.Hack//ZERO SE:1000

SE:1000

Alph sighed heavily as she minimized her chat log.

“I’m sure she read the message, but she’s not responding.”

She wore a hat that split into two long ends like bunny ears. Her outfit was dyed in milk whites and lovely light pinks, and the ensemble seemed to almost defy gravity, flowing perfectly with her movements.

“Why won’t she respond?”

Alph sighed again.

Mixed in with her girly outfit that looked like a strawberry milkshake, her glasses stood out. She repeatedly had to push the large circular frames back into place as they slid down her nose.

“Maybe she’s just AFK?”

“But she’s always replied before. Always.”

Alph pouted, and the PC beside her folded his arms, giving the matter some thought.

Dressed in a knight’s armor, shining brilliantly in silver and white, with a lightning design painted into the metal. The armor covered his entire body, and left his face as the only part of his body that could be seen.

With clear eyes and dirty blonde hair, he had an elegant and beautiful profile.

Only his weapon stood out in his design, a dangerous looking greatsword that was as long as his leg.

“You’re right, this is troubling.” The Blademaster Sieg furrowed his brow. “And I was looking forward to meeting her.”

“I was really hoping to introduce her to you, too. She’s really a good girl.” Alph’s expression clouded with remorse. “Though she has been acting strange lately.”

“Strange enough to ignore an invite?”

“No.”

Alph looked like she was about to cry.

“She wasn’t like this the first time you met her, was she?”

“Of course not!”

At Sieg’s question, Alph quickly shook the depression from her mind.

“We met on a beginner’s forum and realized that we had started playing on the same day – it was so much fun! Then we found out we actually lived close to each other- oh! This is just between you and me, but…”

Alph took a breath before continuing.

This actually wasn’t the first time that Sieg had heard about Alph’s encounter with the PC named Carl, but he leaned in close as if curious anyways.

“We used to form parties and enter events together.”

Then while listening, Sieg went to use a fairy orb to locate the monsters and accidentally clicked on the sprite ocarina instead – warping both of them all the way back to the dungeon’s entrance. Realizing what he had done made him want to cry right there.

He had obtained a Golden Grunty, but he’d traded it away almost immediately, thinking it wouldn’t be of much use.

What Alph remembered about Carl was irrelevant anyways because she was no beginner anymore. She would have changed since then, but those early memories still had meaning and value to Alph.

“How long has it been since you last saw her.

“That’s…”

Seeing Alph stiffen and stumble over her words, Sieg decided to change the question.

“Why did you and she stop meeting?”

“When I first started playing The World, I thought it would be fun to meet a lot of different people, and that would be the most important thing. But Carl didn’t agree. She wanted to travel around, seeing different kinds of areas in all the different servers.”

“Right, but that’s how things are here.”

Sieg nodded.

The World was a big place. There were many different ways in which players could enjoy it.

You could conquer every floor of a huge dungeon, try your hand at time trials, or trade and collect various items. It was easy to customize your own unique experience here.

CC Corp. (Cyber Connect Corporation) even held monthly events that attracted a large number of participants every time.

Some players were fascinated by new events and the rare items they could get from them, while others just liked to keep track of things on the BBS without actually participating themselves. Even beyond that, there were plenty of people who just logged in to meet and talk with their friends.

There were no right or wrong ways to have fun. All that mattered was if the person in question was satisfied.

From what Sieg could tell, Alph was a stereotypical people-pleaser.

It seemed she was trying to get to know as many people as she could, both in-game and on the boards.

In fact, Sieg himself had only met with Alph after she sent him a fan letter.

There were always new challenges to participate in within The World.

Whether it was trying to reach the bottom of a dungeon first or killing the most monsters, people would compete to get their names on the leaderboards.

And Sieg was a regular participant in those challenges.

If the events were held on a global scale, there could be thousands of participants, but even when they were only held on local severs, there would be hundreds of players trying their best.

So, making it into the top 10 for those events was no small feat.

It wasn’t easy to accomplish, but at the same time, there were always the same few people that came out on top almost every time.

And those people became objects of admiration like real life idols.

Currently, the most famous person of that rank was Balmung of the Azure Sky.

Balmung participated in every event, and always won first prize. It was even rumored that CC Corp. had e-mailed the player asking him to stop participating so much because they’ve been winning too often.

Sieg had yet to take that top spot, but he had been able to finish top 10 in almost every event he had participated in.

And because of that, Alph had written Sieg a fan letter on the BBS, which had been the first such letter he had ever received from a stranger.

Everyone knows the name that takes first place, but those that rank lower were usually forgotten about.

That said, there would still be a select few who were devoted to the second or third place winners.

Dear Sieg,

My name is Alph.

I’m not sure if this is the best place to post this, but congratulations on placing third in yesterday’s ‘Statue of the God of Time’ time attack trial.

I really thought you were going to win this time, so I was disappointed when you didn’t.

Damn you Balmung! You’re too strong!

(That’s a joke, of course. Just a joke. I apologize to Balmung and his fans.)

I will continue to support you, Sieg. So please keep up the good work.

It had obviously been written by a girl – or at least it was written to look like it was from a girl, and it was dripping with passion.

And at the end, she had signed it with her member address. Usually, people would avoid putting that kind of information on the BBS where anyone could find it.

But when Sieg saw it, he was quick to write her a short ‘thank you’ message.

The fact that they had shared their member address proved they weren’t trolling, but it also meant they were probably a new player who didn’t know any better.

Her reply came less than two hours later.

After that, the exchange shifted to e-mail, and it became clear that while the other party was expressing genuine affection, they weren’t quite familiar with proper online etiquette.

So, when Sieg then discovered that Alph was actually 12 years old, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed. However, he still decided to accept her as a younger friend.

It was embarrassing for Sieg to have someone look at him with so much adoration and reverence, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

And recently, they had even started sharing details about their real lives with one another.

“Everyone has their own way of playing the game, so it can’t be helped.”

Sieg tried his best to console Alph.

“But…”

“If she doesn’t want you to see her, then that’s her choice to make.”

“I know that, but…”

Alph couldn’t bring herself to accept Sieg’s logic.

“What is it? What’s the problem?”

Sieg made Alph meet his gaze.

Alph practically worshipped Sieg, so it was strange that she was being so stubborn about this now.

“She……” Alph forced the words out. “I think she might be doing some really bad things.”

“Bad?” Sieg repeated the vague term.

Alph’s shoulders hunched as if she were confessing her own crimes.

“Like hacking… and PKing.”

Sieg frowned unconsciously.

Now, Sieg knew he was an optimistic person, and he believed in the inherent goodness of other people. Especially if that other person happened to be a girl.

So, it was hard for him to say no when someone asked him for help. And because of that, people often asked for his advice or assistance.

His soft-spoken and polite mannerisms usually gave people a good impression of him, and he was a skilled player besides. He had yet to let down anyone that had chosen to rely on him.

But there were also some people in The World that looked at Sieg with jealousy for that very same reason.

Someone had once told him to his face that he just wanted to be popular, and thought that since he couldn’t win in the events, he was trying to gain that popularity in other ways.

But that really wasn’t what it was about for Sieg.

Aside from his closest friends, Sieg had never revealed his true ambitions to anyone.

――That one day, he wanted to surpass Balmung and Orca.

But he had to do it fair and square, working within the parameters of the game, using his own experience and skills.

The reason he was kind to girls was just because that was who he was.

Though it had also caused a number of misunderstandings for him that could only be described as a ‘lover’s quarrel’.

Girls who mistook Sieg’s kindness towards them as romantic gestures would write posts that slandered their supposed rivals on the boards. There was even one who had asked for another to be PKed.

If not for the real world distance between them, he would have been worried about things becoming even more serious. But since it was online, he could let it slide a bit more.

But for serious players, it could still cause a lot of chaos.

Thankfully however, one of Sieg’s strengths was that he did not run away from his problems.

He kept talking to those involved until they settled down. Even if they screamed insults and profanities at each other, he stood firm.

The misunderstanding usually persisted, however. It was difficult to change someone’s first impression.

And a large part of the blame lied in the appearance that Sieg had built for himself as the nobleman of steel.

But outside of those misunderstandings, it was rare that anyone had anything truly bad to say about him.

And because of that, Sieg didn’t change how he behaved. Some might call him immature, but that was how he was.

So, he wanted to talk to Alph’s friend properly, even if it cut into his personal time enjoying The World.

Sieg didn’t think it was enough to just participate in events. He wanted to help as many people as he could, too. That was just the kind of guy he was.

So, the girls who said ‘That’s not what I heard. Sieg is just a nice guy.’ Or ‘I can’t tell my boyfriend about this, but if it’s Sieg…’ continued to gather around him.

However, that wasn’t to say that he would always put his best foot forward just because a girl asked him to.

Sieg’s motto was ‘do what you can – but only if you can’.

And for him, that meant listening to each girl’s grievances as long as he had the time to do so. Anything more was just out of Sieg’s control.

And right now, Alph was clearly about to ask Sieg to do something that was out of his control.

“That’s a tough one.”

Still, Sieg didn’t have it in him to discourage this girl.

But when she asked what he thought she should do, he honestly didn’t know what to say.

“Look, it’s just that…”

He gave a troubled sigh.

“That’s why I want you to meet her, Sieg. I’m sure if Carl met you, she would be thrilled.”

He felt like Alph was probably reading too much into it, but Sieg couldn’t bring himself to actually tell her that.

“Then she wouldn’t have time to do bad things.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Why not? You’re amazing, Sieg!”

Alph frowned in frustration. She innocently believed that since she thought it was a good idea, he should see it as a good plan as well.

“Well anyways, that’s beside the point.” Sieg shrugged and chuckled to himself. “I’m sure you’re doing this for a good reason, after all.”

“Huh?”

“That’s just how you are.”

Hearing that, Alph’s expression grew serious. “I think she must just feel lonely. So, she’s doing bad things so someone will scold her.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s one year younger than me.”

“A fifth grader, huh? This could be tricky.”

Sieg stretched his back, assuming a more thoughtful posture.

“I wonder if I should ask KYO and Yuki-chin.”

They were two female players who he had known longer than Alph.

They were older than Alph, and by extension older than Carl. However, he figured they would be able to give better advice than Sieg could as a guy, who was stuck just guessing at what Carl’s motives really were.

“Oh…”

But then Sieg paused and reconsidered.

If he wanted to learn more about the psychology of elementary school girls, he wasn’t limited to the resources he could find in The World. In fact, someone with no experience of online games could potentially give even better insight on the matter.

Sieg thought of his classmates in real life.

There was a girl he’d been sitting next to for the last month, but hadn’t spoken to much.

At first, Sieg had assumed she was trying to avoid talking to him at all.

Even in real life, he knew that some people saw him as a bit of an eccentric.

He had received more than his fair share of Valentine’s Day gifts and chocolates, while other guys only got one or two each year. Though it wasn’t as if he had any direct control over something like that.

However, it wasn’t like this girl had refused to talk at all. When she was asked a question, she would make eye contact and respond. She didn’t look at others like pests, she was just an honest person that treated everybody the same way.

Sieg wondered if he should try to talk to her about this matter.

“What time is it again?”

“Huh?”

Confused by his sudden off-topic question, Sieg quickly apologized.

It was still a decent hour of the day; he should be able to make a phone call without issue.

Sieg tried to think of what he would say to her, but before that, she had to at least answer his call.

Sieg – or rather – Tomonari Kasumi opened up the phonebook and looked up the phone number for Mai Minase.

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