compnetwork | 001 [] Video

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soujirou seta [ou]

001 [] Video :: Arrival

-ah!

[The feed shows nothing more than the street, but whomever the user is, they seem to have stopped abruptly from their walk. A hand lingers at the edge of the image, then hesitantly pokes at the air.]

Oh, this isn't like the regular status menus at all... I guess it really isn't the same. ...then that must not have been a dream either.

[His finger continues to swipe and prod at the air in front of him, Soujirou himself being oblivious as to how silly he might appear by either perspective. Finally his hand withdraws, the view shifting downwards as he lowers his head with a thoughtful sigh, and one can now catch a glimpse of folded arms and the length of a violet-brown hakama. Someone seems to be dressed a bit traditionally, in any case.]

Hmmm.....

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[... Okay clearly he comes from some different world.]

The World. I'm guessing you must come from a different place from me. There's people from all kinds of worlds here. The World is pretty much the only MMO where I'm from. I'm guessing 'Elder Tale' is the big MMO where you're from?

Heh, I guess so... That's kind of amazing to think about though...

Elder Tale is pretty popular worldwide- where I'm from, I mean. It's been around for twenty years now! Although...

...you weren't stuck inside the game too, were you?

The World's only been going for three years, but there's someone here from a later version of the game I think... seven years on from when I am?

But yeah, I was stuck in the game for six months. I think. That's what I was told.

So people can be here from different times too?

[That's...confusing. But what Tsukasa says next is something of an eyeopener.]

That long...? I don't think it's even been a month since the Apocalypse happened. That's when we found out we were in the world of Elder Tale.

Yeah.

... Apocalypse in the game or out of it? And I kind of had a... weird case.

In... That's what we've started to call it. It was the day that the newest expansion was supposed to be released. I'm not even sure how many people were logged in at the time, but the Japanese server alone has always had a lot of people.

...what sort of weird case?

Yeah, but it's not like the world outside is destroyed, right?

[He weighs the benefits of telling him, but it's not really like it can do any harm.]

One of the AIs in the game basically connected me to an AI that was being... 'born', for lack of a better word. Keeping me there and keeping me miserable kept the new AI from being born.

[He's still not terribly clear how, but still.]

Well, no. I'm assuming everything's all right, back in the old world. We just have no idea how anything happened.

[The image tilts with Soujirou's head as he tries to grasp this idea of AIs.]

...I'm not sure I understand. You don't mean like NPCs, right?

I mean like actual artificial intelligence.

H~uh...

So were you the only one that was stuck in the game?

I was the only one who couldn't log out, yeah.

[To be the only one in such a situation...]

...that's terrible. Were you able to find a way out eventually..?

Well, Helba shut down the server, so I should have woken up... but I ended up here instead.

So you don't know for sure...

We don't know how to get out, either. I don't even know if there would be a server to shut down, but we can't log out from our status menus.

Everything was made real, somehow.

It... causes problems, yeah. They might be able to, but there's no telling if that will actually work.

....

I'm sorry.

... Huh? Why?

That you were in such a position. I know it's not quite the same as what happened with me and my friends, but... being the only one to have been stuck like that...

[It makes him sad, okay]

...I hope it works out for you. At least it seems like there's still some control of the game, in your world. You haven't completely lost contact with the old world if others can still log out.

Well... I guess. Except that I don't know who I am outside of the game.

You don't...?

[He shakes his head.]

The AI messed with my memories.

Why would it do such a thing?

To make sure I didn't want to try to log off?

Th-that's still terrible! [What kind of scary AIs are in that game?!]

Well yeah.

[Duh.]

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