Original subtitles

Good morning, Class 6-1!

Good morning!

Welcome to the playtest

of the world's first fulldive VRMMORPG from IO-TAGE Inc,

Actual Magic.

Thank you very much for joining us today.

Does everyone have their QREST, i-Lenses, and earpieces on?

Oh, crap!

I forgot too.

There we go.

Now, open your QREST menus

and confirm the message.

ACTUAL MAGIC CLIENT INSTALLED

That's the Actual Magic client program.

Please note that it cannot be launched at this time.

WARNING: PERMISSION REQUIRED

You will now proceed to Playroom 1 on the second floor

and enter your Caliculus, a biocommunication capsule unit

that will allow you to enter the world of Actual Magic.

First, we will perform a full-body scan to create your avatar.

To allow the scan to capture the finer details of your body,

please remain as still as possible until the process is complete.

Further instructions for the remaining steps

will be provided inside the Caliculus.

The playtest is scheduled to last three hours.

Like I said this morning,

I want you all to follow proper in-game etiquette!

Watamaki?

DEVILS' CREST

EPISODE 2: TRANSFORMATION

Watamaki, is that you?

Run, Yu! Get outside and bring back some adults!

Konken.

What are you doing, Yu? Get outside!

Like I could run and leave you behind!

Yu!

Yu!

Flamma!

Sagitta!

Ignis!

Flame Arrow!

Sawa?

Yuumy, launch Actual Magic!

What? - Hurry!

Okay.

ALTHEA 2F - PLAYROOM 01

YUMA ASHIHARA

SAWA ASHIHARA

Why?

Are we still in the-- - This is real.

If you die, you die for real!

SUMIKA WATAMAKI

It'll take another 30 seconds before I can cast again.

Hold her off until then!

We need her HP down into the red!

Hold her off?

Here she comes!

How did I...

Your stats have gone up!

Keep it up and buy us some more time!

Get back! Flamma!

Wait. Don't kill her.

SUMIKA WATAMAKI

What are you saying?

If we don't kill her, she'll just keep attacking us!

What's wrong?

Watamaki!

Are you looking for something?

I dropped my i-Lens.

Are you sure it didn't just shift out of place?

No, you're right. It's not in there.

I'll help you look.

No, that's okay, I...

Don't worry about it.

Gimme your hand for a sec.

LOCATE DEVICE

There it is!

Thank you. But how did you...

QRESTs have a feature for locating i-Lenses and earpieces

if you drop them.

I lose mine all the time.

You lose things, too?

Of course. Why wouldn't I?

Well, you're good at sports and school, and you even do modeling,

so I kind of just thought you were perfect.

That's not true.

People say all kinds of stuff,

but really, I'm...

I'm just a normal kid like everyone else.

Watamaki...

SUMIKA WATAMAKI

YUMA HORNED GREAT HARE - EAST CALCINA PLAINS

Ignis!

Tenebris!

Capere Anima!

Ignis!

SUMIKA WATAMAKI

Yuumy!

Yuumy? Hey! Come on!

Hey, you sure that's safe?

It worked on you, so it should be fine.

Are you okay? Does anything hurt?

Sawa...

That was the Healing Droplet spell, right?

But we're in the real world...

Seriously, Yu? You still don't get what's going on?

You saw me use Flame Arrow earlier, right?

And look at what you did...

I can't believe you captured her.

Seriously, what's going on?

Konken! You okay?

Yeah, my left arm still hurts a bit, but...

I mean, it felt like it was broken,

but Saps fixed it with magic.

More importantly, is this for real?

You too?

Saps told me to launch Actual Magic,

and it appeared right as I did.

It hurt worse than when Watamaki hit me.

That was Watamaki, right?

Yeah. That was her.

But she didn't have a face!

Plus, she beat the crap out of us...

Seriously?

Maybe this isn't a dream, and we really are still in the game.

Sawa. - What?

You said earlier that this is the real world, right?

That if we die here, we die for real.

Did you have a particular reason for saying that?

Yeah, I do.

You probably already know this, Yu.

The virtual sensations provided by the Caliculus units

are limited to touch.

Visuals come through the i-Lenses,

and audio is transmitted through the earpiece,

but taste and smell aren't supported yet. Which means...

If we can taste or smell anything,

that means we're not in a virtual world.

What's that smell?

So all of this is real?

The i-Lenses and earpieces seem to be part of us now, too.

So don't try to force them off.

Sawa, how are you so calm about all this?

And not just calm. You seem to know a lot about what's going on.

Did you know this would happen

when we launched Actual Magic?

Good point.

Of course not!

I tried launching it as a test, and it just happened.

It's not like I wanted to look like this, okay?

What are you doing, buttbrain?

I was just curious.

Don't touch me there! It tickles!

What about those wings?

What do we do now?

First, we need to wake Nagi. Then we decide.

Right. Yeah.

Nagi. Wake up, Nagi.

I think...

Nagi?

The internal emergency release lever hasn't been used.

That can't be.

Once you use the external lever,

you can't reset it without restarting the Caliculus.

They told us at orientation.

Yeah.

So, that means...

Until we opened it just now,

there's no way anyone could have gotten in or out.

What? That can't be right!

Nagi was in the playtest with the rest of us,

so she had to have been inside.

After we beat that dragon...

I remember the floor in the boss room turning red.

There was nothing I could do.

Next thing I knew,

I was back inside the Caliculus.

No one came when I called,

so I used the lever to get out.

It was the same for me.

When I got back to reality, everything was pitch-black...

Yu?

Right before I got out of the capsule,

I thought I heard someone scream.

Was that you, Konken?

Nah, I didn't scream.

Was it a boy or a girl?

It was pretty high-pitched, but I heard it through the capsule, so...

I see.

Sawa! You don't think that was Nagi screaming?

Don't ask me! I don't know either!

Actually, I doubt it was her.

Since the lever hasn't been used, Nagi couldn't have left the capsule.

That would make it impossible for Watamaki to attack her.

Right. But then how do we explain...

She didn't just vanish into thin air.

She has to be somewhere, right? She's gotta be.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think so too.

Then we've gotta go find her.

Because Nagimiso's such a crybaby.

When we find her, I'm so telling her you called her Nagimiso!

Wait! Just forget I ever said it, okay?

I'll go get a teacher!

Apart from searching for Nagi,

can we add one more objective?

While Watamaki is in card form,

I want to find a way to get her back to normal.

And I need your help.

Of course.

As if we could just leave Watamaki like that.

What's wrong?

Nothing.

It all makes sense now.

Sumika is a really cute girl.

That's got nothing to do with it! Not in a situation like this.

I know that.

I want to turn her back too.

So what's the actual plan?

For now, let's head for the lobby on the first floor.

If anyone else got out of their Caliculus,

they'd probably head back there.

But before that...

We search this room.

There might be some kind of clue.

Yeah. Exactly.

Let's split up.

I'll check over here. You guys go that way.

Grab anything you find that we can use as a weapon.

Hey, Saps and Nagimiso

always have this weird look on their faces

when we talk about Watamaki, right?

Even though they're pretty close with her.

Just so you know,

my stats have gone up, and that includes my hearing!

I'm telling her everything!

I'm gonna check down below.

Okay.

This is... not heavy enough.

That makes sense.

What does?

An equipment overload icon

appeared under my status bar.

Seriously?

Man, this really is a game.

Yeah. It's like reality is being overwritten

by Actual Magic's game system.

So I'm strong because I'm a warrior?

Yu! Konken!

Sawa?

Sorry.

CLASS 6-1

Not even close!

She ate his heart.

That scream...

It was Miura.

Is that Beroshi?

Did Watamaki kill him?

SUMIKA WATAMAKI NIGHT FIEND - LEVEL 17

YUKIHISA MIURA'S RIGHT ARM STRIKE ATTACK 18 - MAGIC ATTACK 3

What the hell?

Beroshi isn't a game character.

Hey, can we at least give him a better resting place?

What was that?

From below?

Let's go.

Why...

YUMA ASHIHARA ALTHEA 1F

What is this? What's going on?

What is that thing?

Why is there a monster here?

AWAKENING

Think. How can we beat it?

Over here, monster!

Am I... dead?

All right, leave this to me!

The thread of life is connected.

I don't want to regret it when it's too late!

Are you really Sawa?