Endless Game: Castle of Dreams

By 桜咲秀一 (Shuichi Sakurasaki, Hideo Yoshizawa!)

Content Warnings: Suicidal and nihilistic thoughts, suicide attempt (Chapter 2), attempted child
murder (Chapter 9)

01: Then a name popped into my head ((Klonoa))

02: That’s why I named it Cindy ((Yuna))

03: But Cindy, where are you now? ((Kurumina))

04: I’m still going to go look for you ((Klonoa))

05: I'd rather find him because he's 'me' ((Natsume))

06: He suddenly disappeared ((Saijima))

07: We have to hurry back ((Klonoa))

08: Where the hell am I, anyway? ((Kurumina))

09: There was nowhere else to be ((Yuna))

10: No matter what awaits us ((Klonoa))

11: Now we just have to wait and see ((Kurumina))

12: We’ve got to hurry ((Kaede))

13: I listened intently ((Klonoa))

14: That’s how it started spinning ((Yuna))

15: I’ll ask him anyway ((Kurumina))

16: That’s why ((Kaede))

17: I know it's probably just my imagination ((Yuna))

18: But it’ll work out ((Klonoa))

19: All is no longer well ((Kaede))

20: But I do understand ((Klonoa))

21: Then I'll have to tell the truth ((Yuna))

22: The time had finally come to settle the score ((Natsume/Klonoa))

23: Now is the time to finish him off ((Kurumina/Klonoa))

24: Because it is to restore the world ((Yuna/Klonoa))

25: Thus the world was reborn ((Klonoa))
26: Then he closed his eyes quietly ((Natsume))
27: Those were happy tears more than anything else ((Kaede))
28: It was rather endearing ((Yuna))
29: It’s strange ((Kurumina/Yuna))

Description: It was the game that saved my life.

~A story of life's adventures around games by the creator of a former major game maker.

Synopsis

When I wake up in the morning, where will the dreams I can't remember go?

I made friends with Huepow, a wind spirit I met around the time the second sun rose, and dreamed of
being attacked by a terrifying demon.

This was the beginning of my adventure to solve the mysteries of the world and become its savior.

It's about a game called "Chateau de Fantôme".

When the girl was about to commit suicide due to bullying, she received the game and felt destined to
die after leaving her alter ego in the game.

A fateful encounter between a young girl, a game producer, and the development staff of a game
development company leads them to escape the schemes of the company's general manager.

The battle to reclaim our game begins.

With 32 years of experience as a director and producer at a major game development company, I have
been working on a project based on a game.

I decided to try my hand at writing a novel and finally finished it.

Since I've written it, I'm posting it for someone to read.

Read on if you want!

※ This novel has also been published on Kakuyom and Shosetsuka ni Narou.
01: Then a name popped into my head

It’s strange…

Sometimes I can’t remember my dreams, though I’m sure I saw them.

Where do these dreams go?

But I remember this one dream, as clearly as if it were reflected in a mirror…

The second sun begins to rise over the top of the northern mountains.
The mountains were illuminated from behind, casting their ridges in shadow.
Gradually, the blue-black surface of the mountain reappeared.
The second sun, which is three times the size of the first, rises to signify noon.

The mountain is called Mt. Solbora, from the plural of sol, which means "sun" in the ancient Phantomea
word, and bora, which is a verb meaning "to be born," meaning "the mountain where two suns are
born”.
In the depths of the mountain range leading from Mt. Solbora, there is a place called the Ruins of the
Wind. This is where we, the Wind People, originally lived.
It's said that it was full of magnificent temples and buildings.
It was the battlefield of the 99 Days War long ago, and they moved to the village of the wind.

I've never actually seen it, but that's just what Grandpa told me.
I'm secretly hoping to go exploring one day.
So today, my grandpa asked me to go to the Forest of Uneasiness, which is located in the hills
overlooking the Solbora Mountains, by myself.
It's to find the Miras fruit.
Grandpa usually brings me here, but today was different.
Grandpa has been suffering from chest problems for a long time, and today he seemed to be in
particularly bad shape.
At times like this, I've heard that drinking an infusion of Miras berries helps a lot, so I decided to come
alone today.
It was a morning when the rain that had been falling for three days had finally stopped.
The rain was contained in the entire forest, seeping into the trees and grass, and was so fresh that it
seemed to overflow into the sunlight that came in.
It was as if I was walking on the bottom of a crystal-clear lake.
All the colors are crisp and shining.

The Miras fruit falls when the north wind from the Solbora Mountains blows through the forest filled
with stray rain, and the wind chime plants ring all night long, filling the forest with a fog of anxiety and
the fruit swells up from absorbing the fog in the morning.
Yes, that's what my grandpa taught me.
So that day was the perfect day to pick up Miras.
However, I've been looking for it for five hours now.
To be honest, it's not something you can just find on short notice.
But the Forest of Uneasiness is one of my favorite places.
This is because when I come here and lie down in the dewy dayflowers of the moon, I can always fall
asleep and dream.
Moreover, after a long rain, it is said that if you sleep in a forest filled with the breath of the rain spirits,
you will have particularly good dreams.
So actually, today is not the first time I've entered the forest alone. I've been here a few times without
telling my grandpa.

I breathed in as hard as I could.

My body is filled with water.

A sudden breeze blew through the air, inviting the rain dew on the trees to scatter, and the sunlight
reflected off of them, filling the air with glittering grains of light.
As if guided by the light, I looked up and saw my usual favorite spot.
It was under a Pom tree that was over 1,500 years old.
The roots had crawled intricately through the ground over the years, and the three trees were
intertwined as one.
The branches were split in many directions, and the leaves grew so thickly that there were no gaps
between them, casting a gentle shade underneath.
Lying in the shade of the tree, sinking into the dewy dayflowers of the moon, was my usual course.

Shaking off the rain and dew on the grass, I sat down and lay down with my hands outstretched as if I
were stretching at once.
“Fluuuuffy~ Woo~”
As I let my voice flow out of my mouth, I could feel something pent up inside my body leaving my body.
And it's all scooped up by the Forest of Uneasiness.
Thank you.

I gently close my eyes.

Only the presence of the forest enveloped my body.
Moist. Moist.
The fluttering wind gently wrapped my body.
The trees whispered in the distance, rustling.
The sun's rays filtered red behind my eyelids, and the shade of the trees hid the sun.
I heard the sound of dew popping on the stones on the ground.
Suddenly, the wind chime plants blooming all over the place began to ring all at once.

Ring ring ring cha-ling cha-ling

The wind blew through the forest.
Ring ring ring cha-ling cha-ling

The next moment, the wind stopped.

Silence reigned in the forest.

As if all the grass and trees were holding their breath and waiting to see what would happen.
The silence was broken by a sound of cutting air, and then something fell to the ground with a thud.

I half jumped up in surprise and looked in the direction of the sound.

A huge gust of wind rushed past me.

I turned my face away from the wind and opened my eyes again.
Then I saw something shining deep in the forest.
I wonder what it is.

I slowly stood up and looked closer, and saw a ring-like object about the size of my face sticking into the
ground.
I approached it fearfully and looked at it from the front and from an angle, but the ring showed no sign
of moving.
So I decided to pull it out.
I grasped it firmly with both hands and pulled with a lot of force.
But it wasn't going to move.
In that case, I put my weight behind me and pulled as hard as I could.

“Ugh… Ugh… Ughhhhhhh….!!”

It moved a little.
As soon as I thought that, it pulled out at once, and I fell backward with too much momentum.

“Ow…!”
I looked at the ring that I was still holding tightly in my hand and saw a large jewel on the end of the
ring. It was a so-called ring.
It's just too big to be called a ring.
When I looked into the large diamond-like jewel, I saw my face reflected in several layers.
At that moment, something moved in the jewel.

Just as I was about to gently touch it with my fingertips, a spirit popped out of the jewel.
“Huepow!”
“Woah! Wh-wh-what?”
The spirit and I turned to stare at each other and time stopped.
“Thank you for saving me. I'm Huepow, the Spirit of the Wind.”
“Huepow…Wind…Spirit… Huh?”
He had feather-like wings on his back, and he flapped his wings and floated in the air.
And the whole body is transparent.
But his eyes were staring deep into mine, as clear as morning dew.
“Well, Huepow, nice to meet you.”
Then Huepow smiled and asked.
“Nice to meet you, too. What's your name?”

Eh?
My name? My name….
Then a name popped into my head.
Yeah, my name is…
02: That’s why I named it Cindy

I, Yuna Kasugai, pressed the A button while staring at the screen of the latest portable game console
"Santendo Terminal" in my hand.
Then the screen went to the name entry screen.
The Japanese syllabaries are arranged in order on the screen, and you can enter them by touching the
screen directly with your finger.
When I touched “Shi-n-de-I” and press “small letters”, “I” becomes lowercase and becomes “y”.
“Finally, I pressed "Decide" and the screen switched and the story began to progress.

“So your name is Cindy. Nice to meet you,” Huepow said.

“Cindy lives in the Wind Village, right?”
“Eh? Oh, yeah. I'm living with my grandpa. But how do you know that?”
“I'm a wind spirit, you know. I know everything about the Wind Village.”
“Hmmm, I see,” said Cindy.
Huepow came to live with us, and from then on, we slept together.
We ran around in the fields and mountains, played in the lake, and on rainy days, we played a card game
called Trion at home.
Every day was fun and passed by in a flash.
“I had a great time today.”
In bed, I say this to Huepow, who is lying next to me, and he smiles back.
“Goodnight, Cindy.”
“Goodnight, Huepow.”
The screen faded out and went completely dark.

Do you want to save it so far?

▷Yes
No

When I touched the "Yes" button with my finger, the screen changed to the save screen, and the icon
spun around to let me know that it was saving.
When the icon finished spinning and the message "Saved" appeared, I lightly pressed the power switch
of the portable game console to put it to sleep.
This way, you can always resume your work immediately.

I threw the game console on the bed and looked out the window.
My room is on the west side of the second floor, so the sun shines through the window and paints the
inside of the room red.
My face would be red from the sun.
And the cherry blossom trees that fill the hills of the prefectural park outside the window begin to hum
in unison. Cicadas. A number of cicadas were chirping frantically, as if they were trying to regain
something they had lost.
Their voices shook the red-hot air in the western sun, forcing their way into my brain.
The sun was setting over the forest, making the world flicker red, and the sound of cicadas resonated
from within, making me feel like I was melting into mush.

Come to think of it, the cicadas were chirping again yesterday.

Yes, it was cicadas, cicadas.
I don’t understand, cicadas.
After living under the ground for a long time in seclusion, they were finally able to come out to the
surface and fly, only to die after using up their short life of a week just to chirp desperately and leave
their offspring.
What does that even mean?
But I don't deserve to laugh at you guys either.
Because I, like you, am sleeping in the depths of the earth with a meaningless life.
As I watched the sun set, I suddenly had an idea.

“I think I’ll die.”

I said this to myself as I watched the sunset yesterday.

Then, oddly enough, it felt like the right thing to do.
It seemed like a revelation that had suddenly descended from the heavens, a word as dazzling as God's
truth, a good idea that would solve everything, and I couldn't get it out of my head.
“I think I’ll die.”

I said it again.
This time, the words sounded like they were coming from someone else.

“Am I going to die?”

I turned to that someone and asked.

Am I going to die?
What does that mean?
Even if I continue to live like this, my life span will come and I will die anyway, right?
When you die, you won't know anything, and everything you've ever studied, read, talked to, seen,
touched, thought, felt, eaten, walked, etc. will all be gone.

Eh?
What is that? What does that mean?
Then what's the point of doing anything at all?
Because it becomes “nothing”.
So what's the point of living and doing something?
If it's going to be nothing anyway, it doesn't matter if it never starts.
What's the difference between dying in your lifetime and dying now?
Just a different amount of suffering?
If that's the case, it's better to die now.
In other words, the cicadas and I were both born just to die.

I heard a knock on the door.

“Yuna, aren't you going to eat?”
It's Mom's voice. She was strangely caring and gentle as if she was touching something swollen, which
was annoying.
“I don't want it!”
“You haven't eaten for three days. I'll leave it here for you to eat if you feel like it. Mom has to go to
work now.”
She says she's trying to make a living, but she runs away to work at night.
Without thinking, I threw the alarm clock I had at hand at the door.
“Shut up!”
The alarm clock bounced off the door and jingled as it rolled around on the floor.
The cicadas began to chirp even louder to match the sound.
It messed with my head.
“I don't want it if I don't want it. Just leave me alone!”
There was a clatter of dishes on the floor and the sound of disappointed footsteps thumping down the
stairs.
I let my mom down again.
The guilt of disappointing my mom and the real feeling of worrying her made my head spin even more.
Yes, I confirm my existence by disappointing you.
It was "revenge" against Mom.
Maybe that's why I'm still alive.
The cicadas squeezed out one last chirp and stopped chirping.

But that ends today.

I made a vow last night at sunset. I promised myself that I would die today.

I started preparing this morning.

I bought this rope at Loft in the station building. I looped it through the curtain rail.
The five o'clock time signal is heard in the distance. This is the signal to carry out the plan.
I climbed into a chair and held the rope loop with both hands.
I pull it downward.
It doesn't seem to unravel or break.
I slowly put my head through it and put a little weight on my neck.
The rope bites into my throat.
Now all I have to do is kick the chair underneath me with it.
Then, as if they had been waiting for this moment, the cicadas began to chirp in unison.
Chirp chirp chirp
Now, kick the chair!
Chirp chirp chirp
Kick the chair backwards as hard as you can!
Chirp chirp chirp
Yes, it's a life with one kick left in it. One more kick, and everything will be over.
Goodbye, my life.
My life was nothing.
My life is so trivial.
Goodbye triangle, come again square.
Stretch your toes and tilt your chair up.
The chair creaked and squeaked.
That's when the doorbell rang, too.
Ding-dong.

I'm the only one in the house now, so there's no way anyone will answer.
If I keep ignoring him, he'll give up and leave.
Ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong.
As I came back to my senses, I had no choice but to pull back my chair and remove the rope.
I jumped off my chair and quickly removed three locks and opened the door.
I jumped over a tray of food in front of the room and ran down the stairs.
In the meantime, the chime continued to ring, ding, ding, ding.
“Okay okay!” I responded loudly and paused.
Maybe they didn’t hear me.

I opened the front door.

The delivery man was just about to close the gate at the end of the parking space and leave.
When the delivery man saw me, he opened the gate again and came back, "You're Kasugai-san, right?”
He said, "Please put your stamp or signature here," and handed me a package with a slip of paper on it.
I signed it with the pen he gave me, and he ran off as if he didn't have a moment to spare.
Because his life is now and will continue to be. Good luck to you.

So I was left alone with my package.

I closed the front door and looked at the package and saw that it was addressed to me.
As I stared at the package that arrived from the online store Rakuten, I wondered if I had ordered
anything online. I searched through my memory.
As I walked up the stairs, I peeled off the duct tape and opened the envelope to find it was game
software.

“Chateau de Fantôme”

That's right. I'm sure I ordered it.

I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
It was actually supposed to be released six months ago.
But for some reason, just before the release date, the release was postponed and became "release date
undecided".
I even pre-ordered and waited to get Santendo Terminal on the first day of release so I could play this.
But within six months, I had forgotten all about it.
I can't believe it arrived today. And at this timing.
Maybe this is some kind of fate, too.
A game that arrived at the moment I was about to die.

Nothing meaningless ever happens in life.

It was a phrase that someone somewhere had mentioned in some magazine.

So you're saying there's a point to all this?

When I returned to my room, I took the game software out of its case, plugged it into my portable game
console, and started it up.
The logo of the hardware manufacturer appears and disappears in an elaborate performance, then the
logo of the software publisher appears, followed by a lot of warning signs of some kind.
And so, finally, a title.
“Chateau de Fantôme”
In French, it means "castle of ghosts" or "castle of illusions".
I first saw it in a game magazine called Famitsu.
I was curious, so I searched the Internet.
I checked the website and found the promotional video there.
As soon as I saw it, I completely fell in love with it. I watched it over and over again every day.
So when the release was postponed, I was stunned for a while.
That's what I have now.
If nothing meaningful ever happens in life, then what is the meaning of this?

At that time, a thought occurred to me.

At the end of my life, I would like to leave a record of my alter ego in this game as a proof that I have
lived for 14 years at least. That's what I thought.
My alter ego. What should I name it?
As I thought about this, the cicadas began to chirp in my head in unison.
“You’re annoying. Please die.”

That one word was the trigger. That summer in the classroom when Takashi, our homeroom teacher,
had to study on his own due to an emergency.
Countless cicadas chirped competitively, driving the whole class crazy.
Haruka Kawase said as she stood in front of me, looking down at me.

“You’re annoying. Please die.”

Haruka Kawase transferred to the school from Kobe in April this year. Haruka's father was an executive
at a major pharmaceutical company headquartered in Kobe. At the end of last year, the company
merged with a Tokyo-based pharmaceutical company and the head office was relocated to Tokyo, so the
family moved to Tokyo together. Haruka went to a private school for young ladies in Kobe, so she wore a
brand-name uniform. Maybe the uniform wasn't ready in April. Everyone else had plain navy blue sailor
uniforms, but Haruka's was a gray dress with a frilly blouse and a pretty ribbon around her neck. It
seems that the uniform was designed by a famous designer who often appears on TV. That's right, if you
go to school with a designer brand uniform alone in a group of tacky uniforms, you'll stand out from the
rest of the school.

“Just because your parents are rich, it pisses me off that you keep looking down your nose at me.”
“You're the only one wearing a uniform that stands out, and you're kind of a big deal.”
“Who do you think you are, sitting on your high horse?”

Exclusivism, jealousy, and a penchant for gossip combined to cause everyone to talk about Haruka
behind her back, and this was gradually escalating.

“The other day, she was flirting with Kijima-senpai, the head of the tennis club, and I swear I'm going to
kill her!”
“She ambushed him in front of Honda's house, pretending to run into him by accident and tried to get
close to him.”

I'm even starting to spread fake news with no facts anymore.

One time, Haruka's gym clothes were missing when she went to change for gym class. The strong-
minded Haruka loudly asked the whole class, "Who hid them? Don't do anything shady. Who is it? If you
have a problem with it, come and tell me directly.”

Then Takashi, the homeroom teacher, came into the classroom. "Hey, what's wrong?”
And I say, “It’s nothing.” And he walked out of the classroom.

In the end, Haruka decided to visit the school because she was having her period, but later, her gym
clothes were found in the sewage ditch, turned to mush. I saw her standing in the schoolyard clutching
it, with "lewd" and "die" written on it in magic marker. I honestly felt sorry for her at that time.

But after that incident, Haruka has changed.

There was one girl in my class, Ayaka Takasugi, who was timid and quiet, and started to bully her. At
first, it was just verbal abuse like, "You're kind of creepy, can you go away?” But eventually she stabbed
her in the back with a compass needle during class, put thumbtacks on her chair, and even set her hair
on fire with a lighter.
She even handed out some of her own expensive jewelry to tame her two minions, and the three of
them began to bully Takasugi-san.
By bullying in front of everyone's eyes, Haruka can show the whole class that she's the bully. It escalated
to the point that when we were changing after gym class, when Takasugi-san was in her underwear, she
took her uniform and gym clothes and threw them out the window. She couldn't go naked to the
schoolyard to get them, so she sat down on the floor and started crying. The boys would be home soon.
I couldn't take it anymore. “It's not fair to bully Takasugi-san just because you don't want to be bullied
yourself. You know what it's like to be bullied," I said.
Time in the classroom stopped for a moment. Everyone stopped moving and observed us.
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
I went down to the schoolyard and grabbed my uniform and gym clothes, dressed Takasugi-san and took
her to the infirmary. Takasugi-san kept apologizing to me, saying she was sorry.
And the next day, Haruka stood in front of my seat and said,

“You’re annoying. Please die.”

This was the moment when Haruka nominated me as a sacrifice. Then one of her minions quickly said,
“You’re dead.”
Then, in response, the other minion said excitedly,
“You’re dead from today.”
“Kyahahaha, that's funny. I like that. Your name is Cinderella. Yeah, Cindy for short!” ((In Japanese,
‘dead from today’ is pronounced shin dere rada, and Cinderella in Japanese is pronounced Shinderera))
Haruka liked it so much that she clapped her hands and laughed. Seeing the master's delight, the
minions became even more excited and their eyes lit up.
“Cindy! Cindy! Please die!”
The two minions clapped their hands and sent out inviting calls to their classmates around them.
“Cindy! Cindy! Please die!”
Then, gradually, the whole classroom became a chorus.

Cindy! Cindy! Please die!

Cindy! Cindy! Please die!

I couldn’t speak.
I desperately try to open my mouth to speak, but like a carp in a small pond behind a shrine that no one
knows about, I just clam up without anyone noticing.
The laughter faded into the distance, and the classroom tilted in a distorted way.
I fainted and fell out of my chair.
Haruka is laughing hysterically as she stomps her foot on my face. Her minions are also laughing. The
whole class is pointing at me and mocking me.

But the most shocking part of it all was that Ayaka Takasugi was also clapping along with them. In
addition, she even smiled as if she was relieved that she was not the one who was being bullied.......
What a mess. I should have just kept my mouth shut and pretended I didn't see what was happening. It's
all your fault.

After that, everyone started calling me Cindy. It's only natural, when you think about it. Everyone saw
me become a target when I defended Takasugi. If I didn't agree with them here, I might be the next
target.
I don't trust anyone anymore. As long as everyone is happy with themselves, that's all that matters.

From that day on, when I came to school, there were flowers on my desk with a note that said, "I'm
sorry for your loss," doodles on my textbooks, notebooks, and gym clothes with magic marker that said,
"Die," my jacket was soaked with water, etc. Anyway, there were new harassments every day.
Then, on Friday, July 13th, I came back from the bathroom at lunchtime to find my lunch box on the
podium, with a candle and incense stick in it. I pretended to be calm, extinguished the candle, pulled out
the incense stick, and put my lunch away. Then Takashi, my homeroom teacher, came in and sniffed and
said,
“What is it? You smell like incense. Huh? Cindy, you can’t have a fire in the classroom.”
Even the teacher called her Cindy, which made the whole class laugh.

At this moment, something inside me crashed and broke. I'm pretty sure I heard a cracking sound. That's
when I stopped going to school. To be exact, I couldn't leave my room. Whenever I stepped out of my
room, my whole body would shake and I couldn't stand up. I would sit down and crawl to my bed and
crawl under the covers.

I've been holed up for a month and a half since then.

But I only missed four days of school.
Because I had a three-day weekend starting on the 14th, and after four days off, I went straight into
summer vacation.
So it wouldn't be much of a problem in school.
Just before summer vacation, I received a text message on my cell phone from Ayaka Takasugi.
I remember she said she was sorry if I couldn't come to school because of her.
She'll be waiting for me to come back to school after the summer break.
That's because if I don't go to school, I don't know when I'll be sacrificed again.
They’re desperate.
Everyone in my class needed to sacrifice me so that they wouldn't be targeted.
I guess it turned into a strange sense of superiority, and they looked down on me.
But if I really die, the people who were yelling at the time will be shocked.
They may have thought it was a light-hearted joke, but they will forever feel responsible for the fact that
it triggered a major incident.
It becomes a thorn that sticks in your heart for the rest of your life.
The guilt of my killing casts a shadow over a lifetime that has only just begun.
Like a stain on the cuff of a shirt that catches your eye unexpectedly.
After I die, an automated email will be sent to everyone in my class who mocked me at that time.
And Ayaka Takasugi, of course.
Ayaka might not be able to bear the weight of it and commit suicide afterwards.
Then, of course, there are the school teachers, the school board, magazines, newspapers, and television.
I'm trying to get it to the authorities as well.
A message from the dead.
Shocking death mail!
And the sender's name is "Cindy".
How’s that?
Isn’t that good?
So I decided to name the game's main character the same.

That’s why I named it Cindy.

03: But Cindy, where are you now?

The train was running under a pale, lightly cloudy sky, in the drizzle that had started to fall in the early
afternoon.
Occasionally, we would come to a crossing, but since it was a two-car train, we would pass it in a flash.
From my window, I could see rice paddies and fields here and there, but it wasn't the countryside.
And a little shopping district was clustered around the station.
After a short drive, we came to a wide road, along which there were large supermarkets and chain
restaurants, making the area a major customer center.

As the rain gradually intensified, the scenery faded to a pale blue, and the city fell silent, holding its
breath.
Yuji Kurumina was leaning against the railing next to the door, watching the scene in a daze.
We took several local trains, and I no longer knew where we were.
I hadn't decided where I was going to go in the first place, I just knew that I had to go somewhere other
than here.
Anyway, Kurumina was thinking only about Saki.
And as I looked at the rain outside, I remembered my very sudden encounter with Saki.

Palette Inc. is a medium-sized game maker.

Every day, Kurumina, who works as a planning section chief and producer, thinks with the project
members about how to make the game more interesting and how to make it more understandable to
the customers.
As we persisted until we came up with a good idea, we often ended up missing the last train.
In such cases, I usually went to a nearby convenience store with the all-night project members to buy
groceries, and we would talk about the game plan we were working on while eating dinner together.

It was already around two o'clock in the morning when I realized that day.
However, it was the weekend and a typhoon was predicted to approach, so everyone had gone home
early and Kurumina was the only one left at the office.
At times like this, I would rent a company car and drive back to my apartment.
In fact, it was forbidden to drive home in the company car, but Kurumina, who was an established
producer, was allowed to do so by unspoken agreement.
When I pulled out of the underground parking lot of my office, it was already raining quite heavily
outside, so much so that I had to turn the wipers to the fastest setting to finally see the windshield
without blotches.

Kurumina’s apartment is located in a residential area on a hill about 30 minutes by car from the city
center where his company is located.
As I climbed up the steep hill and approached the last big curve, I saw a 30-story apartment building.
Kurumina liked this curve.
As I rounded a curve with an uphill agitated angle and gradually went around, street trees appeared one
after another, stretching out like apartments growing out from behind them, which was exciting like the
camerawork in a movie.
That's why the curves need to be made with constant and exquisite speed and smooth steering.
The reason why I decided to buy this place in the first place was because I happened to come across a
scene of a condominium under construction coming into view at this curve while I was driving around
aimlessly, and I was impressed.

However, on that day, I couldn't see well because of the heavy rain and smoke.
But it's not bad if you can see the lights of the apartment vaguely hazy in the dark, it's like a futuristic
image.
Kurumina approached the curve with the camerawork in mind, stepping on the gas pedal to achieve the
perfect speed.
The next moment, the upper lights of an oncoming car covered my vision.
He was swerving around the curve at a very high speed and was coming out of our lane.
Immediately, Kurumina turned the steering wheel to the left.
This time I saw a bright red umbrella in front of me.

A person!
If I keep going like this, I'm gonna hit him!

Reflexively, I swerved in the opposite direction and hit the brakes.

The car slipped, swung its butt around to face the opposite direction, and came to a stop in the opposite
lane.
It seems that I just barely managed to avoid hitting the person with the red umbrella and the oncoming
car.
The oncoming car almost slowed down a bit, but then I saw it accelerate away with a boom.
And when I shifted my gaze to the right for a moment, my eyes were drawn to the bright red umbrella.

There was a bright red umbrella lying on the ground.

It seemed to burn bright red in the headlights of the car.
I could see the rain beating down hard on its surface and repelling it.
Did I hit him?
No, it couldn't have hit him. Because there was no impact.
But I wondered if he was startled and fell down.
A bad hit and you could have been seriously injured.
Anyway, I have to get down there and help.

When Kurumina came to his senses, he ran out of the car and shouted as he rushed to the red umbrella.
“Are you okay?”
My voice was drowned out by the sound of the strong rain pounding the ground.
I couldn't see anyone in the shade of the umbrella.
As I got closer, I could gradually see the part of the image that was hidden by the umbrella.
And when I came to the front of the umbrella and looked inside, there was a woman holding her knees
and cowering a little. I couldn't see her because she was completely hidden by the umbrella.
“Are you okay? How are you hurt? Are you injured?”
She looked up at me, soaking wet.
“I think… I’m okay…”
She rolled her eyes, as if letting go a little, and her shoulder-length hair was wet and stuck tightly to her
body.
“Anyway… For now. Get in the car. My house is just around the corner.”
“Don’t worry. I can walk home.”
As she said this, she tried to stand up, and with a gasp, collapsed from her ankles and fell down.
In a panic, Kurumina reached out and took her in her arms.
“I knew you were injured somewhere.”
“I think I sprained my ankle a little bit.’
“I’m going home for now.”
Then he invited her into his room on the twenty-ninth floor.

The room was furnished with chic furniture befitting a designer's apartment, and the indirect lighting
created a calm atmosphere.
“Ah, go sit on the couch over there. I'll get you a compress. And here's a towel.”
He handed her a bath towel and went into the back room.
She sat down on the couch, wiping her head with the bath towel, and looked around.
There was a large bookshelf on one wall where movie DVDs and Blu-ray software were lined up, sorted
by genre.
Kurumina came back with a first aid kit and took out a poultice from inside.
“Let me see.”
Kneeling at her feet, I looked at her ankles and saw that they were slightly bruised and swollen just
below the ankles.
“It's still a little sprained. I'm sorry. I was careless and this happened.”
“Oh, no, I was a little spaced out, too.......”
When I finished applying the poultice to the affected area, I looked up and met her eyes.
Her eyes were clear and almost captivating.
Time paused for a moment, but then her gaze was quickly removed and turned to the bookshelf.
“Movies…”
“Huh?”
“You like movies, don’t you?”
“Oh, the movies. Yeah, right. Let's see, uh, what's your name again…?”
“Oh, I'm Saki. Saki Tachibana.”
“Tachibana-san, oh, Tachibana-san, do you like movies too?”
“Well, I guess I like them.”
“What are we going to watch?”
“I've seen all the movies that have been talked about. I've also seen a few mini-theaters.”
“Wow!”
“On the shelf there, I've seen "Fitzcarraldo" and others.”
“Werner Herzog! It's good, isn't it? They pull the ship up and over the jungle mountains, right?”
“Yes, yes. I was so surprised.”
“There was no CG back then, so they really did it. It's a miracle.”

Saki was not a movie buff, but she knew a little about movies, directors and actors, and she was able to
get Kurumina to talk about various topics.
So Kurumina talked a lot about the movies he had seen, the direction of his favorite directors, and visual
expressions.
And then I suddenly noticed her smiling and enjoying listening to me.
“Huh? I' m the only one talking again. Are you having fun?” I asked her.
"Yes, I'm having fun.”
She smiled again, her eyes widening, and Kurumina began to talk more and more enthusiastically.
As I repeated this, I fell asleep on the sofa before I knew it.
When I woke up in the morning sun, Kurumina suddenly felt as if last night had been a dream.
However, I heard the sound of eggs cooking in a frying pan from the kitchen, so I quietly approached and
took a peek, and sure enough, there was Saki.
“Good morning. Do you want some fried eggs?” Saki said this with the same smile as last night, which
was dazzling to my sleepy eyes.

After that, the two of them kept in touch and began to see each other often.
We went to a movie together, watched a fountain in a park, went to an amusement park, watched a
series of Ozu specials at the Film Center in Kyobashi, and then had dinner and talked about movies
again.

Saki was living alone in the suburbs.

Her dates were always in Shibuya, Shinjuku or Yokohama, so she had to be home by eleven o'clock.
About a month after we started dating, Saki would always become quiet and look lonely when it was
time for her to leave.
Then, when Kurumina said, "Do you want to stay here today?” She nodded her head and said yes.
Kurumina loved seeing that smile more than anything.

And so, Saki came to live in Kurumina’s house all the time, and it became a matter of course that she
would be there.
I also rearranged my room to make room for Saki.
We bought furniture, mirrors, bookshelves, etc., and woke up together every day, ate, watched movies,
soaked in the bath, talked, laughed, and slept.
They were very similar.
The way we felt things, the moments that moved us, and the things that bothered us were the same.
Often the same thing would pop into my head at the same time, and I would say the same words at the
same time.
The humming was such that even if I had tried to match it with a chorus, I would not have been able to
do so well.
In addition, the phrasing and tempo of the words matched each other, so we were often surprised and
happy to laugh at each other.
They were like twin siblings.
I sometimes suspected that we were twin siblings who had been separated when we were young
children, but that was impossible since we were five years apart in age.
Every time he remembered those moments, Kurumina felt happy.
This was a fateful encounter.
I guess not many people in the world can have such a fateful encounter.

“…Do you believe that?”

“Huh?”

When Saki spoke to him, Kurumina suddenly came to his senses and realized that he had not been
listening to her.

“You weren’t listening again.”

Saki pinched Kurumina’s ear, pouting her lips mischievously.
“Precious… I’m sorry. So what do I believe in?”
“So they say that when a person dies, they are reborn, but do you believe it?”
“Hmm, I guess I, uh, believe that, huh?”
“I know. I find that hard to believe. I think it’s all over when you die.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because think about it. If humans were to be reborn as humans, one would die and one would be born,
so the world's population would not increase, right? And yet, the world's population is growing, isn't it?
This is a contradiction, isn't it?”
“But we don't always die and are reborn as humans, do we? We may be reincarnated as other animals,
insects, or plants.”
Saki smiled a little wickedly when she heard that,
“Well, if we can be reincarnated as humans, but if we can also be reincarnated as non-human animals,
insects, trees, flowers, and so on, shouldn't the probability of being reincarnated as such be almost zero,
and we should rarely be reincarnated as humans?”
Then Kurumina pondered for a moment,
“Hmm, I guess not. Humans are always reincarnated as humans. A person who is hypnotized back to a
previous life may suddenly speak in German that he has never learned before, but he will never make a
horse sound.”
“Is that proof of reincarnation as a human?” Saki said with a dumbfounded look on her face, and
Kurumina muttered as he looked up into the air at an angle of 45 degrees.
“Ah.”
At the moment of the small "ah" that came out of his mouth, an inspiration flashed in Kurumina’s mind.
“I think I've figured it out.......”
Kurumina’s eyes grew wider and wider.
“What is it?”
Kurumina turned to Saki with a radiant look on his face.
“What the truth about reincarnation is.”
“The truth about reincarnation?”
“After all, humans are always reborn as humans. However, when a person dies and is reborn, their soul
may split and reside in more than one body, I'm sure.”
“Are you saying that we were one and the same person in a previous life?”
“Yes.”
“Were you and I one and the same person in a previous life?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, ah, mystery solved. Oh, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Two people who were
one person in a previous life, feeling the same, attracted to each other, needing each other. That's what
I call a fateful encounter.”
“Ahh- you just discovered that.”
“Yes, I just discovered it.”
“That's kind of funny.”
“Right? It is a miraculous event with astronomical odds that two people like that will meet in this world.
That's why meeting you is as much of a miracle as the existence of the earth.”
When he talked about these things, Kurumina would look at me as if he were a child and talk
enthusiastically.
Saki listened to this with a happy smile and a grin on her face.
Kurumina suddenly came to his senses,
"What? You're smiling like you want to say something.”
I thought,
“Pete-kun, you always look so innocent like a child when you talk like that.”
I called him Pete.
Pete was a nickname, short for Peter Pan of Neverland, who would forever remain a child.
Kurumina was a little annoyed to be called Pete, but actually rather liked it.
“You can't speak for others, either. You've always been a dreamy, dreamy girl. Well, if I'm Pete, you're
Cindy. You're Cindy, the Cinderella who really believes that someday her prince will come for her and
make her happy.”
“What’s that?”
After that, they started to call each other Pete and Cindy when they talked jokingly.

Just having Cindy by his side was enough to put Kurumina’s mind at ease.
Just having an idle conversation with Cindy made me smile.
Cindy's smile was enough to make me happy.
Cindy was the reason he was able to be Pete.

“Cindy…”

Kurumina leaned against the side of the train door and mumbled to himself as he looked out at the
scenery drifting by.

“But Cindy, where are you now?”

04: I’m still going to go look for you

When I woke up, it was already time for the second sun to rise.
It had been three months since I had met Huepow when the incident happened.

That day, I was walking through the Forest of Uneasiness.

Then there was an explosion that pierced the air in the direction of the Solbora Mountains.
I turned around and saw black smoke rising up around the top of the mountain.
The black smoke grew larger and larger, and gradually took on the shape of some kind of monster.
All four eyes widened.
Moreover, its eyes were glowing yellow, and its eyes stared at me as if they had been sharply slit
vertically.
The mouth opens like a quivering mouth.
A large hand also sprouted, and it came closer and closer to enveloping me.
I backed away, turned on my heel and ran away.
The monster's hand tore into the ground right behind me.
The impact sent me tumbling forward, and I was thrown to the ground.
I turned on my back and backed away, but the monster was already right above me.
The next moment, a sharp claw swung down.

“Uwaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”

I jumped up in bed and realized that I was dreaming when I saw Huepow smiling at me on my pillow.
“Are you alright?”
His clear eyes peered into mine.
“Huh? Oh, oh, I just had a little scary dream...... I'm fine.”
Before I could finish, the earth rumbled and the house shook.
“What was that?”
Huepow spread his wings and flew away, and when I opened the window, I saw black smoke rising from
around the top of Mount Solbora, illuminated by the first sun.
“It's like something crashed on top of the mountain.”
Huepow would have looked at me as I said this and noticed that something was wrong.
“It’s the same…”
“The same…?”
“It's the same dream I just had. I'm pretty sure that after this, I'm going to be attacked by a monster.”
As he flapped his wings in front of my face, Huepow said,
“Let’s go.”

I was out of the house before I could finish listening to his words.
The thought of what I had just dreamed was terrifying, but my curiosity was more than enough to keep
me going.

We finally reached the top just as the second sun began to rise.
The airship lying fallen at the top glittered in the light.
As I approached, I saw a girl lying on the ground beside it.
“Someone's down.”
I rushed over to take a peek at her and saw that she was wearing a very beautiful ornate tiara on her
head and a dress with embroidery that made her instantly recognizable as royalty.
She seems to have fainted.
“Some princess, maybe?”
“Legendary Diva Lephise…”
Just as Huepow muttered this, we heard a horrible voice crawl out from the depths of the earth.
“Stay out of my way.”
The next moment, a black bolt of lightning struck me and Huepow, blowing us away about 30 marks.

As I hit the ground, I woke up and looked at the girl and saw a large black shadow standing there.
It was definitely a shadow, but it was strangely textured and wriggling all over, with four snake-like eyes
glaring at me.
Then he spread his hands wide and the girl slowly floated into the air.
The black shadow covered the girl and took her into its body as if it were absorbing her.

“You’ll never have a bad dream again.”

The voice entered my ears, went through my veins, reached my heart and grabbed it.
I couldn't take my eyes off the four eyes.
The air was so heavy and oppressive that I wanted to turn my face away, but I couldn't move a muscle.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Do not forget!”
As soon as he said that, the black shadow was instantly sucked into the air and disappeared.
At the same time, the air became light, and I fell to the ground.
My breath avalanched into my lungs all at once, and I gasped.
“Cough, cough, cough, what was… that?”
“I don't know ...... but I know he's not a nice guy.”
It was only when Huepow told me that that I felt like I had come back to myself.
Then, as I was about to stand up, I felt something hard hit my fingertips.
I picked it up and saw that it was like a pendant.
At the end of the chain was a jewel in the shape of a tear, blue like the light that reached the bottom of
the deep sea.
And there was an unfamiliar crest engraved on it.
It's a crescent moon emblem.
“I wonder if the girl just dropped it.”
Then Huepow said,
“Let's go home and have Grandpa take a look.”
Yes, Grandpa might know something.
We hurried home.
The two suns were shining directly above us.

“This is the emblem of the Moon Kingdom.”

As soon as Grandpa saw the pendant, he opened his eyes and said so.
“Moon Kingdom?”
“It is a legendary kingdom that is said to have existed three thousand years ago. I had no idea it really
existed,” Grandpa stroked his beard with his fingers and pondered.
“Where’s that?” I couldn't help but ask.
“I'm not sure now where it was. Maybe Granny who lives in the Forest of Wickedness would know.”
When I heard that, I couldn't stand it any longer and started shouting,
“Huepow, let’s go!”
"But it's very dangerous, Ace-kun ..." Huepow said with a worried look.
My grandpa looked at me with a worried expression on his face.
“Yes, the Forest of Wickedness is now a nest of demons. Do you understand that, Ace?”
“I know. But I'm still going to look for you.”
05: I'd rather find him because he's 'me'

After taking a sip of coffee at Komeda Coffee Shop, Jun Natsume picked up the portable game console
"Santendo Terminal" again.

He took control of the character to go to the bed and press the button.
In bed, Huepow, who is lying next to me, smiled back at me.
“Goodnight, Ace-kun.”
“Goodnight, Huepow.”

Do you want to save it so far?

▷Yes
No

After selecting "Yes" to save the game, Natsume lightly pressed the power switch to put it to sleep.
I had just opened the door to the store when someone came in.

A man comes up to me with his hands in his pants pockets, his small, slightly hunched shoulders rising
and falling, and says, "Hey. Long time no see," he greeted me with his chin.
“Hi. It’s been a while.”
Natsume bowed, and the man said as he took a seat across from him,
“Sorry to bother you.”
“I can't not come when I'm summoned by Kaede-san, my senior.”
His name is Fuumasaru. He is the chief programmer of Palette Inc.
“No, no, no, no. What are you talking about? I'm in awe of you, calling out Natsume, the hit maker of
the year. Let's see, what was it again? Oh, you know, that game. Was it fried rice?”
“Try again. That's what I'm talking about, Kurihan, Creature Hunter.”
“What? Chestnut rice? Then it's the same with fried rice, isn't it?” ((Kurihan sounds like kuri gohan,
chestnut rice))
“Mm. Either one is fine.”
“Hahaha. Sorry, sorry.”
Kaede crossed his legs and leaned forward as he ordered a single cappuccino from the waitress who
came to take his order.
“I wonder how long it's been since Natsujun quit.”
Jun Natsume was also formerly a member of Palette Inc.
He got headhunted by a company that specializes in smartphone applications and changed jobs.
“I quit in 2003, so it's been three years now.”
“Three years, that's fast.”
“Well, it's only been three years. I've only been in Palette Inc for nine years. That's one third.”
“It's a big deal that they created a blockbuster software in those three years.”
“It's all thanks to Mr. Kurumina. If I hadn't been assigned to Mr. Kurumina's project right after I joined
the company, I wouldn't be where I am today.”
“That's it, that's the DS project, right?”
The Santendo DS was released in December 2004.
Until then, game controls had become increasingly complex as controllers evolved.
The hope was that the Santendo DS would encourage game fans who had fallen out of love with gaming
and those who were reluctant to play because they thought the controls were too difficult.
It was a game console that featured input to the touch panel using a stylus to reset the operation
proficiency once and for all.
They thought that this would be the first time for everyone and that they would be on the same starting
line.
Such games played with touch controls were collectively called the "Touch! Generator Series".

"The moment I saw the DS, I said to myself, 'If this hardware doesn't sell, I'm quitting my job because
the game industry is finished,'" Natsume said.
“Heh. That sounds like Kurumina.”
Kaede scratched his head and beamed happily.
In fact, the DS became a full-fledged boom when "Brain Training Adult DS Trainer" was released by
Nintendo in May of 2005.
A brain training book for the elderly was originally a bestseller, and when it was turned into a game, the
addition of a "brain age" competition, separate from actual age, attracted people of all ages, and it
became a big hit at the end of the year.

Then, in April 2006, Jun Natsume joined Palette Inc.

Natsume was a big fan of Palette's first work, an RPG called "Fairy Chronicle," and applied for the job
with the sole intention of being involved in its production.
The success of "Brain Training" has brought in mature adults and women who were previously
uninterested in games.
The producer, Kurumina, took notice of this and wanted to create a series of adventure games that
would combine puzzle solving, puzzle solving, and quiz games that anyone could enjoy with the story of
Ramuna the Phantom Thief and Detective Rock.
Natsume was chosen to be the director of the first work.
“They were a great pair, weren't they? Was it "Ramuna and the Golden Mask"?”
“That was right after I joined the company. For a moment I was disappointed that it wasn't Fairy
Chronicle, but I never thought I'd suddenly be asked to be a director, so I said, "Yes!" and accepted.”
“But the result was good, wasn't it? You've been called an ace since then.”
“Yes, I have. Even now, when I have to name something in software, I name it 'Ace'.”
“Yeah, I remember when I was debugging it a lot, I saw "Ace" as the number one ranking.”

The success of this software led to Palette's listing on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The company grew quickly thanks to the great duo of Kurumina and Ace Natsume.

The next turning point for me was "Dragon's Block," which I created in 2012.
By this time, smartphones had started to become popular, and downloading applications to play was
becoming the mainstream, and software that could be enjoyed basically for free was gaining popularity.
This is why Palette decided to enter the market as soon as possible and launched Ace.
The game, which combines the elements of a puzzle game where you erase blocks by chaining them
together and a RPG game where you collect and train dragons, is commonly known as "Drabro" and has
become a huge hit, ranking first among all apps in terms of revenue.

“At the time, I thought I was going to be able to participate in Fairy Chronicle next time, but then Mr.
Kurumina called me in and convinced me that the smartphone apps that were popular today didn't have
enough fun or gameplay, and that the next one should be something with more game know-how. So I
was put in charge.”
“I see. So, the big hit of "Drabro" gave him confidence, and he was brought in at a high salary.”
“No, it's not that they pulled me out, but I contacted them myself.”
“Huh? What did you dislike about Kurumina?”
“Oh, no, how could I not like him? I've learned so many things from Kurumina. I can't thank him enough.
In fact, I'm filled with apologies.”
“Why?”
“Actually, after "Drabro", Kurumina-san invited me to participate in his next project as well. Thinking
about it now, that was "Chateau de Fantôme". But at that time, I was having a hard time. I thought, "It's
one thing to continue to be protected by Mr. Kurumina, but it's also one thing to step out and try my
own strength". So I talked to an acquaintance of mine who works at the company I'm working for now,
and out of the blue, I ended up meeting the president of the company. And then I was suddenly put in
charge of "Kurihan" and I got busy....... So I didn't get a chance to properly greet Kurumina until today. I
was invited to work on a project that Mr. Kurumina was going to bet the company's fortune on, but I felt
like I had to kick him out of the company.”
“I'm sure that when Natsujun quit, Kurumina was very shocked and depressed.”
“Oh, really? Oh, I don't have the heart to face Kurumina-san.”
“But that's why I'm eating chestnut rice. It's just like a picture of smooth sailing, isn't it?”
“That project was actually all done by imitating Kurumina’s style. As a rookie, I thought he was on top of
the world, but he came down to me and talked to me from the same perspective. That's why I did the
same with my current project, and it worked out well. I also learned how to think about ideas and put
them together. I've always imagined what you would do in a situation like this.”
“Oh, Natsujun, you're so cute. If Kurumina hears about it, he’ll cry with joy.”

“Creature Hunter", also known as "Kurihan", is a smartphone application that Natsume directed in his
first year after changing jobs.
In this game, you walk around outside with the app running and your phone in your hand, and
everywhere you go, you can find invisible creatures that are only found in that place.
If I were to reveal how it works, it would be the radio waves of wireless LANs that are flying around
everywhere in the world. It receives the radio waves and converts the MAC address value into a
creature.
In other words, the same creature will always be generated when it catches a radio wave flying in the
area, so the same creature will appear no matter whose phone you use, as if the creature exists in the
area as if it were an earthbound spirit.
Moreover, it is linked to the map of your current location by GPS, and when you look at it through the
screen of your smartphone, the creature appears as a composite of the real image captured by the
camera.
This is the so-called virtual reality.

Young people competed to find the places where the rare creatures appeared, and disseminated the
information through the Internet, LINE, Twitter and Facebook.
As a result, the place where the ultra-rare creature appeared was crowded with young people
wandering around with their phones in hand.
Once you have captured a creature, you can train it and give it various abilities to create your own
creature.
In addition, the rewards and experience will be greater if you work with a friend to catch the same
creature.
So if your friends are playing it, you have to download it too or you won't be able to cooperate with
them and they won't be your friends.
That's why they download it and then play it even more desperately to help their friends and be active.
It's a well-designed system.
This led to an instant increase in the number of players, and the app quickly became a huge hit with over
30 million downloads.

“By the way, Ace. Of course you know that "Chateau de Fantôme" has been released, right?”
“Of course,” I said as I pulled out my latest handheld game console, the Santendo Terminal, from my
bag, "I was playing it earlier.”
“Well, that’s a quick story.”
“I believe the first one was a launch title for Santendo Terminal. I knew it was because of that thing that
delayed the release by five months.”
“Well, ever since that incident, the directors and managers have been getting more and more intrusive.”
“I knew it was true. I thought Kurumina might be in a tough position ...... If only I hadn't done what I did,
you know. But I'm glad you managed to release it safely.”
“Well, that’s not quite true.”
Natsume saw Kaede's face cloud over, and various speculations crossed his mind.
“…What happened to Kurumina?”
“Ace-kun. Actually, I came here today to ask you for a favor.”
“What is it? I'll do anything for Kurumina-san.”
“That's why I need you to find Kurumina-san for me.”
“You're looking for Kurumina-san...... What’s wrong with Kurumina-san?”
“He suddenly disappeared in the middle of January this year and I haven't been able to reach him. No
cell phone, no smart phone, no tablet, no computer, no game console... he just disappeared.”
“I’m not sure I can find him.”
Kaede put his face close to Natsume's ear and whispered.
“I'd rather find him because he's 'me'.”
06: He suddenly disappeared

CrossSoft Corporation was originally just a small software house with about 80 employees.
This company grew rapidly with the Famicom boom of the late 1980s.
At the time, it was a lucrative market.
That's why trading companies, publishers, and other non-gaming industries entered the market one
after the other, and a plethora of software was released.
Software created by four to five young developers in three to six months could sell 500,000 to 10 million
units, so the profit margin was huge.
Gradually, however, the difference between games made by companies in other industries and those
made by game makers that had created games for game arcades and software houses that had built up
their strength in PC software became obvious, and they were shunned.

In such a situation, CrossSoft had a solid track record in PC software, and after entering the Famicom
market, it continued to produce high quality software and was blessed with hit titles. By the time Super
Famicom was released in 1999, the company had become a major game maker with a staff of 1,000.

The next year, in 1992, Ryosuke Saijima joined CrossSoft.

While he was still a student at the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Engineering, the computer software
he created became the talk of the town, and he began to spend time in the development department of
CrossSoft, helping to create games.
And as soon as I graduated, I joined the company as a planner.
The following year, in 1993, Sunny Digital Entertainment, or SDE for short, was established, and on
December 3, 1994, the PlayStage, the latest game console capable of drawing polygons, was released
with the hype that it would "change the game with 1, 2, 3.”
Since CrossSoft had been provided with development kits and technical cooperation on a priority basis
by SDE since 1993, multiple products were lined up from the beginning.
The plan was to port and release five hit arcade games in the first year after launch, and then release the
original RPG "Dragon Fantasia" in 1996.

The fact that Saijima, who had only been with the company for a year, was selected as the director of
this original RPG project caused a stir within the company.
Some looked at me coldly, some were overtly hostile, and some were sarcastic, just to see what I could
do.
But after six months, such noise gradually disappeared.
Saijima’s talent was outstanding, and he also had the strength of mind and spirit not to be fazed by the
clamor of the outside world.
The programmers, planners, visuals, and other staff members were all senior to Saijima, some of them
ten-year veterans, but they soon became a united project under Saijima’s charisma.
Saijima’s product concepts were always clear, and they had the power to inspire ideas in those who
listened.
While taking in ideas from the staff one after another, he managed to incorporate them into
specifications that were brilliantly absorbed in the overall balance, so that everyone could trust Saijima
and feel at ease with the development.

In the end, it was completed in 1996 as planned and released in July, becoming a huge hit with 120,000
copies sold. With this, Saijima’s name became well known in the industry.
Without a break, he began work on the sequel, and when "Dragon Fantasia II: The Jet-Black Bride" went
on sale in December 1996, it became a social phenomenon, with long lines of people waiting in
electronics stores in Akihabara and Shinjuku on the day of its release, and eventually sold 230,000
copies.
Naturally, the company expected a sequel, but Saijima was reluctant because he wanted to create
something different. Just then, in April of 1999, Yuji Kurumina was hired as a new employee.
It was none other than Saijima who strongly recommended Kurumina for the job interview. The biggest
decisive factor in the hiring process was Saijima’s willingness to create "Dragon Fantasia III" if Kurumina
would work on his project.

Once he decided to do so, Saijima acted quickly. He officially decided on the title before the plot of the
story had even been decided.
“Dragon Fantasia III: The End of the Legend”
When the project was launched, Saijima became the producer and selected a newcomer, Kurumina, to
be the director.
Saijima supported him at key points, but left the final decision to Kurumina. Kurumina had an
exceptional sense of balance, but he was still a rookie and could sometimes go astray. When this
happened, Saijima was quick to give him advice and correct his course.
The members of the project trusted this three-legged race, and the project came together.

Every day, Kurumina worked frantically. His work was dizzying and busy. He would do interviews for
magazines during the day, write specifications in the evening, make adjustments in the middle of the
night, and at dawn, he would lie down on four of his colleagues' chairs to take a nap, then go back to
work in the morning when everyone else arrived.
I was even feeling sorry for myself that I was getting paid to do something so fun.
One day, just before we started debugging in earnest for the master-up, I was up all night and Saijima
invited me out for dinner.
It was 2 a.m. and I was getting hungry, so we decided to go, and Saijima drove us to a nearby family
restaurant.
As he ate his dinner there, he made this announcement.
“Actually, I've decided to start my own company in the near future.”
“Eh? Are you quitting, Saijima-san?”
“So I'd like to ask you for advice, and I'd like you to come with me, Kurumina. How about it?”
Surprised by the sudden invitation, what finally came out of my mouth was an exhale that could not be
described as either an exhale or a reply.
“Now it's just a small company with five people in total. But I'd like you to join us, Kurumina. After
working with you for the past two and a half years, I think we can work well together. What do you
think?” Saijima said, looking straight into Kurumina’s eyes.
It was a look of conviction.
Looking into his eyes, Kurumina made up his mind to quit the company.

“Dragon Fantasia III" was successfully released in December of 2001.

Shortly after that, Saijima retired.
When I think about it, the subtitle of the work, "The End of a Legend," may mean that I had been
planning for independence since that time.
That's how the game company started, with six people including the president, Saijima, and Kurumina.
The company was named Palette Inc.
The palette was meant to mix the abilities of employees with various colors and paint new colors that
did not exist on the canvas of the industry.

Saijima was only 32 years old at the time, but his talent for reading the times and his intuition for what
would sell were unrivaled.
That's why when Saijima went to Sunny Digital Entertainment, a manufacturer of game hardware, to ask
for investment to start up his company, he was given approval on very favorable terms.
Saijima decided on a theme based on what he had read about the current trends of the times, and
Kurumina shaped it into an interesting game.

In this way, Palette Inc. made a name for itself in the industry with a series of hit titles.
In just three years, the company went public and was listed on the second section of the Tokyo Stock
Exchange.
At that time, several section chiefs from the bank that became the largest shareholder were appointed
to the board of directors.
Even so, the founder of the company, Saijima, remained a one-man company.
Saijima was the sole decision maker for all the project reviews.
The board members sometimes expressed their opinions at the meetings, but in the end the decision
was made by a single word from Saijima.

At one point, Kurumina proposed a plan to target the female and housewife demographic, who do not
play games at all.
At first glance, Saijima said, "This is it!" and decided to create it.
The executives made a strong case for how the project would not sell, citing various precedents.
But Saijima, after reading the reports from the executives, threw them on the desk and said,
“What are you people? Are you nuts? You're always thinking of reasons why you can't do something. I
can give you any number of reasons why something that doesn't exist can't be sold.”
The executives looked at each other with furrowed brows.
“But isn't it from those things that the big hits are born? No matter how much your moldy brains try to
figure it out, it's probably impossible.”
“I'm afraid I have to return my words......” one of the executives, Yoshiyuki Karasawa, a senior managing
director from a bank, stepped forward and said.

“You don't have to return your words. Shut up. Shush. You're gonna talk about some other hit game
anyway.”
Karasawa swallowed his words as he was about to talk about exactly that.
“Once it's a hit, you can say all you want about why it sold. It's just a critique. On the other hand, there
are many reasons why something that doesn't exist yet can't sell. But, if it doesn't exist yet, you have to
create it,” I said and forced my way through.

That was "The Phantom Thief Ramuna and the Golden Mask", the memorable first work in which Ace
Jun Natsume teamed up with Kurumina.
Furthermore, since the project was for Santendo DS software, the usual development cost would have
been around 100 million yen, but I ordered 300 million yen, plus a budget of 100 million yen for
advertising.
The board members were very much against this, but it did not reach Saijima’s ears.
He refused to budge, saying that in order to sell something that doesn't exist yet, you need publicity that
doesn't exist yet.
We used famous actors as voice actors, asked famous composers for music, and did tie-ups with TV,
magazines, and other companies that were unexpected and talked about, and the number of tie-ups
exceeded fifty.
They hijacked the streets of Shibuya and exposed the game's characters everywhere in the city.
The event was covered in the news, and the images and videos were uploaded to various social media
sites and quickly proliferated around the world. The result was a huge hit.
The first batch was sold out in no time, and production was increased one after another, eventually
selling 600,000 units worldwide.
Even after subtracting development and advertising costs, the company's net income came to over 10
billion yen.
In 2008, the company was listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
At that time, too, the banks, major trading companies, and major advertising agencies that had been our
business partners became the largest shareholders, and people transferred from them became directors
and general managers.
The company had already grown to more than 300 employees, but Saijima’s one-man operation
continued unabated.
The board members and department heads only waited for Saijima’s opinion at the meetings and then
expressed their opinions in a sympathetic manner. That was their way of getting by.
In the midst of all this, only Kurumina, who was simply the head of the planning section at the time, had
any opinions about the president, Saijima.
Saijima also listened to Kurumina’s opinions, sometimes arguing with him, sometimes debunking him,
sometimes convincing him to change his conclusion.
That's why the young creators wanted to listen to Kurumina rather than what the department heads
were saying.
This further irritated the executives and department heads.

Then, one day in September of 2015, Kurumina brought a project that he had been working on for years
directly to the president, Saijima.
When he entered the president's office, Saijima, who had been looking down at his papers, immediately
raised his eyes and said,
“Oh, Kurumina! Did you come up with something good?”
This was a kind of greeting that was exchanged every time he met Kurumina.
Whenever I met him in an elevator or hallway, he would always ask me if I had come up with something
good.
Kurumina would usually reply, "Yes, that's right, like hot water.”
That's why Saijima probably thought he would get a response like that.
But that day was different.
Because I came up with a really good idea and came to propose it.

“New Social RPG Project: Chateau de Fantôme”

That's what was written on the cover of the proposal.

Here's the plan that Kurumina proposed.
When players start the game, they begin their adventure with a partner they meet by chance.
Players work with their partners to solve mysteries and gradually grow as they gain experience and the
world expands.
And then, one day, you step out of your own world and notice a world that extends further out.
It's a world where you can connect with game players from all over the world in real life.
In the game, players are paired up as buddies via the Internet to communicate and exchange
information, items, and experiences, while adventuring together.
“After you've made it all the way to the end of the game, you'll get a surprise ending.”
When Kurumina said this in a perhaps disingenuous way, Saijima's eyes lit up like a child's, and he kicked
his seat and flew right in front of Kurumina, asking him to have a go.
“A shocking ending?!”
Then Kurumina said his best idea in the most effective pause and tempo.
“What do you think?”
“Interesting!”
Saijima slapped his knee and rejoiced, his eyes bared.
“That's interesting. Okay, let's make it happen! Get a project together now. The main staff will be Kaede
for the programmer, Narutani for the visuals, and Saeki for the sound.”
“Isn't he the best member of our company?”
It's no wonder Kurumina was surprised.
They were veterans of the company's launch thirteen years ago, and it was essential that they be
selected for this most important project.
“In fact, there are secret talks about Santendo's next generation hardware, which is scheduled to be
released in two years, and they want a big title for its launch. This is perfect. Thanks, Kurumina! So I'm
looking forward to your mastering at the end of January 2008, just in time for the hardware launch!”
So, we decided on such a large project without going through the board of directors or department
heads.

The executives and department heads were indeed upset by this.

“This project is a very bad idea,” Yoshiyuki Karasawa, a former banker and senior managing director in
charge of accounting, gathered the two department heads together and said.
Karasawa still couldn't forget the humiliation of that time in "The Phantom Thief Ramuna and the
Golden Mask”.
Or perhaps it would be better to say that he' s been biting back the humiliation ever since.
“I've been asked to allocate huge development and advertising costs for the launch of new hardware
that may or may not sell.”
Hearing this, Masakazu Toudou, a former trading company employee and sales manager, rushed to
match Karasawa's expression.
“How much does it cost?”
Karasawa held up the fingers of his right hand, concealing them with his left.
"Here's the development cost.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Tamiya Tatsuhiko, a former ad agency employee and head of the development department, looked at
the number of fingers and said, well, that's a reasonable line.
“No, and there's one zero on it.”
“Yeah yeah yeah.”
Toudou and Tamiya looked at each other.
Karasawa said, lowering his voice,
“We've got to get the president to back off at all costs. Toudou-kun, Tamiya-kun, why don't you two
prepare a document to persuade the president?”
“I understand. Tamiya-san, I'll argue how reckless the plan is from a sales risk perspective, and you can
argue the recklessness of the plan from a development perspective, from a technical risk perspective.”
When Toudou said that, Tamiya nodded and said, "Understood. I'll have it done by tomorrow.”
It was in the evening of the following day that the three of them went to the president's office with the
materials to propose a review of the plan.
Saijima, who had been flipping through the prepared materials and listening to the entire presentation,
looked up with a huge yawn on his face.
“Is that it?”
As the coldness of the response was more than he had expected, Karasawa impatiently said,
“Oh, um, so if this investment should fail, we could lose the foundation of our company's management.
If that happens, we won't be able to get a loan from the bank, and in fact, we may even be in danger of
going bankrupt. Our shareholders would not remain silent. Please think about this again......”
Then Karasawa was at a loss for words.
It was because Saijima held the presentation in both hands and began to slowly tear it in half
lengthwise.
Then Saijima said all at once,
“You guys are as time-wasting as ever. Mr. Karasawa, if you have time to do this, why don't you show
the bank the potential of this project and get more money out of them? That's what I'm keeping you for,
you know. Mr. Toudou, why don't you think of a new way to sell the product? I'll buy a robot if you keep
doing the same stupid thing. Also, Tamiya, you're the head of the development department, but you're
too naive to try to create something using only the technology you have now. If you're geniuses who
think of reasons why you can't do something, please quit. I don't know if you're on loan from a major
shareholder or what, but I don't need that level of determination.”
The three of them were forced to leave the president's office, unable to refute anything and biting their
lips.

And so the project went on.

It became one of the biggest projects in the company, and despite the various problems, something
amazing was being created through the dedication and cooperation of the staff.
Then, when the project was to be completed in three months, the incident occurred.
That was why Saijima had suddenly disappeared.
07: We have to hurry back

The moment the final blow was struck, the movement of the giant man-eating plant-like monster
stopped as if it had been paused.
Then, as I watched, its body turned gray, and it became like a stone statue.
Then, as if all of its body parts had cracked at once, it instantly turned into sand and landed on the
ground with a thud.
“Yes!”
Huepow jumped out of the ring and smiled happily.
Then a fairy popped out from behind a tree.
“Thank you. You've been very helpful. You guys are so strong.”
“And you are?” I asked.
"I'm Luluk, the forest fairy," he said, spinning around and smiling.
“Where's Granny of the forest?” I looked around as I asked, and Luluk flied away in a whirl, flapping his
wings over a large bulb.
When I looked closer, I saw that the bulb was squirming.
“Trapped in here,” Luluk said as he spun around the bulb.
When I cut open the bulb, I found Granny of the forest flowing out from inside with mucus.

Huepow asked, looking into Granny’s face,

“Granny, are you okay?”
Granny of the forest managed to smile as she opened her eyes, spitting out a mouthful of mucus and
choking painfully.
“Oh, this is the one from the elder's place in the Wind Village,” Granny said as she pulled herself up with
the help of her hands and shook her head.
Luluk flew over and said to Granny,
“These people are the ones who defeated that giant plant monster.”
“Well, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry for what I did. I was suddenly attacked by a black shadow, and I
was unintentionally trapped!”
“Black shadow!”
Huepow and I looked at each other.
Granny narrowed her eyes.
“That could be the Dark Lord Gortis, said to have been sealed away 3,000 years ago.”
“The Dark Lord Gortis?!” we both shouted at the same time.
And Granny of the Forest of Wickedness began to speak quietly.

“There's a legend in this world of Phantomea.”

“Legend?”
I leaned forward, curious.
“I heard that 3,000 years ago, there was a great battle that took the world by storm. The world consisted
of four kingdoms: Breezegale, the Wind Kingdom; Jugpot, the Water Kingdom; Forlock, the Tree
Kingdom; and Cress, the Moon Kingdom.”
“The Moon Kingdom!”
I was thrilled to hear the name of the legendary kingdom.
“The Moon Kingdom was a legendary land that is said to collect the dreams of the people of the world,
transform them into energy, and shape everything in this world. It is said that a rebellion has occurred in
the Moon Kingdom. The ringleader of the rebellion was said to be Gortis.”
“!”
“It is said that they conquered the Moon Kingdom in one day. However, the remaining three kingdoms
joined forces to fight. It is said that the battle lasted for 99 days, and finally Gortis was banished from
the Moon Kingdom and imprisoned in a cave deep in the Solbora Mountains.”
“This is where the Wind Kingdom was originally located, right?” I said excitedly.
“After that, they sealed the Moon Kingdom away from the public eye to prevent such a thing from
happening again. The temple that enshrines this seal is said to be the Temple of the Sun in the sky,
Solna. I thought this legend was just a myth to warn people, but now that the Dark Lord actually exists,
I'm not so sure...... If he really is the legendary Gortis, he must have a strong hatred for the world. I don't
know what he's up to.”
“As a matter of fact, yesterday we came across this Gortis taking a girl in exotic clothes away. I asked my
grandpa to take a look at the pendant I found there, and he said it was from the Moon Kingdom.”
When I said that, the granny of the forest was very surprised and murmured,
“"When Solna's tears are shed, the moon awakens and rises to the sky" is a line from an ancient text in
the Temple of the Sun.”
Even more excited, I shouted,
“Sure enough, the pendant was in the shape of a tear!”
Granny continued,
“And then it goes on to say. "When the princess sang in the Moon Room, where the gods are enshrined,
she cleansed the heavens and the earth..." The girl in the foreign clothes was the legendary singer
Rebrise, and if she sang there, the world would be cleansed. That would be inconvenient for him.”
Then Luluk came between me and granny and fluttered,
“Hey, hey, let me see that moon crest pendant...”
“I don't have it with me at the moment. But don't worry, my grandpa is keeping it for me.”
As I said this, I suddenly noticed Huepow glaring at Luluk with a grim face.
“What’s the matter, Huepow?”
“Luluk, how do you know the pendant has the crest of the Moon Country on it?”
“Eh? Because it's a pendant from the Moon Kingdom, right?”
“He said it was in the shape of a tear, but he never said anything about a crest on it.”
“…Fufufu, the pendant is in the Wind Village…”
When he said that, Luluk lifted his lips and smiled, squinting his eyes, and then his eyes suddenly went
white and he started screaming at the sky.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”
“Luluk…?”
Then a black shadow overflowed from Luluk's mouth and soared into the sky, spreading out to cover the
sun and transforming into a demon with four eyes.
“Gortis!”
“Gwahahahahahahaha!”
He laughed in an eerie voice that shook the world, and in an instant he was sucked into the air and
disappeared.
“Cough cough,” Luluk choked. Finally, he noticed. “What the hell am I….”
Huepow closed in on Granny.
“What does Gortis want?”
Granny’s eyes widened.
“So, Gortis, you are trying to resurrect the Moon Country, make it yours this time, and change the world
to suit your needs…! That pendant must be the key to its resurrection. If that's the case, the elder of the
Wind Village is in danger.”
“Oh no! We have to hurry back!”
08: Where the hell am I anyway?

“Oh no!”
Visual designer Narutani came running in, his white face more pale than ever.
It was Culture Day, a national holiday, and the first day of a three-day weekend, but that didn't matter
to the "Chateau de Fantôme" team, who were in the final stages of their work, and all the staff were at
work.
Of course, Kurumina was also busy with the final adjustments.
The other major task was to create the ending.
That “shocking ending”.
Of course, I've already written the specifications.
The visual data has already been produced.
The background music is already up.
The only thing left to do is to program it and put it in.
I was talking to Kaede, the program chief, at the meeting.
“Oh my god! Kurumina! Did you see the news on the Internet?”
Everyone turned around at once at Narutani's sudden appearance.
“News on the Internet?”
Kurumina hurriedly took out his smartphone and opened a news website.

“Indiscriminate Street Murder in Shibuya”

At around 4:30 p.m. today, a man with a kitchen knife attacked passersby one after another in front of
Shibuya Station, resulting in the deaths and injuries of five people. One of the victims, Ryosuke Saijima
(age 47), was stabbed in the neck and back, and was taken to the hospital by ambulance, where he was
pronounced dead.

Many times my eyes would repeat and follow a certain sentence.

“Ryosuke Saijima” “Dead”

Someone turned on the TV.

There was a live broadcast from Shibuya on the evening news program.
The scene was cordoned off by the police, with an agitated male reporter shouting at the backdrop of
cops and onlookers.
“We are live at the scene of the incident in Shibuya. At around 4:30 p.m. today, a man with a knife
suddenly went berserk on the street in front of Shibuya station, attacking passers-by one after another.
According to eyewitnesses, the man wielded an ice pick or a blade like a knife and slashed, chased
passers-by running away, and repeatedly stabbed people who were on the ground. The perpetrator was
seized by police officers who rushed to the scene and arrested on the spot. The number of dead and
injured has reached more than ten, and they are being transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital
one after another. One of the victims, Ryosuke Saijima, was stabbed in the neck and back, and was
pronounced dead at the hospital. According to eyewitnesses, Mr. Saijima was stabbed in the back over
and over again as if he was protecting Mai, the only daughter of Taeko Sonoda, a housewife in Adachi
Ward who was also confirmed dead. Mai was found safe. Mr. Saijima was the president of the game
maker Palette Inc, and after working as the director of the social phenomenon "Dragon Fantasia", he
became independent. In recent years, the smartphone app "Dragon's Block" has become very popular.”
On the screen was footage of Saijima being interviewed by reporters for Dragon Fantasia II, as well as
footage from his appearance on the show when Palette was established.
The staff was gathered in front of the TV, and all the female staff members were huddled together,
crying their eyes out.
Some were shouting on the phone, others were collapsing into their chairs with a thud, others were
running off somewhere, the whole company was in chaos.
Kurumina also stood with his hands propped up on the desk, staring at the smiling face of Saijima as he
happily talked about his game idea on the TV.

From then on, my days passed at a dizzying pace.

When it was learned that the deceased was the president of a fast-growing up-and-coming game
company listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the media, including reporters from
weekly magazines and newspapers, and reporters from TV shows, poured into the company every day.
It was only after Saijima’s funeral wake and farewell ceremony were over and a farewell party was held
at the Hiten Room of the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa on December 24 along with a memorial
service for the 49th day of his death.

The company, which lacked a charismatic leader, was to continue under a new structure at the
beginning of the year when Yoshiyuki Karasawa, an accounting executive with a banking background,
was elected from among the directors and appointed president.
And so began the "revenge" of the executives and department heads.
First of all, the Development Department was divided into two divisions: the 1st Development Division,
which focuses on new projects, and the 2nd Development Division, which focuses on sequels and other
series.

In the 1st Development Division, Kurumina and the other members who have been under Saijima’s
watchful eye since the company's inception have been assembled.
And in the 2nd Development Division, the executives and managers had recruited people from other
companies and new recruits, so to speak, who were docile and listened to what they were told.
Ostensibly, the 1st Development Division was the new development unit and the 2nd Development
Division was the profit-making unit, but behind the scenes, the aim was to destroy the 1st Division.

Masakazu Toudou, from a trading company, was appointed as the head of the 1st Development
Division, and Tatsuhiko Tamiya, from an advertising agency, was appointed as the head of the 2nd
Development Division.
As a result, the independence of each department under the headquarters was lost, and everything
became subject to the approval of the general manager.

Since then, the planning review has had to follow the consensus of the board members.
However, thanks to the absolute god of Saijima, they were not responsible for anything, and they were
not capable of making good or bad plans or anticipating the market.
So they had to constantly look for and point out holes in the new plan to make the case that the plan
was inadequate and to provide an escape route for their own responsibility in case it failed.
In this way, the only projects that passed were those that resembled the successful projects of some
other company and were marketed in a similar way.

Kurumina was being consulted by his subordinate in a manner that resembled complaining, but he
suddenly felt faint because he couldn't fill the gaping hole in his heart, and everything was happening so
far up in the sky that he felt like he was looking at a small, round slice of sky from the bottom of a deep
vertical hole.
At the bottom, the sounds on the ground were too muffled to be heard, and my own voice was too
reverberant to be heard.

As the year started and the second week of January began, all the board members got together and held
a meeting to review all the ongoing projects.
The projects in charge of each department were called into the conference room in turn, and
development costs, profitability, deadlines, etc. were strictly checked, and any details that did not
conform to the executives' wishes were pointed out and ordered to be revised.
However, the main target was the project of the 1st Development Division.
The projects of the 2nd Development Division, which focused on sequels and other series, were easily
approved as long as they were legitimate evolutions of the previous work.
However, the 1st Development Division was easy prey for the many challenging projects.
“In short, they don't like the project that Saijima-san pushed through without asking for their opinion.”
Kaede’s face turned red and he was angry.
It was a good thing that he was so easy to understand and that Saijima and Kurumina trusted him.
“This is revenge for everything you've done.”
Visual chief Narutani was also quietly angry, his white face reddening.
“I heard that the two new projects that were started in the first phase were paused one after another.”
He was always calm and didn't show what was on his mind, but this time he showed a glimpse of his
violent side, which made Kurumina flinch.
Originally, the word "pending" meant "on hold," but since it is unlikely that a project will be put on hold
and then restarted again, it effectively means cancellation.
“Oh, man, I was feeling like it had a lot of potential.”
When I said that, Narutani looked a little uneasy, saying,
“I don’t think it’s true, but our project won’t be pending.”
“I don't think that's going to happen after all we've been through. All that's left is the ending and
debugging.”
Kaede said with a snicker,
“I don't know. Maybe this is the project they've been most humiliated by.”
The moment the extension rang, Kurumina said,
“Yes, this is Kurumina. ......... Yes, ...... Yes, I understand, the boardroom.”
As Kaede, Narutani and all the staff looked at Kurumina, he hung up the phone and stood up.
“They're finally calling me. I'm going.”

When I entered the conference room, I found the president, Mr. Karasawa, sitting at the middle of a
long, heavy conference desk, Senior Managing Director Toudou and General Manager of the 1st
Development Division on his left, Managing Director Tamiya and General Manager of the 2nd
Development Division on his right, and their subordinates sitting beside them.
When Kurumina took a seat across from him, Toudou gave a thin smile and started to speak.
“Uh-huh? What was the next project again?”
“It's the Chateau de Fantôme," Tamiya replied with a chuckle.
“Oh, that. How's it going? How's the progress?” Toudou said, turning his chin toward Kurumina.
“There is only one more specification that has not yet been produced, and it will go into no-touch
debugging at the end of February!” Kurumina replied quite calmly. Then President Karasawa smirked
and said,
“Do you still have something to make? We've already spent half a billion yen. Saijima-kun was
proceeding without having any basis for profitability, but that's not how a company works. What
Saijima-kun was doing was a gamble. A company must be run in a more stable manner. If it was a
private company, you might have been able to take responsibility for your own actions, but our
company is now a first-class stock company. As a stock company, we have to put the interests of our
shareholders first. We have to avoid risky investments.”
When President Karasawa brought up the subject of money like a former banker, Toudou's attack
followed, gaining momentum from it.
“Until now, the gamble just happened to work. That's just luck, you know.”
“From now on, it is necessary to strictly examine profitability to ensure stable growth of the company.
Now that I'm the president, I'll be looking for evidence that the company will always be profitable. If you
can't show that, your plan is just a gamble. I will not accept it. Do you have any evidence that it will be
profitable?”
“It's difficult to say what the evidence is for the profitability of a new challenge project, because we
don't have a proven track record and there are no examples of other companies, but we are trying
everything we can think of in terms of specifications and promotion.”
Toudou raised his voice as much as he could.
“That's why it's not enough to say you plan to do something, you have to have proof that you will make
money. Hey, boss. Besides, I couldn't understand the concept of this project in the first place.”
In response, Tamiya opened his mouth.
“But we can't just throw away something we've already spent so much money on, so from here on we'll
just have to try to get it mastered as quickly as possible,” and at this point, he turned his head toward
Kurumina. “What are these unproduced specifications?”
“The ending.”
With a bitter look on his face and a click of his tongue, Tamiya said,
“Ah, that "shocking ending" that Saishima was bragging about? Is it going to take until the end of the
month to make it?”
“This ending is foreshadowed by everything the player has experienced up to that point, and is
absolutely necessary to make a very strong impression of this work.”
Hearing this, Tamiya smirked and said,
“Is that your ego? In the first place, this is a product to make money, not your work, so don't make the
mistake of thinking it's your work.”
In fact, Tamiya must have thought that making him change the ending, which he was so particular
about, would be the greatest revenge. He had given them the perfect bait.
President Karasawa also took the bait and said in a strong tone.
“The ending should be a normal happy ending, because it's a game. Then we can fix the specs tomorrow
and go into no-touch debugging.”
“No, but that would be…”
“This is an order from the president, okay? Kurumina.”
“And then there’s the title,” Tamiya said with a sly grin. “It's something French, but I don't like it. I've
always thought it was a bad idea.”
“Tamiya-san, you've been saying that for a while. I don't get it. What is "Chateau de Fantôme"?” Toudou
asked.
“To me, it sounds like "I think the president is worried".” ((In Japanese, that’s shacho ga fuan to omou”))
Tamiya made a joke of it, and they all laughed. Then Karasawa, the president, said,
“I’m certainly worried to see if this product is going to make any money,” and they all laughed again.
“Well, if we change the title now, we'll have to spend a lot of money on re-trademarking and re-creating
promotional materials, so I guess we'll just have to go with it.”
When Karasawa said this, Toudou immediately agreed with him, saying,
“Well, yes. You are right. I don't have a choice.”
“I guess from now on, titles should be reviewed by the board of directors beforehand.”
When Karasawa said that, voices of sympathy were raised.
While the board members were happily saying whatever they wanted, Kurumina listened in silence and
felt like crying at any moment, but strangely no tears came out.
Instead, my eyeballs felt parched and reality seemed to become hazy.
What followed was a series of unimportant foolish talk, but it didn't reach Kurumina’s ears.

When Kurumina returned to the development room, Kaede, Narutani, and the entire staff gathered
there.
“How did it go, Kurumina?” “What did they say?” everyone asked.
Kurumina looked up quietly, took a deep breath, and let it out in a huff.
“They're fixing the specs tomorrow. They're going no-touch,” he said as he threw it away.
Kaede exclaimed in surprise.
“Do you really think the ending will be ready by tomorrow?”
“So I told him to change the ending to an easy one that could be done with that.” Narutani said, almost
in tears. “All the foreshadowing we've done in various scenes is ruined.”
Kurumina was silent.
“Kurumina! Can't we negotiate now? Hey, Kurumina-san!”
I could feel the eyes of the entire staff looking at me painfully even without lifting my eyes.
I felt the same way.
If it can be negotiated, I want to negotiate and create the ending as planned.
But the situation would not allow it.
Kurumina was frustrated and angry at himself for not being able to carry out his beliefs without the
backing of Saijima, and at the same time, he was constricted by his shame.
However, he reminded himself that it was at times like this that he needed to lead a calm search for the
best course of action.
That is my duty and responsibility as leader.

“Anyway.”
Kurumina broke the long silence and began to speak slowly.
“Anyway, for now, let’s just think about what we can do by tomorrow, and how we can make the
product the best it can be at this point.”
They all gulped when Kurumina said this in a faint voice.
Everyone there realized how Kurumina felt and how determined he was.
Then Kaede said cheerfully, as if to break the stagnant air,
“Okay. I'll have whatever program you need by tomorrow, and we'll figure it out.”
This led to the start of an idea meeting that was attended by people regardless of their occupation.
It went on until 1:00 a.m., and somehow we managed to come up with an ending that made sense, even
if it was unwillingly, and the various professions split up to work on it at a rapid pace.
It was not scheduled to be completed until the debugging team went to work at 9:00 in the morning.
Leaving the scene to the various staff members, Kurumina decided to come back home once.
“I'm going to go home for a bit and come back at dawn.”
Kaede greeted Kurumina with a sharp face and one hand raised to greet the staff.
“Please leave it to me. I'll make it better than you can imagine.”
The staff responded cheerfully and waved their hands with smiles.
As Kurumina walked out of the development room, Narutani murmured softly.
“Kurumina-san, you’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”
“That's right, Mr. Saijima died, and the board of directors attacked us in full force, and we had to make
the ending of the game, which was our memento, with reluctance. Let's just let him cry at home.”
Hearing this, large tears began to flow out of Narutani's eyes one after another.
“Don’t you cry.”

Kurumina was exhausted, both physically and mentally.

It was around 3:00 a.m. when I finally made it home.
The strong, pounding rain fogged up the windshield.
Then, after climbing up that curve, the apartment came into view, but the light in Kurumina’s room was
out.
Saki must have been asleep long ago, I thought.
I unlocked the front door and entered the room.
And the moment I turned on the light in the room, everything came through intuitively.

“Huh…?”

The room was as clean and tidy as if it were a model room, with no signs of life.
No, it wasn't a lack of life, to be exact.
Kurumina’s undone shirt was left on the couch, and an Amazon envelope containing a Blu-ray movie
that had arrived and hadn't been opened was on the table.
In the kitchen, the plates and mugs from breakfast had accumulated in the wash tub.
The only thing that was missing was the one that Saki had been using, which had been cleanly removed
and was missing completely.

Where did she go? When will she come back?

I opened the door to Saki's room and was stunned.
The chest of drawers, the mirror, the shelves where I used to keep my accessories, the bookshelves full
of photo books, poetry books, and criticism books, everything that used to be there was gone.
It wasn't as if it had disappeared, but rather as if it had never existed.
Where her wardrobe had been, there was a painting by one of Kurumina’s favorite artists, and where
the mirror had been, there was a CD tower that sold CDs that could be inserted horizontally for display.
Instead of accessories and bags, the shelves were decorated with trophies and plaques from the many
games that Kurumina had created, and the bookshelves were lined with only his books.
She’s not coming back.
That's what it was telling me.
Why, why this timing?
Saki's presence was the only thing that made Kurumina feel like he could survive.
Today was the day I wanted Saki to be with me more than any other day in my life.
And yet.
“I’ll have to find her…” Kurumina mumbled and stopped immediately, trying to take action.
Where the hell am I supposed to look?

In these situations, the first thing to do is to ask her close friends.

But Kurumina could not think of a single friend of hers.
In fact, he didn't even know who she knew outside the house.
Next, you'd probably inquire with her parents or relatives back home.
But I didn’t know that either.
There was a lot of talk about where she was born, and where she came from. When I asked her where
she was born, she would always say,
“Hmmm... Where the blue winds blow, I guess.”
“What is that? Where is that?”
“Heeheehee.”
She smiled with a mischievous gesture of looking up a little.
"So where are you going?" I joked.
"Well, where the white clouds flow.”

--Yes.
That's what she said for sure.
Where is it, then?
Then Kurumina was shocked.
Even though they had been together for three years, he didn't know a single thing about Saki.
I didn't really want to know, and I didn't need to know, because I was happy enough just being with her
now.
And I have no idea why she would have to disappear at this time.
Maybe Saki, whom I didn't know, had to go to an unknown place with unknown people, facing unknown
problems for some unknown reason.
Anyway, Cindy met me in the rain and disappeared into the rain again.
At this moment, something broke inside Kurumina.
Cindy's very existence was Pete's support.
Cindy's disappearance means that he can' t be Pete anymore. I felt that the company, the staff, and the
work no longer meant anything to Kurumina.
So for now, I left the house without Saki.

Instead of returning to the office, I wandered around in the rain and found myself sitting in front of a
shuttered station before the first train.
The shutters rattled open and the station staff began to prepare.
Seeing this, Kurumina slowly stood up, put his wallet in his pocket and his SUICA against the automatic
ticket gate, and entered the platform.
And then I boarded the first train that came onto the platform as if I had been sucked into it.
For some reason, he felt drawn to Saki when he went where his fancy took him.
But where was I when I was supposed to be on my way to Saki?
Unsure of where he was, Kurumina wandered aimlessly like a lost soul.
He sat down on the seat in the empty car and asked himself a question.
“Where the hell am I, anyway?”
09: There was nowhere else to be

“Where is he?”
Whenever I asked this question, my mom would get cranky.
When I was five years old, at the entrance ceremony of my elementary school, I wondered why other
children had dads, but not me. That's what I asked. Then,
“Yuna's father went to heaven when you were three years old.”
“Heaven? When’s he coming back?”
“Listen, people who have gone to heaven don't come back. Yuna, you have a mother, right? Mom will
stay by Yuna's side until Dad comes back. Isn't that enough?”
“No, I want my daddy!”
That's what I said, and it annoyed her.
But it was a lie.

I found out about it when I was in the fourth grade.

One day, a boy in my class told me about it.
I was about to leave when Takeshi Tabata interrupted me and made a joke.
His nickname was Beat.
I often impersonate Beat Takeshi, but I don't look like him at all.
In the first place, it's an imitation of an imitator.
“I heard that your father ran away from home after eloping with a cabaret girl. That's what my mom
said.”
“Liar! Daddy's gone to heaven.”
“You're wrong. Your father abandoned you, didn't he?”
The more pissed off I get, the more willing Beat gets.
“Hey, abandoned child! Yuna's an abandoned child~.”
I cried in frustration and chased after Beat.
But Beat was too fast for me, so I couldn't even hit him with a single punch.
So I came home with that frustration in my heart and cried to my mom and complained.
“Daddy abandoned Yuna and Mommy and went off with a woman, didn't he?”
When my mom heard this, her eyes grew round and her face turned red as she screamed.
“Who told you that?!”
It was an unexpectedly loud scream that startled me so much that I burst into tears and wailed.
“Takeshi Tabata told me. He said I'm an abandoned child!”
Then, leaving me crying in the hallway, my mom ran barefoot into Takeshi Tabata's house and yelled at
him.
As if that wasn't enough, she went to the school, walked into the staff room, and called Takahasi, the
homeroom teacher.
“Are you going to turn a blind eye to the fact that our Yuna is being bullied because she is from a single
mother family? I'm going to appeal to the board of education.”
The calm and collected Takahashi was completely freaked out when his mom came at him with a
vengeance, and ran to the principal's office, where the problem grew even bigger and the principal came
to the house to apologize.
I was downgraded from a mere abandoned child to an abandoned child with a Kramer mother, and with
a mother like that, it was no wonder my father left home. Rumors spread throughout the school, and my
position only got worse.

Three months had passed since then.

I'll never forget that day, it was another very hot and humid day when all the cicadas in town were
chirping at once, and everyone couldn't help but get their heads confused.
Even as a fourth grader, I forgot the collage materials I was supposed to use that day for arts and crafts
class.
Oh, collage is an art technique where you cut out various pictures and illustrations and paste them
together to express different meanings.
I was given a homework assignment a week ago that required me to collect photos and other materials
for a collage and bring them to art class next week.
I forgot all about it.
I mean, I hadn't been paying attention.
Because the cicadas are so noisy.
So I told the teacher that I forgot to bring it, and he asked me if I had prepared it, so I lied and said yes.
Then he said, "Your house is close to the school, so run and get it”.
Seriously, I' m in trouble. They'll know I'm lying.
I had no choice but to dash home and tear out the front page of every magazine in my room.
Photos of accessories, gravures of dinosaurs, various vehicles and rockets, photos of astronauts, and
photos of fruits like oranges and pineapples......
I was already tearing them up at random, without sorting.
Then my mom came into the room and said in surprise.
“Yuna, what are you doing? What happened to school? Something happened to you again, didn't it,
Yuna!”
Indeed, from Mom's point of view, it probably looked like I was skipping school and hysterically taking it
out on the magazine.
But when she grabbed me by both shoulders and rocked me back and forth, I was fed up.
“Enough! Enough! Just leave me alone.”
“Yuna, what are you talking about? Mommy is worried about you, Yuna......”
“Damn it! Don't do anything you shouldn't.”
“Something must have happened at school. What's going on at school after I told them everything? I'm
going to go to school now......”
“I'm not an idiot. I'm saying that's unnecessary! Do you know how much trouble I'm in because of you?”
“Are you saying it's Mom's fault? I thought she was protecting Yuna from being bullied.”
“You don't know what you're talking about! You've made a mess. I'm sick of it! Get out, get out!”
When I locked my mom out of the room, I plopped down on the bed and cried hysterically.
You have no idea how much your actions have pushed me over the edge.
No matter how bad things are at school, I know that if I tell you about it, it will be even worse.
So there's no way I can tell you.
I continued to cry with my face in the pillow.
I wonder how much time has passed since then.
Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.
I woke up in a room that had been dyed red by the setting sun.
I opened my eyes and lay on my back, watching the sunset outside the window.
The cicadas were chirping away.
Gently, I meditate.
The backs of my eyelids appear to be tinted bright red.
The cries of the cicadas echoed in my head.
I start to feel faint.
It’s painful.
It’s painful.
……
Hah!
……
My breathing…
I can’t breathe…
Neck…
A hand on my neck .......
Someone's choking me.
It’s getting stronger and deeper.
I manage to tilt my head back and open my eyes.
Eh…? Mom?
It was my mom.
My mom is choking me.
The moment our eyes met, Mom's form, which had turned red from the setting sun, changed
completely to that of a demon, and with all the strength in her hands, she dug her fingers into my neck.
I was still on my stomach, so I couldn't jump out of the way, and it was all I could do to grab her fingers.
The feel of the bones in my mom's fingers.
Don’t…….
Painful ......
Mom…my….
I'm starting to feel faint.
I can't get any strength into my hands.
I'm going to die right here and now, I thought, and the phone rang.
As if on cue, Mom came to her senses and relaxed her hand in a panic.
I shake it off and crawl away to the edge of the bed, turn around and inhale as hard as I can, and then
recoil and choke.
“Yuna, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Yuna.”
Mom sobbed and wriggled over to the bed, clung to me, and hugged me tightly.
Mom's tears rolled down her cheeks.
I just stared at the setting sun while my mom held me like a ventriloquist's dummy.
The phone plays an answering machine message and starts recording.
“There doesn't seem to be anyone here….. Uh, this is Takahashi, the homeroom teacher at Midorigaoka
Elementary School. Yuna went home to get something she forgot, and she hasn't come back yet.......
Well, I guess so. ...... I'll call you back. Excuse me.”
The phone went dead.
Hearing this, Mom ran off to the phone and hurriedly called the school.
She called up my homeroom teacher, Takashi, and told him that I was actually not feeling well since I
came home, so I was going to take the day off and hung up.

Mom came into the room a few moments later and said in a soft voice,
“Yuna, it's almost time for dinner, go wash your hands.”
As if nothing had happened.
What was that earlier?
It's as if I've been having a bad dream.
Okay, maybe it was a dream.
No, it can't be.
My neck still hurts.
It warned me to be careful, that this pain was not a dream.
The sun had already set and the room was beginning to fill with darkness.
I couldn't even see Mom's face clearly because it was dark.
But only her teeth, which she prided herself on not having a single cavity, looked shining white.
Those teeth were smiling quietly at me.
It was a monster with a shadowed face and white teeth.
So from that day on, I always pay close attention to it.
I made sure to keep an eye on her at all times while she was in the house, and I triple-locked the door
when I entered the room so that she wouldn't come in unexpectedly.

Two and a half years later, when I entered junior high school, the rumors subsided.
That Takeshi Tabata went to a private junior high school, so I never saw him again.
As usual, I had to keep my nerves in check at home, but as long as I went to school, my soul would be
less tense.
But I guess that's over now.
I was sacrificed to Haruka, and I couldn't be distracted at school anymore.
If I breathed in too loudly, the monster would notice, so I had developed the habit of always taking
small, thin breaths.
Until then, the moment I left the house in the morning, I used to take a big breath and drop the
darkness before going to school.
And now, I can't even take a big breath when I leave the house.
My head was always tingling.
The only place where I could relax was in my game console.
And the game that arrived at the end of my life, Chateau de Fantôme, was the best game I could have
hoped for.
This is exactly the right game for where I am at the end of my 14 years of life.
In the game world of Phantomea, I had many allies, including my buddy Huepow and my foster father,
Grandpa.
Of course there were many enemies, but there I was given the strength and courage to fight them.
I put on the earphones, turned up the volume to full, and turned on the power.
On the screen was the blue sky and grasslands of Phantomea, and a forest with a pleasant breeze
blowing through.
I took my first big, slow breath in and let it out more slowly.
As I did so, I felt something that had been holding me back slip away.
I had no choice but to stay here.
Because there was nowhere else to be in the real world.
10: No matter what awaits us

The place was a shortcut that Granny had told me about.

As the first sun was setting over the forest of Forlock, we were in the Breezegale Cave behind the Wind
Village.

It seems that the Wind Kingdom was originally located in the mountain where this cave is located.
It is said to be a legendary place where people moved to the present village after it was ruined by a war
long ago.
So even though it was a shortcut, it took longer than expected because the foothold was steep with
heavily destroyed ruins and fossils of giant fish swimming in the sky, and there were many demons.
I'm so worried about my grandpa that I'm getting impatient.
Huepow and I worked together to push forward.
We're almost there.
The light you see over there, if you take the exit over there, the Wind Village is right there.
“Grandpa, I hope you're okay.”

After leaving the cave, you will reach a hill where you can see the Wind Village.
The second sun was approaching the forest.
The windmills of the village come into view.
Then, on the other side of the valley, I could see the house where Grandpa and I live.
“Grandpa!”
I shouted and called out, and a few moments later, Grandpa came out of the house and waved at me.
Thank God. You're safe.
And that’s when…
There was a blinding flash of light, and for a moment our eyes went blank, and then the blast hit us with
a loud bang.
I was blown backwards and slammed into a rock wall.
Huepow was also flung up by the wind and lost his balance, hitting the rock wall.
“Grandpaaa!!”
There was no trace of the house we had just left.
And Grandpa is down.
“Aahh, Grandpa!!” Huepow screamed.
Then, a black shadow sprouted up and formed the Dark Lord.
Then, from the wreckage of the house where his long, pointed clawed hands had burned down, he
pulled out the pendant.
He grabbed it, and once again, he disappeared as if being sucked into the air in an instant.
“Grandpa! I’m coming!”
I finally got up and started running, and kept my eyes on Grandpa the whole time I was running down
the cliff.
Grandpa didn't move an inch.
No way….
Bad imagination creates bad feelings.
So always imagine the good.
That's what my grandpa always said.
But no, Grandpa.
I can't help but have a bad imagination.
“Grandpa will be saved. Grandpa is alive,” I kept saying good things to try to counteract the bad.

When I ran over to him, he was still alive.

“Grandpa, sorry for being late, I, I…”
I held him up, and he slowly opened his eyes in my arms.
“Cindy ...... sorry ...... pendant ...... couldn’t protect ......”
“Such a thing… just because I picked up a pendant like that......”
“No, Cindy, you must listen carefully...... This is all part of your destiny......The pendant is guiding you.
You have been chosen...... Ugh...”
I looked at Grandpa, who was in pain, and saw that he had a piece of wood stuck in his chest, and blood
was pouring out of it.
I rushed to put pressure on top of Grandpa’s hand, but the bleeding didn't stop and my hands turned
bright red.
Ohhh, what should I do?
“Grandpa, hang in there!”
“Already...... Not much longer......I'll leave the rest to you, Cindy....... Ughh....... you are a great...... child
of the wind ...... and you will be ...... strong.”
“No, no, no. Grandpa, please don't die.”
“Don't worry...... I'll always...... be watching you...... so follow your destiny...... and...... mhh.......”
Before he could finish, Grandpa’s body weighed heavily on my arms.
His hands hung slackly to the ground.
“Grandpa…? Hey, Grandpa. Stay with me....... Grandpa, Grandpa......”
Huepow is weeping as he flaps his wings.
“Grandpa… I’m sorry…”
I couldn't hold back the tears that were welling up in my eyes.
I looked up to the heavens and cursed God.
I cried, letting out every cry in my stomach.
“GRANDPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”
Grandpa never breathed again.

The wind stopped.

The sun had completely set on both of them, and darkness fell quietly over the forest.
Sitting on a hill overlooking the forest, I wiped away my tears.
Huepow looked at me worriedly.
“Huepow…”
“Cindy…”
I stood up and made a decision.
This was the last thing that Grandpa said to me.
“Follow your destiny.”
Yes, all we can do now is follow our destiny.
“Huepow, I'm going.”
Perhaps sensing my determination, Huepow also said with a serious expression.
“Okay, let’s go.”
I have Grandpa with me.
My best friend, Huepow, is with me.
We'll figure it out.
That’s why I keep going.
No matter what awaits us.
11: Now we just have to wait and see

“Ahhh, there you are, there you are.”

When the train arrived at the platform and the doors opened, suddenly a loud voice echoed through the
car.
When Kurumina looked up at the voice, he saw three young men in suits sitting in a row.
All three of them were holding their phones in their hands, rubbing and tapping the screen with their
fingers, looking at the screen without blinking, and yelling incessantly.
It's "Creature Hunter," a smartphone app that is currently enjoying a huge boom.

“Hey, he's coming your way.”

“Idiot, it's not ready yet. You've got to be kidding me. You should've held them off longer.”
“It’s no use saying that.”
“All right. I'll take care of it. Yeah!”
“Oh, what are you doing? You're getting extra violent.”
“Oh man!”
“I'm the only one who got beaten up, so don't run away.”
“Hahahahaha.”
“Oh, he's dead. Screw him.”
“Hahaha, duh.”
“I'll use the Resurrection Pearl on you.”
“Please, really. Alright, full strength.”

Our phones are connected to each other by communication, and it seems that the three of them were
fighting a common enemy.
One of them would act as a decoy to lure it in, while the other two would set traps and wait for it, then
the three of them would beat it to a pulp when it fell into the trap.

“Okay, good. Come here.”

“Let's go, hooray! All right, keep going, keep going.”
“Yes! Now!”
“Continuous Slash!”
“Megaton Blade!”
“Gigafire!”
It seems that each of them used a special technique.
“Yeeeessss!”
The three of them raised their hands in victory at the same time.
They looked so refreshed, filled with a sense of accomplishment.

In life, how many moments do we have where we overcome difficulties, accomplish something, feel a
sense of accomplishment, and are moved?
That's what the game offers time and time again.
Of course, it can't compare to the feeling of accomplishment you get when you achieve something in
real life, but this small feeling of elation enriches your life, accentuates your daily life, and gives you the
energy to challenge yourself, which in turn becomes part of the energy to achieve something in real life.
This is what Kurumina believed.
So seeing those three young men made Kurumina happy.
I was also proud and happy to know that the game that was driving the three of them crazy was a game
directed by Natsume, with whom I had shared a lot of pain and suffering.

As he smiled, he looked out the window and was startled by the words that came to his ears.
“Oh, by the way, "Chatfan" just came out,” one of the young men said without taking his eyes off his
phone.
“Yeah, it's the one that's been postponed for a long time, released today, right?”
“Well, I don't have a Santendo Terminal yet. Do you have one?”
Then, with a proud smile on his face, he pulled out a brand new Santendo Terminal from his bag.
“Ta-da!”
“Oh, when did you buy it, rich guy~? And Chatfan?”
“Not yet. But a friend of mine bought it and posted a picture of it. Wanna see?”
There is a system in the Santendo Terminal that allows friends to share images and play videos with
each other.
You can record the video of yourself playing and upload the video easily.
“Oh, look, look. Wow, that's a beautiful screen.”
“Whoa, cut to the chase here, because that's a spoiler. Because, you know.”
“Crap. I guess I should buy one too. But I don't have any money this month.”
The young man was surprised when he said, looking up.
It was because a man was standing in front of him, looking down at him with eyes that seemed to be
boring into him.
It was Kurumina.
“What did you say?”
“Huh? Uh, well, I don't have any money this month.”
“No, what was released?”
“Oh, that one? So Chatfan, it's a game called "Chateau de Fantôme"...... But—”
Just then, the train arrived at the station and the doors opened.
Kurumina ran down to the platform.
The young people who were left behind looked at each other in bewilderment.
“What’s with the guy?”
“Huh? Whoa, whoa, whoa? I think I've seen this guy somewhere before.......”
“Ah.”

Kurumina ran straight up the stairs, exited the ticket gate, and looked around.
It was a fairly large station in some regional city.
The entrance to the station building was right in front of the ticket gate.
Running into it, Kurumina rushed to the information counter and said quickly,
“Where’s the game section?”
“If you are looking for the game section, please go to the toy section on the 7th floor......”
Before she could finish her sentence, Kurumina ran up the escalator to the seventh floor and made a
quick look around the game section of the toy store.
“Found it…”
It was located in the most conspicuous place, right in front of the checkout counter.
There was a three-dimensional billboard with an illustration of the Dark Lord Gortis in the background of
the main character and Huepow, and a promotional video was playing repeatedly on the LCD monitor
below it.
And there was a huge pile of software in front of it, where several people were already picking up the
software and reading the instructions on the back seriously.
Kurumina picked up one of the software titles, then went to the game hardware section, picked up one
of the boxes of the Santendo Terminal console, and hurried to the checkout counter.
When I walked out from the first floor of the station building, the rain that had been falling earlier had
stopped and the rain clouds had parted to reveal a blue sky with strong summer sunshine.
The ground was moist and wet, shimmering and steamy in the sunlight.
The puddles reflected the blue of the sky, and the clouds pass by quickly.
There was a small park right in front of the station building.
When he found a bench at the edge of it, Kurumina ran over and sat on it.
I took the game console out of the box and threw the box on the bench, booted it up, set up the various
settings, and finally inserted the software.

After a series of warnings, the manufacturer's logo appears.

Immediately, Kurumina hit the start button repeatedly.
The manufacturer's logo should be skippable!
It was Saijima who insisted on this, thinking of the users who wanted to play as soon as possible.
When he was working for a major manufacturer, there was a rule that the display had to be shown for
three seconds, and Saijima had resisted until the end, but in the end he had to give up because he could
not get permission from the legal department.
That's why I made sure to skip the logo of the company I started in an instant.
Kurumina followed suit.
Just when I thought it was time for the title screen to appear, I was suddenly greeted with the message,
"There is an update”.

These days, if a game has bugs or other problems after it is released, you can have it download a patch
via the Internet and install it to fix it.
I was surprised to see a patch as soon as it was released.
The industry calls this a "zero-day patch".
Most of the time, this is done when a serious problem is discovered right after the master is submitted,
but in the worst case, there is an ultra-technique where the master is commercialized unfinished in
order not to delay the release date, and by the time it is manufactured and on store shelves, a
correction program is made and replaced. "Chateau de Fantôme" should have had enough time.
What the hell is going on?
While I was thinking about this, the title screen finally appeared and said "Press Start Button".
The flickering red gradation was another favorite of Saijima’s
Suddenly, I could see Saijima engrossed in talking about his idea.
“It’s out in the world.”
The screen darkened as I pressed the start button, as if I were celebrating the birth of my own child.

It’s strange…

Sometimes I can’t remember my dreams, though I’m sure I saw them.

Where do these dreams go?

But I remember this one dream, as clearly as if it were reflected in a mirror…

At this point, Kurumina unconsciously pressed the L button while pressing the cross-directional buttons
in the order of up, down, up, right, down, left, up, LL.
“I’m sorry, that’s the full version.”
Habit is a terrible thing.
I always put this command when I started up the ROM when debugging, so my hand was moving
unconsciously.
It was a debug mode command that was only included in the software under development.
This mode allows you to change internal parameters, move the camera freely, control enemies, and
make yourself invincible.
It would take too much time to check the software if we had to play it from the beginning every time we
got a new ROM, so we put in this mode during development to cut off the progress.
Kurumina smiled shyly when no one was looking, but the next moment he couldn't believe his eyes.

On the screen was a semi-transparent window above the opening scene of the game where the main
character and Huepow meet.
The master ROM, of course, removes the debug mode program itself and prevents it from starting, so it
was not supposed to run in the production version.
Is this what’s left?
It was unthinkable.
Wait a minute, Kurumina thought.
This command must have been special.
The original debug mode command was to press L and R at the same time and use the cross-directional
buttons up down A B A B right left up down RL.
But with this, I need to use both hands to input.
Kurumina wanted to debug the game while drinking coffee, so he asked Kaede, the chief programmer,
to secretly add the previous command for him.
“You're so selfish... I'm specially letting you in because you asked me to, Kurumina-san. Please don't tell
anyone about it.”
I remember Kaede reminding me of that.
That's why I had kept this command a secret even from the debugging team.
If they knew, there's no way the debugging team would have passed the master without leaving debug
mode.
So, did Kaede inadvertently forget to turn it off?
I can't believe that Kaede would make such a mistake.
When I thought about it, I felt strangely uncomfortable.
It occurred to me to reset the software, close it once, and restart it.
I pressed the start button on the title screen again, and the opening began.

It’s strange…

…….

At that moment, I tried entering the command "cross-directional button up down A B A B right left up
down R L" while pressing LR simultaneously.
Nothing happened on the screen, and the scene of the encounter played on.
Indeed, debug mode has been removed.
The debugging team was doing their job.
If that's the case, then what was that display just now?
If there was any possibility, it was that Kaede had left it there intentionally.
The existence of the other command was something that only he and Kaede knew.
If that is the case, then this is a message to myself through the product.
Then again, maybe the "zero-day patch" was also Kaede’s work.
I wonder what Kaede wants to tell me.
I reset it again and went from the title screen to the opening.
Then, I put in my own special command.
A semi-transparent window display appeared on the screen.
“Huh?”
If you looked closely, you could see that among the adjustment items, Scene Select was blinking.
I put the cursor there and pressed the A button.
So now I can start with any scene.
I pressed the bottom of the cross-directional button to send the scene.
Most of the scenes were fixed that day when I didn't return to the office.
The only thing I hadn't created yet was the ending.
He was called in by a board member and forced to make a sudden change, and everyone discussed it
until midnight, until they decided on a simplified version of the ending that could be created in a single
night, but which was just barely able to convey the shocking ending.
Yes, let's see what kind of ending they came up with.
First, I opened the name entry screen.
If I don't register my name here, various bugs will occur.
Kurumina had always decided that the main character of the games he played would be named "Pete".
So I typed 'Pi', '-', and 't'.
Next, I set the item to "Ending" and pressed the A button.
The screen froze and started loading.
Then the screen went black and faded in after a while.
The ending that played there was truly astonishing.

It was in a palace.
The King's Throne Room.
The hero was waiting in front of the king.
“Well done, Pete. I'm going to let you collect your reward.”
When the king said that, the hero bowed his head and said,
"Haha~. Thank you for your blessings.”
Next to him, Huepow, a wind spirit, said as he flew through the air,
“That's great, Pete. Congratulations.”
This text is then displayed.
“Thus, the world was restored to peace by Pete the Brave. Congratulations!”
As the ending background music begins to play, the staff scrolling ticker comes up from below.
The first one that came up was "Producer: Masakazu Toudou". And the last one was "Director Tatsuhiko
Tamiya".

THE END

Then the end scrolling ticker appeared and the screen faded out, faded in, and returned to the title
screen.

Kurumina was stunned for a while.

However, I gradually became angry.
It was a different ending from the one I had conceded to the staff before I left the company.
In the first place, you didn't go to exterminate the bad guys on the king's orders.
And you don't see the main character being happy with his reward or saying that he's lucky to have
Huepow beside him.
In the first place, they weren't fighting for peace, and on top of that, they were saying, "Congratulations,
congratulations”. What kind of game ends like that nowadays?
It's not funny, even in jest.

And then there was the staff message.

I don't like the fact that the producer is the new president, Toudou, but I also don't like the fact that
Saijima-san's name is nowhere to be found.
And when you see that Tamiya, who took charge of the development department, is credited as the
director, you can only assume that he is responsible for the haphazard ending.
In fact, after Kurumina’s disappearance, if the release had been postponed until today, there would
have been at least five months of development time.
Then we could have created the original ending, and even if we only had one day, we could have made
the ending the way we decided it would be.
When I thought about the frustration of the staff who had to go to the trouble of replacing it with such a
trite ending, I regretted not going back to work.
Oh, right, Kaede left a command to show this to himself.
He must be up to something.
Even if some of us bought the game yesterday and got it because it was released today, we still have
one more day to complete everything and get to the ending.
What are they going to do in the meantime?
I have to get in touch with Kaede.

---Kurumina thought, "Oh no”.

When he left his house to look for Saki, he did so without any communication devices, perhaps out of a
sense of not wanting to be disturbed by anyone.
I had no cell phone, no smartphone, no PC, no tablet, no nothing.
And I didn't remember or even keep track of anyone's phone number or email address.
How can I get in touch with him?
When I suddenly came back to myself with this thought, the game console in my hand caught my
attention.
That’s right!
The Mirror Room in the Moon Kingdom, also known as the Buddy Room.

As you progress through the game, Chateau de Fantôme opens up an internet communication room
called the Mirror Room.
Here, players who are playing the same game can meet each other and become buddies, or sidekicks,
and fight together.
Every player lives in his or her own Phantomea.
It is only when the story has progressed to this point that we learn of the existence of parallel worlds, or
parallel universes.
In a normal game, players playing the same game are experiencing the same world in different time
frames.
In other words, it's like a parallel universe.
By connecting these parallel worlds, Chateau de Fantôme makes you aware of the coexistence of reality
and multiple game worlds.
I remember that Saijima was extremely excited when I told him how this works.
“That's great, Kurumina! It's an adventure to discover that the game world is contained within reality,
isn't it?”
That's why we need a shocking true ending at the end.
It was also Saijima’s favorite place.
For Saijima-san's sake, I want to get the true ending back somehow, thought Kurumina.
Another specification was the ability to exchange messages by becoming a buddy.
If I could use this to contact Kaede, I' d use it.......
I entered the command again to enter the debug mode, selected [Buddy Room], and pressed A.
The screen went black and started loading.
After a while, a menu appeared.
I selected the item named [Bravelist].
Then various names were displayed.
These are the names that players all over the world have given to the main character.
But I don't know what name Kaede was playing under.
Even if I could figure out most of them, I would still hate myself for abandoning them and disappearing.
I hadn't told them that Saki was gone, so they could have assumed that I'd gotten fed up with their
orders to alter the ending and disappeared.
With this in mind, I sent off a list to see if I could find a name that would fit the bill, and one name
caught my eye.

Cindy

Saki?
Isn't that Saki?
Maybe Saki found out that "Chateau de Fantôme" was released and is playing it for us.
If that's the case, it's probably a message to myself. It seemed to be the only sign of light for Kurumina,
who had been searching around without any idea what to do.
I even thought that if I missed this, I would never be able to reach Saki again.
When I thought about it, I didn't hesitate to select [Cindy] and send her a buddy request.
However, it would take me at least three more hours to reach this mirror room through normal play.
So Kurumina just waited for the sign to come back that his request had been accepted.
Yes, now we just have to wait and see.
12: We’ve got to hurry

“Wait, what is it, then? Are you saying that the ending is the only thing different from what Kurumina
intended?” Natsume said with a frustrated look on his face.
Natsume was also a top-notch creator.
I can understand the frustration of the producer's unwillingness to bend the intentions as if it were my
own.
“But his disappearance caused the release to be postponed, didn't it? Couldn't you have done
something with the five months you had?” Kaede said as if he was dodging Natsume's protest as if it
were his own.
“That didn't work out so well, did it? The day after we found out that Kurumina was gone, the board
members came to us and told us that they were going to put "Chatfan" on hold.”
“Did you even make it that far?”
“Yeah, because of Kurumina’s disappearance. Since then, our project has been dismantled and I've been
sent to help with various projects. But in July, things changed dramatically.”
The Santendo Terminal, released in March, had been on the market for three months.
When the product was first released, it sold well, with many stores running out of stock, but it was
already starting to lose steam due to the lack of key products.
The fact that the highly anticipated "Chateau de Fantôme" had not yet been released had no small
impact on the decision.
In the first place, the fact that it was postponed, or rather effectively cancelled, just before the final
ROM, did not sit well with Santendo.

Therefore, I was asked again by Santendo to complete and release "Chateau de Fantôme".
In addition, the company promised to provide large-scale advertising support and to pay an up-front
sales incentive regardless of the number of units sold.
As a matter of fact, after Saijima’s death, the company reviewed its projects, and as a result, there were
almost no new products, and even the sequels to classic titles were losing sales due to lackluster sales.
It's no wonder that the current leaders were so excited when this tasty offer came in.
After all, even just promising to release the product would bring in a lot of cash, free publicity, and even
more profit if it sold.
The original project members were immediately gathered and it was announced within the company
that the project would be restarted with Director Tamiya as the director.

The deadline was one week.

Including re-debugging, I only had one day to produce the ending.
When Kaede found out that Kurumina had disappeared, he was terribly disappointed.
I do think it's unwillingness to make the ending a simplified version.
Especially since it was a specification that I was so attached to.
But that didn't stop him from abandoning his project members and disappearing, an act of betrayal.
On top of that, they were forced to cancel it because of his disappearance.
Kaede was beyond disappointed, he was even angry.
However, this had gradually faded over the past five months, and now he could afford to be considerate
of Kurumina’s feelings at the time.
Indeed, many of the younger staff still lambast him as a coward who abandoned them and ran away.
However, she had come to believe that friends like Kaede and Narutani, who had been with the
company since its inception, must have been in a very bad situation.
That's where this reopening comes in.
Anyway, Kaede was more than happy to be able to create an ending that could be completed in a day,
which he and Kurumina had discussed at that time, and to be able to release the work to the world.
I knew that if I did that, I would be able to laugh about it when I met Kurumina again someday.

However, the director, Mr. Tamiya, wrote another specification himself and forced it on us.
What a cliché it was.
It was more like a deliberate attempt to make it stale.
Why should we change to a new specification when we have a specification as originally intended that
can be done in the same day?
I tried to argue with him, but he didn't listen to me.
“Then it's up to you to replace the main programmer,” he told me coldly.
With those words, Kaede was forced to swallow all of his objections, and it was then that he made a
decision.
“I've planted a timed bug,” Kaede said with a chuckle.
Natsume was puzzled, not really understanding what was being said.
“In fact, I wanted to create and prepare the true ending at that time, but it was difficult to do so in a
timely manner. It was all I could do to make Tamiya's rotten ending. Then I had an idea. After submitting
the master, I thought that I could update the game after it was released if any fatal bugs were
discovered that might occur over time. That would buy me about a month and a half of time.”
“What kind of bug is it?”
“Every time a subroutine loops, it keeps allocating a buffer in memory, and if it tries to go to the ending
with the buffer overflowed, it stops. But there is a counter in the program that allocates the buffer that
does not start to allocate the buffer until it reaches '1' or more.”
“Well, I'm not sure, but it means that if a certain amount of time passes after the counter reaches "1",
the game stops before the ending?”
“As expected of a genius director. You understand quickly.”
“But I didn't find it well with the debug aging.”
“The initial value of this counter was taken from a certain address when I first accessed the server, but it
had a negative value written in it. So it will never be a positive number while debugging. This is why it's
okay to check aging until it's clear after running it for 30 hours straight. But, you know, after the master
approval, you reset the server. When the server is reset after the master approval, the value there will
be reset to zero. So it takes about 24 hours for it to happen.”
Then Natsume said with a doubtful look on his face,
“But if they debug the update program, they'll know the ending has been changed.”
“As it is now, the ending is still Tamiya's rotten ending. So it's not like debugging is going to be a
problem. However, when a hidden switch is pressed in the game, a "1" is written to a location on the
user data server.”
Kaede, being the genius programmer that he is, stuck his chin out a bit and continued with a gesture of
looking down at him with a sense of pride.
“When you go to the ending, you're supposed to access the user data server only once, and you know
why?”
Natsume rubbed his nose with his fist to lift it, and said with a scowl,
“To find out how many people were able to reach the ending...... Right?”
Kaede clicked his tongue.
“If the address is flagged with a "1", the true ending program will be triggered.”
“That’s very elaborate.”
“Palette's debugging team is the best in the industry, and they'll find you if you don't do this.”
“If they’re that good, they'll probably find that hidden switch, too.”
Then Kaede went back to his signature look and said,
“That's where you come in. In this game, there is a buddy room in the middle of the game, where users
can form buddies to fight together, usually in pairs. However, there is a program that is only activated
when a user named "Pete" and a user named "Ace" become buddies. So, Kurumina and Natsujun, that's
you.”
“Kurumina and I ...... Will Kurumina play the game?”
Certainly there is no guarantee that Kurumina will play the game when we don't know what caused his
disappearance.
But Kaede said with a confident look in his eyes,
“No, Kurumina will definitely play "Chatfan" when it is released. Moreover, he always uses the character
name "Pete". That's how much this game means to him.”
Kaede looked as if he had tears in his eyes, but he grinned and continued.
“And only when the program is activated, the third buddy can become a friend. Then I'll register them as
buddies and guide them through the process. The hidden switch has to be pressed by all three of us at
the same time to activate it. See? This way, they won't be able to find us when we're debugging.”
Natsume couldn't help but chuckle when he saw Kaede talking so happily.
“Aren't you having a little fun?”
When he said that, Kaede thought that she was right.
This is an act of revenge against the executives.
That's why it's so important to outsmart them and bring back the true ending to the world.
“Well, the three of us, Kurumina, Natsujun and I, would like to take revenge on that enemy.”
“It's an honor.”
“Well, there's also the fact that it's harder to find out if someone outside the company is involved.”
Kaede felt a bit embarrassed when Natsume expressed his gratitude honestly.
“That's why I want Natsujun to find "Pete" before someone else clears it after the update, and flag the
ending for replacement with me.”
“How much time do we have?”
“When I looked into the user data server this morning, I found that someone had gotten the software
before it was released, and the time stamp on the user registration was 5:26 p.m. yesterday. It's now
12:03 p.m., so it's already been nineteen hours. That means I've got about six hours at the earliest to
clear it.”

Then Kaede’s pants pocket began to vibrate.

Kaede pulled his phone out of his pocket and put it to his ear.
“Ah, Narutani, what?...... What? Tamiya?...... Okay, okay, I'll be right back. Until then, you can fake it
somehow....... Yeah, bye.”
He hung up the phone and looked at Natsume.
“Tamiya's guy seems to suspect something about me, and he's looking for me. I'm going back to the
office, because I don't want to get spotted now. Also, this is the special debug command—"
He took out a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen from his pocket and scribbled.
“Now you'll be able to use debug mode in the product, so go into the buddy room and find him.”
With that, he put the paper with the commands on it in Natsume's hand and hurried to the exit.
“Okay, I'll see you later in the game.”
He walked out of the store with his hands raised.
Hey, you didn't pay for the coffee, did you?
With a wry smile, Natsume woke the game console from its sleep.

“We’ve got to hurry.”

13: I listened intently

“Hurry!” Huepow shouted as he raced up the spiral staircase that leads to the top floor of the Temple of
the Sun.
Fighting in this temple, where it was scorching hot all over my body, severely drained my strength.
The reason I was able to keep running, even though my legs were no longer able to lift up and I almost
stumbled while wiping sweat off my face, was because I had my grandpa's face burned into my mind.
Finally, we reached a room on the top floor. There was an intricately decorated platform, and the huge
crystal ball on the altar above the platform appeared to float in the flickering light of the countless
torches that filled the room on either side.

“You’re too late,” said a dark voice that made me feel as if the bottom of my stomach was being gutted,
and laughed with a huff.
It was the Dark Lord Gortis.
“The energy is fully charged. All that's left is to activate it with this pendant.”
“Stop!”
Huepow swooped down and headed for it.
But as soon as Gortis took a swing with his sharp clawed hand, a black shockwave was created and
Huepow was flung to the corner of the room.
Gortis quickly raised the pendant above the giant crystal ball and dropped it in, causing it to ripple and
fall into it as if the crystal were a body of water.
As the pendant sank, it stopped just at the center.
The next moment, a dazzling light overflowed from the pendant's crest, filling the entire room at once.
The light split into three and flew out of the temple.

One of them went to the giant waterwheel in the king's castle in the Water Kingdom.
The other went to the giant gears of the mechanical castle in the forest of trees.
And the last one flies towards the windmill in the wind village.
The waterwheel, the gears, and the windmill that were illuminated by the light began to spin madly at
high speed, emitting an ear-splitting boom sound, and then beams of light shot out from the center of
their rotation.
The three beams of light were flying towards a point in the world.
The moment the beams of light gathered at that one point, a bolt of lightning struck directly below it.
The lightning bolt struck the ground and disappeared as if it had been sucked straight into the air.

Then silence.
The darkness of the night deepens as it piles up on the ground again.

In the next moment, the ground suddenly exploded in a huge explosion, scattering rocks in all directions.
The plume swirled and curled, growing ever larger as lightning flashed in and out of it.
The conical roofs, carved walls and pillars, and gleaming ornamental gates were occasionally illuminated
by lightning in the swirl of smoke.
Yes, it was a castle that emerged from the ground.
It's also a huge castle, much bigger than you can imagine.
The castle gradually left the whirlpool of fumes and soared into the air.
The castle, enveloped in a majestic light, found itself floating in the air, reigning over the center of the
world.

“Chateau de Fantôme...... is the royal palace of Cress, the Moon Kingdom,” Huepow said, staring at the
castle floating in the air.
Then, a light that illuminated the darkness approached from the other side of the forest.
It was a huge looking fish.
But the fish came flying through the air as if swimming in water.
She came to the front of the cliff and said, "I am Pamela. Come on, get on my back.”
I jumped on, and she rose at great speed to the entrance of the castle in the Moon Kingdom.
“Thank you. You've been a big help,” I said to Pamela as I got off at the entrance to the castle.
"Take care," Pamela said as she turned to Huepow and flew away. "I'll be counting on you.”
“….Huepow, do you know Pamela?”
Without saying a word, Huepow stared at my face.
What?
He seemed to have something on his mind......
And just as Huepow was about to say something, the entrance to the castle slowly opened and light
flooded out from within.
A woman wearing a tiara on her head and a shining white robe appeared from the light.
“Cindy, I've been waiting for you.”
She was waiting for me?
How does she know about me?
“So… follow… your… destiny......”
I remembered Grandpa’s words.
“I am Merna, princess of the Moon Kingdom. I need your help to save this world.”
Then the princess turned to Huepow and said,
“Huepow, thank you for your help. As soon as the Moon Kingdom was restored, Gortis invaded and
occupied it. He has sealed the Diva Rebrise in the egg below and is pouring nightmare energy into it. If
this continues, the nightmares will run out of control.”
Huepow replied with a resolute look on his face,
“I understand. Mother, please go and hide in a safe place.”
Mother?
Did he just say "mother"?
The princess of the Moon Kingdom is his mother?
“Your mother is......... What are you…..?”
Huepow was silent and downcast, but glancing at the princess, he was nudged by her gentle smile and
nod, and began to speak.
“I'm actually ...... actually ...... I'm the prince of Cress, the Moon Kingdom.”
Huepow is the prince of the Moon Kingdom?
I don't understand.
“The wind spirit was a temporary form. I was out in the world for a reason.”
“Why?”
“Sorry....... I can't tell you why right now. But I'm sure, I'll tell you later. I just need a little more help
from you....... Please, Cindy.”
I don't know what the circumstances were.
But at that moment, Huepow's eyes were as clear as Lake Pafari, where it is said that pieces of time have
sunk.
In times like these, a good friend is supposed to lend a helping hand without asking any questions.
Friends and family.......
As soon as those words popped into my mind, a flood of happy memories of meeting Huepow, sleeping
and waking up together, running around the fields, exploring the mountains, and fishing in the river
came to mind.
I've had many close calls.
There was even a time when I encountered a monster in the forest.
Whenever that happened, Huepow was always there to help me.
Yes, Huepow and I are best friends, like one.
Now that my best friend is in trouble, isn't it time for me to use all the power I have?
“Huepow, don't be silly. We've always been best friends.”
“Cindy…. Thank you.”
Huepow was in tears.
He smiled as he wiped the tears from his eyes with his fist.
The princess, Merna, turned to us and said,
“There's one more thing I need to tell you. Listen carefully. Go to the Mirror Room ahead. There, you
will be able to call upon one of your alter egos from the countless worlds that exist beyond the mirror.”
“Our alter egos?” I asked her back, since I didn't know what she was talking about at all, but Princess
Merna didn't answer me.
“If you join forces with your alter ego, you will surely be able to eliminate that evil black shadow, Gortis.
I'm counting on you.”
“Yes, mother!” Huepow said, his mouth tightly sealed in determination.

And so we went on our way.

We passed through the castle gates and proceeded down the corridor leading from the entrance.
To the left and right were statues of what looked like brave men, but after the battle with Gortis, they
were all heavily destroyed, with wreckage lying everywhere.
I continued down the corridor and at the end of the hallway, I saw a mirror that was twice my height.
I slowly approached it with my hand held straight out.
My fingertips touched the mirror.
Then the mirrored surface wavered and my hand was sucked in.
Then, my body went straight into the mirror.
Through the mirror, there was a dark room.
This must be the Mirror Room.
I listened intently to the footsteps of fate.
14: That’s how it started spinning

Since yesterday evening, I got carried away and played "Chatfan" all night long.
Is it past noon already?
I feel like the game is reaching its climax.
When I faced the mirror in the room and pressed the A button, a message appeared on the screen.

This is the Mirror Room.

Here, you can team up with one of the players from around the world and fight together.
The player you are paired with is called your buddy.

You will be presented with a series of choices.

▷ Make a Buddy Request

Confirm a Buddy Request

It's nerve-wracking to be alone among all the players in the world, as if it's the ultimate choice.
With Twitter and Facebook, you can be friends with as many people as you want, so it's easy to approve
them without thinking twice, but when you're alone, you think twice.
That is, in a way, a meeting with fate.
What should I do?
Hmm.
I was thinking about it when suddenly a window opened and a message appeared.

Buddy requests have been received.

▷ Check now
Check later

What? Who?
It means that there is someone who saw my character name and made that one fateful choice.
Why, why?
When I selected "Check Now," the other person's profile appeared on the screen.

Name: Pete
Gender: Male
Favorite color: Purple

I wonder who Pete is.

Takeshi Tabata?
No, that guy's nickname is 'Beat'.
If they saw the name "Cindy" and submitted a request, then it must be someone from the school.
Only the guys in my class call me Cindy, so it must be one of the boys in my class.
Wait, just because you register your gender as male, it's doubtful that you're really a boy.
So they could be impersonating someone else.
So it could be a girl.
No way…
It can't be Haruka, can it?
I don't remember Haruka having a game console.
Oh, I think she took away the one that Ayaka Takasugi has.
Yes, she was playing, a game.
A game to collect some candies.
By the way, didn't she often wear a purple ribbon?
She likes purple, right?
She wants to mess with me in the game, too?
Hmm, not so fast.
If you're in a game, it's one-on-one, so you can go the other way.
Shall I pretend not to notice, become a buddy, and get even in the game?
But what is "Pete" anyway?

Do you want to accept the buddy request?

▷ Yes
No

While I was thinking about it, I got to the approval screen.

Well, once I approve it, there's no reason I can't resolve it later, so I'll just approve it here.
When I selected "Yes" and pressed the decision button, the communication icon started spinning.
That's how my fate started spinning.
15: I’ll ask him anyway

Kurumina’s head was spinning.

I was always impatient, and waiting was my least favorite thing to do. I couldn't understand people who
stood in line for an hour to eat at a reputable noodle shop. If that was the case, I would go to another
restaurant where I could get in right away. I always had to have something going on in order to feel
comfortable.
If I got stuck on something at work, I did something else. So I was even more frustrated with this
situation where I had nothing to do and was waiting. At times like this, games are a great way to pass
the time, but all I have now is "Chatfan" and I can't go on from here. I had no choice but to wait.
At times like this, we tend to think only of bad developments. I wondered if Saki would play the game in
the first place. When I brought home a game I was working on, I would let Saki play as a sample player,
but I had never seen her buy a game and play it herself. She had a portable game console, but it was
mainly a player for watching movies recorded on video. Thinking about this made me feel hopeless and
my head spinning more and more.

At that moment, the Santendo Terminal buzzed and vibrated. The light that received the communication
came on.
“It’s come!”
With unmatched speed, Kurumina operated the button and entered the mirror room. Then a window
opened and a message appeared.

Buddy requests have been received.

▷ Check now
Check later

Buddy request? It wasn't a notification of approval of a request sent to Saki, but rather a request
received from someone else. Then it could be Kaede. He even went to the trouble of leaving a command
for himself to show the ending. I wouldn't be surprised if he used the buddy room as a means of
communication. Anyway, let's check.
When I selected "Check Now," the other person's profile was displayed.

Name: Ace
Gender: Male
Favorite color: Red
Ace! This must be Jun Natsume. An old team member knows that Kurumina is a fan of the name Pete. I
guess they found the nostalgic character name 'Pete' in the list and requested it. If I can get in touch
with Natsume, I can get in touch with Kaede. When he thought of this, a hesitation arose in Kurumina’s
mind. There's only one set of buddies you can make. If he made a buddy with Natsume, it would be
closed and he would not be able to make a buddy with anyone else. If that was the case, even if Saki
gave her approval, it would be rejected. If that happened, there would be no more clues at all. Kurumina
was lost in thought. But as if seeing through his hesitation, a message appeared on the screen.

Do you want to accept the buddy request?

▷ Yes
No

Kurumina remembered that the specification was that if you hesitated to approve for a certain amount
of time, it would be automatically cancelled. It's a great way to get people to join you if you happen to
meet them without thinking too much about it. I hurriedly selected "Yes".

Why don't I just approve it for now, tell Natsume what happened later, and then cancel it and wait?
That's what I thought.

Ace and Pete are now buddies.

Kurumina chose "Check Buddy". The screen turned to Ace's profile screen.
So I selected "Send Message" and wrote the following message.
“I'm Kurumina. Long time no see! Natsume, right? I'm actually in an unknown city for some reason.”

After a while, I received a reply.

“This is Natsume. It's been a while. I heard about the situation from Kaede-san.”
The situation that Kaede told him about must be about the company and the ending. After all, Kaede
had intentionally left the command. But why did he leave Natsume to be my buddy? Why can't Kaede
do it himself? When I thought about it, I was curious about the situation of the company after Saijima’s
death. Naturally, the executives who had been overwhelmed by Saijima’s death would have come to
dominate the company. This is the reason why the members of Kurumina’s team, such as Kaede and the
others, are in a difficult position. Originally I had to be there to protect the members, but instead I chose
to run away.
“I have to apologize to Kaede. How are you doing now?”
Almost as soon as I sent the message, the light that received the communication came on.

Cindy has approved Pete's buddy application.

“!!!!!”
What do you mean? Right now, Kurumina is in a buddy relationship with Natsume. While they are
already buddies, no other player should be able to enter. Is this a bug? No, but there's no way they
could have missed such a big bug. The server-related specifications were implemented two months
before the full-scale debugging, and just before Kurumina disappeared, the debugging had already been
completed, and Kurumina himself had confirmed that the third player could not enter. It was the same
even if they entered in debug mode. What was going on here? Kurumina was puzzled, but quickly
thought better of it. If it was approved, then it would be possible to send messages, right?
Kurumina decided to send a message to Cindy to try it out.
“I'm sorry if I made a mistake. Cindy, aren't you Saki?”
After finishing writing the message, Kurumina kept his finger touching the send button on the screen,
thinking. This can't be Saki, can it? If it was Saki, why did she contact him in such a roundabout way? It's
just a matter of meeting in person and talking. No, but there may be circumstances that prevent us from
meeting now. If that's the case, if I cut her off here, I'll never see her again.
I pulled my finger away from the button,

Your message has been sent.

It was displayed. Then the reception light came on again. It was from Natsume.
“Kaede is planning to bring back the true ending in the upcoming update. That's why he made it so that
only when Pete and Ace became buddies, the third person could become a friend. Kaede-san will be
joining us later.”
Kaede, how could you plant such a hidden program? After all, he is a genius programmer. He has a
different kind of power when it comes to things like this. Wait, isn't Kaede going to join us now that
Cindy has just entered the room?
Oh no, I have to get rid of my buddy with Cindy before Kaede gets access to it. It was at that moment
that I hurriedly tried to enter " Check Buddy".
The game console buzzed and vibrated again, and the reception light came on. I opened the message.
“It’s Saki.”
…….Saki…….
It really was Saki, wasn't it? Kurumina’s emotions were so jumbled up with surprise, confusion and joy
that he didn't know what he looked like. Fortunately, no one was around to see his face.
I knew it was Saki. She knew that the game I was working on had been released and she was playing it.
“I'm so glad you played, Saki.”
After calming down a bit, Kurumina sent that message.
“Of course. I've been looking forward to it.”
After some hesitation, Kurumina boldly cut to the heart of the matter.
“Where are you now? Why did you suddenly disappear?”
Kurumina waited for a reply with a nervous look on his face. However, the reply did not come easily.
Then a message from Natsume came in first.
“When Kaede-san becomes the third buddy, we plan to turn on a hidden switch in a certain place for all
three of us at the same time!”
So that's how it is. It's an elaborate trick again, thought Kurumina, a little taken aback. But it is typical of
Kaede to have a sense of fun even at times like this. Kurumina laughed when he remembered Kaede’s
good-natured gesture of sticking out his chin and looking down at him.

But if that was the case, this was a bad idea. Kaede would not be able to be a buddy and would be
repelled. But if he dissolved his buddy relationship with Cindy now, he would lose contact with Saki
again. What should I do? While Kurumina was struggling, the message receiving light came on.
“I can't tell you why right now.”
It was Cindy's reply. Then Kurumina pondered. Right now, I want to stay connected with Saki like this.
But that would mean that Kaede would not be able to be my buddy. If that's the case, why don't the
three of us, Saki, myself and Natsume, succeed in our mission? That seemed to be the best way to go
right now.
“For some reason, another person joined the third person, so Kaede couldn't enter. Get the location of
the hidden switch from Kaede.”
It is indeed hard to imagine that they are changing the map of the software at that stage of pursuit. If
that's the case, then Kurumina knows every inch of this game's map. As long as he had a hint as to
where the stage was, he was confident that he could get there without Kaede’s guidance.
“What do you mean? I'll ask him anyway.”
16: That’s why

When Kaede came back to the office and walked into the development room, Narutani came flying in
with a pale face.
“Kaede-san, you're already late. I couldn't cover it up, so I said that Kaede-san was slacking off at the
coffee shop.”
Kaede laughed when he heard this and took his seat.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said as I turned on the development machine and the PC. “Well, it's not wrong, so it's
okay.”
“Mr. Tamiya has called me several times on the phone and told me to tell you to come to the executive
director's office as soon as you got back.”
Reflecting on the fact that this role was too much for Narutani, who hated lying more than anything
else, Kaede began to operate the Santendo Terminal, which was connected to the development
machine by a wire. The product version was a portable game console, but during development, the PC
and the development machine were a set, and the machine was wired to the PC so that programs could
be sent and tested as needed.
“I'll be right there after I get some more work done.”
The main unit of the development machine started up and the debug mode appeared on the monitor.
After a quick operation, Kaede entered the buddy room and looked for Ace. However, he could not find
Ace's name in the menu.
What's going on? I wonder if Natsume couldn't get into the debug mode properly.

As I was thinking about this, the PHS of my extension rang.

“Hello, this is Kaede.”
The other side was Tamiya.
“You're skipping out at this crucial moment. Geez. Where the hell are you?”
He seemed to be very irritated. He was talking even faster than usual.
Then Kaede’s phone vibrated.
“I'm a master now, so let me take a break.” I took my phone out of my pocket and saw that I had
received a text message from Natsume while talking through my PHS extension.
“I'm almost back in the development room. I'll be there as soon as I check my e-mail,” I deceitfully
replied and operated my phone to open Natsume's email.
“It seems that someone else has entered the third person. Can you tell me where the secret is?”
What did it mean? Did someone join the buddies? Is that why Ace's name didn't show up on the list? But
who on earth is it?
“Checking your e-mail, is that private e-mail?”
“Checking your e-mail, is that private e-mail?”
Feeling uncomfortable that he could hear the same words slightly out of sync, Kaede turned around to
see Tamiya standing there looking down at him, holding the extension's PHS to his ear.
“Oh….”
Tamiya quickly snatched the phone from Kaede’s left hand and stared at the screen.
“Natsume? The Natsume that pulled out and moved on?”
Not good. If they get suspicious here, they might find out about our plan. Kaede replied with a face that
said nothing of the sort.
“Yeah, we're still friends, you know. He seems to be playing Chatfan, and he's always asking me to teach
him tricks.”
“You may be friends, but he's an outsider. These interactions are problematic.”
“Ehehe, sorry, I'll be careful,” I laughed good-naturedly and put out my hand to get my phone back, but
Tamiya lifted it up with his fingers and said,
“I'll keep this for a while.”
“That's not right.”
When Kaede said this with a bit of a joke, Tamiya put his face close to his from above, as if peeking in.
"You're not up to something, are you?" he said.
Kaede was quite upset inside at this. Tamiya is a man with a strange sense of humor. He thought that
Chairman Karasawa must be using him for that kind of ability.
“What is it? What do you mean up to something?” Kaede laughed it off.
Tamiya stared at Kaede for a while, then snickered and said,
“Whatever. I've found a bug in Fairchro, the game I mastered the other day. I want you to fix it in the
development room over there right now.”
“Eh? Why not here?”
Fairchro is a PS4 game that Kaede has been helping out with since Chatfan was put on hold. Although it's
been a decade since Fairy Chronicle was released, Fairy Chronicle Revive is actually a high-end version,
or remake, of the first game. It's really hard to make new games in this environment.
Anyway, the development environment of PS4 is at my seat, and I can check "Chatfan" and fix "Fairchro"
here. So why......?
“No. I have a special room set aside for you,” Tamiya said with a grin and an unpleasant laugh.
“What do you mean, a special room?”
“You'll see.”
With that, Tamiya headed for the exit, where he turned around and said, "Come on!”

Kaede had no choice but to follow Tamiya and arrived at the boardroom next to Tamiya's executive
office. Inside the room, there was a large, dignified conference desk with seats for nine people on each
side. On the right side of the desk, right in the middle, was a PC and a PS4 development machine, and
next to it was a PC and a Santendo Terminal development machine. Next to the PC, there was also a
development machine for the Santendo Terminal, but sitting at the Santendo Terminal machine was a
programmer named Ushio Ryuji.
He was a stocky man with a fat face and body, who ate and drank from 1.5 liter bottles of juice and
sweets, and sat in front of his computer all day typing on the keyboard while listening to anime songs at
high volume with full-fledged audio headphones. He was a programmer Tamiya had recruited from
Techno Games, a rival company. However, his programming skills were something that even Kaede took
a shine to.
“You'll be working here. By the way, this computer is not connected to the outside Internet. No e-mail,
no Internet until we fix the bug.”
Tamiya clearly believed that Kaede was up to something. That's why he wanted to isolate him in this
room, cutting off all contact with the outside world and the development machine at the Santendo
Terminal.
Now that my phone has been taken away, I couldn't even communicate with Facebook, Twitter, LINE,
email, Mixi, blogs, or game consoles. This meant that I couldn't even tell Natsume where the hidden
switch was.
But one thing I was lucky about was that there was a third person, I don't know who, who became a
buddy instead of Kaede. This was because Kaede couldn't be his buddy in the current situation anyway.
Now I have to somehow show Natsume where the hidden switch is. That way, we should be able to
revive the true ending.

As Kaede was about to take a seat at the PS4 development machine, Ushio next to him turned his round
face and bowed to him.
“I've asked Ushio-kun to analyze the source of the remastered program of "Chateau de Fantôme",”
Tamiya said, looking down at Kaede.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Kaede exclaimed in surprise.

“We can't update it so many times. I'm just going to have another programmer check it out just to be
sure. Don't worry about it. Or,” he continued, looking at Kaede, who was giving Tamiya a sharp glare. “Is
there something you don't want me to see?”
“No…. Not at all…..”
Kaede had no choice but to remain silent in front of Tamiya's eyes that tried to see through his mind.
This was unexpected. With Ushio's skills, it seemed only a matter of time before he could find the server
check before the ending, or the sequence to switch to the true ending. It would be about five more
hours until someone would get to the current ending. If the hidden switch were not pressed by then, the
true ending could no longer be revived. Before that, if Ushio finds out about Kaede’s trick, he'll be able
to rewrite the server's programming to prevent the flag from being set. Then, even if the updated
program is activated, it won't be able to replace the true ending.
This is a desperate situation.
“Ushio, please take care of it. It's too late for anything to go wrong.”
As expected, in front of the general manager, Ushio took off his headphones and looked up at him.
Tamiya patted him on the shoulder and went back to his room.
“Yes, sir. Leave it to me.”
Ushio looked over at Tamiya and then at Kaede, sneering as he chewed on the mini-donut in one hand.
“That's why I'm looking forward to working with you, Senpai!”
17: I know it's probably just my imagination

“Who’s Saki?”
I tilted my head as I read the message.
“I'm sorry if I made a mistake. Cindy, aren't you Saki?”
You're wrong. I'm Yuna, not Saki.
But I wonder if this Saki's nickname is also Cindy.
And that person is not around now.
And Pete is looking for that person.
Maybe it was a sister who had been separated from him when he was a child.
Pete and Cindy's parents died when they were young and they were taken away to different facilities.
Ten years have passed since then, and while they're living their own lives, they happened to buy the
same game and play it together.
After all, siblings have the same blood in their veins, which means they were attracted to the same
game.
And so, through the game, they had an emotional reunion.
Isn’t it "World's greatest news"!

But wait, it's a little weird that the siblings call each other Pete and Cindy.
It's hard to imagine that Saki-chan's nickname is Cindy.
Then again, maybe I'm more mature than that.
That's right, it's not always a child.
This game has something that even adults with a child's heart are scared of.
I'm like that.
No, they could be more mature.
Then it could be a former lover.
After a great love affair, they got together.
But a little twist of fate caused a rift between them.
It got bigger and bigger, and finally they were separated.
But Pete still can't get Cindy out of his mind, and every now and then he remembers her and gets lost in
thought.
Oh, where is Cindy now?
Then one day, while playing a game he had picked up, he found Cindy among the players.
That's a fateful reunion, isn't it?
The two were connected by a red internet, not a red thread.
A miracle drew them together.
They couldn't honestly express their feelings to each other face to face, so they had to part ways, but
now that they were connected through communication, they were able to open up honestly.
It's kind of romantic, isn't it?
At the end of your life, it might not be a bad idea to try living another life.

“It’s Saki.”
I wrote that in my message, and after a bit of hesitation, I sent it.
My name is Saki.
The Princess is separated from the love of her life, and when she is lost in her life, she is miraculously
reunited with the man of her dreams at the Phantom Castle.
“I'm so glad you played, Saki.”
Huh?
What does he mean by "played"?
I guess Pete really wanted Saki to play this game.
Why?
If I like this game, I'm sure Saki will like it too, because we're both alike, right?
It's wonderful to have someone who can relate to you.
If there was even one person like that, no matter how dark the world was, no matter how full of pain it
was, they must have been able to live.
Yes, Saki is invaluable to Pete.
“Of course. I've been looking forward to it.”
This was my honest opinion.
Well, I hadn't been following the information since it was postponed, so I forgot about it until now. Ehe.
The story of this game started out as a typical story of a small adventure where something fell in the
mountains behind the house, so let's go there.
Things are suddenly getting serious, and my partner, Huepow, is the prince of the Moon Country. There
seems to be a deep, deep mystery.
That means my intuition was right when I first saw it in Famitsu.
From here on, I'll have to work with Pete to solve the mystery.

Oh, speak of the devil, Pete has a message for me.

“Where are you now? Why did you suddenly disappear?”
Oops, it's "suddenly".
Saki, you've been missing?
And Pete doesn't seem to have any idea.
This eliminates the theory that they were siblings separated at an early age.
The theory of a reunion with destiny is gaining ground.
And it's like they were spending time together until recently, and then suddenly she’s gone?
I wonder where she's gone, Saki.
"Where? or "Why?" To be honest, I don't know what to say.
I wonder what's going on.
If I say the right things…
That's it!

“I can't tell you why right now.”

That’s it!
Let's borrow a few words from Huepow, who I just saw, and get through this.
He said that one day, when the time was right, he would tell me.
Saki's mysterious disappearance.
Pete is eager to solve the mystery.
And a miraculous reunion.
But the mystery still remains.
Because you can't solve a mystery until you reach the end of the story.
That's the way it is.

Oh, I got another message. What is it?

“Actually, the ending of this game is completely different from my specifications. And I need Saki's help
to get it back.”
The game's ending?
My specifications?
I wonder what it is.
Are you trying to change the ending of the game?
So that's what we're supposed to get back?
Uh, what does that mean?
In other words, for some reason, the ending of the game has been changed, and you're trying to get it
back.
And that original ending is 'my specifications', right?
It means that it was Pete, ‘me’, who created the specifications for the ending.
Does that mean you're the director?
Eh, eh, eh, eh, wait a minute.
Pete is the director of this game?
I'm a little skeptical.
Who's the director of this?
I can't remember.
Oh, yeah. There was an interview in Famitsu, right?
I believe it was in the fall of 2017, so it must have been in one of the September issues.
I followed the Famitsu books on the shelf and came across an issue that was released in August of 2017.
I pulled out a few of them, flipped through them, and found the August 31st issue.
Yuji Kurumina.
He's a bit handsome and a cool creator.
Perhaps it was a picture of the moment when he was passionately talking about something, his hands
spread out in front of his chest, as if he was holding some invisible round ball.
His eyes were sparkling and his passion for this work seemed to be overflowing.
I wonder if this guy is Pete.
Yeah, the specifications aren't necessarily written by the director.
The scenario writer might have written the specification of the ending.
I read the article with nostalgia.
Then one line caught my eye.
“I came up with a shocking ending, and we created the story from there.”
The story was the idea of the director, Kurumina.
And it was also Kurumina who came up with the astonishing ending.
No way!
I'm pretty sure this is it.
Pete is Kurumina.

All right, check it out.

“"Of course I will cooperate, Yuji.”
Yeah!
I sent it.
If this makes him say “?”, I’ve got the wrong guy.
If he replies normally, it means he's the real deal.
What if it’s real?!
I can't believe I'm buddies in a game with the creator of the game of my dreams.
Oh, but I'm impersonating Saki-san.
If he found out about this, he would be very angry.
When I thought about it, I realized that if I wanted to tell the truth, it was now or never.
What should I do?
I guess I should say.
No, there's no way it's real in the first place.
"Who' s Yuji? " I'm sure he'll reply.
Then I'll say, "Oops, wrong person." I'll just apologize and delete the buddy registration.
Also……

Oh, I got a reply.

“Thank you. Saki. Nice to meet you.”
…….
It's the real deal.
I feel a little guilty.
But there's no turning back now.
All I have to do is try my best to get the original ending back.
When I made up my mind to do so, I somehow felt that if I could get through that adventure, something
would change.
Well, I just had a feeling.
I know it's probably just my imagination, though.
18: But it’ll work out

The two people I met in the mirror room were identical in appearance to me.
The only thing was the color of the clothes, one was red and one was blue.
I could tell the three of them apart by the color of their clothes, since mine were purple.
The red one was named Ace and the blue one was named Cindy.
Of the three of us, I, Pete, somehow knew the most about the road, so for convenience I was assigned to
be the leader.
“Nice to meet you.”
When I held out my hand, Ace immediately grabbed it back with both hands. He shook and said, "It's
nice to meet you, too.”
He's a very polite and nice young man.
Cindy, on the other hand, I somehow had a feeling that I had met her somewhere before.
But for the life of me, I could not remember.
“Nice to meet you.”
Then I held out my hand, but she just raised her hand lightly with an "Ah" and did not shake my hand.
Apparently, she's shy.
But I don't feel any hostility.
In these situations, it's better to step in a little forcefully.
I quickly wrapped my hands around hers and squeezed.
Cindy looked a little confused, but then she looked away, with a hint of embarrassment. “N...... nice to
meet you.......”
She seems like a shy one.

“Well, it looks like we're all here.”

When the three of them turned around at the sound of his voice, they saw Huepow flapping the wings
on his back as he flew.
“Welcome to the Château de Fantôme, the Phantom Castle.”
“Chateau de Fantôme?” Cindy asked back with a curious look on her face.
“Yes, this is the Moon Kingdom, the land of creation. It's the place that creates all the things that shape
the world of Phantomea, where you live.”
Huepow continued to explain as he circled around us.
“And the source of this creation is the energy of dreams of people all over the world. You dream, don't
you? But when you wake up in the morning, you may not be able to remember the dream you had.
That's because they were sucked up by the Dream Prism on the top floor of this Phantom Castle. The
Chateau de Fantôme amplifies the energy of the dreams it collects and creates a world of its own. In
other words, Phantomea is made entirely of people's dreams.”
Huepow came down to the three of them at eye level and looked them over one by one.
“Why were we brought together?” Ace quickly asked, but without answering, Huepow said,
“There's actually more than one Phantomea. There are as many worlds as there are people, and they
exist in parallel.”
“Parallel worlds?” I mumbled, and Ace and Cindy looked at me strangely.
“Yes, it's also called a parallel universe. The Chateau de Fantôme is creating all of these worlds. That's
why the crisis of the Moon Kingdom is also the crisis of all the worlds.”
When Huepow said this, Ace stepped forward and asked a question.
“So all these parallel worlds are connected to one another between these mirrors?”
“Yes. There are as many worlds as there are people, but there is only one Moon Kingdom and one
Chateau de Fantôme that creates that world. Now, Gortis is attacking and this castle is being taken over.
If we don't do something, the whole world will be turned into a nightmare,” Huepow said as he busily
flew around.
I turned to the other two and said with a determined look on my face,
“All right, Huepow. You and the three of us here will work together to take back the castle from Gortis
and restore our respective worlds.”
“Okay, let's do it!” Ace raised his fist.
“Yes!” Cindy nodded.
“……Thank you.”
With that, Huepow turned to the door to the sanctuary of the Castle of Phantoms.
Then he held up his hands and whispered some kind of incantation.
Then, with a heavy earth tremor, the door began to open.
“Come on, let’s go!”
At Huepow's urging, we rushed off to the top floor.
Despite the momentum, a hint of anxiety gripped our hearts.
I don't know what it is.
But it’ll work out, I told myself.
19: All is no longer well

Ryuji Ushio was still listening to loud anime songs on his headphones, chewing on a mini-donut with his
left hand, and watching the program scroll by with his right hand as he whirled the mouse wheel. He
sank deeply into his chair and threw his legs out so sloppily that he looked like he was about to slip off,
his hands reaching for the mini-donut and mouse. His fat, hulking body was resting on the chair, as if he
was trying to avoid expending energy on any organ other than his fingertips. He looked like a sea lion at
an aquarium, exhausted from the hot sun, Kaede thought.
However, he was extremely agile when he occasionally used the mouse to select a part of the program
and jumped to the destination of the program to check the structure of the program, sticking his head
forward and staring at the monitor. His eyes at that moment were the eyes of a lion who has found its
prey. And as soon as he saw nothing suspicious, he turned back to his original sea lion form.

Kaede kept a close eye on Ushio as he worked on modifying his own program. That's why every time the
lion's eyes lit up, he was afraid that he would find the trick.
He held the 1.5 liter bottle in his left hand and drank directly from it. It also reminded me of a sea lion
swallowing its food. The thought of that made me laugh a little and I started to squirm. But the next
moment, Kaede's face tensed up. As soon as Ushio put the plastic bottle on the desk, he quickly
regained his position and sat back in his chair. He started to operate the keyboard and mouse at a speed
that I couldn't even see.
I think he's found something, Kaede intuitively thought.
“Hohohoho. I wonder what this is. Hey, Kaede-san. What the hell is this thing doing?”
Ushio looked at Kaede and smirked. His round face looked even rounder thanks to the smirk on his
mouth.
“Hmm? Is there something wrong?” Kaede asked, trying to remain as calm as possible.
“No, you're accessing the server in the sequence before jumping to the ending, right?”
He found it earlier than expected. This is because he is a programmer that Kaede is very familiar with.
“Yeah, that's what I'm doing to get data on how many people have seen the ending. I'm putting it in at
the request of the sales department and the advertising department.”
“Yes, but then you'd just be writing to the server. But here, you're reading at the same time.”
The program was written in such a way that it could not be seen at a glance that it was being processed
at the same time, but it was seen through. To tell the truth, Kaede was nervous. But he tried to keep his
composure.
“That's the thing, they make it so that players who have never been to the ending can't skip it. If you
accidentally skip it, you're screwed. So we're reading the clear information on the server so that once
the player has seen the ending, the skipping will be removed.”
“I see. But if that's the case, why don't you just keep it in the save data on the console instead of the
server?”
Ushio puffed out his cheeks and licked the sugar from the donut from his lips with his tongue, as if he
was enjoying and driving his prey.
“Well, yeah, but the save data could be tampered with. A server is a safe bet. And since you'll have to
access it once anyway, why not?”
I stare at Ushio with a face that seems to be unconvincing.
“Are you that particular about the ending?”
“Of course. Kurumina always said that. The game is like Othello. Good at the beginning, good at the end.
If the beginning and the end are right, even if the balance is a little off in the middle, the impression you
get after playing is that it was really fun. Just like in Othello, if you put white between the two ends, the
black in between will change to white with a flap. That's why endings are so important.”
Kaede was desperately trying to deflect the conversation. The reason is that if anyone notices that the
server check before the ending is referring to different data for writing and reading, the trick could be
exposed at once.
“Heh, I'm a bit of a gamer myself. I'm aware of the importance of endings.”
“I'm glad to hear it,” Kaede said as he stood up from his seat. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”
Then Ushio also left his seat and said, “Then I'll go to the bathroom too. I drank too much juice. Also,
Tamiya-san told me to keep an eye on you.”

He thought that if he pretended to go to the bathroom and went back to his seat, he could make as
many calls as he wanted, but he couldn't do that with Ushio following him. Kaede pondered what he
should do, because it would be even more suspicious if he didn't go to the bathroom.
Kaede had no choice but to leave the room with Ushio in tow.
I arrived at the restroom without running into a single familiar face along the way.
Entering the bathroom, Ushio went to the urinal. Seeing this, Kaede went into the private room.
“I've been feeling a little sick to my stomach since this morning, maybe I've had too much coffee.”
Ushio said without looking back as he did his business, "Come out early, please.”
He locked himself in the private room and sat down on the toilet seat, immediately taking out a piece of
paper from his pocket and running his ball-point pen through it. On the way, he pulled out the toilet
paper and flushed the water to buy some time.
“Kaede, please come out already!”
After finishing his business, Ushio rapped on the door of the private room. As if in response to this, he
quickly unlocked the door, opened it, and Kaede came out.
“What the hell, dude? You were in too much of a hurry to leave, you idiot!”
He checked from top to bottom as if he were licking it, Ushio making sure that nothing had changed.
“Because Tamiya-san told you to keep a close watch on me. Now, let's go back.”
“Alright, alright.”
At Ushio's urging, Kaede walked out of the bathroom and into the hallway.
As I walked down the corridor towards the boardroom, I saw a familiar face walking towards me from
the other side. It was Narutani. Seeing this, Ushio hurriedly passed Kaede from behind. He seemed to be
planning to be a wall to prevent contact with Narutani.
Narutani approached, carrying a bundle of papers. Kaede averted his gaze to the outside of the corridor
window. Ushio turned around as he walked and continued to watch Kaede.
Then I passed by Narutani. When Narutani and Kaede came so close that they rubbed shoulders for a
moment, Kaede slipped a piece of paper out of his pocket and dropped it.
The moment Narutani noticed this, he was about to say, “Kaede-san, you dropped something”, but
Kaede was faster and said, “Narutani, you dropped something.”
“What? Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry. Thank you very much.”
Then Narutani bent down, picked up the paper, and piled it on the stack of papers he was holding.
Ushio immediately ran to get between Kaede and Narutani and looked at Narutani.
“You can't help yourself, can you? Do it right.”
As soon as he said that, Kaede went on his way to the boardroom without paying attention to him, and
Ushio rushed after him.
As soon as they turned the corner and were out of sight, Narutani hurriedly unfolded the paper he had
picked up earlier and looked at it.

“Give this to Natsume at Komeda.”

Surprised, he turn the paper over to look at it.

“…..This is….!”
Narutani looked toward the corner where Kaede had turned earlier. Then he suddenly came to himself
and ran to the elevator at the end of the corridor.
He pressed the downward button and waited. He heard a ping and the door opened. He tried to get in
immediately, but bumped into someone coming out.
“Where are you going?”
He looked up and saw that it was General Manager Toudou.
“What? Oh, um, I'm just going to the coffee shop,” Narutani thought.
“You're working now. If you want to take a break, take it in the break room.”
“Oh, I-I'm sorry.”
Narutani ran back to the development room.
“I don't know what it is with the people in the 1st Development Division,” Toudou muttered, clicking his
tongue.

Returning to his seat, Ushio resumed his analysis of the program in Toudou's stance. Kaede was curious
about Narutani. Narutani is a pure and honest character. But he's also naturally unpredictable and can
be a bit careless. So he was a bit worried that the meaning of the paper might not be conveyed well.
Even if the true meaning of the paper was conveyed to him, would he be able to carry things out well?
As I was pondering these concerns, I suddenly felt someone calling me.
“Kaede-san, are you listening?”
It was Ushio. Before I knew it, he had taken off his headphones and was talking to me.
“I was thinking about it while I was pissing in the bathroom... if I wanted to read and write to the same
server at the same time, I would write the programs side by side. But Kaede’s program is written in a
completely different place. Why is that?”
Kaede was upset by the surprise and the point that had been made.
“It's ...... Oh, that's. What. It's because I rushed it in after the fact. I didn't have time. Anyhow,” he
managed to say as he continued to stare at his computer monitor without turning his head towards the
staring Ushio.
“Is it true? I doubt it. Okay, let's dig a little deeper into that area.”
Ushio was completely motivated, and with a lion's gaze, he straightened his posture and headed for his
computer.
After a while, his eyes lit up and he began to talk so that Kaede could hear him as he looked at the
monitor.
“What's that? The address to be referenced is different. I wonder what this area of the server is used
for. Where on earth is this address being written from? Let's see. Hmm? It's being written from
somewhere other than the main routine. What is this subroutine? Well, it's this one, hmmm. Hmm? It
looks like it's judging some kind of string and then jumping to this subroutine. Well, well, well... it's
writing something to the server again. Where is this? I wonder when this is referenced.”

Ushio's skillful use of the mouse and keyboard exposed the tricks of Kaede’s program.
“Oh. Ooh~. What is this? It's a branch that uses the address of this server as a key to refer to before
going to the ending. I wonder what the hell it's branching to.”
Slobbering in front of his favorite food, Ushio looked into Kaede’s profile and hit enter.
“Oooh! What is this? I think there's another ending in there! And in a much larger size. Did this game
have multiple endings? I was involved in the debugging process, but I don't remember seeing anything
but a crappy ending. Hey, senpai, can I take a look at this? Fufufu. Even if you say no, I'll watch it,
though.”
With that, Ushio forced him to rewrite the information from the server so that the true ending could be
played.
Then he picked up the PHS for his extension and pressed a button.
“Oh, Director Tamiya, I found something a little interesting that I'd like to show you....... Yes...... Yes. I'll
be waiting for you.”
Kaede was silently staring at the monitor at Ushio's seat.
If the true ending were to be found here and now, Tamiya would naturally have Ushio modify the server
program to neutralize the server writings that are the key to triggering it. Then, even if the location of
the hidden switch is revealed to Natsume, the true ending will never be revived again.

“What's so interesting?”
Tamiya came into the room with a very happy look on his face.
“We're about to see.”
As Ushio tapped the keyboard, the true ending began to play on the monitor.
“What. Is this?” Tamiya said with a furrowed brow and glared at Kaede. “Kaede-kun, what is this? Who
told you to put this in here?”
Kaede was silent as he looked away.
“If it's in there, we have no choice but to update it again.”
If I had to redo the update because of this, it would be the director himself who would be held
responsible. Fearing this, Tamiya shouted hysterically. Ushio calmly restrained him.
“Chief, it's okay. It's easy to prevent this from triggering. We just need to make sure that the address
where the server is located is not rewritten.”
“Is it that easy?”
“Yes, we only need to rewrite a few programs on our server, but we don't need to modify the users'
software.”
When Ushio said that with great pride, Tamiya regained his composure and turned to Kaede.
“I see. That's too bad, Kaede! I'll tell you about the punishment later, so be prepared! Take care of the
rest, Ushio-kun!” And with that, Tamiya walked out of the room. He's probably going to go talk to the
chairman or president.
Ushio turned his attention back to the ending as he tossed the donut into his mouth.
Kaede also watched the ending in silence.
All is no longer well.
20: But I do understand

The battle on the path leading to the top floor was fierce.
The monsters came out one after the other, and there was no end to the number of them we could
defeat.
Moreover, the three of us working together were not as effective as we had hoped.
It can't be helped, we just met each other.
It was as if they were fighting in three separate places.

As we approached the top floor, the path became narrower and narrower, until finally it was a single
flight of stairs.
But it worked in reverse.
We naturally formed a formation with Ace and Cindy in front and me alone in the back.
With the walls closing in on us on both sides, we no longer had to worry about being attacked from the
side.
The two in front of me cleared a path, and I was in the back, kicking out the monsters that were coming
at me from behind.
This quickly turned the tide, and we were able to reach the altar just before the top floor.

There was a stair-stepped pedestal in the center with a large red jewel embedded in it.
On the top tier, a huge statue of a god is enshrined, surrounded by gold ornaments in the shape of
flowers.
From there, symmetrically, there are seven white pillars with mysterious inscriptions on each side.
The pillars were carved with images that reminded me of deformed creatures, with their mouths wide
open and pale flames burning inside them.
The light from the flames wavered, flickering the shadows of the statue of the god and changing its
expression in intricate ways.
On the floor, illuminated by the lights, there was a magic circle drawn in exotic script, which itself was
glowing slightly.

I thought. There must be a hidden switch somewhere in this altar.

But I didn't know exactly where that was.
“Pete!” Ace said, turning around. “Where's the hidden switch?”
“I don't know....... I just have a feeling that it's probably somewhere in this room.......”
As I said this, Cindy started shooting at a nearby pillar.
“It's no use thinking about it. I'm just going to shoot at anything I can find,” Cindy said and shot the
pillars one by one from the edge.
“Alright,” Ace ran out on the other side of Cindy and started shooting at the pillars. “I'm gonna try.”
I shoot the pedestal of the statue in the center, starting from the edge and working my way up.
Because I was so absorbed in my search, I didn't notice until too late that the grains of light were
gradually gathering on the magic circle.
By the time I noticed, it was a fairly large mass of light.
And in the next moment, all at once, the light reversed, became darkness, and materialized.
“Gortis!”
At the same time I shouted, flaming bullets shot out from the sharp tips of Gortis' claws.
Ace was blown away.
The fire sparks scattered all over the room.
Cindy was also hit by a fireball and fell to the floor, crashing into a pillar and scattering sparks of fire.
“Ace! Cindy!”
As I shouted this, a fireball struck me right in front of my eyes.
I looked up and saw that Gortis was about to unleash his next attack.
I quickly rolled over and a pillar of fire went up where I had just been.
“Damn!”

As I evaded Gortis’ attacks by tumbling across the floor, Cindy was just about to get up.
“Cindy, you okay?”
She looks like she's taken a lot of damage.
Cindy was still wobbly on her feet.
That's when Gortis unleashed his relentless attack.
I couldn't help but step in front of Cindy.
My body was blown away by the flaming bullets.
My body was numb and hot.
Cindy ran over to me and helped me up.
“Pete, why did you do that….?”
“Look out!”
The fireball fired at Cindy was extinguished in front of her as a violent spark.
Ace countered with a shot.
“You okay? Cindy, Pete.”

The three of us regained our positions and confronted Gortis.

Then Gortis said in a horrifying voice that grabbed my heart,
“Fufufufu, I guess I underestimated you. I never thought you' d come this far. But now it's too late. In an
egg infused with a nightmare amplified by the prism in the center of the castle, the Diva Rebrise is about
to be reborn as a demon that will ruin the world!”
“Why are you doing this? If the world ends, you'll destroy yourself too!” I couldn't help but shout.
“I don't care,” Gortis replied with four eyes wide open. “Because this is about revenge.”
“Revenge?” Cindy asked with a surprised look on her face. “Who on earth are you planning to have
revenge on?”
“To a world that betrayed me, abandoned me.”

Three thousand years ago, in Phantomea, Cress, the Moon Kingdom, the creator of all things, floated in
the sky, and on earth, there was the Water Kingdom, the Wind Kingdom, and the Tree Kingdom.
But the kings of the time were bickering with each other, trying to gain supremacy.
Then, one day, the Water Kingdom suddenly invaded the Moon Kingdom, and an incident breaks out.
The target is the Dream Prism in the Moon Kingdom.
With the power of the prism, you can change the world as you wish.
In order to prevent this from happening, the Wind Kingdom and the Tree Kingdom also raised their
armies and planned to invade the Kingdom of the Moon.
This was intercepted by an army led by Gortis, who was the Captain of the Moon Kingdom's Guard at
the time.
“This outrage against the sacred Moon Kingdom will not be tolerated! Everyone, may God be with us!
Do not allow even a single soldier to enter!”
Gortis’ powerful proclamation boosted the morale of the Sacred Army and greatly troubled the armies
of the other powers.
Thus, the battle dragged on, and lasted for three months.
The Sacred Army had magical powers that the earthly powers did not have, and the Water Kingdom,
which at one time had invaded close to the entrance of the Phantom Castle, was finally forced to
retreat.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Wind Kingdom joined forces with the Tree Kingdom and split
into two parties to attack the Moon Kingdom.
Angered by this, the God-King of the Moon Kingdom ordered Gortis to activate the power of the Prism.
“My Lord, this power has the potential to destroy the world. Therefore, it must not be used in battle,”
Gortis advised desperately.
Because he knew better than most the horror of the power of the Dream Prism, which could turn the
world into either peace or hell.
But the God-King of the Moon did not listen.
“If I do not remind the kings of the earth of the power of the Moon Kingdom here, I don't know when
they will have ambitions again. This is for the sake of permanent world peace.”
“But---”
“Enough! I will personally give the order. Release the giant fish into the Wind Kingdom!”
In spite of Gortis’ pleas, the prism was activated and a ferocious flying giant fish, born from the
amplified energy of the nightmare, was created and flew off one after another to the Wind Kingdom.
Hundreds of giant fishes rampaged through every nook and cranny of the Wind Kingdom, eating the
people, destroying their houses, and finally ramming them at great speed, leaving corpses in their wake.
Overnight, the Wind Kingdom became a wasteland, full of the corpses of giant fish.
In addition, when the corpses of the giant fish rotted, they released nightmare energy, and those who
survived were poisoned by the nightmare and died one after another.
And the Wind Kingdom surrendered, and its people became wanderers.
Seeing the devastation, the Water Kingdom and the Tree Kingdom surrendered one after another.
Thus ended the war, which had lasted 99 days.
However, this war left behind a major challenge.
It was the fact that it showed the world that whoever holds the power of the Moon Kingdom can rule
the world.
So the kings of Water, Wind, and Tree and the Moon decided to seal the Moon Kingdom deep into the
earth.

The signing ceremony was held in secret, deep in the mountains of Solbora, the site of the deserted
Wind Kingdom.
The Moon Kingdom sent Gortis as its representative.
“Your Highnesses, I regret that such a signing should have taken place earlier. However, there is no point
in lamenting what has already happened, and I wish you all the best in the reconstruction of your
country.”
When Gortis stated this, the soldiers of the Wind Kingdom surrounded Gortis.
“What the?! You…!”
Then the king of the Wind Kingdom stepped out and said,
“Have him charged with treason!”
A soldier held Gortis in place with a restraint.
This way, he couldn't use his magic.
“What are you doing? Treason is something I don't remember.”
“It would be bad for us kings, as well as our people, to have caused the disaster of the giant fish because
we invaded the Moon Kingdom at our command,” the King of the Water Kingdom added from behind
the King of the Wind Kingdom.
“The story goes like this: You rebelled in the Moon Kingdom, and the kings of the three kingdoms joined
forces to defeat you.”
“If the God-King of the Moon Kingdom hears about this, you'll never get away with it!”
The King of the Trees snickered at Gortis’ angry cry.
“Hmm, that God-King knows.”
“What?!” Gortis shouted in a voice close to a scream.
Then the king of the Water Kingdom came after him.
“What would happen if the people found out that the God-King had released giant fish to ruin the Wind
Kingdom? The prestige of Cress, the Moon Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, would be ruined.”
“You tried! Let me go! Let me go!”
As Gortis was being dragged away, the king of the Water Kingdom added,
“We won't kill him, of course. We'll just imprison him in the permafrost of the ice cave.”
Hearing this, they all burst into laughter.
“Remember this! I won't forget this grudge for thousands of years!” Gortis’ plaintive cries echoed
throughout the valley of Mount Solbora.

“I can't believe it!” Huepow exclaimed.

“You're the prince of the Moon Kingdom. You are just as guilty as I am. You don't know what I've been
through, being framed by the world and imprisoned for 3,000 years!”
When he shouted this, Gortis shot off flaming bullets like a madman.
Part of the ceiling of the altar collapsed.
The pillars were shattered, the walls were blown apart, and a huge hole was made.
We crawled to the ground, dodging the flying flaming bullets.
I looked up and saw Cindy standing alone.
She stood with her arms outstretched as if trying to embrace all the sorrow.
“I understand.”
Cindy was crying.
She stood there staring at Gortis, not wiping away the tears that were flowing incessantly from her eyes.
The four horrifying eyes of Gortis were staring through Cindy.
It was as if time had stopped for a moment.
“I understand? A different dream, like you, can't possibly know how I feel!”
Gortis seemed somewhat upset.
Then Cindy spoke softly to him.
“But I do understand.”
21: Then I'll have to tell the truth

Huh?
I don't know what's wrong. My eyes are blurry. I can't see very well.
Am I crying?
Large tears spilled from my eyes, one after another, down my cheeks and onto the screen of the
Santendo Terminal in my hand.
The world looked blurred and distorted.
“But I do understand.”
Gortis’ feelings.
I was betrayed by the world, I couldn't trust anyone, I was trapped alone, I screamed but no one heard
me, I had nowhere to go.......
So for 3,000 years, he's been huddled under his breath, thinking of revenge.
“But I do understand.”
Because I'm the same way.
I felt sorry for Haruka, who was being bullied, but I just watched her from afar.
Yes, I've always had my eye on Haruka.
Ever since I moved to a new school.
I really liked Haruka.
I've always wanted to be friends with her.
But before I could find the right opportunity, Haruka started to be bullied by the whole class.
I always watched Haruka from afar.
So that I don't have to do anything myself.
I really wanted to protect her.
But I was afraid of being bullied myself, so I didn't dare to reach out to her.
I couldn't protect Haruka.
I hated myself for that, and I even got depressed.

---Guilt.
But since I pretended not to see it, I was just as much a part of the bullying.
I’m sorry.
That's why when I saw Ayaka being bullied, for some reason I worked really hard.
Idiot.
That hurt Haruka even more, didn't it?
If we had bullied Ayaka together, I wonder if I would have gotten along with Haruka.
I hate myself for thinking that way again.

---Disgust.

When I was bullied by everyone, I regretted it the moment I saw that Ayaka was also on that side.
I should have bullied Ayaka with Haruka if this was the case.
I hate myself again for thinking that way.

---Despair.

I don't know how I got into this mess.

It would have been better if my mom had killed me when I was in the fourth grade.
I was betrayed by my dad, betrayed by my mom, betrayed by Ayaka who I tried to protect, bullied by
Haruka who I liked, abandoned by the whole class, treated lightly by the teacher, lost my place,
despaired, and wanted to wipe out the world.
I don't want my daddy!
I don't want my mommy!
Let the school burn!
I wish Haruka, Ayaka, and everyone in my class would all just die!
Exactly like Gortis.
So I know exactly how Gortis feels.
I was abandoned by the world, even though I had done the right thing.
Now it's my turn to abandon the world, right?
But the difference between me and Gortis is that I thought that I should just disappear.
But isn't that the same thing?

“You can't possibly know how I feel!”

I suddenly came back to myself and looked at the screen of my handheld game console at the horrible,
almost screaming voice.
It was right at the point where Gortis was about to unleash a special move with all the energy in his
body.
In the next moment, Gortis released a wave of energy from his entire body.
My alter ego, Cindy, was blown away.
The screen went blank with light.
Gradually, my vision returned.
Cindy was down.
But Pete was lying on top of her, as if he was covering her.
Pete's face twisted in pain.
His back was burned and black smoke was rising.
Pete!
Pete protected me.
Oh, my God.
It's because Pete thinks that Cindy is his beloved Saki.
I'm betraying Pete, I'm betraying Kurumina. I'm betraying them.
This is just like what everyone else is doing to me.
No.
I can't go on like this.
Then ...... Then I'll have to tell the truth.
22: The time had finally come to settle the score

“Watch out!” Natsume muttered, and with a brilliant controller maneuver, he avoided the energy wave
that Gortis had released. I rolled behind a pillar to regain my position and looked for Pete and Cindy.
“Pete!”
He protected Cindy and was hit by an energy wave.
“We’re in trouble.”
Pete's energy gauge was less than a quarter full. If Pete's stamina were to drop to zero, the three of us
would not be able to turn on the hidden switch at the same time.
“But if we shoot in the dark, there's no way we'll get to the right answer. What to do…”
There must be a clue. Natsume scanned the altar room from behind a pillar. He noticed that of the
seven white pillars, two on either side of the middle were light green.
“Hmm? The colors of the pillars are different on each side. Is this it?”
Immediately I sent a message to the other two.
“Try to shoot the left and right green pillars at the same time.”
Then there is a moment, and Pete becomes "read", followed by Cindy.
Seeing Pete and Cindy running, Natsume ran Ace toward the altar in the middle.
Since I don't know where the third switch is, I guess I'll have to shoot where it looks suspicious. Natsume
was staring at the jewel in the center of the altar pedestal as being suspicious.
I made sure the three of them were in position and chose "Count" as the command. Then the three
count would appear on everyone's screen. "3" "2" "1", and they shoot shots all at once.
A jingle sounded and a time item popped up.
“Wrong.”
This was a hidden specification that produced an item that increased the time limit. And regardless of
the jewel, the item seemed to appear by shooting the two pillars at the same time.

Gortis’ flaming bullets were flying at us. When I jumped to avoid them, the flaming bullets hit the altar
and shattered the jewel from earlier.
Is there anything else suspicious? Natsume turned the camera around and observed the room. The
pillars were suspicious, after all, there were so many of them. The statue of an odd-looking creature
carved into the pillar caught my attention. I stared at it for a while. Then I saw a statue whose mouth
was open for a moment, but then closed. And there were two of them, the third and sixth in the left
column. They were only closed for a moment and then opened again to reveal a pale flame. There was
no reason for the statue models to make the motion to close their mouths.
“The moment the statue's mouth closes.”
When I sent this message, I received "read" signs from Pete and Cindy.
It was extremely difficult to get close to the statue while dodging Gortis' attacks. Pete, as expected of
Kurumina, the director, is able to see through Gortis' attack. He was already in front of the statue,
waiting for its mouth to close. Cindy, however, seems to be having a hard time. Just when she was one
step away, the attack hit her and she was blown away. Without a second thought, Natsume took cover.
The moment Ace reached the front of the pillar, the mouth of the statue closed.
“Aha!”
We both took a shot at the statue.
Then a jingle sounded and an item appeared.
It was a restorative item.
“Tsk!”

Come to think of it, there can't be only two hidden clues that require three people to shoot at the same
time. Since the game was originally designed for two players, the idea of a hidden item that appears
when two players shoot at the same time is a reasonable one. In that sense, the hidden switch that
requires three players to shoot is special, so how could it be obvious from the outside? If it were, the
debug team would have found it.
Natsume sighed, “That's true.”
Pew!
That was the sound of Pete picking up an item. Pete's strength was restored to two-thirds of its original
level.
Pete looked at Ace. Then a balloon appeared above his head. “Thx.”
“Kurumina.”
Natsume smiled, a little happy that he had been useful to Kurumina. Well, I guess that's good, he
thought.
But then, there would be no more clues. It's time to flip the switch and clear the game, or someone else
will see the bad ending first.

“Kurumina, don't you have any idea what Kaede might do?” As I muttered this to myself, I noticed a man
in a rider suit coming in from the entrance of the coffee shop and talking to the coffee shop employees.
Then the waitress took the envelope the man brought and shouted into the store,
“Is Natsume among the guests?”
When his name was suddenly called in the coffee shop, his mind went blank for a moment, but he
quickly came back to himself and Natsume stood up, raising his hand and shouted.
“Y-yes. I’m Natsume!”
The momentum of his sudden standing up caused the game console to fall on the table and the coffee
cup to tip over in reaction.
“Aaaaaaaaaah!”
As Natsume panicked, a waitress and a man in a rider suit approached him.
The man in the rider suit said as he held out an envelope,
“Are you Jun Natsume? This is a delivery by motorcycle from Mr. Narutani of Palette Inc.”
From Narutani-san? Natsume had a hunch. He hastily signed the slip, received the envelope and
roughly tore off the seal and pulled out the paper inside.
“Okay, nice Narutani-san!”
At first glance, Natsume immediately picked up the game console on the table and started typing a
message.
The bike delivery guy and the waitress looked at each other in surprise. But Natsume didn't pay
attention to them and sent a message.
The time had finally come to settle the score.
23: Now is the time to finish him off

The trees in the park, wet from the earlier rain, were glowing vermilion in the setting sun. Sitting on a
bench in the shade of the trees, Kurumina was a conspicuous figure, absorbed in playing a handheld
video game by himself. Housewives pushing baby strollers on their way to the store and elderly people
on their daily walks walked past, looking at him strangely. In the midst of all this, a few elementary
school boys, perhaps just getting out of school, gathered around, intrigued by the latest game console.
They climbed up on the bench and peeked at Kurumina’s game console screen, stretching from side to
side and back to back, trying to get a better look at the screen.
But Kurumina was so focused that he didn't notice the children at all.
One of the boys said to Kurumina as he continued to avoid Gortis' attacks,
“Don't just run away. You can't win if you don't attack.”
“Ah?” This was when the boys freaked out and ran away when they saw Kurumina's face glaring at
them. The game console vibrated and a message arrived.
It was a message from Natsume, a.k.a. Ace.
“Simultaneous shots of third pillar on the right and sixth on the left and the god statue”
“Yes!”
When I hastily "read" it, Cindy also "read" it.

“Pete right! Cindy, left! Fire on my mark!”

With that, Ace ran up the altar in the middle.
Pete also rushed toward the third pillar statue on the starboard side.
“Three! Two! One! Fire!”
Everyone shot. The statue glowed red. Pete looked at Cindy.
“Cindy---”
Cindy had been hit by a flaming bullet from Gortis and was flung away.
“Did we fail?”
The reddish color of the statue on the pillar faded away and returned to its original color.
Gortis' flaming bullets were designed to fly at precisely targeted targets. In other words, if you stay still,
the bullets will always fly there. So, if you move perpendicular to the trajectory of the bullet from your
current location immediately after it is fired, you can always avoid it.
“Both of you come here” Pete shouted as he moved to the left corner of the room.
Cindy and Ace came over.
The three of them froze in the left corner of the room and turned to face Gortis.
“I’ll beat you all at once!” Gortis shouted and fired three flaming bullets from his fingertips.
“Now!”
At Pete's signal, Cindy moved to the front of the pillar right next to him, Ace rolled to the right to avoid
him and then ran up the middle altar, and Pete jumped over the flaming bullets and headed for the
starboard pillar.
Gortis is about to charge and fire the next round.
“Three! Two! One! Fire!”
They fired shots at the same time as Gortis fired a fireball.
A fireball struck the three of them before they could get into position to fire their shots. The bodies of
the three were blown away and hit the pillars.
“Ugh----”
Fighting back the pain, Pete looked at the three statues. The pillar statue glowed red and shot a laser
beam towards the magic circle in the center. When the beam hit the magic circle, a whirlpool of light
flew up from the magic circle at great speed and swallowed Gortis.
“Uooooooooooogh!!!”
Gortis faded out with an explosion effect. A scream of finality echoed through the air.
If Kaede's program was working properly, this should have changed the ending.

“Yay!”
I noticed that the boys from earlier were shouting excitedly around Kurumina.
The boys tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You're doing great, Uncle.”
These guys didn't know what was going on, but I was happy to have a friend who was happy with me.
At that moment, I received a message from Cindy.
“I have to apologize to Mr. Kurumina for something.”
Kurumina remained silent and waited patiently for the next message.
“I'm not actually Saki-san. I'm sorry for deceiving you.”
Oh, she finally said it, Kurumina thought. I've always known this would happen. You could say I've been
deliberately trying not to notice.
“I kind of knew. And Saki never calls me Yuji.”
“Then why did you protect me? Why did you protect Cindy?”
Kurumina didn't want to make Gortis an absolute evil, like a demon king, the boss enemy in a so-called
action game. That's why she made Gortis a tragic man who was abandoned by the world, betrayed by
those who believed in him, and trapped in darkness for a long time. He didn't do anything wrong, in fact
he tried to set the world right. But the world had buried him. His sorrow turned into hatred, and in order
to take revenge on the world, he turned into a demon king and tried to wipe out the world.
Cindy, who was crying in sympathy there, must have been a child in the same situation. If such a child
wanted to wipe out the world that betrayed her for revenge, there was only one way to do it.
“Because I want you to live.”
There was a long silence, and then the message finally arrived.
“What's the point of me living?”
Kurumina hurried to send a message.
“Nothing meaningless ever happens in life.”
Cindy fired a single shot into the air. It sounded like something stubborn had shattered.
“And Cindy, the fight,” he continued, sending a message.
“It’s not over yet.”
In the screen of the game console, the camera moved closer to the ashes of Gortis.
The soul of Gortis emerged from the ashes.

“Listen carefully, strange dream! The nightmare egg is hatching right now. It can no longer be stopped.
The world will be devoured by the monster of nightmares. Hahahahahahaha!”
The moment he finished, Gortis' soul was scattered and erased.
Part of it lodged in the egg from which the nightmare is poured.
With the addition of Gortis' hatred, a crack ran through the giant eggshell and black light flooded out
from within. The next moment, a nightmare was born through the egg.
It had such a horrible shape that those who saw it would have nightmares while awake.
Its eyes were like hollow trenches, so deep that they seemed to reach to the very bottom of the earth,
and its body, with four hand-like tentacles protruding from it, seemed to be gushing out countless
insects that crowded around each other all the time, as if its body was peeling off. The wide open
mouth-like hole was like a pit leading to another time and space, and the abyss was a darkness that
swallowed everything.
The three of them and Huepow went to confront the horrible monster.

For Kurumina, who was familiar with the specifications, it was not difficult to conquer this last boss.
However, Cindy was not very good at action games, and she was getting attacked by the enemies quite a
bit. Even with Ace's support, it was a challenging game to fight for Cindy.
Although he had been able to defeat the last boss with no damage during the debugging process, Pete,
aka Kurumina, was down to 30% HP.
But gradually, Cindy, Pete, and Ace began to coordinate their play. Pete and Ace lured the enemy into
attacking, while Cindy attacked its weak point, its back, establishing a pattern that quickly reversed the
situation and finally brought it to the point where it was just one more blow away.
The nightmare monster's weak point, its back, widened with a scream. Then Huepow shouted,
“Now is the time to finish him off!”
24: Because it is to restore the world

“Whoa, what? This. It's disgusting.”

So, it's finally the big day.
I'm not very good at action games, but I've improved my skills by watching how Kurumina and Ace
fought.
Learning, huh?
If I had been playing by myself, I might not have gotten this far.
But now I have to defeat this guy to get the true ending back.
To live!
Would that change anything?

“Last one....... I'll be the energy bullet that shoots the monster,” Huepow looked at us and said.
“If you do that, Huepow will…”
“It's okay! We'll always be together!”
Huepow's gaze shot through us with a strong determination.
“Huepow...... Okay!”
The nightmare opened its big mouth and attacked Pete and Ace.

So I received this message from Kurumina.

“You get the last shot.”
The big eyes on the back of the monster of nightmares were right in front of me.
I reflexively pressed the button.

“Go---!”
As I released the shot, Huepow, who had become an energy bullet, flew into the eye of the nightmare
monster's back.
The recoil from the direct hit to his eye caused his eyelids to close tightly, taking in Huepow as well.
In the next moment, streaks of white light came out of the nightmare's body, one after another, like
swords.
The momentum increased at an accelerated rate, and when its entire body became a streak of light, it
caused a huge explosion.
We struggled not to be blown away by the blast, and when the wind finally died down and we turned
our eyes, we saw the Diva Rebrise floating there, huddled like a newborn baby.
Rebrise said quietly as she opened her eyelids,
“….Thank you. All nightmares are gone.”
Good. I'm glad Rebrise is alive.
But---
But, what about Huepow?
Where’s Huepow?
“Huepow ...... we'll always be together ......That's what you promised!” my voice echoed in vain in the
deep, dark night sky that went on forever.
Then the wind whistled somewhere.
There was a weak, dancing wind like leaves on a tree....... No, that's not wind.
That's a voice.
It's definitely someone's voice.
And that voice was calling me.
“We’re together…..”
When I looked up, I saw Huepow floating there, with wounds all over his body.
“Huepow!”
I reached out desperately for Huepow as he approached me, floating.
Almost at the end, Huepow slumped and fell.
But just in time, my hand grabbed Huepow’s arm.
“Don't worry, I'll ...... I’ll never let you go.”

I looked at Cindy and Huepow and felt jealous.

Did I ever seriously try to protect anyone?
Do I have someone I'm willing to sacrifice myself to protect?
I guess all I've ever thought about is what I want to do and how I want to be treated.
I guess I never really thought about how people want to be or what they want to do.
All these things are going through my head.
But maybe this is what it means to move forward.
I've been making all kinds of excuses and running away from the important things.
Maybe I can find the courage to live now.
Because it is to restore the world.
25: Thus the world was reborn

The first sun began to show its face from the top of the Solbora Mountains.
Huepow and I lay side by side on the Hill of Rebrise, on the outskirts of the Wind Village, watching the
sky turn red in the morning.
The events of yesterday came back to me as if I had been having a bad dream.
The other two "me's" have been returned to their respective Phantomeas via Mirror Spirit, and are
probably encountering Huepow and this adventure in their own worlds.
And all that's left to do is to let the voice of the Diva Rebrise cleanse the world and everything will be
back to normal.
“Your wounds healing, Huepow?”
“Yeah…..”
We didn't turn around to look at each other, but looked at the white clouds floating softly in the sky,
which had turned a straight blue.
“You can take your time to heal your wounds. There's no more Gortis, no more nightmare monsters.”
Then, from the Moon Kingdom in the sky, the singing voice of the Diva Rebrise descended.
It was a pleasant, soothing, pure and gentle voice.
In the fields where the singing rained down, the grass and flowers that had been dying came to life, and
in the desolate earth and mountains, pure water flowed out, revealing streams and waterfalls.
But even though the world was getting clearer and clearer, my heart was not clear.
It would be the same for Huepow.
He was staring at the sky with a face full of sorrow.

“Huepow...... are you going back to the Moon Kingdom?”

“……….”
Huepow remained silent.
I understand. Huepow is really the prince of the Moon Kingdom, isn't he?
He can' t stay down there forever, can he?
It can't be helped.
But---
“…….But we'll see each other again soon, won't we?” I said in a forced, cheerful voice.
Otherwise, I would have started crying.
“Then we'll play together again....... Just like before!”
When I forced myself to say this, Huepow sat up and looked me in the eyes.
Huepow had tears filling his eyes.
They were tears that foreshadowed our eternal separation.
“Huepow……”
“The truth is you are...... The truth is......” Huepow said, shedding a single tear.
“The truth is, you don't exist in this world!”
Huh?
What?
It was not at all the answer I had expected.
So I was caught off guard and I was confused.
“I've summoned you from your world to save the balance of our broken dreams.”
I jumped up, startled.
“Wh-what are you talking about......?”
“It's true! This world is not your reality!”
“No way....... No way! Because I remember it! I remember when I met you! And we played together!”
Huepow turned away from me, saying,
“It's...... It's a false memory that I created....... That's what you've been led to believe.”
“...... It’s...... It’s lies! Lies lies lies!” I was standing up and screaming.
“It' s not a lie, it's true....... A different dream that Gortis mentioned...... Your true reality is what a
different dream is to this world.......”
“...... Such ......”
“If Rebrise's song restores the world, you won't be in this world either......”
“No! I'm not going anywhere! I don't want to go!”
“I'm sorry...... but I'm...... me too!”
At that moment, a huge hole opened up in the already clear blue sky.
The darkness was swirling in that hole at a tremendous rate.
My body was drawn to the hole, and I pulled back even though I was trying to move towards Huepow.
“It's time to go home. To your reality.”
The distance between me and Huepow was getting greater and greater.

Huepow stood on his feet with his face turned away.

Was he crying?

He was sad.

Why?

It's a lie, right?

I’m being separated!

We'll always be together!

That's what you promised!

Finally, my body floated softly in the air, and my legs were pulled up toward the sky.

“No! No! Huepow!”

As I was yanked back, I couldn't help but reach out my hand.

My hand was tugged away.

Huepow!

Huepow’s got my hand!

“Huepow!”

I don't want to go. I don't want to go.

We were always together.

Even if we met each other for a short time, our adventures together were not a lie.

We've always been together.

“Don’t let go!”

Huepow had tears in his eyes as he shouted this, gritting his teeth and trying to pull me back with all his
weight.

However, the force of the suction became even greater, dragging Huepow's body along with it, and
eventually his grip slipped from my arm to my hand, until I could only hook it with my fingertips.

The next moment, our fingers slipped through and I was sucked all the way down the hole.

“Huepowwwwwww--!!”

And the hole closed.

All that was left was the singing voice of the Diva Rebrise.

Thus, the world was….. reborn as normal.

26: Then he closed his eyes quietly

As the singing voice of the Diva Rebrise descended, flowers that had withered and died opened one
after another, and a colorful carpet spread out at once, painting the field to the hills ahead and the
heights beyond.
The stream, which had been dried up with the bottom of the river exposed, was now flowing with clear
and clean water.
The forest turned lush green, the mountains regained their clear blue color, and the wind gently
wrapped around the people.
Huepow, standing alone, stared at a point in the sky.
He tried to wipe away the tears with his arms, but they kept flowing out of his eyes and wouldn't stop.

For Ace, he told himself that what remains here is a different dream, an illusion, and that the world over
there is the reality in which he should really live.

He knew that from the beginning, didn't he?

So the least he could do to atone for his sins was to send him off with a smile.

Huepow tried to smile.

But it didn't work out.

Because even though he looked up at the sky, his tears would spill.

Jun Natsume was confused.

Two or three teardrops fell on the monitor of the game console in my hand and blotted it.

“What? Am I crying?”

Natsume was surprised at how impressed he was.

My heart was trembling as I felt a sense of accomplishment that I was able to get the true ending back,
the joy of being able to repay Kurumina, and most of all, the surprise of being told the shocking truth
and having an unexpected goodbye come so suddenly.

Natsume felt a bit of regret when he realized that if he hadn't quit the company at that time, he would
have been able to participate in this wonderful work.

On the game screen, Huepow is holding back tears and desperately smiling up at the sky, and the scene
is cut out in stop motion to become an illustration for a picture book.

A staff member's message appears on each page of the picture book, which is turned one after another
from the back page to the front page.
The events of the past are illustrated, and as if going back in time, they are recalled like a magic lantern
with each turn of the page.

--The hand that grabbed the wounded Huepow.

--A fierce battle against the monster of nightmares.

At this point, the names of Mr. Saijima as the executive producer and Mr. Kurumina as the producer
appeared on the scrolling ticker.

--Followed by a battle with Gortis at the altar.

--Meeting Pete and Cindy in the Mirror Room.

--Huepow, who was the prince of the Moon Kingdom.

--Revival of the Temple of the Sun and the Moon Kingdom.

--Grandpa’s death and farewell.

--Encounter with Granny of the forest.

--A battle against a giant man-eating plant.

At this point, Natsume was surprised.

Jun Natsume's name was on the list as a "collaborator".

It must have been Kaede's idea.

“Kaede-san......I guess that means they made me a member of the staff.”

I teared up a little and lifted my nose with my fist.

--The encounter with Gortis at the top of Mount Solbora.

--And the memory of that encounter with Huepow.

Finally, the cover is closed.

It said "Jun Natsume" on it.

FIN
Just as "FIN," the French word for "end," appeared on the screen, a message popped up. It’s from
Kurumina.

“Natsume, thank you for your cooperation.”

Natsume's face beamed, and he received another message.

“And I'm most proud of Natsume's success with Kurihan. Congratulations!”

Large tears spilled from Natsume's wide open eyes and fell.

“You're the best, Kurumina!”

As he finished sending the message, Natsume put the game console to sleep and put it in his bag at the
end of the coffee shop and looked up at the ceiling.

His face looked so happy.

Then he closed his eyes quietly.

27: Those were happy tears more than anything else

The sound of footsteps kicking down the corridor came closer and closer, and then the door to the
boardroom was violently opened, slamming into the wall and shaking the room.
“Ushiooooooo--!” Tamiya came running in shouting, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes bloodshot and his
face drawn.
Ryuji Ushio sat back in his chair, chewing on his doughnut in the same laid-back tone as ever, “Ah,
Director Tamiya. What’s the matter with you?”
Tamiya strode over to Ushio's seat and glanced at Kaede next to him before saying,
“I...... I just heard in the debug room that the ending of the game has been replaced!”
“Huh?” Ushio said next to Kaede’s surprised face, “Huh? That's not possible.”
Tamiya got annoyed with Ushio, who was swallowing and started yelling at him.
“That's not supposed to happen, because when I beat the final boss in the master ROM in the debug
room, the ending I saw earlier played! What the hell is going on?! You said it was easy to prevent this by
rewriting the server, right? Huh?! What about that?!”
“I thought I disabled some parts of the server from being written to.”
As he said this, Ushio tapped quickly on his keyboard.
“Yeah, I've fixed the program so that it can't be written to.”
Exasperated by Ushio's staring at the monitor, Tamiya peeked in and yelled at him.
“Then why the hell is the ending different!?”
Then the Ushio made a face like, "Oh!”
“Ohhhh, I see. So this was a dummy server for checking,” he said, scratching his head.
“What's ......a dummy server?” asked Tamiya, wrinkling his brow.
“In order to be able to check the server-related issues after the release, we have prepared a server area
for checking, which is not accessible from the production version. So to fix it, we had to change the
server program for the production version. Damn, how did I not notice this?”
Tamiya closed in on a frustrated Ushio.
“Then rewrite the servers for the production version right now!”
“Tamiya-san, isn't that a bad idea?” Ushio said with a mysterious look on his face.
“Hundreds of people in the world must have already seen this ending. If you change the ending to the
previous one now, it'll cause an uproar on the Internet and you'll get slammed.”
“I don't care about that! Just do it!”
“Tamiya-kun, this isn’t good,” said Karasawa, the chairman of the board, who came in. “If this goes
online, it will be irreversible! It's almost time for the first half earnings announcement. We can't afford
to have that kind of a firestorm.”
Toudou, the president of the company, came in behind him and added,
“You never know what the shareholders will say.”
“Ch….Chairman… And Toudou….”
Completely dejected, Tamiya bit his lip and glared at Kaede.
Ushio, who was searching on the computer, said while showing us the monitor,
“People who have already reached the ending are tweeting about it on social media. "I'm so moved", "I
can't stop crying", "I have goosebumps", "I want to tell someone about it", "This is the best ending I've
ever seen", and many more. It's very popular.”
Then Chairman Karasawa looked at the monitor with shining eyes.
“Really? It's been well received, has it? Alright, we can use this for the earnings call! Hey, Toudou.”
Toudou responded in a panic with a smile,
“Y-Yes, of course! You can certainly use it. We have many shareholders who are ardent fans of our
company. Let's add it to the presentation materials immediately. Well done! Tamiya-kun. Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Laughing, Karasawa and Toudou walked out of the room.
Tamiya rushed to follow them.

Kaede looked at Ushio.

Ushio was wearing headphones again and gulping down juice from a plastic bottle.
“Ushio! Hey, Ushio!”
I could hear the theme song of the anime leaking out of his headphones.
Kaede pulled off his headphones and shouted in his ear.
“Heeey!”
“Wah, you scared me! What are you doing?”
As Kaede looked down at Ushio, who seemed to be slipping out of his chair in surprise, he said,
“You did that on purpose.”
“Heh? What are you talking about?” Ushio blurted out and looked away.
“How could a programmer of your caliber not notice a dummy server?”
Ushio looked up at Kaede’s face and smiled, then sat back neatly in his chair.
“I'm a gamer, too. After seeing the ending like that, I thought, "I can't not release this to the world". It
was hard to hold back the tears while watching it with Mr. Tamiya.”
“Ushiooooooo!”
Kaede noogied Ushio's head from behind and tousled out his hair.
But that was so that Ushio would not see the tears welling up in Kaede’s eyes.
But those were happy tears more than anything else.
28: It was rather endearing

I never imagined it.

I didn't know it was going to end like this.

What is this sadness, loneliness, and tenderness that seems to come from deep within my heart?

Before I knew it, I was sobbing loudly.

I’m crying.

I give up.

Seriously.

The word "FIN" was left on the monitor of the game console.

Then I came back to the real world.

There was nowhere else to be, in the real world.

The room was dimly lit, with only the lights of the game console monitor glaring.

As I stared out the window at the sunset, I whimpered, took a deep breath, and sighed some more.

It meant that I had no place in the game world, which was my only place.

I huffed and sighed again.

Then I felt my shoulders lighten.

The game console vibrated in my hand.

I got a message from Kurumina.

“Can you tell me your real name?”

“My name is Yuna Kasugai.”

“Thank you, Yuna. For bringing back the ending of my game.”

Thank you so much.....

I was about to send that message, but then I received another message.

“This is the end of the game. But the game called your life is not over, it will continue. I think that life
itself has meaning. The adventures we've been on together, the things that are happening now, and the
behavior of the people around us are telling us what we should do next. Think hard about them, and in
the end, the path you choose will always lead what’s best for you. So just keep going. Let's meet again
somewhere. --From your adventure buddy”
I read it over and over again, wiping my tears from my eyes as they fell on the monitor of the game
console.

That's right.

I realized that this was what I had been wanting to hear for a long time.

“Just keep going.”

When I said it out loud, I felt strangely rewarded.

“Thank you so much. Nothing meaningless ever happens in life...... That's right.”

After sending that message, I quietly turned off the game console.

I can't believe that the game I started as a record of the end of my life became the beginning of a new
life.

It's strange how things work.

I will never forget this gaming experience.

I can’t.

In that case, I'll have to deactivate the email that I have set to be sent all at once.

I also have to prepare for the new school year starting tomorrow.

That's when I felt my stomach growl.

Come to think of it, I hadn't eaten anything for three days now.

I got up, unlocked the room, and opened the door.

There was dinner on a tray on the floor, as usual.

Today we're having hamburger steak, clam chowder, and rice.

“Mom….”

I lifted the tray.

I then walked down the stairs with the tray in my hands.

When I descended the last step, I lowered myself slowly, as if I were an astronaut taking his first steps
on the moon.

I walked into the kitchen and saw my mom.

Mom was washing a frying pan after getting ready to go to work.

As I put the tray on the table, Mom turned around, noticing the sound.

“Yuna!”
Mom was surprised, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Mom......” I said as I sat down in my chair. “I'm so hungry.”

Large tears spilled from Mom's eyes and fell down her nose and down the back of her hand that covered
her mouth.

“Oh, ohhh…” Mom cried in a hoarse voice.

And then she went straight to her seat to break down in tears.

“Yuna...... I' m sorry, I' m sorry…”

“Mom, let's eat together.”

Mom was crying, frantically wiping away her tears.

“Yuna…..”

I couldn't stop crying either.

Mom brought out a hamburger steak that she had put away to eat when she got home, and we ate it
together.

My mom and I didn't say anything more to each other.

She didn't say anything, she just cried.

I ate the hamburger steak while crying.

The hamburger steak will turn soggy.

And when I realized that, strangely enough, my hatred for my mom was gone.

It was rather endearing.

29: It’s strange

Kurumina entered the station and boarded the train again, which had just arrived.
The train had two cars, but it was starting to get crowded with people who had finished their work and
were heading home.
There was a seat available at the very front of the train, facing the driver's seat, and I sat down there.
When I took the game console out of my bag, it would wake up from sleep.
I had received a message from Yuna.
“Thank you so much. Nothing meaningless ever happens in life...... That's right.”

I stared at it and traced it with my finger.

“Nothing...... meaningless...... happens in life......” I read it out in a whisper.

When the true ending came and brought him back to reality, Kurumina couldn't stop the fluttering in his
chest.

If nothing was done, something bad would’ve happened. I had such a premonition.

I had to tell her something.......

That was the message I sent.

“Life itself has meaning.”

“In the end, the path you choose will always lead to what's best for you.”

That was also the message that Kurumina was telling himself at the same time.

Cindy was not Saki.

So where on earth had Saki gone?

What does this mean?

Suddenly, the scene of the true ending that he had seen earlier popped into Kurumina’s mind.

Pete had been called in from the real world to restore Phantomea.

And once the world was safely reborn, he could no longer be there.

In other words, he could exist because the world was out of balance.

Perhaps Saki was brought in from another parallel world to restore the unbalanced world of Kurumina.

If that's the case, then Saki's disappearance was due to the rebirth of Kurumina’s world.

No, wait.
This current situation is a rebirth?

No matter how you look at it, that's not right.

He lost Saijima, whom he trusted, had his painstaking work taken away in the middle of the project, and
betrayed his trust by making his trusted members unhappy.

There is no way to say that this is a rebirth.

As he thought about this, Kurumina came to another realization.

What if, on the other hand, I had been summoned to Saki's world?

The balance of Saki's world had been upset.

One day, Kurumina was summoned to Saki's world.

Then one night, Kurumina was brought back to the real world.

That's because Saki's world has been reborn.

That would mean that the encounter between Kurumina and Saki on that rainy day was a fabricated
memory.

Maybe Saki didn't exist in this world to begin with.

Come to think of it, that night when Saki disappeared, it was as if she had never been in the room at all.

The wardrobe, the mirror, and the bookshelf, now that I think about it, all represented the fact that Saki
had never existed in the first place.

Yes, I had somehow wandered into the labyrinth of the story I had created.

The dream that seemed so real may have been an experience in another parallel world.

When they are replaced, that may be the true nature of dreams.

That's what it seemed like.

Kurumina quietly turned his eyes out of the train.

Outside, it had started to rain again.

Raindrops flowed diagonally across the windows of the running train.

The trails of rain stretch out like roots, overtaking and being overtaken, sticking together and separating.

It was geometrically beautiful, like an exquisite collaboration between the molecules of water on the
surface of the glass, the gravity of the earth, and the propulsion of the train.

Kurumina thought as he stared at it.

If that's the case, then we can bring Saki into our world.

In this unbalanced world, we need Saki.

And together we will restore the world.

So let's start by meeting each other again.

And now, for some reason, I had a feeling that we would meet again.

Kurumina quietly closed his eyes and rested his head against the window pane.

Through the glass, I could hear the thumping of the train tracks as they passed under.

Thunk thunk, thunk thunk

At some point, it would synchronize perfectly with my heartbeat, lulling me into a deep sleep.

Thunk thunk, thunk thunk

In the farthest seat of the same carriage, I heard the cheers of young people.

It was like distant thunder in a dream, making Kurumina’s head fuzzy.

Thunk thunk, thunk thunk

Thunk thunk, thunk thunk

Once again, the young people's cheers went up.

“What's so interesting?” asked the girl next to her, who was watching the high school students playing
the game from the next car through the coupling, muttering boringly.

“Haruka, have you ever played that game?”

“Yeah, one time. I downloaded it to see what it was like since it was so popular among boys, but it was
so boring that I deleted it immediately.”

“Ooh, Haruka plays smartphone games too.”

“Well, you know, like "Puzzle Tam Tam". I don't charge for it, though. Don't you play games, Ayaka?”

“I only play handheld games in my room for a while before going to bed.”

“You have a game console.”

“I mean, I have one, but it's an older model.”

“Speaking of which, Yuna has been playing on the latest, what did she call it, the handheld game
console......”

“Santendo Terminal?”

“Yeah! That! I'm going to buy that Terminal today. I'm supposed to go with her, but why don't you go
with me too, Ayaka?”

“Oh, I'd love to go, but I have cram school today.”

“Well, it's no use, then. See you next time.”

After saying that, Haruka ran out the door that opened just as she arrived at the station.

She turned around and waved, and Ayaka was smiling and waving at her through the gap where the
door was closing.

The train continued to drive away from the platform.

Haruka took the escalator, passed through the ticket gate, and looked up at the sky.

The sky was cloudy and heavy rain was falling.

“Hmmm, was it supposed to rain today?” she mumbled, and started running with her bag over her head.

“Yuna! Yuna!”

Suddenly waking up with her eyes wide open as if she was being called out of reality, Yuna woke up in
her bed and looked at her mom with surprise, who was shaking her shoulder.

“Yuna, Haruka is coming.”

“Oh, shoot….. I must have fallen asleep.......”

“Haruka is waiting for you, so be quick.”

With that, Mom went down the stairs.

Yuna rubbed her eyes and jumped out of bed, looking into the mirror on her desk.

My eyes are red, bloodshot, and puffy.

It was as if I had been crying my eyes out.

Oh no, I can't let Haruka see my face like this.

I hurriedly took out a foundation from the drawer and patted my face.

Why was I crying in the first place?

I can't remember the dream I had.

Something very sad and happy happened, and I don't think I could stop crying.

“Here, wipe with this.”

Yuna's mom came out of the back room and handed Haruka a towel as she stood in the doorway.

“Yuna, she fell asleep. She'll be here soon. Wait for her here.”

“Okay,” smiled Haruka as she wiped her wet bag and clothes with a towel.
As Yuna left her room and walked down the stairs, she heard her mom and Haruka talking at the door.

“I'll let you borrow it,” Mom said as she ran into the back room.

“Oh, are you sure? Well, I'll take your word for it,” Haruka called out to Mom from afar.

Yuna made herself presentable again and went down to the door.

“Sorry, Haruka, I didn't mean to keep you waiting.”

“No, it's okay, it's okay. I got here a little early.”

Then my mom came from the back.

“This is mine, Haruka, and you may not like it,” she handed her the umbrella while saying.

“That's not true. Auntie, it's super cute!”

Yuna put on her shoes and opened the front door.

“Haruka, let's go!”

We went outside and I held up a blue umbrella.

Haruka, who was following behind, also held an umbrella.

It was red.

It was a fiery red umbrella.

Haruka said as they walked down the hill,

“I heard you were asleep?”

“What? Oh no, Mom, oh my God......”

At that moment, Yuna saw Haruka's face, and part of the dream she had just came back to her.

“I was having these weird dreams—”

Turning around in front of me, Haruka asked,

“A dream? What kind of dream?”

“That I’ve been bullied and holed up.”

“Who? Who bullied you?” Haruka asked, her face suddenly turning serious.

There was no way I could tell Haruka that I was being bullied by her, so I kept my mouth shut.

I could not say that, even more so because she then said, "I would not allow anyone to bully Yuna even
in her dreams.”

Haruka stopped and looked straight into Yuna's eyes.

“That time-- When I was being bullied by the whole class, Yuna defended me and told them to stop
bullying me, which made me the person I am today. So if Yuna gets bullied, it's my turn to protect her.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that.......”

“Nonsense. This is how I really feel. That's all!” Haruka laughed and spun the umbrella around. Yuna
liked that kind of gesture.

“Oh, by the way, I cleared the game I'm going to buy in my dream.”

“Huh? Until the ending?”

“Yes. I think it was some kind of shocking, sad ending, but I can't remember what it was like.”

“Is that what you call a prophetic dream? I'm starting to get interested. I'll buy that game too! So let's
play it together!”

“Yeah!”

At that moment, the blue and red umbrellas shone brightly in the light sun despite the rain.

With a thud, the vehicle shook, and Kurumina woke up.

For a moment I didn't know where I was.

I'm on a train somewhere.

I was dreaming earlier.

I feel like I had a dream that was a mixture of fulfillment and loss, but I can't even remember a clue.

I was sure I was holding it, but it just slipped out of my palm and was sucked into the distance.

I wondered why I was on the train in the first place.

Where was I going?

I feel like I jumped on a train to find something very important.

Suddenly, I looked out the window and saw buildings drifting by, and every time I came to a gap
between buildings, a bright red sunset hit my eyes.

Kurumina pondered as he narrowed his eyes.

Huh?

Wasn't it raining?

Just as I was about to remember something, Kaede peeked out from behind the backrest.

“Kurumina, I'm getting off at the next-to-last station.”

He looked at Kurumina, who was dumbfounded.

“Jeez, Kurumina. I think you've gone blank, haven't you? You're going to hold a press conference at the
launch event of "Chatfan", so you'd better pull yourself together.”

That was it.

There was a party to coincide with the launch of "Chatfan" today.

Kurumina was not good at public speaking, but as a producer, he couldn't avoid it.

Good grief.

If it's to sell cute work, I can't help it.

But I was determined to do it, so I couldn't do anything shameful.

“I know, I know. I'll do it when I have to. Wake me up when we get there, okay?”

Then I pinched my brow and shook my head.

But my head was still foggy.

I gently close my eyes.

In that split second, I saw a woman in a skirt sitting in the seat across from me.

I also saw her hooking the handle of her umbrella on the railing of her chair, though I could only see her
feet.

It was a bright red umbrella.

Kurumina looked at the bright red umbrella through his thin eyes and then closed his eyes gently.

With my eyes closed, I thought I smiled a little.

Then I fell into a brief slumber again.

It’s strange…

Sometimes I can’t remember my dreams, though I’m sure I saw them.

Where do these dreams go?

But I remember this one dream, as clearly as if it were reflected in a mirror…

The End