Armor of Catastrophe

  Checking the window behind him, he saw a small latch at the bottom. It wasn’t a meaningless decorative object; when he unlocked it and gently pushed on the window, the entire vermilion-painted frame lifted up soundlessly outward. At the very least, if he made it back here, he could get out of the Castle’s inner sanctuary.

  But there would be no leave point portal there if he did. And he couldn’t exactly go home empty-handed after having come all this way. He’d made it to this point; he could only keep going deeper and deeper inside as far as his nerves and his luck would hold.

  He held his breath beneath his silver mask and carefully began walking forward, as if his slender avatar were melting into the gloom.

  How many hours—or days, for all he knew—had passed?

  He had dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field right after he got home from elementary school, so logically, he had the leeway of staying in this world for a few days easily, or even a few months. In fact, he had once spent three months on a dive together with Blossom—or, rather, living together with her.

  That said, continuing to advance while avoiding the range of detection of the Shinto priest and samurai Enemies several levels more terrifying than the ones in the garden was a more difficult task than he could have imagined. If Falcon hadn’t been a small, lightweight type, it likely would have been an impossible one. At the same time, the assumption of the architecture seemed to be that the palace would be captured by a large army of several dozens or even hundreds. The halls were excessively wide, the ceilings high. Because of this, somehow, he had been able to dodge the Enemy groups on patrol and make his way forward, but his powers of concentration were very nearly at their limit.

  Big, deep breath. He used the air to cool his head and tried to pick out where he would go next from the shadow of a thick pillar.

  The diameter of the entire Castle was fifteen hundred meters, and the distance from Suzakumon to the main gate guarded by the demon god was approximately four hundred meters. In which case, the size of the inner sanctuary should have been at most about seven hundred meters from north to south. He figured he had already advanced five hundred meters since he made it inside, so he should be getting to the center of the inner sanctuary soon.

  Sure enough, at the end of a hallway stretching northward, he could see a remarkable large space and a mysterious light shining in the floor there.

  Lined up, two of them. Transparent blue, flickering like the surface of water.

  He had seen this color before. There was no mistaking it; this was the light of the leave points—also known as portals—set up in the landmarks of all areas of the Unlimited Neutral Field.

  Unconsciously, he let out a sigh of relief before gulping hard. If he simply left now for the real world, not only would he not have the glory of clearing the game, he wouldn’t even be able to bring home a single piece of evidence that he had succeeded in breaking into the Castle. But then, why had he Blinked do-or-die toward the infinite palisade wall and endured the tension of this sneaking around for however many dozens of hours…?

  No.

  His original motivation for this personal mission hadn’t been as utilitarian as that. He had simply wanted something, one thing, that could be the core of his self-confidence. Something that would give him the power to keep standing proudly next to Saffron Blossom.

  In which case, this was already enough. He had infiltrated the most dangerous area in the Accelerated World, had made it to the innermost sanctum, and would return alive. Even if he was the only one who knew all this, it should give him a certain strength for a long time to come. It was indeed a fact that he had achieved something that even the Pure Colors, currently deemed the strongest in the world, couldn’t do.

  When he thought about it, there had been absolutely no explicit statement from the system side on what would happen when this magnificent, mysterious game known as Brain Burst was cleared. The name of the person who beat it might be announced to the entire Accelerated World, they might be given a certain amount of points in lieu of prize money and a certain sort of Enhanced Armament in lieu of a prize, and then the game could continue on. It would be nice if that happened, at least, but it wasn’t hard to imagine the ending theme suddenly playing as the credits scrolled by, and then THE END flashing in front of their eyes in all caps before the program was deleted from the Neurolinker of every BB player. And since he had naturally never met Blossom in the real and they hadn’t exchanged real contact information, if that happened, he’d never get to see her again.

  Which was why he was sure that, if he did discover some clear-flag-ish item in this castle, he probably wouldn’t touch it. This was enough. Making it back alive through the portal was the greatest reward he could hope for with this mission.

  Perhaps the actual god of the Accelerated World took pity on the sober metal color as he made this laudable speech to himself. Because, awaiting him in the open space he mustered up the last of his concentration to sneak into, lay no simple portal.

  Two ellipses next to each other, filled with a quivering blue light, the very same light as found in the many leave points existing outside the Castle. But each had a strange object directly in front of it.

  Stone pillars about a meter high, lustrous and black. No, perhaps better to call them pedestals. Atop each sat an object. On silent feet, he approached the one on the left.

  Tilting his head back slightly, he saw enthroned there, bathed in the light of the portal, a single sword—though maybe it was a katana. The reason he couldn’t say for sure either way was that, although the workmanship on the guard and the grip looked Japanese, the scabbard was a perfectly straight line without a hint of a curve to it. The whole thing was a mirrorlike silver metal, with exceedingly little decoration.

  Still, he could tell at a glance that this straight sword harbored terrifying power. If it was an Enhanced Armament, he had no doubt it was in the strongest class or maybe even beyond that. Just looking at it, he could feel a pressure that possibly rivaled that of a Legend-class Enemy at extremely close range—or even the Four Gods, which he had seen just once before, and they had almost taken his breath away.

  With effort, he pulled his gaze away from the straight sword and looked again at the black, granite-like pedestal. A square metal plate was embedded on the front of it, with several shapes and characters carved into it.

  The one at the very top was made up of seven connected dots, placed in a shape like a letter P that had fallen on its side to the left. He had seen this same shape when they studied the constellations in his elementary school science class: a square drawn by four stars and a tail of a line of three, the ladle-shaped Big Dipper. Staring at it closely, in the center of the dipper part, he saw that the fifth star from the left was the only one drawn larger than the others.

  Under the constellation were two kanji characters, rare in the Accelerated World so full of English. They were jewel and point, and maybe read as gyokusho, but he didn’t know what they meant together like this. And then farther down was another line, this one in roman letters.

  THE INFINITY.

  He was pretty sure that meant boundless. It was probably the name of this straight sword Enhanced Armament in the system. Rolling the name around over and over beneath his silver mask, he slipped a few steps to the right and looked up at the other pedestal.

  If he was forced to describe it, he’d say that sitting on this one was a Western design full-body defensive tool.

  Armor.

  It wasn’t anything oppressive. In a general VRMMORPG, it would likely be classed as light armor. The helmet was a crown type, and the chest, shoulder, and arm parts were also minimal. The lower body was nothing but knee-high boots. But there wasn’t a hint of cheapness to it. Like the sword, the entirety of the armor was mirrored silver, and concealed an incredible density of information that seemed like it would repel any and every attack. Even the air around it looked like it was warped somehow. Compared with this, even the armor of metallic Chrom
e Falcon was a toy.

  Suppressing a sigh, he checked the plate on this one.

  The overall design was the same as that of the sword pedestal. The upper part was a bas-relief of the Big Dipper. However, the larger star in this one was the sixth from the left. The kanji carved into it was again two characters, maybe read as kaiyou. And again, he didn’t understand their meaning.

  And then the English name at the very bottom was—

  THE DESTINY. He was pretty sure this meant…fate.

  Once he had read that far, he took a step back and finally allowed himself to exhale heavily. Both were probably Enhanced Armaments in the top class in the Accelerated World. Sword and armor.

  If he reached a hand out and touched them, they’d be his. He had heard rumors about finding Enhanced Armaments sitting on pedestals like this in the depths of dungeons, albeit in small numbers, all over the Unlimited Neutral Field.

  But what bothered him were the portals shimmering immediately behind the pedestals. Obviously, these had to be related. In all probability, when he touched one item or the other, the portal would activate at the same time and forcefully return him to the real world.

  In addition to the items being the activation key, these portals were likely one-time use only, and while one was activated, the neighboring pedestal was probably locked. In other words, an individual or a group could obtain either the sword or the armor, but not both at once. At any rate, he was faced with an either/or choice.

  Just a few minutes earlier, he had thought just having made it in and gotten back out was plenty, but given this new development, he couldn’t come to such complete terms with the idea that he was unable to refrain from stretching his hand out toward the pedestals. His real-world age was eight, after all, and even adding in the time he had spent accelerated, he was still only thirteen.

  From the placement, it was clear that he couldn’t use either portal unless he touched one of the armaments. But which one?

  He had no doubt that he would become markedly stronger than he was at that moment, whether he equipped the sword or the armor. But it was meaningless if Chrome Falcon alone was enhanced. He needed to think about this with the assumption of tag-teaming with Saffron Blossom. The meaning of his existence was to protect her. So then the sword. Becoming any harder than he already was as a metal color, a defensive type to begin with, was gilding the lily. He turned toward the INFINITY pedestal, and legs that had begun to take a step toward it froze on the spot.

  He had to protect Blossom. If that was his sole desire, then there was an even more optimal solution. A way to remove her weak point, her thin armor, and make it so that she could endure the fiercest of concentrated attacks.

  Clenching his right hand into a fist, he banished the reluctance and desire that beat hard once in the center of his chest before stretching a hand out to the pure silver armor enshrined on the pedestal to the right.

  Before he even had the chance to realize that his fingertips were touching it, a purple system message scrolled through the center of his vision along with a light sound effect.

  YOU ACQUIRED AN ENHANCED ARMAMENT: THE DESTINY.

  The armor transformed into particles of light and dissolved while the blue light of the portal spread out and engulfed Chrome Falcon.

  Blackout.

  Spotlight.

  In the center of the circle of white light, a comfortable although not particularly large room pops up out of the gloom.

  The walls and the floor are well-polished wood. In one corner, a black cooking stove. Hazy steam rises up from the pot on top. On the wall on the opposite side is a large bed. And on top of the snow-white sheets, two human shapes are seated side by side.

  But they are not flesh-and-blood people. The body of one is enveloped in a dark silver armor. And the other’s entire form is a bright golden yellow, like the sun. The design of its short hair, shoulders, and hips is reminiscent of a flower that has just started to open.

  Facing the silver figure hanging his head—a child being scolded—the golden yellow flower lightly raises an adorable fist.

  “Honestly! Are you stupid?!”

  She rapped his helmet sharply over and over. Pulling his neck in as far as it went, he made the same excuse he had already made repeatedly.

  “Wh-which is why it was just supposed to be a test at first!”

  “Then you should’ve come back the same way right away! Why would you just wander into the palace like that?!”

  “B-because my HP was already pretty low…And I wasn’t sure if I’d actually regenerate on the outside again if I Blinked from the inside of the valley and died halfway, okay…?”

  “Even if you did regenerate on the inside, your HP gauge would be totally recovered, so you could’ve just jumped back to the outside with Blink!”

  “Unh…You’re totally right, but…”

  He had absolutely no hope of winning over his more logical partner in this sort of back-and-forth. As he dropped his shoulders dejectedly, Chrome Falcon heard a heavy sigh, followed by a slender hand stroking the top of his helmet slowly, instead of another punch.

  “Well, I have to give you credit for being adventurous enough to try and get into the Castle, and for having the nerves to go so deep and come back alive. You really did good, Fal.”

  At this praise, he raised his head, feeling his chest tighten unconsciously. In front of him, a gentle smile spread across Saffron Blossom’s sweet face mask.

  “Th-thanks, Fron,” he murmured, staring into her light blue eye lenses.

  Blossom shrugged as if embarrassed, pulled her hand away from Chrome Falcon’s head, and stood up.

  “I’ll put on some tea. Oh! And I’ll cut some cake to celebrate your safe return. I bought a really tasty one from the food shop in the Ginza Area back then.”

  He watched his partner trot off to the other side of the room, where the kitchen was, and felt any number of emotions rise up in his chest once more, rendering him unable to speak.

  After years—naturally, in Accelerated-World time—of hunting Enemies together, they had finally been able to buy the key to this small house in a corner of the Bay Area in the Unlimited Neutral Field, the reclaimed land called Odaiba in the real world. For Falcon, using those points to level up or buy an Enhanced Armament was indeed appealing, but seeing how moved Blossom was the first time he opened the door to their new residence instantly banished all such childish desires from his heart.

  Since then, this room, with the household items they had brought in bit by bit over the course of nearly a year, was for Falcon now a more comfortable space than his own bedroom in the real world. Unlike the condo he lived in essentially alone, no brothers or sisters and parents working late every day, Blossom was always here in this room. Although sleeping in the bed together had unsurprisingly been fairly awkward for a while.

  Why had she been so fixated on buying a house? She’d told him a month ago in real-world time.

  Saffron Blossom had been born with an incurable disease that caused reduced performance of the mitochondria in her cells. Since it was genetic, the most cutting-edge micromachine treatment was ineffective. Although at present, her symptoms were on the level of tiring easily and getting headaches, she would eventually have attacks of seizure and paralysis, and at some point, lesions would spread to her heart. She had even been told by doctors that she most likely wouldn’t reach adulthood. The reason she had been continuously wearing a Neurolinker since she was a newborn, a device that had only just come onto the market then, was to keep constant watch over her symptoms.

  In the same bed they were sitting on now, Blossom had grinned brightly at Falcon, unable to do anything but listen with wide-open eyes.

  “Don’t make that face, Fal. Even if something does happen, we’re talking ten or fifteen years from now. And we have Brain Burst, don’t we? In this Accelerated World, I can live a proper full life, like everyone else. I’ll buy a cute and wonderful house and live there forever with the person I love,
just the two of us…”

  Blossom laughed, almost embarrassed, and when he accidentally asked, “Is that me?” she slapped at him.

  He was happy. But at the same time, he felt a faint fear. Am I really enough?—that fear. Is Chrome Falcon really qualified to share the rest of Blossom’s life with her? That fear, too. The fact that he had taken on the extremely reckless challenge of infiltrating the Castle by himself was also because of that fear, which sat in the depths of his heart.

  Which was why now that he had come back alive from the place, he couldn’t help but turn toward his partner in profile at the small table before him on which she had readied cake and tea and ask, “Hey, Fron? Why…Why me? I don’t have any real abilities. And I’m basically half-baked even for a metal color. Why’d you choose me?”

  For a moment, Blossom looked puzzled before she abruptly pursed her lips tightly. “Aah, you forgot! Look, Fal, you’re the one who invited me to team up originally! You started talking to me in a superquiet voice in the Gallery, and I had to ask you to repeat yourself I don’t know how many times.”

  “What…W-was that how it went?”

  Flustered, he dug around in his memory, but that incident was already almost five years ago in experienced time. Even so, in the distant scene that drifted hazily back to life in the back of his head, it was indeed him speaking to Blossom first. You really had some nerve, huh? A virtual sweat broke out all over his avatar’s body as Blossom set down the teapot and walked over to him, slapping her hand down on his shoulder.

  “So then I’ll ask you, Fal. Why’d you choose me? I didn’t have any techniques at all back then, and I was being hunted by the high-firepower types. So why?”

  How can I tell you? That I knew you were the one the moment I saw you?

  But he apparently couldn’t hide the strong emotions in his heart from his tag-team partner of so many years. Smiling gently, the sun-colored avatar wrapped slender arms around his helmet and hugged it to her chest.