After using the shining Dragon Stone, the first thing I did was clear out the angels surrounding me.
“Kraaaah!!!”
Whoosh! As I drew power from within and swung my arm, a colossal dragon arm manifested behind me, sweeping through the area with devastating force.
A deafening roar echoed through the dark mountain as dirt and dust erupted. Through the chaos, Rinne’s light bullets poured down in a relentless stream, but I blocked every single one with the dragon arm.
“Krrrgh...”
Even with the dragon arm as a shield, the shock of the impact bled through. Both of my arms throbbed. But it was only for a moment. I forced strength into my legs, my power amplified by the draconic transformation.
My leg muscles swelled, the ground cracked and caved in beneath me, and my body shot toward Rinne at a terrifying speed.
“What the—!”
“Kuhah! What, never seen a person run like this before?!”
Rinne, who had been attacking safely from the air, panicked and tried to back away, but I used the dragon arm to snatch her out of the sky and hurl her into the ground.
Boom! “Ghk!”
Just before she hit the earth, Rinne summoned an angel to catch herself.
“Tch.”
Immediately, the light bullets began raining down again. It seemed her only method of attack was these light bullets, but they were far from harmless.
Each single shot was enough to deal fatal damage. I could block them with the dragon arm, sure, but they weren't something I could simply ignore; some of the damage still seeped through, and the dragon arm could only cover so much.
“Kgh!”
As if to prove the point, one light bullet punched through my defense and struck me. The hit burned like white-hot fire, leaving a hole the size of the bullet in my body.
“Shiiit...”
No matter how accustomed to pain I had become, burning was something I could never get used to. Honestly, being stabbed or sliced would have been preferable.
Perhaps it was the pain, or perhaps it was the influence of the draconic transformation, but I could feel my thoughts becoming simpler and more primal. Even now, it felt as if my brain was malfunctioning due to the agony.
To make matters worse, the battlefield was a mountain, which severely limited my options. The enemy held the advantage, and I was at a disadvantage. Normally, anyone would have given up.
“I’m used to this kind of thing!”
In Dark Souls, it was always a losing fight. Out in the field, I was always outnumbered and alone. Even in boss fights, the enemy would pressure me with one relentless attack after another, leaving me with nothing but the hope of a successful dodge.
“I love how hard this is!”
This was a fight I was already conditioned for. There was nothing I couldn’t handle. Besides, hadn’t I already played and loved a game exactly like this?
“Bite down on it, Rinne! My fist is going to hurt a little!”
As I clenched my fist, the dragon arm mirrored the movement.
I leaped at Rinne once more. She summoned angels to block my path, but every time I threw a punch, the angels burst apart. And just as the dragon arm was about to reach her—
“Ghk...”
A light bullet pierced my right shoulder.
“...Go to sleep already.”
Along with Rinne’s cold, low voice, countless light bullets poured down upon me.
Boom! KWA-KA-BOOM! “Grrrrgh!”
I tried to raise my now-useless arm to block them, but my right side couldn’t withstand the impact, and the dragon’s right arm collapsed as well.
“...Goodbye.”
With those words, my entire vision was consumed by the blinding radiance of the light bullets.
******
“...Huh?”
When I came to and looked around, I was back in the world where I had originally lived. I was standing still on the side of the road.
“W-what the hell is this?”
I was bewildered. Had everything I went through been a dream? But it had felt so real—real enough to feel the pain. Was it one of those vivid nightmares?
My mind raced with a flurry of confused thoughts.
“Still... if it was a dream, then that’s a relief.”
I reached a conclusion. I'd just tell myself it was a nasty nightmare. After all, was it even normal to be possessed and end up inside a game? And then get transferred into an anime after that?
“Min... Kyung-sik...?”
As I was thinking, my friend—the last person I had spoken to—Kyung-sik, appeared a short distance away.
“Hey, hey! Kyung-sik!”
Overjoyed to see a friend after such a long time, I called out his name and ran toward him.
“Whoa~ Min Kyung-sik! I never thought I’d see you here!”
In my excitement, I reached him and threw an arm around his shoulders. But his reaction was strange.
He looked at me as if he couldn't believe I was actually there, and then his expression darkened.
“What’s wrong? Hey, why the long face?”
“...Huh?”
“What?”
“Are you really the same guy I know...?”
At Kyung-sik’s sudden question, I was momentarily lost, so I looked closely at his face—and saw his eyes trembling violently.
His gaze, filled with shock and anger, looked at me as if he had seen a ghost.
“W-why are you looking at me like that...?”
Startled by a look I had never seen from him before, I asked, and Kyung-sik grabbed my shoulder tightly.
The grip was so fierce that my shoulder began to ache.
“W-what?”
I staggered back from his incomprehensible behavior and watched him warily.
“Where... where did you go...?”
“Huh? What are you talking about? Where did I go?”
“Where the hell did you go, you bastard!”
At his shout, a wave of unease crashed over me.
His voice, thick with fury, slammed into my eardrums and sent my thoughts spiraling.
From what Kyung-sik was saying, it sounded as if I had completely vanished from this world.
“N-no way...?”
“What do you mean, 'no way,' you piece of shit... What the hell was so bad that you had to disappear from the face of the earth?!”
Before I could utter a word, Kyung-sik swung at my face in a fit of rage.
My vision spun violently, and his face was twisted with emotion.
Clutching my stinging cheek, I slowly turned to look at him. He had grabbed me by the collar and was screaming.
“If things were hard! If it was that hard, then just say something! How does it make any sense to just disappear without saying a word to your friend?! Do you know how long I searched for you?!”
Kyung-sik’s face was already a mess of tears.
“I even reported it to the police! I used every method I could think of to find you! But damn it, where the hell did you go that nothing came up?! So please, if it’s hard, just tell me...”
Kyung-sik punched me in the chest.
The blow was so weak it was more of a shove than a punch, but it revealed just how much he had been hurting.
I hadn’t disappeared on purpose, yet seeing him like this for the first time made a wave of guilt creep up on me.
“Just... calm down first. I’ll explain everything.”
To explain everything to Kyung-sik, he needed to settle down first.
So I sat on a nearby bench and waited in silence until his sobbing stopped.
“Hrk!”
“Ugh, gross.”
“Shut up. So what happened?”
“Where do I even start...?”
I looked up at the sky and told him everything that had happened so far.
The dark days I’d spent after being possessed. I endured body slashes, stabs, crushing blows, burns, and explosions—every kind of pain imaginable, all for the single hope that I might return to this world.
But after that, I was transferred into Date A Live, as if the universe were telling me to give up on ever returning home.
After hearing the whole story, Kyung-sik rubbed his face and let out a long, weary sigh.
“Haa... And you expect me to believe that?”
“Believe it or not, it’s the truth, you bastard.”
I understood why he couldn’t believe me, but what I was saying was the absolute truth.
The fact that I had been reported missing in this world proved that everything I’d experienced had been real.
“So now you’re going back?”
“Probably, I—”
Just as I was about to answer, the faces of several people flashed through my mind.
The foul-tempered commander. Itsuka-kun, who was kind, unlike the commander. Tohka, who was naive but pure. Yoshino, who was surprisingly mature for her age. And the others, too.
If I decided to stay here, I couldn’t simply ignore them.
“...You’ve got someone important over there, don’t you?”
That direct hit made my body flinch.
“Thought so.”
“How’d you know?”
“It’s written all over your face.”
I touched my face, wondering if it was really that obvious, and he let out a snort of laughter.
“Yeah. What’s wrong with having someone important to you?”
“......”
“So go. Don’t regret it.”
“...Yeah, you bastard. Come visit sometime. I’m loaded over there, so I’ll buy you fried chicken.”
“Fried chicken, my ass. I’m just glad I got to see you in a dream.”
“...Huh? What do you mean—”
As the conversation ended, my body completely vanished. When I opened my eyes, Itsuka-kun was standing beside me.
“...Huh? Who are you...?”
Itsuka-kun spoke as if he didn’t know me. Had Rinne done something?
“<Eden>! [Paradise Lost]!”
“Ah! Dodge it!!!”
“Damn it—”
Just as I was about to say something to Itsuka-kun, I was struck by a strange tree branch and lost consciousness once again.
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