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‘Ping’

LINE’s unique notification tone had aroused me from my sleep.
While still sleepy, I found my phone on my bedside, where I had guessed it would be. While yawning, I checked the message’s content.
The sender was Yuuki.

‘Can I call you?’

He must be worried about the confession incident.
I remembered going to sleep wearing Kouya’s jersey, so I decided to change before calling him.
‘Wait a minute.’

After I replied, I noticed a sense of discomfort.
Strangely, it’s hard to type my reply.
To be more precise, my phone was too big, it’s hard to type with one hand. No, I can’t type with one hand.
“A?”

The surprises only continued from there.
When I stood up in panic, I stepped on the cuff of my trousers and grandly fell off the bed in a heap.
Even though my head hit the floor and I grimaced at the dull pain, I managed to stand up.
This was definitely that.
The clothes that I wore have somehow become too baggy.
Even if I reached my arms out, my hands couldn’t come out unless I rolled up my sleeves.
My height should have been 175 cm, but my point of view was much lower than usual.

“Eh, what?”
And then there’s a more out of place feeling.
The voice that accidentally came out was high-pitched. The voice tone was a girl’s clear, beautiful voice. The voice was dignified and as clear as a ringing rin¹.
“Ha!?”
I simply can’t believe that the voice came out of me.
However, as I continued letting out some more noises, looking at the timing, the voice was unmistakably mine.
“A-, Aaaaa—– a~?”
After voicing it out and analyzing it several times, I concluded that the very young voice, befitting a third to fourth year elementary schooler, seemed to oscillate and come out from my throat.
I extended my hands to look around the oversized uniform and once again looked at my body for confirmation.

And the one that bothered me the most was the hair that was flowing down magnificently on either side of my face.
The hair was long enough to reach my waist. Not only that, it was silver hair with a subtle blue tint.

I rolled up my sleeves and grabbed a random tuft of hair, and gazed at it. The hair could not have been artificial. It was so fine, so fluffy and silky that it might be the softest hair in existence.
I felt weird and quickly released my hair.

“What’s happening…”

A shrunken body, a girl-like voice, and long hair that I know nothing about.
With all of these, you would know what had happened.
Even the dullest person would understand.
Although it could be understood, it was just too fantastical.
There’s no way I could be fully convinced of it.

A number of sex change incidents with unclear causes have been reported in the news.
One day, suddenly, there were boys and girls whose sexes changed. Recently, that has been a topic of conversation. However, oftentimes, the general public felt that the content of the news reports don’t have anything to do with them. It felt just like celebrities’ gossip, it was like looking at someone else’s problem.
That’s why, the phenomenon that’s happening to my body must be a dream. Yep.
I can tell that my reasoning was faulty no matter how you cut it, but this is a fantasy.
I, my, there’s no way my form turned out like this.

It’s definitely a dream.
I must be having a weird dream from the shock of the poopfession.

After deciding it was a dream, I was going to pinch my cheek immediately, but my sleeves were too long, my hand couldn’t come out.
Let’s go back to sleep.
No, wait, a sense of pain means a sense of touch, and I couldn’t trust it.
Why was that? I felt some pain when I tumbled down from the bed earlier, didn’t I?
The rustling of the jersey and its weight spoke volumes of the indisputable reality.

…Hmm.
Calm down, me.

I couldn’t trust my sense of hearing either. It was strange that I heard my own voice as a girl’s, but I was also picking up other voices from my surroundings.

Which left the sense of smell.
I brought up an article of clothing, specifically Kouya’s jersey, to my nose and sniffed it.

“……”

How should I put it, it smelled of sweat.
It was summer, early summer, so it can’t be helped.

Moving on, I smell the pale silver-blueish tinted reflective hair that was not really mine.
I grabbed a little bit more than earlier and brought it up to my nose.

Sniff sniff….
There’s some sweet fragrance to it, and it was arousing my nostrils.
I sniffed some more.

“Hachuu! Sniff…”
My hair was so fluffy, it tickled my nostrils and made me sneeze.
This is bad.
My hearing, my sense of touch, and even my sense of smell insisted that this is indeed reality…

No, it’s still too early to arrive at a conclusion.
There’s still the sense of taste.
I immediately plopped my half-eaten nutritious calorie bar into my mouth.
My mouth was somewhat dry since I just woke up, but I could conclude that the taste was still the same as usual after munching it.

“…Heciouhli (seriously)?”

The last of the five senses,
The last stronghold is the sense of sight.
I put my two hands on my cheeks.
But, what if I look at my face?
The fear that I may not be me anymore made me hesitate to do the final check.

How long has passed, I wonder.

I drank nothing, and only sat on my bed in a daze.
I noticed my phone suddenly light up, so I tapped on it.
A message from Yuuki arrived; ‘you haven’t called yet?’, it said. It is impossible to report to him now.

Why is that? It’s because of this girl’s voice.
I didn’t feel like doing anything until I settled down.

Another message from my other best friend also arrived.
“I am going to play Clan Clan tomorrow, are you going to play it too?”

We already made plans to play the VRMMO together from the start of summer break. This meant that the developers have announced that the service of the virtual online game will start tomorrow.
VRMMO is a 3D online game that engages the body’s senses.
It’s the newest game where you really enter the game’s world yourself and can savor a feeling similar to moving your body.

Despite it being a really big title, the production company that was behind the game, “Kaguya”, was a company that I have never heard of, so I didn’t expect much, but the fact that its printing and sales were entrusted to a major player in the game development space became a hot topic for a bit.

Geez.
Yuuki was worried about me, and Kouya was urging me to get some refreshments.

I was grateful for their thoughtfulness from the bottom of my heart, and simultaneously, I also chided myself for leaving the current situation in limbo, something I was also getting tired of.

I prepared myself for the worst. I fearfully grabbed the hand mirror I used to check my hairstyle from the table that has become taller.

I forcefully willed my hand to stop trembling. I swallowed the saliva in my nervously salivating mouth.

“Glup…”

And so, I looked at my face.

In there,

it reflected the surprised face of a fair-skinned, silver-haired girl that could have come from Northern Europe.

“I-I am… I can’t possibly be a pretty girl…”

――――
――――
It is 10 PM.
The graduation ceremony ended at around 11 AM, and then I returned home approximately at 2 PM, and I woke up at around 7 PM, and I can only guess that from then, I went on a journey to discover myself.

Since then, I, who had transformed into a girl, checked every corner and cranny of my body.
I was afraid to say this, but I was a girl. Maybe, unmistakably.
I have also concluded that age-wise, I was between nine to eleven years old, and from school-year wise, between third year to the fifth year of elementary school.

As for my height that I have measured, it was only 135 cm.

“Are you for real…”

Her skin was almost as white and smooth as porcelain, her pupils were sapphire, and her long azure-silver eye lashes accentuated her large eyes. She had a high nose bridge, and the slightly rounded contours of her young age was complimented by her well-shaped rose-pink lips.
To be honest, I definitely saw a real angel.
The deciding factor was her sky-blue silver hair, which shimmered and reflected even the electric light of the room.

The supreme, ultimate beautiful girl was me.

Should I contact the municipal office? Should I contact the police? Should I contact my parents? Should I contact my big sister? I was lost.

Both of my working parents were in the middle of a business trip overseas. My little sister went together with my parents, traveling from place to place overseas. My big sister was in Japan right now, but she started living alone when pursuing a higher education at university, and was properly working while studying too.

That’s why I could enjoy living alone in my apartment room.

I appreciated that I could be free, but it was hard since I had to do all of housework, cooking, and laundry by myself.

On top of that, what should I do when something like this happens? I don’t know.

“Perhaps I should contact my big sister after all…?”
But, she has a busy life…

Was the municipal office a better approach?

While I was hesitating, with perfect timing, a LINE message from my sister came in.
“Tarou, let’s meet up at 11 in the afternoon at the front of the church in ‘Michelangelo, the Starting City’.”

Because of the message, I avoided eye contact with my phone.

I’m not a siscon, but I’m not exaggerating when I say my sister is beautiful.² However, making remarks that are beyond my comprehension is her one flaw, so I was scared of her too.

From my big sister’s vague LINE message to many other things, thinking about various things tires me.
Today was really a tiring day.

Both my mind and body were tired, it didn’t take me long to reach this conclusion.

It would be fine to think about what to do tomorrow.

After having decided that, I moved quickly.

I ate a pre-made meal, went to the toilet in an accustomed motion, and…..
I went to sleep again.

……
…………

Ah, I forgot to wipe it.
Wipe what? I won’t say it.

It seemed like it will take some time to get used to this body.
I sighed a little, and solemnly returned to the toilet.

――――
――――

The next morning.
The first day of summer break.

I woke up, and after the decisive battle-like shower time, I wrapped myself in bath towel and downed a whole bottle of cow milk.
“Pwaah.”
Milk is really best enjoyed first thing in the morning.
After that, I made my favorite honey-drenched honey toast, and finished my breakfast that was accompanied with a sunny-side egg. Just as I decided it was time to go to the municipal office to discuss what to do in the future, Yuuki and Yuuya contacted me in the LINE group that I shared with them.
“Don’t forget to log in~” “We will meet at 13 o’clock, at the front of the “Heaven-bound Clocktower”³in ‘Michelangelo, the Starting City’.”
Michelangelo, the Starting City…?
Aah…

…Yesterday, my sister was talking about a Clan Clan city.
Apparently, Yuuki and Kouya were beta testers for this game, and they fiercely advertised it to me a few days ago, saying that it was really interesting. Nothing unusual about the nerdy Kouya acting enthusiastic about a game, an anime, or a manga, but I was surprised when Yuuki also came together and recommended the game.

That aside, big sis. Were you also playing Clan Clan?

“You have been grieving for a while, you need to have fun too!”, that message came from Yuuki, and he immediately cracked a joke, “I just want to play together though.”

“We have no hidden motive this time.” a reply from Kouya.

“I see, thanks…”
I was embarrassed, so I only sent a brief message.
On the contrary, I felt embarrassed by that as well. Oh well.

I flung my phone onto the bed, and remembered their faces.

Poopfession. I would say that was the punchiest way to confess I’ve ever heard. Could I tell it as a funny story like that?

After that, let’s hold off from deciding whether or not to tell them anything about the sex change for now. I didn’t want to worry them any more than I already am, but because I also didn’t know what this was about. Maybe I will turn back, or something like that.
The dread was weighing me down.

Really, this was a bad joke.
I didn’t even have time to grieve and lament my failed confession.
I remembered Yuuki’s words from yesterday.
We are friends.
But, can I tell them I had turned into this form?

Pushing aside the anxieties that surfaced one after another, I forcibly turned my thought to Clan Clan.
I was sure that playing with them would serve as a good distraction.

――――
――――

The time was 9:30. Clan Clan starts their official service at ten, so after I hang the laundry, I unboxed the copy of Clan Clan that I had purchased beforehand.

The box that contained the copy was less than 15 cm in diameter.
Inside the box, there are
As for the items that came inside the box, this included 3 pairs of contact lenses, in small, medium, and large sizes, making a total of six pieces of contact lenses, a slightly bulky USB flash drive and a pair of earphones.
And finally, a two page manual.
“Oo.”

Only those things.

Yes, I have heard this before.

All the existing VRMMO games required you to wear headgear that covered the entire head and face, but Clan Clan was different.

It was similar to other VRMMO games in that they read and send brainwaves and you can sense and taste things in the game, but what made it different was that if you were proficient with it, you can do your daily activities normally while playing the game. In other words, you can move your body in real life while enjoying the VRMMO game.

Is it really possible to make your real life body move any way you like, regardless of whether or not your in-game body is moving differently?
I have heard the details about that from Kouya, but I simply can’t believe it.

Kouya explained to me, that this fragile 1 cm contact lenses is the culmination of humanity’s science and technology.
I have never played any online game until now, so when Kouya had unusually excitingly exclaimed it to be “revolution in the gaming world!”, I didn’t understand his boasting.
Anyway, that’s all for the introduction. Clan Clan’s official service will start in 30 minutes, and as they say, a picture worth a thousand words.

Let’s set up the game and make my character.

Firstly, plug your USB flash drive into your smartphone with a special terminal, and then download and install the game.
The file size of these kinds of online games were usually really big according to general public, but Clan Clan seemed to be an exception. Clan Clan’s size was average.
Next, wear the earphones in both ears, and wear the contact lenses.
I wasn’t used to wearing contact lenses, so it took some time and effort to wear them, but I managed to wear it in the end.
Finally, just start the game from your smartphone.

Heart beating fast with anticipation, I tapped on Clan Clan.

And then——.
“Welcome to Clan Clan, to a world where humans mingled and fought with other humans and magical beasts indiscriminately.”
A synthetic female voice announced that into my ears.
And then, I was floating in the air, floating in total darkness, which reminded me of the cosmos.

So this is Clan Clan.

It used the minuscule contact lenses as a medium to indirectly link with the human’s cerebral nerves to let our senses work inside the game.
I tried moving my right arm as a test. As I imagined, my right arm moved up and down, and it doesn’t feel any different from moving my real arm.
My real body that was sitting on the bed stayed as it was, the right arm didn’t move.
Inside the contact lenses, there’s a scenery of countless luminous points with varying sizes floating in front of my eyes among the infinite darkness.
Beyond the contact lenses, there’s only my ordinary room.
Even the word “amazing” won’t do this justice.
In the first place, being able to completely perceive the real world while playing VRMMO was new and cutting edge stuff, in other words, the frontier of technology.

So this was what Kouya was being fuzzy about.

It’s hard to describe with words, it’s as if you exist in two world simultaneously.

Hey hey, isn’t this the stuff of fantasy?
How can something this tiny contain something so high performance? You are saying this thing can interfere with my brainwaves and invite me to a 3D world?
Has humanity’s science advanced this far?

Originally, it was strongly believed that humans weren’t using most of the brain’s capabilities, and that we were using less than 10% of our full brain capacity. These days, we didn’t believe that anymore, and there was a strong theory that humans were using their brains at 100% full capacity. However, you can actually experience it with Clan Clan.
No wonder there were whispers, albeit rumors, that they had succeeded in increasing the range of activity of the human brain by 20% and so on. You can be sure that this was a thing that would shock you into taking this kind of pipe dream seriously.

While I was enjoying floating in the air, the announcer resumed its tutorial.
“Normal linkage of mutual perception between Clan Clan (here) and reality (there) confirmed. Feedback of five senses satisfactory.”

“A, ahh…”

“Voice recognition and normal operation confirmed. Shall we proceed to character creation?”
Apparently, even vocalizations can be converted from brain to game and recognized.
This doesn’t look like a game that uses chatroom for communication.

“Ah, yes.”
After I expressed my approval, the navigation system continued its explanation.
“Scanning and confirming the user’s real life appearance data.”
In the span of a few seconds, a pale light enveloped my body, and it silently disappear.

“Scan complete. The character’s skeleton can be adjusted by 5 cm both ways in relative to your real life size. On top of that, you can only set your character’s sex to be the same as your real life sex. Regarding appearance and everything else, they can be changed any way you like. With that, please call out to me when you have finished creating your character.”
It was said that if the difference in the body size between the real world and the character in the game was too large, there would be too much of a sensory discrepancy when logging out of the game, which will interfere with physical exercise in reality.
You can change your outward appearance as you like, but sex and skeleton were the exceptions.

My character appearance was the exceedingly beautiful girl that’s my reality as is.
You can start tweaking here.

I was astonished by the wealth of variation as I stared at the abundant customization items.

Even the pupil alone has more than 200 variations. The colors were just as numerous.

There are fine adjustment options for waistline, hip, and bust, and then a large number of facial shape choices, as well as facial customization items that’s excessive beyond reason… I have only taken a glance at it, but I can’t feel anything else other than “I’m fed up”.

The only thing that was normal was the hair color. You can choose colors that were close to white, and at a glance, there were about 30 varieties.

After scrolling and looking through the items for a few minutes, I noticed a very serious matter.

I was a young girl.
In other words, my character will stay as a young girl.

How could this be…

Can’t change gender = Kouya and Yuuki would find out that I have contracted the sex change disease when we meet up in Clan Clan.

No, can I deceive them by saying it was a glitch?

I can do it, I thought. Maybe.
I have heard of various bugs and inconveniences happening during the start of an online game service. If Kouya treats this as a festival, I will treat it as one too, I will get through this somehow.
After deciding that, after only lightly customizing certain parts, I kept my appearance the same as real life.
Honestly, examining each and every customization option closely to create your own character was bothersome.

“Character creation complete–”

On my cue, the navigation voice once again answered me.
“Alright. As for any size discrepancy, there’s none other than the chest area. It’s done.”
“Ugh.”
Even though I felt somewhat uncomfortable over what the announcer pointed out, I tried not to be bothered by it. It’s true, I only slightly made my chest a little showier.
Of course a flat girl would do that, she would try to make it a little bumpier.
“The time now is 10:03 AM. Would you like to log in?”
The official service was finally starting, huh.

My promise with big sister was at 11, so I will use this opportunity to get used to the game.

“Yes, please log me in.”

“Very well, please enjoy the world that is dominated by gods and men, the “Tear of Moon”. You will roam this vast world as a mercenary. You may form a mercenary party, you may raise an army, building a nation is also okay, eyeing the hidden treasure of the dragon tribe is also alright, and you may also challenge gods and men.”

The announcer ended the long slogan with one short sentence.
“You are free.”

With that, the speech was done.
As if on cue, my vision was enveloped in dazzling light.

Author Note:
[Published Version] Volumes 1-3 are now on sale!
The story is different from the web version, so please enjoy it!

Illustrations (By Mitemin)

I will be sobbing if you purchase the book.
Your help will give me [time] and [energy] to write the… continuation.
There is also an e-book version.
Please buy the book from Amazon or any other store….and thank you in advance!

1. A rin sounds like this. https://youtu.be/vV39Xu60Rro .
2. This sentence is really confusing. The translation can vary greatly depending on one’s cultural values. There’s a few interpretation of this.
   1. “Even though we’re family, I wouldn’t be crossing the line by saying my sister was a beauty.” which implies that there’s a cultural pressure that little brother shouldn’t be saying his sister is beautiful.
   2. “Not being biased due to her being my family, but I’m not exaggerating when I say my sister is beautiful.” which means that the culture is that we should promote the good side of our family member. I can only think you would only do this when you’re trying to marry someone off though, which would be an jerk move, and out-of-place within this novel, but I spent minutes contemplating this possibility, so I’m not removing it.
   3. “Even though we’re family, I still can say that my sister is beautiful” which implies that even though I have seen her in home, and spend time with her, and being siblings, I still can say she is a beauty. Being a little brother of a sister means that you are more stringent when it comes to saying your sister is beautiful after all.
   Whichever it is, Taro’s sister is pretty. The end result is “siscon” because everything listed is awkward, and at this point, I’m happy if I get the meaning right, even though I missed the literal meaning by a mile.
3. For the record, it said in the name that the Clock is dependent on the heaven. Maybe it is related to the lore of the clock. Maybe it relies on the sky (aka celestial sphere) to tell time.