Part 2

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Volume 1

Prologue

— 2 —

My eyes opened to the wind brushing my cheeks.

While something felt slightly off about that, I glanced at my surroundings.

“This is…”

I was standing on a wide road. On my left was a forest, and on my right was a grassy plain. The scenery was vaguely familiar. At the very least, I clearly remembered the signpost visible nearby and the vegetation in the forest.

I was most likely near the low level area called The Forest of Beginnings on the outskirts of the first town, Ramlich.

I was in the middle of the capital just a moment ago, though…

What exactly happened during that instant? Even if this game, Nekomimineko—New Communicate Online—was called a “department store of bugs,” I’d never heard of anyone being randomly teleported somewhere just from standing in town.

Could it be an undiscovered bug?

That was my initial thought, but the irregularity wasn’t limited simply to a change in location.

“Maki?” I tried calling out, but there was no response. It seemed the call had been cut off.

I hesitated slightly, then decided to call Maki back, for now.

“The menu won’t appear…?”

I realized that I could no longer use network-based functionalities like calls or text. I couldn’t even open the menu.

Is this a bug? But it’s a little…

It was weird that I couldn’t even use the phone. That wasn’t a feature provided by the game; it was a common functionality supplied by the VR environment. It wasn’t something that a bug in a game could affect.

Then, is it a problem with the VR machine itself…?

Perplexed, I reflexively tried to open the game menu. However, that also returned no response.

“What’s going on?” Absent-mindedly muttering to myself, I caught sight of another abnormality.

Scanning my own getup, I realized the gear I was wearing now wasn’t the same gear I poured my heart and soul into collecting. I was wearing some flimsy leather armor and leather boots, and there was a worn leather scabbard containing a sword, and a small pouch hanging from my waist.

There was no need to dig through my memories. No matter how you looked at it, this was the lowest rank equipment. Only the newbie gear provided at the start of the game was this frail.

Come to think of it, this place…

I surveyed my surroundings once again. This really did look familiar. Of course! This was the starting location for Nekomimineko.

Though I couldn’t check my stats without opening the menu, my body felt different from before. It was possible that I’d reverted to level 1.

My save file can’t have been wiped… Right?

I immediately shook my head at my own question. It was true that it wouldn’t be strange for such a bug to occur in Nekomimineko, and that would explain warping back to the start location with beginner gear. But such a bug still wouldn’t explain why I couldn’t open the menu screen.

In addition, those weren’t the only anomalies.

I couldn’t quite explain it, but something felt off about the surrounding scenery. As if… As if everything I was seeing was subtly different from usual…

“Huh?! Who’s there?!” My thoughts were forcibly cut off, however. Further down the road, it sounded like someone was yelling.

“Could it be…?” Thinking for a moment, “Ah!” I immediately remembered.

If this was right after the start of a new game, then that might be happening.

If that was the case, then I couldn’t just ignore it. I dashed towards the voice.

My body was light. Bodies in the virtual world could move more nimbly than those in real life. It was a noticeable difference even when you were just starting a new game.

“Step!” I <ordered> the skill name set in the system. My surroundings blurred, and an intense acceleration that couldn’t be experienced in reality assaulted me.

Floating for a few moments, I landed and was faced with the after-cast stun—the short stun after a skill finishes. Once the after-cast stun ended, I began moving again.

It seemed I could use Step. I was wondering what I’d do if I couldn’t use skills like with the menu screens, but that worry seemed to be unwarranted.

Step was one of the basic skills that everyone could use from the very start, but its great utility meant it wasn’t just a basic skill that could be easily replaced. While my inexplicable unease didn’t decrease at all—on the contrary, it kept increasing—knowing that I could use this skill offered me relief that could not be understated.

In that case, the next thing to test would be… “Highstep!” I tried to use the advanced movement skill that could be learned after mastering Step, but…

“…Nothing’s happening.”

The test failed. At the very least, it seemed like my character data had been reset to its initial values.

Actually, it might just be the start of a new game from the very beginning.

“There it is!”

Moving onwards while confirming my body’s condition, it wasn’t long before I saw the location of the battle. The first thing I noticed was a large wagon. An old-fashioned horse-drawn wagon that you’d be hard-pressed to find in the real world was parked in the middle of the road.

The wagon was surrounded by people fighting. There were five of them. The first to catch my eye was a woman wielding a sword with her back to me.

Following that, I could see the outlines of four lizardmen wielding weapons, their backs facing the wagon, positioned as if trying to surround the woman.

Seeing this, I was convinced.

This was, without a doubt, the first event of the game.

The unreasonable starting event that was said to be the cause of over 90 percent of first-time players’ deaths, the infamous <Lizardmen’s Trap> awaits!

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