1.
She was insanely good at this.
Ten minutes after starting the game, I was getting absolutely wrecked by Silver Wolf, like a dog beaten on the hottest day of summer.
“...Could you maybe go easy on me?”
“No.”
If there were a national Pong team, this girl could easily make the cut.
That was how good she was.
It was a simple game where you hit a ball back and forth with two paddles, much like table tennis.
As the match progressed, the ball moved faster and faster, reaching a speed where it was nearly impossible to react.
And yet, she was reading every movement and hitting it clean?
I was good too—I'd even gone pro—but Silver Wolf was on a completely different level.
The score was 10 to 0.
I was getting crushed.
Haa... no choice.
I didn’t want to resort to this, but...
- poke
I deliberately jabbed Silver Wolf in the side.
Silver Wolf seemed to realize I was trying to interfere, so she did her best to ignore me and stay focused on the game.
- poke poke poke
My hand crept higher along her side.
Just as I reached her chest, Silver Wolf...
- crunch
“Aaaagh! You crazy bitch!!!”
“Hmph. Who said you could try winning with such a dirty trick?”
Even if it meant losing the point, she bit my finger.
It didn’t draw blood, but it still stung.
“I lose. I lose!”
“Then I get one wish.”
Tch. I was hoping to see her act cute in that outfit, too.
Failure. Who would’ve expected her to be that good at a game as simple as Pong?
I hadn’t expected to lose this easily, even considering my own experience.
I’d been confident enough to make a bet, after all.
I checked out the other games available.
Battle Wheel 32, Geometric War, Odysseus, Star Cheetah...
Looking at the high scores, it wasn’t that the other players were bad, but Silver Wolf's codename was consistently at the very top.
Come to think of it.
Back when Silver Wolf was poor and penniless, how had she played games here?
- beep
Just as I was about to try one more game, a notification bell rang to tell us the hamburgers were ready.
Silver Wolf and I went up the stairs and received our burgers from the owner.
They were just ordinary franchise burgers.
But even those were considered above-average food in Neon City.
The fact that she was giving them away for free proved that the woman was truly soft-hearted.
Too soft for a place like Neon City.
After finishing my burger, I stared at the owner.
She must have felt my gaze, because she turned her head slightly and pretended not to notice, but I kept looking back and forth between Silver Wolf and the woman.
“Why did you want to come here?”
“...I just wanted to tell you that my childhood continued here.”
She’d spent her childhood in this place.
Back when she didn’t even have a legal name or an ID number.
“I wanted to say thank you.”
“Then just say it.”
“...Ugh.”
Was she suddenly embarrassed?
Silver Wolf began fidgeting, pressing down on a harmless french fry.
Unable to stand watching her struggle, I took her hand.
Honestly, if she wanted to say thank you, she should just say it.
Why make it so complicated and beat around the bush?
“W-wait a second!”
“Shut up. If I let you keep waiting, we’ll be here another hour.”
She was ridiculously shy.
Seeing her struggle over a simple thank-you made that painfully obvious.
“Thank you.”
“Uh, um...”
“I heard this poor little brat owed you a lot. It’s embarrassing that she can’t even greet you properly.”
The only people I could be rough with were the bastards of Neon City.
With someone like this, I had to be polite.
I pressed down on Silver Wolf’s head from the side, forcing her to bow.
“...Thank you.”
“Louder.”
“Louder than that?”
“Yeah. People like her are rare.”
“Thank you!”
Her face was bright red.
But she also looked a little relieved.
“...You’ve grown a lot.”
“Compared to when I was little?”
“Yes. I took you in as an employee, and you spent all day playing games in the basement.”
Are you a thug?
You hired her as an employee and she just played games downstairs?
Seeing Silver Wolf lower her head without a word, it seemed the woman was telling the truth.
“Haha, it’s fine. We didn’t have any customers anyway, so I just needed a pretext.”
“...When I become famous later, I’ll definitely come back and repay you.”
“Use polite speech!”
“I’ll come back and repay you...”
How dare she speak so casually in front of a proper elder.
Someone who took in an orphan for free in Neon City and let her slack off in the basement while stealing a salary was not just in the top one percent of the city.
She was saint-level.
Why didn’t I meet someone like that at the start?
The moment I got possessed, I got jumped by a bunch of beggars and had my money stolen!!
I felt an irrational sense of unfairness.
But I decided this was just the difference between an extra and a protagonist.
“I’m this kind of person. I do a little fixer work.”
“Oh my.”
“If you ever need a job done, please contact me. I’ll handle the first one for free.”
I handed over my business card and introduced myself.
Since Silver Wolf was like a daughter to her, I had to show her I was a decent person.
...Or maybe not?
Fixers weren’t exactly known for being decent people, after all.
I cleaned up the trash left over from the burgers.
I was about to say goodbye to the owner and leave.
It seemed Silver Wolf had wanted to show me her past because she viewed me as a companion, a friend, and someone to walk forward with.
- creak
The moment I was about to open the door, the owner looked at Silver Wolf and spoke.
“Silver Wolf.”
“...”
“Are you happy?”
She paused for a moment, reflecting on the question.
Then Silver Wolf turned back.
And gave a faint smile.
“Yes. I think I am a little happy.”
With that, we left the shop.
2.
『Quest - ■■■ ■■ Maker』
▶ Condition - Raise Silver Wolf to LV.99!
- Difficulty: ■■
- Success Reward: ???
The moment I stepped out, this stupid quest popped up.
On the way back, the notification window appeared so abruptly that I had to stop and wonder what it was.
“Is LV.99 even a realistic number...?”
I’d never heard of anyone being born at LV.99 on Punk Road and reigning at the peak from birth.
And if such a being did exist...
Even in the slums on the outskirts of Neon City, there was no way I wouldn’t have heard about it.
[1. Give Silver Wolf the cartridge obtained as a reward.]
[2. Do not give Silver Wolf the cartridge obtained as a reward.]
Another choice, crawling back up again.
It was a cartridge I couldn’t use anyway.
I didn’t mind giving it to Silver Wolf, but...
There was only one thing that bothered me.
The crazy woman in the white coat with the scalpel.
The moment that woman came looking for us because of the cartridge, it would be game over.
They’d even blacked out the difficulty with two squares to make it look ominous. At this point, my indecisiveness was only getting worse.
“Haa...”
Should I give it or not?
If I refused, there’d be no risk, but there had to be a reason the choice appeared in the first place.
What if I just stall and wait a bit...?
[5 minutes remaining until automatic selection]
Yeah, no.
Forget it.
I tried to find a loophole and got shut down immediately.
The quest would never ask me to do something absolutely impossible.
I didn’t know what the reward was, but the fact that it was plastered with question marks meant it had to be something extraordinary.
“Silver Wolf.”
“What?”
I was torn.
I wondered if it was really the right choice to give this to Silver Wolf, who was now looking at me with her head tilted.
If it were only my life on the line, I could throw the gamble without hesitation.
But if Silver Wolf died because of my choice, I couldn’t bear that.
“Aaaagh!!! Why give me a choice like this!”
“...Why are you doing this again?”
Why couldn’t it just be simple? Why couldn't I just give it to her?
It was forcing me to choose.
If it were only money I’d lose, fine.
But this could get someone killed!!!
My head filled with the image of a clown meme I’d seen online, and I grabbed at my hair.
Damn it, if it were me, I’d go all in without a second thought!
But when it comes to Silver Wolf, I get total decision paralysis!
“Adrian, don’t just yell. Explain it.”
Silver Wolf walked over to me as I crouched there, clutching my head.
Realizing there were only five minutes left, I quickly explained everything to her.
I left out the parts I couldn’t explain, like regression, and simply told her that this opportunity had been presented to me.
After I finished, Silver Wolf looked at me.
“...Isn’t the fact that such an opportunity exists itself a kind of luck?”
“What?”
“Think about the homeless people in Neon City. They have no opportunities and no will to move forward.”
“...”
“The fact that you have a chance, the fact that you can choose... isn’t that already luck? That’s what I think.”
Adrian, no—Han Siu.
I’d been spoiled by fortune.
Maybe I had been thinking too lightly about all this.
I had regression, and now I had a status window too.
I thought refusing a choice like this and moving forward little by little wasn’t such a bad strategy.
But the moment I heard Silver Wolf’s words, the instincts that had vanished under the fear of death came rushing back.
No matter how small the odds, there was still a way.
There was no such thing as impossible in this world.
But if I regressed, all the progress I’d built up would disappear.
I didn’t even know how the save points worked.
“Hah.”
“...Are you okay?”
“No, thank you. You just cured my indecision.”
And then, breaking through those terrible conditions and that tiny chance...
seizing victory was my virtue.
My pleasure.
My hesitation vanished.
Now that the fear of death had been peeled away, the world was starting to look clear again.
“Here. Take it.”
“The cartridge?”
If I didn’t give Silver Wolf the cartridge, she’d remain an LV.0 illegal orphan forever.
Thinking about that, it was only right that she have it.
I had a status window, after all.
“What’s the point of giving me someone else’s cartridge if I can’t even use it? Why...”
“It's yours.”
A question mark appeared over Silver Wolf’s head.
“Don’t say nonsense.”
“How about you try swapping it in first?”
My status window had shown me a daily quest.
So something had to appear for Silver Wolf too.
Silver Wolf fiddled with the cartridge, then pulled out her own. It was old and shabby, clearly marked LV.0.
She likely assumed that if it were someone else’s cartridge, it wouldn’t fit.
That was clearly what Silver Wolf was thinking.
- click
But contrary to our expectations...
Silver Wolf’s gaze fixed on the empty air.
“Adrian, what is this...”
“You alone level up. Use it well.”
I wasn’t disappointed that I couldn’t use it.
Me alone level up? I could live just fine without something like that.
“...Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Out of nowhere?”
“It’s not out of nowhere.”
Silver Wolf stepped closer to me.
“I’m nothing special, and I have nothing. Why are you being so nice to me? I... I don’t deserve it.”
“Worthiness isn’t something you get to decide.”
Even if this bond had been forged by a quest choice.
It was still my choice.
“I decide. And I don’t regret it.”
Of course, by the fifth run of clearing the game, I regretted it like hell.
But this was a little different, right?
“I can’t accept this. Adrian, you should use it instead...”
“I can’t use it.”
Déjà vu hit me.
It felt exactly like when I’d tried to give away ten million credit points.
And if I used the cartridge, that crazy woman with the knife would turn me into her prey.
That result was already fixed; I couldn’t change it.
If I struggled and somehow escaped, maybe things could change.
But then I might have to abandon Silver Wolf.
Fuck that.
My people mattered more than some cartridge.
“Take it when I give it to you. You always said life was a trash game, right? Well, now it’s a god-tier game.”
“...”
She seemed to be looking back and forth between the blue window in front of her and me, even though I couldn’t see it.
“Adrian.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll definitely carry you.”
“...I’ll be waiting. For your bus.”
Silver Wolf stepped forward and threw her arms around me in a tight hug.
That kid. Acting so adorable.
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