It was January 3rd, the day of our departure. I only managed to take Carol around to some shops and the mall yesterday, but she got so excited at all the sights and sounds that just looking at her put a smile on my face.
“Did you have fun yesterday?”
Carol nodded enthusiastically. We were done with breakfast, and she was all dressed and ready to go. She climbed out from under the kotatsu, put on her favorite bear-shaped backpack, and gave me a little twirl.
“It was really, really fun! The world of the gods is amazing! Everything’s so big, and there are tons of people, and everything’s so shiny! It’s like a story world!”
Despite the early hour, she was full of energy. The clothes we bought at the mall yesterday suited her perfectly. A pastel sweater and a long skirt with a pink pattern. She really did look like a child model, but that would be true in any outfit. It took her an entire hour to pick these out. I had to remind myself how long women could take at a shop—even children. I chose the mall because it would be crowded, which would discourage any corrupted gods from targeting me. More witnesses.
I didn’t come up with that myself, though. I spent a lot of time on the forums after my initial post and picked up a bunch of valuable information. For instance: miracles in the real world were less effective than in the game world. Using them on multiple people or over a wide area was also very expensive, and was difficult for level 2 and level 3 players. That was why the other users suggested I stay in crowded areas. If an enemy accidentally caught me in a miracle, it would count as using it against another player, and they’d get an instant game over.
I used all that advice to give Carol a fun day out, ensuring she didn’t need to think about her parents or the village. That was all I wanted for her.
“I already told Seika and my parents that I was going to Hokkaido.”
I’d phoned Dad last night and told him I was going up to the village that was always sending me stuff.
“I see. Make sure you keep yourself out of trouble.”
That was all he said, no follow-up questions. Despite his usual brevity, he sounded happy for me. But maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Seika already knew about Carol, so the trip was easy to explain. She even managed to get us two reserved seats on the bullet train. I could hardly believe it and thanked her profusely.
“There’s an art to ticket-buying, plus I know someone,” she explained. “Make sure you wrap up warm, okay? And bring me back something nice. Have a great trip!”
I spent all day with Carol yesterday, but she was an early sleeper. By eight o’clock she was cuddling Destiny and settling down. That was when I had the opportunity to gather information. The forums were hopping at night.
Turned out I wasn’t the only one who had doubts about the game. The majority of players seemed to have figured out the game was set in a parallel world and wasn’t just a computer program. All the gods had access to different miracles. For example, the God of Clear Streams, who was under the God of Water, had the power to control and purify water. That player was very excited; they were level 3 and an outdoorsy type. They liked using their purification miracles to promote the health of the natural world.
I discovered that no other players had access to a golem or a miracle to control the weather. Those seemed to be exclusive to the God of Fate, although I wasn’t sure what those things had to do with fate. I had a theory, though.
Fate was linked to luck. If you had bad luck, you could be caught in the rain. Good luck meant it would be sunny. In that sense, controlling the weather was like controlling someone’s luck, or fate. And fate was linked to life itself. Being born in the first place meant you were fated to have a life. Summoning the golem was giving temporary life to a statue. That made sense to me, I guess, but I could ask the developer gods directly when I saw them.
All player gods had access to a holy book and the ability to send one prophecy a day. The more I heard about other gods and their miracles, the more pleased I was with my own element. Other gods had miracles that sounded useful in the real world, but mine were better equipped for developing my village. Still, I felt like I never had the chance to use my miracles to their full potential.
“How come you’re staring into space, Yoshio? Aren’t we going out?”
Carol’s question snapped me back to reality. I was so deep in thought that I lost sight of my surroundings. She and Destiny peered at me anxiously, the lizard’s head poking out of her teddy bear backpack.
Destiny was coming with us. Without its power, I wouldn’t have escaped all those close calls. It was our bodyguard, as well as Carol’s sleeping buddy. I patted its head gently.
“You were born in the other world, too.”
It came over here in an egg, so it couldn’t remember anything about where it was born, but I was sure it would love somewhere it could run around and explore. I thought of Destiny as my pet lizard, but it was a basilisk, a creature that shouldn’t exist in this world. It didn’t belong here. I planned to ask the developers to send it back, if they could.
“Let’s go, then. Have you got everything, Carol?”
We double-checked our luggage just inside the front door, the door that used to be a heavy, overbearing gate to me. Two months later and it no longer held any threat. I grabbed the doorknob and flung it open.
“Here we go!”