Chapter 3

“Squee!” “Nicely said!” Yuuma nodded and placed the rabbit back on the ground. Monster Tamers could control their captured familiars using voice commands. Yuuma was still level 7, so he had access to only five commands. Apparently, once a Monster Tamer leveled up, they could start giving pretty complicated commands—at least eventually. But Yuuma didn’t need the rabbit to do anything too complicated at the moment. He drew in a breath to give his first command but then stopped, perplexed. In order to issue a command in Actual Magic, users had to start by saying the pet’s name. Not its monster name, like Horned Great Hare, but its own personal name. Naturally, as the Monster Tamer, Yuuma was the one who had to choose the name. As Yuuma stood there frozen, a grin appeared on Sawa’s face. “You haven’t thought of a name yet, have you, Yu…?” “Uhh…” Nagi was standing beside Sawa. She smiled. “It’s okay. You’re really good at thinking up names, Yu… I’m sure you’ll come up with something super cute, just like you did for Donk.” “Uhhhh…” It was true; Yuuma had been the one to come up with the name Donk for Nagi’s pet Saint Bernard. Nagi and her family lived next door. But it was Nagi’s father who had actually given the dog the nice, fancy name of Donald. Yuuma had still been in kindergarten at the time and couldn’t pronounce Donald. That was why he said Donk instead, and before anyone knew it, the name had stuck. The truth was that Yuuma was really bad at choosing names. Half the time, when playing RPGs, he just stuck with his real name. How was he supposed to think up a name for his familiar on the spot? Vexed, Yuuma stared down at the bunny with its big, round eyes. “C’mon, Yu! We’re running out of time!” whined Kenk, hopping from one foot to the other like an impatient child. Kenk had a point. It was already past 2:30. They had less than thirty minutes left before the playtest would end. In order to be able to defeat the boss and record their time, they would need to get through the dungeon in twenty minutes at the most. “Hm… Hrm…” The rabbit stared up at Yuuma. “Squee?” “Th-that’s it! Your name is Squeak!” shouted Yuuma, deciding on the spur of the moment. “Squeak? Really? Squeak?” “Well, it’s better than Butterball, I guess…” Neither Sawa nor Nagi seemed pleased. Ignoring them, Yuuma opened his menu and navigated to the Pets tab—a special section that was available only to Monster Tamers. Naturally, the sole monster on his list at the moment was this Horned Great Hare. Yuuma tapped on its empty name field and typed out Squeak. Pet names couldn’t be changed, so they would be stuck calling this rabbit Squeak for the foreseeable future. Despite whatever the girls might have thought, the blue rabbit seemed pleased with its new name. “Sq-squee!” it cried, bouncing happily in place. Yuuma didn’t like how much smaller it had become, but it sure was cute. He breathed in once more and issued his first voice command to the familiar. “Squeak! Follow me!” It was important to say it just like that, and not something else like “Come with me.” To issue the Follow command, one had to say “Follow” and then the target of the command. Fortunately, Squeak seemed to recognize the command. “Sq-squee!” it shouted, and began bouncing in circles around his feet. Sawa and Nagi continued to stare jealously at Yuuma’s pet. Kenk, meanwhile, looked like he was about to jump out of his skin from impatience. Yuuma locked eyes with each of them in turn. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go conquer this dungeon.” The four players stepped through the castle gates just as the parade of incoming players was petering out. They first passed through a desolate front courtyard, filled with withered hedgerows and bone-dry fountains, before arriving at the castle proper. There, in the middle of the sprawling great hall, they discovered a dank stairway leading down into darkness. A clammy wind rose up from somewhere deep in the shadows, carrying with it the groaning wails of distant monsters. “Ugh… I didn’t expect the dungeon to be so…dungeony,” said Kenk in a hushed tone as he peered down into the darkness. Nagi, who was standing next to him, giggled slightly. “You’re not scared, are you, Kenk?” “N-no, I’m not scared! I’m the dungeon slayer of Yukihana Elementary!” “In that case, we should go,” said Yuuma. “We’ve only got twenty-five minutes left.” The two boys had played together since they were little, so Yuuma knew how much Kenk hated dark, cramped spaces. This was no time for coddling, however. Yuuma patted Kenk hard on the back, jostling him toward the stairs. They made their way quickly, but carefully, down the worn stone stairs—Kenk first, followed by Yuuma, then Nagi, and then Sawa. After seeing the quality of the images created by his eyelenses and how closely they matched reality, Yuuma thought he would be over his surprise at this point. But once again, the hardness of the cold stone beneath his feet, and the dim heat from the torches ensconced along the wall, took Yuuma’s breath away. Two and a half hours had already passed since the playtest had begun, but he was still finding it hard to believe that these were all just virtual sensations, created by the Caliculus. What if the Caliculus was some kind of cross-dimensional device, and they had actually been transported to another world? Yuuma let his imagination wander as they continued down the stairs. Eventually, they arrived at level ground. It was a large room, maybe twenty meters across. As the starting point for the dungeon, it was surprisingly bright. There were three other parties there, besides Yuuma and his friends, resting against the wall and getting their inventories in order. Considering how little time was left, it looked like these parties had already given up on reaching the boss. But Yuuma and his friends weren’t going to abandon their mission so easily. After all, there were four chocolate puddings on the line! Chocolate pudding had had to beat out a lot of other desserts in order to come first in Sawa’s School Lunch Dessert Rankings! “…Hey, Yu? The boss room is on the third floor. Do you really think we can make it there in just ten minutes? We don’t even have a map,” said Sawa. According to the tutorial at the start of the game, ignoring sidequests and going straight for the main objectives could net users a dungeon map. As an avid gamer, however, Yuuma knew it was always better not to follow the main path. Instead, his party had spent most of their three hours leveling up, farming gold, and capturing the blue rabbit. That had been Yuuma’s plan. Not one of his three friends had voiced any objections, so it was up to Yuuma not to let them down. There were arched doorways in the wall of the square room: one straight ahead, one to the left, and one to the right. Without a map, it was impossible to tell which one would lead to the next staircase. Unless… Yuuma glanced down at the familiar bouncing around at his feet. It twitched its black nose. He gave it a new order. “Squeak! Lead us to the end of the dungeon!” “Squeee…!” With a squeal, the blue rabbit hopped twice in place and then began bounding toward the doorway on the right. “That way!” Yuuma chased Squeak, and Kenk and the others followed. The archway led into a long, winding stone hallway. Just the type of hallway one would expect to see in a dungeon. After a few moments, they reached a crossroads. Another party was fighting some sort of slime monster up ahead. Before they reached the monster, however, Squeak turned left, proceeding deeper into the dungeon without hesitation. It was almost as if it knew where it was going—and that was because it did! Horned Great Hares were so difficult to capture because of their special ability, Tunnel Search. While in underground passageways such as dungeons, the Horned Great Hare could use five special commands: Lead to Start, Lead to End, Find Items, Find Monsters, and Avoid Monsters. Lead to End caused it to take the shortest path to the boss room. Unfortunately, Lead to End and Avoid Monsters couldn’t be used at the same time. Yuuma’s party would have to fight any monsters they encountered along the way. But with playtime almost at an end and the dungeon now swarming with players, the mobs were being picked off faster than they could respawn. Yuuma and his party made it through the first and second layers with barely a fight. The four of them raced down the long stairway and arrived at the third layer, then breathed a sigh of relief when they saw what awaited them. While the first and second floors had been sprawling labyrinths, the third floor seemed to be just one long passageway that stretched off into the distance. Squinting, they spotted a giant door at the end of the path. Squeak began to rush toward it, hopping at breakneck speed. “Squeak, stop!” Yuuma shouted. The blue rabbit stopped in place. Squeak looked up at him with its huge round eyes. Yuuma picked up the rabbit, cradling it in his arms. “You did great, Squeak. Until next time!” He then delivered another command. “Clause!” Squeak was enveloped in a magic circle similar to the one that had appeared when Yuuma had summoned it. The rabbit grew rapidly smaller and smaller inside the purple light until it disappeared with a pop. Yuuma reached to grab the card, which had appeared in a cloud of twinkling smoke, and returned it to its holster. Yuuma had said, “Until next time,” but in truth this was probably the last they would see of Squeak. As explained during orientation, any stat increases or items gained during the playtest would be reset once the game went live. He stroked his card holster absently. They had spent less than an hour together, but he had to admit, it felt surprisingly sad to say goodbye. The time was now 2:48 PM. As long as they managed to rush down the hallway in two minutes or less, the party could still arrive at the boss room with ten minutes still left to spare—just as planned. Yuuma made eye contact with Sawa, Nagi, and Kenk. They nodded at each other and began running toward the door. The pathway was maybe five hundred meters long. Along the way, they encountered several other parties who had gotten there first and were busy fighting large, dangerous-looking monsters. Luckily, Yuuma and his friends were able to slip right past them. The door had started off as a speck in the distance before it loomed larger and larger until finally they could make out a dragon relief on its surface, which glimmered in the light from their torches. Just then— “Wait right there, Kenji Kondou!” shouted an angry voice from behind them. Yuuma and his friends glanced over their shoulders as they continued to run. Another party was hot on their heels. And leading that party was none other than… “Ugh, it’s Sugamo!” said Kenk, groaning. Yuuma groaned internally as well. According to the pecking order of their class (Yukihana Elementary School Homeroom 6-1), Teruki Sugamo was considered pretty hot stuff. He was tall, fairly good looking, captain of the soccer team, got good grades, was on the school council, and his father was even the president of some company. If it wasn’t for his personality, he would have been perfect. Unfortunately, Sugamo also needed to be the center of attention and to boss people around. No matter the occasion, he was never happy unless he was in charge. For people like Yuuma and Kenk, who liked to do their own thing, interacting with Sugamo was like mixing oil and water. As a result, Yuuma and his friends did their best not to have anything to do with him. Sugamo, however, seemed to have a chip on his shoulder whenever it came to Kenk. Maybe Sugamo just couldn’t stand the fact that Kenk was a little bit taller than him. “If anyone’s gonna enter that boss room first, it’s us, Kondou!” Sugamo began to sprint forward at an insane pace, leaving his party members in the dust in order to race neck and neck with Kenk. Sugamo’s silver platemail was probably a good 30 percent heavier than Kenk’s armor and made awkward clanking noises as he ran. Even Yuuma was impressed that Sugamo had the skill and determination to sprint in armor like that. If only Sugamo could have kept his mouth shut while doing it. “Uh…Sug? You know the boss room is a separate instance, right? It doesn’t actually matter who enters first,” said Yuuma. Sugamo glanced toward Yuuma as if just noticing he was there. “I told you back in fourth grade not to call me that anymore, Ashihara!” he growled menacingly. One of his party members also chimed in. “Like, seriously, Ashihara? You should call him by his character name, Lucius. Not by one of your dumb nicknames!” Yuuma didn’t need to glance back in order to know who was yelling at him. That voice could belong only to Aria Misono, one of the queen bees of the sixth grade. She was a bit of a superficial girly-girl type. Yuuma was pretty sure Sugamo and Aria weren’t dating, but they always seemed to be hanging out together in class, talking loudly about clothes or music or whatever. “Sure, sure. You got it, Mibs,” Yuuma replied. “Call me that again and see what happens!” roared Aria, going from girly-girl to goblin mode in the blink of an eye. Nozomi City had been built around ten years earlier as a public-private smart city on the eastern foot of Mount Fuji, overlooking Lake Yamanaka. Despite how new it was, however, Nozomi City was no better equipped to resist declining birthrates than anywhere else. For the past five years, there had been only one class for each grade at Yukihana Elementary School, and as of the following year, the school was scheduled to be shut down, with the remaining students merged into another school. That was why Yuuma’s class had been invited to Althea’s grand opening. In other words, they had all been in the same class together, ever since first grade—not just Yuuma, Sawa, Nagi, and Kenk, but Sugamo and Aria as well. They never used to mind being called Sug and Mibs…, thought Yuuma. “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a nod. “Don’t call me ma’am! It’s weird. Like I told you before, if you really want to use a nickname, you can call me Ria.” “I would never dream of it, ma’am.” I’d sooner call them ma’am and sir than Lucius and Ria. Yuuma shrugged. At his left, Sawa and Nagi heaved awkward sighs. This was followed by an amused giggle from somewhere toward the back. “Ah…!” It had been only the faintest of giggles. And not even the real thing, of course—just a synthetic voice produced by the game system. But there was no mistaking that laugh. Yuuma and Kenk both turned to stare, their eyes growing wide. Aria was still directly behind them, wearing a slightly revealing Mage’s outfit. But there was another girl behind her, dressed in graceful, streaming Priest’s robes… The most beautiful girl in their class. Someone who wasn’t just at the top of the pecking order, but in a league of her own. It was her—Sumika Watamaki!