Staring back at him from the cloudy glass was the fat bullied kid, so hopelessly clichéd that if this were a TV show, people would roll their eyes at the stereotype. His hair had a strong will of its own, springing up here and there, and the curves of his cheeks held not even a hint of definition. His uniform tie and silver Neurolinker were eaten up by his flabby neck as if they were a tightening noose.
There was a time when he’d tried to do something about his appearance, when he pushed himself hard, practically giving up eating and forcing himself to go running. But the result of that effort was that he collapsed during lunch from anemia and ended up with the lunches of several female students, a now-legendary story that haunted him. Ever since, Haruyuki had been determined to ignore his real self—at least while he was a student.
He yanked his eyes away from the mirror and moved farther into the washroom, entering the private stall at the end. He made sure the door was locked and sat on the toilet with the lid down. The creaking and squeaking of the plastic under his body were old friends. He leaned back against the tank, relaxed, and closed his eyes. He chanted the magical incantation to release his soul from this cumbrous form:
“Direct link.”
Receiving his voice command, the Neurolinker moved up from audiovisual mode to full sensory mode on the quantum connection level, and the weight and the sense of hunger strangling his stomach disappeared from Haruyuki’s body.
The hardness of the toilet seat and the tightness of his school uniform were also gone. The laughing voices of students echoing in the distant schoolyard, the scent of cleansers filling the washroom, and even the featureless door in front of him melted into inky darkness and disappeared. Full dive.
Even his sense of gravity was severed, and Haruyuki plunged into the darkness.
Soon, however, his entire body was enveloped by a gentle floating feeling and rainbow-colored lights. The avatar he used during full dives began forming from the tips of his hands and feet.
Black, hoof-shaped hands and feet. Plump limbs and a ball-like torso a vibrant peach-pink. He couldn’t see them, but he should also have had a flat noise protruding from the center of his face and large ears hanging down. In short, he was a pink pig.
Wearing this ridiculous avatar, he dropped down with a thud in the middle of a fairy-tale forest in the Ministry of Education’s recommended design.
Giant mushrooms grew everywhere, and in the center of a patch of grass framed in a circle of light from the particularly bright sun, a crystalline spring bubbled up from the ground. On its outer edge, enormous, hollow trees formed a circle and towered over the area. The inside of each tree was divided up into several levels you could use to chat or play, connected by stairs. This virtual space was the in-school local net for Umesato Junior High School, a private institution in Suginami City, Tokyo.
The majority of other figures passing through the forest or laughing in groups of twos and threes were, like Haruyuki, also not human. Roughly half were silly animals walking on two legs, while the rest were fairies with wings sprouting from their backs (although they couldn’t actually fly), tin robots, or robed mages. All were avatars of Umesato Junior High students and teachers diving in the local net.
Students could choose from a wide selection of base avatar forms and customize them. If you had the patience, you could also construct a completely original avatar from scratch, taking advantage of the editor provided. The result was ultimately a combination of the technology available and taste of a junior high school student, but even so, the black knight avatar Haruyuki created and unveiled in April had garnered a lot of attention.
…The sad majesty of that avatar. Sighing, Haruyuki glanced down at his current form. In the blink of an eye, Araya had ripped off his black knight avatar and forced him to use this default pig.
Obviously, in terms of originality, this pink pig could not be beat. No one else would make such a deliberately masochistic choice. Desperately sucking in his round body just like he did in the real world, Haruyuki set his sights on a single tree and headed out at a trot.
As he did, he noticed an unusually large throng of people gathered beside the spring at the heart of the forest. Casting his eyes in that direction as he ran, Haruyuki slowed his pace unconsciously. In the middle of the ring of students, he spotted a marvelously rare avatar, the kind you hardly ever see.
It wasn’t pulled from the default settings. She wore a jet-black dress studded with transparent jewels. In her hand, a folded black parasol. On her back, the wings of a spangled butterfly shot through with rainbow-colored lines. With a face white like snow framed by long, straight hair, the avatar was so perfectly gorgeous, it was hard to believe it was handmade. The design skill involved was beyond anything Haruyuki could ever have hoped to achieve. It could easily have passed for a pro’s work.
Haruyuki knew the girl. Her slender body leaning casually against a giant mushroom, a weary expression on her face as she attended to the compliments of the avatars surrounding her, she was in eighth grade and the vice president of the student council. This shockingly beautiful form was for all intents and purposes a flawless re-creation of her real-world body, thus her nickname: Kuroyukihime.
That a creature like this and someone like Haruyuki could share even the single commonality of both being students at Umesato seemed impossible to him. Just turning his virtual gaze on her, Haruyuki felt the awareness of his diminutive stature that tortured his consciousness swell unpleasantly, and he forced himself to focus the path in front of him again.
The destination he was barreling toward at full speed was a large tree with recreation rooms inside. It was basically an arcade, but naturally, there were absolutely no commercial games like RPGs or war games or such. It was all educational stuff, like quizzes or puzzles or wholesome sports games, but even so, a number of students gathered in groups in every corner, laughing and chatting.