Every day gets more confusing.
Is any of this for real or not?
Is this all a hopeful dream I am having?
Am I dead?
No.
I am alive.
My name is Raoul.
I live in Kuoh, Japan.
I go to high school with a bunch of devil heiresses.
Wait, huh?
No.
That sounds like a stupid perverted anime I’ve seen.
Ah, whatever.
My brain hurts, and I’ve been basically drooling on myself all day.
I sort of walked home in a trance.
My mind was there, but my body moved on autopilot.
I even took a different route than usual.
But there were no attacks by anything.
Why do I wonder if I might be attacked by something?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt an aura around natural things.
If it is alive, it has the aura.
It’s not something I can explain.
It’s just sort of there.
Anyway, that aura gets disturbed sometimes when certain people walk around.
Sometimes it’s rapid and prickly.
Sometimes it’s heavy and ensnaring.
Have I ever been attacked?
Of course not.
This is reality, not an anime.
I returned to my home unscathed.
What a surprise.
I’ll just ignore the fact that I haven’t heard a sound since I left the school.
It’s like nothing out here really…
exists?
Whatever the fuck that means.
I opened the door to my one-bedroom apartment.
Why don’t I have parents?
I never bothered to think of it.
I just didn’t.
I am an orphan.
That’s all it has ever been.
Wait.
Yeah.
I was written that way.
[AWARENESS FOUND] Oh, shit.
I’m not liking this.
[Installing System in: NPC_Raoul] Oh, I definitely don’t like being called an NPC.
This thing can fuck off.
It’s not like I’m real anyway.
Or am I?
I think, therefore I am?
“I AM” is something about God, right?
The Bible is all fucked up here.
Which is weird, considering devils apparently go to my school.
[SYNCHRONIZING MEMORIES] “FUCK!” I screamed as pain split through my skull.
I collapsed against the nearby table, clenching my jaw and rubbing my temples.
After a few minutes of excruciating pain and a brain-splitting headache, I finally blinked a few times and tried to understand what had just happened.
I saw the ‘Plot’ of this world.
Well, that’s a shitty way to put it, because it makes the world feel fake.
But the world is fake, apparently, so whatever, I guess.
Anyway.
Outer gods from a parallel reality.
Boobs.
Gods are real.
The Big G is dead.
That’s a bummer.
There’s also a god of boobs or something?
I don’t know.
The world is saved by a pervert?
Oppai dragon?
Why is it in broken Japanese?
Or English?
I’m glad I’m a side character in this shitshow.
[Greetings, Host.] Oh hey, are you the thing I feel attached to my brain?
[Scanning…] [No anomaly found.] Oh, fuck off.
What is this exactly?
I’m not particularly glad to find out I’m a fictional mob character.
No fucking wonder I never cared to describe myself.
[Greetings, Host.
I am called the Transcending System.
My duty is to assist you in cultivating your existence.] …
What the fuck is happening now?
I thought I was a side character.
[…Host is aware he is fictional.
Yet he still exists.] !!!
[You have a chance to evolve.
Become real.
Grow.] Why?
I’m nothing special.
Just because I’m aware?
Aware of what?
That I’m fucking psychotic?
[…Host doubts his mental state.
Understandable.] [Executing protocol: PROOF.] [Please turn to your right and sit with your back against the wall.
The System has generated a mirror.] [Physical template stabilization will now begin.] Whatever.
I’ll just go to the psychologist tomorrow.
This is a common delusion, right?
I sat with my back against the wall because, why the hell not?
The talking mechanical system-AI-thing in my head told me to.
My eyelids slowly grew heavy.
Is this sleep?
I don’t want to disappear.
— My eyes cracked open slowly.
Everything felt more…
substantial.
I felt like I had been asleep for my entire life and was only now becoming aware of how the world worked.
It was almost disturbing how quickly I felt at home in myself.
It was like my consciousness had expanded.
Colors had names now, and those names actually meant something.
Everything was sharper.
Heavier.
More real.
I was thinking more clearly.
I could move my body as I wished, no longer constrained by the autopilot I had been stuck in before.
Does everyone feel like this?
Is this what it means to exist?