kscans

Chapter 41 - A Castle on Sand, a Throne in Flux, Part Five

The law of the jungle—survival of the fittest—had suddenly begun in this world of sand. Except this wasn't the strong devouring the weak. It was the reverse.

The majestic beast that had seemed so invincible when I faced it one-on-one was now a shadow of its former self. Swarmed by countless serpents, the [Dusty Worm, Great Serpent of Dust] was being ravaged without a shred of resistance.

Entangled, bitten, torn apart... it was suffering the full force of tyranny by numbers, unable to even let out a proper scream—

"Ssssuuu—... Whoa, hold on... this is a little..."

Isn't this a bit too graphic?

As the hardcore monster splatter-fest began, I snapped out of my daze and glanced at the person next to me. As for Sora-san—ah, well, yeah.

I should remember, Arcadia is just a game. This world isn't real; it's a dream world controlled by digital signals. A virtual world indistinguishable from reality.

Now, even with the premise that it's just a game, just fiction, what would happen if someone with no tolerance for that kind of stuff witnessed it not through a screen, but with their own eyes, ears, and skin?

"Ngh... hah... ha... ah..."

"Sora."

She was still crumpled on the ground, her eyes wide, her breathing ragged and strange, as if she were hyperventilating. I crouched beside her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and leaned in to meet her gaze.

"Sora, calm down."

I spoke to her, but she probably couldn't hear me. I'd seen someone in a similar state of panic in real life before, and she looked about the same.

—Look, personally, I consider this kind of over-the-top, shocking imagery to be part of what makes this a god-tier game, but...

A criticism I never thought I'd have for this game surfaced in my mind. I pulled Sora in, prying her away from the horrific scene playing out before her, and hugged her head to my chest.

I patted her back with a deliberately lighthearted rhythm, repeating, "It's okay, it's just a game." I felt a little queasy myself, so I couldn't bring myself to laugh at her small, trembling body.

Even as I tried to soothe Sora, the situation before me continued to unfold over her shoulder.

The dozens... maybe even hundreds of serpents in the tsunami had swallowed the great serpent. The brilliant blue was gone, consumed by the red.

—And then, unbelievably, the second act began.

"Hey, hey..."

Alright, so it seems the great serpent that gave me so much trouble has been eaten clean. How do I know? Because now, the serpents have started an endless, cannibalistic feast among themselves.

Watching a swarm devour a single target was intense, but watching a swarm devour itself was just as shocking. It was a complete vision of hell... This is going to give me nightmares.

Are they going to keep eating each other until only one is left? Seems likely...

If that's the case, I should have a bit of time. I can use it to calm Sora down... or maybe it would be better to just—

"Sora, if this is really too much for you, let's log out for a bit."

She heard... me, it seems. I saw a slight reaction and continued, consciously keeping my voice gentle.

"I'll protect your body, so you can just log back in when you've calmed down."

As a rule in Arcadia, if you log out outside of a safe zone like a town, your avatar remains in place. Of course, even an empty avatar's HP will decrease if attacked, and death means an unavoidable death penalty. What's more, as if to punish those who take lazy shortcuts, the penalty is even greater.

"No, you can't be blamed for that. They suddenly show you a live splatter scene that would make even a guy flinch. Of course it's going to be rough on a girl."

I could tell she was trying to respond, but her mouth just twitched unnaturally, unable to form words. I wasn't sure if such a symptom could occur in a virtual world, but it looked exactly like a panic-induced spasm.

I remember seeing something similar when I was working part-time at a convenience store. A college-aged girl was being yelled at by the yakuza-like manager in the back room and ended up like this.

He was yelling at her for some trumped-up reason, so I teamed up with my rugby-player-built senior to fight him off—but, well, that's another story.

Anyway, trying to force a response out of her when she couldn't give one was pointless. I just kept talking, faster than usual, trying to drill it into her head that she shouldn't worry because I didn't mind.

In fact, Sora hadn't done anything wrong. Anyone who was suddenly shown something like that would be forgiven for getting traumatized and spamming the GMs with complaints.

Actually, I'm going to. You scared my devoted and cute partner like this, so you better be ready. I'm prepared to fight...!

"See? So come on, leave the rest to your big bro and take a little break."

I said it as if it were a final decision. Sora looked up—ah, don't give me that on-the-verge-of-tears look, you're going to make my protective instincts erupt.

"Alright, here."

She must have understood the state she was in. With a short prompt, Sora gave a small nod. Her left hand, the only one she could seem to move, trembled as she brought up the logout screen—and then, she paused.

"...Sora?"

About eight seconds passed. I called out to her, puzzled—and just then, a veil of green light enveloped us both.

It was a parting gift, at the very least. I was surprised she could manage it when she could barely think. Sora gently pressed her forehead against my chest once, then tapped the logout button.

"............"

The body leaning against me suddenly went limp. Her consciousness had logged out, leaving behind an empty avatar—or rather,

"...Could you stop being so damn devoted?"

I'm a teenage boy, the easiest species in the world to win over, you know? We're the kind of creatures who fall in love just because you picked up our eraser for us. Or so I've heard.

The avatar left in my arms conveyed a weight far greater than its physical mass.

...I don't know how things will play out from here, but I absolutely cannot let us die together after all that. I put on such a reliable-man act; I have to protect her other half, no matter what.

"...Alright, up we go."

An unconscious person is heavy. I'd heard that before, but now I understood. It wasn't that they were heavier, but because they couldn't balance themselves, the burden on the person carrying them increased.

I lifted Sora's avatar in a now-practiced princess carry and looked at the swarm of serpents, which had thinned out considerably.

Since the defeated ones were disappearing in a phosphorescent glow, the scene wasn't a hellscape littered with mangled corpses.

Visually, the situation was becoming a bit more manageable—but I had a feeling it wasn't over yet. Something would happen when the serpents were down to the last one.

And a short while later, my suspicion turned to certainty.

"Ah... so that's how it is?"

After a bloody battle of cannibalism, a single [Desert Serpent] raised its head to the sky and let out a victorious roar. And at that moment, the change began.

With a strange sound, like a great tree snapping in two, cracks appeared on the serpent's body. Starting from its head, they quickly spread across its entire form, and soon, its massive body began to split open.

"...So you were a 'serpent' after all, not a moray eel."

It was a molting, but it looked like an emergence. I had no way of knowing the specific triggers or details, but it was an evolution that came at the end of a path paved by devouring its predecessor and all of its kin.

Shedding its outer skin, an armor of reddish-black sand, it revealed a brilliant blue, more radiant than what I'd seen before. The thorny crest on its head and the bladed ridges spiraling down its body were still underdeveloped... but I knew what its grown form looked like.

The only clear difference from the [Dusty Worm, Great Serpent of Dust] was the pair of emerald eyes in its sockets. It shook off its clinging, shed skin as if annoyed, and leisurely raised its head.

As I watched its 'evolution' in stunned silence, a status bar popped up above the head of the new great serpent.

Its name was—[Bastide, Scion of Dust].