34, the forbidden number

—What the hell are you talking about? —She became confused because of all the weird things Ken was spouting out of his mouth.

—If you want to get a replica of your sword, you need to become friends with these people. You have everything to do it, except for one thing: knowledge.

—Rude…

—Knowledge about anime culture, I mean.

—Oh. Then, would you be my instructor?

—It’s not like… —Ken was going to say: “it’s not like I know that much about anime, though”, but he stopped. There was no reason to lie to Mirena about his tastes. Since she wasn’t from our world, she didn’t know what anime is, therefore had no bias against it. He shook his head—. Yes, it’ll be a pleasure.

Like a teacher making the study plan for the school year, so was he organizing in a notebook the best way to make Mirena an otaku just in two weeks. It had to be a 24/7 training, a full immersion experience. That was the only way to do it. Of course, it wasn’t strictly necessary for Mirena to be a hardcore otaku, but the more knowledge she could get, the better. Especially since some people in the community can be a little bit of an elitist (even Ken himself was something like that), and they don’t like posers or newbies.

Meanwhile, Mirena was still on the laptop, discovering the huge world of internet. Only in a few days she had already found two completely new worlds.

—“Browser”. What is this? —she asked.

—It’s to search information on everything. Like an infinite library.

—Everything? Like what?

—Like everything.

—Like kitties?

—Yes.

She wrote “kitties” in the search bar, pressed the “enter” key, and almost died of cuteness when thousands of pictures of small cats appeared in front of her.

—This… is… amazing!!!! —She began to watch every single picture, finding one cuter than the other.

—Looks like every new user of internet starts looking for cute animals. It’ll be interesting to make a study about it —said Ken, before going back to his work.

After getting enough of kitties, she searched for “puppies” and then “baby animals” in general.

—This is incredible, it’s an endless source of knowledge! Wait a minute. You say I need knowledge, right? I can use this for that.

—Hmmm, yeah, I guess it’ll be nice if you start learning basic things.

So then, she searched “anime” and read the Wikipedia article about it.

—Why some words are in blue?

—That means you can click on them and find an article about that word specifically.

—Ohh, like a portal? I see.

That way, she learned about the basic words of the anime culture. In the main article, Sekaunmei was mentioned as an example of a very popular anime. She couldn’t refrain her curiosity and clicked on it. She read it and all the articles about the characters, including herself. It was still surprising and even disturbing seeing all the information about her life and her beloved people there. Absolutely everything was there. There was nothing she knew that hadn’t been written there. Therefore, she didn’t know Mask more than any Sekaunmei fan. That idea was the worst. If she only knew that much of Mask, was her love real? Or was it the same that any fan could feel towards the character? She had no idea, and the thought of that was distressing.

Mirena went back to the search bar and wrote “Mask”. Of course, the results were a lot of masks, so she specified “Mask Sekaunmei”. There were a lot of websites about him.

—“Top 10 anime husbandos” What does that mean?

—It feels weird having to explain someone those kind of things. It means that someone made a list of the 10 masculine anime characters he or she would marry if they were real.

—Why?

—Just for fun.

—If he or she can’t choose just one, then he or she doesn’t deserve his love! —she said indignantly.

“One of the best protagonists ever”, “The best character of Sekaunmei”, “My favorite of all fiction”, the entire internet was full of nothing but compliments for Mask.

—It looks like he is very popular and loved —she said, with not too much happiness in her voice.

—Is something wrong about it?

—Of course not.

—Are you jealous?

—What?!?! Jealous? Why? Please… I mean… Maybe? Argh, I don’t know… Since I’ve been in this world, I’ve started to feel a lot of new things I can´t describe.

—It’s normal. In fiction, characters tend to be two-dimensional. Always happy, or always angry, or always emotionless, depending on the personality. But real humans don’t work like that. Even we find new sentiments we can’t describe, so don’t think too hard about it —he said this, even if he’s the one who does most the opposite.

—I’ll try…

Going back to the search bar, she wrote one by one the names of the most important characters of Sekaunmei, ending with her own name. She was a bit scared about searching for her, but she did.

Mirena ended in a web forum, where people were discussing about her in the last volume. Some comments, maybe the half, were similar to the ones Mask received. Other ones…

“Another power-up? OMG, she is such a boring Mary Sue.”

“The power of nothingness? That’s the most stupid thing I ever heard.”

“Yeah, luckily she disappeared in the last chapters, lol.”

“Don’t be so happy, she is going to come back somehow (unfortunately).”

“Sheskia is a way better written female character.”

“Yeah, and she makes a better couple with Mask.”

“Totally agree, Mirena’s love with Mask is forced. I don’t’ like it.”

“The people only likes Mirena because of her design.”

“That’s why nobody likes otakus, they think with the dick.”

“Another case of a generic waifu being overrated.”

“The author really loves Mirena too much.”

A tear run down her cheek. She tried to cry in silence, but ended up drawing Ken’s attention with the sounds of her mucus.

­—What happened? —he said, taking his eyes out of the notebook. Since she was with her back to him, he couldn’t see her face—. Are you crying?

—No… —she responded, obviously lying.

Ken left the notebook on the bed and went next to Mirena. After reading some comments, he perfectly understood what happened.

—People can be rude sometimes, especially in the internet. Sorry, I should have warned you. Don’t pay attention.

—Why would people say things like that? Are they not aware of how much their words can hurt?

—Taking advantage from the anonymity, they say all the things they can’t in real life. Also, you can’t blame them. I mean, any of them would ever think that the fictional character they are insulting was going to read those comments.

—Do you think the same as these people?

—Of course not. I wouldn’t have you as a wallpaper otherwise. — “Also, I wouldn’t have spent so many hours defending you in internet forums” he thought, a little shamed because of the wasted time.

—Then, why do you like me?

She stared into his eyes. Hers where so beautiful, even with the curtain of tears on it. No, actually that made them even more beautiful, more bright and colorful. He wanted to say the truth, confess every single reason of why he loved her, but it was too embarrassing. Instead, he said:

—Y-you don’t need to focus on me. Look, in the same chat a lot of people is defending you, see?

“Mary Sue? If she were a Mary Sue, then she wouldn’t have lost against the Witch.”

“Just because you don’t like power-ups it doesn’t mean they are bad.”

“There is nothing like “better written” characters. Everything is subjective, and I love Mirena.”

“’Sheskia is a way better written character’, that’s a weird way of spelling ‘I like Sheskia more and I hate people having different opinions’.”

“You have to be really blind to say that her love to Mask is forced.”

“She has been one of the most popular characters since the beginning, so she’s not so generic.”

She wiped away the last tear of her cheek, and then slightly smiled.

—“Of course, this entails exposure to haters, but if 9 out of 10 people say nice things, I think it’s worth.” —Mirena quoted.

—Huh?

­—You said it. Just a minutes ago.

—Oh, yeah, I remember now. Sometimes I say good things, don’t I?

They both smiled. Ken was feeling very relieved. Even if he was too coward to confess his real feelings, at least he managed to make her smile. With the taste of victory on his lips, he went back to the bed.

—I’m happy to be defended by them, but couldn’t they be a little less rude?

—That’s how internet works, it’s an endless battleground. But if you only focus on the good things, it’s not a bad place.

—Yes, you’re right. I’m just going to search for good things. Things like… “Mirena is amazing” —she said, followed by the clickity clackity of the keyboard—. “Mirena is so cool”. “Mirena rules!” Eh? What is this? “Mirena rule 34”.

During this adventure, there were a lot of episodes where Ken panicked. But all of those were mere shocks compared to the true fear he felt in that moment.

His hearth simply stopped beating. His eyes opened as much as if they were about to pop out. The air was stuck in the nose.

Her finger was falling, slowly, down to the enter key. There was no time to be subtle and careful. He stood up and ran. The distance between the bed and the table seemed to lengthen infinitely.

At the exact same instant she did the search, he jumped and rolled over the table, turning it upside down. If the laptop received damage or not was secondary.

Mirena also stood up due to the surprise. Ken immediately grabbed the computer and closed the navigator, not without blushing because of the images he saw out of the corner of his eye.

—What?! What?! What happened?! —she yelled, absolutely confused about Ken’s sudden actions.

—I-I’m sorry for my abruptness. I should have told you before, but you must never search for this “rule 34” thing. It’s a… virus.

—A virus?

—Yeah, a virus. It’s a trap. They use the name of a fictional character and “rule 34” so the fans say “Oh, I wonder what this could be”. And then bam, they download a virus that steals your personal information and destroys your system.

—Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.

—No, no, of course it’s not your fault. But you need to be careful: even in this virtual world there are dangers.

—I see, I see. I just have one question.

—Yes?

—If it’s a virus, why did it appear as if you had already searched for it?

Ken swallowed.

—That’s how I learned it is a virus.

—Oh, that’s bad, isn’t it?

—Yeah, I had to buy a new computer.

—Now I’m kinda scared…

—It’s okay, as long as you don’t search anything weird it should be fine.

—Anyways, I’m tired of seeing the internet. I want to do something else.

—I almost finish my training plan, so I can share it with you if you want.

—Of course! I’ll go to the bathroom first.

Once she was there, Ken sighed. He was still shaking though. Once he turned off the laptop, just then, he felt a bit more relaxed. “Internet is, indeed, a pretty dangerous place” he thought.