That’s right, you fiend, I thought, bursting into maniacal laughter. Don’t you look away—
“Feast your eyes on the full power of manually activated Arts, an ability I paid 23,760 yen for!!!”
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Now, hold on, let me guess—you’re feeling pretty confused right now, aren’t you? Feeling a bit unsure of what exactly I meant by the phrase “the full power of manually activated Arts”? Truly, it’s never fun coming up against the unknown... It’s honestly a bit terrifying, isn’t it? Well, I’ll give you a little hint—the technique I’d just used was one that Rex didn’t have knowledge of, but I did. It was a technique that no one who didn’t understand that this world was based on a video game could utilize.
To explain, I have to go back to the beginning, when Braves and Blades first launched. You see, as a big-budget AAA game, the developers had had huge expectations of BB—they’d believed the game was going to fly off the shelves. Unfortunately, those expectations had come to naught, and the game had flopped. But why?
To tell the truth, the main reason for BB’s failure was infamous; the fault lay at the feet of the Dynamic Motion Z, the controller that the game’s developers had recommended players use. As the name suggested, the Dynamic Motion Z was a motion controller. Using the input of two different sensors—a high-powered gyro sensor installed in the body of the controller, and a light sensor that was meant to be plugged in and placed in front of your TV—the Dynamic Motion Z was able to sense movement accurately enough that whenever a player swung it, the player’s character would swing their own weapon in the exact same way.
Now, to be clear, Braves and Blades had been released well after the motion-control-video-game boom had ended. This hadn’t stopped players from hoping that it would herald a revival for the genre though—especially after they saw how well motion controls had been implemented into the game. Unfortunately, the game hadn’t sold anywhere near enough to make that future come to pass, since that’s where the issue with the Dynamic Motion Z controller had come into play.
You see, a game called Super Epic Real Sword-Fighting had released four months before BB hit the shelves, and the Dynamic Motion Z had been paired with it to showcase its abilities. Unfortunately, both the game and the controller had been faced with lackluster sales, and had practically become ancient relics by the time Braves and Blades finally released. They’d even gone ahead and pulled the Dynamic Motion Z from the shelves of most stores.
As a result, most of BB’s potential players hadn’t owned the Dynamic Motion Z when the game came out, and hadn’t been interested in investing in the controller just to use it for a single game. Especially when that controller was being sold at a retail price of 7,980 yen. The cost grew even more steep if you wanted to use a shield in your off-hand, or a bow, or anything else that required two hands—you’d need to buy a second controller in order to make it work. That raised the controller’s initial retail price to a whopping 16,000 yen, and that wasn’t even counting the cost of Braves and Blades itself! If you decided to commit and buy all three, you ended up paying something to the tune of 20,000 yen in all. That was nearly enough to buy an entire console.
With pricing that high, it wasn’t at all surprising that the majority of players turned their noses up at buying the Dynamic Motion Z. Technically, they could have still played Braves and Blades without it, but they’d have had to use a conventional controller, and the game’s motion controls had been half of its appeal... Suffice it to say, only the most hardcore RPG fans had bothered to give the game a chance.
Perhaps Braves and Blades would have sold better if the Dynamic Motion Z had been released around the same time, and they could have boosted each other’s sales, but unfortunately the past couldn’t be changed. And so, the four-month stretch between the two launches had spelled BB’s doom.
Still, there had been a small number of people who had felt compelled to fully invest in Braves and Blades, paying the full 23,760 yen required to buy the game and all its peripherals. And I...I had been one of them! That’s right, I actually spent all that money on the game! I’d suffered through working a shitty part-time job for months, saving up every last yen I earned, until at last I could buy everything!
Little had I known that my determination would result in this situation, where I could take advantage of my mastery of manually activated Arts to keep me alive in a fight to the death against a doom demon!
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The doom demon struck at me again. I dodged, immediately launching into a series of rapid counterattacks. First, I sliced into the monster with a series of lightning-fast blows, then I leaned into a sideways slash, and then I leapt into the air, bringing my sword slamming down into the monster’s head. With every blow, I called out the name of my Arts right after the other: “Lightning V-Slash! Cross Raid! Headsplitter!”
Needing a bit of a breather, I thrust my sword forward and yelled, “Divine Thrust!”
Taking advantage of the Art’s momentum, I leaped a short distance backward and built up some breathing room between me and my foe. Then, settling into my stance, I snarled, “Stinger!” and launched forward again, finishing up my array of attacks with a series of quick forward stabs.
By the time I was finished, the doom demon that should have so easily been able to defeat me was covered in wounds. It glared at me with undisguised hate, clearly not used to being on the back foot.