As always, I turn on my computer, wait for it to boot up, then double-click the desktop icon for my online game.

Once I log in quickly, I head to my empty guild house and level up my crafting skills. While I let that run in the background, I open my browser to collect login bonuses from a different game.

No matter how fun a game is, if you play it every day, eventually you’ll get tired of it. For the past few months, I haven’t really had the motivation, and this routine is all I’ve been keeping up with.

New games, new manga, new anime—something new comes out every month. But for me, I can only get my hands on them months after release. Once I’ve missed the initial hype, I lose the urge to even try.

In the end, my motivation drops, and I just cling to my main game that I’ve been playing for ages. It’s not that I hate it, and it’s not like it’s boring. There’s just this smoldering feeling I can’t quite shake.

…Why do I keep doing this?

Because I love anime and manga—but more than anything, I really love games.

They’re amazing entertainment that lets me glimpse another world while staying in my room. When I move the character with my own hands, it actually feels like I’m out there in the real world, exploring and playing.

And what I love most about online games is that they don’t have a clear end.

I get to adventure through an ever-expanding world with a character I’ve nurtured myself. I cross seas and mountains, dive into caves, explore ancient ruins in the forest. I cheer or groan over the items I get, forge new gear, and set off on the next adventure.

Sure, sometimes development crashes and burns over the dumbest things, and the game dies. But that’s business, I guess.

That’s why, when I do find a good game I can stick with for a long time, it feels all the more enjoyable.

Humanity really did create an amazing form of entertainment.

Thanks to the culture of gaming built by those who came before me, I can head off on grand adventures anytime I want—all from my air-conditioned room. At least, in my heart I can.

“…Hey, short stuff. How about going outside for once?”

Just as I was wrapping up my login bonuses and going through my routine, a voice called out from behind me. It was my guardian, who had walked in and was now hovering nearby.

Unfortunately, I was busy grinding through an event. I had to collect the new gear and characters while I still could—who knows when they might come in handy.

“Hey, short stuff.”
“I’m gaming.”
“You never get tired of that thing, huh…”

The voice behind me didn’t let up, even after I ignored it. I turned around and shot a glare at the all-too-familiar face.

Long brown hair tied only at the back, hazel eyes, a sharp nose, and deeply carved features—an older foreign man in a suit, grinning with a sly, rakish smile that deepened the wrinkles around his eyes.

He called himself a “bit of a bad boy” German-American, and he definitely stood out in Japan, where I was born and raised. He was my guardian. His nickname: Taichō—”Captain.”

“It’s a beautiful day out. You’re gonna grow mold if you never see the sun.”
“But I really want to stay on top of this event…”

I glared at him, pouring all my irritation into my eyes, but Captain just shrugged like he hadn’t heard a word.

“The game’s not going anywhere. Just come with me today.”
“It is going somewhere. The event has a time limit.”
“I’ll help you with it later.”

He does this sometimes—tries to drag me outside like this.

The last time I went out was, um… huh? When was that again? Now that I think about it, I haven’t been out in the sunlight for months.

Not that I care—it’s not like I like exercise or going out anyway.

Even though I bought them, unread manga and anime just kept piling up. Even if they’re digital, I still want to get through them, which just gives me more reasons not to go out.

For a lifelong shut-in like me, going outside is just too high a hurdle.

“Your screen isn’t moving.”
“I’m grinding.”

He leaned in from the side to peer at my monitor, still grumbling complaints. I shot a glare at his profile. He didn’t need to criticize what I chose to enjoy.

As I pouted, a rough, bony hand started vigorously ruffling my hair.

My head bobbed from side to side with the force of it, and when I looked up, my guardian had a troubled expression on his face.

“Just come with me today, alright?”
“…Yeah yeah, I got it, dear guardian.”

He was unusually persistent today. Figuring I might as well go along with it this time, I closed the game and stepped down from my chair.

My room’s small, so the door’s only a few steps away. When Captain unlocked it with his key card, it opened with a soft whoosh as the air seal broke.

I looked up at him standing beside me and noticed—rare for him—he was smiling gently.

“Hey, short stuff.”
“What?”

The door was wide open, but he wasn’t stepping through it. I tilted my head, wondering why.

“…Nothing. I’m starving. Let’s hit the cafeteria and swipe some grub.”

He ruffled my hair again, even rougher than before. My already messy hair was now a complete disaster. Just because I’m a guy doesn’t mean he has to be so rough with me.

“The cafeteria manager’s gonna end up with another ulcer.”
“Ah, there’s always someone to take their place. Him, us—same deal.”
“Eugh…”

He hadn’t learned his lesson. Last time he dragged me out and we wreaked havoc at the local cafeteria, the poor manager ended up with a stomach ulcer, and we got a serious scolding. Clearly, he didn’t care.

That incorrigible man had invited me out, but now he was already walking through the door without me.

…Ah, that’s right. There was something I needed to tell Captain.

The sudden, tight squeezing in my chest reminded me of the words I had forgotten.

I chased after him, stepping through the door to call out—

In that instant, the world turned white.

■

…At some point, I must have fallen asleep.

“…?”

I woke up, feeling an intense heaviness in my body. It felt like I’d just had a terribly nostalgic dream.

I tried to sit up, but my limbs wouldn’t move like I expected. The hand I tried to raise fell limply and slapped against the bed.

My arms and legs—no, my whole body—felt impossibly heavy. My joints ached all over, and my throat hurt too. The bed I was on was as hard as the floor. Where even am I?

“—AAALIIICEEEE!!”

A sudden voice startled me. I forced my aching body to move and lifted my head. The voice hadn’t been in Japanese. It had a distinctive pronunciation—close to English, but with an animalistic growl to the intonation.

I turned toward the voice and saw a little girl staring at me with a worried expression. She looked… maybe around six years old? Her skin was caked with dirt, and her long gray hair was grimy and tangled. But her face was delicately shaped and cute.

She wasn’t so much wearing clothes as she was wrapped in scraps of cloth—it’d be more accurate to call them rags. Definitely not Japanese… no, if someone dressed like that appeared in Japan, it’d probably cause a bit of a stir. A pretty tragic sight, honestly.

The girl’s big eyes welled up with tears as she stared at me.

“Alice! Thank goodness, you’re awake!”

She suddenly threw herself at me, hugging me while crying. Again, she spoke in that strange language.

And yet—I understood her perfectly. The meaning of her words translated smoothly into Japanese in my mind.

…Um. What is this situation?

From outside, I could hear the soft patter of rain. The grimy wooden ceiling above me was cracked in places, and it looked like water was leaking through.

I looked around and saw that there was barely any furniture—a rundown place that, to be blunt, was basically a complete ruin. When I looked down at myself, I saw that someone had covered me with rags.

…So this wasn’t a bed after all. No wonder it was so hard—it was just a filthy floor.

Seriously though, where even is this place?

“I’m so glad! So, so glad! Alice, you wouldn’t wake up at all, and I didn’t know what I’d do if you never woke up!”

The little girl clung to me tighter and tighter as she spoke through her tears. Despite how she looked, she was surprisingly strong… No, wait, really strong. My body was starting to creak, my chest was getting crushed, and I couldn’t breathe.

“S-Sufi, c-can’t… breathe…”
“Ah! S-sorry! Are you okay!?”

As soon as I called her name, she loosened her grip. Dusty air rushed into my lungs and made me cough as I tried to steady my breathing.

Maybe realizing from my protest that she’d overdone it, Sufi quickly backed off. Relieved, I also found myself puzzled.

…Sufi? How did I know her nickname?

The girl gently stroked my head, her animal-like, triangular ears—covered in smooth silvery-gray fur and poking out from her hair—twitching with worry.

I hadn’t noticed it before, probably because it didn’t feel out of place somehow… but she had animal ears. Big, triangle-shaped ones like a dog’s or cat’s, the same color as her hair.

When her hand brushed over the top of my head, I felt a ticklish sensation, like someone was touching my own ears. I tried to move them away from her touch—and somehow, I felt them flick back instinctively.

…Yeah, this is wrong. Something’s not right.

Nervously, I reached up to touch my own head—and my fingers brushed against soft, furry triangular ears.

“What’s wrong, Alice? Are you still feeling ill?”
“…………”

And then I felt something big shift near my lower back. Some unfamiliar part of me moved—yet it responded like I’d had it my whole life. I looked behind me and saw a fluffy, dirty silvery-gray tail swaying in time with my confusion.

Wait—why do I have animal ears and a tail too!?

No—more importantly…

This girl couldn’t be older than ten, tops. So why was I the same height and build as her?

I’m fifteen years old, and I should be about average height for a Japanese boy my age.

“Don’t push yourself, okay Alice?”

And also—wasn’t it strange that I was being called “Alice,” such an obviously feminine name, and yet it didn’t feel wrong?

“Y-yeah… I’m just, uh… a little confused, I guess?”

My own voice sounded strangely high and clear. It had a similar tone to the girl in front of me.

As I replied, my mind gradually cleared from its fog. The more I thought, the more things started coming back.

I knew this girl.

Sufi—my twin sister, who’d been with me since birth.

That triggered a flood of memories. Memories of myself—as the girl named Alice.

Ah, that’s right… I remember now. I caught a fever while fleeing the village in the rain, and collapsed here in this abandoned house I found by chance. I’d been unconscious for two days.

Sufi had been nursing me the whole time. But my fever wouldn’t go down…

And then…

As the memories returned, my confusion only deepened.

My memories as Alice were perfectly clear. I could recall even the most recent events in vivid detail.

But even more baffling—I could remember my life before I became Alice too.

I was fifteen, born and raised in Japan. I liked games, anime, and manga. I wasn’t good at sports. My guardian and their coworkers often referred to me as that one Japanese boy who did things my own way. That’s who I used to be.

This feels far too real to be a dream. The sensations I feel—the heaviness in my limbs, the texture of everything—are all real. I’ve had lucid dreams before, but this was completely different.

Did the fever bring me to the brink of death?

And that near-death state somehow triggered memories from a previous life?

…Hmm. I remember almost everything, but the one thing I can’t recall is how I actually died in that past life.

I’ve heard stories of people born with memories of their previous lives, but I never imagined it would happen to me. This is way beyond anything I could’ve expected.

“…Sorry for making you worry. And thank you, Sufi.”
“It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re alright.”

The confusion was still intense, but my fever had gone down. My body still felt awful, but not so bad that I couldn’t move at all.

For now, I reassured Sufi, who still looked worried.

Seeing the small hint of relief in her expression helped calm the turmoil in my chest.

I could tell that she was someone important to me—to Alice. And the more my memories returned, the stronger that feeling became.

Strangely, I was able to accept it as my own emotion without resistance. Even if my senses and perspective still felt like they belonged to my former self… I guess, I really am Alice now.

And somehow… that thought gave me comfort.

“Your fever’s gone down, but you still need to be a good girl and rest today, okay?”
“Yeah… cough…”

Obeying Sufi’s gentle prompting, I lay back down on the dusty floor.

Maybe because of the memories from my past life, her small gestures of kindness felt especially touching.

Still, though—this place is way too filthy for someone sick to be lying in. It honestly feels like it might make things worse. …Well, maybe it’s still better than my childhood in my previous life. Let’s just go with that.

I decided to just accept the situation and focus on recovering my strength.

…Will I really recover, though?

■

“I found some fruit earlier! I’m gonna cut one up for you!”

While I’d been napping, Sufi must have gone out and picked a small red fruit—she now held it up proudly for me to see.

It looked a bit like an apple. They were the kind of fruit you’d sometimes find growing on trees in the forest—local kids around here liked to snack on them.

I watched, a little nervous, as Sufi began peeling the skin with a knife, her hands clumsy but determined.

…Even just watching her, I could tell she wasn’t exactly unskilled. It was just that the knife seemed dull and hard to work with—the blade kept catching awkwardly, which made my heart skip a beat every time.

I figured it was too dangerous to speak up and startle her, but watching in silence was just as nerve-wracking, so I looked away. While she focused on peeling, I used the time to sort through the memories that had returned, trying to understand the situation.

The girl now seriously peeling this apple-like fruit was my twin sister.

From what I could recall, people always said we looked exactly alike. Probably identical twins. There weren’t any good mirrors in our area, so I didn’t know what I looked like exactly.

Still, if people said I looked just like Sufi—even when she was dressed like a dirty little vagabond and still managed to be cute—then I must look pretty good myself.

As for our parents… I don’t know. We were apparently found in the forest as infants by an old alchemist and raised in a village far from the nearest town. I didn’t have any memories from before I could form thoughts, so I only knew what I’d been told.

Once I was old enough to remember things… The villagers, who hated beastfolk, often treated us like enemies. But even so, life had been more or less peaceful.

Grandpa—the old man who raised us—had taught us reading, writing, and alchemy. He made medicine for me as I was sickly. He was a kind and caring man who always looked after us.

Sufi and I both adored our “grandpa.” But he was already suffering from a serious illness by the time he found us, and he had very little time left.

Judging by the symptoms, it might’ve been something like terminal cancer. He passed away only recently. Even now, thinking about it made my chest tighten and brought tears to my eyes.

Worried about what would happen to us, Grandpa tried to leave us something behind. All we wanted from him was to keep on living, but… in a place like this, where we couldn’t even get proper checkups, there was no way to cure a deadly illness. Even for someone as skilled in alchemy as Grandpa, all he could manage was to prolong his life a little.

In the end, all we could do was hold his hand and stay with him until the very last moment, just like he told us: “Take what you can carry and leave this village quickly.”

We saw him off… but we weren’t even given time to properly mourn.

Almost as if they’d been waiting for it, his relatives barged in with the villagers right after he died. They were after his inheritance—he had been a renowned alchemist, after all.

The first to barge in was a man who claimed to be Grandpa’s nephew. He tore us away as we clung to Grandpa’s body in tears. The moment he confirmed Grandpa was dead, he declared that the inheritance belonged to him as the rightful heir.

On top of that, he had the gall to say that we—Grandpa’s wards—were part of the inheritance, too. Raising us would be a hassle, so he’d secretly called in a slaver from outside the village and was planning to sell us off.

In this country, beastfolk hold little social standing. In rural villages, atrocities like this are allowed to happen without anyone batting an eye. The only reason no one had dared pull anything while Grandpa was alive was because he’d been a renowned alchemist.

He must have known this would happen. That’s probably why he wanted us out of the village as quickly as possible. Wanting to stay with him until the end… that had been our selfish wish.

They stripped us of our clothes and stole the travel packs Grandpa had prepared for us.

But while the villagers argued over how to divide up the valuable materials left in the storage room, we took advantage of the distraction. We managed to escape with just the bare essentials we had hidden ahead of time—things we couldn’t afford to lose no matter what.

We ran through the rain, evading the villagers as they scoured the mountain for us. Eventually, we stumbled across an abandoned house near the city limits, broke in, and holed up there—so I could rest after reaching my physical limit.

That’s how we ended up here.

Looking back on it now, it’s painfully clear… just how hopeless this situation is.

“Alice, here!”
“Thanks…”

I took a bite of the fruit Sufi had sliced for me—way too sour.

All I could do was stare off into the distance, wondering what we were going to do next.

I remembered what had happened just before my memories returned. That night, under the blue moon, I’d made a wish—that, if anyone, let Sufi be saved.

Even if I didn’t make it, I wanted my beloved sister to survive.

Maybe that wish is what brought my memories back. Driven by the need for knowledge—more than a normal seven-year-old could ever have—I must’ve dredged the very bottom of my soul’s sea of memories.

It’s not like I can treat this as someone else’s problem.

If anything, the memories of my life as Alice feel newer, more vivid. And to me, Sufi is family, too.

She’s something I longed for all my previous life… something I never got to have.

I do want to do something about all this—but the sheer difficulty of the situation is going to be a serious problem going forward.

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