Star after star rushes by.
Have you ever seen a shooting star?
However, the sight of a descending meteor crashing through the sky, now that’s something you’ve never seen, right?
With a thundering crack splitting the heavens, striking the earth with its overwhelming mass and speed.
Maybe some of you have seen such a thing on television or a certain web animation site1. Still, I don’t think any of you would want to watch a downpour of meteors up close.
Wait! I shouldn’t talk like it’s none of my business, since the culprit of this Armageddon is none other than yours truly.
What was then a thoughtless action no more than ten minutes ago, has become shooting stars that are carving out earth.
Though I do not know in detail, as dots on the radar display vanish like dust being wiping away in the corner of my sight, I am aware that countless lives are perishing wherever meteors make contact.
I see the dust storm blowing across the ground approaching—
Like my skull being sawed open.
That pain knocks me out, and soon, my body is swallowed by the dust storm.
Let’s go back a in time a bit.
No matter how heartless my company really is, it normally wouldn’t force two or more projects on one person. But despite there being still so many bugs and spec changes on the verge of release, the young programmer who is my junior had vanished! How disappointing!
“Alright, all the class specs and annotations are done, then after getting the docs and dependencies from the auto-documenter, the bug is officially fixed~”
Looking around, I see everyone here at work as if it’s not even the weekend. Regrettably, that’s a common sight at this workplace.
The artists and designers nearby are also working silently, sporting dead fish-eyes.
It was done without any of this data so no wonder it was a hack job.
“Sa-…Suzuki-san, the client complained that the difficulty of WW is too high for beginners and made a request to change it, what do”
That bastard almost called me Satou. It’s been half a year since the team formed, don’t give me that mix-up crap! 5
WW is the nickname of our current main project, the web game “War World”. It is a strategy game set in a fantasy world, with added social networking features.
That’s right, the current difficulty is a decision made after numerous client meetings. Letting all that wasted time be in vain? I might cry.
“We have no time, so that’ll do~. Well, please implement that, Suzuki-san.”
“Wait a minute. I’m rushing the debugging for the mobile MMORPG, so go get permission from the client first! If I do that and get vetoed, there won’t be time to fix it.”
Waddling his wide torso, Metabo-shi disappears to the smoking area with his phone in hand.
As the night goes on, I get the go-ahead from Metabo-shi, and fill my stomach with junk food.
Oh yeah, what’s the game called again?
…Right, it’s “Freedom Fantasy World”. Since that’s easy to confuse with WW’s old name “Fantasy War World”, no one referred it directly.
After that, “Fantasy” was dropped from WW’s name, and “Role Playing Game” became a unnecessary alias as that game is now known as “Freedom Fantasy Life”, FFL for short. So, they are no longer easy to confuse, but we had already gone through all that trouble.
“What is it this time? If you mean the infinite capacity bug for non-premium items, didn’t I just take care of that?”
“Okay. Damn, duplication bugs are annoying!”
I proceed to edit WW on one hand, and deal with each entry in the report from the debugging team on the other.
You bastard, trying to avoid a scolding by sending a message are you! I’ll make you pay for lunch later.
I curse as I continue to make changes. Ah, will it be an all-nighter again?
There might still be bugs of course, but we can distribute the legendary weapon passed down generations known as “Update Patches” over the Internet, so there is no need to worry.
After sending an executable package of WW that I made for the debugging team to Fat Guy via the company e-mail, I get my first sleep in thirty hours inside the haven under my desk.
Ahh, unparalleled bliss. Call me a corporate slave, but right now, sleep is justice!
Do you know the term “Lucid Dreaming”?
I am out in the wilderness.
How do I know it is a dream?
Same as the interface in WW which I was just working on.
The smell of parched soil stimulates my nose. It even comes with a sense of smell, what a rare dream.
It feels like the Main Menu items are a mix of FFL and WW, but asking for conformity in a dream is pointless.
Besides my status being initialized to Level 1, and my equipped items happen to be the energy bar, wallet, and phone I had on me before falling asleep.
Wow, it really feels like a dream!
Looking around, I see in the edge of my eyes a place where the ground suddenly cuts off. Thinking that it is probably a cliff, I head closer.
I can see a crack in the horizon like a crevice in the land, but when I open the map to check, every place but the surrounding is hidden. If this is works like in WW, the map will be blank wherever I haven’t explored.
I do see something else though.
Beyond the side of the cliff closest to me, something is kicking up dust and coming closer. It looks like a cavalry unit that might appear in fantasy movies.
Driven by an unbearable sense of anxiety, I select “Full Map Exploration”.
Since the radar window is too small, I open the map to confirm enemy positions.
…Uh, isn’t that too many?
The hostile group approaching is labeled “Reptilian Tribe Elites”. Three hundred of them with levels averaging fifty. It doesn’t look like the kind of opponent a barehanded Level 1 player can win against.
To avoid being discovered, I observe them from behind a rock for now.
One of the riders drives their steed this way.
“●●●●●●●●! ●●●●●●●●●●! ●●●●●●●!”
The guy waits a bit for my reply, then, perhaps having become impatient from the lack of response, immediately makes a move.
The arrow that guy fired, with a whistle-like timbre, shoots straight this way.
Without being deflected by gravity, it shoots toward me in a straight line. The instant I steeled myself against dying in a dream, the arrow merely scraped my cheek.
I touch my cheek, and my hand feels something slippery. I check my palm, and as expected, it has been dyed bright red.
I lick the blood on my hand, which tastes of iron rust—Is this really a dream? The doubt begins forming in my mind.
SHAAAH, the sound like that of a terrain-altering monsoon reaches my ears.
I quickly slip into a gap behind the rock. Actually, saying I stumbled into it would be more accurate.
The arrows that struck the ground first are knocked over by later ones. When I see the extremely sharp arrowheads, I feel as if dipped in cold water, shivering all over.
What is occupying my mind, terror.
I didn’t have many options. Sit here and wait to die, or run away between the gaps of arrows raining down—or retaliate.
I select one of the three Meteor Shower Icons that has been sitting in the corner of my sight.
But, that is it.
As if to agitate my frustration, the cascade of arrows continue to fall. Slowly but surely, the rock I am hiding under is being chipped down bit by bit.
As I curse, I also use the remaining two Meteor Shower Icons. However, still nothing else happens besides the disappearance of those Icons.
“Damn! Losing due to a bug. Even Bad Ends should have standards—”
I am completely baffled, as the scene takes away my breath.
Thanks for waiting.
Name: Suzuki Ichiro. IGN: Satou. This is how my life in an alternate universe began.