1 Chapter One: New Game Error

He didn't understand what was happening.

The pain from the sword in his back that kept him pinned to the ground, the shock of the reality before him, the betrayal. He thought he was helping people. He thought he was being a hero. He did everything correctly! He'd followed his ideals of justice to the letter!

The city had gone to hell. Strange monsters roaming the streets, slaughtering people in droves. Cultists sowing more and more chaos and assisting those… things. Everything happened so suddenly, they couldn't have possibly responded in time.

How? Why? Just why did everything go so wrong!?

He could hear them screaming, the sheer agony of having their very souls ripped out echoing throughout the roof of the skyscraper. His childhood friend, his Knight partner that had gone missing a month ago, the noble woman that he admired, and his mentor who showed him the ropes of being a Knight.

A familiar figure stood before him. Tall, wearing a yellow cloak with black trimmings, over his face was a smiling white mask. Paris's most wanted man.

Verner Von Bluecher. The infamous villain that became Paris's most wanted in just a few months. A merciless monster who's cruelty knew no bounds.

"You know something…" He began as he took off his mask. "I can't believe how easy you made this for me. Years of work shortened into months all because I had your help."

His eyes widened. "J-Johannes!?"

Johannes was a thin young man with white hair and green eyes. He was a prodigy of a man, and a genius, he had solved some of the most infamous and mind boggling cases that the Knights had ever faced! He was their friend, a fellow Knight, a man that they had all respected and trusted.

'Johannes' let out a laugh. "Yeah, it's me, Ichiro."

Ichiro stared at the impossibility before him. "It… It can't be! M-Mind control! It has to be mind control!"

'Johannes' knelt before Ichiro, and with a twisted smile, he grabbed the hilt of the sword in his back and began twisting the blade.

"A-Aaaggrrahh!" Ichiro cried out in agony.

"Poor dumb, stupid, disgustingly naive Ichiro. Do you remember Astrid Von Brandt?" He motioned to the screaming woman with platinum blonde hair struggling fruitlessly against the demonic shackles around her limbs as the ritual slowly ripped the soul from her body. "And how her entire household mysteriously went missing three months ago, just a few weeks after you passed your Knight Aptitude Test?" 'Johannes' loomed over Ichiro like an oppressive shadow, a cheshire grin spread across his face. "It was me, Ichiro."

Ichiro's eyes widened in horror. "N-No…"

"One of Knights' best and brightest, a symbol of grace, beauty, and strength across Paris… Pfffttahahahahahahahaha!" He laughed mockingly. "That dumb bitch wasn't anything special. Just a few fancy tricks and dragon heritage. Beating her and her entourage of maids was hardly even a warm-up. But I made sure to put her and her vixen collection to good use in the breeding pits. Good investment too, that dragon blood made her body very durable, the shoggoths loved toying with her. Shame about the maids though, I think seeing each one of her precious little foxes eaten alive when they ran out of use finally broke her."

Ichiro tried to push himself up, but the blade had severed his spine cleanly, he was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Then there was your childhood friend, Sakuya Tennyo. Shy, cute, sweet as a button, innocent, hopelessly in love with you, a dumbass too dense to realize the obvious. Subduing her was easy. Breaking her was even easier. Turns out she was a reincarnated Valkyrie… What a lucky find. And when you never heard a word for her in months, all I had to say was 'maybe she just needs some time to herself' and you fucking bought it!" 'Johannes' laughed. "Then there was that cat you saved in the alleyway. Yeah turns out that was an injured nekomata who was part of the Tenebris assassin organization, go figure. Seriously, if I wasn't planning on killing you, I'd take you to Vegas for good luck. Her special abilities proved very interesting in study and experimentation; and she was such wonderful…entertainment."

His mind couldn't keep up with everything being thrown at him. The very city he was raised in was covered in blood and flames, hearing that loved ones and even people he saved were being subjected to such horrors right under his nose the whole time. It was just too much. "This isn't happening! This can't be happening!" Ichiro cried.

"And that mentor of yours, Viviana de Medici, she was acting so oddly these past months, right? It was me, Ichiro. She caught on pretty quickly to me being a 'bad influence' towards you, so I needed her out of the way. Subduing a vampire as old and as powerful as her would've been extremely difficult, but fortunately for me, I had your help."

He stared at 'Johannes' with pained confusion. "W-What…?"

"You trusted me so completely that when I asked you to use your powers to make a seal with some peculiar specifications you didn't even question me before you made it. As expected of Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto's golden child, you did splendid work, we captured her with little effort. Then came the fun part. I'm pretty sure she had more mindbreaker toxins and aphrodisiacs running through her veins than blood, but it was worth it to crack down on her mental defenses and make her vulnerable to hypnosis."

"Hypnosis!?" Ichiro's eyes widened.

"Yes, hypnosis. She goes silent for a week, comes back suddenly without a word, and acts like a robot during conversation." 'Johannes' - no, Verner, laughed. "And when I said that 'maybe she's just feeling unwell', you ate that shit up! I honestly can't believe how gullible you are, you didn't even figure out that we were having our fun with her just one or two rooms away, or even just around the corner! You know that best part? It was stomping all over that whore's pride. Vampires are prideful little shits all because their power grows over the centuries, but hypnosis is such a fun little tool. You can make someone completely aware of what's happening to them, unable to stop or resist anything. A prisoner in their own body. The utter hate in her eyes as we use her like our own personal pet… delicious, and we have none other than you to thank for that."

Tears gathered in Ichiro's eyes. "I… wouldn't! I-I couldn't have..."

Verner's disposition turned outright jolly at the realization of something. "Speaking of 'pets'... I know how you couldn't have forgotten about Tatsiana Sabalenka. Impressive service record, a powerful werewolf, one of this generation's most impressive swordswomen, your former partner, and 'mole' in the Blade Guild for the Sons of The Yellow Monarch… my organization."

Of course he remembered! The betrayal; discovering that his partner, his best friend, the woman who he counted on to watch his back had been working with one of the most vile gangs in all of Paris.

Ichiro grit his teeth. "What are you getting at?"

Verner reached down, grabbing Ichiro by his hair, forcing the young man to look him right in the eye. "It. Was. ME, Ichiro!"

Ichiro's mind raced a mile a minute as he reached a horrifying conclusion. "B-But-"

"'But' nothing!" Verner slammed Ichiro face into the floor before pulling him back up to eye level, his nose bleeding. "Tatsiana was a truly exceptional werewolf. Powerful, intelligent, loyal… and such a bitch. She was the most difficult person to get rid of, honestly, saw through me the first time we met and stuck to you like glue."

"But she was a mole! She was your mole!" Ichiro argued, trying his best to deny the reality of what Verner was implying.

Verner was momentarily stunned by Ichiro's words. "Are you that fucking stupid? Are you really that dense!? Who am I kidding, of course you are. You brain damaged ape! I was the mole. The leader of Yellow Monarch sitting at the Round Table the whole fucking time! I framed her, idiot. Remember, I was the one who planted the seeds of doubt in you, I was the one who forged that little paper trail to make everything point to her; and I was the one that planted the damning evidence in her apartment."

"She…was innocent!?"

"Someone get this moron a gold star, he figured it out, but we can't forget about the pièce de résistance of the entire situation." The look on Verner's face grew manic. "Getting you to be the one to bring her in." He let out a blissful sigh. "The look of desperation as she tried to tell you the truth. Seeing the utter heartbreak in her eyes as you, the person she held closest to her heart, arrested her for something she was completely innocent of… Listen. I've taken literal divine designer drugs that were less euphoric than that."

"Y-You bastard!" Ichiro tried reaching out for Verner, only for the monster of a man to grab his weak arm and plunge a knife into his hand and pin it into the ground. "Aaargh!"

"Finally growing something resembling a brain now, are you? Well, I'm not done with this tale just yet. Tatsiana wasn't taken to a detainment facility, she was taken to one of my bases. Oh, we had our fun toying with her of course, illegal aphrodisiacs, mindbreaker toxins, the works. Ironically enough, she had more mental strength than the vampire so hypnosis was off the table. But when I threatened your life if she didn't cooperate? Oh, she behaved herself like a good little puppy. She put herself through so much humiliation all for your sake, she endured all of my painful experiments in the futile hope that you'd save her."

Ichiro stared into Verner's eyes, horrified and stunned.

"You can still hear them screaming, right?"

He could. He could make out all of the shrill screams of pain and anguish unified with each other in a chorus of agony.

"Then what are you waiting for 'hero'? Go on, save them. Save them already, or will you just continue to be the utter disappointment you've always been?"

He couldn't do anything at all. The blade in his back must've been some kind of cursed weapon. It was draining all of the divine energy out of him. If it was a regular blade he would be able to power through an injury like this and be healed in under a minute at the very least; but he could barely even move at this point. All he could feel right now was exhaustion, pain, and despair.

"Why!?" Ichiro sobbed. "Why are you doing this!?"

"Well, one: I'm a body snatching sorcerer working to bring about the advent of an Elder God for the past seven-hundred years. Two: I'm evil, it isn't that complicated. And three…" Verner stood up to his full height, raised up his leg, and then stomped his head into the stone floor. "Because I fucking hate you."

"Urrrggh!" Ichiro's head spun as his face met the floor, it was a miracle his nose didn't shatter from the impact.

"Do you have any fucking idea what you're like?" Verner snarled. "'Justice' this, 'justice' that! 'I'll be a great hero like my father!' And those childish fucking ideals of yours… Ugh! You just don't know how to shut the hell up, do you? Ever since I first met you, I've hated you. Every day I didn't throw up after forcing myself to interact with you is a miracle." He shook his head. "If you weren't a complete insufferable moron, I'd have you as my right hand. The girls? I would've given them to you as your own playthings. The strong souls necessary for the ritual would've been riskier due to the higher profile of the other candidates, sure. But as you've already proven, your seals make such matters child's play. So much power, so much potential, and it's utterly wasted on you."

"You won't get away with this! I.. I won't let you!" Ichiro shouted stubbornly.

"Oh, I won't get away with it?" Verner let out a hearty laugh. "Alright, let's see it! Stand up, hero! Be strong! Believe in yourself, strike down the evil in front of you!" Verner stood silent, simply watching Ichiro fruitlessly and desperately struggling for a whole ten seconds. "Yeah, that's about what I expected."

"Shut up!" He cried, tears streaming down his face. "I'll save them! I'll save them all, and I'll stop you too!"

Verner let out another hearty laugh before raising his foot over Ichiro's head.

"You." Stomp.

"Ugh!" Ichiro grit his teeth.

"Won't." Stomp.

"Urrrk!" His lower lip was busted.

"Do." Stomp.

"Araaaugh!" The world spun, there were stars in his eyes.

"Jack!" Stomp.

"U-Urrrrugh!" His vision flickered for a second.

"SHIT!" Stomp.

Crunch! Ichiro's nose finally broke. "Aaaaaaaagh!"

"Heheheh. Well, that was fun, but as entertaining a punching bag as you make, I've got business to take care of. Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you, I want you to see everything you love and care for be destroyed before you die!"

Verner walked away from Ichiro and approached the center of the roof on the skyscraper. There was a large, extremely complex magic circle written exclusively in human blood, five crucifix-like structures with the five screaming girls nailed to them, and finally, a red spear placed in the center of the magic circle.

Sure, he didn't have to do the ritual on a skyscraper of all things, but it was for the sake of aesthetics. If you were going to summon a god you needed some gravitas, and that meant not doing the ritual in some dingy cave. One had to show their lord proper respect in order to be rewarded accordingly, after all.

Verner raised his arm into the air, his hand glowed a sickly green as the screams of the girls reached a whole new level of agony. It only lasted a few seconds before wispy orbs that were the color of their eyes emerged of their chests, and at long last, their bodies went limp.

"No…" Ichiro's voice was barely a whisper.

The orbs, the souls of the girls, were suddenly ensnared by chains that shot out of the spear's tip, and were dragged into it. The spear glowed brighter and brighter with each one it consumed, and that light bled into the magic circle. But in that split second when the final soul was consumed, and the light was just about to fully power the magic circle…

Crack!

Verner blinked. "What?"

There was a visible fracture on the shaft of the spear.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

More and more fractures appeared, and a dark energy began to swirl around the spear.

"No… no no no no no! Bullshit!" Verner shouted. "I followed everything to the letter! I planned this for centuries! What the hell is going on!?"

"Well, well, well…" A new voice joined them, one brimming with untold power. "I haven't seen shit this cringe since Ragnarök…that and this game's anime adaptation."

"Who are you!? Show yourself!" Verner demanded.

The spear shattered, and the dark energy coalesced into a being, a man. On his head was a large, wide-brimmed top hat which shadowed most of his face, but it couldn't hide his glowing, red left eye, or his outright comically large nose. From what he could see, the man looked almost skeletal, skin pulled back and dried to the point where he didn't even have lips anymore. He wore a long, black, high collared coat that covered his entire body, and within his boney hands, he held a cane made of oak.

He did a finger gun pose with both arms at a seemingly random direction. "Ayo, it's ya boy, Odin, hangin' out with some dumbasses again."

A stock laugh track like one usually heard on television shows played out of nowhere.

"O-Odin…!?" Verner sucked in a breath. "But the ritual wasn't meant to summon you!"

"Too bad, so sad. You used my spear. The very spear I was sealed into by the Crawling Chaos, and I took advantage of your little ritual." Odin shrugged. "I mean sure, you had absolutely no way of knowing that I'd be in it… but I'll still call you a dumbass anyway."

"But I used the Longinus!" he argued.

"And you obviously have no idea how many people have changed my spear's name since Ragnarök." Odin's lipless face seemed to smile. "I could go over the whole history lesson, but I don't care enough to waste my time entertaining trash. I'm putting a stop to your shenanigans."

"Heh… heheheh…" Ichiro laughed weakly as he pitifully crawled towards them. "I told you that you wouldn't get away with this."

Verner's eyes widened as he spun around to look down at Ichiro, rage written clearly on his face. "You… you! What did you do!?"

Ichiro simply smirked.

"Alright, I'ma stop both of you right there." Odin spoke firmly, he turned to Ichiro. "How dare you try and take credit for me being my natural badass self! Have you no shame? Is your head so full of hot air that condensation started occurring?"

Ichiro blinked. "I… uh…"

"And you!" Odin turned to Verner.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Forcing me to watch through that entire shit show of a reveal!"

"Shit show!? Do you even have any idea how long I've been waiting to finally unveil this!?"

"Don't care, Mr. 'I'm going to be cliché and copy basically every NTR Doujin plot to ever exist,' do you even have an original bone in your body? Was this shit the best you could come up with?"

Both Ichiro and Verner were flabbergasted at Odin's words and attitude. Not only was what he was saying not making a lick of sense, but they certainly didn't expect this kind of attitude from one of the most revered and respected gods in history… and that was before that fact that he was supposed to be dead.

Odin sighed. "Quite frankly, I'm not sure which one of you is stupider at this point. And while I could go into painstaking detail of why you all suck, I'll eat your souls and show you knowledge that will break your perception of reality instead!"

Ichiro's eyes widened. "H-Huh!?"

Verner took a cautious step back. "Excuse me!?"

Odin tapped the floor with his cane twice, and the pieces of his spear began shaking before morphing into hooked chains. Ichiro and Verner didn't even have time to scream before the chains shot out and ripped the souls out of them, their bodies falling limply onto the cold ground. The god opened his jaw wide enough to swallow both souls at once, his teeth transforming into a mass of grotesque fangs. The chains dutifully brought the souls to their master's maw, his mouth clapped down, breaking the chains where they met his teeth.

He raised his head up slightly as he loudly swallowed and gave a satisfied sigh. "There's no food like soul food." He gave a hearty laugh at his own pun. "Welp, time to mind fuck someone!"

Odin tapped the ground with his cane twice, and the entire world turned into a black void. Finally, he turned around looking up at a very specific spot. It was no different from any other place in the never ending abyss, but he could see beyond it.

He could see who was watching.

His audience.

His skeletal grin widened. "So, you must be the Player."

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I gave a long sigh as I walked out of the shower, steam stubbornly clinging to my body even after I dried myself off. Quickly getting dressed in some pajamas, I checked my phone: no texts, no voice mails, nothing to bother me. The doorbell rang throughout the house, prompting me to grab my wallet and make my way downstairs to the front door. I undid the locks on the door then opened it.

"Pizza and wings for… uh, Mr. Dante Alighieri?" Asked a skinny guy with brown hair holding a large pizza box with a box of hot wings stacked onto it. He looked somewhere around his late teens to early twenties, this must've been a college job or something.

"That'd be me, yeah." I opened up my wallet, pulled out three twenties and handed it to the young man. "Thank you."

He took the money, I took my food. Simple and clean, like it should be.

"So, Dante, eh? Not a name I hear often." Unfortunately, he dirtied it by looking for a conversation.

I wasn't in the mood for talk, but I had no problem being polite and playing along. "Yeah, ny gramps picked out my name. He was a huge fan of a fourteenth century fanfiction about God."

The pizza guy looked confused. "What?"

I blinked. "You know, The Divine Comedy… Dante's Inferno?"

"I thought it was Devil May Cry."

I stared at the pizza guy, then glanced at the pizza box in my hands. "There's no olives in this, right?"

He snorted. "Yeah, large meat lovers and buffalo wings. You have a good day, sir."

I gave him a nod. "You too."

I watched him walk away from the front porch before I closed the door and locked it back up.

I walked through the living room and paused as I passed the mantle over the fireplace. Two urns were placed on the mantle with a picture frame of a happy family four. A mother, father, two little boys that were too busy poking each other in the sides to pay attention to the camera; and grandpa was in the background manning the grill.

The first urn read: In loving memory of Antonio Alighieri 1972 - 2013

And the second one: In loving memory of Julia Alighieri 1975 - 2013

I remembered that day vividly. The cool Spring breeze carrying the scent of sizzling hamburgers, mom telling me to make a wish before blowing out the candles, the taste of chocolate cake… my brother before he turned into an utter piece of shit.

I shook my head and walked upstairs. I'd put in two weeks paid vacation at work and I ain't wasting it reminiscing about the past, I had anime to watch and a backlog of games to catch up on!

I opened the door to my room, the master bedroom, and set the pizza and wings boxes down on the desk with the large computer monitor and sat down in the cushy office chair I had bought a couple years ago. I scooted the chair up to the mouse and keyboard on the desk and opened up Discord, and to my pleasant surprise I got a DM from one of my more recent online friends, YellowBroseph.

YellowBroseph: You won't believe this! The boys and I did some data mining on Sorakarago, we found some missing content you need to check out!

Sorakarago was the shortened name of an eroge called Sora Kara Ochita Makkana Ringo, it was a franchise that I had a long history with. Specifically when I asked grandpa where babies came from and he handed me a fucking hentai game. I miss that insane bastard.

Sorakarago, gameplay-wise, was a turn-based JRPG with life-sim mechanics akin to the Persona series. Sorakarago was to Persona what Kamidori was for the Atelier series. Lewd as hell with deep combat, and just as deep 'plot,' with an urban fantasy setting set in a magic version of Paris. The first game came out around 2006, was surprisingly successful, and became the publisher's new big cash cow, churning out games and spin-offs practically every year or so. There was even a rather shitty anime adaptation of the first game in 2008 that the fan base collectively decided didn't exist.

Avocado's Inferno: Hasn't the game been mined to hell and back by fans already?

All that was found from previous data mining was just a few unused enemy models and some rather raunchy alternate costumes for the heroines…which could be modded back in…which I usually did.

YellowBroseph: Bruh, we found a hidden cache of data within the code, but couldn't crack it. We were actually able to get in touch with one of the developers of the first game and they gave us the fucking source code for it!

My eyebrows practically shot up to my hairline.

I became friends with YellowBroseph about a year ago. We met on some online forums discussing power scaling involving characters from Sorakarago. We hit it off pretty well, and like me, he had a rather big fondness for the first game in the Sorakarago series. He was also a modder and part of a group of modders that mainly focused on the Sorakarago games.

Avocado's Inferno: You're shitting me!

YellowBroseph: Nah, fam. Turns out they had the voice acting, CGs, and straight up everything done. It's practically a whole new game too. Everything's been rebalanced and the difficulty is greatly turned up. It might as well be a director's cut version of the game.

Okay, he pretty much already had me, hook, line, and sinker. The first Sorakarago game was by far my favorite. It may have been kind of jank and easily exploitable, but the jank was fun, the heroines were the best in the series, and the whole game bled heart and soul. It was a passion project through and through. Playing through the first Sorakarago at least once a year was practically a personal tradition considering just how many times I'd beaten it.

Avocado's Inferno: Well shit, I could go for a new playthrough. Was planning on it this month too.

YellowBroseph: Perfect, I already sent you an email with the reworked game.

Almost immediately I went to my email. Like he said, he already sent it. Around five or so minutes ago too. Rather eager, wasn't he? But still, a rebalanced director's cut of my favorite game with official (kind of) additional content? I was pretty damn eager myself.

It took a few minutes to download the zip file in my email, and a few more to unzip them as well. The final file size was a surprising fifteen gigs; the original game was only around four. Either there was a lot of new content, or Yellow was shit at optimizing the game…which was uncharacteristic of him, considering how good he was normally. I checked over the files personally and noticed several new folders, as well as a READ ME text file at the bottom of the list.

I opened the text file.

Changes:

-Rebalanced enemies and boss encounters (The game is a good bit harder)

-Rebalanced skills and abilities (Some are buffed, some are nerfed to prevent old exploits)

-New missions and side-stories from Blade HQ

-New items and gear from the Shopkeeper

-Infinite money exploit removed

-Infinite EXP exploit removed

-New dialogue from NPCs and Heroines/Party Members

-Reworked dialogue choices

-New Timed Choices mechanic (Five second timer for dialogue choices)

-Hidden Route unlocked by completing all routes on one save file (After all routes complete, do another playthrough and let all dialogue choices time out)

"Huh…" I stared at the text for a good while, rereading it a few times. "Well, might as well have rebranded this as a whole-ass expansion."

I didn't really care about the money and experience exploits getting patched, that was usually stuff speedrunners relied on, but the new dialogue could lead to some interesting cutscenes and worldbuilding that didn't make the final release of the game. Hell, a lot of dialogue actually seemed reworked, maybe they were previously badly translated?

I cracked my knuckles as I opened the pizza box. Steam and the absolutely delectable smell wafting throughout my room. I took a slice and a bite, and goodness gracious, every time I ordered from that pizzeria I was reminded why I was a regular.

Pizza in one hand, mouse in the other, and with a few clicks, the title screen appeared. That familiar logo and experimental synth brought back so many memories.

And so, for the next few days, I went through memory lane.

Yellow wasn't kidding when he said the rebalanced game was a good bit harder than the original. I had many close calls during my playthrough of the first route, but thankfully I was able to pull through with some smart thinking about item and skill usage. But the difficulty of the first route made the following playthroughs far smoother if not outright cakewalks, because smart usage of skills and teamwork allowed you to hit way above your level and dish out some truly outrageous numbers.

But still, my draw to these games was less on the ridiculous things you could do in gameplay, but the characters. Specifically, the heroines:

Astrid Von Brandt, the strong willed head of the Brandt family originating from Germany. They were a long lived family line, descended from the dragons of Scandinavia, Fafnir specifically. Her parents sacrificed themselves to seal away Verner Von Bluecher, who had devoured the soul of, and bodysnatched, her little brother to escape. Her route - and most routes - centered around the infamous Yellow Monarch gang that had popped up during the recent decade.

She was the tsundere archetype of the main heroines, and was the developer favorite considering how often they loved giving her cameos or alternate versions of her in later games. Not to mention a majority of the extra material light novels and CD Dramas centered around her.

Sakuya Tennyo, the protagonist's childhood friend whose route dealt with her discovering and coming to terms with her being the reincarnation of a valkyrie, and helping the protagonist discover how the Yellow Monarch gang was connected to the death of his father, as well as coming to terms with her own past life as Brynhildr.

Viviana de Medici, an Italian vampire from the 1400s, had a long, rich history as a privateer for the British Navy during the Golden Age of Piracy. She was the mentor figure of the main group, and an absolute badass among badasses. Her route was among my favorites due to how awesome her backstory was, and the small glimpses we got of the real her. I won't lie, probably the reason I was kind of into dominant women.

Tatsiana Sabalenka, a werewolf from Belarus. Werewolves and most demi-humans in the setting were basically regular humans with animalistic features and enhanced physical capabilities. Tatsiana was a woman of few words, but her calm disposition concealed the viciousness within her. Her judgment was brutal and merciless, and she would butt heads with the protagonist constantly in their route and throughout the story in general, as both were working on the Yellow Monarch case. Her route was a fan favorite (mostly because she loved calling out the protagonist on his shit), she was one of the best characters on the game due to her obscene crit-rate, and people loved her dry sarcasm. In all routes, she and the protagonist would become begrudging friends, and it wasn't long before it was shown how strong her loyalty is, which was something that endeared me to her greatly.

And finally, the Nameless Assassin, a nekomata and optional party member that could be unlocked during the early game. An assassin of the Tenebris Organization that was sent to spy on the Yellow Monarch gang but was caught and was gravely injured. After the main cast helped nurse her back to health you had the option of asking her to join the party. The Player was tasked with giving her a name through a text box; I always named her Cosette, after the character in the French novel Les Misérables. Her route was one of the most infamous and disliked routes of the game, not because she was a bad character, but because this was the route where the protagonist became his most insufferable.

At long last, I unlocked the hidden route, and red flags were starting to show almost immediately when I told YellowBroseph.

YellowBroseph: Alright, now to actually get into the hidden route, let the timer for the choices run out. It'll lead to a third hidden choice, basically letting Ichiro make his own choices.

Let Ichiro, of all people, make his own choices. Oh god no.

Maruyama Ichiro, the protagonist of the first Sorakarago game, was infamous for a few reasons. Mainly how unrealistic his ideals of being a hero were, and how he went about expressing said ideals. Christ alive, he made Emiya Shirou look like a bastion of self-rationality. To bring up the subject of the Assassin Heroine again, Ichiro spent practically the whole route gaslighting her for being raised at birth to be a killer. I was a child at the time when I first played the game and even I knew that was fucked up!

Hell, even the writers knew how bad he was; originally there were supposed to be extended endings for each heroine years into the future and they were all canonically Bad Ends 'cause they wanted some Yoko Taro shit. The plot went meta and turned out that without the Player making choices for Ichiro, most of the relationships ended in tragedy.

So, uh, one could see my apprehension at letting Ichiro of all people make his own choices. And I was right too! It turned into a fucking NTR route of all things, Jesus Christ! Was this why YellowBroseph was so intent on me playing through this route, pranking me with some semi-canon NTR? Pretty fucking grimdark too, it did not hold back on the character deaths either, especially when Astrid's maids got fucking eaten by Lovecratian hentai tentacle monsters. Less grim darkness of the 41st Millennium and more grim darkness of my browser history, 'cause this was some borderline Taimanin levels of bullshit going on.

Then things turned into the end of a god damned Call of Cthulhu tabletop game. It looked like the apocalypse had begun, and the fact that actual Cthulu Mythos shit was happening instead of it just being vaguely alluded to, like the series had done for years, was its own brand of ironic insanity.

And then fucking Odin shows up shortly after Verner finishes his Reverse Flash impression, and takes the piss out of the entire situation, and then eats Ichiro and Verner's souls before teleporting to some kind of black void that suspiciously seemed like the Edge of Existence where the Fallen Angel, Azazel, was fought in one of the prequel game. Odin was the final boss of the fourth mainline game! Just how far back was this series planned-

"So, you must be the Player." The character on screen smiled almost menacingly, looking directly at the camera.

I blinked. "What in the yandere-led literature club kind of bullshit is this…?"

"You must be confused. Unfortunately you're going to have to deal with it." Odin said dismissively.

My hands weren't on the mouse and keyboard, and auto-play wasn't on for the text. I tried to ALT-TAB out of the game to tell Yellow about this, but I couldn't. Sure it was an old game with a tendency to crash if you tab out, but it never stopped you from doing so.

The CG on screen changed to show Odin wagging his finger. "Uh-uh-uh. I'm not letting you go that easily…"

I reached for my phone. Even if I couldn't tab out of the game, I could still contact Yellow through the Discord app.

I pressed the on button and…

I was met with Odin's face yet again. Looking all too proud of himself and as smug as could be.

"Relax, Dante," both Odins said, making my blood run cold, "I just want to have a little chat. Your name is 'Dante' right? It's the name of the main hard drive of this computer."

I turned back to the computer to see that File Explorer had opened up, and to the This PC tab displaying three drives, the main drive containing Windows named after myself.

I stared at the computer screen for a few seconds, then to my phone, and then back at the computer again.

The CG changed to raising his eyebrow in an almost cartoonish fashion. "You done?"

I didn't know if it was the half a bottle of whisky in me or not, but the world felt like it was spinning for a few seconds. "Jesus Christ, I'm in the plot of a bad video game creepypasta."

"You…!" Odin looked genuinely shocked, then somewhat disturbed. "Oh shit, you're right!" He shook his head. "Whatever, stop distracting me, else you will be seeing some 'hyper-realistic blood,' understood?"

I shrugged. "I'll try."

"What you were toying around with, this 'game,' was a 7th-Dimensional Terminal, you crazy lad!" Odin laughed to himself. "You don't need to know what that means-"

Decades of made up chuuni terminology from JRPGs, urban fantasy visual novels with their heads firmly up their ass, various anime debate forms, and a basic understanding of multiverse theory flash through my head.

"Please, for fuck's sake, tell me I wasn't given some kind of dimensional remote control device in the form of a video game."

"He has a brain!" Odin exclaimed excitedly, "What a wonderful surprise."

"...Shit."

"You are taking this shockingly well."

"I am half-drunk, a little sleep deprived, and that phone trick of yours was impressive enough that even if this is some sort of elaborate scam, or if I'm just passed out on my computer and this is all a dream, I'm in for the long haul."

"I can assure you, this is no dream."

"That's exactly what a dream would say!"

"LISTEN TO ME!" Odin snapped.

His hands reached through the screen like Samara from The Ring, grabbed the edges of the computer monitor, and pulled himself through, his body warping almost cartoonishly due to either magic or the size of the monitor.

"You've been tricked, backstabbed, and quite possibly bamboozled!" The god yelled. "Your progress with the terminal - these 'routes' - have created overlapping timelines, and they're being used to manipulate the events into the final 'route' you just saw!"

If my blood had gone cold before, it felt like there was ice in my veins now. "T-Then… all of that happened because of me?"

Odin shook his head, receding back into the monitor after calming down a fair. "No…you had your part to play, but I'd say you're just as much of a victim as they were."

"My part to play…"

I was still skeptical about everything just being an oddly lucid drunk dream but… Did I… hurt people?

"Your 'playthroughs' gave them a cheatsheet to manipulate the scenario to their whims." Odin explained. "And quite frankly, I hate it. But, they gave me the opportunity I needed to free myself. I need some help here, we need to make a Contract before time gets reset once again. This trick of mine isn't going to work a second-"

"Done deal." I cut him off.

The god was at a loss for words. "...What? You don't even know the terms of the contract, are you sure-?"

"You are trying to make a business deal with a drunk person!" I pointed out. "But will I at least get super powers?"

"Uh… yeah."

"Fuck it. Done deal!"

"Well…" Odin took off his big hat and scratched at his stitched up scalp. "I didn't exactly expect my ROB talk to go like this, but I'll take the W."

I took two more gulps of whisky. "I can match your fanon - hick - Zelretch impression any day, old man!"

He gave me a dangerous look that I wasn't really phased by. "Oi…"

"So, how are we doing this whole isekai thing?"

"That depends on you…"

I raised a curious drunken eyebrow. "How so?"

"Dante?"

"Yes, I am Dante."

"Do you want to see a dead body?"

I was quiet for a good few seconds, and called upon my many years of hardship that gave the wisdom I have today. And within that… and drunkenness, I found the answer I was looking for.

"Fuck yeah!" I shouted enthusiastically.

Odin's large, boney hand reached out of the screen and pulled my arm into the screen with it.

"What in the Persona 4 Golden-?!" My arm was then pulled so harshly that I thought it was going to be ripped out of its socket, my feet went flying along with my chair and I was fully pulled into my computer monitor. Only to be met with inky blackness and the sensation of falling.

And those who looked up, saw a light fall from the heavens and witnessed a miracle…

A light that, for an instant shined brighter than even the stars…

A bright red apple that fell from the sky.

Chapter End