Chapter 163: Defying the Judgment of Genesis, The Tower of Cybernetics

Requiem for Armies.

A game released in the dawn of Full-Dive VR, yet still heralded as a masterpiece in the history of FPS games to this day. In the game's campaign scenario—the so-called offline story mode—there was a faceless mercenary who stood in the protagonist's way countless times, occasionally fought alongside them, and ultimately vanished into the deep sea along with a nuclear warhead: "Jack."

This mercenary always wore a helmet equipped with a mask resembling a Jack-o'-Lantern, and no one ever knew his true face. Even when players data-mined the game, they discovered that "a facial graphic was never created in the first place"—meaning his face was thoroughly and completely obscured. He is the legendary supporting character of Requiem for Armies.

And apparently, that's the exact reference material for the pumpkin-helmeted soldier I'm currently cosplaying as.

"It's the perfect fit for a faceless guy like you, right?"

"I think it's a bit too early for Halloween though."

That being said, for a costume prop, this helmet is ridiculously elaborate... it has a voice changer, glowing functions, and even a transformation gimmick where the jaw slides open to expose only the mouth. Setting the actual character aside, it stirs up a sense of romance that actually makes me kind of want one for myself.

"And I'm cosplaying as 'Nameless', the female knight who continues to guard a ruined castle even after death. It's a costume choice that true connoisseurs will appreciate, kiddo."

"Ah, yeah, yeah."

"How should I put this... you guys sure have a lot of nerve."

Despite causing the staff members to give us extremely suspicious looks, we were escorted to the waiting room as members of "Nitro Squad," one half of the upcoming exhibition match. And right beside Pencilgon and me—who were casually chatting up a storm—Natsume-shi, making absolutely zero effort to hide her crippling anxiety, speaks up.

Honestly, feeling nervous about fighting an all-star American pro gaming team in front of a massive crowd is the only normal reaction here.

"Well you see, I'm the type whose performance goes up the more eyes are on me... something like that?"

"...And you?"

"Me? Well, I mean, I am nervous, but... once I Full-Dive, it probably won't bother me that much, right?"

It's not like the audience is actually coming inside the game with us. It's definitely hard to stay completely natural and anxiety-free when standing in front of a massive sea of eyes, but I fully intend to manage it by relying on the fact that my face is hidden, combined with fiercely roleplaying the mindset of "I don't get nervous over something this trivial."

"Other than that, how about that one trick? You write 'Human' on your palm and swallow it to erase your nerves."

"...Wasn't it 'God'?"[*1]

"Pfft, nice, I'm adopting that. When it's my turn, I'm going to write 'God' on my palm."

Eating a god to get stronger—what an atrocious diet. Then again, for desperate people like us who don't care how we look, it might just be the perfect fit.

"Alright, time for a final review of the strategy. Stop shivering like a chihuahua and get over here, Natsume-chan."

"Chihua...!?"

I will omit Natsume-shi's formal objection to being compared to a small dog, and our subsequent rebuttals.

Pencilgon operates the loaner tablet, opens a specific page on the official GGC website, and places the tablet on the table so both of us can see it.

"The tournament format is elimination-style: if you win, you immediately fight the opposing team's next player. Which means the most efficient win condition for achieving our underlying objective is to use the full time limit and go exactly 1-1."

Buying one hour of time per person, making three hours between the three of us... as far as stalling for Katzo goes, it was the absolute "optimal strategy" that would even leave us with time to spare. But this was a strategy that required a specific baseline assumption—and that assumption has already collapsed.

"I never expected Sylvia-chan to come out third... I was absolutely certain she'd be the anchor in the fourth slot to fight Katzo-kun."

Right, even ignoring whether or not we could conveniently manipulate our win/loss ratios against those muscle-bound pros, the foundational premise of this entire operation relied on Sylvia Goldberg being the final boss in the fourth slot.

But in reality, Sylvia Goldberg's name is listed third on Star Rain's four-man roster.

"With things like this, we're going to have to drastically trim down the strategy, and even if Natsume-chan and I go 1-1... Sunraku-kun is absolutely guaranteed to run into her."

Exactly. The vanguard, Natsume-shi, goes 1-1, which means Pencilgon will clash with Star Rain's second player. And even if Pencilgon wins that and loses against the vice-captain Sylvia... there isn't enough time.

And unless Natsume-shi and Pencilgon get completely swept in back-to-back 2-0 losses, I am absolutely guaranteed to clash with Sylvia Goldberg.

If the two before me miraculously manage to perfectly stall out their matches, earning us two hours, Katzo might barely make it in time. But no one in this room is naive enough to believe things will actually go that smoothly.

After all, our opponents are pro gamers—people who do this for a living. And not just any pros, but the absolute top-tier elites among them. Just how far can two random nobodies and one pro gamer actually push things?

"Even though I'm the one who came up with it, the difficulty level is so absurdly Hard Mode it's almost funny... but we still decided to do it, and we prepared for it! So let's give it everything we've got and make sure that late idiot makes it in time!"

"...Yeah!!"

"You bet!"

Right on cue, a knock comes from the door—likely a staff member coming to fetch us. Alright then, let's stall for time in style.

『───And with that, we conclude the introduction to our newest title, "Galaxia Heroes: Chaos"... but I know you all want to see what it actually looks like in action, right!?』

The Galaxia Heroes director—a man whose name I don't know—throws out an inflammatory question to hype up the crowd.

Just as discussed in the pre-match meeting, right after this, the members of Star Rain and Nitro Squad will step onto the stage.

"Hey, Sunraku... kun?"

"What's up, Natsume-shi?"

"I think I'm going to write 'God' on my palm too."

"Is that so."

The lights shine down on us. A gaze tens, hundreds of times heavier than anything a normal high school student would ever experience in their daily life pierces into the members of Star Rain, into Natsume-shi, into Pencilgon, and into me.

The illusion is so intense it feels like the stares carry physical, tangible pressure, making the foot I step forward almost stumble.

"A quick piece of advice, by the way: the mercenary 'Jack' is a character who constantly slouches and flashes fearless grins."

"Appreciate the roleplay reinforcement... alright."

I don't know what kind of character he is, or what he accomplished in whatever story he belongs to. I'm just conveniently borrowing his outer shell, but I'll gladly borrow his strength to keep myself from being overwhelmed. Thanks, pumpkin merc.

I hunch my back and take a step forward without a shred of hesitation. That's right, exactly. Exactly right. At the end of the day, it's just people looking at me. Compared to a bastard killer whale who fires lasers out of its eyes every time it looks at you, this is basically a gentle breeze. What is there to be afraid of?

『Alriiight! We will now commence the special exhibition match between Star Rain and Nitro Squad—doubling as a live gameplay showcase for Galaxia Heroes: Chaos! I, Sasahara Eight, will be your MC and play-by-play commentator for today~!』

"...Sasahara Eight?"

"She's a 'Gameplay Idol' who's being heavily pushed right now. Apparently she tried to do her idol activities inside ShanFro, but..."

"But?"

"Well, ShanFro already has Saint-chan, you know... But anyway, she's actually a really nice girl."

I have absolutely no idea what she means by "you know," but I do understand that this Saint-chan must be a huge deal. A real-life idol losing out to an NPC... I feel a tiny bit of sympathy for her.

Her outfit gives off a very cyber-esque impression, but because her actual personality is so overly bubbly and cutesy, it creates a strangely disjointed vibe as she hypes up the audience with a microphone in hand.

『Huh? It seems Nitro Squad is missing one player...?』

"Um, Kei is..."

"He went to wage war in the bathroom."

"He's the anchor anyway, so don't worry about it~."

『R-Right... Well then, once again, let's go over the rules! Even though it's a simple elimination-style format, Galaxia Heroes: Chaos is a brand new kind of fighting game with completely different rules from its predecessor! Today we'll be playing in the City Mode "Lively"! Furthermore, the Cube Collect rule is set to ON!』

She's tossing out a bunch of complicated jargon, but in short, it means there will be NPCs present, and securing the Chaos Cube is a valid win condition. Normally I'd consider having more win conditions a bad thing, but for today, and today only, I welcome it. Both sides having more ways to win and lose means there will be that much more hesitation in their movements.

『And joining me for color commentary, we have Asama Ayato-san from the pro gaming team "Colt Bison"!!』

『I-I don't really main fighting games enough to be commentating on them, but... yes, I'll be in your care.』

"Hmm, he's giving off a real 'Am I really okay for this job?' vibe so I'll explain it to you: he's actually really good at commentary, so he gets invited to a lot of different tournaments."

"Huh."

I've honestly had almost zero interest in pro gamers until now, so everything is incredibly fresh to me. Though whether I'll actually maintain any interest in them after this is honestly a toss-up.

『And everyone, today we have one more thing to showcase alongside the live gameplay of Galaxia Heroes: Chaos! We will also be demonstrating "Babel"—the brand new feature Utopia Computer Entertainment is releasing to the world this fall!』

Babel?

『Some of you may already know about it, but Babel is the "Real-Time Translate System" scheduled for release at the end of September for the Full-Dive system provided by UCE.

For this exhibition match, Babel has been implemented ahead of schedule! This means the players from the Japanese pro team Nitro Squad and the American pro team Star Rain will be able to communicate seamlessly inside the game without worrying about the language barrier at a—ll!!』

"I see... now that I think about it, the language barrier was a foundational issue that predated everything else. So you factored this in when you made the strategy... right?"

"Yuppp, I'm a-ma-zing right? Praise me, praise me."

"Don't tell me you completely forgot to consider the language barrier..."

"Well, you know, my grandma always used to say that as long as human beings have 'Oh Yeah!' and 'C'mon!', everything will work out..."

"Your grandma is way too funky, hey..."

As it suddenly becomes clear that our meticulously crafted strategy was actually an illegally constructed building built on a crumbling foundation, sweat begins to pour down Natsume-shi's forehead like a waterfall... and at last, the first match, Megumi Natsume vs. Lucas Garcia, begins.

Author's Afterword

Honestly, I came up with the commentator character in three seconds, so you really don't need to remember her. Although it feels a bit of a waste to use someone with the full name "Sasahara Eito" as a throwaway character, so I do plan to recycle her later.
The macho men who were just supposed to be random mobs finally acquired last names... something is wrong here (playing dumb).

Real-Time Translate System "Babel"
Utopia Corporation releases yet another piece of out-of-place artifact technology. Its function is to "catch the brainwaves of the user currently inside the Full-Dive system, translate them within massive servers, and then send the information as an 'image' directly into the listener's language center, allowing for seamless conversation as if they were speaking the same language, without resulting in weird machine-translated gibberish."
No matter how you look at it, it's a highly questionable technology, but they silence that kind of criticism with their track record and massive amounts of money... honestly, just remember it as "they built a super awesome translation system on their own" and you'll be fine.

Translator's Notes

• *[1] God: The joke in Japanese relies on the Kanji for God (神, Kami) and Human (人, Hito) being visually somewhat similar and the trope of drawing the kanji for "human" on your palm and "swallowing" it to calm your nerves. Sunraku swapped "Human" for "God."