I carefully scoped out the area around my house, but there was nothing unusual. I ushered Carol in first before hastening after her, making sure to lock the door behind us. I’d spent the walk home on high alert, peering back and forth. I probably looked super suspicious, but that didn’t matter to me right now. Thanks to the past ten years, my reputation in the neighborhood was already at rock bottom.
Carol immediately fell into a doze under the kotatsu in the living room. I wasn’t surprised she was tired after all that. I thought about putting her to bed in the spare room, but it would be safer to have her nearby. I scooped her up and took her to my bedroom, offering her Destiny to cuddle to help her fall asleep. It wasn’t long until she was out cold. All the food she’d had at the festival probably helped.
“I gotta be careful not to wake her.”
I sat down at my desk, taking the holy book from my pocket and setting it aside. I switched on my PC monitor. This computer (which I used exclusively for The Village of Fate) had been on since the Day of Corruption. I’d just kept the monitor off. Seeing the blank screen constantly drained me of hope. As expected, the screen was…
“Completely different?!”
On my computer screen was an overhead view of a world. My heart jumped, thinking The Village of Fate was back, but this view was of something else entirely. It was familiar, but it wasn’t my village.
“This is…my house? This roof is Seika’s. And the rest is the neighborhood…”
Why was my PC showing a map of my house and its surroundings? A realistic, detailed map, too, like a satellite image you could find online, but with one major difference. The second floor of my house was displayed with a cross-section view. The roof was cut away and you could see my room, Sayuki’s room, my parents’ room, and even the bathroom.
“That’s Carol…and this is me?” I looked up instinctively, but the ceiling was there as always. Well, I would’ve noticed if it disappeared. I looked back at the screen and raised my hand. The me onscreen raised his hand, too. I tried scrolling to zoom in, just like you could on The Village of Fate. It worked. You could see Carol’s sleeping face and Destiny, who looked a little uncomfortable in her arms. “What’s going on?”
Think. There’s gotta be a reason for this. Until now, this computer only ran The Village of Fate. So why is it showing me my house now?
The screen was centered around my room. “Wait…” I looked at the holy book on my desk. That had to be it.
That book played an important role in the game. Was its existence in this world the reason I was seeing my own house on the screen now?
“I can worry about the whys later. I just gotta figure out what to do now.”
At this point, I was used to the game doing impossible things. I was developing a tolerance to insanity. If I thought about it too much, I’d freeze up and possibly just lose my mind.
I tried moving around the map on screen. My FP was displayed in the corner, and I had access to the options screen and miracles menu, just like on my phone.
“Which means…”
I pulled out my phone and opened the app. Sure enough, the same image from my PC appeared on the smaller screen. So I could play on my phone, too. Except this wasn’t the same parallel world I was used to playing with. It was Japan.
“I can see why someone might want the book if it meant they could see their surroundings from above like this. It’s like an instant, personal satellite. And it can see through walls. That’s even more valuable.”
I’d balked when that guy said the book was worth ten million yen, but if this was what you could do with it, I understood why it was so valuable. Big companies, or even nations, would shell out billions for a tool like this.
“I wonder what made it suddenly start working.”
My PC screen had been dark for a while, even after Carol brought the book to this world. I racked my brain as I tried out the “game,” but nothing I could think of made sense.
“Guess I’ll start with what I do know instead of trying to answer impossible questions.” I purposely spoke out loud to myself to help collect my thoughts.
First, I checked the backlog. It contained every conversation I’d had with Carol since her arrival.
“There’s nothing from my villagers. Not that I’m surprised.”
Still, it was too soon to conclude that they were dead. The book only picked up on conversations close to it; I knew that from when Gams and everyone fought the one-eyed red goblin. I scrolled through the backlog, hoping to find a hint. Then I noticed a message in red.
“Congratulations. You have reached level 2.”
I leveled up?! When?
Apparently, it happened around the time when Yamamoto-san left and I discovered the package with Carol inside. But I hadn’t noticed a notification or anything.
The guy in the park said that corrupted god players leveled up by killing people and destroying villages, but I didn’t know how players on my side did it. Most likely it had to do with the growth of your village, but that was just a guess. Part of me wished I’d asked him more, but sticking around much longer would have been dangerous.
“If I know video games, you probably level up when your village reaches a certain size. Either that, or there’s some hidden condition to fulfill. Or maybe it’s based on experience gained from a bunch of different factors?”
The most common way of gaining experience in games was completing assigned missions. Do enough quests and gain enough experience, and your level would go up. In The Village of Fate’s case, maybe you gained a load of experience points every time you overcame a Day of Corruption. Or maybe defeating monsters? That was another common way to level up.
“Maybe my villagers survived, defeated the monsters, and made it through the Day of Corruption after sending Carol to my place, and that’s how I leveled up. That might be it, right?”
It was plausible. Maybe it was my optimism talking, but this could be evidence that my villagers were still alive.
“I gotta hold on to hope. My villagers survived. Every one of them is safe!”
That was better than believing they were dead, and it helped me work out what to do next.
“Mm… Mommy… Daddy…”
I spun around, worried I’d woken Carol up. She was just mumbling in her sleep with a heavy frown. I sat down next to her and gently stroked her pretty blonde curls.
“Don’t worry, Carol. I’ll take you home to the village.”
Her expression seemed to soften a little. I gave Destiny a pat, too, as it slept next to her. It glanced at me and flicked its tongue out a few times, as if to say it would take care of Carol for me. I couldn’t repress a smile. Leaving Destiny to babysit, I moved back to my computer.
“If I leveled up, that means I have more options.”
The punk in the park said something about unlocking forums.
I should be able to access them now, right?
I scrolled through the options menu and found a new button labeled “Discussion Forums.” Was this what he was talking about? Would I find other players discussing the game here? I was curious but also slightly anxious.
There were still way too many mysteries surrounding this game, and I was scared to delve too deep. What if the truth just complicated and confused my everyday life even further? Just thinking about stuff getting even crazier made me hesitate.
“I always did try to stay out of anything that seemed like a hassle.”
But things were different now. I had people I wanted to protect. I had things I needed to do. I had favors to repay.