw in the air and a bag fell from empty space. “This is your storage bag, also known as your inventoryyy. The storage space inside it is from a different dimensionnn. You can store items in here if they’re yours, but on the flip side, you can’t put any items in here that arrren’t.”
“I see,” I said.
It’s a useful bag, but I guess that means it can’t be used to commit crimes.
“Well,” Cheshire continued, “if it’s an item that dropped from someone you PKed, or one that you stole with the Steal skill, then it’ll go innn.”
I fell silent. I don’t know what to say to that.
“By the way, if a player’s Steal skill is high enough in level, they can steal an item from even inside this 4D pocket-like item baaag,” the cat said. “So be carefulll.”
Now just how exactly am I supposed to be careful against a thief that’s capable of stealing from the fourth dimension?
“This bag is for beginners, but there are also other types, such as ones that are tough to steal from, small ones, and ones with a lot of capacityyy,” the cat said.
“What is the capacity of this one, by the way?” I asked.
“The size is about equal to one classroom, and the weight is maybe around one ton in Earth measuremeeents.”
“It can fit quite a lot,” I said. “That’s plenty.”
“It’s apparently not enough if you’re a merchant, thooough,” said the cat. “They’re likely to buy new onnnes. Oh, item bags will scatter their contents around if they get destroyed, so pay attention to their durabilityyy.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said.
“Next is a set of beginner equipmeeent. Ray, what will you piiick?” Cheshire pulled a catalog from a bookshelf and showed it to me.
In it were full sets of various types of armor. There was the typical Eastern and Western style armor, but in addition to these, there were traditional outfits from China, India, the Middle East, and South America. On the opposite end, there were even outfits that seemed to be from Sci-Fi movies.
“I’ll go with this, then,” I said, choosing a combination that consisted of innerwear, a jacket, jeans, and a bandana. The look vaguely resembled the male protagonist from a masterpiece game of the last century.
I played retro games as well as modern games thanks to my brother, so although the look was a bit behind the times, it matched my tastes.
“Okaaay. What will you pick for your first weaponnn?” the cat asked.
I turned to a different page in the catalog. All kinds of weapons were listed, including a wooden sword, a practice sword with a dull blade, a knife, a bow, a sling, and a staff.
I should choose something that matches my outfit.
“I’ll go with the knife,” I said.
“Okaaay. So for your weapon and equipment... Wazaaaam.” It was hard to tell if Cheshire’s voice was energetic or not, but as he said that, my appearance changed. My outfit switched to the one I had just chosen, and a knife now hung from a belt at my waist. Most impressive of all, my appearance had changed to mirror the avatar I’d made earlier.
“Wow, this is something else,” I said as I looked at myself in the full-length mirror Cheshire had provided. It looks pretty good.
“Oh yeah, that’s right, here’s your starting moneyyy.” Cheshire handed me five coins that appeared to be made out of silver. “Five silver coins is worth 5,000 lirrr. One rice ball costs about 10 lir, by the waaay.”
Then 1 lir would be about 10 yen, I thought. In that case, 5,000 lir is a lot of money.
“Is it okay to get this much in the beginning?” I asked.
“Yep. Be sure to learn how to make money before it runs out, thooough,” he said.
In other words, I probably won’t get any more after this, so I should use it wisely.
“Well then, it’s finally time to transfer your Embryooo,” he said.
“Oh, the thing in all the rumors!” I said.
Embryos.
I’d heard they were the greatest feature in Infinite Dendrogram. They offered true uniqueness and evolved in infinite ways based on the player. They were partners that exceeded the likes of items and equipment.