Loner High-School Girl And The God-Tier Game — Total Loss

I respawned in a shopping mall.

“Where is this…”

I trace a finger through empty air and open the MAP. It reads Space Station, Channel 2921. So I’ve finally made it to the first town.

I take a quick look around. A huge… a genuinely huge shopping mall. The outer shell is all glass, and space stretches away beyond it.

While I’m standing there wondering what to do, a humanoid robot crosses in front of me, the name Autonomous Guide Machine for Beginners floating above its head.

“U-um, excuse me.”

“Yes. How may I be of service?”

A cute little robot, maybe three heads tall. An NPC, then. Two pink ribbons stick up from its head like rabbit ears. Good. If it’s a robot, I can talk without stuttering. I’m excellent at self-checkout.

“I’m a beginner. Where should I go?”

“If you desire armaments, please proceed to the Weapon Shop on Floor 2. If you wish to set out on an adventure at once, please go to the Ship Dock on Floor 8, choose whichever Colony or Planet you like, and depart. If you want companions, the Gas Station on Floor 3 is recommended. If you want information, you may use the Data Stream on Floor 2, or make use of a Guide Girl such as myself.”

Armaments or adventure, huh.

I’ve still got four empty armament slots. Filling those before I head out is probably the better play.

“Do you have any other questions?”

“Ah, um, what’s the death penalty like in Infinity-Space?”

I’d just been killed, so I may as well ask.

“They are: ‘a major status reduction for one hour,’ ‘item loss,’ and ‘half of your chips forfeited.’ Any item you have not carried back to a base even once is lost for certain.”

“A base — you mean here?”

“Yes. My House, Mother Ship and Army Base are also counted as bases.”

So much for walking into a danger zone after a super-rare item and banking on death to carry you home. That old RPG standby goes with it: go fetch an item somewhere far away → die on purpose to skip the trip back. However good the drop, you can’t relax until you’re standing in a base again. Think of a base as an inventory save point.

“Hold on a second…”

The worst-case scenario surfaces in my head.

“Huh?! That’s… that’s really bad, isn’t it…?!”

It couldn’t be. Still, I open my weapon list.

“Wha—?!”

Every field in the armament column was… blank.

“T-total loss…?!”

My knees give out under me.

There’s nothing in my item pouch either. Zero possessions. I’ve taken the status-down on top of that, and since I never noted my original chip count I can’t be certain, but my chips (the money in this game) have almost certainly been halved as well.

From the moment I logged in to the moment I got a game over, I never once set foot in a base. Which means every armament I had was flagged for loss…!

Shipped off to a battlefield by what was probably a bug, and a total loss at the end of it… my luck really is beyond terrible!

I’ve never had any luck, not once in my life… every gacha drags me all the way to the pity ceiling¹, and it’s a given that I never crit while the other guy crits every single time…

…Should I start over? No. Redoing character creation from scratch is a pain, and besides, my pride will not permit anything that amounts to a reroll marathon. Seeing it through with the talent I was given and the fate I was given. That is my gamer’s way.

Five thousand chips on hand… that’s everything I own.

Without a weapon I can’t do anything. For now, the shop is my only option.

After that I got her to walk me through each of the status fields and give me a rough rundown of the world. At the end, the Guide Girl even handed over a manual. I gratefully convert it to data and stow it in my item pouch.

“Thanks for the info.”

I pat the Guide Girl on the head and set off for the elevator in the center.

Floor 2, the Weapon Shop.

Guns, knives and sabers float on display inside cylindrical glass cases like incubation tanks. I check them over one by one.

“N-no good… five thousand chips can’t buy anything.”

The cheapest sniper rifle is 7,000 chips; sabers and handguns run 5,500. Put that way, taking the sniper rifle in the starting-armament pick was a bargain. Only marginally, but still.

“…This… am I actually softlocked here…?”

Eyes stinging, I make it to the very far end of the shop… the bargain wagon. Armaments of every kind lie heaped into it without a shred of care, all priced flat at 2,000 chips. In a game where laser weapons are the mainstream, the wagon holds nothing but live-round guns and solid blades. It’s also the only place in the shop I can afford. And against the weak mobs of the early game, even these might be enough to get a kill.

The first thing to catch my eye is a solid knife called the Army Knife. Yep. An ordinary survival knife, the type with anti-slip serrations running along the spine, opposite the edge.

I pull up the details.

…In other words, it isn’t meant for combat.

I’d rather not spend another chip out of pocket, though, and something I can use forever is extremely tempting. I’ll take it. I pick up the Army Knife, and a purchase confirmation appears.

I press YES with my finger. Two thousand chips are deducted from my funds, and the Army Knife is stowed in my weapon list.

Next, a gun. One live-round gun in particular draws my hand toward it.

“M1911… the Colt Government.”

It’s my trauma gun… and god, I love this thing!

A semi-automatic pistol, simple in design and genuinely, solidly practical. It’s famous, too, and it stayed in service from 1911 all the way to 1985. Hopelessly obsolete by now, sure, but the more I look into it, the more rational its mechanism turns out to be. This is the gun that symbolizes America. .45 caliber, seven in the magazine plus one in the chamber. Because of when it was designed, it has a good solid heft, and a fair bit of recoil.

Its history runs deep, and its structure is perfect while still leaving room to tinker, so custom parts for it exist by the truckload (in reality, anyway). It turns up in plenty of other games too, and I’ve put a lot of rounds through it. Which means I have its ballistics, muzzle velocity, recoil and range down cold. Of every handgun there is, this is the one that sits most naturally in my hands.

.45 caliber ammunition is cheap, too. This is the one.

“And… purchased.”

Then it’s over to the ammunition wagon, where I buy ninety-eight rounds of .45 caliber. It comes to a mere 980 chips, which probably means live-round guns really are that weak, huh~.

“…Wait, seriously? There’s a girl over there buying umaibo².”

“…She really is. First time I’ve ever seen that… I’m dying.”

I catch whispering voices. The Space Girls they belong to have their eyes on me.

Umaibo…? Oh. Right. Ninety-eight rounds, 980 chips. That’s ten chips a round. Hence umaibo…

Let them talk. Ignorant brats — they don’t know the first thing about the M1911’s reliability!
And besides, umaibo don’t even cost ten yen anymore!
Anyway, the stares hurt, so let’s get out of here fast!

And so I scurried out of the sales floor.