Chapter 1: I think I should start by explaining the current situation.

Apparently, I’ve been transferred into the world of an MMORPG—or at least into another world that closely resembles one.

I say “apparently” because I have no idea what actually happened, and there’s no guarantee that the me standing here now is truly the same me who, just moments ago, was sitting in my room playing a game in front of my PC.

In any case, the facts are these: before my eyes stretches a cityscape straight out of a classic swords-and-magic fantasy, and at the end of the main avenue stands a dazzling white castle. Everything has a level of realism and physical presence far beyond what it ever had as mere game graphics.

Around me are several other people besides myself—players, apparently, who, like me, have somehow ended up in this world. They stare blankly at their surroundings, clearly trying to make sense of what’s happening.

If I remember correctly, the game was called Sword Blaze Online.

It was one of those PC MMORPGs that had been steadily declining due to the rise of easy-to-play social games on smartphones, yet continued operating on a small scale. Its selling points were sexy character designs by a famous illustrator, highly flexible character editing for making sexy avatars, a wide selection of sexy outfits, and slightly sexy quest scenarios written by multiple light novel authors. It had enjoyed a decent reception at launch, but lately the number of concurrent active users had dropped below five hundred, and I’d heard rumors that the service would be shutting down soon.

Maybe today was the day.

I say “maybe” because I don’t really know much about this game.

I did create an ID and log in once. I played around with the much-talked-about sexy character creation to my heart’s content, wandered around this starting city for a bit, decided I didn’t like the user interface, took several screenshots of my character’s panty shots, logged out—and never logged in again after that.

That’s right. I wasn’t even playing this game immediately before being transferred here.

In front of me, a girl who looks like another player stands muttering to herself. She’s short, with twin tails, cat ears, and a tail, wearing a pink maid outfit with a skirt so short her panties are clearly visible even while standing still, and a neckline cut so low it exposes her chest. Frankly, she looks pretty airheaded.

"Trouble, nya… What should I do, nya… I’ve got a mock exam at school tomorrow, nya… This is no time to be stuck in a game world, nya… If I can’t get back to Tochigi, I’m in serious trouble, nya…"

If you had a mock exam tomorrow and were that worried, maybe you shouldn’t have been playing games in the first place—that was what I thought. Still, I understood how she felt, so I kept quiet.

Then, suddenly, the cat-eared girl turned toward me and snapped.

"What’s going on, nya!? Why is Ririka inside SwoBle, nya!? And this is an avatar body, nya! This is the body of Cat Goddess Princess☆Milk-chan, nya! Explain yourself, nya!"

"Sorry. I have no idea."

Don’t take it out on me.

I don’t know anything either—and if anything, I probably know less about this world than anyone else who’s been dragged into this situation.

"Nya? You’ve got a weird avatar, nya. Full-body armor that doesn’t even show your face, nya…? Ah! That’s Warfy’s ground combat armor, nya. Some kind of collaboration bonus, nya? But did SwoBle ever do a collab with Warfy, nya? I’ve never heard of a collab with a Western game, nya."

Warfire Universe.

That was the game I had been playing until just moments ago—right up until I was transferred to this world.

An open-world simulator set across the galaxy, where you command a fleet of spaceships to fight evil empires, space pirates, and vicious aliens while exploring uncharted planets. It incorporates many RPG elements and has an online versus mode, but it isn’t an MMO—it’s a standalone game.

I had been playing its online versus mode.

I didn’t like it much, since it was just a side feature and horribly unbalanced, but there were materials you could only obtain by participating, so I played anyway. My opponent didn’t seem motivated either; once they started losing, they basically gave up and went AFK. To finish things quickly, I boarded the enemy flagship equipped with ground combat gear.

The moment I boarded, the world in front of me turned into a swords-and-magic fantasy.

"I seriously don’t get this… Why some totally unrelated world…"

"Nyaa! If this was going to happen, I should’ve never opened SwoBle in another window and just kept playing my Warfy match, nya! But there’s no way I could keep dealing with a hardcore addict like that, so I should’ve just cut the connection, nya!"

As I stood there looking down, the cat ears in front of me said something I couldn’t ignore.

Could it be her?

Is this her fault?

"Hm? But if I think about it, if I stay in this world forever and can’t go back to Tochigi, then I don’t have to take the mock exam anymore, and I don’t have to worry about entrance exams either, nya! Yes, nya! In this world, Ririka is a level 120 magic brawler, nya! I can live however I want, nya! This is starting to sound fun, nya!"

Even if this idiotic, overexcited cat-eared girl really did drag me into this mess, I needed to understand the situation first. After all, I knew almost nothing about this world.

That said, this airheaded cat girl seemed to have played this game quite a lot.

Suppressing my anger, I decided to hear what she had to say.

"Can I ask you something? I don’t really know much about this game, so I have no idea what’s going on."

"Ririka doesn’t know either, nya. For now, what level are you, nya? …Hmm, nya, it’ll be faster if I just check your status, nya."

Level? Status?

I don’t see anything like that anywhere.

"Nya? Human… low-tier warrior… level 1!? Nyahahahahahaha! So you’re a newbie, nya! Your skills and equipment are totally empty, nya! My condolences, nya!"

"Huh? Where are you even seeing that?"

"There’s a status window right in front of you, nya… Let’s see, your name is… ‘Marudashi-ko’? …That’s the worst name ever, nya… You logged in right before the service ended just to take screenshots for lewd character creation, didn’t you, nya? Under that armor you’re just wearing the default tiny underwear, nya?"

The cat-eared girl took a step back, giving me a look of genuine disgust.

No matter how much I looked, though, I still couldn’t see any kind of status window.

All I could see was the HUD inside my Gungnir Mk.4 ground combat armor helmet: my vitals, which were normal; the remaining ammo in the assault rifle on my back; the number of fragmentation grenades I was carrying; and a square cursor overlapping the cat-eared girl in front of me, displaying [unknown].

And that embarrassing name—that was the character name I’d made when I logged in exactly once right after the service launched. Did it pull my user data from whatever files were left on my PC because I’d never uninstalled the game?

"So the person inside is a pervy old guy, nya. But since you’re level 1, I kind of feel sorry for you, nya, so I’ll help you out a little, nya. If we make it back to Tochigi, I’m gonna demand proper thanks, nya."

I’d been labeled a pervy old guy.

Sure, I’m thirty-five and maybe a little pervy, but I don’t deserve to be called that—and I’m not even from Tochigi.

She was suspicious too. She talked about mock exams and entrance tests like she was a student, but a pink, panty-flashing, cat-eared maid was clearly the taste of an old guy.

She might be one.

No—she probably was.

As I was reluctantly considering whether I really had no choice but to rely on this suspicious old-guy cat-eared maid, an alarm sounded from the multifunctional communications module mounted on my armor’s left forearm.

I pressed the communications switch, and light projected from the module, forming a three-dimensional image atop my left arm: a twelve-inch-figure-sized girl wearing a white, old-style school swimsuit.

"Master. Due to an unknown phenomenon, our fleet is currently in orbit around an unidentified planet. We detected your signal on the planet’s surface and attempted communication. We have not yet been able to determine the fleet’s current position using Galactic Federation standard coordinates. Please consider returning to the flagship Einferia as soon as possible."

With that, the hologram vanished.

"Nyaa, that’s really well made, nya. If there was collab gear like that, I should’ve checked the official site properly, nya. But a school-swimsuit girl even for a wristwatch alarm is seriously bad, nya. You really are a pervy old guy, nya. If your real-life identity gets exposed, that’d be dangerous, nya… I might need to reconsider sticking with you, nya…"

Ignoring the cat-eared maid—who was saying rude things while completely overlooking her own appearance—I turned on my heel.

There was something I needed to confirm. Something far more important than dealing with her.

"Wait, nya! Where are you going, nya!? Even leaving town alone is dangerous when you’re only level 1, nya!"

"I’m going to take a leak."

I brushed her off with that excuse and broke into a run.