The Pain of an Inferior: A Blistering Love Comedy That Begins After a Broken Heart - Chapter 10

Chapter 10 – Apocalypse 4

“Have you calmed down?”

With a gentle smile on his face, Ria patted Yunika’s back and soothed her.

Yunika’s face blushed, she was quite embarrassed to be seen crying out for help.

She was afraid that if she had shown any weakness towards the stray players inside the game of Apocalypse, she would get taken advantage of.

“…How should I put it, why are you guys here?”

She was a little worried since they had never talked at school, but Yunika seemed to know about Haruka and Ria. She had somewhat remembered the names and faces of her classmates. Especially Ria, who was quit infamous in a way.

“We’re on a date, of course.”

*Right?* Ria said, tilting his head cutely and asking for agreement. Haruka replied with a double peace in place of words.

“A date? Isn’t Ise a guy?”

“He’s a guy, but he’s cute, so it’s a date.”

Yunika turned pale and pulled away from Haruka, who was smiling and saying some kind of nonsense. Ria giggled at his funny behavior.

“Shall we go now?”

Ria stood up and pulled Yunika’s hand, making her stand back on her feet.

Yunika shook her head in disapproval.

“No, I can’t, I can’t…!”

“I heard that if you keep hiding in the same place, monsters will come to hunt you…”

Ria cuts off one escape route, making Yunika hug herself in fright.

“I can’t do it anymore, I’ll kill myself.”

“If you kill yourself, you won’t go into spectator mode. You’ll just respawn in another area full of even creepier monsters. I heard it’s hard to come back from that?”

“……”

Another escape route obliterated. Though Haruka didn’t know if the feature he was talking about had really existed, most likely it should be there given that the game had claimed itself to be the most terrifying VR horror game.

“Come on, let’s go!”

Ria moved forward as he took Yunika’s hand. Reluctantly, Yunika followed his lead.

“The other hand.”

Haruka reached out his hand and asked for Ria’s free hand. With a beaming face, Ria obliged.

The warmth of a living person’s body could be felt. Perhaps that the world they are in was quite dire, the warmth made him more at ease than usual.

The three of them, hand in hand, walked toward the darkness beyond the fog.

With narrow steps, they walked along a street lined with large houses.

Since the mobile terminal had a light function, Haruka, whose one hand was free, used it to illuminate the darkness ahead of them.

“So, what are we going to do now?”

Yunika asked as she walked shakily, holding hands with Ria. Normally, she would’ve felt uncomfortable to hold hands with someone of the opposite sex, more so that they haven’t even talked before. But either because of Ria’s mood or because they are inside of a horror game, Yunika had kept her hold firm without any sense of discomfort of rejection.

Haruka was also holding Ria’s hand as he followed them by the side, matching their steps. He had been in constant contact with Yuzurika ever since he was a child, so he had become addicted in skinship. Instead of shame, he was enjoying the feeling of Ria’s smooth hands.

“According from what I’ve heard, there are pieces of otherworldly flesh inside the large buildings, so let’s head on there. A hospital, a police station, or maybe a school…”

“Are we really going there!?”

“We’re playing a game right now, so we should help clear it, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Besides, if we stay inside this game for more than 40 hours, we would go crazy.”

“Oh no…”

Yunika let out a sigh. She had an image of a strong-willed girl at school. But at the moment, she was quite funny and adorable, using gestures to convey her intentions as well as having facial expressions to match. She had a somewhat different appeal compared to Miyako. Haruka was kinda attracted to her charms.

“Well then, Let’s go!”

“Wait!”

Yunika stopped him.

“At least we should have a weapon, don’t you think?”

“… That makes a lot of sense.”

Ria nodded his head in agreement.

The three of them were currently in a quiet residential area, they decided look around their surroundings.

“Let’s go into one of the houses.”

Haruka lets go of the hand holding Ria and placed his hand on a doorknob of a house, but it didn’t open.

He decided to kick against the glass door instead, shattering it easily into pieces. The cracking sound was pretty loud, so they had to be attentive of any enemies taking notice.

“Sorry for intruding!”

Ria bent down a little and entered the house through the shattered door, Haruka and Yunika followed suit.

“There’s something shining on the table”

Yunika pointed at an item that was glowing green.

“Ah, it’s a bandage. Here you go.”

Haruka picked up the item and placed it on Yunika’s hand. It was a gentlemanly act of providing aid to the wounded Yunika, but in reality it was a sly subtle strategy of him in order to casually touch a woman’s hand.

“You should use it, it might heal your injuries.”

“Use it, how?”

“Just wrap it around your arms.”

Ria made a gesture of circling his arm. In most VR games, such items were used in a somewhat similar way. This was not the case for realistic games.

Haruka took action and stretched out the bandage, wrapping it around Yunika’s arm and neck in an amateurish manner. The bandage emitted a white light for a while until it broke into small particles and disappeared.

“Well?”

“It feels a lot better, I guess. My injuries felt heavy, but now it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“That’s good.”

Haruka was shocked at his brief exchange with Yunika. He found it surprising that he was able to talk to her in a very natural way. There was no strain to his heart like when he’s talking with Miyako.

“Okay, let’s continue in searching for items. Though, I don’t think looking around this residential area is efficient. Let’s head out to some store instead.”

Ria speaks out his intention. Haruka nodded his head, conveying that he has no objection.

“Since we don’t have access to an inventory window, we may need to find a backpack or a waist pouch.”

Yunika seemed to be familiar with gaming lingo given that she had blurted out the word “inventory” in a natural manner. She looked somewhat like that of a princess knight from a certain fantasy game. Haruka’s head was in the clouds, thinking about irrelevant things.

“Ah yes, I guess so.. For now, let’s try pick up a container of some kind.”

Most games would offer an inventory window. It was a system used to store items that a player would pick up, though there are limits on the size of the inventory. Such a system was absent on Apocalypse, so players were limited to what they could carry.

“Well, we will figure it out.”

“Yeah, that’s right… Okay, let’s go!”

Ria extended his hand towards Yunika. Yunika sensed his intention and was embarrassed.

“No… it’s embarrassing.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. We had already seen your embarassing side, after all.”

Haruka teasing was met with low kick in the shin, which made him let out a yelp, though the kick didn’t hurt that much.

Ria ended up forcefully grabbing Yunika’s hand. She was surprised, but she did not shake Ria’s hand off.

“Let’s all get along, okay? Haruka too”

Haruka clasped Ria’s other hand. His cool hand was pleasant to the touch.

Compared to earlier, it was Yunika who was now using the light function of her terminal as she pointed it right in front of them.

The light that was produced was quite bright despite it’s small form factor. It illuminated the area for up to a dozen meters in front of them.

Beyond that was still covered in fog, though.

While holding hands, the three of them started making their way through the area. The goal was to find a store of some kind. In games, items are normally found in such places.

“How can you hold his hand without feeling shame, Obi?”

“I often hold hands with my sister and Ria.”

“Are you a siscon and a homosexual?”

“I love Nee-san and Ria very much.”

He formed a peace sign with his free left hand. Yunika looked up at the sky, her expression conveying that she didn’t understand.

“I’m sure you’ll come to love Shifu-san too, Haruka”, Ria shared his thoughts.

“Thanks, I guess.”

Yunika replied in a curt manner.

Haruka had found himself liking Yunika. He had talked to countless girls in his life, but all they had seemed to talk about was Shun whenever they opened their mouths.

Yunika would actually engage in conversation with him, making Haruka a little happy. Regardless of her feelings, he also liked that she treated Ria in a normal manner.

“Don’t you feel at ease whenever you hold hands with someone?”

Haruka asked Ria and Yunika, his gaze focused on his hand that was tied to Ria’s.

“It feels reassuring. Don’t you feel the same, Shifu-san?”

Ria asked Yunika with a gentle expression on her face.

“I’m actually feeling quite restless right now.”

Ria smiled at Yunika, and told her.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Rather, I can’t calm down unless I hold hands with someone.”

Ria nodded his head in agreement to Haruka’s words.

“Me too. I might not be able to calm down unless I hold hands with Haruka.”

“You guys are weird.”

As Ria bashfully shared his thoughts, Haruka smiled back at him, radiating in happiness. Yunika was bemused at the peculiar atmosphere that the two had created. She couldn’t help but turn her gaze up at the stagnant, dark sky.