Chapter 2

“Yu! It’s coming your way!” The voice belonged to Yuuma’s best friend, Kenji Kondou (or Kenk, as Yuuma liked to call him). In response, Yuuma tightened his grip on the shortsword in his right hand. Yuuma and his friends were in the middle of a vast grassy plain. There were no boulders or puddles of water around for Yuuma to trip on this time. The conditions were perfect. His sister, Sawa, and his childhood friend, Minagi, were watching from a short distance away. Everything was in his favor; if Yuuma messed up now, he would never live it down. “Okay, leave it to me!” Yuuma shouted back. He stared intently at a small shadow that was currently making a beeline his way. It had already been two hours since the game had started, but Yuuma was only just starting to get the hang of moving around in fulldive. This world—Actual Magic (or AM for short)—seemed incredibly real. Not just the blue sky and the white clouds, or the way the purple mountains stretched out translucently in the distance. Not the vivid green plains surrounding them, either. It was everything, from the chill of the air on his skin to the way the ground pushed back against his feet—it all felt real, down to the tiniest detail. He knew that everything he saw was actually being displayed by his QREST eyelenses and that everything he heard was coming through his QREST earpiece. He also knew his sense of touch and his balance were being fed to him by the Caliculus capsule. And yet it all seemed so real. It was astounding. It was hard to believe this world was digital. Maybe that was why Yuuma hadn’t been able to stop himself from trying to move around like he would in the real world. But that wasn’t the right way to move in Actual Magic. Compared to the Yuuma of the real world, he was far stronger and more agile inside this digital world, and he could easily take a fall or two without hurting himself. His connection to his physical body, meanwhile, had been cut off by the Caliculus. There was no danger of banging his actual arms and legs against the capsule’s walls. The trick to playing the game was to get over those psychological hang-ups and push your new virtual abilities to their limit. Until Yuuma could get the hang of that, there was no chance of beating any monsters in the game. “Squeee!” The shrieking creature currently barreling toward Yuuma was a nearly sixty-centimeter-tall pale blue rabbit. Within the game of Actual Magic, the creature was apparently classified as a “small” monster, but it was nearly the same size as Minagi (Nagi)’s pet Saint Bernard, Donk. A silver horn, about the size of a large carrot, also protruded from the charging blue rabbit’s head—a horn that was currently pointed straight toward Yuuma. If he got hit in the stomach with that thing, it could easily poke a hole straight through him. Yuuma started to freak out again and moved to protect his stomach with his left hand. But if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to use the magic spell he had just spent a whole hour learning. He wished he at least had metal armor, like Kenk, instead of the leather armor he was wearing… But it had been Yuuma’s own choice to be a backline character. It was too late to cry about that now! Besides, the blue rabbit wasn’t even trying to attack Yuuma. The rabbit’s health bar and its monster name, Horned Great Hare, floated above its head. The health bar, now red, was already 80 percent empty. Kenk had used his two-handed greatsword to reduce the monster to critical health, which was why it was now running away in the direction that Yuuma happened to be waiting. The monster may have looked big, but at the end of the day, it was still a rabbit, so it was bounding forward at a speed that seemed far too fast for its bulky frame. It was already less than thirty meters away. The range on Yuuma’s spell, however, was only ten meters. He needed to wait a little longer. “Squee…!” The blue rabbit squealed again before suddenly veering off sharply to the left. “Crap!” Yuuma cursed and began running. The rabbit picked up speed. Yuuma chased it as hard as he could, his sides aching. The first time he fought one of these rabbits, the exact same thing happened, and he tripped over a rock when he attempted to give chase. The second time, Yuuma tried to be more careful, but instead the creature just got away. Obviously it was important to avoid obstacles, but it was even more important to make good use of his avatar’s abilities. Yuuma wasn’t very athletic in the real world, but if he wanted to play the game right, he was going to need to get over his fears. Stop holding back! You know you can run faster than this! Yuuma scolded himself in his head and willed his feet to go faster. He began to lurch forward. He had never run this fast in the real world. His vision blurred, and he felt the wind whistle past his ears, but he just gritted his teeth and focused on sprinting. “Go, Yu!” “You’re almost there!” He could hear Sawa and Nagi cheering him on from behind. So embarrassing! Yuuma bent forward and ran even harder. He was getting closer and closer to the fleeing rabbit. Yuuma guessed it was less than fifteen meters away at this point. Now! He raised his left hand into the air and dashed harder. Now came the hard part. The spell he wanted to cast had four words of power, and he had to chant them perfectly, without fumbling, while still running at full speed. “Tenebris!” Yuuma called out the first word—the element. The element for this spell was “dark.” A ball of deep indigo light appeared before his outstretched hand. “Capere Anima!” The next two words were the form. The light changed shape, becoming a phantom hand, complete with long, wicked claws several times the size of Yuuma’s actual hand. As he chanted the words, a targeting reticle appeared in the middle of his field of vision. He moved his left hand slightly, lining up the rabbit in his crosshairs. The monster was less than ten meters away. This time there was no escaping! Yuuma chanted the last word. “Ignis!” The word of activation echoed faintly as Yuuma cast the spell. The glowing indigo hand shot forward, its claws closing as it snatched the entire rabbit in an eagle grip. Fwip! A strange sound effect played, and the rabbit disappeared in a cloud of indigo smoke. “I…I did it!” As Yuuma was still shouting in victory, he stumbled over a small divot in the ground and landed face-first in the grass before rolling head over heels. The HP bar floating over his own head decreased by a tiny fraction owing to the fall. Yuuma could no longer say he beat the rabbit without taking damage—but that was a small price to pay for victory! Yuuma jerked into a sitting position and quickly looked up in anticipation. He was met by the sight of a large, sparkling object, which descended toward him. It was a card, slightly larger than an ordinary playing card. He tossed aside the shortsword he was holding and reached up with both hands to receive the card. As it entered Yuuma’s hands, the light surrounding it disappeared with a faint twinkle. The card was made of a strange transparent purple material and featured an image of the rabbit on one side with the words HORNED GREAT HARE beneath it. “Y-yesss…!!” Still holding the card in his left hand, Yuuma pumped his right fist into the air, shouting louder than he had probably ever shouted before in the real world. Finally. This was the real strength of the character class Yuuma had chosen—Monster Tamer. Monster Tamers could use a capture spell to catch monsters and transform them into cards. Monster-catching character classes were a common feature in console and QREST RPGs, but Yuuma had no idea that capturing a monster for real would be so hard. Well, not for real, since Actual Magic was still a game. But it was still way harder than in any ordinary game. “Nice job, Yu!” Yuuma turned in the direction of the voice. It was Kenk. He was walking toward Yuuma and flashing two thumbs-up, his huge sword strapped to his back. Kenk was pretty big for an elementary school student. His avatar had the same large frame and short, spiky hair as he did in the real world. Even his face, which looked slightly grown up for his age, was pretty similar to Kenk’s actual face. Equipped with imposing metal armor and his two-handed greatsword, Kenk’s avatar looked every bit the Warrior. With a bit of help from Kenk, Yuuma stood up, and they gave each other a high five—a one-handed high five, since Yuuma was still clutching the monster card in his other hand. “Thanks, Kenk! That was a great assist!” Kenk grinned from ear to ear. “I know, right?! It’s way harder than it looks to whittle down a monster’s hit points and then herd it in the direction you want it to go. Takes skill!” While Kenk was still patting himself on the back, the two girls ran up from behind. They were quick to rain on Kenk’s parade. “Don’t be such a blowhard!” “There was a fifty-fifty chance it was gonna go that way anyway…” Turning around, Yuuma caught sight of Sawa and Nagi. They strolled leisurely toward him. Sawa had chosen the Mage class, which specialized in offensive magic. His childhood friend Nagi, meanwhile, had chosen the Priest class, which used recovery magic. Both were pretty standard classes for an RPG. Like Kenk, their avatars reflected their appearance in the real world. The robes they wore, however—part of their gear as magic-using classes—looked surprisingly natural on them. Cute, even. Not like that, though! Sawa’s my bratty little sister. We’ve been together since birth! And obviously I don’t think about Nagi that way, either! As he was thinking this, Yuuma waved to the two girls with his free hand. “I finally got it!” he said, raising the purple card in his left hand. The girls crowded around in fascination. “Huh… So that’s a monster card. Look, it’s even got a picture of old flopears on it!” “Flopears?! You’ve gotta be kidding…” Why couldn’t Sawa ever just talk normal? Yuuma was about to start a fight when Nagi suddenly leaned in closer, her face drawing near to his. Yuuma shut his mouth reflexively. The two girls looked very different. Sawa was the sharp, cool type—and that was putting it nicely. If you wanted to be mean, you might say she looked harsh. Nagi’s features, meanwhile, were soft and gentle. By the time Yuuma was old enough to be aware of what was going on around him, he had probably already seen more of Nagi’s face than he had his own. And yet for some reason these days, he seemed to lose his train of thought whenever Nagi suddenly got too close. Nagi, however, didn’t seem to notice Yuuma’s reaction. “You should try summoning it, Yu!” she said with her usual pleasant smile. “What? Like now?!” “Well, according to the display, we only have fifty minutes left…” “What?! Already?!” shouted Kenk. It was true. Glancing down at the display in the lower-right corner of his field of vision, Yuuma saw that the display read 2:10 PM. “What are we gonna do?! I made a bet with Sugamo and the others over who would beat the boss first!” “Not again… What did you bet this time, Kenk?” asked Sawa. A trickle of sweat ran down Kenk’s brow. “Tomorrow’s chocolate pudding at lunch…” “Ha! Well, don’t expect me to share any of mine!” Sawa grinned. “Actually…I bet all four of our puddings…,” Kenk mumbled. “You did what…?!” Sawa grabbed Kenk by the collar, easily lifting him into the air with a single arm, heavy armor and all. “Kenji Kondou! Who gave you the right to bet my chocolate pudding?!” “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! My bad! Just please, don’t use my real name while we’re in game!!” Kenk flailed about in a panic. Nagi stood to the side and tutted. She didn’t seem very concerned. Yuuma just sighed deeply. “You’ve really done it now, Kenk,” he said. “Chocolate pudding is currently in the lead for first place in Sawa’s 2031 School Lunch Dessert Rankings.” “Hey!” Sawa tossed the dangling Kenk aside and rounded on Yuuma next. “That’s supposed to be top secret information, Yuumy!” Sawa usually called her brother Yu, just like his friends. They were twins, after all, even if technically he was her older brother. In the heat of the moment, however, she seemed to forget and called him Yuumy, her childhood nickname for him. Yuuma gently pushed her back with both hands. “C’mon, you can work things out with Kenk later. What’s done is done. For now, let’s look on the bright side and try to find a solution. Speaking of which. Hey, Kenk, if we win…do we get their four puddings instead?” Yuuma glanced toward his friend, Kenk the Warrior, who was now lying in the grass in a heap. Kenk perked up, nodding enthusiastically. “Of course! If we win, we get the chocolate puddings of Sugamo and his three other party members!” “Humph…” Sawa’s anger dissipated. “Well, that’s okay, then,” Nagi said with a smile. Yuuma had managed to dispel his sister’s anger in record time. Before anything else could happen, he raised his right hand into the air, bringing his fingers together and then quickly opening them in the pinch-out gesture. A chime sounded, and a menu appeared in midair. It was similar to the QREST holo-windows they used in the real world, although seeing the flat UI here in this fantasy setting made it seem a little out of place. But Actual Magic was still a game, and a game needed menus, after all. “Let’s see… This is the starting town, and I think this is the grassy plains where we are now. If the boss dungeon is here…” As Kenk pointed to locations on the map, Sawa clicked her tongue in a very unladylike manner. “Tsk…! Look how far it is to the dungeon. I don’t think we’re gonna make it all the way to the boss in just fifty minutes…” “It’ll also take time to fight through the dungeon,” Nagi pointed out calmly. “It does look tough, but we’ve gained a lot of levels fighting in the grasslands,” said Yuuma, letting his gaze roam from the map to the far-off mountains. “Plus Sugamo and his party have probably already cleared out the monsters in the dungeon. If we make a rush for it, we might still be able to catch up!” “Sorry to break it to you, Yu…,” said Sawa in an even tone. “But how are we supposed to rush through the dungeon when we don’t even know the way? We’ll just wind up luring mobs until we get cornered in a dead end and they party-wipe us.” Yuuma and Sawa had been playing video games together ever since they were little, but Sawa had spent way more time in MMOs than Yuuma had. “Au contraire,” said Yuuma, wagging his finger back and forth. He was still holding the purple monster card in his left hand, and he thrust it into their faces once more. “Did it ever occur to you that there might be a reason I wanted to go after this little blue pain-in-the-neck first, instead of one of the easier monsters near town? For you see— Nrk!” He was interrupted suddenly by a jab to the stomach from Sawa’s finger. It didn’t actually hurt, but he could feel his organs squish like jelly. “Would you get to the point? We’re running out of time!” Sawa chided. “Ha, that’s Saps for you!” said Kenk, using his old nickname for Sawa. “Impatient as ever— Urk!” Sawa shut Kenk up with a quick jab to the kidney. Yuuma used that opportunity to quickly explain his plan. “The blue rabbit…I mean the Horned Great Hare…has an ability called Tunnel Search.” “Yu, sorry to interrupt,” said Nagi, “but maybe you should wait to explain until we get there?” Yuuma fell silent. Then he nodded. “Good point.” Ever since they were little, Yuuma had had a tendency to fall into the role of leader when all four of them hung out together. The truth, however, was that whenever the going got tough, it was usually Nagi who displayed the better sense of judgment. Weird, since she kinda looks more like the mascot character, thought Yuuma. Not that I’d say that to her face! He pulled the still-groaning Kenk back to his feet and then pointed in the direction of the final boss dungeon. “All right, let’s get moving, then! We should do our best to just avoid any monsters we see along the way. And if we do catch aggro, just make a break for it!” Yuuma’s three friends shouted back with varying levels of enthusiasm: “Let’s do this!!” “Okay, okay.” “Here we go.” Yuuma began running northward, cutting a path through the green plains. Maybe it was the increase in his base stats from two hours of level grinding—or maybe it was because, after that last fight, he finally understood how to use his avatar correctly—but Yuuma was able to keep up with his friends the entire way there. In fact, he even pulled ahead of them several times during their five-kilometer run to the dungeon. After leaving the grasslands and entering the forest, they were lucky enough to encounter a peddler NPC. They used nearly all the gold they had farmed while leveling up to upgrade their equipment. Sawa and Nagi had wanted to try on all the different designs, but the two boys hurried them along, and they were able to get in and out with barely any time lost. The time was 2:25 PM. Their playtest—what the school was calling a “social studies field trip”—was scheduled to end at 3:00. That meant they had thirty-five minutes left. Yuuma and his party had arrived at their final destination, the dilapidated castle located in the forest. The castle was half in ruins, crumbling and covered in moss, but according to the guide that the playtesters had all been given before starting, there was an entrance to a dungeon on the first floor of the castle. A sprawling, three-layer-deep underground labyrinth. Yuuma and his friends stopped before the castle for a brief moment. The avatars of other playtesters passed them, one after another, some young, some old, some male, and some female. It seemed as if all seven hundred players, who up until now had been scattered across the map, were now beginning to converge on this one location. “You know, the thought just occurred to me…,” noted Sawa, twirling her wand deftly in between her fingers. “But forget about Sugamo and the others—what if someone else already defeated the boss? We might be late to the party…” “Sawa, I’m surprised at you,” Nagi replied, gently correcting Sawa’s mistake. “It said right in the guidebook that they made the boss room an instance dungeon for the test period.” “An instant dungeon?” said Kenk. “Like, just add water?” Kenk was a big gamer, but he barely knew anything about MMORPGs. Sawa rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue at him in an exaggerated manner. “You need to go back and repeat first grade,” she said. “First grade…?!” “Instancing is when a separate map is generated for just your character or party. So in this case, after fighting through the dungeon and entering the boss room, you’d be teleported to a special map just for you,” explained Sawa, ignoring the fact that she was the one who had been wrong in the first place. Kenk simply nodded. “So in other words, there are as many bosses in there as there are parties?” “Exactly!” It was Nagi who answered this time. “When you beat the boss, your clear time gets recorded. Apparently, the fastest players receive some kind of special bonus award.” “Wait, really?! Then what are we doing just standing around for?!” Kenk reached out in a hurry, grabbing Yuuma by his short cloak and attempting to pull him along. “C’mon, Yu! Quit twiddling your thumbs and let’s go already!” “I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs!” Yuuma protested, yanking the hem of his cloak from Kenk’s grasp and slamming the small guidebook shut. “I was double-checking my spell to make sure I don’t fumble it.” “Your spell…? Oh! You mean to summon your pet?” said Kenk. Sawa and Nagi crowded in close. “You’re finally gonna summon ol’ flopears?!” “Summon it, Yu! Hurry!” “Okay, I’m doing it…” Yuuma tucked the guidebook back into the pouch at his waist and took a short step away from the other three. Using his left hand, he drew the purple monster card from the special card holster strapped to the right side of his chest, then raised the card high in the air. Within Actual Magic, even the simplest spells generally required at least three words of power—an element, a form, and the word of activation. There were several exceptions to this rule, however. For instance, a Monster Tamer could summon captured monsters and return them to their cards with only a single word. However, great care was still required when casting these spells. According to the guidebook, although the chance was small, fumbling a summon spell could result in the card itself being destroyed… Those were some pretty big consequences! After all the trouble they had gone through just to capture the dang thing, Yuuma didn’t want to mess it up now because of a careless mistake. Yuuma was just a virtual avatar in a virtual world, but he still felt his mouth go dry with performance anxiety. He drew in a deep breath and then shouted the unfamiliar word. “Aperta!” The activation system recognized the command, and the card in his left hand began glowing with an intense purple light. A complex magic circle appeared, expanding outward in three dimensions, as the card seemed to dissolve into thin air. A powerful, blinding light appeared in the center of the magic circle, releasing a beam that shot diagonally toward the ground. The light seemed to converge and grow larger as it hit the ground, until finally… Fwop! The monster appeared with an almost comical sound. It was a rabbit. With soft blue fur and a silver horn. And it was about twenty centimeters long. “…” “…” Yuuma and Kenk stared at the rabbit in silence for several moments until Kenk finally spoke. “Is it just me…or did that rabbit get smaller?” He cocked his head. “No… It definitely got smaller,” said Yuuma. Why do enemies in games always get weaker the moment they join your side…? The blue rabbit, which was now just a third of its former size, didn’t seem particularly concerned over what its new master thought of it. It tilted its head quizzically to the side and stared up at Yuuma with big round eyes. “Squee?” it chirped. The two girls screamed in unison: “It’s…so…cuuuute!!” Their reaction was so over the top that Yuuma almost expected to see hearts and sparkles shoot out of their eyes. The blue rabbit took a few hops forward. Sawa scooped it up in her arms and hugged it tightly to her chest. Nagi, who hadn’t been as quick on the draw as Sawa, stared at Sawa enviously, reaching forward and patting the rabbit’s head repeatedly, her hand a blur. The tip of the rabbit’s horn, which had once been as sharp as the tip of a lance, was now rounded and smooth. Yuuma began to wonder if he had chosen the right monster. But he hadn’t selected the Horned Great Hare for mere battle prowess alone, of course. According to something he’d heard from one of the NPCs in the starting town, this rabbit possessed a uniquely powerful special ability. The girls were still busy squealing over the rabbit when Yuuma reached in between them, grabbed the creature by its long ears, and plucked it free from Sawa’s chest. “Yuuma! Don’t hold him like that! You’ll hurt him!” she yelled. “Look, we didn’t go through all the trouble of capturing him just to turn him into a lap pet.” Yuuma held up the rabbit and stared into its face. “I know you’re only level 1, buddy, but I’m counting on you, all right?”