49 - Club Room Interlude / Isekai Waiting Blues (1)

I wake up in the club room.

Head in my arms, folded on the table.

… What was I doing before this?

I don't remember.

I look up.

Alex and Valerie, staring at me from across the table.

A: "Oh, no. I know that look. He's gonna break the fourth wall again."

V: "Yeah … or insult all of us."

M, drawing on the floor: "Or break Moeka's crayons!"

… But I don't do that.

I don't do any of that.

I don't do anything, really.

I slowly get up, and walk out of the club room, without another word.

*

Weeks pass by.

Maybe months, I don't know. I can't tell.

A lot of changes are happening in Point Parallax.

The island feels a lot emptier these days. Quieter.

I wonder if the fad's finally beginning to die down.

Even the fictional fantasy characters seem to be fewer and farther between. I go days without seeing so much as an elf, or some kind of knight-errant, or whatever.

… Shame I never got to know any fictional characters throughout my time here. (Damn my social anxiety.)

And now I guess it's too late.

"Does this mean we'll have to leave soon, too?" Alex asks me.

I shrug. "I dunno. Maybe. … I dunno."

*

Sometimes I stop by the Isekai Waiting Room.

Not to wait for reincarnation, just out of curiosity.

There's hardly anyone there these days. One or two seats filled at most.

Must not be much of a wait anymore, to get into a parallel world.

*

I think we'll be leaving soon.

All of us.

I can feel it in the air.

The L.I.M.B.O. building, the courtyard.

Less and less crowded with each passing day.

Sometimes I pass by Jessica in the hallway.

No more jokes. No more boke, no more tsukkomi.

She offers a weak smile.

I feel her weariness behind it.

… I feel the same way.

*

"Before we all leave, why don't we do something?"

The others look up at me, standing before the club room table.

"… Like what?" asks Valerie.

I scratch my chin. "I dunno. Something fun. One last hurrah for the IWC."

"Like a party?" says Alex.

"Well … Not as such, no. Just something fun we could all take part in. I dunno." I look at Moeka's crayon drawings on the wall. … Valerie's magic sketchbook on the shelf. … Alex's manuscript. "… Maybe we could … do something creative? I dunno. Something that lasts beyond us. We'll be gone from here. It'd be nice to make something to prove we were all here."

Moeka's eyes light up. "Moeka wants to make a picture book!"

Valerie chuckles. "Maybe we could make a manga."

Alex chimes in. "I'd suggest a novel, but that's kinda a one-author affair. … Maybe we could make a VN?"

Sunny raises his hand. "I think making a movie would be a lot of fun!"

I listen to everyone's suggestions, while I absently run my hands over the various, mysterious artifacts left behind in the club room. A wind-up key. The twin diplomas. An office badge. … And many more.

I turn to face my club members.

"Those are all good ideas!" I smile. "… Well, we're not in a rush. We don't have to decide now."

*

In the end, we go with Moeka's suggestion.

A picture-book.

Moeka providing the artwork.

The rest of us all sorta help with the story.

At first we have no clue what to actually write about, but then one of us (doesn't matter who) comes up with the bright idea of using those mysterious artifacts as inspiration.

So we pick one at random.

The office badge. You know, the one with the fox-girl. … 'Advent'.

We kinda just make stuff up. First thing that comes to our heads.

"An adventurer! Maybe that's why she's called 'Advent' …"

"And what if she just has really, really bad luck? Like, her sword breaks when she uses it … Her arrows miss …"

"Yeah! … And then she has to fight the bad guys to get her luck back. Maybe the bad guys burned down her village …"

It takes us a whole day to finish.

… To be honest, it's not very good.

But Moeka seems happy, and we all had fun doing it.

So naturally, we come back the next day, and do it again.

*

Valerie raises her hand. "… I would like to do a manga this time!"

So that's what we do.

We use the twin diplomas as inspiration.

We come up with a story about a pair of elf sisters, in a medieval fantasy kingdom where cosmic monstrosities called Terrors run amok.

"… So to fight off the Terrors, the kingdom builds a giant robot …"

"… Right, but it's medieval fantasy, right? So they gotta use their magic system to power the mech …"

"Oh, oh! Maybe the twins are telepathic. And that's how the communication between the kingdom's command center and the mech works …"

Anyway, this one ends up being a lot more work than a simple picture-book. (No offense, Moeka …)

But Valerie's an incredibly skilled artist. Her experience in the real world of meeting client deadlines means she knows how to work fast.

We all help write it, but Alex really sinks his teeth into the intricacies of the plot beats and logic. He paces around the club room, talking to himself, trying to write his way out of dead ends, and resolving inconsistencies. Figuring out character motivations. … All that good stuff.

The manga—the story of the elf twins, and the giant robot—takes us nearly a month to finish. Or at least, it feels like a month.

And when we finish it, we almost immediately start on our next project.

*

Alex strokes his chin. "I do actually still wanna do a VN … You know, with routes and everything. … But I kinda wanna disengage from the visuals of it."

None of us understands what he means by this.

"I just mean—I want the focus to be on the transmutation of thought between the artist and the reader."

Valerie rolls her eyes. "This is just more of your abstract, aesthetic ideals, isn't it? … Nobody knows what you're talking about when you get like this. … Just write a novel like we all know you're gonna, judging by the progression of artistic mediums."

"Yeah," I say, absent-mindedly picking up the silver wind-up key from the artifact collection shelf. (… Must've belonged to some kind of doll, I guess.) "Or an actual VN. We could just do that. I'll learn to code, whatever."

But Alex is pacing around the club room, muttering to himself. "… Transmutation of thought … Pure thought, condensed … Transmutation …"

Well, whatever.

We leave him alone, to work out whatever he's working out in his head.

*

… Which apparently takes him quite a long time, as we don't see Alex for several days after that.

I'm not sure where he is, or what he's doing.

He doesn't even come back to the dorm at night.

*

The next time I actually see Alex, is when I'm lying in bed in our dorm room.

The door flies open, and Alex stumbles in, looking quite disheveled. His eyes like saucers, pupils blown, behind his glasses.

He looks at me, and shouts:

"… I GOT IT!"