Natural Causes

“Are you stupid? No, seriously, are you stupid? I’m floating two water quanta with one card suspiciously in hand and you find the only line that possibly loses the game, do your parents hate you because you are stupid? Are you trash? Deranking on purpose? Just uninstall, dude. Netdecking won’t save you. You are trash. A NEET. Garbage. I bet you didn’t get into any universities, and if you did, you probably dropped out after one term. You play like you’re the medical term describing someone three standard deviations to the left of an IQ curve.”

I saw. I came. I conquered. I am going to come again. This doesn’t seem right.

And that’s okay. When one pursues greatness, all other earthly exploits must be put on the sidelines in the name of optimisation, including knowledge of quotes. I heard that, way back when at the beginning of the 21st century, there was this American band “Black Eyed Peas” that released a song called “Let’s Get Retarded” that became a global sensation and eventually had to become psy-oped by Big Media so that the public would believe there only ever was one version which was the clean one. It is the same way that, one day, I am going to write a gaming web novel with a lot of slurs in it and get it cleaned up as a light novel where all the slurs are replaced by my editor with milder variations of insults that still show the belligerent attitude of my protagonist yet are missing that raw bite that you would expect from someone who spends fourteen hours a day playing at the apex ranks of various TCGs (Trading Card Games).

“Good G—Good Ga—Good G—Good Game” my avatar repeatedly emotes in epileptic fashion as I [Reverse Time] my opponent’s [Queen Erica, Saint-Regent of the Holy Lands] except he doesn’t reply me with an emote or even wait to see the spell resolve, and instead opts to spontaneously explode into a million pieces. VICTORY, reads my screen. What a dirty BMing dog, conceding without replying back with a “Good Game.” At this point, it’s 1-0 in a Best of 3, and we move to the sidedeck phase where I’m allowed to swap cards between my deck and my reserve pool.

“Alright, so chat, when you play against Grav-Light Midrange, you want to take out some Reverse Times and replace them with Deadly Poisons instead to deal with their swarm of low cost creatures. Yeah, I know it might seem counterintuitive since you often need RT to deal with Erica, but you have enough card draw to get it reliably by Turn 7 and so you can afford to go down to two copies. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend thinning down to one because chat, if you—”

Knock knock. “Ahem. Daisuke? Can you come out for dinner?”

“U-u-u-um I’m b-b-busy with a game.”

“Could you pause it then, please? I’ve been telling you to come out for a while.”

Nothing about what this woman says is false. I distinctly remember her calling me out for dinner more than half an hour ago. If anything, she’s being lenient with her statement, and I’d even started a new match knowing full well that I was already late. However, pitiful things like “dignity” or “familial obligations” or “hygiene” are merely obstacles on the path of the journey to greatness—like how good CEOs should only sleep for three hours a night—and weak hindrances like these will absolutely NOT deter me from my goal of delivering a thorough beatdown to my opponent in Best-of-3 Quanta TCG Ranked Match in Top 100 Divine.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you just now…” I say, fully having heard my Aunt just now, the “just now” from before that, and all the “just nows” from when she’d been knocking on my door in progressively shorter intervals. “You can’t pause an online game, so I’ll be done in five minutes, yeah?” I continue, knowing full well that the match is going to take 10 at the bare minimum.

“…Okay then, Daisuke,” Aunt Sumire says, sounding strangely defeated.

In the midst of all this, I realise I’d been doing none of the side decking I was supposed to be doing, instead simply opening and closing the Settings menu over and over like an ADHD git (I am allowed to say this as I have ADHD), and I’m probably about to be thrown into Game 2 with a suboptimal deck. “Oh shit fuck” are the choice words to escape my mouth before the loading screen comes and my mental estimate of winning Game 2 go down from 65% with the proper set-up to 35% since I ended up doing none of the things I told chat I would do.

But suddenly.

SaintAliciasFeet69 has disconnected.

“Huh. This dude ragequit, I guess.”

Knock knock. “Daisuke, sorry to interrupt, but I’m not feeling very—”

“Yes, yes. I’m coming out.”

I quickly give my monitor a tap before opening the door to my living room. On the table is a spread of a fairly typical dinner—rice, pickled vegetables, miso soup, an extra large serving of tofu—but no meat.

Aunt Sumire looks at me, somewhat surprised. “Oh, you actually came out...”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” she smiles, dodging the question.

Seeing as it’s nothing, I sit down and begin the process of transporting sustenance away from the table and into my digestive system. The feeling in my oral cavity isn’t bland, but it’s rather cold, so it’s hard to quickly shove down all the fuel I need at once. I get up to pop the tray in the microwave and then pour myself a glass of barley tea.

“Were you gaming with your friends?”

“U-um. Yeah.”

“I see. That’s nice. Who is ‘chatto’?”

“Chat is my… friend.”

“From high school?”

“...Not really. An online friend, I guess.”

“I see. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I know you said not to come into your room when you’re on call, but there’s just something really important I had to tell you today, my dear…”

Not this ‘dear’ nonsense again.

I take a quick glance at Aunt Sumire. She’s slightly hunched across the dinner table, her usual smile ever-present. But today, for whatever reason, it seems like her expression is hiding something more melancholic.

I know that look all too well, of course. It’s the way people smile at you to soften you up before giving you the bad news—as if it makes sense to get someone to soften their guard before you punch them. Or the way people engage in niceties as if they’re planting multiple pieces in a mating net before they decide to deliver checkmate…

You’re about to ask me something annoying. I can see it in your eyes.

“…I think I’ll go eat in my room.”

“Daisuke…”

“I told you, I’m fine. I’m applying to some overseas universities. Their university terms start in August, and it’s only February, so I have lots of time to make sure my application is ready… I just want to make sure I get in, so I need to focus. Okay?”

“Daisuke, please just—”

“And! I’m making money from cryptocurrency. So I have enough money to get by—more than enough, actually. I’m basically rich. I don’t need a part-time job. If you really feel like it, go ahead and charge me rent. I have enough to pay whatever sum you want… In fact, I’ll start paying for my portion of the groceries as well. I’m fine, Aunt, so don’t even worry about me.”

The sour undertone of our conversation is interrupted by the microwave playing some saccharine music box jingle, and I expertly use this distraction to grab the tray and pivot towards a stage exit. I didn’t have time for “familial obligations” or “pity” or “concern”, I needed to hit Rank 1. I needed to—

“Daisuke… I think you should know that I can’t support you any longer.”

I put the tray of food down.

“What did you just say?”

Are you kicking me out?

Even though you know what I’ve been through?

Even though you know I can never go back to being ‘normal’?

Aunt Sumire is shaking in her seat, clutching her right shoulder. Very, very specifically, her right shoulder.

“I had a medical check-up today… they advised me that I would need to quit my job.”

“What? Quit your job? Medical check-up? When? You didn’t tell me you had one scheduled. And what the hell does this have to do with me?”

“...I’m sorry, Daisuke,” she says, her voice wavering. “That’s not what I meant. I’m getting old, so it’s hard to talk about these things.”

You are not old.

You are 55, four years younger than my mother if she were still around.

You are nowhere close to old.

Old is an age where people die and people go, “at least they were about to go soon.”

Nobody would say that about you right now. YOU ARE NOT OLD.

“No, that’s not— Look, just tell me what’s going on.”

“Of course, of course…” she smiled. “Daisuke, I still think about the time your mother told me about how you got accepted into Todai. It was wonderful… my mood brightened every time I thought about how you were going to become a doctor. And I always believed… that you were the smartest child of everyone in our family, of all my beloved nephews and nieces.”

“...”

“And that’s why I’m not surprised that you are doing so well in your online business. Even though it must be difficult to live through all this pain, and now—to have another setback like this suddenly forced onto you… I’m sure you will be fine even after I am gone. That’s why, I’m just saying, that I’m sorry I won’t be able to be useful to you much longer.”

“What are you even talking about? Can you please stop being so dramatic?”

“Daisuke,” she looks at me, absently rolling up and down the sleeves of her cardigan. As she does, I notice the unevenness of her skin, her too-defined bones, her imperfections that I’d chalked up to fatigue that were actually the sign of something more important if I’d actually bothered to pay attention. “You know, your mother always wanted you to finish your degree.”

“Please, let’s not talk about this right now. Can we focus on you?”

“I am dying,” Sumire smiles, turning to me, and this time the wrinkles of her eyes are genuine. “I am going to die very soon.”

***

All of a sudden I found myself walking down the street and to the nearby convenience store, something I hadn’t done in years. But I felt that I needed to clear my head, and desperate times call for desperate measures, and so for the first time since I stopped therapy I was out of the house and roaming the streets of the suburb I lived in.

It was here that I randomly got contemplative and decided to reflect on how I got to this point.

I had great grades essentially my entire life—good enough to get into the best preparatory high school in my region and then medical school at Tokyo U.

I had never played a video game seriously until my second year of college, but recently, this was all I did on a day to day basis.

I didn’t have any source of income or fame. In fact, I didn’t talk to anyone aside from a few people I’d met on online games or TCG forums, and I’d lost just about all of my inheritance and other insurance related payouts gambling on cryptocurrency.

Over the course of my life I managed to have two fairly successful relationships: Yui in college and another girl who I legitimately cannot recall the name of, but those memories feel so distant and so impossible that they may as well be fantasies.

On top of all of this, my trophy cabinet and pictures hanging in Aunt Sumire’s living room suggest that at some point I was athletic and charismatic enough to both be the vice-captain of my high school soccer team and win the award for best forward of my prefecture during the national qualifiers.

At what point did it all go wrong?

“Ah… it’s raining.”

I knew, of course. It went wrong because I had been too lucky.

Intelligence, looks, height, wealthy parents, even the odds of being born into a first world country as advanced as Japan at the right time—these weren’t things that I worked for. I was merely ushered into success, riding the luck of destiny bestowed upon me by some greater being. That’s why it only made sense that, as my luck deviated more and more from the average, finding successes that most people in the world could only dream of through zero effort of my own—it only made sense that destiny would partake in mean reversion and strike me down to where I deserved to be.

And now with averaged out luck, my true colours—a weak-willed, beaten down university dropout who couldn’t even hold a part-time job or love his dying Aunt—were showing.

I managed to find a spot at the side of the road where there’s a little bit of shelter, giving me some needed respite from the rain. Although I’d intended to get to the convenience store, I was just kind of going about randomly, mindlessly walking around and going off memories that were many years outdated at this point. I mean, it just made sense that I would get lost. The moment someone as useless as me is left to their own devices, it’s only natural that I’d go astray…

Maybe this is the right time to just go. I’ll wait for a car to come around, and then I’ll run in front of it. Or I could—

“Hey.”

I snap my head towards the sound of the unexpected voice.

Despite the pouring rain and distant thunder, she sounds as clear as day.

Her amber eyes pierce through the darkness, an otherworldly glow to them.

Her fiery red hair stands defiant in the downpour.

“Are you PrimotGodXXX?”

I wince. “Uh… what the fuck?”

“I’m Alicia Piquet, a Gravity Saint affiliated with the Templar Order of Calice. You might know me as SaintAliciasFeet69. We dueled earlier today, remember?”

I blink twice to indicate that I’m in danger and that this would be a good time to wake up if possible, but no such thing happens. In fact, the blinks only serve to sharpen my vision and make it readily apparent that there is some sort of invisible barrier repelling the rain that should very well be drenching her admittedly impressive cosplay.

No question about it—I’m hallucinating. Maybe I didn’t even walk out of the house at all, and I actually fell asleep. The only way to tell would be to try and piss my pants, but something in me is telling me to keep this dream going on.

Seriously, PrimotGodXXX? Why the fuck couldn’t I have picked… I don’t know, Kirito?

“Are you a LARPer?” I ask.

She blinks back twice at me before tilting her head. “What is this… ‘larper’ that you speak of?”

“Are you… casting Repulsion Aura on yourself?”

Repulsion Aura
2 Gravity Quanta
Spell — Enchantment
Slow Speed

Reduce the damage of all incoming attacks on the equipped creature by 1. If this results in 0 damage on the resolution step, counter the spell. Persistent.

“Ohoho. Mighty impressive, PrimotGodXXX. Despite your lowly origins, you are able to see the flow of Quanta. Truly, you are the one destined to be the Quantum Mage.”

I wince again. “Please don’t call me that.”

“How shall I address you, then? ‘Your Eminence’, perhaps?”

“Just Watanabe is fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

No.

“Actually, call me Primot.”

Saint Alicia nods. “As you wish, Primot. Forgive my sudden appearance, as I know someone as powerful as you in the Lower Realms must certainly be a busy man. However, we have no time to waste, and thus, I present with you two options.”

As she says this, she conjures forth what I believe is a magic circle, eerily similar to the animation that triggers when you play a card in the game Quanta TCG. From it, a mighty warstaff appears in her hands, and she slams it into the ground.

The rain disappears with impunity, and the clouds part to reveal a crescent moon.

Morning Star, equipped with the Divine border.

I know this card. I know these cards.

…But why?

“One, I give you a Lower Realm day to wrap up all your unfinished business, and we teleport to Sienne, the capital of my kingdom afterwards. Or two…”

She points her weapon at me—a pure, crackling mass of light held together in the shape of a warstaff, adorned with the emblem of a three headed dragon. “We can go right now, since time dilation means that every second spent here is precious hours wasted in the Higher Continent.”

“Uh… how about not going?”

“Huh?” she says, confused. “But I discussed the details of the contract with you, and you agreed to the oath of duel.”

I find myself slowly inching backwards. I don’t want to be in this dream anymore.

“S-sorry, deal’s off. Deal was never even proposed in the first place, actually.”

“But I typed it in!” she boomed. “In… the computer chat! I typed it in and you agreed! You even emoted to acknowledge it!”

“I didn’t agree to shit! I didn’t even see your messages!”

I was just spamming “Greetings, Traveler” out of habit! Sorry to burst your bubble!

“Preposterous!” she yells, edging the warstaff closer to me.

“L-look, if you really did that, then I’ll have you know I’ve got messages turned off by default so that I can focus better. If you typed anything, I’m sorry to get your hopes up, but I had no idea you were even trying to communicate with me.”

“WHAT? So you didn’t see the part where I explained the fate of my world rested on your decision? Impossible…”

This… seems like an awfully shitty set-up for an inciting event. I think my dreams of being a web novel author who gets all his non-PC views cleaned up in the post-edit will probably have to wait a while, possibly forever.

She suddenly sulks and hunches over as if learning of a diagnosis of stage IV spinal cancer. I would know, because I’d seen that pose just minutes earlier. Even her aura that she’d been effortlessly maintaining this whole time had disappeared, and her orange glow had faded into nothingness.

Right now, she and I—we looked the same.

“But you’re the only one who can save us.”

Sorry brain, but this trope isn’t doing it for me. Time to pack up.

“Um, no thanks. Or, uh, er, give me 24 hours. That. Yeah.”

I use this time to get away as far as I can from my hallucination and scramble to the other side of the road. Thanks to its reckless swinging, the rain had stopped, and it helps me draw on my memories better. At least this strange scenario my brain concocted was good for one thing.

SaintAliciasFeet69.

Some random upstart in Top 100 Divine who I’d never seen before, actually. And if I’m remembering correctly, her tracker was…

138-0?

It had to be a bug, because she played like shit, and I absolutely rinsed her. The match wasn’t close at all, and I’d never been in real danger of losing despite having a suboptimal draw. She’d also left after Game 1, so I couldn’t tell how good her adaptability was between games.

But did she really play terribly, though? Or was that just me talking myself up so I have one thing left to feel good about in my life? Grav-Light Midrange has a rather flexible gameplan, so it’d be impossible to tell if she was good or bad without being able to see her hand and turn-by-turn decisions. There’s every possibility she ran into even worse draws than I did.

I take my phone to find out by going to the tracker site. Quantapro.gg, I type into my search bar, before trying to find SaintAliciasFeet69 in the leaderboards. Saint Alicia, Saint Alicia, Saint Alicia… I needed to see her match history and check the replay of the game to see how optimal her lines were. Wait… why the hell am I taking a hallucination seriously?

Ah, wait. There she is. Rank 53. She’d moved down a few places after abandoning her set with me, with a win ratio of 138-1. Kind of impressive. Hmm. Her most played deck is Mono Gravity Control, but she started playing Grav-Light Midrange recently. Not meta choices at all, but respectable that she’s piloting something so weird in High Divine… Oh, and our match is right there. Let me just…

…Huh? If my phone’s working, then I’m absolutely not dreaming.

The fuck?

“Primot! Watch out!”

“Hey, I said leave me—”

Before I have time to swear, I’m suddenly hit by a truck. I don’t die immediately on impact—I get hit just hard enough to feel an intense amount of pain, but it’s just short of the threshold of going numb or passing out. It’s only when the truck keeps accelerating and slams me into the traffic pole at the intersection that my body separates cleanly into three and I can now confirm you can see out of your eyes for a few seconds after you’ve been decapitated.

Saint Alicia’s amber eyes went incredibly wide. “Oh no. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”