Ichijō Mirai exits the game and opens his eyes.
He pushed open the game pod, but did not move first, but sat quietly, letting the last second of the game's various colorful mission completion and reward prompts digested on his retina, a little bit out of breath.
In fact, he didn't lie to that gentleman, he was just 'upset'.
This 'displeasure' was complex, partly due to the repetitive brush readings, playing the levels on his own one at a time, because 'I can't believe I'm letting the great gamer be tormented for so long! Who are you? You think you're the final boss! ...Wait...you're not really...are you? .
This was part of the frustration Ichijō Mirai expressed when he faced that gentleman.
The other part, the 'displeasure' that he kept hidden even though the player had opened his microphone and said something that the NPCs thought was unbelievable, was much more complicated.
It's from the 'Ichijō Mirai' information that is either true or false, either directly or indirectly, such as the message 'The boss is annoying, oppressing me inhumanely, but fortunately I managed to get to the top by killing the boss and plan on oppressing someone else', and...
'Something happened to my childhood friend's fiancée'.
It's a message that doesn't say it directly, but it's quite obvious, otherwise 'Ichijō Mirai' wouldn't be in a state where it seems to be stable and normal and mentally healthy, but in fact it's starting to do something to its own brain.
When he didn't know who his childhood friend was, Ichijō Mirai only wondered if he had a lover, not really caring that something had happened to him.
But while finding out who the unlucky victim was, he...
Then it's related.
Although 'Ichijō Mirai' didn't say who his enemy was, it was obvious from the way he took down the boss and took the throne.
Ichijō Mirai was justified: since the real boss was killed, it was only natural for him to play with the boss in the game, right?
There's just one thing: 'childhood friend', 'ring', 'fiancée'.
Have they gotten to the point where they're in love?
Then when she looked at him, was Suzuki Sonoko looking at him, or was she looking at...?
Wait a minute.
At that thought, Ichijō Mirai's movement to stand up on the edge of the game pod paused, and his scattered thoughts stopped for a moment, like chains being locked up and twisted until they solidified.
But soon, just like the colorful hints that remained on the retina for only a few seconds and then slowly dissipated, the 'lock' quietly opened after only a few seconds of inertia.
The colorful task and reward prompts had clearly faded, but now they seemed to be reflected on the retina again, flashing back to the top reward prompt:
[Item name: "Realization"]
[Unlocked shielding for holder.]
[Item Details: A butterfly's gentle flap of the wings can cause a huge storm, 'Savior's' words and actions will of course cause a huge change in the world, from the time you log in to the game, your words and actions will be materialized in reality, whether you know it or not...]
[Note 1: The world is like a docile lamb. It accepts your good and bad sides. Anyway, nothing can be worse than it is now, right?]
[Note 2: Change the past, reverse the future.]
Ichijō Mirai's memory is so good that even if he doesn't pay much attention to it, he can easily recall it like a movie replay and rescan it to extract the information he wants.
...But having a good memory is sometimes not a good thing.
Slowly comprehending the information extracted from the glimpse, Ichijō Mirai's face changed, and soon, it was as brilliant as his thoughts.
A thousand dead memories suddenly attacked him.
There were clips of him carelessly knocking on doors and robbing people, sniping clips of him generously waving bullets downwards, images of him sharpening his knife at the FBI, images of that poor fish in a daze, and quite freshly, images of him waving his hand and smiling as he shot that gentleman, and abandoned factories...
There's quite a lot of information about 'the game isn't just a game, it affects reality', but even when Ichijō Mirai captured that information before he got the right to know about unlocking the props, it was grayed out and unavailable for use, until now when it converged into a gigantic river that came rushing down the river like a waterfall.
Ichijō Mirai stumbled at the impact of the waterfall, bracing his hands against the game pod just in time to sort through the amount of information that had exploded into the air before he stood up straight with a strange look on his face at the sound he had captured.
Instead of facing the dead memories again, he slowly opened the bathroom door and looked into the bedroom.
In the bedroom, Gin turned his head.
Ichijō Mirai's expression was subtle and somewhat difficult to read, but his expression was quite clear, as cold as ever, as cold as Siberia come to life.
He glanced at Ichijō Mirai's knee coldly, "Did you hit it?"
All the decorations of the bedroom remained the same, the bed was still a single bed, the nightstand was still the same, the desk was still the same, the curtains were still the same, even the folds of the bed were the same as they were when Ichijō Mirai came into the game, no more or no less.
There's only one more Gin, and two more piles of papers.
Gin was still dressed in his original wide-open black outfit, and looked like he was walking with the wind, and should be out in the field killing people 24 hours a day, but now he was sitting in front of a small desk, correcting paperwork.
Two piles of papers taller than Gin's hat, almost the highest point in the room.
The contrast between the two piles of papers, which were taller than Gin's hat and almost the highest point in the room, and Gin's cold face was wonderful.
Ichijō Mirai slowly closed his eyes, slowly stepped back, slowly closed the door, slowly opened it again, and stared at it.
Gin said faintly, "Want to go to a mental hospital?"
His hands do not stop, still correcting the document, with a red pen on the long black document a short reply, sneer: "Dream."
Low IQ: What are you doing repeatedly closing your eyes and opening the door with a look of disbelief? What's wrong with you?
High IQ: You want to go to a mental hospital?
And you're 'dreaming'!
Ichijō Mirai inhaled slowly, closed and opened the door again, and looked at Gin and then at the document.
He looked away from the document and saw the freshly corrected [Too much nonsense, don't bother the boss, go away], and confirmed that his vision seemed to be normal, and that his eyes didn't seem to be in any serious trouble.
...Then why is Gin here?
"What's wrong?" Gin finally put down his pen, his eyes once again scanning over Ichijō Mirai's body, "Where did you hit?"
He heard the stumbling in the bathroom.
"Unhappy?"
He was still cold, burning with ice-colored flames, clearly in a state of anger, as if he would draw his gun and shout at some 'damn guy' in the next second, but Gin looked at Ichijō Mirai repeatedly with a cold face, and what came out of his mouth was self-reflection: "I was correcting the files too loudly, and I interrupted you from playing the game?"
He coldly apologized, "I'm sorry."
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
He closed the door again.