Already forgotten things.
His palms were still soft back then, not yet lined with the faint calluses he had now. That tiny room had been filled with the warmth of home.
The space between them had been so close he could almost feel their body heat. The smell of miso soup, discount meat sizzling in a shallow pot, his mother's apron, his father's cigarettes.
Rock-paper-scissors had been enough to settle a child's little contests.
The kindergarten blackboard had once been covered in teasing doodles, pairing off boys and girls who spent time together.
The little girl next door had walked up the hill to school with him.
Carefree laughter had echoed around the swings.
All of it was already something he had forgotten...
When he opened his tired eyes again, the computer was still on. Its screen flickered with the bleak light of defeat, while the evening sun slanting through the small window spread across his messy bed.
The room reeked of old garbage.
The ashtray—a hollowed-out drink can—was crammed with ten, twenty shriveled cigarette butts. Powdery black ash coated the bottom, and the stubs sticking out of it looked like hands clawing up from the dark.
In the mirror, faint traces of his younger self still lingered.
The contacts in his phone were limited to whoever he needed to get by—coworkers, his boss.
His life stretched over twenty years like a single worn thread. The beginning had been warm and full of color, but everything after had faded into darkness.
Or maybe it was just pale and empty.
He had gone from being a child indispensable to other people's lives to an ordinary man people disliked, a man no one needed.
His broken path through school had cut off even the chance to stay in touch with people his own age.
Hungry and cautious, he had fumbled his way toward the doorway of society.
He didn't have a brilliant mind, or an exceptional body, or even the courage to commit himself to something.
In the end, all he could do was shrink into a rotten little room, curl up in a secondhand chair, and stare into virtual networks.
That was just how it had to be.
One after another.
The people hidden behind fictional characters were, in a way, more real than anything else.
Plenty of people envied his powerful accounts. After all, none of them could look past those polished, dazzling game characters and see what was behind the screen, his filthy face, expressionless and dead.
In real life, he was barely surviving.
He had no one to strive for and no goal to chase. He moved only on the instinct of a living creature that still didn't want to die.
All his wasted brainpower went into piles of virtual data.
If he failed, so what? If no one encouraged him, so what?
He just had to start over.
He could hit the retry button as many times as he wanted and practice again and again.
He could see it, and he could do it.
The convoluted systems made by countless developers, he could patiently read through them, understand them, work out the optimal way to play, even start trying to break them.
Look.
One server. Tens of thousands of players. Hundreds of thousands.
Behind all those different characters were people who might be students, convenience store clerks, urban elites, even successful professionals.
And all of them, every last one, had been trampled underfoot by him, by a man with nothing.
Again and again, dozens of times, he had stood at the top.
At first, that was what Satoru had believed. He thought he had found something of value.
But whenever he shut off the computer and saw his real face reflected in the black screen, he would remember.
It was self-deception.
Was his reaction speed really that fast? Was his thinking really that sharp?
No. It wasn't.
The only reason someone as pathetic as him could climb over so many others was simple: the others were not as obsessively, pointlessly insane as he was. They had real lives, the kind he could never touch.
Students enjoyed the irreplaceable youth of school. Clerks worked toward their futures. Elites planned out their lives.
That was what was real.
In the end, he sank into pain with no edge and no end.
The more radiant he looked in the arena, the more other players saw him as some untouchable god, the uglier his expression became.
Whenever monsters in a Dungeon counterattacked exactly as he expected, counterattacks he could read so cleanly he may as well have designed them himself, he was reminded that in real life he'd struggle just to lift a box onto a truck.
And yet he couldn't let go of that painful virtual world.
If he lost it, he would lose the only thing he could still work at, the only thing that could still earn him the means to survive.
...
All forty-four members of the raid group had made it through safely and received the Kobold Lord's massive EXP reward. Aside from the unique reward for the final blow slipping through his fingers, he was satisfied.
People were cheering, clapping each other on the back, celebrating the joy of clearing one percent of this death game.
Satoru was probably the only one not openly showing any happiness.
He couldn't see the point.
Was he supposed to be happy just because he had survived?
He sat up, sorted through his inventory, and looked toward the floating staircase that had appeared—the path to the second floor.
Satoru saw no new hope there.
All he saw was a brand-new hunting ground and a string of rich quests.
What exactly was all this effort supposed to accomplish?
He had no desire to become some kind of hero. That ideal had yellowed and faded long ago. Anyone who still chased that sort of thing in this reality would end up no better than Don Quixote.
High levels, strong equipment, skill. All they brought was peace of mind.
Just for that tiny little thing.
He said nothing.
Within the first month of this game, he had already done a few things he probably ought to be punished for.
"Yurnero."
The leader of this raid, Diavel, walked over, his eyes full of sincerity.
"Thank you."
If Yurnero hadn't risked his life to interrupt the Kobold Lord's first Whirlwind, at least six people would've died.
"You should be the MVP of this battle."
"In the days ahead, if I form a Guild, I hope you'll join."
Right. That was how it should be. This was the reward for stopping the Kobold Lord.
You have the talent to organize people. You should use it well, shine where it matters, and speed up the clearing of this game. People like you are rare. At the very least, that's a talent Satoru doesn't have.
Though, in a roundabout way, saving everyone also means saving me among them.
"We'll see when the time comes," he replied vaguely. For now, he still cared more about efficiency.
"I see. Then I'll ask again when the time comes." Diavel smiled. "How about opening the second floor? Your party has that privilege."
Satoru looked toward Kirito, who had finally recovered some strength. After the fierce battle, Kirito gave him a thumbs-up, the kind of wordless acknowledgment shared between comrades.
"Looks like there's still no time to rest," he said.
"Well, it is a new floor. We'll need to plan carefully and strengthen ourselves all over again." Diavel nodded, then seemed to remember something. "Oh, right... that last move you used was the one-handed straight sword skill Sonic Leap, wasn't it? But you're clearly a curved sword user. Don't tell me... you invested in two weapon-type skills?"
His surprise made sense.
There were endless kinds of skills, and while all of them had their uses, skill slots were precious. Even for players who didn't focus on production skills, after setting aside mining, processing, tailoring, cooking, and the like, skills such as Hiding, Searching, and its tracking functions could all make a character dramatically stronger.
"More or less..."
Satoru gave a small nod.
"That's a bit of a waste. Weapon skills only take one slot, and once your proficiency rises, the later Sword Skills are all included anyway... Though I guess I can't really say that. Without your Sonic Leap, this battle would've ended in disaster. You saved a lot of people," Diavel said.
"..."
It still didn't feel real.
"Then I'll go on up first," he said, letting out a long breath to ease some of his fatigue.
Diavel gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder, then turned away to speak with the others.
This guy... could he really be one of those rare, genuine hero types?
No, no. Even if someone's a hero, the actor inside the costume still has to eat.
Is everyone's life exhausting...?
"You coming or not? If not, I'm heading up first."
Kirito, who had once parted from them in that alleyway, now wore a completely different smile—almost inviting.
It suited him, but the rapier user at his side was even more striking
Female players were already rare enough in this game, and on top of that, she had first-rate looks and presence. Just the fact that she had dared to stand in that boss room was enough to make Satoru raise both hands in admiration.
So if Klein had been a cute girl, would he have grudgingly brought him along back then?
It was the kind of random thought Satoru rarely had.
He followed the two of them up the empty staircase to the second floor.