Dreams and Reality

The transition between me staring at my corpse in pseudo 3rd-person perspective to the tutorial fields of Havenmead was very jarring. One second I was looking at some cosplayer staring intently at my large intestines spread all over like raspberry jam on the asphalt, the next, I was immediately snapped into the stereotypical background of a beautiful spring plain surrounded by a peaceful village.

How did I know this place was called Havenmead? Well, I didn’t know in the sense that this was a piece of knowledge of trivia that I’d gone out of my way to remember consciously—for instance, during a tournament you might keep telling yourself, Okay chat, this guy runs two copies of Phase Shield instead of three, so once I see the second played, I can commit to my attack—that’s something that you would only learn right before the game, and only remember for the duration of the game: a piece of knowledge that’s ingrained for a test and then discarded right after.

No—this was far more natural, and far more visceral. It was something I knew the same way I know Shin-Okubo comes before Shinjuku on my way home, or that there are twelve Saints of Calice and that the most popular one by far in terms of fanart and doujins is Alicia, or that the burning meat of a dying person smells oddly appetising at first. It’s something I knew because it was stimuli I’d been exposed and re-exposed constantly to over the course of my life, whether I liked it or not.

I AM IN THE FUCKING TUTORIAL MISSION OF QUANTA TCG.

“R-Rowan? Are you okay? Are you hurt?!”

“Guh.”

“‘G-g-guh?’ What’s a ‘guh’? Oh my goodness, they didn’t tell me you would suddenly collapse and turn white! H-how am I supposed to cure that?”

“Get away… I’m pretty sure I shit myself…”

That’s right. The very first sentence I would grace this unknown person with… was that I shit myself.

Surprisingly, the pink-haired girl didn’t waver in her concern for me. Instead, she seemed to get even closer, gripping tightly to her staff adorned with various green runes—clearly a healer’s tool, although I had never seen a card that specifically matched its appearance. She looked at me with a deep focus, clearly panicking, yet ready to perform surgery if absolutely necessary. Oh god, this is way too nostalgic. She reminded me of someone I used to look up fondly to during my dissection practicals with cadavers. And as to who the girl was, given she was clearly a Quanta TCG character…

Soft eyes, blue like the sky, untainted and naive.

Rose-kissed hair, pale like an angel’s, a touch of silver.

Armed with staff and holy book, her gold-trimmed robes flutter ever so slightly in the Calicean breeze.

I had absolutely zero idea.

“Sh-shit yourself? You mean an ailment effect? You mean an ailment effect, right?! Let me detoxify you right away!”

“N-no… I meant, before I came— before I telepor— ah… forget it.”

“Forget it?! Rowan, you are literally white!”

“Who the hell told you my name was Rowan?!”

I sat up, dissatisfied with not knowing what was going on. If I was going to hallucinate, I was going to trip on my own terms, god fucking damnit. I was not about to let this pink-haired girl think I shat myself, and that I had an awful, disgusting, memeable name like Rowan.

I quickly took stock of my surroundings. Without a doubt, this was Havenmead Village. I could see every minute detail of the background I’d stored in my memory staring vividly back at me—down to the windmill you could fidget with in the corner that broke if you clicked too much, and even the birds that chirped at a particular cadence once you muted the background music. And the smell—

The smell?

—was like dew-tipped grass, spring, and nature.

The smell was all wrong. Quanta TCG smelled like stale sweat and rotting leftovers.

The girl, who was now sitting next to me with her knees on the floor, had the look on her face slowly transform from one of intense worry to confusion as she watched me take in my surroundings.

“You’re… not Rowan,” she said, rather stupidly.

“Yeah. I’m glad you finally realised.”

You might think I was being snarky for no reason, but you couldn’t blame me when I was being thrust into a situation like this. Plus, she probably wasn’t even real.

“You’re… wearing his gear, though. And I’d only been killing slimes for like five minutes before I came back and… found you.”

Hold on a damn moment. It just hit me. Killing slimes? Havenmead? Rowan? As in, Rowan the Elder, Tutorial NPC?

“By any chance, are you an Apprentice of the Templar Order looking to rise to the rank of Initiate I so you can queue for ranked games?”

“Y-yes?” she perked. “I… um… I think so? I was conducting my final rites with Rowan, my Vigil. What do you mean by ‘queue for ranked games’?”

That… explained a lot. Well, not everything, but it at least put enough data points on the chart for me to attempt to extrapolate.

If what she said was true, then I’d somehow teleported here and swapped places with Rowan the Elder—the tutorial NPC that you’re first introduced to in the world of Quanta TCG. He’s nothing more than a sprite and a floating text box, mind you, and his sole purpose in the game is as a framing device to get you to battle against slimes by claiming it’s “training” before abruptly wandering off and telling you to find him afterwards.

Once you’ve completed the tutorial duel that teaches you the basics of cardplay and the use of offensive spells, narrated by an omniscient voice and glowing UI that tells you exactly what cards to play and in what order, you return to him, only for to be jarringly informed that he had been assassinated while you were gone (you never find his corpse). This in turn sets in motion the beginning of the tutorial-campaign of Quanta TCG where once finished, you unlock the Ranked gamemode where you start at the lowest tier of Initiate I and attempt to climb the ranks to hit Divine tier (my rank, hehe). For whatever reason, Rowan is depicted as an African-American man, and his biography states his race as such, despite the fact that the game clearly takes place in a high fantasy setting and every other human character, black or white or Asian-inspired, is simply listed as “Human” in the codex. What makes things even stranger is the fact that no other Templar NPC is depicted in the game as being black, and that his death which abruptly takes place five minutes after starting the campaign is never narratively addressed as a loose end, not even haphazardly. It’s all extremely bizarre, and some people have attributed this to the fact that Quanta TCG was developed by a Chinese company. In any case, it’s likely the reason why this mystery girl has concluded I am indeed not Rowan.

Wait. That meant I could still look like Rowan. In fact, there was every possibility I was him.

Oh god.

Just to make sure, I pull the fringe of my hair down as far as I can manage. It’s black and straight, and the length just about reaches my nose, which is how long it was right before I left my room to go talk to Aunt Sumire. For the moment, it made sense to assume that I’d just been transported here through my actual body, although I’d have to make sure to verify this later through measuring a certain thing. Ahem.

It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I mean, not like there’s anything wrong with looking like Rowan—it’s just that it feels more natural to be yourself, you know? And I liked being Japanese, and I liked having straight hair, and… I have decided this train of thought may implicate me if I continue.

In the meantime, would that mean this girl is… an avatar?

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Annabelle…” she said. “Of Friesland. And you?”

“Watanabe Daisuke. Of Tokyo.”

She looked at me like I was having a stroke. “Watatuduhuh?”

“Just call me Primot. My friends call me that.”

Nobody called me that.

Also, this “of Japan” joke is sad and unfunny and overused. Pathetic, even.

“Okay… Primot.” She mouthed it to herself a few times to get the pronunciation down. “I can work with that. I’m glad you consider me your friend. In that case, you can call me Anna.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And you said you hailed from Tokyo. I’ve never heard of that place before. Would Daisuke then be your royal name, perchance?”

“No, no. Primot is my royal name.”

I resisted the urge to cringe and yell—LAST NAMES GO FIRST IN NIHONGO!—but it was very clear that Annabelle was white and simply trying to be welcoming. In any case, it was a miracle that we were even conversing in what I assumed was Japanese, although the lack of being called Primot-kun made me think that it was perhaps some sort of language that was being translated in my head via magic or the power of hard drugs. Whatever it was, I was beginning to feel like I had a decent understanding of how I could go back and tell Aunt Sumire that I was sorry.

“I-I’m sorry!” The girl suddenly squeaked. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings!”

“What?”

What the hell was this random ass behaviour?

“You just… looked really sad after I asked my question. I’m sorry if it was a stupid question!”

“...”

“I’m sorry! Please don’t hate me!”

I took another glance at this cleric just to make sure I didn’t miss anything important. I didn’t. This was not a child. Perhaps she could pass for a high schooler. But my money was on college age—hell, maybe even early working adult. At the very least, she was too old to be doing shit like this, and you could distinctly tell that whoever wrote this and thought it’d be endearing had clearly never been in an abusive relationship before. Wait a second. The person hallucinating this would be me. Wait a second.

For fuck’s sake, Daisuke. Focus.

She’s not real, and you have something you need her to do. No more joking around.

“I don’t hate you,” I said, forcing out a smile. “You’re just the first person I’ve talked to since getting here, so I’m just as nervous as you are.”

“A-ah, I see. That makes sense… I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings.”

“Don’t apologise.”

“...I’m sorry,” she said, hiding behind her staff as she did.

It’s time to go home.

Once I gave her a few seconds to settle in, I then asked a very logical question. “Okay, Anna. Could you please kill me?”