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There are enough wyverns to blot out the sky. The screams of the dying are a sweet music to my ears, and I walk slowly, enjoying it. There are only a few dozen of us, but there are thousands of them, and it is wonderful. We almost always choose monsters to die by. We can't kill each other; that gives the one who landed the killing blow experience, and makes it harder and more painful for them to die. It's easier to find a tough enough monster. Here, there are enough monsters for us all.
Soon, soon, I'll see my home again. My office with its awards and decorations. I'll talk to my family, my friends. Who will I be lucky enough to see this time?
It's really easy to get back home. Cross the bridge, pull out your blade, run at the nearest monster, attract its attention. Look into its dumb eyes and wait for the blow. It hurts, of course, when their claws crush your armor, when you cough up blood, when your guts spill out of you. But it's worth it.
I keep walking, grinning. An acquaintance is carried away by two wyverns at one, claw to each hand. Lucky him, if they let him go high enough, he won't survive the fall. I wave at him, and he laughs at me, and the wyverns fly and pull him apart into a shower of blood and soap bubbles.
That's a quick death, too. Lucky him.
I hardly notice a figure watching on the sidelines until it moves to bar my way.
"Were you ever close to death before? In real life?"
I stop. A very young boy stands before me. Still, he's a samurai of approximately my level, and it will take precious time to kill him, distancing me from coveted death. Faster to talk it out.
"No," I say, removing my helmet. The white rag which normally covers our faces flutters in the wind. "Except it doesn't matter. Whatever this is, it's no life."
It's all very simple. This world is an illusion. Reality is back home. The easiest way to come closer to reality is death. So we must die.
Very, very simple.
"But it is life," he replies. "And it's precious."
That avatar is stupidly young, and judging by the voice, the kid himself isn't much older. And there he is, trying to teach me.
"How old are you, boy?"
"Fourteen," he answers, and stares me down. "And I actually did almost die. For real."
"Fourteen," I say, suddenly wistful. "When I was fourteen, I realized that if I keep wasting time on dumb games, I'd be working as a cashier for the rest of my life. If you weren't stupid, you would've realized the same and wouldn't be trapped here now."
I remember it like it was yesterday. That morning, my parents had been lecturing me about having no future, and, like always after their lectures, I cut cram school. They always lectured me when they had overtime, trying fruitlessly to impress the consequences of not studying on me. Of course, to me it was just a sign I could do whatever I wanted that day.
On days like that, I lost myself in the game.
I was a good tank. That's why I was never worried about my future—after all, I was easily as good as people twice my age, why wouldn't that go on forever? I trained a lot, practiced my rotation, and I could always easily find a party. Grades? Who even cares about grades, everyone said they were useless.
On my way home, all I had to do was pay for my subscription. I stood before the payment machine, and muttered quiet curses. There was a woman standing in front of me. At first I thought she was homeless. She stank. Her hair was dyed a dirty pink, and hadn't been washed for weeks. She had bottles in her shopping bag. She made me sick. But I was bored, and I wondered what she was paying for.
She was paying for the game. My game. Elder Tale.
Something snapped into place in my head back then. All of the horror stories my parents told me coalesced into this unwashed pink-haired woman with a bag full of bottles. And then she turned and smiled at me with rotten teeth. And said something.
I turned tail and ran.
I didn't even log in to say goodbye. I knew I wouldn't be able to leave if I did. I just went to sleep and began my new life come morning.
I never deleted the game. When I felt sick, I looked at the icon and remembered that woman. And I put all the fervor with which I geared up my tank into reality.
By the kami, those were ten empty, cursed years. I had an iron grip and an iron backside, I left home at eight and returned at midnight. My star grew brighter and brighter. I was best in class, best in college, best in my research center. I was given a department because I was head and shoulders above all the rest, above everyone who let themselves live a normal life, with walks and movies, games and vacations, with lovers and friends.
Scratch that. Friends, I got lucky with. I had two wonderful girlfriends, who were the same as I was. We conquered the world, each in our own way. Once a year, we jokingly compared who had achieved more. We were always ready to help one another, but there were far more victories to be celebrated in our lives than losses. They always supported me, and I always supported them. Were Akiko and Murasaki here with me, there might have been a point to doing something. But somehow I think they would've chosen the same thing that I have. They would have tried to get back home.
Ten wonderful, intoxicating years. If someone were to ask me now, if I would do it all over again, I would have taken their offer without hesitation.
As long as it were real life and not this damned parody!
Just one vacation where I got nostalgic for my childhood and how cool it was to be a knight and look at an imaginary sunrise on a computer screen. One extra hour that I decided to stay up, for old time's sake. One damned minute of darkness.
To lose everything you've worked for over a decade in a single evening...
In this game I am a Guardian. A knight in shining armor. I liked it when I was a kid. But I'm not longer a child, and I refuse to play these games, I refuse to take a role imposed on me by an unknown party, I refuse to live in this cursed world!
And the boy before me? The boy before me wants to live the dream. And I hate him for it.
I meet his eyes, serious and kind.
"Maybe I am stupid," he agrees amicably. "But there's a lot of smart people in this game, really. And many of them are trying to make this world better. Make into a real home. Our home."
I look at our altar. It shines with lichen light. Someone's going for round two already, and I'm standing around chatting.
"I already have a home. I'm not going to betray it."
"It wouldn't be a betrayal," he says quietly. "Would your family want you to suffer like this?"
"The suffering here can't be helped. I can't live here."
"You can. If you decide to live and not just keep dying."
"I'm not going to listen to this childish drivel. Out of my way!"
He stands against me, stubbornly, biting his lip till it's blooded. It's wrong to hit children, I think, remembering my old life, and I stay my hand for the moment. He takes my pity for weakness.
"You're a Guardian," he says quietly, lowering his sword. "There's a whole city depending on us."
It's wrong to hit children.
"A city of people who can't just revive at a Cathedral."
Very, very, very wrong.
"Home is so important to you."
Shut up, you little son of a bitch. Just shut up. What could you possibly know about my lost home?
"Do you really want them to lose their home?
Why should they be luckier than I?..
"Stand with me..."
And why should I care about anyone else here?!
I hit him in the face with my shield, I am so much sturdier and stronger than he is. He flies to the side like a rag doll, and I break into a sprint. The two-second stun should be enough to get free.
Some girl screams behind me, but I cut into the fray, dropping the useless helmet, and five wyverns immediately converge on me. A few dozen blows later, one of them finally bites my head off.
My home. I can't see the walls anymore. The portraits of my favorite idols faded away long ago, but... But I have my mats, my little glass tea table. That chocolate cake is Akiko's signature recipe, and I can't remember how it tastes anymore. The white porcelain cups with elegant flowers hold Murasaki's favorite tea.
I see my friends. Even though their faces are black and white, even though their voices echo with distortion, even though the print on Akiko's favorite jacket is blurry and I can't even see Murasaki anymore, it's them. I have a brief moment to tell them, "I love you! I will come back, I promise!"
The most important thing is to move quickly. To get up, get to the door, go to that endless corridor with its gray doors and open them, one after the other, until the endless desert of death fades in before my eyes. And then follows the sky above our bloody altar.
Yet no matter how many times I am thrown back into this wretched illusion, I know: one of these doors will lead me back to reality. And should I gamble all of my memories on this and lose before I can make it, at least there will be no one left to regret it.
Whatever happens, I won't lose.