Chapter 1: Chapter 1

I heard that a game I had quit long ago was shutting down.

It was a game called Under City, one I had played obsessively just a few years ago.

[Service Termination Notice]

On the off chance, I searched the game’s name, and sure enough, the very first thing I found was an announcement that its service was ending.

There was even an image of the mascot character bowing her head, along with a formal notice and instructions for refunds.

‘It really is shutting down.’

I hadn’t paid it much attention since quitting, but hearing the news like this left me with a strange feeling.

It was the sort of cute-girl collection game that had become fairly common these days.

You pulled characters in some vaguely desperate situation, put equipment in their hands, and pushed forward by clearing predetermined stages…

You know, one of those mobile games you could find anywhere.

The kind of collectible game packed with girls.

Pretty characters, limited-time characters.

Collaborations, equipment banners, and all that.

I still vividly remembered building up my pull count all the way to pity and cursing my head off, only to spend money again the moment the next character I liked came out.

Then, at some point, I quit.

I probably used being busy with real life as an excuse.

Probably.

Honestly, maybe I had simply grown tired of the same events and the same patterns over and over again.

Still, perhaps because I had heard it was shutting down?

For some reason, I felt regretful enough to reinstall the massive game, which took dozens of gigabytes.

Even the title screen had changed a great deal from what I remembered.

There were unfamiliar characters, along with several I knew.

Before long, the words Touch To Start floated around and sparkled, as if urging me to touch the screen already.

When I pressed the screen, a spinning loading bar began to turn.

It would probably take a while to download voice files or unpack data.

[An error has occurred.]

‘Huh?’

But after displaying that error message, the game simply brought up Touch To Start again.

[An error has occurred.]

Thinking it might be a temporary connection issue, I tapped the screen again, but all I saw was the same error message.

‘It’s not even the shutdown date yet…?’

I pressed the home button and checked the notice on the webpage again. There was clearly still about a month left before the service ended.

Yet the game continued displaying nothing but error messages.

Once I realized it wouldn’t work, though, I stubbornly kept tapping the screen, checking that error message again and again.

That was when it happened.

Bzzzt. A brief burst of static flickered across the screen.

[Administrator authentication complete.]

The game, which had repeatedly displayed only error messages, bluntly showed that notification without even presenting a confirmation button.

[Initiating final preservation protocol.]

[Beginning preservation of data scheduled for deletion.]

[Personality data — 482 entries]

[Administrator data — 1 entry]

[1%...]

[100%]

[Preservation complete.]

"What the…?"

Instead of downloading data, the game started doing something on its own while displaying bizarre messages.

What, was this some kind of returning-player event sequence?

They sure put a lot of effort into it for a game that was about to shut down.

That was what I thought, right then.

[Beginning Administrator transfer.]

A blinding beam of light poured from my phone screen, turning my vision pure white. I squeezed my eyes shut.

*

"Agh!"

The next thing that engulfed my body was a dull impact.

It felt as though I had suddenly fallen somewhere. Rubbing my tightly shut eyes, I barely managed to brace myself against the floor and stand.

Before I could even process the alien sensation of the cold, hard floor, I saw something that made me doubt reality itself.

"...Huh?"

A plain, small room lit by dim lights.

A vaguely familiar map marked with Xs here and there.

This was the first screen that appeared when you launched the game—the lobby.

The room belonging to the player, known as the Leader.

‘No, no... Even so, this makes no sense.’

I was so confused that I couldn’t organize my thoughts.

The sensations were far too vivid for this to be some elaborately staged hidden-camera prank, and a chill ran down my spine.

What the hell was going on?

The phone I had been holding just moments ago was nowhere to be seen.

‘A dream?’

Could this be one of those lucid dreams?

Assuming it was, I pinched my cheek to wake myself up. It only hurt, and there was no sign of returning to reality.

Feeling hollow, I sat down for the moment and lightly touched the transparent panel sitting on the small desk.

Beep. Several screens appeared at once.

‘This is...’

On the translucent holographic panel were familiar words and buttons I had seen somewhere before: ‘Begin Operation,’ ‘Replica Management,’ ‘Restoration,’ and so on...

Right. The characters here had been called Replicas.

Some things had changed since the time I played, but no matter how I looked at it, these were the functions that had been available to operate in the game’s lobby.

‘I always started with this when doing dailies.’

Even amid this incomprehensible situation, nostalgia welled up in me. As a test, I pressed the Begin Operation button.

Brrp—

But instead of the usual crisp sound, something like an error tone rang out, and the Begin Operation button flickered with static.

‘What’s wrong with this now?’

Brrp-brrp-brrp-brrp-brrp—

Wondering what was happening, I repeatedly pressed the button. In all honesty, it gave me an error tone for every press.

For whatever reason, it seemed unusable for the moment.

Just as I was about to try another button—

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

I began to hear someone’s footsteps outside the room.

Elegant footsteps, steady and regular.

"Seri, how many times have I told you not to fool around in this room—"

The footsteps came directly toward the Leader’s room, and before I could react, the door flew open as the person spoke.

A familiar silhouette stood beyond the flung-open door.

A character that anyone who had played Under City would recognize.

A girl with straight white hair and blue eyes.

It was Ariel.

"...Leader?"

"Y-yeah."

I awkwardly waved at the unexpected encounter.

Her voice was calm and intelligent, unlike anything I had heard beyond her predetermined voice lines.

‘This can’t just be incredibly high-quality cosplay, right?’

Part of me was still denying the reality before my eyes.

I had answered her call of ‘Leader’ without thinking, but Ariel’s face showed her bewilderment.

"Why... why only now...?"

The words that came spilling from her mouth a moment later.

The resentful question from Ariel—who had always offered nothing but advice and encouragement—left me speechless.

Her expression twisted tightly, and without saying another word, she left the room, leaving the door open behind her.

After Ariel left,

I fiddled with the unfamiliar interface in the Leader’s room and read what appeared to be logs Ariel had left behind.

[It has been one week since the Leader failed to return.]

[Some of the Replicas say it is nice not to have missions, but they seem to feel the Leader’s absence deep down. I have been telling them that you are still busy, but...]

The first thing I found was what seemed to be Ariel’s earliest message, left several years ago.

It showed the mood in Under City caused by my absence, as well as Ariel’s anxiety.

Was this from one week after I quit the game?

Before long, the logs began to be written at increasingly longer intervals, and eventually the atmosphere shifted dramatically with every entry.

[Did the Leader truly abandon us?]

[I assigned the search to the three most reliable ones first.]

Some entries showed her suffering beneath the resentment of what sounded like a question asking whether I had truly abandoned them. Others said she had sent out a search party, fearing I might be dead.

Even so, they never found me. In the end, she informed everyone of the Leader’s disappearance.

Then came the final record: to conserve energy, they had put the personnel with the highest costs into power-saving mode first.

In other words, after trying everything to find me and giving up, they had decided to shut down this underground city completely.

‘And then I showed up.’

Only then, through those words, did I understand Ariel’s bewilderment and despair. I closed the numerous open logs.

While I had lived on after forgetting this world, time here had continued to pass steadily without me.

The person they had searched and searched for, without ever finding, had suddenly appeared just when they had given up on everything.

‘Of course she’d look at me like that.’

In this difficult situation, I roughly scratched the back of my head.

This was worse than when I had first started playing.

My affinity wasn’t starting at zero. It was starting in the negatives.

Even if I spent resources to wake the Replicas from power-saving mode, there was no telling whether they might try to kill me.

I had appeared like a savior, led them well, then suddenly vanished one day...

How strong must all the resentment and anger they had bottled up be?

Considering that even Ariel, who had been calm and friendly, had been unable to speak and left the room with a resentful look on her face, there was no need to mention the other Replicas.

I might spend resources to reactivate one, only to immediately end up with a huge hole blown through my chest.

I still couldn’t accept the situation, and I had no idea why this had happened, but I had to act now.

‘First, I need to talk to Ariel.’

With that decision made, I wandered through the Under City, both unfamiliar and familiar, until I finally found Ariel’s maintenance room.

In the game, once your affinity exceeded 5, you could enter regardless of the time or circumstances, but...

‘It’s locked.’

The firmly shut door of Ariel’s maintenance room proved just how far my affinity had plummeted.

I had no choice but to speak to her through the door.

"Um, Ariel?"

"Please do not call me as though we are close."

But the only response from behind the door was cold.

Beneath her trembling voice, I could even hear tears and faint anger.

The road ahead felt utterly hopeless.

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