Volume 4, Opening X-01 - Immediate Game Over

Volume 4, Opening X-01: Immediate Game Over

“U”

“Uooowaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

(“Now” Opening X-01 Open 06/03 08:45)

Immediate Game Over

Shiroyama Kyousuke was dragged from sleep by a loud noise.

“Afwah…ah?”

He rubbed his eyes in bed and his sleepy mind realized something was wrong. Yes, where was he? He lived in Toy Dream 35, a bankrupt regional city that had been bought up by an international entertainment company and remade into an amusement park, so he was used to noise. But an amusement park was all about maintaining an image, so he did not often have the sloppily obvious din of construction pounding at his head.

(Oh…that’s right… I left Toy Dream 35 to visit an international trade show for a job. Wasn’t it…in a large plain near the middle of Hokkaido…?)

Instead of the usual cruiser cabin, Kyousuke was lying in a boxy room. But instead of a solid resort hotel, a metal container had a window and door attached while being otherwise arranged to look like a guest room. Those rooms had been stacked on top of each other to form a crude hotel. That was why the soundproofing was poor and the early morning chill made its way inside.

International trade shows took many forms, but this one was unprecedented.

It was known as D.R.O.K.

Government, Illegal, and Freedom, the three major powers that belonged to the hidden side of the world, used it to show off and make sales deals for technical research and new weapons of the Third Summoning Ceremony.

Tens of thousands of people were participating, but since all of them were summoners and vessels, the bizarre international event was entirely forgotten by everyone outside those categories.

There were of course many conflicting plans and schemes at work, so there was work to be done for a summoner like Kyousuke.

“…”

His blood was circulating poorly, so he lay in the only bed and stared blankly up at the LED lightbulb on the ceiling.

He was drawing a blank on a portion of his memories.

He had little experience with alcohol, but he wondered if this was what a hangover felt like.

He felt like he had forgotten a lot of other things, but he also felt like they would come back to him once his mind cleared.

“Hee hee. Thank you for letting me see how cute you are as you sleep, my - dear - brother.”

If, that is, it were not for the White Queen’s voice that was so pure it plunged the world into the depths of despair.

“U”

There was something under the blanket.

It was close by…no, it was pressing right up against him. He felt something as smooth and soft as marshmallow and a warmth that enveloped his body more gently than sleep. His nose detected a sweet rosy aroma that infected the deepest parts of his mind. All of it was of the finest quality, but it set off an explosion of alarm bells throughout Shiroyama Kyousuke’s entire body.

It was right next to him.

It was gently resting its head on his outstretched right arm.

The powerful summoner slowly turned his head. He prayed that he was mistaken, but it was too frightening a possibility to ignore and he had to peek into the abyss. There, so close that their lips were about to touch, he found sparkling silver twintails and-

“Uooowaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

All of his organs, muscles, blood, and cells began to boil.

While screaming, Kyousuke tried to get as far away from the White Queen as possible, but a tremendous pressure kept him from moving. It was applied to his right arm. Specifically, where the smiling Queen’s head was resting. It looked like she was intimately using his arm as a pillow, but his arm was pinned down as if a boulder had fallen on it. And his free left hand could not reach the Incense Grenades or Phosphorus, his Repliglass Blood-Sign, that were sitting nearby.

Still, he gave a roar.

Whether or not he could win no longer mattered.

With his greatest enemy right there, he used everything at his disposal. He grabbed the letter opener from the bedside table and stabbed it toward the Queen’s eye, he swung down the lamp, he tried to electrocute her with the power cable, and he tried to strangle her.

“Oh, dear☆”

But it was all stopped.

Without ever losing her smile, the unscathed Queen waved a hand in front of him.

“You have so much energy this morning, brother. Or are you feeling excited because it’s the morning? Oh, dear. Oh, my. How could I say something so indecent!?”

For some reason, she blushed and covered her eyes with one hand while holding the other hand out in front of Kyousuke’s face.

It only caused a slight sound.

The White Queen bent her middle finger, held the nail down with her thumb, gathered strength in the finger, and then released it.

In other words, it was a fierce flick to the forehead.

The sound after that was as intense as the beat of a drum that stood taller than a person.

Kyousuke could not even scream or shout anymore.

He was thrown from the bed and his back slammed into the door. After a few seconds, gravity finally tugged him down. He was already unconscious.

That said, it could have been much worse.

For one thing, it was out of the ordinary for a human to come into contact with a Material from another world without the benefit of a protective circle. And this was the White Queen who reigned supreme above the Regulation, Divine, and Unexplored-classes.

Of course, this was thanks to the White Queen’s extreme “restraint”, much like grabbing a raw egg with a piece of heavy machinery.

“Oh, dear.”

The White Queen tilted her head a bit as she looked to her beloved lying unconscious on the floor.

She continued staring at Shiroyama Kyousuke without ever growing tired of it.

“This is a real problem. This is already the 45th time since dawn. He really needs to wake up properly soon. Otherwise, he can’t eat the oh-so-sweet breakfast I made for him☆”

He had not used an Incense Grenade, there was no Artificial Sacred Ground setup around them, and there were no red Petals or dark Spots floating around. He had not opened the path to the Unexplored-class after summoning one hundred Regulation-classes and fifty Divine-classes and he had not spelled out that dreadful name.

And yet the White Queen was here. And without the ten minute time limit.

How had this happened?

The answer was likely found in Shiroyama Kyousuke’s missing memories…

Facts:

*Government, Illegal, and Freedom are holding an International Summoning Ceremony Trade Show known as D.R.O.K. in Hokkaido. All of the tens of thousands of participants are summoners and vessels.

*Shiroyama Kyousuke came to Hokkaido on some kind of job.

*Kyousuke is missing a portion of his memories.

*The White Queen has appeared in front of Kyousuke. It does not seem to have been with the normal Blood-Sign method and she does not seem to be restricted to an Artificial Sacred Ground or ten minute time limit. The details of the setup are unknown at the current time.

*The White Queen seems to be very cheerful this time.