33 I Have a Dream

Author: Bishamon Mine
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0664js/36/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

◆◇◆◇◆

 

Starlight covering the sky.
A rain of stars falling.
A bouquet of shooting stars.
For Kanagawa’s night sky, the stars are awfully clear.
The Milky Way towering in the heavens is also dazzling, like seeing it in outer space.

I am in the park under the apartment, overwhelmed by a starry sky that looks like it might fall.
While I stand there dazed, eventually the morning sun begins to color the world.
Sunlight erases the stars.

The town wakes.
——But there, for some reason, it is a town missing the sound of people.

Suddenly I feel like I am called. A forgotten-looking hill, I turn my feet there.

When I come to the hill——suddenly time and date change as if the world is being flipped. As if flipping a calendar, the world is flipped.

Suddenly a gust of wind runs through. Waving, shining foxtail grass——the smell of summer.
Looking up, white cumulonimbus.
Lowering my gaze, on the green grass——a little girl sleeping as if nuzzling a pastel-colored vinyl sheet.
A white one-piece.
A pure-white world, an innocent world.
In a basket that smells kind, handmade pancakes.
Beside it, orange juice in a sweating glass cup.
But the world does not look at her. The trees swaying in the summer wind seem to whisper so.
The girl’s sleeping face is innocent, with nothing imprisoning it.
The hourglass beside her remains stopped.

No one remembers the girl——so her figure is terribly vague, hazy like a bleeding watercolor.
“I see,” I think.
That is why——because she is hazy, I know who she is.

“Iris-san——”

When I call, the girl in a child’s form stirs a little and then wakes.
The world does not change at all. The world is not looking at her.
The voices of trees that have begun to be heard. Birds’ voices. Cicadas’ voices. The season’s voices are noisy.

“Ah——Suzuhi-san.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.”

The season that feels like skim-reading Iris-san is irritating.
I properly tell her.

“Please wait.”
“It’s okay, there’s as much time as we want.”

Iris-san puts a small finger on the hourglass that remains stopped.
From Iris-san’s view, the world’s end arrives in an instant.
From our view, Iris-san never changes.
A place where an instant is eternity, and eternity is an instant. There is no time or distance.
What do people call that——Avici hell.
But Iris-san smiles without a single shadow.

“I’ll wait, in the middle of our world, while dreaming.”
“I’ll definitely go there.”

I try to take Iris-san’s hand.
But it slips through.
The bleeding Iris-san calls my name.

“Suzuhi-san——”

There, suddenly, Iris-san stops.
And she asks.

“——Can I call you Suzuhi?”
“Of course.”
“Suzuhi.”
“Yes——”

Wrong. I redo my answer with affection too.

“——Yeah. Then I’ll call Iris-san, Iris too——”

Then Iris shakes her head. It is a gesture like she has realized something.

“Because the world doesn’t remember me.”

I notice what she wants to say.

“…………I see——then, but——just for now.”
“Then! Then———Suzuhi,”

Iris-san closes her eyes as if dazzled and makes a smile that shows her teeth.
I feel her smile is a sunlit smile.

“Take care of Inori-chan!”
“Yeah! Iris!”

I feel like blue butterflies dance as if welling up.
When I nod firmly, Iris becomes a fleeting smile that might vanish if touched. She rubs her eyes.

“I’ll sleep just a little more.”
“Wait just a little.”

Iris, who nods quietly, lies down and immediately starts sleeping breaths.
Slowly, Iris’s figure fades. As if a photograph is sun-bleaching, the world forgets her.
I wave to Iris and start walking toward town.
The sound of people has returned to town.

 

The alarm rings.
I feel like I was seeing some dream.
No matter how I try to remember the dream’s contents, I cannot remember them.
I shake my head and get up from the bed.
Today there are things I have to do.

 

◆◇◆◇◆

 

The morning after encountering Inori-chan, while the air is still blue.
I head to the park under the apartment and straddle the statue of a mysterious blue creature on top of the seesaw.
While doing that I look on my phone at the “Fate Link: Legendia Strategy WIKI,” which I have only seen two or three times, wondering if it might be a clue to saving Inori-chan’s friend.
Below is the WIKI content.

——————————————————————————————————
Strategy Gamer Top ＞ Fate Link: Legendia Strategy WIKI ＞ Beginner Guide
[Search in WIKI: strategy methods ] ↵

□Fate Link: Legendia Strategy WIKI

———Beginner Guide———

■ What is Fate Link: Legendia?
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
A game provided by Mystery Management.
You adventure with the galaxy as the stage, and the goal is to defeat the boss of the mystery enemy MoB, the Mother MoB.

■ Strategy methods
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
◎The Mother MoB sits at the center of the galaxy.
In other words, to defeat the Mother MoB you need to reach the center of the galaxy.

But the center of the galaxy is far, 10,000 light-years from planet Highlane and the Galactic Union’s other primary planets.
Even with the Galactic Union’s sublight travel (Alcubierre Drive) (a method of proceeding at 90% or more of light speed) it is over 10,000 years away, and without using warp travel (you can move even tens of thousands of light-years in a few minutes) you cannot reach it in a lifetime.

So installing “warp assist devices,” which enable warp travel in a surrounding 100 light-years, is the key to clearing.

◎Warp travel assist devices can only be installed in places where space is originally torn.
Places where space is torn——Flow Points, are mostly guarded by MoB, so you need to take them back from MoB.
In other words, taking Flow Points back from MoB is the clear.

Warp technology is written about in detail at the next links ＞ Movement by wormhole.
＞ Movement by dimensional-fold warp.

■About floors.
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
The Galactic Union divides the distance to the center of the galaxy every 100 light-years, the reach of a warp device, and calls them floors.
There are 100 floors, and the Mother MoB is on Floor 100.

■About bosses
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
MoB place extremely powerful MoB called “bosses” every 10 floors (every 1,000 light-years).
The bosses also defend places where space is torn, and you cannot proceed without defeating the bosses.

■About the beginner quest
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣

In the beginner quest there are written and practical exams.
Before the exams you can receive an explanation in VR or real.
The practicals are especially hard. Survival and bare-body combat practicals are not that hard, but a considerable number of people get stuck on the Versus Frame piloting method exam.
(For beginner quest practical strategy, next link ＞ Beginner Quest · Practical Strategy)
Versus Frames have AI assist, and you fight by operating the humanoid in VR like a body, and takeoff and landing are also easy. You also don’t need to understand complicated things, so you don’t need the skill of a real fighter pilot.
But even so it is a considerably hard exam, so be prepared.
Clearing the beginner quest takes an average of one week. But people who cannot clear it for over half a year are common. (Don’t rush, take it slowly)

*Note: After the beginner quest ends there is a frame selection, but you must absolutely not choose only Swallowtail! (You will get stuck. For details see the WIKI top ＞
Top ＞ Reasons You Must Not Choose Swallowtail)

——————————————————————————————————

That last line bothers me somehow…… that’s the wiki content.

“In other words, in one sentence, ‘MoB are guarding specific places so beat them. Bosses are every 10 floors so beat the crap out of them.’”

To put it even more bluntly, maybe a game-genre “hack-and-slash dungeon” thing?

For now, thinking “take back the important points while clearing floors” seems good.

“Then let’s start experimenting with the skills I got from sealstones yesterday. First from 〖Super Strength〗.”

I get down from the mysterious creature and try hugging a fairly large tree.

“〖Super Strength〗!”

My whole body shines deep red. Cool.
Thinking there’s no way, I try to pull the tree out with the skill.
Then it almost comes out, my shoulder.

“A゛ta゛ta゛ta゛ta゛ta゛ta゛!!”

From the intense pain I roll around on the park ground.
Good I wore a tracksuit.

An ojisan who seems to have started jogging looks at me like he’s looking at someone with a wrong head and runs.

“Ojousan, are you okay?”

Yikes, am I being worried about? To not cause worry, I quickly prepare an eccentric answer.

“I’m…… just playing at being a protagonist who obtained too-huge power and can’t control it and takes damage to her own body, so don’t mind me.”
“I-I see…… that’s the fate of one who obtained huge power…… do your best.”

A kind ojisan who plays along.

“I’ll save them.”

When I squeeze my fist kyu and answer, the ojisan says “A sekai-kei, maybe……?” and runs toward the morning sun with distant eyes.

I stop the unsightly pose for now and stand with a hand on my knee.
Then teary-eyed I go “zeha zeha” and wait for the pain to stop.

“F-for now I get it. The power got stronger but the body’s durability didn’t go up, so if I put out full power my body breaks.”

Actually I brought a grip-strength meter just in case something like this happened.
I should have used this first.

I take the grip-strength meter out of the convenient bag I only got yesterday.

Something that belonged to the mother who gave birth to me. Mom was an athlete so it’s a pretty good grip-strength meter, it can measure up to 200 kilos.
The type you don’t need unless you’re Murofushi-san class.
But Mom also had a little over 100 grip. Every time she measured, Dad and I called her “gorilla,” and Mom said “uhoh!” and chased us.
I always got caught by Mom with her high physical ability and was hugged right away.

“Rain, maybe?”

I wipe my a-little-wet cheek and resume the experiment.

“Here we go, 〖Super Strength〗.”

I try squeezing the grip-strength meter kyu. It goes mishi so I hurriedly loosen my hand.
Yikes, I almost broke it.

“Eh, seriously?”

The needle has splendidly pegged.

“Over 200 kg, huh……”

I try pinching the grip-strength meter with index finger and thumb.
Splendidly pegged.

“Uho uho.”

Somehow I’m happy.
Okay, let’s try a vertical jump.
First lightly.
When I say “〖Super Strength〗” and jump on just my toes, my body floats about three meters.

“Eh……”

That’s plenty a height you get injured from.
The instant I land I deliberately fall, then roll in the manner of a breakfall.
Incidentally my right shoulder is injured from a bullet so I roll protecting it. Even so my right shoulder hurts quite a bit.

“Ow te te.”

Good there was judo in class. Learning breakfalls in judo is important, huh.
……Even so, the tracksuit keeps getting dirtier.

“Jumping full power is scary——but I want to know full power, you know.”

I hide among the playground equipment, take a pilot suit out of the 〈Key to the Dimensional Warehouse〉, take off the tracksuit and put it on, and put the tracksuit on again.

Then I start jumping in the sandbox. I try gradually raising the jump height, but thanks to the pilot suit there’s no damage to my body at all. My right shoulder doesn’t hurt either.

Soon, full power!——and when I jump I fly to between the third and fourth floors.
Breakfall landing, tracksuit-san teary-eyed.

I search on my phone for the height per floor of an apartment.

“I see, like I flew about ten meters?”

Next I try a 50-meter dash (distance by eye).
3.35 seconds.

“No mistake, a monster.”

Something that is not a maiden.
While shocked at myself I also admire, “as expected of a rare sealstone.”
But I should stop exercise soon, I’m worried about the wound on my right shoulder.

Yesterday when I applied the paint-bandage? I bought in Highlane, the wound started closing at an amazing rate.
As expected of a super civilization.
The pilot suit’s medical fluid apparently has a healing effect too.

Only, it seems I had a pretty deep winding hole opened, and a long hole got made all the way to my upper arm. So complete healing takes three days, they said at Highlane’s “Tako-san Pharmacy.”
If I go to a Highlane hospital they’ll heal me right away apparently, but I’d have to go into a dock for a day, and then I can’t go to school, so if it heals in three days ointment is fine I guess.
I’m living in someone else’s house, so causing trouble by skipping school is not good.

“Next let’s try 〖Psychometry〗.”

Residual thoughts, they say you can see or hear the feelings that dwell in people and things, but.

“Shall I examine the grip-strength meter?”

Are there residual thoughts in this too.
While stroking the grip-strength meter I examine the remaining memories.
And I cry out loud.

I saw the memories Mom felt, of me and Dad.