I DREAMED ABOUT SAVING THE WORLD
“Ah—another day come and gone without any major disasters!”
I tucked myself into bed with a leisurely sigh of relief. There really was nothing better than going to bed with nothing to worry about and no work on your plate, knowing you’ll be able to sleep like a log. I always felt way healthier when I got a full night’s sleep, too.
Viva the highlands lifestyle!
That evening, however, a peaceful night’s sleep simply wasn’t to be. No sooner had I climbed into bed than a telepathic voice rang out in my mind.
Hello there, Azusa!
Ugh—that was definitely Godly Godness’s voice! Is she about to ask me to help her with something obnoxious again…? I really wish she’d stick to bothering me in the daytime, at the very least. Calling someone right as they’re going to bed is illegal, dang it!
Oh, but this time, I’m asking you for something you couldn’t do during the daytime! In fact, it’s something you can only help me with while you’re asleep!
Oh, I think I know what that means… Are you dragging me into another weird alternate world? What is it with you and these weird sleep learning-adjacent schemes…? You’ve already sent me to a world made up of nothing but slimes and a world that was basically just an action game, remember?
Oh, I do indeed! And as a matter of fact, I’m currently developing another new training program for my followers. I was hoping you’d be willing to play-test it for me again! Thanks so much for being such a good sport about it!
Being a good sport about what?! I haven’t even agreed yet! Stop assuming I’m in!
This was another collaborative work between me and one of this world’s most renowned game designers, Pondeli! I wrote the whole story myself, and she helped with the programming! Now it’s all up to you, Azusa. Please get in there and save the digital world we created!
Huh? You want me to save the world? That’s kind of a big ask, you know…?
The next thing I knew, I found myself standing in a mysterious new world.
“Again? Seriously?”
Those two words summed up my feelings on the matter in a nutshell, honestly.
The last time this had happened, I’d ended up in a very pixelated, video game–like world. I found myself looking at a similar landscape now, but this time, the graphics had received a conspicuous upgrade.
The sky above and the town around me looked way nicer than before. Flowers were blooming here and there, and I could even see a river flowing off in the distance. In gaming terms, it was like we’d moved up to a new, more advanced console generation—like we’d upgraded from an Entertainment System to a Super Entertainment System, shall we say.
“I see you’ve wound up in this world as well, Lady Azusa. I will do my utmost to help you overcome this trial!”
I only know one person who’s that stiff with her greetings. That’s gotta be Laika!
I turned in the direction her voice had come from, and lo and behold, Laika was indeed standing nearby. Or, rather, a jagged, pixel-art version of Laika was standing nearby.
“Laika! You look like you belong in a video game world!”
“And your body is oddly blocky and angular, Lady Azusa!”
I took a look at my arms and legs, and found she was right. I was just as pixelly as she was!
Just then, writing started scrolling through the sky overhead.
“Dedicating an awful lot of space to the workers’ rights disclaimer, aren’t you?!” That is so obviously not the part of the backstory that’s most in need of clarification!
That said, I now had a pretty clear idea of what Godly Godness was going for this time. Most likely, I was in an RPG world. To clear this game, I would have to defeat its final boss: the elder god from the preamble.
My best guess, by the way, was that the elder god role would be played by Dekie, a literal elder god. She seemed easily powerful enough to fill the final boss role. As for the demon king, I had to assume she’d end up being a mid-game boss. She would be played by Pecora, because of course she would.
You know what? Compared to the unnecessarily hard action game I had to deal with last time, an RPG feels like it’ll be totally possible to progress through steadily as long as I take it slow. Psychologically speaking, this’ll be way easier than the last game.
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