Chapter 81 – Let's Just Play a Game...
I had put on a little act to figure out Lucy’s true identity and purpose, since she seemed to be pretending to be Pai.
But then, surprise!
Dorfin suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
What the hell?
Am I actually a brain in a vat or something?
Is all of this some crazy scientist’s experiment?!
“Ah, this is so annoying. Aaaah! This is so damn annoying!”
“Oh my, my little baby. Your mental strength is quite weak, isn’t it~? Mm, I understand. You’ve been betrayed and abandoned so many times that you probably aren’t the kind of person who can easily believe in anything.”
Dorfin smiled gently.
“Actually, Grandma is proud that you’re still capable of believing in something at all.”
“Ugh... Fine. Whatever.”
“Though I’m not sure giving up and accepting things so quickly is a good habit.”
“I think it’s fine. Giving up and accepting reality is also one perfectly human way of living. I guarantee it.”
I had no idea anymore.
I decided to stop thinking so hard about it.
Whether this was real or fake, I could worry about that later when I actually found out.
Yeah.
Thinking about it another way, this was also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.
I was actually experiencing the fantasy life I had once dreamed about!
Of course!
I stopped caring much about that dream after graduating high school!
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that kind of life probably didn’t suit me anyway.
“Fine! Whether I’m a brain in a vat or this whole world is some Matrix-like simulation, I’ll just enjoy the present! That’s right! There’s no point overthinking it!”
“Hmm. The version of me inside the game became an alcoholic worrying about that exact problem, but our baby is impressive~”
If I couldn’t escape the situation anyway, I might as well enjoy it.
Then Dorfin suddenly leaned closer.
“But, baby... what if this really is reality?!”
“...?!”
“What if you aren’t a brain in a vat?! What if none of this is some insane scientist’s experiment, and everything happening right now is actually real?!!!”
She grabbed my face and shoved hers right in front of mine as she said it.
Naturally, that sent me straight back into panic.
If Lucy...
No, Pai?
Anyway, if the other pale white woman standing in front of me hadn’t stepped in to save me, I might have fallen into an even worse panic.
“Stop it! Who are you to suddenly show up and make him suffer like this?!”
“You’re both making me suffer, so could both of you please disappear somewhere? Let’s only meet inside the game. In reality, let’s avoid making eye contact as much as possible.”
“No waaay~”
Dorfin really did have almost the same personality in reality as she did inside the game.
Though this version of her seemed slightly more relaxed.
Look at her.
I felt like I was losing my mind, while she was grinning as if this was the funniest thing in the world and deliberately saying things she knew I didn’t want to hear.
“...Fine. Let’s assume this is reality.”
Only as a hypothesis.
Whether I had gone insane or not, I would temporarily accept everything in front of me as completely real.
“Lucy Lowell is Pai, the Pai I know. Onelbe Hepai... But then why did you tell me your surname instead of your first name? That’s like me telling someone to call me Kim. Just ‘Kim, Kim.’”
“I liked it.”
“No... Fine. Whatever. Do what you want.”
I sighed and continued.
“And DoriDoraDorfin, the person I met inside the game, is also a real person? You actually exist, and you really can see... flows and stuff like that?”
“Of course! Absolutely! That’s what this Grandma is best at!”
If I accepted both realities as true...
Then what possibilities could I derive from those two facts?
Were there even any possibilities to derive?
Did I even need to think about them?
“Why did you come here, Dorfin?”
“Just came to see you~”
“...What’s your relationship with the Chairman?”
“Nothing at all.”
Dorfin shrugged.
“He’s just a man who fell completely~ in love with the person I serve! Honestly, I never thought he was particularly impressive.”
Was this what people meant when they said their brain was overheating?
Compared to this, even all those complicated situations inside the game that had annoyed me before suddenly seemed like nothing.
“...Lucy... Should I call you Lucy or Pai?”
“Call me Pai.”
“Fine. Pai.”
I looked directly at her.
“How did you get that body? Did you kill her and take it? And don’t try to make it dramatic. Just tell me exactly what happened.”
“Hmm... Where should I start?”
“Take your time.”
“This body, Lucy Lowell, was one of the Chairman’s researchers, just like I told you before. That part was true.”
So everything Pai had told me about Lucy Lowell’s past had actually been true.
I had wondered why someone smart enough to work as a researcher would waste so much time playing games with me.
Apparently, it was because the person inside the body was Pai.
That made sense.
“Shortly before the Chairman left, Lucy Lowell stole some of the technology required to create the World Gate.”
Pai continued.
“She tried to create a virtual world of her own.”
“Ohhh. But judging by how things turned out, I guess it didn’t go very well?”
“Mm. She lacked preparation, manpower, and resources.”
Pai paused.
“In the end, her soul became trapped inside the poorly constructed virtual world she had created.”
Wow.
So souls actually existed in this world too!
Seriously?!
Then why the hell had I lived my whole life without seeing even one ordinary ghost?!
Haa...
Anyway, it was a pretty tragic story.
I still didn’t know why Lucy had stolen the technology, so I couldn’t completely sympathize with her, but...
She really had been unlucky.
“I waited for you for about ten years inside the World Gate... in the world where I originally lived.”
So after waiting ten years, Pai finally became unable to endure it anymore and started searching for another method.
Then she spent another ten years wandering around looking for one.
And this body was the result?
Pai really was incredible in her own way.
...
Wait.
Didn’t that mean the Pai I had assumed was waiting somewhere inside the Maze Forest wasn’t actually there?
Huh?
Had everything I had done until now been pointless?
“I heard from One-Horn.”
Pai looked at me.
“You saw the pit beneath the Maze Forest, right?”
“Yeah. What are you trying to say?”
“That pit is the reason I can exist here right now.”
She paused.
“What was inside it wasn’t data like me. It was something real, like you.”
...
I had no idea what she meant.
Judging by the way Pai explained it, she didn’t seem to fully understand it either.
Maybe she had simply succeeded by coincidence?
Something like that?
“I really don’t know exactly what it is either. After obtaining Lucy Lowell’s body, I gained access to various kinds of knowledge and common sense, but there was no information about that.”
...
Then I could assume it was one of the Chairman’s most closely guarded secrets.
Something so secret that he hadn’t told anyone about it.
Dorfin, who had been standing quietly and listening to our conversation, suddenly seemed to remember something.
She slipped between us and whispered playfully.
“It’s probably the remains left behind after a world was destroyed.”
“Remains?”
I stared at her.
“You mean remains left after a world was destroyed? What, has this world already repeated the same timeline several times? Is this some kind of looping-world setting?”
“No! That’s not it, baby. Don’t get excited over every little thing.”
Dorfin wagged her finger.
“I already told you. The Chairman is a man who fell completely in love with the person I serve.”
“...Then what? What am I supposed to think?”
I felt a headache coming.
“Are you saying the Chairman originally lived in another world, that world was destroyed, and then he gathered the remains and used them to create this game?”
“That’s right?”
Clap, clap, clap.
Dorfin applauded me.
At this point, I didn’t even have enough energy left to be shocked or confused.
I silently crawled toward the wall, leaned against it, sat down, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Then...
Was the Chairman trying to use those remains to create a new world?
Or maybe...
Just like the name World Gate suggested, he was trying to create a doorway leading to another world.
Dorfin casually added another bomb.
“And if I had to tell you one more thing, the person who destroyed the Chairman’s original world was the person I served~”
“...Destruction...!”
The being I had encountered through the Great Hero’s memories from four hundred years ago.
Even though I had only seen those events through written memories, that being had been powerful enough to trouble even the Great Hero of Hope, who had returned unharmed from countless battles.
Right.
Something had always felt strange.
The Great Hero’s memories and the present world didn’t quite connect properly.
Now I understood.
The world had been destroyed once during the era of the Great Hero four hundred years ago.
Then the Chairman gathered the remains of that destroyed world and used them to create the World Gate in this world.
After that...
He had created the following four hundred years however he wanted.
“...Then what?”
I looked at Dorfin.
“Are you saying the Chairman became some kind of god? If the world was destroyed, how was he even able to do something like that?”
“Mm. The person I serve likes people who are spectacularly insane, you see?”
Dorfin smiled.
“The Chairman barely managed to meet that standard, so that person granted him one wish.”
“A wish...”
“He asked if she could leave behind just a tiny possibility together with me in a world that had already been destroyed, where nothing but remnants remained.”
...
He really was insane.
Why not just wish for the world not to be destroyed?
Or if he wanted to remain its ruler, why not simply wish for that?
What the hell was he doing?
Why did he have to do something this ridiculous and somehow drag me into the consequences too?!
“It was an exceptional case.”
Dorfin continued.
“Normally, after the complete destruction of a world, absolutely nothing remains. The only reason those remnants remained was because of the Chairman.”
“Couldn’t he have just asked her not to destroy it?”
“Haha! This might sound a little ridiculous, but...”
Her smile became strange.
“Even if that person hadn’t destroyed that world, it would have been destroyed anyway.”
The past I had witnessed through the Great Hero’s eyes had certainly been an age without much hope.
But even then...
It hadn’t looked like a world that was simply destined to disappear without leaving a trace.
Then was this some kind of prophecy?
The kind where someone hears a prophecy, desperately tries everything possible to prevent it, and their attempts ultimately become the very cause that fulfills it?
The whole...
What is destined to happen will happen kind of thing?
“To be precise, that person isn’t a being who exists simply to destroy things.”
Dorfin’s voice became more serious.
“She observes the possibilities of a world and decides whether it should stop or continue.”
I listened quietly.
“If she observes everything and determines that there is no hope, she destroys it.”
Then Dorfin smiled faintly.
“But if she sees possibility, she sacrifices herself to allow that world to continue.”
“...What the hell is that...?”
“Perhaps the Chairman wanted to recreate that entire process himself.”
Dorfin glanced away.
“Creating a world, watching it reach its final moment, and then becoming the one who decides its fate.”
Her smile turned mocking.
“As though he were a god.”
...
Fine.
Sure.
Whatever.
Everything was fine.
But there was one question that kept repeating itself inside my head.
“Why do I need to know any of this?”
“Hmm?”
I didn’t care how this world had been created.
I didn’t care what the Chairman was planning.
I didn’t care what his secrets were.
So why did I need to know?
Why me?
Why had I somehow naturally ended up learning all this?
Why had I even become curious about it?
If the Chairman was planning something evil, then please...
Please provoke some other person with an overwhelming sense of justice instead of me.
If they were telling me this because they expected something from me...
Sorry, but I was just an ordinary little citizen you could find anywhere who dreamed of living a peaceful life.
