Prologue

Prologue: That Game Once Again

Translated by LyraDhani

Edited by LyraDhani

Whether it was a dream or an illusion, I found myself in the [Ruins of the Beginning].

There was no warning. What came into my field of vision was a scene that would not be seen anywhere else in Japan.

The area around me was a meadow of tall grass. Seven moons, each with a different color, shone in the indigo sky, and the air that caressed my cheeks was clearly different from what I had felt before.

However, it was not confusion that I felt when I was suddenly thrown out of the house. It’s because the scene in front of me was familiar.

However, not in reality, but in a movie of an app game for smartphones.

Before I could even think about why, a shock jolted my brain. The scene in front of my eyes was that vivid.

Seven meaninglessly elaborately carved pillars built in a circle.

In the center surrounded by the pillars was a meaninglessly complex magic circle that created a meaningless and profound atmosphere.

One of the maps of [Abyss Calling], an RPG for smartphones.

[Ruins of the Beginning] that the player – the summoner – visit after completing the tutorial.

It was a scenery that game users must have seen before, but I just shed tears streaming down my cheeks at the sight.

Is it a dream or an illusion? Have I really gone mad?

I can’t understand the situation at all. The only thing I can tell is that this scene is something I have been searching for.

I looked down at my outfit.

It’s the outfit that I last remember wearing. Black jacket and jeans. Fortunately, I am properly dressed, so it shouldn’t hinder my behavior. I am wearing slippers instead of shoes because I was indoors, but it’s better than being completely naked.

But right now I don’t care about that either.

The collar of my jacket pulled up against the chilly wind. Tears streaming down my cheeks. An overwhelming sense of reality. Every one of my five senses – sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste – are telling me that this is real.

It’s surprisingly easy for me to figure it out. It’s impossible. There’s no way I could have gotten into the game, no matter how much of an Abyss Calling player I was…

“Abyss Calling… That’s absurd…”

I tried to deny it verbally, but it didn’t mean anything.

By the time I saw seven moons floating in the sky, this place was no longer Japan, the die had already been cast. Little by little, as time went by, my mind became a little calmer.

I wiped away my tears and searched in the pocket. Some hard little pebble-like objects touch my fingertips. Just as I was about to grab them, I suddenly heard a voice.

“Huh? This place is…”

There should have been no one there a moment ago. I hurriedly looked in the direction where the voice came from.

A girl was there. She had black hair, black eyes, a black blazer, and a skirt, and looked like a student at first glance. She was probably in the same situation as I was as she kept anxiously looking around.

I was sure that she had not been here before, but it was no surprise to me since I was also brought here suddenly. Rather, it wasn’t strange when I was already in a place like this, so I didn’t have to think about it.

Clutching a stone, I decided to call out to the girl for now.

Abyss Calling is a multiplayer RPG for smartphones. Of course, there is more than one player.

Basically, it is a game that can be played alone, but you can also become friends with specific players and cooperate with them to advance the game, or you can play against them.

However, both sides must agree to play against each other, and since the concept of the game is basically to [get along and have fun playing the game], which is favored by light players, it is safe to say that players are allies.

If we cooperate, we can take advantage of the game and exchange information. And if I don’t see any followers, it is most likely that they are early players like me.

After confirming that there were no other people around, I called out to the girl, who hadn’t noticed me and jumped up with a start.

“Nanananana…”

Perhaps she was surprised, her eyes widened and she spewed out meaningless words.

Looking at her closely, she’s quite a beautiful girl. If we had been in the same class when we were students, she would have been an idol for sure.

It was troublesome to say anything, so I crossed my arms for a while and waited for the girl to calm down.

I waited for her voice to stop and started by introducing myself. There were probably more things to talk about, but I’d like to make the Abyss Call as quickly as possible.

“Nice to meet you. My name is …Blogger. What’s your name?”

I hesitated for a moment whether to say my real name or the username I used in the game. The current state was already out of the scope of common sense, but I shouldn’t give my real name to someone I didn’t know online.

The girl froze for a moment at my words, but then she hurriedly looked around. After confirming that no one was around, she gently opened her lips.

“Um… This place is…”

No matter how you look at it, it’s the [Ruins of the Beginning]! Most players should have remembered the movies played in the tutorials, which are famous for their good workmanship and cannot be skipped. The seven pillars on the seven-colored moon are simple, but not easily forgotten.

But that doesn’t matter now. I asked again without answering.

“What’s your name?”

“I was supposed to be at home a while ago…”

“What’s your name?”

“…Ao…Aoba, sir. Nanashino Aoba.”

The girl answered, frightened.

Nanashino Aoba.

It sounds like her real name. But it can’t be. Even elementary school students know that you shouldn’t put your real name on the Internet nowadays. Well, this is not the Internet, but at any rate, I just need to know the name to call her.

I smiled gently so as not to alarm her as much as possible and asked Nanashino, who was scurrying around like a small animal.

“Okay, Nanashino. Well, First of all, this is important, so I know it’s impolite to ask, but… Do you have any cash?”

“…Eh?”

By the way, I don’t have any. I searched my pockets, but all I find were five small stones.

Nanashino said she’s supposed to be at home and she ended up here before she knew it, and the same goes for me. When you’re at home, you don’t usually have a wallet. The last memory I have in Japan ended when I came back from the convenience store and threw my wallet and phone on my desk.

Nanashino, at my words, gingerly shoved her hand into her skirt pocket and pulled out her hand fearfully.

Slowly, she opened her palm. There were five small jewels.

Stones that glowed gold. Nanashino muttered apologetically for some reason.

“This is… All I have.”

“I see. I have the same thing.”

I took out the stone I had grabbed from my pocket earlier. The golden, transparent stone shone mysteriously in the moonlight.

It’s something every Abyss Calling player will recognize.

–Magic stones.

The game Abyss Calling won’t start without it. The magic stone given to players at the very beginning of the game is a special one, but ordinary magic stones are the same in shape.

And I was disappointed.

The way Nanashino looked at the stone was not that of someone who knew about magic stones. I had expected this when she didn’t know where this place was, but it seemed she really wasn’t an Abyss Calling player.

Then, is she an NPC? No, from what I heard, she’s in the same position as me.

I gulped once and asked her, choosing my words carefully.

“Nanashino, you. Have you ever heard of a game called Abyss Calling?”

“…Yes …only the name. I’ve never played it… but…”

Nanashino answered in a small voice with a quizzical look.

Just as expected. Nanashino is not a player.

She’s probably in her late teens. It was three years ago that an application called Abyss Calling took Japan by storm.

At the time, Abyss Calling was an app game that boasted an astounding market share, with half of the population said to be playing it.

It’s not surprising that someone of Nanashino’s age would be playing it – in fact, it would be strange if they didn’t. Abyss Calling was so popular that at the time, the news reported that even the smartphones used to play it had sold out.

Noticing my gaze, Nanashino said like an excuse. 

“That… I wasn’t allowed to have a smartphone, so…”

“Hmm, I see. You have a hard time.”

But I had lost interest in Nanashino by that time.

While not yet confirmed, the fact that she had no knowledge of the game suggested that she was likely to be useless in this world.

After finishing our conversation, I immediately turned to the seven pillars that stood at the [Ruins of the Beginning].

The seven pillars correspond to each of the races that can be summoned from the other world through the Abyss Call. However, you cannot choose what you can summon.

As I was about to head for the center of the pillars, jangling the magic stones in my palm, Nanashino called out to me in a panic.

“Wait a minute!”

“What? The conversation is over.”

Nanashino looked shocked.

A teenage girl alone in a strange land. I know she’s worried, but I don’t want her to depend on me. She needs to be independent.

Nanashino, perhaps realizing that I was no longer interested in her, paused for a moment, then looked down at the stones and said.

“Um… That… It’s… Abyss Calling… What’s that?”

Another difficult question.

I stopped and thought for a moment. I was an Abyss Calling player. The density of players in Japan was so high at that time that if you threw a stone at a road, you would hit a player, but if you ask me what Abyss Calling is, there is only one answer.

Clutching the special magic stones given to me at the end of the first tutorial–[Rarity 7 or higher follower magic stone], I answered in one word.

“It’s a pay-to-play game.”

There was once a game called Abyss Calling.

It’s an app game for smartphones that was extremely popular throughout Japan. It could be played on a PC, but most people could not stay in front of a PC all the time, so many people were absorbed in the game on buses and trains.

In a word, it’s a pay-to-play game. There are many features, such as a storyline, gameplay, cute illustrations, some characters have voices and the voice actors are gorgeous, but if you ask someone who has played such games to describe the game in one word, they will surely describe it as a [pay-to-play game].

Abyss Calling is an RPG.

It is an RPG in which the player must defeat the demons that appear, while also advancing through dungeon crawls and whatnot.

The player becomes a summoner-caller and uses summoning magic to summon angels, demons, dragons, and other various [followers] from the [Abyss] and uses them and trains them to advance the storyline.

You can summon your follower only once when you first register as a user.

The target of the summon is random, so it is completely up to luck. Most people get a follower there that is neither poisonous nor medicinal.

For the unlucky ones whose first summoned followers are weak, there are three ways to go.

You can either proceed with the game as it is with a weak follower, or you can delete the game, re-register as a user, go through the tedious tutorial and try again to get a follower–commonly known as Reset Marathon.

Or–collect new magic stones and summon them.

Summoning can be done by consuming a certain number of items called magic stones.

There are many ways to obtain a magic stone, but the quickest way is with real money. Magic stones can be obtained with real-world money.

Each magic stone costs 100 yen. One summoning costs 500 yen for five pieces. What will come out depends on luck, and only God and the management know the result. Whether you feel it is expensive or cheap is up to you.

It is what is commonly referred to as [gacha].

Now, this is common in social games, but Abyss Calling is completely superior to other similar games in several respects.

The rumors of the probabilities manipulation by the management!

The game’s balance requires players to pay and is equipped with an unparalleled greed sensor!

The audacity to call itself Abyss!

A wasteful amount of updates that will spare no effort to charge you!

Called the strongest money collection system, it is a legendary app that has knocked down tens of millions of users to the bottom, caused a social phenomenon, promoted even the development of new laws, and was eventually crushed by the country and ended its service.

That’s Abyss Calling. It is undeniably a shitty game.

And it is only by fate that I, a former user of such a game with no money to pay, wandered into a world that closely resembles [Abyss Calling].