VOLUME 1

Chapter 13: The Hikikomori G.o.ds

I could feel it through my skin that the air had changed.

The smells around me had also changed. Instead of the familiar smell of my room, I could now discern the scent of blood and gunpowder.

When I came to, I found myself in the exact center of a devastated cla.s.sroom.

“……!!”

I touched my own face and stood there in pure shock.

It was easy to explain what exactly had happened.

We had all been sucked into the game world.

“S-Sasami-san!”

My brother and Kagami both tried to desperately get to me.

I was surrounded on all sides by monsters.

I didn’t have time to think, but in my daze just swung the Divine Beast Sword I had in my hand.

I was pretty weak in real life so I had never swung a sword before, but my body was surprisingly nimble.

Soon, all the monsters around me had been knocked down, and they had disappeared.

“Ohh, you’re quite strong.”

Kagami seemed eternally calm even in a situation like this, and I looked to her with tear-stricken eyes.

“W-What happened?!”

“Exactly what it looks like.”

It honestly annoyed me how calm Kagami could be as she walked around opening up the treasure boxes and gold dropped by the fallen monsters. Was there a place in the universe where she would actually be shaken?

“It seems that somehow, we’ve been sucked into the game world. We were most likely hypnotized by what was showing on the computer screen, and our spirits only were sucked in… I cannot seem to use any of my divine powers here, and none of the abilities my body should be equipped with seem to be working. We are most likely in a situation comparable to dreaming.”

“Dreaming? This is a dream?”

And yet, the air I was breathing in and the feeling of cutting the monsters down all seemed way too real…

But most importantly, I had no idea what was going on.

“Why is all this… what’s going to happen to us?”

“Well…”

Kagami walked to the wall that was now lined with broken gla.s.s and vacantly gazed at the huge evil army, as well as the monster at the center of that army, Yamata no Orochi.

“Shouldn’t you be asking that to Mr. Hostile over there?”

The rumble of the earth and ferocious roars pierced my ears as a war unfolded outside.

The academy students and teachers… no, all the guardians from the entire world who had been studying and honing their skills for this very moment had gathered together and were battling against the demon king and his army.

There were also faces I recognized, like that cat-eared headmaster.

Lighting struck down while holy lights evaporated monster after monster. Swords and spears whirled around and around.

However, the monsters just kept coming and coming without an end in sight.

Everyone was fighting desperately, but our numbers were limited… one, and then another guardian fell.

They were broken into little pieces and then terminated.

It was hard to watch this cruel scene of war and carnage.

The cat-eared headmaster was heroically twirling around with her iron wires when Yamata no Orochi caught sight of her.

“Nyah?! What are you doing nyah, let me go nyah!”

The Yamata no Orochi’s long tongue wrapped around the headmaster’s limbs and lifted her into the air.

“D-Don’t worry all, just keep on fighting nyah! Never give up, and I’m sure-“

Like that, the demon king clamped down on the headmaster with his jaw, and a burst of blood flew tragically through the air.

Her body was torn apart from the middle, and this cute young girl with cat ears was bisected in midair and terminated.

Recoiling at this gruesome sight, the morale of the Academy forces collapsed.

Even the strongest warriors from Valhalla had come to join the fray, but the enemies were numberless, and Yamata no Orochi himself was just too strong.

Every time one of his eight heads moved, another guardian met his end in a spray of blood.

It was like watching the G.o.d of Ends destroying everything.

“Can’t do this… he’s too strong…”

I groaned.

“This is like gambling… you can’t win if the casino is rigging the cards. This Yamata no Orochi is one of the G.o.ds, right? So through an alteration, he’s rewritten the rules of this world, and has made it so no player can win against him… we can’t do anything here.”

“That’s what it seems like.”

Kagami pondered the situation as we watched the player getting overrun.

“Normal players would get wiped out immediately. Even for us, this may be dangerous. I’ve tried my utmost to transfer the abilities and divine rights possessed by my real body into the game world, but this Yamata no Orochi’s divinity is just too high… as long as he’s obstructing me, I will not be able to move those divine rights into this game…”

“W-What about oniichan?”

I had some hope in my brother, but Kagami shook her head.

“That’s no good. Sensei doesn’t know how to use the ‘supernatural powers’ that come with having a G.o.d’s power. Having a bullet is pointless if you don’t have the gun… and our enemy has a divinity comparable to that of the Supreme G.o.d… And even if we properly channeled his powers and tried to defeat this enemy, if our opponent properly concentrated and countered our efforts, I do not think we would be able to easily deal with him.”

“I wish I could properly channel oniichan’s powers…”

I did have these “supernatural powers.”

I knew how to use these divine powers, and use them well.

“But I barely have any divinity right now… and I can’t transfer my spirituall powers from my real self to my game self… so I can’t channel and control oniichan’s powers…”

My rather twisted relationship with my brother was backfiring on us.

“But I do believe I’ve deduced what the aim of this Yamata no Orochi is.”

Kagami glared up at the sky, almost as if she was trying to re-establish a connection with her real body.

“When I was playing this Yamata no Orochi SNS, I was flooded with quite a peculiar sensation. It almost felt like I was breaking apart, that I was forgetting my physical body and completely entering the game world. So this is an example of emotional transfer… when we play the game, we forget about our own bodies, and end up completely becoming our game personas.”

Kagami seemed irritated and brushed her hair up with a hand.

“And then, using that moment when we forget ourselves, using that gap, the Yamata no Orochi forcibly separates our bodies from our psyches. Just as we are completely immersed in the game, we suddenly can no longer return to the real world… most likely, our real bodies now look like soulless corpses and are all that remain of us in that world….”

Kagami pointed at Yamata no Orochi and made a declaration.

“And then, that large deity over there traps the player’s psyches in the game world. The students can no longer go to school, and are stuck here in this game. They are devoured by the Yamata no Orochi, and their real bodies also become soulless corpses.”

So those students weren’t staying home because they had gotten addicted to a game and didn’t care about school anymore.

Those students, as well as the problematic hikikomori that had been popping up all over j.a.pan because they were playing Yamata no Orochi SNS…

They weren’t just trying to distance themselves from reality.

Rather, they probably just couldn’t return to that reality anymore.

“In addition, the Yamata no Orochi defeats players while they’re in the game, and by killing them, he reduces them to unconscious particles of light and takes them in. They thus fall under a deep, dreamless sleep, not even being able to think as they become just another part of the Yamata no Orochi.”

Kagami then c.o.c.ked her head to the side and seemed puzzled.

“But there is still something that I don’t understand… and it is the fact that the Yamata no Orochi is not doing anything more than that. If he was a G.o.d with evil intentions, he wouldn’t just leave the soulless corpses of the people alone. He could even manipulate their bodies and begin an invasion of the real world.”

I felt a shiver run down my spine.

I imagined the sight of these husks of people becoming the Yamata no Orochi’s p.a.w.ns and moving around like zombies, attacking other people on the streets.

But… such a thing had not happened yet in the real world.

The Yamata no Orochi was fully satisfied with just stealing people’s psyches.

Why?

Was this G.o.d devoid of ambition?

But if that’s true, why in the first place was he doing evil things like devouring people here?

He was a baffling monstrosity, and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of what he was truly after.

“He’s almost behaving like the Yamata no Orochi of legend… just desiring more and more sacrifices and devouring them greedily, and while he has a lot of power, he never does anything more than that. It’s a mystery. If he has that much power, he should be able to make the real world into his own kingdom.

–

“That’s ‘cuz he isn’t interested in the real world at all.”

–

A small voice suddenly echoed through the room.

When I heard that voice, I turned around and saw the eldest and youngest Yagami sister standing behind me.

It seemed they had returned from the bathroom.

No, wait, this was the game world.

Does this mean… they had also gotten trapped here?!

“Hey there, don’t worry. We’ve entered this world of our own free will.”

Tsurugi was wearing her biker’s jacket, and she muttered that with a bored expression on her face.

“You may think Yamata no Orochi’s divinity is high, but it’s not as high as Tama’s, and he also isn’t smart enough to do in someone with as much experience as me. So that’s why he saw a lucky chance when both Tama and I left the room and sprung this trap.”

There was no real hint of danger in Tsurugi’s voice.

“He really is just like a machine… that monster is. He just eats whatever he can eat, and absorbs whatever he can catch. That’s all he does. He’s really nothing more than an animal… we seriously overthought this. This Yamata no Orochi is not a high-level enough being to be able to be plotting something wicked.”

Tsurugi crossed her arms and looked straight at the demon king.

“The only thing he cares about is the preservation of this world. This Yamata no Orochi SNS world, I mean. The only thought in that head of his is ‘I want this world to continue forever.’ He couldn’t care less about the real world, but just wants to protect his own world…”

“How can you say that so confidently?”

Tsurugi threw back a quick response at Kagami’s question.

“Have you not realized it? That Yamata no Orochi is an ally of the Supreme G.o.d, just like us. You can smell it on him. And of course, this high level of divinity can only come from someone like that. So this is just a deduction… but it is most likely the right one.”

And then, she looked at me.

Even though I was just a bystander here.

“Sasami, you gave life to that monster without knowing it when you still had the power of the Supreme G.o.d within you. He is a new G.o.d that was created… or rather, was transformed into that shape, by your desires, and is ultimately a result of an alteration of this world which those desires led to… “

“M-Me…?”

Certainly, in the past I had the power of the Supreme G.o.d.

So back then…

Back then, when I had tried so, so hard, only to be tired out and end up living days filled with grief and sorrow…

“I checked your character’s profile, and I knew. You have thousands of hours logged on this game. Even if you played for two hours a day, that would be a thousand days. Nearly three years. Three years ago, you weren’t living as you do now, right? In other words… you’ve been playing Yamata no Orochi SNS since the time you possessed the power of the Supreme G.o.d, yes?”

Yes.

At that shrine, back with my real family, I was trying my best as the miko endowed with the power of the Supreme G.o.d.

As I endured the h.e.l.l of the tortures thrust upon me, I began to use the computer that had been randomly given to me as a way to escape from reality.

And within that computer I found a world without limits.

That game taught me about the huge, free, bustling world outside, outside of that isolated shrine where even the flow of time seemed to stagnate. Eventually, I would be able to escape from that place precisely because I had learned about the outside.

But it was difficult to muster up the courage to escape, and I found myself indulging in Yamata no Orochi SNS.

I became immersed, finding my “second life,” and I had my fill of adventures in that alternate world.

At that point, I probably made a wish.

A wish that this fantasy world of swords and magic, this paradise which gave me relief from a cruel reality… that this place would continue on forever.

And in order to grant that wish, this world was altered.

And the Yamata no Orochi was born.

“I see…”

You could even say I was moved.

“He protected this world for me all this time…”

I had desperately, desperately tried so hard, and grit my teeth for so long.

In order to make sure the power of the Supreme G.o.d was being used correctly for the sake of mankind, I had been exposed to the harshest training, and my freedom had been robbed from me.

I found myself longing for this other world. I found myself falling in love with the fantasy.

This world had offered a young child a chance to escape.

At that time, did I fall deeply entranced by that kind fantasy and want desperately to protect it?

Did that desire turn into the Yamata no Orochi, turn into a G.o.d, and was that G.o.d still fighting to preserve this world to this day?

I had lost the power of the Supreme G.o.d, and turned into just another normal, powerless, boring, unmotivated girl… with that, this Yamata no Orochi I had created also fell apart and grew weak.

But he still trapped the people who were enjoying this Yamata no Orochi SNS, absorbed them and drew strength from them… he earnestly continued trying to keep my dream alive.

Yamata no Orochi.

The monster I had given life to.

A hikikomori G.o.d, and the protector of this kind escape from reality.

“You understand, don’t you?”

Tsurugi softly spoke to me as tears streamed from my eyes.

“End it here. You’ve found a place you belong in the real world… so you don’t need to run anymore to this one. There is no point to sacrifice others in order to preserve this world. Tell him that. Tell this faithful dog, who has continued wagging his tail long after his master had forgotten him.”

“I got it.”

Thank you Yamata no Orochi.

When I was weak and close to breaking, escaping reality was how I managed to keep living. And up until now, I didn’t even know you were here, protecting the world which offered that escape.

I’m sorry.

And thank you so much for your hard work.

I’m alright now.

So…

“Tsurugi, is it possible to transfer my powers to me in this world?”

“Hm? Ah, yeah, unlike Kagami with her low divinity and you rather special siblings, Tama and I aren’t weak enough to get done in by a machine like that. We can use our divine abilities all we want in this world, so with just a small alteration…”

Tsurugi took out a double-edged sword from a crimson bundle.

And then she swung it grandly upwards.

A crack ran through the world, and warm power overflew from that crack.

I waited for that power to envelope me, and then placed my hand on my brother’s shoulder.

“S-Sasami-san?”

A bit shocked at how clueless my brother was, I decided that for the first time in a long while… I would try my best.

The Yamata no Orochi was a monster born in an age where I was trying hard.

So if I wanted to lay him to rest, then I had to try hard now as well.

“I command you in the name of Tsukuyomi Sasami.”

I temporarily borrowed the power of the Supreme G.o.d which rested in my brother’s body.

And then, like a G.o.d myself, I issued a high-handed command.

“Oh ye malevolent G.o.d… lay to rest.”

I issued a command towards that huge Yamata no Orochi, who was waving his eight heads in the distance like a dog wagging his tail.

“Disperse, and melt into the world. Sleep.”

My order, the order of a person who used to command the highest divinity and who had created this Yamata no Orochi… my order pierced right through this faithful servant who had continued loyally granting the wishes of my long past self for all this time.

My command might be rejected.

He had spent all this time helping me, and yet I hadn’t even noticed his existence.

He might have been shocked, might have lost his affection towards me, and might not lend his ear to my command.

However.

“I’m okay now!”

I yelled.

Like those times long ago, I put all my effort into it.

“I’m living a pretty happy life now!”

So please, you too… you don’t have to try that hard anymore.

…………………….

………………

When I came to, I found myself in my usual small s.p.a.ce surrounded by my computers. Apparently I had just been sleeping soundly, with my head on my computer desk. There was a blanket draped around my shoulders, and I found a note from my brother which red When you wake up, please go properly sleep in your bed.

I took a look at my computer screen which had been left on for all this time, and I saw a single window displayed.

Yamata no Orochi SNS is currently experiencing unknown problems, and has temporarily ceased operations.

We still have no estimate as to when these problems will be resolved.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused to our users.

“……”

I looked around the room. I saw my computers lined up, all the floor cushions in their right places, and the Yagami sisters were nowhere to be found… it was almost like everything had been a dream.

But I remembered. I would never forget.

I shut off the power to my computer, and took a long stretch.

“Fuwaahh…”

I let out a yawn and went to sleep in my bed, as my brother had suggested.

Fortunately, it didn’t take giving life to a monster that would protect a fantasy world to have sweet dreams.