Cyan's Story (A Gunvolt Side-Story From Dengeki Nintendo)

Heya folks. So, I have something really cool to present today! The past three issues of Dengeki Nintendo have featured a really interesting Cyan side-story, which just recently concluded. While it doesn't reveal many things that are relevant to the plot of Gunvolt, it is an incredibly fun read. It strikes you as one of those stories that would be in the "Admiration To Peace" drama track album. By that I mean that it's lighthearted, funny, and very captivating! I daresay that you folks will find yourself laughing out loud at different intervals in the narrative!
Anyway, huge thanks to the illustrious Zoram Selrof for the exceptional translation! I can't imagine that converting such a large story as this to English was a very easy task, so major props to him for going the extra mile to bring us English fans all this extra Gunvolt content!

Without further ado, you can read "Cyan's Story" below after the jump!

Cyan’s Story

“Cya – chan, there’s something I’d like to talk about with you about...”

Cyan’s friend Hatano calls out to her during the middle school’s break time. “Cya” is Cyan’s nickname at the school.

Cyan, who’s being chased by the grand corporation ruling Japan, the “Sumeragi Group”, uses a fake name at school, but because this nickname is so similar to her real name, she has a somewhat mixed feelings about it.

Well. It’s easy to react when they call me like that… I guess. 

If you had to describe Hatano in one phrase, that phrase would be “gamer girl”.
She plays FPS games with online mode or similar games with high re-playability value: she’s the only one with those hobbies in the class.
However, given her cheerful nature and kind disposition, she earns a reputation for being the class’ mood maker.

“She would be a nice girl if she didn’t talk about games”: that was how people spoke about her in the school. She was also a girl somewhat hard to deal with, so she was known for being a troublemaker

But despite Hatano’s personality, she was someone whom Cyan – who was shy when it came to interacting with others – could immediately open up her heart to.

“I’m afraid Hata-chan’s in a troublemaker mood today…”

“Huh? You were saying?”

“N-no. It’s nothing. Well… What’s up?”

Hatano’s eyes suddenly glow black. Cyan gets nervous. This is a prelude to another one of Hatano's rants about her hobby (games)…
This may take a while.

“Cia – chan, do you know about “September Record”? The MMORPG.”

“Huh? An RPG? You’re playing that, Hata – chan? It’s not the FPS that you always play?”

“Yes. An MMORPG. So… you don’t know it?”

They’d only known each other for a short while but it was rare for Hatano to discuss RPGs. This was an exceptional case, but Cyan seemed to vaguely recall the name from somewhere…

“Yes, I know… or so I think. If memory serves… you could become an Elf or a Human…? And there were about 7 types of species…

Thanks to the title having “September” in it, the name remained fixed in Cyan’s
memory. From there, she also managed to also remember that the game had “7 species.”

“Whoa! You sure know a lot about it, don’t you!? Good: I can get down to business. It’s a popular title that almost everyone on the net has heard about it, but most girls my age don’t have it, so...”

“Yes. But it’s not like I know much about it, either…”

“It’s enough. As long as you know that it’s a famous MMORPG.
Ah. It’s about that “Ber-Rec” game… Did you know that, about half a year ago, its services came to a stop?”

“You shorten it to Ber-Rec, huh… No. Sorry. I’ve heard the title but other than that… Is that so?”

“Yes, indeed! Back then, when the service suddenly halted without any forewarning, I wept my eyes out during a whole evening… No info has been revealed by the company yet, but… According to one theory… The game servers suffered a cracking… I’ll never forgive you, you cracker! And that was how I felt.

Well, truth to be told, I am mainly playing shooter games now, but I originally was addicted to Ber – Rec. The dedication I put into Ber – Rec wasn’t the same as the dedication I put into shooter games or other game genres. I dragged on with Ber – Rec as a kind of incomplete combustion [note: this is essentially a play on how Hatano was "burning" with so much passion for the game]. And I felt hazy about having an affair with other MMORPG games, so I wasn’t able to get myself to try out other similar games…
Ah! I'm sorry. You needn’t care about my feelings. So, you see? That Ber – Rec game, which has been down for half a year, is finally coming back anew, smiles included, today! Its new name is 'September – Historia!' AKA 'Ber – Sto!'"

Hatano narrated all of that in a rush.

Most of her talk slipped through Cyan’s ears from right to left, but she was at least able to process the words “coming back” and “Ber – Sto” towards the end.

“Ber – Sto? Is something the matter with that game?”

“There is! You see, that Ber – Sto…”

“… And so you ended up agreeing to begin playing an online game with that friend of yours?” 

GV summed Cyan’s narration. 

There’s only one PC in the refuge where both GV and Cyan live, and it’s in the living room.

Since Cyan made a deal with Hatano [to play the game with her] she turned on the PC as soon as she got back home.

GV, who casually happened to witness that moment, asked Cyan the reason [for her using the PC], so Cyan ended up explaining her interaction with Hatano to him.

“Yes. She doesn’t know whether it’ll continue or not, but… She says that, as part of the celebration of the game's release, if you begin playing it with a friend, you can get a bonus item within the game. Hata – chan seems to want to get her hands on it no matter what.”

“A net-game, huh… Hum… Will it be alright…?” 

“I can’t?”

“It’s not that you can’t, but… We are, after all, hiding from the enemy. We must be very careful about what we do in the network and…” 

A familiar voice suddenly echoed inside of GV’s head.

“Hold on, GV. Can you spare me a moment? It’s about this topic, but… Ah. Try to avoid being noticed by Cyan.” 

Cyan’s 7th Wave (Sevens) incarnation [was speaking] – the Singing Fairy Morpho. But she wasn’t visible.

Based on the tone of her voice, it seemed like she wanted to keep something secret from Cyan.

Morpho, who doesn’t have a solid body, wasn’t actually speaking, but rather, conducting a conversation through something similar to telepathy.

By remaining invisible and by choosing whom she wanted to talk to, it was possible for her to conduct a secret discussion with someone.

“…I’ll try asking Gino. Wait for a lil while.”

GV left the living room after saying that to Cyan. Gino was the one who'd set up the network surrounding the house where the two of them lived.

To prevent their location from being revealed to Sumeragi, the house’s PC had a special protection installed in it, and the network circuit went through Feather’s concealed server.

So, whenever they had some net-related problem, they had to ask Gino for help… that was the excuse that GV employed [to take leave of Cyan]. Cyan didn’t doubt him.

GV spoke in a low voice so as not to be overheard by Cyan.

“Will this do, Morpho?”

Morpho appeared before him.

“Thanks, GV. Despite what it seems, Cyan was actually looking forward to playing that net game with her friend. So I thought it would be bad to spoil that fun.”

“So it seems… So? What’s up?”

“Truth is… “September Record”… Ber – Rec… The company that was running that game was Sumeragi, you see.” 

"Huh?!"

“And its sequel… Ber – Sto… Was it? I don’t know if that’s also being run by Sumeragi, but if you think about it…”

“Sumeragi’s involved, you mean to say…”

GV ran a search for “September Historia” with his portable terminal (cellphone).

“…It seems like this is indeed a Sumeragi-affiliated company. But how did you know that, Morpho?”

“I don’t about Ber – Sto, but Ber – Rec wasn’t your everyday game. It actually was a Psychics Identification System that exploited my abilities.”

“What’d you say?”

Despite being surprised, GV remembered the Grand Radio Tower, “Amaterasu”. 

That tower, which was called one of the nation’s symbols, was an amplifier used to locate the 7th Wave (Sevens) Psychics across Japan.

It wouldn’t be odd for Ber – Rec to have been another of Sumeragi’s traps as well.

“I don’t think it’s working anymore: I’m the system core and I’m in here… But it’s worrying me, nevertheless.” 

“Could that talk about the system being halted half a year ago be referring to...?

“The Cybernetic Singing Fairy (Cyber Diva) Annihilation Mission…
GV, you and your pals freed me… freed Cyan from Sumeragi.
That’s indeed what it was.”

“Does Cyan know… about that?”

“I’m not only one side of Cyan. We’re the same person.
Cyan is supposed to actually know the same things that I know, but…”

GV is always feeling like he’ll forget this, but Morpho was a manifestation of Cyan’s heart – it didn’t matter how much she tried to behave like she was another person, they were the same girl.

“Maybe she’s excited because her friend invited her to [play the game]. Or maybe she’s sealing the truth in the depths of her heart.” 

Cyan had always lived imprisoned by Sumeragi scientists.
There was no way she wasn’t going to enjoy playing a net game with a friend.

“Gotcha. Before telling Cyan to go ahead, I’ll ask Gino about this.”

“Thanks. I owe you one, GV.”

Morpho vanished after thanking GV. He brought out Gino’s personal terminal number from his own portable terminal’s address book. A mechanical sound rang out and Gino answered

“Yo! GV. What’s up, man? It’s very rare for you to directly call me, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. You see, Gino…”

GV summed up what he’d heard from Cyan and Morpho, and told it to Gino.

“Hum… “Ber - Sto”, huh…”

“Do you know it?”

“Well. As a gamer, I obviously do… But, say… You don’t know about it? Ber – Sto’s prequel, Ber – Rec, was the thing that made us Feather guys realize that Morpho – chan was a trap (a sonar) to lure out Psychics, ya know?”

“Eh? Is that so?”

“Yeah. There was a fuss at one time involving some hacking into Ber – Rec… Sumeragi’s reaction back then indicated that they were nervous. Their reaction was unusual considering that Ber – Rec was apparently just a “normal” net game… So when the Intel Team looked into it… Bingo! And that was it.”

“First-timer. Nobody told me anything about that…”

“That’s because you never play net games and the likes of them. And the Leader didn’t tell ya the important info. And, also… You quit Feather right after that, didn’t ya? It can’t be helped that you didn’t know about this… Ah. Yeah. True. You were asking about Ber – Sto? I’ll go straight to the conclusion. There’s no problem with it even if you install it.”

“It’s not dangerous? For real?”

“Yeah. Ever since the Ber – Rec incident… Feather’s also been looking into it. Obviously enough. The sequel Ber – Sto is an extremely normal net game. Since the prequel was made for the purpose of luring out Psychics, the September Series got a lot of money through adverts and other stuff, but it actually seems like it was on a deficit. It’d seem that the guys are desperate to try to recover from the debts, ya know? September Historia is a sequel that reuses the game portions to fill up that deficit… That sums it up.”

“But it’s still a Sumeragi game, no? Is it alright?”

“Well. The guys don’t want to lose money, but it’s too late by now. It’s impossible not to get in debt with Sumeragi if you’re living in this nation. To begin with… The electricity we’re using to recharge the communications terminals is provided by Sumeragi, ya know? Well. As a member of Feather, I suggest that you play the initial free service period and then quit the game…”

“Can I really take things so lightly?”

“But, say… I’ve been playing it until now. Playing Ber – Sto, see.
Man! It’s pretty interesting. So much so that it makes me consider paying to continue playing it.”

“Gino… Huff. Then what was the point of our discussion?”

“Regardless of the game maker… The product itself isn’t guilty, right? I'd stake this on my name, the name of Gino… Well. If something were to happen… Use your Azure Thunderclap (Armed Blue) to alter the logs or that stuff. Ya know, like we did with your
school’s incorporation procedure.”

“But that was because you guys helped me out, Gino. Wasn’t it?
You know that it’s hard for me to alter rather complicated data, don’t you?”

“Man. I didn’t imagine that Cyan – chan liked games… Maybe I should tell her my games suggestions one day…Maybe that one where a bike turns into a robot will do… Or maybe… That one where you control a girl-model Navigator… Or better yet, the
one that makes girls get madly in love, that shooter…” 

…Beep

Gino didn’t seem to be listening, so GV cut off the call.
He thought that he’d heard Gino talk about some nefarious plot, but… He’ll pretend that he didn’t hear it.

GV returned to the living room and told Cyan that he’d gotten permission to install “Ber – Sto”.

“Really? Thank you, GV.”

“I haven’t done anything. Gino’s the one who deserves thanks.
It’d seem that he’s also playing this game, so you might unexpectedly run into him inside the game, even.”

“Hum… There are 7 types of species that you can play with: this hasn’t changed… Well. It’s a “September” game… That's obvious.”

In Ber – Sto, the player has to choose one of 7 species: Giant (Cyclops), Insect-Human ([In]sect), Elf, Dwarf, Golem, Human and Sorcerer.

Cyan began the game immediately, and started to make the character that would become her avatar.

“Ah. The elf is cute. Maybe I should choose it?”

“Wait, Cyan. It says here that elves are suited to experienced players. In your case, Cyan… Maybe…”

GV then visualized Morpho’s form. She did have cybernetic wings like those of a butterfly, as her name indicated. [note: Indeed, "morpho" is a species of butterfly]

“How about an Insect-Human ([In]sect)? See, the manual says they’re suited to beginners and…”

“NEVER!”

Morpho suddenly showed up and complained along with Cyan.

“Do you know that the (In)sects look like this!?”

Cyan operated her device and the graphic of a grotesque character was displayed on the monitor…

The (In)sects were, maybe due to their creature-like form, a really unpopular species, even in the prequel (Ber – Rec).

“GV, you..! You were thinking about me when you said “[In]sect”, right!? I’m not a bug… I’m a fairy…”

Morpho glanced at him with an annoyed glare and then beat (her wings) before vanishing.

Morpho… I guess this is one of the aspects that she shares with Cyan…

“I’ll choose the elf… Because Morpho is a cybernetic elf…!”

GV, when faced with the aura emanating from Cyan, was unable to argue back that Morpho was a diva…

Cyan then made her character and, once she finished the controls explanation quest (the tutorial), she entered the plaza within the game.

I think it’s better to get a bit more used to the game before meeting up with Hata – chan…

Her deal with Hatano was that they’d meet at night-time inside the game and take part in a quest together.

According to Hatano, she was a veteran player who’d also played Ber – Rec.

Cyan still hadn’t grasped a lot of stuff about the game, but she was hoping to be as less of a burden as possible. 

At that moment…

“Hey. You over there.”

Someone called Cyan out. The speaker was a scary sword fighter (male) with various muscles and bones.

(This was happening on the game screen, yet) the sword fighter was glaring at Cyan (her PC [Playable Character]) with a powerful glint in his eyes (or so it seemed).

“Could it be that you’re…?”

… 2 hours later.

“Sorry, Cyan – chan. I gotta heal, so can you shield for me a lil while?

“Roger, sir.”

Cyan and the scary Human had tagged along together and were challenging a monster horde within a dungeon.

The scary guy’s identity turned out to be Gino. It’d seemed that he’d heard that she was going to start playing Ber – Sto, so he’d been calling out to characters that seemed like the types Cyan would use, whenever any of them logged into the game.

The reason both were using their true names was because they were having a conversation through a voice call system which wasn’t a part of the game.

Ber – Sto also had a private chat function, yet the two of them had decided to prioritize safety, hence why they were employing a communications system provided by Feather.

The dungeon in which they were teaming up was a limited dungeon in which only a few were allowed to enter.

There were two simultaneous entry conditions: the first was to be an owner of the “Bond Proof”, part of the item set given out in this game launch campaign; and the second was to use the invitation attached in the item to come inside one after the other: 2 to 4 players were allowed to come into the dungeon.

According to the official site, it’d seemed that this dungeon was intended for the purpose of helping beginners build up experience points and money.

“OK! Gino – sama’s completely healed!”

Gino finished healing, and he jumped into the enemy lines to change places with Cyan.

Gino used his sword skills to cut the monster horde into pieces one after the other. The monster horde vanished in the blink of an eye.

“Phew! Maybe it’s starting to get hard to play together? Well. You can get tons of healing items in this dungeon, so… They’ll be useful if we run into trouble.”

“Looks like my level’s increased as well. It’s thanks to you, Gino – san."

“Glad to hear that. That classmate that invited you might be surprised to find you're even a higher level than her! You could say that that senior player gets more fortune than she
deserves…”

At first, Cyan approached her benefactor’s colleague (Gino) thinking that he’d get annoyed (at her gameplay), but it looked like she’d been able to overcome those feelings through their party-play.

The duo, full of harmony, shared the items dropped by the monsters and proceeded further into the dungeon.

But, then…

"Guoooooo!!"

Suddenly… A mysterious SE (roar) made Cyan’s headphones tremble and shudder. The BGM changed to a tense-sounding theme.

A gigantic machine-human (a Golem) wielding a sledgehammer appeared behind them: it was a whole world apart from the small fry that they’d been hunting down insofar.

“This BGM… An arrangement of the prequel’s (Ber – Rec’s) Event Boss BGM!? A boss battle here of all places!?”

Gino reacted at once and launched a preemptive attack, yet the health bar didn’t decrease.

No, it must’ve decreased at an internal processing level, but because the boss’ initial health was so high, they couldn’t notice a change.

The monster’s name, displayed on the game window, was “Hammer which punishes greed”.

When that “Hammer which punishes greed” brought down its sledgehammer onto the ground with a wham, an abnormal amount of weak monsters appeared; they were so many that they seemed to cover the whole floor.

“What the hell is this!? Wasn’t this a dungeon only for beginners!?”

Despite his astonishment, Gino went on cutting to pieces the weak monsters in a smooth manner. It could be called a blessing in disguise since the weak monsters that had appeared were the low-leveled monsters they’d been hunting insofar.

However, the “Hammer which punishes greed” continued to spawn weak monsters one after the other.

“No, hold it… Punishes “greed”…? Does this thing appear automatically if you stay too long in this dungeon…? Maybe it’s a stopper?”

In Ber – Sto… When you get beaten by a monster, you turn into “corpse state”. Once a certain amount of time passes, you lose a specified amount of money and gained experience points and you get returned to the closest city. Those were the game’s rules.

This “Hammer which punishes greed” was a monster that removed players who kept on “building up” for a long while in this dungeon. That was Gino’s guess.

The fact that it summoned monsters without end, and that you could beat a huge amount of weak monsters, was some kind of favor gone wrong from the developers to at least compensate to some extent for the loss due to the death penalty.

“Hey, hey!”

Cyan was unleashing magical attacks one after the other and slowly decreasing the amount of monsters one by one but it didn’t seem like the average amount was decreasing. The MP (Magic Points) were about to hit the bottom as well.

“Huff… Give it up, Cyan – chan. This is some bad taste pestering, man. You can’t possibly inflict any harm at your current level. Sheesh. The company running this (Sumeragi) does cruel stuff, man. And this is supposed to be a dungeon for beginners… Feels like that bird-shaped boss of some side-scroll action game, man..."

GV, overseeing Cyan from the edge of the room, also felt that it was an impossible task.

“Cyan… Maybe an [In]se… I mean, choosing another species wasn’t that bad of an idea?”

That was an absurd hunch that he got despite the fact that he usually never played games. But those words ignited Cyan’s sleeping fighting spirit.

“That’s not it! Because I can properly play, even using the elf!”

But reality is ruthless. Cyan’s health was being slowly depleted as she spoke, and it finally reduced to a very minimal amount. Cyan’s shoulders shuddered from frustration.

“Won’t… Won’t…”

“Won’t give up so easily!”

Just as GV thought that he’d seen Morpho’s form overlapping Cyan’s, Cyan let go of the control device and shut her eyes. Then, Morpho vanished as if she were sucked into the computer…

The next instant, Cyan’s PC’s movements in the screen “changed” in an obvious manner.

The monsters surrounding Cyan set their sights on her and attacked… MISS. 

A lot of “MISS” displays overlapped with Cyan’s character.

Cyan moved to counter-attack as the MISS displays scattered all around. The attack skills that Cyan had learned consisted of just beginner level magic. The casting time was short and the attacking power low.

But she foresees the attacks and uses the small opening created once the enemies have moved, to direct her attacks to the monster horde with precise timing.

Critical hits, which should normally only happen through probability, occur one after the other and the monsters are beaten one by one.

The beaten monsters consistently drop MP (Magic Points) restoration items: Cyan continues to pick up these items and drink them, and as a result, she is capable of using her magic semi-permanently.

“C-Cyan – chan…!?”

GV and Gino were dumbfounded when faced with this phenomenon. Cyan’s PC sometimes performed mysterious actions, but Gino initially just attributed these incidents to “random number generation”.

That was a term coined by real-time online games [to describe random events in games]. 

These were totally impossible actions, but Cyan’s 7th Wave (Sevens) was the Cybernetic Singing Fairy (Cyber Diva).

By digitalizing her will and fusing with the network, she was capable of processing enormous amounts of data, and was also capable of perfectly manipulating the random numbers (randomness).

…It's possible that not even GV’s Azure Thunderclap (Armed Blue), and its ability to freely control electrons, is capable of such complicated manipulation.

The next moment, almost all of the mass-summoned monsters had been reduced to zero, and the character that Cyan controlled rushed towards the “Hammer which punishes greed” until she was in front of it.

The “Hammer which punishes greed” changed patterns as well and tried to attack Cyan…

“Slow! You’re as slow as sound!”

But when Cyan’s magical attack was about to deliver the first
blow to the enemy…

“But… This is cheating, isn’t it…?”

Cyan stopped her movements upon hearing GV’s calm reaction (comment). The character controlled by Cyan ended up receiving a direct blow from the enemy’s skill, and was defeated…

Epilogue.

… Some hours later… Cyan told Hatano that someone at her home (Gunvolt) had prohibited her from playing any more net games. Once she’d told her about the instructions she’d received, she made sure to quickly pull out of Ber – Sto.

And, also, as a sequel… Some of the players who’d casually witnessed from the start to the end part of what had happened will surely go around whispering rumors of the “legendary lucky elf,” yet that’s another tale.

The end.

Pretty sweet, eh, folks? Gotta say, I really hope we get to see Hatano again in the future. She just cracked me up in the story with her unconstrained passion for games! I daresay that a lot of us can relate to her, lol.
Of course, it was also really nice to see more of Gino's wacky character (even though we still didn't find out what  his septima is :P)! I know that I say this a lot, but one of the primary reasons I love side-stories like these is because they give us better perspectives of the characters' personalities. It's so cool and so rare for a company to expand upon their game characters in such a thorough manner! For example, in this story, we got to witness a side of Cyan that we otherwise wouldn't have known existed. We see that, while she is very shy and soft-spoken for the most part, she can really lose control of herself when she gets frustrated!
You also gotta love the fit that Morpho threw when GV essentially called her an "insect." Priceless stuff!

There were a few interesting things that we learned about the setting of Gunvolt as well, in this story. Primarily, we discovered how GV was able to enroll in school, and how GV and Joule are able to access the internet from their apartment without being noticed by Sumeragi. I know that I've always wondered about those two things, particularly the latter!

Welp, anyway, I hope you folks enjoyed this story! Again, major props to Zoram Selrof for the translation!