As I headed to school and looked around, I saw students making their way there too.
“Wow... I didn’t think I’d be amazed again. They really did reproduce everything, down to the last detail.”
[......What’s been reproduced is only part of Tengushi. It’s limited to the range Hiki knows about.]
“Even so, reproducing this much is impressive. Oh, are the students all here too?”
[......Yeah. All the students and staff at Raizen High School have been reproduced. Well, anyone you’ve never actually talked to was only recreated on the surface.]
“That’s impressive in its own way too.”
Impressed by Murasame’s words that even the surface details had been reproduced, I looked around the school, and a black-haired spiky-haired guy approached me.
“Yo, Hieta. What’re you doing standing around at the front gate?”
“Ah, Tonomachi.”
Tonomachi looked exactly like the real Tonomachi I knew.
I muttered to myself in wonder.
“Is this guy an NPC too?”
[Yeah, that’s right.]
“No matter how I look at him, he’s exactly like the real Tonomachi...”
As I studied Tonomachi closely, he rubbed his shoulder with a hand and said, “W-what’s with you, Hieta? Looking at me like that with such a hot gaze... What are you planning to do?”
“Wow... That’s exactly the kind of reaction the real one would make. The recreation’s really good.”
“What? What’s wrong, Hieta? Don’t tell me you’ve finally lost the ability to tell fantasy from reality? Can’t be helped, then... I’ll te-a-ch you what reality is.”
Even that smug, choppy way he dragged out the words at the end was identical to the Tonomachi I knew.
After that creepy level of accuracy and my conversation with Tonomachi ended, I was about to head into the school when a girl caught my eye.
“...Huh?”
A completely different outfit from the school uniform.
A white-haired girl dressed like a nun was someone I had never met, someone who didn’t exist in my memories at all.
As I stared at the girl, whose face I didn’t even recognize from my own memories, our eyes met.
Then the girl immediately turned and disappeared into the crowd.
“What was that just now...?”
I muttered, staring in the direction she had vanished.
[What’s wrong, Hiki?]
“Ah, uh. There was a girl just now I’d never seen before, someone not in my memories.”
I came to my senses at the commander’s voice and explained what I’d seen.
[......No, that’s impossible. Like I said earlier, anyone Hiki doesn’t know shouldn’t exist in that world.]
“Hmm... Even so, I definitely saw her.”
Murasame denied what I said, but I had definitely seen her.
A girl I didn’t know.
[......Maybe you saw wrong, or just forgot her?]
“That doesn’t make sense either. Her appearance was impossible to forget after seeing it once.”
Who could forget someone wearing a white nun’s habit?
Even if you did forget, seeing her again would make you remember. That’s how people are.
But even after seeing that girl just now, nothing came back to me.
[......That’s strange. There shouldn’t be any NPC like that.]
“I’ll follow her for now.”
I was curious who she was, and in case something happened, I immediately turned away from the school and ran in the direction the girl had gone.
“Weird. I definitely saw her go this way...”
Entering an alley in the residential district, I kept looking around for the girl.
White hair and a nun’s habit.
It was such a conspicuous outfit that if I could spot her, I’d recognize her right away.
“Found her.”
After wandering around for a few minutes, I finally saw the girl’s back.
[......Weird. There really shouldn’t be data for a character like this. Who is she... ?]
Murasame said there was no data for the girl in front of me.
Then how was that girl inside this game?
“If there’s no data, doesn’t that mean she can’t exist in the game?”
[......I’m not sure either. Why don’t you try talking to her?]
“...Understood.”
Murasame saying she didn’t know was a little unsettling, but I decided to follow the order for now.
“......Um, hello?”
“......”
When I spoke to the girl, she turned around and simply looked at me without saying a word.
“Have we maybe met somewhere before?”
“......”
The girl kept staring at me with a serious expression even after my question.
Trying to keep talking to the still-unresponsive girl felt like I was just talking to a wall.
[......Looks like there’s no response. Maybe some kind of error mixed in only her appearance data.]
[So she’s an NPC that appeared because of a bug. Well, that’s the most likely explanation.]
“...Probably, yeah?”
That had to be the most likely possibility, but for some reason I still felt uneasy.
Was she really just an NPC caused by a simple error?
[Hiki. Let’s leave that girl alone for now. Let’s end today’s test play here.]
“...Got it.”
I still couldn’t figure out who she was, but if she was an NPC created by a bug, then it needed to be fixed. So I turned around and was about to take off the device.
“......Higakieta Hai.”
“...What?”
And at that moment, the girl mentioned my name.
[......No way. That can’t be. There’s no way... There’s no way data like that exists...]
Leaving Murasame’s confusion behind, I looked at the girl who had said my name and asked, “Who are you?”
“......”
The girl fell silent again at my question.
I had no idea what she was trying to do, but I decided to wait until she answered.
“...I ask you this.”
At last, when the girl opened her mouth, a crackling sound cut off the voices of Murasame and the commander.
“Love. ...What is love?”
*******
“What is going on? The screen showing the game has gone completely black!”
At the moment Hiki was asked a question by the girl, the screen showing him playing the game inside [Fraxinus] suddenly went dark.
“It shut down!? Wait, Reine, what’s going on!?”
“......Hmm.”
Reine immediately started operating the device and checking the situation as soon as the screen went out.
“I don’t know the cause, but the simulator itself is still running.”
“You mean we just can’t monitor it from outside, but the simulator is still moving inside? So only our side got cut off!?”
“......Probably, yes.”
Shocked by the completely unexpected situation, Kotori quickly regained her composure and said, “Haah... This is an unforeseen trouble. What happened to Hiki?”
“......I don’t know. But his consciousness still hasn’t returned. In other words, Hiki’s consciousness is trapped inside My Little Shido 2.”
As Reine said, Hieta’s consciousness still had not returned.
His real body was simply lying there in a quiet, sleeping-like state, breathing softly.
Everyone looked at Hieta with worried expressions, and some even tried to wake him by speaking to him directly.
But Hieta’s consciousness still did not come back.
Seeing that, Kotori suppressed the unease rising in her chest and asked Reine, “Can you communicate with Hiki?”
“......The system is rebooting. I’m trying to call him in safe mode, but there’s no response.”
Realizing that even communication was impossible in a situation where every second mattered, Kotori let out a sigh and said, “Haah... No choice. It’s a little dangerous, but force Hiki to log out. Leaving him like this is even more dangerous.”
At Kotori’s words, Reine shook her head.
“......Impossible. We already tried that.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t respond at all to any operation from this side.”
The situation had reached the point where even a forced logout was blocked.
Kotori pressed her temples against the headache building up and asked about the last resort.
“...What about forcibly removing him from the device?”
“......No. Too dangerous. Forcing a physical disconnect could cause massive damage to the brain.”
Shido, who had been listening quietly from the side, realized there was no way to rescue Hieta in the current situation and clenched his fist in helpless frustration, unable to do anything.
“H-Hieta...”
“Darling! Darling! Why won’t you wake up!?”
“My precious one...”
“C-could it be that Hieta can’t wake up like this...?”
“I-I don’t want that...”
“That’s right! Forcing Hieta to wake up...”
『No, Mayuri-chan. If we force him awake, Hieta-kun will be in danger.』
“...That’s right.”
In a situation where everyone was worried about Hieta, the spirits were seized by the negative thought that he might never wake up again, and their condition began to worsen rapidly.
“......This is bad. The spirits’ condition is deteriorating fast.”
“Yeah... This happened right in front of them. It can’t be helped.”
“......I’ll focus on identifying the cause as quickly as possible. Kotori, please take care of the spirits.”
“...Got it.”
Kotori forced down her own anxiety and began comforting the spirits.
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