Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody

【Preface】

Chapter 19 is an IF story of Death March.

It tells the story of Satou landing in Dragon Valley in a world line where he did not use the "meteor shower."

Before I knew it, I was standing in an unfamiliar place.

“Where is this?”

The air was dry, unlike the humid Japanese climate. Looking around, a desolate land stretched out that reminded me of Death Valley in America.

Until a moment ago, I was fighting the death march near the end of game development.

I had just wrapped that up and should have been lying under my desk taking a 30-hour overdue sleep.

“Then, is this a dream?”

To prove that, icons closely resembling the game UI (User Interface) under development floated within my field of vision.

The radar at the bottom right showed only the terrain around me.

Just to be sure, I opened the map, but only a small part of the vast map—the same area as the radar—was displayed.

There’s no need for the dream to be so faithful to the game’s mechanics.

Such a needlessly accurate dream.

As I grumbled to myself, something appeared in my vision.

—Full map exploration.

It was a beginner’s relief magic icon that I had added this afternoon after consulting with Mr. Metabo from the development planning team.

It’s a one-time big magic, but no need to be stingy.

I casually tapped the icon.

Though my hand passed through the icon with a dreamy glitch, when I willed to use it, it worked normally, so no problem.

Using the full map exploration magic reveals the entire current map.

The map was ridiculously vast. I seemed to be near the bottom edge of the map, and no matter how much I scrolled, I couldn’t see the top edge easily.

“—Ugh, the upper half is all red.”

Red indicates hostile entities.

They were all high-level dragon species, like endgame secret boss-level enemies in a game’s deep content.

By the way, my current level was 1, so if even one of them came at me, I’d definitely be killed.

“I do have a way to fight…”

Like full map exploration, there are three “meteor showers” as beginner relief measures.

This is a so-called map-wide weapon that deals guaranteed kill-level massive damage to all enemies in the map as a final attack spell.

I instinctively reached for the meteor shower icon but stopped just before pressing it.

Unless they attack me, there’s no need to fight forcefully.

I started walking toward the outskirts, where no red dots appeared at all.

Just in case, I opened the map and planted a flag at my starting point as a landmark. This would help estimate the approximate travel time to the bottom edge of the map.

The barren land resembled the deserts often seen in American movies.

My initial spot was like a table-shaped landmass rising vertically from the ground, so getting down was tough, but fortunately, there was a staircase-like structure, so I managed somehow.

“…I’m thirsty.”

The dry air made my throat parched quickly.

Unfortunately, I had no drink on hand. What I had were a cell phone, four calorie bars, a wallet, and a wristwatch in my pocket.

Since the phone and calorie bars were in the way of walking, I stored them in the game’s storage.

“Another scale. This time bright red.”

While walking, huge scales occasionally dropped.

They might be useful for something, and since I could collect them by just willing “storage,” I picked them up every time I found one.

“—Water!”

When I was about to die of thirst, I discovered a small spring trickling out between the cliffs.

I crouched close to the cliff and sipped the water.

“Phew.”

I revived.

If only I had something like a water bottle to fetch and carry water with me—

—Rustling of leaves caught my attention.

Turning around, I saw several bamboo stalks growing behind the rocks.

“Oh, lucky.”

Typical dream convenience.

I would have preferred an empty plastic bottle rolling around, though.

“How should I cut this?”

I didn’t have a knife.

Besides the phone and the calorie bar boxes in storage, I only had dragon scales picked up along the way and some suitably sized stones.