5 - The Beginning of The Dream

A cold chill ran down Hiroshi’s back. He looked around, not knowing what it was. It took a moment, but he realized it was because of the town around him.

He was watching the second story of the condo, just as Lily had told him to. Of course, he’d been looking outside too, but it took time to see what had changed.

There were small sounds of destruction coming from across the town. The cars on the road weren’t moving.

“What’s going on...? Don’t tell me... something dangerous?” Hiroshi looked up when he heard sounds above him. A flying bus was crash landing on the other side of the city. “...What?!”

The bus slammed into the ground and burst into flames, and several houses seemed to be caught in the blaze. There was no need to say that this was a major disaster. He’d never seen accidents of this scale happen in the city.

“U-Uwah...” Hiroshi wasn’t sure if he should follow Lily’s orders or go find her. But when he saw the rest of the building’s occupants coming out of their rooms, he hurried to Lily’s location. When he opened the door, he came upon the student council president fighting several dolls.

“If you’re here, then help!” Lily yelled.

“Wh... What’s going on?”

The answer came from a pale, sickly-looking girl on the other side of a broken window, who was being carried by a doll.

“I’ve won.”

Even Hiroshi could tell that it was 2V. But what he couldn’t understand was why Lily was having problems with the dolls.

“President, just knock their lights out!” he said, but even when she punched the dolls, they just got back up.

“They’re different than before...! They’re stronger...!” Lily yelled. She kept knocking the dolls back with her combat techniques, but the dolls seemed to be somehow moving their fragile joints out of the path of each punch she tried to land.

“2V! Since when were you this good at combat?” Lily howled at 2V. But the girl just laughed in response.

“Hah! You didn’t notice, did you? It’s not what you think it is. I’m not controlling them at all.”

“What?”

“What if there was somebody who was better at controlling dolls than me? What if they could control multiple dolls at the same time?”

“Shut up! That’s impossible... No... You can’t mean...” Lily’s jaw fell open in astonishment.

“Hahaha! That’s right! I told you... Zero, the first Demon King, can control all Liradans! Any autonomous AI! Zero was a program that was sealed in VPS. He was the first Demon King, and I gave Zero a body! I’m his master now!”

2V’s laugh echoed through the room, and Hiroshi went pale.

“Then what I saw outside...!”

“What? There’s something happening outside?” Lily turned around as she punched a doll.

“Outside... the cars stopped, and the air buses fell from the sky... And I kept hearing the sounds of things breaking...” Hiroshi said.

Lily fixed an intense glare on 2V.

“You bitch... You used the Liradans to destroy the city...!”

“Hahaha! It wasn’t me! I can control him, but Zero’s a little crazy! But I’ll be going now.”

“Wait...!”

“Does anybody ever wait when they hear someone say that?”

The doll carrying 2V went to jump off the veranda to the ground below, but suddenly it stopped. 2V turned back.

“Oh, right. I told you I had the students hostage. But that was a lie. You can’t alter the program like that from the outside. Remember that.”

“You stupid bitch!” Lily raged. “I’ll get you for this, damn it!”

“I never want to see you again. Good luck surviving! No, maybe it’s better if you don’t. You might end up with a world where Liradans rule.” The doll holding 2V vanished as she dropped below.

“2V!” Lily screamed, but she was surrounded and unable to move. She turned to Hiroshi with a pained look on her face.

“Do something! You’re a man, right?”

“B-But...” Hiroshi stepped back as one of the dolls started moving towards him. “O-Oh no...”

Before he could run, though, he felt a sudden pain in his wrist.

“Huh...?” He looked down at it. It was bracelet he wore as a good luck charm. The device he’d once used to summon the anti-Demon King suit, which no longer worked.

—H-How? Don’t tell me I can use it again...!

“B-Brave...” He whispered the activation keyword.

○

Akuto was back in the courtyard where he’d first vanished. The students around him were amazed to see him covered in blood.

“Uwah!”

“Why is he covered in blood?”

None of them liked him, but they couldn’t just let him lie there, wounded.

“Can anybody here heal?”

“No way... I thought he was immortal!”

The students began to murmur.

A moment later, Keena and the others appeared in the yard as well.

“Ackie!” Keena ran straight up to him and cradled his head in her hands.

“The mana in my body started to heal me as soon as I got back... I think I’ll be alright,” he said in a pained voice.

“We need to use healing on you... We could use a Liradan’s healing tools, right?” Fujiko looked around. The only ones who appeared when the game ended were Akuto, Keena, Junko, and Korone.

Keena was still talking to Akuto, Junko was standing over him with a pale face, and Korone was frozen.

“Korone, are you listening?” Fujiko said to her. “You need to heal him.”

As always, Korone was expressionless. She must have heard Fujiko, however, because she jammed a hand into her pouch.

“That’s right. Get your medkit out,” Fujiko said. Then she turned her gaze back to Akuto. “Hurry up and heal him...”

Clack-clack.

Fujiko heard an ominous sound behind her.

“Clack-clack?” she repeated, and turned around.

Korone was holding a huge weapon at her hip. It was a beam weapon that fired mana.

“Th-That’s not a medkit!” Fujiko said, but Korone clearly wasn’t listening. “I never could figure out what you were thinking, but this is going a little too far...”

Korone was pointing the weapon at Akuto.

“Watch out!” Fujiko yelled as she fired a mana ball at Korone to try to stop her. “Th-This can’t be happening!”

But Korone continued to ignore her — and she fired the weapon.

Junko turned around at the sound of the mana ball firing and Fujiko’s voice, but she was an instant too late. The beam from the weapon tore through Akuto’s body.

“Gwah!” he screamed.

“Ackie!”

“Akuto!”

Keena and Junko’s screams overlapped.

The mana ball hit Korone clean in the face, but she just staggered for a moment before aiming the weapon again.

“Wh-What are you doing, Korone?!”

“Stop it, Korone!”

Junko and Keena yelled.

But Korone’s expression didn’t change. Behind her, they could see smoke rising up from the city below.