Chapter 1: The Big Liar Gets Found Out

On a devastated stretch of land, a lone girl lay prone, aiming an anti-materiel rifle.

Her white hair was unusual for a Japanese person, and though her expression was unfriendly, her features were well-proportioned. Standing at barely 140 centimeters (or 4'7" in American height units), her small frame looked even tinier beside the enormous rifle.

She wore a pantsuit utterly unsuited to someone her age.

Her tie was neatly fastened, and her ankle-length slacks were secured with a leather belt.

She wore it remarkably well, but on a young girl like her, it looked more like a cosplay costume than anything else.

Despite being so young and underdeveloped, the girl carried herself with the world-weary air of a jaded man—Usobuki Raika continued waiting for the right opportunity.

Through her scope, she surveyed the scene unfolding before her: grotesque monsters and the girls fighting them.

The target was still outside her effective range. She continued observing the situation, waiting for an opening where she could take it down for certain.

Broken rails hung from a collapsed elevated railway.

The cracked asphalt was already in no condition for cars to drive over it.

The residential district looked utterly uninhabitable. It was a scene of devastation that hardly seemed like central Tokyo in twenty-first-century Japan.

What had once been called the heart of the city was now the territory of monsters threatening to wipe out humanity—the Fictional Invaders.

"GRAAAAAH!"

The monster let out a roar.

It was an eerie cry unlike anything found in nature, one that instinctively filled anyone who heard it with revulsion.

It moved on four legs and resembled a wolf three times its normal size. But what decisively set it apart from any wild animal was the aura surrounding it.

Something black and hazy seeped from the surface of its body, covering the creature like a suit of armor.

That was the very substance responsible for driving humanity into a corner: the "Fictional Material" emitted by the "Fictional Invaders."

"HAZUKI!"

Fictional Material was a new kind of deadly toxin unlike anything humanity had ever encountered.

If an ordinary human approached it, their mind would collapse in less than three seconds, and they would never return to normal.

Yet there was a girl charging headlong into this terrifying poison—a substance against which humanity had been unable to devise a decisive countermeasure despite pooling the full wisdom of modern science.

She moved as if gliding across the ground, dressed in a white dōgi with dark blue hakama beneath it.

She looked as though she were about to begin kendo practice, but the girl—Tatewaki Hazuki—held a brilliantly gleaming Japanese sword in her hand.

"HAAAAAAAH!"

There was almost no delay between her running stance and her attack. It was a smooth strike that spoke of countless hours of training.

Her blade came slashing down diagonally from overhead, striking at the Fictional Invader.

The Fictional Invader, which could withstand even the large-caliber rounds of an anti-materiel rifle, was unable to block the blade she wielded.

The slash tore through the Fictional Invader's flesh, and its anguished scream echoed across the ruined streets of Tokyo.

"Grrr..."

Terrified of the sword-wielding girl, the beast turned its back and attempted to flee.

Despite its massive body, it was remarkably fast.

But another girl was already standing in its path.

"Victoria! It's heading your way!"

"Yes... 'O evil eye that dwells within my right eye, relic of the wicked dragon that slew even the heroes of old...'"

The blonde, blue-eyed girl—wearing an eyepatch and Gothic Lolita clothing—Victoria von Leonora began reciting something resembling an overly dramatic spell.

However, even as she did so, the wounded beast came racing toward her at tremendous speed.

"Quit fooling around, idiot! Do you have a death wish?!"

"I am doing it! ...Hah!"

Perhaps deciding she couldn't be bothered anymore, the eyepatch-wearing girl abandoned her theatrical chant and unleashed the right eye she had kept sealed.

At that instant, a torrent of ominous light burst forth from her beautiful mismatched eyes.

"GRAAAAAH!"

The monster howled violently after being struck. Like the sword-wielding girl's blade, the light emitted from the eye hidden beneath the eyepatch was highly effective against the Fictional Invader.

They were Bluffers—young maidens among the few humans capable of resisting Fictional Material.

"It's working, it's working! Usobuki! Finish it!"

"Leave it to me. Phantasm Bullet, loaded."

The voice answering from afar belonged to the smallest girl of all—Usobuki Raika.

Her face possessed a fragile, almost fairy-like beauty, but there was one particularly striking feature.

Her black eyes were so deeply clouded that they nearly ruined the beauty of her appearance.

Yet the way she held her anti-materiel rifle was utterly confident.

Light began gathering at the muzzle of the rifle she had raised.

"Gather, fiction. Deceive the truth to the very end. Phantasm Bullet, fire."

When she pulled the trigger, a gunshot louder than any real firearm could produce thundered through the air.

A brilliant flash streaked forward, piercing the beast's head in an instant.

With its vital point destroyed, the Fictional Invader let out a final groan and collapsed onto the asphalt.

"Phew..."

The small girl let out a long breath. Some of the tension from moments earlier finally eased.

The girls gathered around the beast's corpse. There were five of them in total—the Bluffers assigned to the Fox Squad.

Then there was one more figure.

Among the group of girls, a boy came walking toward them.

Generally speaking, Material concentrations were too high inside the territory of the Fictional Invaders for ordinary humans to enter.

Yet the boy standing calmly within it possessed a different kind of resistance from the Bluffers. He was an Anchor.

"Ah, it's Mr. Anchor! Good work!"

The energetic girl, Kibōgaoka Hibari, greeted him. She looked like a magical girl straight out of an anime, wearing a fluffy pink-themed dress with a frilly miniskirt. Her costume stood out dramatically against the ruined Tokyo landscape, but she didn't seem bothered by that in the slightest.

"Good work, Shota."

The one who greeted him with the familiarity of someone close to him was the expressionless girl—Kazunomiya Mana.

Her face remained as motionless as ice, revealing nothing of what she was feeling. Unlike the unusually dressed girls around her, she wore nothing more than an ordinary sailor-style school uniform.

"Good work."

"Good work. Now that you've watched us in action, do you have at least some idea of what it's like to command the Bluffers?"

The small girl who had fired the finishing shot, Usobuki Raika, spoke to the boy.

The boy known as the Anchor—Nakatsuka Shota—gave a small nod.

"Yeah, I think I have a general idea. Is everyone feeling okay? If anything feels wrong, I want you to tell me immediately."

"I'm fine. In that case, I'll return to my room first."

Hazuki Tatewaki, the sword-wielding girl, gave a curt response to his words of concern before quickly leaving the area.

Shota watched her go with a slightly saddened expression. But he quickly hid it and turned to speak with the girls who remained.

◇◇◇

After returning, Nakatsuka Shota—the boy known as an Anchor—walked along alone, his steps slow and listless.

There was something deeply melancholy about his retreating figure.

Sigh... She definitely hates me... Actually, it doesn't feel like the other girls have really opened up to me much either. Ah, why did I have to become an Anchor in the first place...?!

After the battle, I walked along by myself, muttering under my breath.

I didn't feel like I was doing a very good job.

That was my biggest concern at the moment.

To begin with, they had chosen the wrong person. Being put in charge of a group of girls was far too much responsibility for an ordinary high school student like me.

An Anchor's role is to command and guide the girls known as Bluffers, who fight the Fictional Invaders.

Unlike the Bluffers, Anchors aren't limited to young girls.

Apparently, Anchors are expected to guide the younger girls as their seniors, but I'm barely any older than they are. They're probably around high school age too.

I'm just an ordinary high school boy with no Bluffer powers, only a resistance to Fictional Material—the so-called Material.

I'd studied tactical theory and the ecology of the Fictional Invaders, but it was all just a crash course.

I never imagined they'd throw me into the field after only three days of training. Just how short-staffed are they?

Sure, humanity was facing a crisis, but couldn't they at least give new recruits proper training?

Anchors have another role besides simply acting as commanders, but since I'd only been here for a week, it wasn't something that concerned me much.

"Sigh..."

I sighed again. Even as I breathed out that heavy, miserable breath, I couldn't expel the sludge that had built up inside my chest.

"Not like coming somewhere like this is going to help..."

Before I knew it, my feet had carried me behind the school building. Maybe people in dark moods are drawn to dark places. Just like behind the high school I used to attend, the area behind the school building here was deserted and quiet.

Apparently, even the adults who sent teenage girls to risk their lives in battle had at least some ordinary sense of guilt. So, for appearances' sake, the girls were enrolled in school.

I walked with my head slightly lowered, keeping to the shade. Coming to a gloomy place like this wasn't going to magically lift my gloomy mood.

I knew that, but I couldn't stop myself from wandering around aimlessly.

Still, that aimless wandering was about to bring me a fateful encounter.

—A sharp smell hit my nose.

It was an unpleasant smell, something terribly unhealthy—and yet, strangely enough, it suited my current mood perfectly.

"...Huh?"

At the sound of a voice, I looked up and saw a young girl.

A cigarette slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.

"Usobuki...?"

She was one of the youngest-looking girls among them. Maybe middle-school age—or perhaps even elementary-school age. Her features were cute, but her thoroughly clouded eyes ruined her entire fairy-like appearance. She might have been even cuter with her eyes closed.

Dressed in a sailor-style school uniform, she stood beyond the purple smoke still lingering in the air, her mouth hanging wide open.

"N-No, no! This is, uh... I was just smelling the aroma!"

She hurriedly crushed the cigarette butt beneath her foot as she desperately tried to explain herself.

"No, you were absolutely smoking it. You were smoking with that little-girl face of yours."

"..."

Even the way she awkwardly looked away was adorable. Beautiful girls really were a crime.

Still, as the older one here, I had to say something.

"You can't smoke! Take better care of your body!"

"..."

Looking even more uncomfortable, the girl pulled another cigarette from a pack inside her clothes and lit it with a lighter.

That smell from earlier immediately grew stronger again.

"Hey! Don't start smoking again right after I told you not to!"

"I can't help it. When I'm stressed, I have to smoke..."

This girl... She's completely addicted...!

"No, it's fine, it's fine. A Bluffer's body is tough. This stuff doesn't affect my health in the slightest."

"You don't know what might happen in the future, do you? Besides, the visual alone looks completely illegal. Don't stick cigarettes into your school uniform skirt."

I gave her a reproachful stare, and she looked sheepish.

"Then how about this? Let's make a deal."

"A deal?"

Usobuki, who had been flustered until moments ago, suddenly regained her usual composure, as though she'd thought of something.

She looked younger than any of the other Bluffers, but the way she normally carried herself was more like an experienced adult.

"You keep my secret, and I'll listen to your troubles. How about it?"

After taking a contented drag, she suddenly made her proposal.

"I-I don't have any troubles. Just put the cigarette—"

"—You do."

From the other side of the drifting smoke, she looked at me as though she could see straight through me.

"You've got troubles. It's obvious just from watching you normally. Come on, tell me. If you keep my secret, I'll keep yours."

I should have refused such an offer immediately and stopped a young girl from smoking.

That's what my reason was telling me.

The smell of tobacco stung my nose.

The helplessness, anger, and sadness I'd felt over the past week came rushing back.

My inability to do anything. The distance between us that I couldn't close. The real battles to the death unfolding right before my eyes.

Before I realized it, I was voicing my worries.

"I don't have any confidence."

At my vague words, she turned to the side and exhaled a stream of smoke. Somehow, that made her easier to talk to, and I continued.

"They suddenly told me I was an Anchor, threw me onto a battlefield, and then told me to earn the trust of a bunch of girls. That's impossible. Besides, it's not like I have the same resolve as the girls chosen to become Bluffers. I'm afraid of getting hurt, and I'm even more afraid of dying. I honestly don't even understand how they can fight so bravely."

An Anchor's most important role is to provide mental and emotional support to the Bluffers—the girls burdened with the duty of fighting—and earn their trust. The more they trust us, the more power they're able to bring out.

Apparently, their trust in their Anchor directly determines how much of their strength they can use. The instructor who trained me had even told me that whether they lived or died depended on me.

Usobuki silently held the cigarette between her lips as she listened.

After slowly exhaling a stream of smoke, she finally spoke.

"From what I've seen of you so far, you're trying too hard. They're girls your own age, you know. Just like you, they're ordinary girls who feel anxious, get angry at how unfair everything is, and still keep fighting. —Does that make you feel a little better? You're more than good enough for them. They may be special people chosen for special powers, but mentally, they're still teenage girls. That's why you're the right person for this job. As long as you have the complicated heart of a teenager and enough kindness to care about other people, that's all you need."

"You really think so...?"

"Yeah. Even I've only known you for about a week, and I can tell. You've got what it takes to be an Anchor. Right now, you're just a little lost."

She said that and smiled softly.

It was an expression I'd never seen before, and it stole my heart away.

Usually, her expressions were somewhat stiff. She often wore looks that didn't suit her youthful appearance, but at that moment, with her face finally relaxing into a smile, she seemed like a child her own age for the first time.

"That's why it's only natural for you to feel afraid. Well, at the very least, I wouldn't mind listening to those feelings of yours. As your elder, you know."

Before I could stop myself, I asked her a question.

"How old are you?"

Her earlier smile disappeared, replaced by a smug grin.

"Believe it or not, I'm pushing thirty. So it's perfectly legal."

Looking more closely, only her right cheek was raised in an unnaturally forced smile. Without saying anything further, she tapped the ash into a small silver dish that appeared to be her personal ashtray.

Was that last part a lie?

The thought instinctively crossed my mind.

〈TIPS〉Usobuki Raika is generally a calm and composed girl, but if someone makes fun of her height, she becomes visibly irritated.

"Bluff of Girls: The Girls Who Wear Their Bravado," or BOG for short, was, as far as I knew, a fairly popular mobile game.

At its core, it was a fairly standard game about a protagonist who commanded girls fighting monsters.

What made it stand out, however, was the depth of its characters and its distinctive, heavy story.

The system was broadly similar to those of other mobile games.

Pulling from the gacha got you Dresses—the equipment worn by the girls.

These Dresses came in rarities ranging from R to UR, and equipping them allowed the girls to fight. (A girl who is a Bluffer becomes playable as soon as you obtain even one Dress for her.)

The easiest to obtain were the lowest-rarity R Dresses, which looked like nothing more than ordinary school uniforms.

As the rarity increased, you could dress the girls in hakama, magical-girl outfits, shrine maiden garments, and so on.

And no, that wasn't just for laughs.

The source of their power was bluffing—bravado.

In other words, the girls fought the fiction invading the world by telling lies that deceived even themselves. For that reason, outfits matching the image they held of themselves were important.

To wear something was, in other words, to put on the shell of a stronger version of yourself. They could become sword-wielding warriors, magical girls, or superhumanly strong fighters.

At its core, it wasn't all that different from self-suggestion.

The power of a Bluffer was, essentially, the power of belief.

When the Fictional Invaders first appeared, some humans gained the ability to turn their fantasies into reality—particularly emotionally impressionable teenage girls.

As "Phantasm Weapons," they could strengthen their bodies and manifest weapons.

Under normal circumstances, they might have been thrilled to use those powers to satisfy their own desires. But according to the setting, humanity was in crisis.

So the girls did as the clever adults told them and exterminated the enemy.

I was someone who had enjoyed that game quite a bit as a work of fiction.

I liked it as fiction, but if someone asked me whether I wanted to live in this world... that would be another matter.

People died pretty easily in this world.

For the sake of the story, the main characters generally didn't die, but nameless side characters were slaughtered left and right, and Bluffers who never even received names had their guts spilled all over the place.

Terrifying.

Who in their right mind would want to become a Bluffer in a world like that, where your life was constantly in danger?

At the very least, it wasn't a responsibility that should have been forced upon teenage girls.

〈TIPS〉In Bluff of Girls: The Girls Who Wear Their Bravado, you can select five characters for each deployment. Bluffers have compatibility with one another, and certain combinations become more powerful when deployed together.

After finishing my conversation with the protagonist, I used deodorizer to get rid of the smell of tobacco before returning to my room.

My roommate in the dorm was the sword-wielding girl, Tatewaki Hazuki. Until recently, she'd been running wild in her dōgi and hakama, but now she was sitting at her desk in plain, unadorned loungewear.

"Hazuki, good work. You were as cold as ever."

"Raika. You helped me earlier. Thank you."

The first word that came to mind when looking at her was warrior.

She wore her beautiful black hair in a ponytail. Her sharp, upturned eyes gave her an intimidating presence whenever she faced someone. Her well-proportioned features only made that intensity more striking.

Her uniform was perfectly neat, and her posture was ramrod straight.

"However, wouldn't you say your fighting style is somewhat cowardly? Even if you can attack with a gun, you stay too far away from your allies. If something happens, you won't be able to protect them."

"My assignment this time was to protect the Anchor. I can't exactly do that if I run off."

"Hmph. The Anchor, is it?"

Her refined features twisted as she muttered with open resentment.

"He's supposed to deepen his relationships with us Bluffers and help stabilize our mental state, wasn't he? I don't recall asking for any of that."

"...Well, yeah."

We'd managed on our own until now. I couldn't blame her for not being happy about suddenly having an outsider forced into our group.

They suddenly force us into life-or-death battles, and now they're forcing a useless guy on us too? She was probably thinking something along those lines.

"What we Bluffers wear is, ultimately, a fantasy. Continuing to exist in that state forever would eventually mean becoming fantasies ourselves, unable to return to ordinary lives. That's why we need an anchor—a fixed point tied to the real world. That's what an Anchor is. It's something we need if we're going to keep fighting those things."

"That doesn't mean we need a guy who looks that weak! He's just dead weight!"

As always, she was hard on both herself and everyone else.

I could have sat down and properly discussed it with her... but what she needed right now wasn't a serious conversation.

She needed to relax.

"Hazuki, you're so cute when you're all tense! Here, let me pat your head!"

"Wha—?! Hey, idiot, stop—!"

Ruffle, ruffle.

I vigorously tousled her beautiful black hair.

She was always on edge, always standing at the front and swinging her sword so that no one else would die. Deep down, she was just an ordinary girl. At the very least, I wanted her to be able to relax and be herself in her own room.

"You're worried, aren't you? That this new element coming into our lives will cause some unexpected problem and get everyone hurt."

"..."

At some point, she stopped trying to resist. She looked up at me with a faintly protesting gaze, but she didn't push my hand away.

"Raika... aren't you worried?"

"I'm always worried too."

"—You really do nothing but lie. ...That's what I hate about you."

"I see."

I didn't stop patting her head. And she didn't resist.

"Anyway, don't worry your pretty little head over complicated stuff like that. Leave it to a liar like me. It's not the job of a serious, honest girl like you who can't bring herself to lie."

"...Shut up."

She turned her face away like a sulking child, but in the end, she never once removed my hand from her head.

Hazuki, who lived a disciplined life, always went to bed earlier than I did.

The only light in the room came from a desk lamp.

The chair was designed for the average high school student's height, so my feet didn't reach the floor.

Swinging both legs back and forth in the air, I let my thoughts wander.

I could hear Hazuki's soft, steady breathing as she slept.

I flipped through the notebook where I'd recorded everything I knew about this world, reviewing my plan once more.

"Well then... first things first, I need to get the protagonist and Hazuki together. ...Though I really can't imagine these two getting along."

Remembering the tense atmosphere between them, I gave a wry smile.

But if events continued to unfold according to the story I knew, bringing them closer was absolutely necessary.

"Guess I've got no choice."

I'd already decided what I needed to do in this world.

I didn't want innocent children to get hurt.

If this were fiction, that would be different. I could even applaud boys and girls who overcame their trials and grew stronger, covered in scars.

But now, things were different.

I'd always been a pretty pathetic person.

Back when I was a man nearing thirty, I'd only gotten better and better at lying, deceiving vulnerable people to make money.

Being a liar isn't something I can simply stop being. The sins I've committed won't disappear.

So at the very least, I want to become a liar whose lies can make innocent people happy.

That was the most important wish of the person I had become after being born again.