20XX years, July 1.
"Oh, it's your fault. You cheat on me...!
My voice, it's coming down.
On my chest lying on the ground, a knife plugged deep.
(You're lying, me, with this...)
And I... "Sora Maniac" is dead.
Well, we're talking about it in the game!
What I'm playing right now is New Communicate Online.
Once, in a way, it was a VR game that swept a lifetime apart.
Of course it's a game, so even if you die, you simply go back to dying at the last save point.
Even while I thought about it, the screen switched and I stood in front of the last monolith I stopped by.
"Nevertheless, I didn't expect you to kill me for that...
The boulder is "New Communicate Online".
The biggest fucking name of the century isn't Dada!
What I was doing earlier was a quest to get along with an NPC woman and attack a dungeon with her.
After a lot of hard work, I managed to get close to the character (named Layla), but before I went to the dungeon, I stopped by the item store and tried to buy a recovery item, and suddenly got stabbed and killed from behind.
Now that I think about it, I guess I didn't like the fact that the store clerk was a woman.
... how jealous of a setup.
As I bite the irrationality of this game again, a light-hearted noise called Pawn signals a phone call.
"Ah, from Maki."
I manipulate the window and push the button on the call.
Soon the phone connects, and the prolonged voice of my cousin Maki descends from the sky.
"Soma? Can you hear me?
"Oh, I hear you.
What's wrong with you?
One of the few good things about this game is that you can make phone calls and emails with the real world while playing the game.
Thanks to being in VR space, it may be useful to say that it is particularly useful to be able to call freehand without having to have a machine or anything.
"What's wrong - it's not okay.
I promised you I'd help you organize our warehouse today. "
"Huh? That, speaking of..."
It's like I was making that promise, like I'm not...
In the first place, I had lost the feeling of the day because it had been a game pickling day ever since I started living alone.
"Enough is enough.
I thought that would happen, because I've already started by myself. "
"Ah, oh. Oh, I'm sorry."
Maki is two younger cousins than me, and he's a busy guy who tries to call me out of his mind.
He is also a pretty troublemaker with a tall, luxurious body yet unusually powerful, and a face that doesn't kill bugs either.
Just to be clear, the number of damage I've suffered from Maki is not enough to match my hands with my toes.
I've been a little alienated since I started living alone on the occasion of college, but I still exchange emails about the same time.
"More than that. I found something weird in the warehouse..."
"Weird stuff?
"Yeah. Uh, first of all, it's like an orange, ball, huh?
"An orange ball?
That's not usually Minkan or anything, is it?
Oh, if it was in the warehouse, would it be so rotten...
"There's a lot of them, right?
Uh, one, two, three, four... seven in all?
"Seven?... seven orange balls?!
Hey. That doesn't mean there's a star in there, does it?
No, I don't think that's stupid...
"Hmm? I'll check it out."
"What? What do you mean, look it up..."
My question was cleared up by the sound of Gashan.
"Is that it? There's nobody in there?
"Whoa, whoa! Now what...!
"Huh? They asked me if there was anything inside, so I just cracked it..."
Maki answers sayingly.
This is why I can't be alarmed about this guy.
It's always radical to take it easy on your face.
"You know, Maki. That could be..."
"Maybe?
"... no, it's nothing"
I swallowed the words in my mouth.
This is the time.
You shouldn't say bad things.
"Is there anything else?
"Hmm? Um"
The sound of Maki exploring something returns to my words.
"There it is. This is... what is it, a mummy's hand?
And tiny. Maybe it's not people's.
Maybe a monkey or something?
"Well, that could be the famous monkey hand of fulfilling up to three wishes..."
The word I was about to say was blocked by the sound of a bag called Gassa.
"What? I just put my mummy's hand in burning garbage."
"You're the guy... no, that's enough"
The monkey's hand must have been a substitute for the owner's desire to be fulfilled in an unwanted way.
I don't even think it's real, but I'd rather stay out of it either way.
"Other than that?
"Mmm."
For a while.
And
"Phone boxes and wells."
An unexpected response came.
What were the people at Maki's house thinking about putting such things in the warehouse?
Or how did you get a phone box and a well to the warehouse or something?
"Oh, but the phone box doesn't look like it's electric, and it looks like he's got a well.
Don't look for anything else. "
"Oh, oh..."
I don't know what the phone box and well are used for, but there's no way I can get my wish to come true by blowing in the settings or drinking the water from the well in the phone box.
Probably just threw it in the warehouse because it's really out of the way.
I feel that I have already lost sight of the purpose of organizing the warehouse, but I am concerned about the items sleeping in the warehouse, so I did not point them out.
Eventually, you found something new, Mayuki's bounced voice hits me in the ear.
"I found it again!
This is... what is it?
Looks like it's just elongated paper. "
"Elongated paper?
What do you wish for on an elongated piece of paper... Oh well!
"Hey, isn't that a short book?
"A short book? Uh, yeah, yeah, maybe that sounds like it!
But all at once things became obscure or disgusting.
No, I don't mind.
"Because of this, I don't think I should write about every favor anymore."
"Oh, hey! Something very inadvertent..."
I rush into a halt,
"Done!
"That's fast, dude!
It was late.
Normally, there's no danger in the booklet, except if it was in there with such a suspicious substitute.
I was honestly surprised, but Maki didn't seem to feel anything.
Or maybe he didn't think about it at all.
"... nothing will happen."
So when I heard that voice, I was honestly a little relieved.
"You bet.
I can't make a wish with something like that.
... So, what did you write?
"May you be a princess," he said.
"... I hope you'll always be full of dreams"
"Right?
The irony didn't even make sense.
Well, that's what Maki can say.
"Why couldn't I be a princess?
I guess it wasn't the New Year's Eve. "
What paranoia, but the search for Maki continues.
"Oh, I found something amazing again.
What the hell, this kind of thing?
Uh... pico pico hammer?
"Pico Pico Hammer?
I don't realize the rumor that a wish will come true with a pico hammer on a boulder.
When I was shaking my neck, Maki told me a story that had nothing to do with it.
"Um. I remembered in the booklet that it's almost New Year's Eve, right?
"Yeah? Oh, yeah..."
Well, anyway, I just hang around the house and play games all the time outside of class, so it doesn't matter.
I thought that Maki had made strange demands.
"Somamosa.
Come visit us on the Seventh Eve.
See, today's warehouse is organized, as a close-up. "
"Huh?! I can't, I can't!
I have class this year on the 7th!
He said he won't have time to go that way because he'll play games when he gets back!
I turned down the unexpected proposal in a much stronger tone.
As soon as I mouthed that, I thought I had.
The atmosphere across the phone changes.
"Phew, yeah, what the hell.
That game is more important than us... "
"Oh, no, the, Mashi?
Maki's voice is low.
This is a sign of anger.
It was almost at the same time that I blocked my ears in the VR world and a shout came down that sounded like the whole world.
"If you like the game so much, you can even go inside the game!!
Silly!!
At the same time, I could hear the sound of Bakeen and something massively broken in the distance.
In my ear stunned by the unexpected sword curtain, this again stunned by the voice of Mayuki.
"Is that it? The pico hammer is broken.
It was made of a pretty solid tree. "
"Made of wood, hammer?
Something connected me to that word.
A hammer made of wood is a hammer.
When it comes to the gavel that makes a wish come true, there is only one.
I mean, that's not a pico hammer or anything...
"Hey, could it be..."
But I couldn't convey that word to Maki until the end.
Vision turns.
The world of crops is folded and transformed.
(What, but...)
The words of doubt don't sound either.
Everything swirls and gets swallowed up by something big.
Loss of consciousness, last moment.
'If you like the game so much, you can go even inside the game!
The sad cry of Maki struck my head again somehow.