6. Worldgate Offline: Restart

Editing/Standardisation: Medicine Melancholy
Original Translation: Medicine Melancholy

(Iris/Yanagi’s PoV)
“Wha-”
At the moment I made my choice, there was a violent noise on the
screen.
A crimson geometric pattern ran in all directions, as if drawing
something in blood on the white campus. It spread across this pure
white world in the blink of an eye.
When I involuntarily stepped back a few steps, I was instantly
suspended in midair with no time to resist, as black shadows clung to
my limbs from the book in front of me, which had floated up by itself.
“Saul, Reiji, something happened…!”
“What’s going on there?!”
“Onii-chan, calm down and tell me!”
“L-Let go… of m-?!”
Dark-colored strips of blood pounded through my chest, stomach, and
entire body as I tried to escape the restraints.
Air was squeezed out of the lungs that should not be there, and
breathing became a struggle.
“Hey… Can you still rep-”
“Onii… what happen-”
The party chat went awry with static, and eventually I couldn’t hear
anything anymore.
And the sense of loss as something important disappeared in me. The
feeling of fulfillment as something else filled the empty space, the pain
that seemed to wash it all away. It was like an insect dissolving its entire
body into mush once inside its chrysalis to become an adult, and the
chill of having everything forcibly changed.
“I’m… fading away…”
In my sinking consciousness, I managed to squeeze out my voice with
the last of my strength, but the line that connected me to them had
already collapsed, and I could not reach them anywhere, and my voice
vanished in vain.
“…Where am I?”
I woke up in an unfamiliar ceiling.
…No, I recognized it.
I was a little unsure because I did not have the mental capacity to look
at it seriously, but it was an old ruin on the outskirts of the northern
country, where the entrance to the White World, the room of
reincarnation where I had just passed, was located.
…Did that mean I suddenly fell asleep after my finished reincarnation,
and I just woke up?
Come to think of it, I must have been very tired, because I had recently
cut my sleep time to the limit and spent as much time as the game
allowed me to on that last-minute leveling. So, with the completion of
my reincarnation, the tension broke… or was it?
Something felt off, really off.
This game should have forced me to logout if a certain amount of time
elapsed after falling asleep, as there might be something wrong with
my health.
And since this was the world’s first VRMMORPG, they must have been
very cautious about life-threatening bugs.
In other words, “falling asleep and waking up in the game” was
something that was not supposed to happen.
Gradually, a bad feeling began to creep up on my back. As a semireclusive
person, I used to read novels for entertainment, and I know
that at one time such a genre of novels was all the rage.
No matter how hard I tried, not even the menu screen appeared.
I tried again, and again.
The GM call was completely unavailable.
I was out of the loop by any stretch of the imagination, thank you very
much. No, no, no, that novel-like scenario must not be real…
I couldn’t help but feel chills down my spine.
Come to think of it, the floor on which I was lying down was awfully
cold.
It made sense, since I was lying on a hard marble floor in a northern
country…
“?!”
I was startled and tried to jump up… but my legs weren’t strong enough
and I sit down flat.
…Why did I feel cold?
This game did not reproduce that much detail. Otherwise, in the
extreme cold, I would immediately freeze and get stuck.
At most, body movements would only be slightly restricted when I get
the “low body temperature” abnormal status, and I wouldn’t actually
feel hot or cold.
Fortunately, this room was a bit warm for some reason, so there
seemed to be no immediate problem, but it was still a bit
uncomfortable in my current light clothing.
And now I was in the so-called girl-sitting position, and the coldness
coming from my legs and buttocks was not at all inferior to that of the
real thing.
As I sit there stunned, a rainbow-colored glow crossed the edge of my
vision.
When I took it in my hand, I could feel the smoothness of the finest silk
thread.
I pulled on it lightly to see where it came from… and it hurt. It seemed
to flow down from my own scalp.
I turned to look at my hand that was holding the thread. It was a very
familiar hand. Specifically, it was “the hand that I had always seen in
the game”.
However, beneath the translucent white skin, there was a hint of
vermilion, indicating that blood was running through it, and even veins
were visible through the skin. When I touched my wrist, I could feel the
soft, moist, and fine texture of my skin, but I could also feel the
hardness of her tendons and other parts of her body.
I wonder if the avatars in this game had finally reproduced the human
body in such details.
…It couldn’t be.
I created the textures for this character myself.
I was sure that my sister and I worked on it for months in pursuit of the
best quality, but I certainly didn’t remember going that far, and I had
been dealing with this body for years since I started playing the game.
There was no way I didn’t realize it until now.
I pinched myself lightly…
“Ouch?!”
I let go of my hand in a panic at the stabbing pain, and the place where
I had pinched earlier gradually turned red. Come to think of it, it also
hurt when I pulled my hair earlier.
With a trembling hand, I explore the pouch on my waist. Fortunately, it
has not lost its function as a magic bag, and its contents seemed
unchanged. From it, I pulled out the hand mirror I usually carried (used
for looking at shadows, etc., not for my narcissistic taste) and looked at
my own face.
If I had to put it succinctly, I would say that an immensely beautiful girl
was reflected there.
She was still probably very young, in her early teens at most.
Her skin was as translucent white as her arms, while her cheeks were
slightly cherry-red, as if she were a doll that had come into life.
Her bangs, trimmed just below the eyebrows, were gently slanted, and
while her right eye was fully exposed, the left side was long enough to
slightly cover the middle of her eye.
Her sideburns were neatly coiffed and just touching her shoulders, and
her hair was not tied back, but simply flowed smoothly and softly down
to her waist.
In the middle of her small face, framed by a curtain of silver thread, her
wide-open eyes were framed by long lashes, and when she relaxed her
face, her eyelids were slightly downcast and her eyes drooped, giving
her a gentle-looking smile.
In the center of her eyes, pale, moist-looking amethyst pupils
shimmered.
Her nose was not too high and not too low, with modest but beautiful
lines, and her rather small lips were plump and lovely, glistening with a
light pink color despite the fact that she did not seem to be wearing any
makeup.
In short, she had the look of “a pretty but fragile girl who might make
people want to protect her or feel attracted to her”.
As I shifted my viewpoint downward, I saw that beneath the thin,
unreliable, and dangerous clothes that were only there to prevent
exposure of her nude body for her new class, was a small, still childish
body less than 150cm, but with a dangerously balanced figure that was
beginning to turn from a girl to a woman.
The breasts, hidden by the clothes, were palm-sized but well formed,
and were still growing, so they were a little firm, but the surface was
still soft and pleasant to the touch.
I was concerned about the lack of feeling down there, between my legs,
but I wasn’t sure I have the mental capacity to investigate that right
now, so I was going to put it off.
Every sensation up to this point had done its best to insist that this was
reality. And that new reality made me want to die.
Moreover, I recognized this face very well. The avatar that had won the
grand prize over many other companies’ work so many times that she
was eventually forbidden to enter. A masterpiece created by my sister,
who said “If I’m going to do something, I’ll aim to become the best at
it”. The usual face of “Iris”, who I had been controlling for seven years.
Actually no, I shouldn’t say “usual”. As a result of the added realism,
her face stood out even more than the norm of the world.
However,…
“The hair color looks kind of different.”
I changed the angle of the hair in my hand and stared at it sullenly.
Originally, the hair was just a plain, near-white silver, but now it
appeared to have a faint rainbow glow.
“Is this the effect of becoming a new race after reincarnation? But…”
There was a lonely feeling on my back. The large wings on my back, a
characteristic of the Highborn race, were not present.
“I don’t get it… Am I supposed to be the Lightwing race?”
To test it out, I thought back to when I was moving the wings in the
game and put light pressure around the shoulder blades for a while…
Suddenly, my vision was enveloped in light.
In an instant, the room was filled with sparkling, fantastic particles of
light.
It was as if I had seen numerous and uncountable fireflies at my
grandparents’ house in the mountains of Tohoku, or perhaps multiply
that by a dozen.
Also, countless feathers shaped like fluffy lights were falling down,
making the dreary ruins look as if they had been turned into a solemn
religious painting. If I were to become the subject of such a painting… I
would very much refrain from doing so.
I picked up one of the fluttering feathers to test it out, and the moment
I touched it, it dissipated into particles.
When I turned around slowly with a slow movement that sounded like
rusty metal, I saw three pairs of six wings shimmering in my field of
vision, emitting a dazzling light. Come to think of it, I think it was wings
like these that were painted there when I went to see the mural at the
event.
“Oh god…This is bad…”
I felt as if I could no longer stop sweating.
If I looked into the mirror now, I am sure that the face of the innocent
girl I just saw would be drawn out in the same way.
The “Lightwing” race in this game was a race that was sometimes
mentioned in conversations in the game and was said to have existed a
long time ago. It was said that they were the most precious race in the
world at that time, and had an important role to play…
At present, they had gone completely extinct.
Moreover, from time to time, a “wound of the world” would open up in
this world.
Some dungeons and powerful monsters such as raid bosses arose from
these wounds.
And the Lightwing race was supposedly capable of healing the world
itself, erasing any wounds that had occurred.
I had never imagined that it was possible to choose such an option, so
when I actually saw its name on the list of reincarnation options, I could
not believe my eyes and chose it, knowing the risk.
However, if it were in a game, it would have been nothing more than an
element to feel superior. However, if this is no longer a game, but
reality, then…
“I’m screwed… This isn’t what I signed up for…”
Various disturbing and unjust words flickered in and out of my mind. I
felt as if I was losing my mind. Is this the punishment for cheating, God?
Isn’t it a little too heavy?
Kuga Yanagi, also known as Iris in the game. And if the game setting
was still there, Iris Nordglacier, Princess of the Northern Kingdom.
I was currently at level 1, just after my reincarnation.
Without the power to protect myself, I was now a girl of an ancient race
that was supposed to be extinct…