Hellish bullets falling like raindrops

Lesson 2.

Since Mirena gets bored easily if she’s doing nothing, Ken made slight changes to the schedule. So the Monday, instead of watching more chapters of Sekaunmei, he was going to show her another thing that implies more activities. Because the past day they watched more chapters than planned, it was okay to do that kind of changes.

The laptop was again on the table. Behind it, through the window, a wonderful sunny day could be seen.

—Watching anime was cool but, we’re going to spend another beautiful day just watching a screen? —Mirena asked.

—No, not this time. Now you’re going to be more active than yesterday.

—Active?

—Yes. This are called: videogames.

He made a click and suddenly, all the screen was covered by the main menu of a videogame. “Start” “Extra Stage” “Practice” “Replay” “Options” “Score” “Exit”. Those were the options that appeared vertically in the menu, right next to the drawing of a cute anime girl. She had fuchsia and long hair with wispy fringe. Her brown clothes were decorated with multicolored feathers, giving her a look like if she belonged to an ancient tribe.

—Videogames? I thought that watching anime was enough.

—Being an otaku includes more things that just watching anime. In my point of view, you can be an anime fan without being an otaku. It means to go beyond that: listening to anime music, playing anime videogames, watching Vtubers, reading manga, light and visual novels, writing a novel about being an otaku for a contest in a web novel site: that’s what being an otaku means.

—Wow, that’s deep.

—I know.

—So, what are we going to play?

—This game is called “Hoppou Project”, written with the kanjis for “North” and “Direction”. It’s a doujin series of danmaku games.

—In English please…

—Sorry. —Ken cleared his throat. That was his first time talking with someone about those games he liked so much, so he was exited. Therefore, he had to be very careful with his words; otherwise he would break the character—. They are games made only by one indie developer. They are pretty simple: you have your character, three lives and three bombs per life. You have to dodge all the bullets the enemy throws at you and beat the 6 levels without losing all your lives.

—Oh, that sounds quite simple.

—It is. I really like the simplicity of this games. Also, they are the only games my pc can run.

As a demonstration, Ken played a bit of the first level in practice mode. While playing, he explained the controls:

—You move with the arrows. Pressing “Z” you shoot. I recommend you not stop shooting, so always keep the Z pressed. With “X” you can use bombs. When you die your bombs are refilled, so don’t be afraid of wasting and use them. With “Shift” you can slow down your character, in order to do more precise movements. Dodge everything you see in screen except for these purple squares and yellow squares. First ones are power, they help you to strengthen your bullets and kill the enemies faster. The other ones are just points. Do you understand?

When he turned to see Mirena, he saw her face completely petrified.

—Eh? Are you alright?

—I can’t understand how is this possible! When you said I was going to control a character, I thought of, I don’t know, a puppet or something like that.

—Yeah, I guess videogames are very new for you. Well, like usual, even I don’t know exactly how technology works. It just does. Do you feel ready?

—I-I think so.

Ken moved and left his space to Mirena. She put the hands in the bullet hell gamer position, imitating him: pinky in the “shift”, middle finger always pressing the “Z”, forefinger slightly touching the “X”, and the three taller fingers of the right hand in the up, left and right arrow.

The game started, and Ken began to feel scared.

“Huh? Why am I feeling this? I should be very happy right now. My favorite feminine character is playing one of my favorite games ever. Then why…?”

She was so focused and secure, like if playing videogames was something she had made since ever. That’s why he was scared.

“She looks so confident. Is going to happen again, right? She’s going to humiliate me again. First was the gym, ok, I can live with that. She never went to a gym before but she had a great physical condition. But defeat me in videogames? Defeat me in something I’ve been doing my entire life? That would really hurt my pride…”

The first bullets of the enemies fell. At the beginning it was easy, even a noob could do it. But when the mid-boss appeared, the bullet patters began to be a bit more complex. She was moving the arrows fast and intensely, staying at the bottom of the screen.

“Heh, rookie mistake. Your brain tends to think that, the lower you are, the best, because you’ll have more time to dodge. Wrong. By doing that, you’re cornering yourself. Also, probably she’s committing the second most common rookie mistake: look directly at your character. By doing that, she barely can see the bullets coming. The best option is to watch a bit above your character, so you have more time to react. That’s it! She’s cornered!”

Ken felt a bit bad about it, but he wanted to see her lose. However, it didn’t happen. Somehow, Mirena managed to dodge that.

“What?! That’s impossible! I mean yeah, surely she has great reflexes but…”

And it happened again. Once again, Mirena dodged a complex pattern in some way.

“I can’t believe it! She’s simply perfect at everything! I don’t know if my self-esteem can handle this kind of…”

Then, she died. She died once, twice, thrice, game over.

—I didn’t know what the fucking hell was happening!! —she screamed and stood up, ready to punch the laptop, but Ken acted as a bodyguard for it—. Ups, sorry. I think I got a little carried away by anger.

—It’s okay, this kind of games are pretty hard and stressful, even for people used to play videogames.

“Thank god” he thought. “It was just luck. She’s a normal girl, not a Mary Sue after all.”

—The most frustrating part is that I could see the attacks, but my hands didn’t react in time. I want to see you play.

—What? Why?

—I can’t believe dodging something like that is possible until I see it with my own eyes.

—Uhmm, okay, I guess. But the idea was to train you, not me.

—Awww it’s fine. I mean, as long as I acquire the knowledge, we’ll have succeeded, won’t we? It’s not 100% necessary for me to beat this game. I wanna try though, but just after you.

—Fine, I think you’re right.

Playing danmaku games was something he usually did to distress himself. Of course, he could also get frustrated when lost, but that only happened when trying to beat a game he hadn’t cleared before. When re-playing games he already has completed, like Hoppou 6 in normal difficulty, he was chilling.

Of course, that was only the case when he wasn’t feeling the pressure of someone staring at him. His heart was beating faster than usual, and his hands were very sweaty. But he had to do it. That was the perfect chance to impress her.

The game started.

Of course, for someone so experienced like him, defeating the first mid-boss was very easy.

—Whoa, you’re so brave! I think you are just flexing.

—Of course not. You never should go to the bottom of the screen, you’ll lose mobility. Also, the points are worth more the upper you collect them.

—Ohh, I see. Hey, now that I’m not ultra-concentrated in dodging, I realized that the girl you are using is very cute! Who is she?

“Are you really going to be so talkative in a moment like this?” thought Ken, sweating. He considered asking Mirena to be silent, but decided not to. If he acted as a tryhard and lost anyways, that would be painfully ridiculous. But if he acted chill, then he had an excuse in case of defeat.

—Oh well, she is a shaman of an old tribe called…

Through all the first level he told her, very briefly, all the lore of Hoppou Project. Putting it into even more briefly words, the games were about a cute shaman defeating a bunch of cute and absurdly powerful girls because of yes. That could be seen in the first dialogue of the game:

—Oh my, if it isn’t the shaman —said Mirena, doing a high-pitched voice for the boss, a small fairy of water. Then she touched Ken with the elbow, encouraging him to continue with the conversation.

—That’s me, you troublesome fairy.

—Wow, the shaman has a very masculine and dead voice.

—I’m not going to act voices for little girls, okay?

—I’m not troublesome. I also want back the blue color that someone stole. I look so ugly with this gray tone on my dress and hair!

—Oh, it seems like we have the same goal. Meh, let’s fight anyway.

The patterns, as expected, were more fast, dense and intricate. Mirena was very surprised with Ken reflexes and the fast movements of his fingers. The shaman was dodging bullets as a mosquito under the rain thanks to his ability.

In the first three levels, the difficult curve was soft. It was harder and harder, but nothing overwhelming for someone with so much experience in that kind of games. He had 8 lives and 1 bomb left at the half of the third level.

“Level 4 is a bit more difficult, but nothing I can’t handle” he thought confidently.

However, in order to beat that level, he needed to be concentrated. Because of that, he was talking a lot with Mirena, trying to answer all her questions before level 4 started.

—How many games are there? —she asked.

—18 —he replied, as fast as possible.

—The cute shaman is always the protagonist?

—Yes.

—Does she have friends?

—A lot.

—I want to meet them!

—You will.

—Oh, here comes the boss! —she cleared her throat. The level 3 boss was a judoka, of course, woman and cute. So she made a feminine and tough voice—. I won’t let you stop my mistress!

—Thanks for letting me know here is where the mastermind lives, I had no idea!

—What? Then why were you here?

—Intuition.

—God dammit, I talked too much again.

—Again? It sounds like you are used to it.

—Yeah, I tend to make this mistake a lot.

—And you never learned to shut the fuck up?

—It’s not necessary. Because I always get rid of the ones who hear me.

The battle began, and Mirena’s questions never stopped. Maybe infected with the frenetic pace of the combat, she was talking way faster.

—Oh my god she is so cool!

—I know.

—What’s her name?!

—Read it.

—Hasashi Megurimu, cute! Does she appear in any other game?

—Yes, in 9,12 and 16. Oh, and 14.7.

—What’s her backstory?

—Well she…

And while telling her the lore of the third boss, something happened. He, always so confident playing these games, lost a life in a relatively easy attack. And he died without using one bomb, so it was like dying twice.

It was awful. In any other occasion, a dummy mistake like that would be enough to restart the run because of the frustration. But in that context, it was impossible. He only could continue, keep fighting not only against the boss, but also against Mirena’s questions, his stress, his nerves and against his growing lack of confidence. Because deep inside he began to believe that maybe, just maybe, he was going to be unable to clear that run.