When I opened my eyes after putting on the device, I saw the neighborhood I knew.
It looked so real, like I’d actually stepped out onto the street, that I stared blankly and looked around.
“Wow, this is seriously amazing.”
The sensation under my feet felt like I was really standing on the ground.
“[Can you hear me?]”
“Whoa!?”
It was the commander’s voice, suddenly ringing in my head.
More accurately, it didn’t feel like I was hearing it so much as having it shoved straight into my mind.
“Commander?”
“[What are you so surprised about?]”
“No, how am I hearing you right now?”
“[I’m communicating directly with your consciousness. Since this is inside a game, you don’t need a communicator.]”
“That’s seriously incredible.”
A game that perfectly reproduced every sensation.
It made me wonder what would happen if they ran something like Dark Souls on this.
Well, if someone ever made that, I’d make Itsuka-kun play it, not me.
I’d already lived through that in reality.
Anyway, with those thoughts in mind, I wandered around.
“By the way, does this thing reproduce pain too?”
“[Of course it does.]”
Suddenly, I got curious whether I could feel pain here, since in reality I didn’t really feel it all that well.
Since the commander said pain was included too, I got curious and picked up a stone fragment nearby.
“Hey, wait. What are you planning to do?”
“Hm? Obviously a test to see if I can feel pain.”
“[No, why would you use a stone fragment for—]”
Before the commander could even finish, the stone fragment was already headed for the back of my hand.
Crunch!
“Ghk...!”
The pain was so vivid that I let out a groan without thinking.
The fragment had lodged itself in my hand, and blood ran down the back of it, dripping to the ground and leaving a trail.
“Wow, I can feel it.”
“[You crazy bastard!!!]”
I was marveling at the fact that I could feel pain when the commander’s loud shout made me frown.
“Commander. You’re loud.”
“[It’s okay, Yoshino! Don’t cry!]”
“Huh? Did something happen to Yoshino?”
“[It’s because of you!]”
Yoshino was crying because of me? I tilted my head, unable to make sense of that at all.
“What are you talking about?”
“[You suddenly smashed a stone fragment into the back of your hand, so Yoshino got startled!]”
“...Ah.”
Come to think of it, Yoshino was obviously watching me play the game.
Yoshino was watching me play, and then I suddenly hurt myself because I wanted to feel pain?
Yeah, that one was on me.
“Yeah, that was definitely my fault.”
“[W-waaaah!]”
“[It’s, it’s okay, Yoshino! Look! Hiki isn’t hurt!]”
Hearing Yoshino’s crying in my head and the commander’s voice trying to soothe her, I scratched the back of my head awkwardly.
“[Sigh... If you wanted to feel pain, you could’ve just pinched your hand or hit it or something! There were other ways!]”
“Would that even hurt?”
“[Haaah???]”
The commander sounded genuinely stunned by my words.
But she needed to hear me out too, because if this were my real body, that would’ve just felt like something got stuck in my hand.
“[...At this rate, maybe I should’ve put Shido in there instead.]”
“That’s not okay!”
Itsuka-kun immediately protested in response to the commander’s serious voice.
What a shame.
It would’ve been nice if Itsuka-kun had taken my place instead.
Putting my disappointment aside, I asked the commander what I’d been wondering about.
“By the way, Commander. Why can’t I use my abilities?”
The reason I’d stabbed the back of my hand with the stone fragment earlier was because my abilities wouldn’t work.
My regeneration worked normally, but my inventory wouldn’t come up.
“[Ah, that. Simply put, the specs aren’t enough to implement your abilities. Just reproducing the senses is already a stretch, and on top of that there are all kinds of weapons, their special effects, and all the weird stuff you normally use, so it’s a bit much.]”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
If that was the case, I could understand it.
Even I thought it’d be hard to implement my abilities while keeping this level of quality.
“[Oh, right. For reference, the objects over there... things like the scenery and the sky were created based on your memories.]”
“Really?”
I walked on, admiring the fact that they’d even turned my memories into something tangible.
Well, that didn’t mean there were any people around.
I guess that was because this wasn’t a road people used very often.
It wouldn’t make sense for a dating sim to have no people in it.
“[Ah, and about this communication thing—just so you know, the reaction is a little worse than usual.]”
“Hm? You mean the signal’s bad?”
“[It’s a little different. The flow of time in that cyber space and here... that is, in the real world, is different. Over there, subjective time passes faster.]”
Listening to the commander, I understood what she meant.
“Ah, okay, I get the gist. So even if a day passes here, only a few dozen minutes pass over there, right?”
Wasn’t there something like that?
The way time flows in dreams is different from reality.
I figured it was something like that.
“[You’re smarter than I expected? That’s right. When I’m talking to the real world like this, I can adjust the time there, or interfere with Hiki’s consciousness... anyway, we can talk with a decent level of smoothness.]”
“Wow.”
I had no idea how many times I’d been impressed today.
“So, what am I supposed to do?”
“[First, get out of that alley. I’ve also triggered some events, so it’d be good to go around and explore.]”
“Roger.”
Following the commander’s instructions, I left the alley and stepped out onto the main road, where people in all kinds of outfits were walking around.
“So people were implemented too?”
“[Of course. They’re NPCs controlled by the program. You can have normal conversations with them too, so it wouldn’t hurt to try.]”
As soon as I heard the commander’s words, I spotted a group nearby.
It was those good-natured people dressed like delinquents.
“Oh! Hello!”
“Huh? Hey, isn’t that you, bro~ www.”
“Well, well, long time no see~ www.”
“[...] Just what have you been doing...?”
I ignored the commander’s voice in my head and talked to them.
“Where are you headed this time?”
“Ah, we’re on our way to our regular NTR meeting~”
“N...T...R?”
Not the one I was thinking of, right?
There was no way these were actually bad people in disguise, right?
I quietly clenched my fist.
“A meeting to realize the dream of Nanum through Tonghan Romang~ www.”
“...Ah, haha! Sounds like a wonderful meeting!”
“Right~”
“Ah, we’re running out of time now~ www.”
“Oh no! Bro! We’d better get going!”
And just like that, the good delinquent group left.
“[...] I guess you really can’t judge people by how they look.”
“R-right. Yeah.”
I let go of my clenched fist and awkwardly started looking around again.
Then, as I passed a row of restaurants, a thought occurred to me.
“Commander. If I eat food here, can I taste it?”
“[Hm? Ah, that’s implemented too. You can taste it, and since your brain recognizes that you ‘ate,’ you can feel full too. Of course, your body is asleep, so you won’t actually be physically full.]”
“They really implemented every possible thing.”
Wait, then that meant I could eat without gaining weight, right?
“If I tweak this a little, it might be good for dieting.”
“[Oh? That’s a very interesting idea.]”
“Right?”
Anyway, I kept walking and talking with the commander.
“I’ve been here before, and they even have this too. They really copied the real world comp—ugh!”
Something slammed into me from the side.
If an 8-ton truck hit you, would it feel like this?
Suppressing the fear from when I’d first been crushed in Dark Souls as much as I could, I looked to the side and saw a girl with purple hair.
“Tohka!?”
“Oh, o-oh! Hieta! Sorry! I bumped into you!”
“Tohka, why are you here?”
“Hmm! I thought I was going to be late, so I ran while holding bread in my mouth, and then I bumped into you the moment we met!”
Listening to Tohka, I got fed up and pushed myself back up.
No, what is this, some old-school rom-com? Who still runs around with bread in their mouth because they’re late?
“What do you mean, bread because you’re late?”
“You didn’t know? Running while holding bread in your mouth and shouting ‘I’m late! I’m late!’ is common sense! If you crash into someone like that, it’s supposed to be a fated encounter! I wanted to bump into Shido, but unfortunately I ran into Hieta instead!”
“No, setting aside the fact that there are way too many things to complain about here, if you hit Itsuka-kun at that speed, I don’t think his body would survive.”
“If it were Shido, he’d endure it! Anyway, I’m off to class first!”
Then Tohka ran off again in the direction she’d been heading.
I watched her go and wondered what the hell that was about.
“Ohhh~ Amazing, Kotori! Hieta and I are talking on the screen!”
“Yeah. It’s pretty fun, right? It’s only data, so the behavior is a little different, but still.”
Sure, it might be different, but to me it felt exactly the same.
“Even though it’s me, it’s not me... What a strange feeling. Still, she did seem to be acting a little ‘less intelligent’ than me.”
Oh, come on, Tohka.
That’s not it.
I can honestly say that’s just wrong.
As I was thinking that, I felt another impact against my side.
“Guhk!”
“...It’s not Shido.”
The owner of that voice was none other than Tobiichi.
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