Episode 2

The RPG “Wish Soul.” It was a home-console title whose classic yet intricately crafted story and battles—easy to enjoy yet deep—kept Hiroto replaying it again and again.

Its world was the familiar realm of swords and sorcery, modeled on a medieval-like era. The easy-to-grasp setting pulled players in even more.

The story spotlighted the protagonist and the party members around him. Through meetings and partings they grew, and the plot portrayed clashes among nations and organizations, conflicts born of differing positions, and struggles on the boundary between good and evil. It was an RPG that walked the royal road.

So what kind of character was Zeke in the game? Simply put, he was a villain.

He repeatedly opposed the protagonist and other key figures, and at times those confrontations escalated into combat, giving him aspects of a boss character.

Some works feature compelling villains who occasionally rank high in popularity polls, but Zeke had none of that, unfortunately.

Zeke bore all kinds of direct or indirect grudges with the heroes. He attacked the protagonist’s family, abducted the heroine, turned the knighthood into his personal tool, erased an entire town with its residents—the list went on; he committed villainy without end.

In the end he died in battle against the heroes, but it was hard to say that players felt fully vindicated. Because of how the story progressed, you couldn’t prevent his crimes in advance, and since his exit came late in the plot, he kept reappearing.

It was only natural that players collectively branded him “atrocious,” and Hiroto felt the same. One could say that, precisely because it was a classic tale, it needed an easy-to-read villain.

But this was the world of “Wish Soul,” and he was now living as Zeke. He couldn’t wave it away with, “If I die the way the story dictates, so be it.”

If things followed the original, he would die for certain; and because Zeke had made too many enemies on all sides, he might even be attacked outside the script.

A swirl of anxieties ran through his head; eating was out of the question.

Before he knew it, he had holed up in his room, racking his brain.

He reconsidered what kind of person Zeke was, and, as expected, he was no good.

To avoid running in circles, he decided to analyze from another angle.

First, his manner of speaking. Since possessing Zeke, every time he spoke, the tone came out extremely forceful—more like lines Zeke himself would say than his own words.

Most likely Zeke’s character settings were being enforced—some kind of “coercive force of the world” at work.

Either way, if he just let himself be carried by the flow, a death end was guaranteed.

His first objective was not to die; he would resist the world’s coercive force and the scenario, and aim to clear the story.

With renewed resolve, Hiroto set his plans in motion.

That said, Zeke was currently twelve. It seemed there were five years left until the game’s opening.

The reason: Zeke and the protagonist were the same age, and at the start of the story the protagonist was seventeen.

If he could use these five years well, his chances of survival would rise greatly.

He needed to grasp how the original and this world related, track the movements of major figures, and—most importantly—improve his combat skills.

“Wish Soul” was a world of swords and magic. If it didn’t diverge greatly from the game, it was a world where you swung blades, cast spells, and fought people and monsters.

Unlike modern Japan, death was close at hand. Above all, because he had possessed Zeke, one wrong move could make the whole world his enemy. Since he couldn’t rely on others, he had to manage on his own.

To achieve Objective One, he would first become strong. He would gain power enough to change an unreasonable reality (i.e., the “scenario”).

(Even if it meant sacrificing something…)