Don't Die Yet, the Cake Isn't Paid For
(After finishing the story yesterday afternoon, I was a complete wreck. May 21 was supposed to be such a happy day, and then they hit me with that ending. Old Kuro, why wouldn't you let Dania eat the cake?! Answer me! Look in my eyes!)
"This damn story is so bad, even a dog would shake its head and walk away."
Zhou Yu watched the CG on his screen: the pink-haired girl Dania smiled and faded away to a tragic hymn. He nearly choked and sprayed instant noodles all over his computer.
"I worked overtime for seventy-two hours straight and just wanted a little comfort from the new version. This is what you give me, devs?"
He slammed the noodle cup down on the desk.
"Dammit, androids don't deserve birthdays, is that it?"
"Sigelica went on about that May 21 birthday promise eight hundred times in the story, and you're just throwing it away?"
"I took annual leave for this?"
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He slapped his keyboard.
"Fuck you, give me a refund!"
Everything went black.
When he opened his eyes again, a piercing alarm assailed his ears and the thick smell of gunpowder filled his nostrils. The sky was leaden gray, and black smoke rose from shattered buildings in the distance.
He was lying behind a makeshift barricade, wearing a Lahai-Roi Defense Line logistics uniform and clutching half a baguette.
The kind hard enough to crack walnuts.
Under the sky not far away, a figure he knew all too well was slowly rising into the air.
Short pink hair, a pristine white skirt, and an ominous golden radiance surrounding her.
Her Tacet Discord resonance was about to spiral out of control, the prelude to sacrificing herself completely.
Dania.
Her eyes were closed, and she wore a resigned smile, a sacred smile, a smile Zhou Yu had seen countless times on his screen.
"She's about to complete the final resonance," a soldier beside him said, wiping away tears.
"It's her destiny, for everyone's sake." An officer clenched his fists.
Zhou Yu froze for a second.
He looked down at the baguette in his hand, then up at the girl who had already begun chanting, preparing to set herself off like a firework.
Version 3.3 was all here.
"You've got to be kidding me." His mouth twitched. "It's the first day of my annual leave!"
The next second, Zhou Yu moved.
He didn't yell some rousing slogan or unleash any earthshaking power. He just slid along the ground toward her, his movements remarkably practiced. After all, he did this every day in the game.
Before anyone could react, he was already beneath the altar.
"Hey!"
The brick-hard baguette flew from his hand, straight at the sacred ball of light in the sky.
Bang!
The baguette struck Dania squarely on the back of the head.
The girl's ascent halted, and the holy light around her flickered twice, just like an old TV with a bad signal.
She slowly opened her eyes and looked down in confusion, meeting Zhou Yu's fierce glare.
Everyone was petrified.
The soldiers kneeling in prayer and the officers weeping bitterly all froze, not knowing what to say.
"Did he throw something at the altar?" a soldier stammered.
"And it was army rations?!" another cried, his voice cracking.
"You..." Dania clutched the back of her head and stared blankly down at Zhou Yu, forgetting that she was still floating skyward.
"Ow... that hurt."
"Don't die yet!" Zhou Yu planted his hands on his hips and shouted up at her, sounding exactly like a client demanding a project update.
"Sigelica's strawberry cake is still on its way, and the balance hasn't been paid!"
"Huh?" Dania's CPU crashed. "Cake? Balance?"
She tilted her head, and the remaining holy light around her flickered twice more.
"Is that... some kind of new sacrificial incantation?"
"What incantation?!" Zhou Yu stamped his foot in frustration. "It's the cake your best friend ordered, a six-inch strawberry cream cake, and there's still eighty yuan left to pay!"
He pointed at her and shouted.
"Who's going to eat it if you die?"
"E-eighty?" Dania blinked, her lips moving for a long time without making a sound.
"What are you standing around up there for? Don't you want cake anymore?!"
Just then, an icy will poured out of a rift in the sky and locked onto Zhou Yu.
Aleph One, the primordial Tacet Discord, the director of this tragedy.
A chill, as though the world's rules were about to erase him, shot from the soles of his feet to the back of his neck, making every hair there stand on end.
[Abnormal command detected. Correction program initiating.]
"Oh, give me a break." Zhou Yu curled his lip in disdain.
He closed his eyes, and an absurdly crude phone contacts screen appeared in his mind.
This was the only cheat he had gained after transmigrating: a player's underlying access to the game's mechanics.
A number named Aleph One was calling him nonstop.
"So many spam calls," Zhou Yu muttered, tapping the screen with practiced ease.
[Block this number] [Confirm/Cancel]
"Confirm."
[Aleph One has been added to the spam list and permanently blocked.]
The terrifying will in the sky stalled for a moment, then vanished completely.
The world fell silent.
Dania was still floating in midair, but the holy light had gone out entirely. Not knowing what to do with her arms and legs, she spun in a circle.
"Y-you, who exactly are you?" a voice rang out from nearby, both shocked and furious.
Zhou Yu turned to see a blonde girl in a Flamebearers' Academy uniform charging toward him, carrying a gauntlet in her hand.
Sigelica.
Finally, someone he could talk to.
Zhou Yu breathed a sigh of relief and pointed at Dania, who was still staring blankly in the sky.
"What are you looking at? Hurry up and get your idiot best friend down!"
"I'm taking time off in lieu today. Even if the king of heaven himself showed up, he wouldn't get her to work this shift!"