Do you like games?
If you do, how much?
Well, allow me to answer first.
[Warning!]
[If you hear knocking at the window, draw the curtains immediately.]
[Do not forget. The place you are currently sitting is inside a train racing along at 60 kilometers per hour.]
Apparently, I liked them far more than I'd thought.
Considering I was seeing hallucinations like this.
"Whew……."
I slowly breathed in, then out.
After repeating that a few times, I looked ahead.
The message window was still there.
'Damn it.'
So I really was seeing it right.
"……If you hear knocking at the window, draw the curtains immediately."
When I recited the message before my eyes word for word, an incredulous reply came from across the compartment.
"You been guzzling booze?"
"……"
"Or is this a joke?"
I raised my head and looked at the one-eyed man.
Above his head floated a line of text.
[Stoker, 'Derek']
It was a surreal sight, yet paradoxically, that absurd display woke a strange sense of reality in me.
"Would you believe me if I said it's the truth dressed up as a joke?"
"Ha."
The one-eyed man snorted.
"Look. Do you have any idea how fast the Armand goes?"
"……60 kilometers per hour, was it?"
"Right. So you do know. As fast as a horse at full gallop. Except it doesn't tire, and it keeps a steady pace. As long as you keep feeding it fuel, it can run all day long. The very pinnacle of magic engineering, you could say?"
"Impressive."
"So why are you spouting bullshit about outside the window or whatever? Especially when right now……"
His gaze and mine naturally turned toward the window.
It was the dead of night, yet outside the rattling window, it was faintly bright.
Not because dawn had broken.
In a night sky where the gloom still shimmered, a full moon was emerging from between the dark clouds.
What caught and threw back the moonlight was an enormous lake—and I swear, never in my life had I seen a lake this vast.
'This really isn't reality.'
Just taking in the scenery was enough to make me think so.
The train was racing along tracks laid over that lake.
"See? Even those high-and-mighty mage lords wouldn't dare chase down a train that runs across a lake."
I suppose not.
If the thing knocking at the door were human, that is.
"If you get it, then go to sleep. Quit spewing nonsense in the dead of night……. Goddamn it. I'm tired enough to drop dead, and you're cracking moronic jokes."
Regrettably, it's no joke.
Not if this train's name is the <Armand>, its destination is the <Forest of Eternity>, and the lake we're crossing right now is <Horizon Lake>.
"Ah! Don't forget your patrol before you sleep. Skip it and that Car Chief bastard will pitch a fit again."
Patrol?
Ah.
'The tutorial for learning the basic controls.'
Then I can't skip it.
Feeling less than thrilled, I rose from my seat.
"I'll be right back, so don't you dare open this curtain."
"That joke still isn't over?"
"Joke or not, if I say don't open it, don't open it. Got it?"
The one-eyed bastard smirked, not a trace of tension on his face.
"I'll think about it. Anyway, I'm sleeping."
"……"
I'd meant to press him two or three more times, but before I could even finish, the one-eyed man wrapped himself in his blanket quick as an arrow……
And before long, he was even letting out thunderous snores.
Can a person really fall asleep that fast?
"……Damn."
In the end, only after drawing the curtain shut myself did I leave the compartment.
RATTLE…….
The only things lighting the pitch-dark train corridor were a few flickering bulbs.
Walking slowly through that space steeped in darkness, I finally began to feel the weight of this hopeless reality.
Thirty minutes since I'd opened my eyes in a place beyond comprehension…….
It seemed certain: I'd been transmigrated into <Forest of Shadows>.
***
CREAK…….
I walked down the dark train corridor.
With every step, memories of 'Forest of Shadows'…… <FoS> surfaced one by one.
An indie game made overseas.
Genre: roguelike dungeon RPG.
Its setting and worldbuilding were remarkably vast.
Put that way, it sounds like a fairly respectable game, but the truth was another matter entirely.
Now, to list this trash game's flaws…….
An atmosphere dark enough to be classified as dark fantasy.
Middling graphics and moronic optimization.
Horror sequences.
And above all, a difficulty high enough to make you swear out loud.
Thanks to that, even when the concept art or trailers drew in new players, most of them left before long.
Even when word of mouth got lucky a few times, interest fizzled out just as fast.
And so <FoS> became a game only those in the know knew about—and the fate of games like that is a common one.
'They become playthings for hipster bastards who can't be satisfied with anything famous.'
In other words, bastards like me.
'So?'
How did I end up sucked into the game?
I tried to recall my last memory, but my head was hazy, as if shrouded in fog.
Honestly, I was still dazed.
Could I be dreaming? Or could this be some hidden-camera prank?
CREAK…….
But my clothes, changed in an instant, and the one-eyed man's attitude, which couldn't possibly be read as acting.
Above all, scenery and sensations far too real for any stage prop denied that possibility outright.
"Whew……."
Stop acting like a halfwit and pull yourself together.
The situation has already happened; the stage for talk of dreams is long past.
If I can't accept it even at this point, that's no different from denying reality.
'More than anything, I don't have that luxury.'
<FoS> has a wide variety of start points.
That said, they aren't completely random—they vary by race, and by the character's background, initial stats, age, and sex.
Granted, the branches number in the hundreds or more.
But if you're starting on a racing train, in the position of a stove-tender, then most likely…….
'Race: human. Sex: male. Age: somewhere around the twenties. Initial stats…….'
Knowing the formula, I could work backward from the result, and I could infer my current state as well.
Not that it made my situation any better.
'The goddamned <Armand Route>.'
Also known as the <Instant-Death Route>, or the <Wall of Wailing>.
The reason is simple.
Of all the start points, this route has the highest odds of dying.
Thinking of what would soon unfold sent a chill crawling up my spine.
'……What do I do?'
I asked myself, but no clever answer came to mind.
In the end, I checked my body's condition, checked the train's condition, and returned.
"……"
But when I came back to the compartment, an oddly frigid silence had settled over the room.
The interior was unusually bright, so I turned my eyes to the curtain.
"Ha, fuck."
The curtain I had most certainly drawn shut before leaving was thrown wide open, and the moonlight that had intruded in the meantime lay quietly over the seats.
[Stoker, 'Derek' (Deceased)]
One-eyed Derek was dead—his tongue, grown eerily long, lolling all the way down to his chest, his face drained bone-white.
And then—
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone rapped on the train window.