The Part Where He Kills You

The rest of the day went about the same. King Hinata told me to try all the different weapons available, just to find whichever one was the best fit for me. Spears, axes, and a whole lot of stuff I forgot the names of. Each time, he would demonstrate the weapon for me. Each time, I would accidentally damage the walls. Each time, he would put the weapon back in a huff and move on to whatever was next on the weapon rack. 

I was really getting worried that something was going wrong. Whenever the king used a weapon, the shockwave of energy would be blue. But when I use it, even if it was the exact same weapon, the energy turns golden. I think it means I haven’t mastered the weapon cuz it gets out of control. I really wasn’t sure if I would find a weapon right for me.

The spotlight in the center grew dimmer and dimmer as sunset approached. The king dismissed me when it disappeared completely.

“Meet me in the throne room in half an hour,” he said. Peter followed him out of the chamber. And that was that.

Standing alone in that dark, empty room made me realize I didn’t really have much to do. I had already done some training, if that counted as training, and didn’t want to overwork myself. Rest is just as important as exercise. But there was nothing else to do in there, so I left too.

I wandered the barren halls, no direction or care in the world. But as I dragged my feet through ornamental rugs, I had to face the truth: that was a complete lie, I had many cares in the world. The whole point of me doing this was caring. I cared about Chouji, I cared about Coral and Half-sword Dave.

I cared about Gina.

I slumped over against a wall, underneath one of the many torches strewn about. I let the exhaustion and fatigue wash over me. I was tired. And not just from the training. I held my hand up, looking at the shadow that was cast. I twisted my fingers, watching as the shadow writhed on the ground. It hurt, being lied to. Being used. Especially from someone as close as Gina. Why couldn’t she have been honest with me? Why did she make up this stuff with being a tutorial NPC?

I kept telling myself that I did what I had to. Working with the king, asshole that he may be, would surely boost my odds of defeating the Demon King. And staying by Gina’s side wouldn’t. But no matter how much I tried to forget, I kept seeing the betrayal and hurt in her eyes. As much as she must have seen the betrayal and hurt in my eyes. I sat there under the flame, as memories and feelings swirled around in the darkness.

It was the longest half hour of my life.

~⚔~

The throne room looked exactly the same, except the tables of food at the side of the room had been pushed to the center. Also, King Hinata’s harem was missing. Come to think of it, I didn’t encounter them anywhere in the hallways. But then again, this place was ginormous.

The tables were lined with rotisserie chicken, roasted veggies, soup, lots of hearty stuff. The king himself was sitting at one head of the table, where his throne was, and I was sitting at the other. He was in the middle of stuffing his face when I walked into the room.

“Hello Daisuke,” he said. You’d think someone of such high stature would know how to conduct himself, but I only knew him for one day and my expectations were under the floorboards. He talked with his mouth full, making his already quiet voice even more difficult to understand.

“Hi.”

He waved around what looked to be a blue mutton leg. “I got lots of protein for you. Important source of energy to prepare for the big fight.”

I sat down and scooped some of said protein onto the plate laid in front of me. “Usually for energy you’re supposed to eat carbs.” I said.

The king paused.

“I’m on a college baseball team.”

He nodded. “That explains your great physical strength.” A few more bites of blue mutton. I took some bites of food myself. Not bad. “I was a little worried about training you, since most Players here aren’t all that… physically adept.”

I was confused for a moment, until I remembered that this place was full of people like Chouji. Then I understood. Sorry Chouji. We ate on in silence for a while. It was better than I was expecting, and better than anything I had in the past few days. 

“I failed to account for that,” King Hinata continued. “Which is why I must be quite honest with you. I was going to do this much later, but I’m afraid my plan will have to accelerate to the good part. This is the part where I kill you.”

I nodded, enjoying the savory flavor of the chicken and the creaminess of the soup. I was very hungry and very tired. Which is why it took a few seconds for those words to settle in.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve drugged every morsel of food placed at that end of the table.” 

Maybe that was the other reason it took a few seconds for the words to settle in. And now that he mentioned it, his voice was growing quite distant. I tried to shove my plate off the table or spit out the food I was chewing on, but every action or even thought of action became a Herculean task. Not that any of that would do anything, of course. It had already gotten to me.

“Why… why would you… poison me?” Even asking that question required all of my braincells to become aligned. My speech was slurred and hard to understand. But Hinata got the gist.

“Drugged. Not poisoned. If I had poisoned you, you would be given the mercy of a quick death. And I wouldn’t be able to explain just how smarter and better I am than you,” the king said. He stood up from the throne and began pacing. “You see, Daisuke, I have experienced all the pleasures that this world has to offer. Of which, there are not many. You can only do so much in a game that’s rated T for Teen. Still, to be able to have this much after the real world had wronged me… how could I let that go?”

He turned towards me. My unfocused eyes could only make out a blurry silhouette.

“You planned on killing the Demon King to save your girlfriend or whatever. Do you know what that would mean for this world?”

“Game… over…” I said. I was growing more and more tired. But I wasn’t sure if that was from the drugs or just getting bored listening to this blowhard stroke his own ego. Maybe both.

“Wow! So you do have a few points of INT.” My vision was darkening, but I could see in my mind’s eye the ugly smirk on his face. “That refers to the Intelligence stat. If yours were higher, maybe I wouldn’t have to explain that. But yes my dear Daisuke, that would be game over. That would mean that all Players would be kicked out of this game, and all NPCs would cease to exist. That’s how it works with regular video games after all.”

Despite my inebriated state, I was horrified. I didn’t realize that the NPCs here would be killed with the game ending. I loved my brother, but I wasn’t going to put his life over the lives of everyone else living here. People like Basil, Half-sword Dave, Coral, I couldn’t just let them die like that. Coral. Coral…

Why did my mind keep echoing her name?

“You must realize that everyone here chose this world to escape,” King Hinata said. “To escape bullying, to escape social judgement, to escape reality. And here they can live it up, indulging themselves in all the ways that the real world used to frown upon. And you’re trying to take that away from us.”

His pace grew more frantic.

“My job as king isn’t the rally a nation and attack the Demon King, you fool. My job is to protect him. From would-be heroes like you.” His voice, ever quiet, was leaking venom. “You aren’t the first person to try and go after the End-Game Boss. And you aren’t the first person I’ve had to silence.”

Coral gave us food. Coral gave us drinks. Coral got us drunk.

My eyes would have widened if I still had any control over my eyelids. Calling upon every fiber of my body, pushing myself to the physical brink as if I were dashing to steal home plate, I snaked my arm into my pocket, and pulled out my phone. I unlocked it, swiped to the health app, and toggled off ‘Drugged.’ (That whole ordeal took at least five minutes.)

Reality snapped back into place. My eyes could focus. My body could move. I was still alive.

“How dare you!” I screamed as I rocketed to my feet. “Governments are supposed to be benevolent and serve the best interests of the people!” I jammed an accusatory finger in his direction. I wish he was shocked, appalled, anything. But King Hinata simply chuckled as he turned my way.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to figure that trick out. Shorter than I expected. I must say, you’re smarter than you look.” Now I could see his shit-eating grin in high definition. It was still impossible to hear him, though. “You haven’t read or watched much fantasy, have you? Kings are powerful, always. Kings are evil, always. And…” He snapped his fingers.

Peter stepped behind me and plunged a sword through my heart.

“Kings win. Always.”

I tried to speak but all the air had been expelled from my lungs. I glanced down at the glinting metal tip extruding from the center of my chest. Wine red flourished about the exit wound. There was no toggle option for this.

I fell on my side, convulsing as my vision faded in and out. You would think that having previously died, this would be nothing for me. But nope. The truth is that dying hurts.

And dying a failure hurts even more.