Otherworld TRPG Game Master - Chapter 335



335 – S6. Erased Territory of the Ruined City ~Lying Asleep Beneath the Debris~ -4

When you’ve gained the upper hand, you have to press the advantage. Especially if you’re fighting a strong enemy.

I followed the red afterglow of the crash into the forest, leaping into the sky once more. I planned to stack up damage while Mirror Yuna was grounded.

-Activating left-arm magical thrusters! It’s 『Meteor Strike』!

* * *

Clank, clank! Fwooosh-!

*BANG*──!!

The armored behemoth’s giant arm, propelled by rocket thrust, slams into the ground. The earth shakes as if struck by an earthquake, and pillars of dirt erupt from the point of impact.

Even with all the repulsive fields and whatnot protecting me, taking that head-on would have turned me into a pancake.

-Did we get it?!

“No way, you idiot dad! Behind you!”

Beeeep──!

My left arm was severed by a *’Minus’* that flew from behind. I immediately grab the severed limb, reattach it, and turn my body.

Mirror Yuna, who I’d just slammed into the ground with my foreleg, was now floating serenely in the night sky.

Teleportation.

Right, the first time Mirror Yuna appeared, she showed up without warning too. Is she able to move freely inside this illusory tower?

An opponent with mobility is tricky. But… her having that ability is actually a good thing. A puzzle piece clicked into place, and a plan formed in my head.

-Press the attack!

“…Okay!”

Aisha started plucking black dragon scales from her body and hurling them at Yuna, who was weaving through the sky. It wasn’t just simple throwing; the magic manipulation imbued them, making them like miniature homing missiles.

Mirror Yuna performs an acrobatic flight routine on her broom, but the scales relentlessly pursue her. But she doesn’t show even a hint of feeling threatened.

“Yuna isn’t stupid. She can use your big body as a shield.”

*Flash.*

Mirror Yuna suddenly appears behind my back. The dragon scales pause in mid-air for a beat, then resume their straight trajectory towards their target, with me now in the way.

*Thunk, thunk.*

Countless dragon scales pierced my gelatinous body.

It might seem like Aisha’s attack backfired… but no. I chuckled internally.

-You’re underestimating us too much. Did you think we’d fight without considering friendly fire, huh?

“… … … … !”

The 『Great Beast』 and Aisha are from the same dragon scale family. Meaning they have interchangeable functions. I absorbed the dragon scales, making them sprout on my back. And prepared for an even more powerful launch.

-I’m not a shield, I’m a secondary launchpad, you moron!

Thudthudthudthud!

Dragon scales burst out like shrapnel. Mirror Yuna twisted and turned to reduce the number of hits, and the dragon scales that did hit bounced off her repulsion field, but still, they landed.

-Punch!

I threw a jab. Even a simple jab has terrifying lethality when it’s thrown by a 150-meter monster.

“… … … ….”

Crack, shatter! The space near Mirror Yuna shattered. She slipped into that crack and reappeared in the void on my opposite side. Just as expected, a teleportation form.

The dragon scales that were flying around were now embedded in my fist.

I absorb the dragon scales, and launch them again.

Infinite recycling of a barrage that avoids friendly fire, combined with the onslaught of the Great Beast’s punches. Is this what it’d be like if an aircraft carrier came to life?

I won’t give her time to cast. I can just endure small jabs, they don’t matter. Thin lines of attacks are significantly less effective against a behemoth like me!

“…annoying.”

-I’m annoyed that I can’t see Yuna either, you moron, so quit interfering and move aside!

“Die. 『Argos of a Hundred Eyes』.”

Keeeeng──

From mirror Yuna’s conical hat, hundreds of pitch-black hands stretched out. Each one bearing the red glow of “Subtraction” at its fingertips.

BEEEEEEEEEEP──!!

What unfolded immediately was an indiscriminate barrage of “Subtraction” reminiscent of a mirror ball. Red lines shot out in all directions centered around mirror Yuna, even beginning to rotate!

Yuri flattened herself above my head, and Aisha had to dart back and forth to dodge the “Subtraction.”

“Are you planning on wiping out this whole session?! Damn it, what about Dad?!”

-I’ll stop her!

I embrace mirror Yuna as she is. The red light penetrates and is reflected by her white, mucus-like skin. Hundreds of streaks of “Subtraction” gnaw at the great beast’s body, but my restoration speed is faster.

Because I left a module in the “Erasure Zone.”

-This is headquarters, what is the status of the “Erasure Zone?”

-Caw caw caw, white snowflake-like information is falling from the sky! We’re returning them as they’re recovered, Main Body. We can handle up to 1.5 times the current output!

It’s a counter.

The “Great Beast” trait that was bestowed upon me to definitively eliminate me, through various factors, became the core keyword that pierced mirror Yuna!

Trapped in my arms, she muttered.

“…It’s meaningless. In the end, all efforts become wounds.”

-The meaning is decided by me, by us.

“As you know, next time will be different. In the end… a player can’t beat the game master.”

Crack, crack.

CRASH── With the sound of glass shattering, a rift in space opened behind mirror Yuna. Briefly, the figure of the real, sleeping Yuna could be seen through the gap. That was the top floor, the very top of the tower.

She threw herself into the gap and disappeared in an instant.

…This was where my script ended.

-Yuri!

“Alright,『True Desire Restraint』.”

*Chrrrrt!* The chain shot out.

This time, the chain wasn’t binding a person, but the very crack in space itself. I was aiming for a shortcut. The plan was to make Mirror Yuna run to the upper floors of the 『Phantom Tower』, then follow that passage.

-Heh, how about that. You wouldn’t have known about this kind of trick, would you…

*Zzzzt.*

From noble mtl dot com

The landscape beyond the rift instantly shifted to a wasteland. It was the next floor.

-You figured it out…

I scratched the back of my head sheepishly.

–

The shortcut plan, which would have taken us straight to the top floor, had failed. But at least we’d secured a path to the next level.

To get through this floor, so riddled with traps, we would have needed to use every trick in the book. It was a relief we didn’t have to go through all that trouble. We could regroup and then head up from here.

I stabilized the passage to make sure it didn’t vanish.

We lit a (relatively small compared to the colossal monster) campfire and sat around it with our comrades. That included Woo Chaerin, who was experiencing PTSD from the sudden kaiju battle, and Oh Hyein, who was getting a dopamine rush.

“Boss, your body kinda looks like a marshmallow, if we peel some off and roast it, will it taste like marshmallow?”

-It wasn’t originally, but it is now. Being able to decide your own flavor is the privilege of an information life form. I’ve switched the surface mucus to marshmallow mode, so feel free to peel some off and roast it.

“Woah, a 150-meter marshmallow…”

While I was feeling like a gloriously generous Hotdog Man, Yuri Lanster, who was poking around the campfire, asked.

“Mima, what did her last… warning mean? It didn’t seem like just empty bluster.”

‘In the end, the player can never defeat the game master.’ It was a loaded statement, but I understood it immediately. Put simply, it meant the following.

-He means, let’s settle it at the top floor. He’ll tear us to shreds then.

“But ‘Subtraction’ doesn’t work on Mima right now, does it? Then what way… ah.”

Right, Yuna’s abilities were largely divided into two: the subtraction ability, a sublimation of her storytelling, and the opening of the phantasm realm. The latter ability makes fantasy a reality.

And this ‘Phantasm Tower’ is like a session where Yuna is the master. Combine those two sentences, and the terrifying answer comes out: Yuna possesses reality manipulation abilities.

She could fold the earth in half, drop a ten-meteor barrage, do whatever she wanted.

“…Then, why didn’t she use it in this battle?”

-I have an idea about that too. He’s extremely fond of Yuna, so he wouldn’t want to alter or corrupt the data that Yuna cherishes.

“But she tried to erase me and Mima, who Yuna cherishes. She even erased the threatening parts of the session with ‘Subtraction’.”

-That’s the point.

Mirror Yuna isn’t rejecting everything.

If she pushed the idea that loving leads to pain to its extreme, she would have thrown Yuna into an empty, white space devoid of anything.

Furthermore, she didn’t really touch the NPCs who had awakened self-awareness. If she had authority to freely move between floors and even set traps, she could have modified Abraham or Oh Hyein.

In other words.

Mirror Yuna’s hysterical reactions are limited to specific interpersonal relationships.

-Someone she loves so much she can’t bear the pain of losing them. Eliminating that person is the top priority. Protecting what Yuna moderately likes is the second. Protecting what Yuna doesn’t like is the third. Something like that.

Thinking that way, we can guess the process of how this chaotic floor was formed.

Yuna likes martial arts and pure love, so she took the main theme from a martial arts session. Yuna didn’t particularly like giant robots and the collision of giant monsters, so she erased them because they were dangerous and unnecessary.

Or there’s another hypothesis.

Maybe she had difficulty exerting her full power because she was distanced from the main body. The fact that Yuna and Mirror Yuna had never existed separately before this incident supports this idea.

-Or, maybe the magic device that centrally controlled the simulation in my lab is on the top floor. Either way, Mirror Yuna on the top floor will be ten times stronger than she is now.

“Indeed…”

-The important thing is, from now on, we need to prepare to face reality manipulation abilities. And there are ways. Up until now, I’ve been laying low too. Since this whole tower is essentially Yuna’s memories, I’ve been holding back on destroying or transforming it, feeling a strange pang in my chest. But now that the threat of Mirror Yuna has emerged, I won’t hesitate to use any means necessary.

-An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The world must be fought with the world itself. We’ll seize this floor and use it as the central control room. And we’ll take over the floors below and above, as we go. We’ll be depriving Mirror Yuna of the resources she uses for reality manipulation.

“Seize?”

-Yes, Yuri, you and Aisha go down and take over the second floor with Abraham. If you have the time, go for the first floor as well. Oh Hyein and Woo Chaerin, you’ll seize this, the third floor. Don’t worry about the ‘Erasure Zone’, the Crow is taking care of that.

“Boss, I can’t use illusion magic…”

Of course, I’ve prepared everything. I made tanks to store my slime, and I even beautifully crafted slime launchers for them.

-Apply this. That should do it. But why do you have such a strange look on your face?

“…Boss, I just had a weird thought, can I say it? Spreading white slime everywhere… it’s like──”

“Pwahahahaha!”

-Shut your mouth!

I blocked Oh Hyein’s attempt to say something indecent with my tentacle, hitting her mouth. But I couldn’t stop Aisha who burst out laughing, having anticipated what she was going to say.

Now that the plan is set, it’s time to execute it.

-I’ll go straight up through this passage. Your ability to… seize the floors will determine my survival rate. I’m counting on you.

“Ah, Boss. Just a second. Take this. Hoit.”

Oh Hyein threw something, and when I caught it, it turned out to be the magical girl transformation device, ‘Dreaming Mirror’.

“You can’t just ascend in that monster mode, can you? I figured you could transform into your human form with it, so I gave it to you.”

– Oh.

“You know how to use it, right, Boss? To transfer ownership, you have to shout the emergency transformation code. 『Pure Pure Fluffy Fluffy, The Cutest in the Universe, Here I Am!』, you know?”

– Ah……

I sighed. I never thought my past sins would come back like this. Aisha’s eyes were already sparkling with anticipation, she was practically revving up. She was ready to tease me.

I looked at Yuri for help, but she was just as filled with mischief.

Alright, fine… showing embarrassment will only make it worse. Who am I? The creator of the Heart, the enigmatic woman who once swept across the empire. The king of acting. Saying these lines is easier than eating porridge.

I took a deep breath and went for it in one go!

– Pure Pure Fluffy Fluffy, The Cutest in the Universe, Here I Am!

Pikang!

Beep boop beep boop ♪

Rainbow-colored light enveloped my gigantic monster body. And after a long while of shalalalang sound effects and visual effects, a crazy mage in human form stood in its place.

I was back. Back in a human body.

“…Okay. I’m really ascending now.”

“Daddy, why are your ears so red? Huh? Were you embarrassed? Being cute without getting into character is embarrassing?”

“There’s no need to feel embarrassed when stating facts, Mima. You ARE the cutest in the universe, after all. Go ahead, I’ll be waiting.”

“………”

I hurriedly jumped into the spatial rift. Just you wait, you little devils. I won’t forget this grudge.

–

After the crazy mage disappeared, Woo Chaerin stared at the spot he vanished from and muttered.

“Should I have…given you something too…?”

“Ah, don’t worry. Mima already took yours. You don’t need to think about it.”

“….Huh? What…?”

“I said you don’t need to think about it.”

It took one hour to realize that Gordius and Woo Chaerin’s love child, 『Miteor』, had been horribly fused with 『The Great Kaiju』.

–

Trials come, and the children leave. The twelve children who started are now somehow down to nine. Each of their deaths had different causes.

One child smashed their head against an iron grate. They believed they were in a terrible nightmare and thought they had to die in the dream to wake up.

May they find rest, even in dreams.

One child jumped out the window to their death. It wasn’t suicide. They wanted to escape the Magic Tower and just happened to find an unlocked window.

The only problem was, beyond that window was an illusion spell making it appear to be the first floor, when it was actually twenty stories up.

May they find rest, even in the earth.

One child fell in love with a mage from the purple Magic Tower, and the two of them eloped. After that, the two were never seen again.

The children said they believed that child had escaped the Magic Tower and was living happily, but in their hearts, they knew that wasn’t true. Because the ashes of two people were scattered in the prison where the child had lived.

May they find rest, even in love.

……

The children had changed a lot. Sharpened and jagged. Not in a good way, of course. Violence inevitably occurred during group meals, and even after being confined to solitary, the cursing and shouting didn’t stop.

Having no other way to release their consuming rage, they had to spew it out on the children who were in the same situation.

Especially, Yuna, the test subject of Yurensto, became the target. The suspicion that she used 『The Golden Key』 fueled the hatred.

Another change was religious. The mages of the Magic Tower enticed the children by promising them food if they worshiped gods other than the goddess, and some of the children did just that.

Alice was especially fervent.

“When He unfurled his black wings and soared across the sky—”

She was consumed by the Black Dragon faith, and in turn, received much from the mages. Namely, the scraps they left behind, leftovers with teeth marks. Thanks to that, Alice always ate her fill.

Now, another trial is about to arrive.

“One of you can leave this place. You only have to open that red door and go through it. But, the time limit is just one day.”

A sweet proposal… it was not.

From beyond the red door, came whirring sounds, clanging sounds, all sorts of chilling and painful-sounding noises. They were all so blatant.

But, but… what if, just maybe, we actually could leave?

That thought, only that thought.

Kept recurring. Again and again.

–

Devastation is a metaphor for decay.

The ruins of collapsed buildings, the jumble of junk that seems to be someone’s traces, monsters roaming atop the soil where an old civilization is buried. And the stars obscured by sandstorms.

An era where the once-brilliant things are dying one by one. We gather whatever remains with both hands, clenching tightly so they won’t be stolen, yet they inevitably slip through our fingers.

Hope, already sucked dry of its sweetness, only tastes bitter when chewed upon. And there’s no time to lament the approaching despair, just scrambling to survive in this era.

A young man named Learo cried out hope in front of eight travelers.

“Everyone, I’ve found the location of the bunker. I’ve found the location of『Paradise』! Let’s all move. Let’s head towards where the compass is pointing, across this long, long journey!”

And on the other side, a boy named Espero denied hope.

“We can’t go that way! We won’t even be able to survive that long journey, and there isn’t any 『Paradise』 there. I’m serious!”

One speaks the truth, one speaks falsehood. Amidst this tug-of-war.

“⋯⋯A role reversal, is it?”

“P-P-Destroyer God, you’ve come! Please shatter the wicked plot of Lear! Lear is trying to lead everyone to hell!”

“Hey, Pero. Calling me Destroyer God doesn’t seem like a great choice. It makes you sound like a Destroyer God worshipper. Then your plea sounds kinda weird.”

“⋯⋯Oops! What do I do?!”

A crazy mage has appeared.