Chapter 6 - Sencho

[SENCHO - LOG START]

(( YOUR AVATAR HAS STABILIZED. PLEASE LOG IN TO CONTINUE THE GRAND CHALLENGE. ))

Looking at my phone in disbelief, I rubbed my eyes quickly, assuming that I was hallucinating.

“…!?”

As it turned out, the notification was real. I turned to look at my VR headset charging innocuously, not a care in the world.

“Am I really… doing this again… intentionally?”

I took a moment to think it over. I no longer had anything to tether me into the real world, should the stakes of this unusual VR game be too much. Yet the idea of jumping back into such a painful and unpredictable experience with no clear gain for me as the player also seemed like an impressively stupid idea.

“But…”

Yet the call of the unknown, the realistic nature of my avatar, and most importantly, the consequences of my actions having impactful and unretractable consequences made me embellish myself a little.

Maybe it wasn’t random chance that I had stumbled into The Grand Challenge.

Maybe… it was something that I had to do.

Without giving it a second thought, I was already on my bed with the headset in hand, and after booting up the device and starting up the application, I quickly returned to the world where I could make a difference.

---

After regaining consciousness, I opened my eyes and found my avatar’s body resting in a bed. Not a moment later, the soreness and pain of my avatar’s body washed over my senses.

( I guess she stabilized, but not to the point where Usika was completely healed after all. )

As I tried to acclimate to the pain covering my virtual body, I realized that Usika was also covered in a series of makeshift bandages.

( I wonder… who did this. )

As I slowly and carefully tried to pilot my virtual body, I heard my avatar speak.

“Pablo?”

Realizing that Usika was also awake, I replied curtly.

( Yeah… It’s me, Usika. I’m glad to know you’re alright. )

Usika paused for a moment before speaking once more.

“Hey Pablo, I just wanted to say… thank you for everything. Your quick thinking saved us, and it’s because of those actions that I’m still here today.”

Though my avatar’s response seemed genuine, seeing her body covered in bandages and quite literally being able to feel her pain made me feel responsible and ashamed.

( You’re not mad? Because of me, you got really hurt and I wasn’t sure you were going to pull through. I was thinking of how stupid I was to allow you to get hurt in the first place because I didn’t believe any of this was real, an- )

Usika shook her head. “There’s still a lot we both don’t understand, but if I were to be partnered with anyone, I’m glad it was with you.”

There was no mirror in the room, but I could feel Usika’s face form itself into a small smile. Despite everything having gone wrong and blaming myself continually for what had ultimately happened, I felt… different somehow. I wasn’t sure if Usika could also feel emotions through our mysterious connection, but I tried my best to return the feeling of a small smile to her.

“I see you are finally awake, Usika.”

The door into the room slowly creaked open as a face peered around the corner to check on its inhabitant, a face I didn’t expect to see so soon, if ever again.

“Goddess???”, I exclaimed through Usika.

---

The goddess we had previously met in my hasty introduction to this world now stood before us, but not a single air of grace surrounded her like our initial meeting. Instead of her regal attire and radiating aura, a normal person with purple hair and plain-set clothing stood here instead.

“I know you probably have a lot of questions you want to have answered, namely what happened to you, how you got here, and how I appear a bit… different from our initial encounter, and I will be glad to tell you everything in short order. But before we get into that, are you alright enough to move around and come with me? I’m sorry we weren’t able to give you a chance to rest a bit longer, but we have some pressing matters we’d like to get you up to speed on if possible.”

I focused my attention on flexing my virtual avatar’s body a bit once more, and despite the immense soreness, no excruciating pain stabbed into any part of her body. Usika nodded in response to this stress test, and as I attempted to step off the bed, my virtual body crumpled into a heap as soon as I tried to put weight onto my other foot. The goddess quickly bent down to help us sit upright, then walked out of the room to grab a wheelchair for us. It took a bit of doing, but the Goddess helped us up onto the wheelchair, and leaned over to ask once more, “Do you think you’ll be okay for the next part?” I waited for Usika to respond, and she nodded as fiercely as her sore and tired body would allow.

“Let’s go, there’s a lot of things I want to know.”

---

“My name is Sital, and I am a member of Bastion, humanity’s last hope against the erasure of mankind,” the purple-haired woman started as she pushed our wheelchair out of the room we were resting in to the hallway outside. A quick glance suggested that we were in some sort of abandoned building, and based on the long hallways with doors appearing at regular intervals, I guessed we were in some sort of hospital or school building. Taking a look outside the building, it looked as though we were high up in the air, maybe on a mountainside of some sort.

( Whoa…)

I was going to start asking questions, but what I saw from our vantage point took my breath away. Remnants of what were probably large and bustling cities in the past littered the landscape, and farther away in the distance were similar but smaller establishments. What prompted me to pause, however, was at the end of the horizon, where colors unnatural and eerie settled into view. It was like something mythical rested at the boundary just beyond humanity, and I unconsciously took a long pause to take it all in.

At the edge of this visible world lay 6 distinct colors encompassing the world between the land and the sky. A fierce red ravaged its heat waves, a strong green toppled its strong winds, a mute brown cascaded its ravaged earth, a vicious blue swirled its choppy water, a piercing yellow blinded with its rays of light, and an impenetrable purple blocked what was beyond its shadows. In a normal game experience, I would have been enthralled to witness the classic elemental archetypes and the worlds they contained, but something about this scenery struck me as unsettling. Usika too shared this sentiment as she quietly took a deep breath, continuing to look over the scenery.

“This… is what’s left,” Sital said to break the trance we were in.

“What you see before you is the edge of the world, and what you can still recognize is what is yet to be consumed.”

( What’s behind us? )

I prompted my question to Usika for her to ask Sital, and the purple-haired woman began elaborating.

“We are currently stationed in an abandoned academic structure built into the mountainside. A long time ago, the land below us was so overpopulated that its inhabitants had to construct new places of meeting in less desirable locations… ironically enough, it became the safest place after the Exodus.”

I raised my virtual body’s eyebrow unconsciously, and Sital took note as she continued.

“The world we inhabit now wasn’t always this decrepit. Long ago this world prospered, but in a very unequal and unsustainable way. Ancient texts we have been able to recover across various ruins described a world where humans simply lived to survive, but as humans were the only species capable of intentional evolution, the prosperous ones continued to better themselves at the cost of worsening the condition of others. This led to a rift in the community of humans, and soon they were separated into a powerful ruling class, the Excavators, and a poorer subservient class, the Remains.”

“Despite how ridiculous this all sounds on paper, this was the reality for the last several centuries of society, and eventually the imbalance could no longer be sustained. Not only were the Excavators draining the Remains of their limited resources, they were also draining the world we live on until it was on the verge of collapsing. Given a choice to work together and create a solution with the Remains, the Excavators instead decided to continue their trajectory of destruction and at the same time, build an escape to somewhere else. And just as the world was about to collapse…something unexpected happened.”

Usika and I remained silent, and Sital continued.

“What I say next isn’t anything official per se, but this collection of rumors has become what is known as today’s common truth. As the last bits of the world were about to be extracted, the planet itself awakened… and proceeded to fight back. There have been conflicting reports about what exactly occurred, but something otherworldly had spawned at the zones of crisis, and began to push back against the Extractors’ remaining attempts to drain the world. No one who has ever met these ‘otherworldly entities’ has come back to tell us a consistent story, so a lot of this is just conjecture from the refugees who had to flee… but the entities have been commonly named the Turena.”

( Turena? What kind of name is that? )

“The Turena not only repelled the Extractors, but began to expand across the world, almost as if the earth itself finally had enough of its abuse and wanted to wipe out the parasites living off it. With no more resources to extract and no more safe places to wait out the growing calamity, the Excavators made their final preparation… and launched off our planet into the great unknown.”

Sital took a moment to pause and look up towards the sky.

“It is unknown what happened to them, and quite frankly it matters not as we have more pressing matters now. We are what Remains, and we are running out of time.”

Sital finished and looked again over towards the horizon we initially laid our eyes on.

“Sorry, I kind of sidetracked your original question, but the context was important before I give you the actual answer. You asked what was behind us, and I mentioned earlier we were on a mountainside. This mountainside, for all intents and purposes, is the edge of our world. Our scouting reports have indicated that the Turena has surrounded all outer parts of this region, so even if we did manage to scale the mountain… there would be nowhere to flee to.

Sital stopped speaking as a quick frown formed on her face, and she recomposed herself before speaking again.

“Given all I have explained, you’re probably wondering how you got here, and why you were even rescued in the first place. I’ll cut to the chase: you are a Sencho.”

I again unconsciously raised my eyebrow at yet another term I was unfamiliar with, but something began stirring inside of Usika at the mention of the term, a mix of awe and fear radiating out of her.

“Sencho? But I thought those were just kids’ stories! Senchos are special! They are chosen by fate themselves to defend the Remains! Someone like me alone could never-“

Usika suddenly stopped as her own words began to make their way into her head.

“Me… alone…?”

Usika paused once again as if inviting me to speak, as proof that she did have someone else beside her.

( No… I guess you aren’t alone… because I’m here too. )

Usika again formed a small smile as Sital continued.

“Given all I have told you… are you willing to fulfill your destiny? As much as this world needs you in this darkest hour, I am not like my predecessors who forced Senchos to fight when they had no incentive to. They became more harm than good and some even turned on the Remains they were supposed to protect… but even if your reason to stand by us is small, please, we need someone like you now more than ever.”

There were still a lot of questions about this world I didn’t understand, but before I could process my thoughts, Usika stepped up with an answer.

“Risking my life for a world already at the end seems like a needlessly quick and wasteful way to go…. but if unlocking my ability to become a Sencho is what will help me achieve my goal, I am willing to cooperate…” Usika replied with a bit of hesitation in her voice.

“Even the tiny allotment of support from someone like you could be all the difference in finding a way to survive against the Turena. We at Bastion will do everything we can to harness your potential and help you achieve your goal as long as you lend your aid.”

For the first time in our entire conversation, Sital smiled, though hints of weariness and exhaustion permeated from her face, and Usika returned that smile.

((YOUR AVATAR IS IN CRITICAL DANGER.))

(( PLEASE RESTABILIZE YOUR AVATAR BEFORE YOU LOSE CONNECTION. ))

A searing headache suddenly shot into my virtual head, and before I could do anything to react, a familiar grim message returned to plague my vision as the environment blacked out around me.

(( YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED FROM YOUR AVATAR ))

[SENCHO - LOG END]