"I will transmit identification name [Nightmare]."
As Kannazuki spoke, a girl with black twin tails appeared inside [Fraxinus].
"Ufufu... It seems you need me, so here I am."
"[Nightmare]...!"
Mana glared fiercely at Kurumi, who had arrived, but since she was currently being restrained by Miku, all she could do was glare.
"My, my. So Mana has that kind of taste?"
"Ggh...!"
Kurumi chuckled at her reaction, and Mana felt humiliated and deeply enraged.
She wanted to break free of Miku’s restraint and tear [Nightmare] apart right then and there, but without her CR-Unit it was impossible. Besides, for Hieta, who was trapped inside the game right now, Mana forced herself to endure it.
"So, how did you know?"
"That’s a secret~ Still, I hope you’ll at least understand that I came for Hieta-san’s sake~"
"...Fine. Maybe you’re just being capricious, but you saved us. This is a race against time, too."
Kotori had plenty to say, but Hieta was the priority for now, so she decided to let it slide.
"Kurumi. Thanks."
"Don’t mention it~ I’m personally very interested in Hieta-san too, so you don’t need to thank me, you know?"
At the mention that she was interested in Hieta, Shido felt a faint sense of unease.
"Reine. Are we ready?"
"...The pod is all set. There shouldn’t be any problem diving the designated people in. But..."
Reine paused for a moment before continuing.
"Even if it looks exactly like reality, it’s still a virtual world on the inside. From the perspective we designed it from, it’s a world for a dating sim. Still, as long as the other side holds the authority, there’s no telling what might happen."
At Reine’s warning, Kotori nodded.
"Got it. First, we’ll find out the other side’s purpose and identity. After that... well, we’ll improvise."
Kotori shrugged as if it were no big deal.
"Perfect. If it’s a dating sim, then we’ve got plenty of experience too. Now then, let’s begin our date—our war."
*******
After Arus said she would make contact, she didn’t respond for a while.
Even when I kept calling out to her, there was no answer.
"Arus?"
Since she still wasn’t responding, I went right up to her and called her name again. Then Arus opened her eyes and said,
"...I have confirmed the target’s access."
"Whoa!"
That startled me.
"Ac...cess?"
What did she mean by access?
The question didn’t last long.
"Hieta! Get away from her!"
"Itsuka-kun?!"
At the sound of Itsuka-kun’s voice, he appeared with the others.
"Get away? What do you mean by that?"
"...That girl is dangerous. Something’s gone wrong with this game, and she’s the cause. And we were called here by her."
"What?"
Something had gone wrong with the game? Since when, from the moment the connection was cut off?
I’d at least vaguely realized that something was wrong with the game because communications were down, but I hadn’t known Arus was the cause.
And what did he mean, everyone had been called here?
Could it be that the word contact Arus mentioned, and the access she said she had confirmed, were part of the process of pulling other people into this place?
"Hieta! We came to save you from the game!"
"My, my, that’s a pretty brutal development right from the start~"
"Get away from Hieta!"
Tohka and the lady, Rinne, were saying things I couldn’t understand.
"No, no. Save me? I haven’t been in any danger at all..."
Ever since I entered this game, I’d only been walking around, talking to NPCs, and even when I met Arus, I hadn’t been exposed to any danger.
Besides, the idea of being in danger in a dating sim was ridiculous to begin with.
"H, Hieta-san... can’t get out of the game anymore. Because of that person..."
"What?!"
That was news to me.
No, trapped inside the game?
What is this, Sword Art Online?
Even that one let you go once you cleared it.
"I had no idea."
"That’s so like my darling~ But that girl is the enemy, cute as she may be. I think it’d be better to stay away~"
"I see... Then she must be that artificial spirit. She’s quite cute-looking."
"Artificial... spirit?"
The lady called Arus an artificial spirit.
If she was artificial, that meant she had been made by someone, so Arus was a spirit created by a human.
"Artificial spirit? What does that mean?"
Well, as expected, Arus didn’t seem to know her own identity.
"Kuh, bwahahahaha! Don’t bother pretending, false spirit! You used Hieta as a hostage to summon us... and now you can’t take it back!"
At Kaguya’s words, Arus closed her eyes and muttered,
"Hostage... restraining someone for the purpose of conversation... I see. I deny that. I have not restrained Higakieta Hae in any way."
Arus flatly denied Kaguya’s accusation.
Then Yuzuru spoke up.
"Rebuttal. For you, who rules this virtual world, Hieta is nothing more and nothing less than a hostage."
"I am currently not using any authority over Higakieta Hae."
Arus insisted again that it wasn’t her.
She said she wasn’t using any authority over me.
Then what was the cause of me being trapped in this game?
"...What do you mean? You didn’t call us here for Hiki’s sa—"
The commander’s words changed halfway through, which was a little suspicious, but anyway, if she put it that way, maybe Arus really had summoned them.
"Come to think of it, didn’t you mention something about searching earlier, Arus?"
"Yes. In order to understand love, I searched for and summoned talented people who could cultivate love with Higakieta Hae."
"W-wait a second."
So the search she’d mentioned back then was for people to love me?
"No, why are Itsuka-kun, the commander, and Tohka included in that?!"
"Higakieta Hae, you said it yourself. Love comes in many forms. So I summoned them."
"Oh, come on..."
I couldn’t even argue, because those were exactly my own words.
Could it be that I was about to be forced into some kind of comradeship love or something?
A chill ran down my spine.
"For the record, I don’t think of Hiki like that."
"Then, does Itsuka Kotori not love Higakieta Hae?"
"Of course I do."
"...Then does that mean Higakieta Hae is in unrequited love?"
"Huh?!!!!"
A bomb had just gone off out of nowhere.
At Arus’s words, everyone, including the commander and Itsuka-kun, was stunned.
"Hey! What the hell are you talking about!"
"No! Put me down first and then talk! I can explain everything!"
After barely calming the commander down, I explained everything that had happened so far.
"So, there was a misunderstanding in what Arus said. I said I felt comradeship, not that I loved her."
"But didn’t Higakieta Hae say it himself? That love includes comradeship."
"Sigh... Arus. That’s nowhere near unrequited love. Unrequited love only applies when it’s romantic love toward the opposite sex."
"Is that so? Understood."
I let out a sigh of relief inside.
Because of this white-haired girl, I’d nearly been socially buried.
"What about the rest of you? For you, what is love... what kind of thing is it?"
At Arus’s question, Tohka answered without a moment’s hesitation.
"Hmm. I don’t know what love is, but it’s fun being with Shido! And he always makes delicious food for me!"
"Tohka... So my worth is just meals...?"
For some reason, I started feeling sorry for Itsuka-kun.
And after Tohka, the others began giving their own answers one by one.
"Um... f-for example, when you think about that person, your heart goes thump-thump, or your heart... gets warm..."
『Aha~ Yoshino is always thinking about Hieta-kun with a red face while she’s in bed, after all~!』
That’s embarrassing even for me.
"A change in temperature in the heart...? That expresses a gentle feeling, or a sense of abundance. But couldn’t you get that from things other than love?"
"U-um, that might be true, but it feels... different somehow..."
What Yoshino was talking about was probably the happiness you feel when you’re in love, while what Arus was thinking of was happiness you could get from other things too.
"Isn’t it the feeling of wanting to make the other person your own? Overlapping both body and heart—"
"Arus. You do not need to listen to that. That is still too early."
I hurriedly covered the lady’s mouth.
What kind of adult love are you talking about?
"Then... Yamai Kaguya, Yamai Yuzuru, what about you two?"
"Kuh... Love, huh. Love is the recollection of fate. A soul companion that does not permit parting."
Isn’t that talking about Yuzuru?
"Correction. Isn’t that talking about Yuzuru? What we’re asking about now is your feelings toward Hieta."
At Yuzuru’s correction, Kaguya thought for a moment and then answered.
"An... object?"
"My, that’s the same as me?"
"No, that’s completely different from what the lady means, isn’t it? You want my power, after all."
"Fufufu."
The lady just laughed off my words.
No matter how I looked at it, I was right.
"What about Yuzuru?"
"Answer. It means putting the other person before yourself."
Yuzuru’s answer was reasonable too.
Love wasn’t something you could do by only thinking about yourself.
"I think the same as Yuzuru. In the end, love is about caring for the other person. If the person I love wants to do something, I think I should cheer them on from beside them."
At Rinne’s words, Itsuka-kun’s body trembled slightly.
Probably because of something she’d said in the bath before.
"Arus, what do you think?"
"...Based on the information so far, it would be difficult to understand love."
"Well, yeah, I figured."
If you could understand it from just this, you’d already know all there was to know about love.
"As expected, I will probably have no choice but to confirm love by actually forming it, by simulating its cultivation... I asked all of you to come here with that possibility in mind."
"Huh?"
So she was going to make me and the others fall in love?
With the commander, Rinne, Tohka, and the rest?
I said with the most serious expression I could manage,
"Arus. Kotori, Rinne, and Tohka all love Itsuka-kun, so you can pair them with him."
"...Understood."
"Phew..."
With that, the emergency was resolved.
The lady would probably handle the rest on her own.
"Commencing."
With those words, my vision went dark.
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