The Pain of an Inferior: A Blistering Love Comedy That Begins After a Broken Heart - Chapter 11

Chapter 11 – Apocalypse 5

The three were heading down a large street to look for an item when they heard a loud gunshot that seemed to tear up the space. One or two shots rang out in rapid succession, but no more after that.

“That was a gunshot, isn’t it-?”

“What do you think, should we join them?”

Ria’s question made Haruka ponder hard. If the other party is a man, there was a possibility that he would be very flirtatious towards Ria and Yunika, who are top class beauties. From Haruka’s point of view, it sounded like a bad joke.

“Of course we’re going to meet up! Everyone might be there!”

Yunika, who saw the possibility that her friends might be there, wanted to meet up with the owner that caused the gunshot.

Yunika must have joined the meetup in order to get along with Shun. Haruka understood that this was only natural.

“Let’s go!” Yunika is pointing at the direction where the gunshot was heard, but her left hand was still connected with Ria’s. It looked a little comical.

“Okay, let’s go!”

With Ria’s command, the three of them let go of their joined hands and ran.

The fog was so thick that they couldn’t see thirty meters ahead, but they could tell the direction from which the sound came. The problem was the distance. They were not sure if it was far or near. A hundred meters passed without them encountering any enemies.

“I won’t know how far it is until I hear one more shot.”

Just after Haruka said that, the third shot rang out. It was quite close.

“Eh, isn’t that a hospital!”

As they crossed a large street and headed in the direction of the gunshots, a huge structure emerged from the fog.

It was a neat-looking hospital, even for a building in a horror game.

For some reason, it seemed to have electricity, and all the lights in the hospital were turned on. A pure white light was leaking from the windows.

“We haven’t picked up any weapons yet, is it even safe to go in?”

“Maybe there’s a scalpel or something on the floor. Maybe a power saw?”

To Ria’s concern, Haruka answered in an appropriate manner without thinking too deeply.

“I guess we’ll see what happens.”

Saying this, Ria increased his running speed. His serious speed made Haruka’s eyes widen with astonishment.

Since the cocoon type VR machine took in the user’s bio-data, the performance in the virtual world was the same as that in the real world. Ria’s running speed was definitely faster than that of Haruka, who had above-average athletic ability.

He didn’t know that Ria was so athletic since he would always skipped the physical education class.

They went through the large entrance of the hospital and looked around the vicinity. The inside was eerily clean.

They had expected to see more rust, blood, or body parts.

[IYAAA!]

Behind the reception desk, there was a staircase that was about 20 meters wide. Part of it was vaulted with no ceiling. A scream from someone on the upper floor reached Haruka and the others on the first floor.

It was a girl, judging from the pitch of her voice. The tension in Haruka’s heart rose a little.

“Let’s hurry up!”

“Okay.”

They went up the stairs without saying much. Ria ran up the stairs quickly, taking two steps at a time. Haruka and Yunika followed behind him.

They had imagined that the hospital would be crawling with more enemies, but there were none. Not a trace of blood, not a speck of dirt just like in the lobby. Really, it was as if the hospital had been newly constructed. That only made it more eerie, on the contrary.

“Somebody, help!”

They heard a girl scream. Up the stairs to the left.

Ria reached the third floor first and saw Kamizato Reika, a girl from their class, running toward him.

She was freaking out as her long black hair was in disarray. Her face was covered with tears and snot, and her usual dignified and well-groomed appearance was nowhere to be seen. She must had been so scared. Her face was pale and ghostly, even though she was running so breathlessly.

In her hand was a five-round revolver. Ria wondered if she was the owner of the gunfire.

“Don’t come here…!”

Reika pointed the muzzle of the gun at Ria with a terrified expression on her face.

Ria shivered as his hair stood on end.

A loud, eardrum-pounding gunshot echoed from the hospital corridor to the stairs.

Without a word, Ria fell on his back.

“Ria!?”

“Oh no!”

Just as Haruka ran to the corridor to get to the fallen Ria, the gunshot rang out again. Fortunately, the bullet did not hit Haruka, as it passed into the corridor.

“Don’t come here!”

Reika pulled the trigger again in order to kill Haruka, but it seemed that the gun was out of bullets. She got impatient and threw the pistol towards him.

Reika was not used to throwing things, the pistol flew past Haruka. While Haruka was distracted by the pistol sliding on the ground, Reika had turned her heels and ran away.

“Hey, Reika…! Wait!”

Yunika boldly chased after the delirious Reika. Haruka reached out his hand to stop her, but then he remembered that Reika no longer has her gun, in the end he decided to leave her to Yunika.

He ran towards the fallen Ria and took his hand into his. He was still alive, though his temperature was rising up.

Ria twitched, and then opened his eyes to see Haruka in front of him.

“Haruka…”

“Ria, I’m so glad… You’re alive.”

Ria looked like he had been shot in the chest and was struggling to breathe.

“Friendly fire damage is mitigated. It it weren’t so, I would have died instantly.”

Ria raised himself slowly on his elbows. Haruka put his hand on his back to support him.

“Is the girl all right?”

“She’s probably gone crazy.”

“Crazy?”

“Since the game collected our bio-data, they most likely have information on our fear tolerance. By quantifying that, they can measure the fear that we experience in the game. If the fear we accumulate exceeds our tolerance, the game would invoke some kind of mental state abnormality, causing us to go crazy.”

The side effects of the mental status appeared to be random. There were a number of severe effects, such as narrowing of vision, total darkness, seeing things that should not be there, like having hallucinations of seeing countless insects.

Haruka trembled in fear at the system who specifically tortured those who feel scared inside the game.

“Kamizato-san was looking at me as if I’m a monster…so most likely that was the case.”

It seemed that not only Ria but also Haruka was not recognized normally.

“Can you stand up?”

“I think I can…”

Haruka took Ria’s hands in his and pulled them. The bleeding in his chest seemed to have stopped.

However, the damage had remained. Ria was having difficulty in moving his body.

“How do you feel?”

“It doesn’t hurt that much anymore, but my body feels numb all over, moving around is taking a toll on me.”

“Come here, I’ll carry you on my back.”

“Thank you.”

Ria understood that he doesn’t need to reserved when it came to Haruka. He was carried on Haruka’s back as he wrapped his arms around him tightly.

Ria’s pleasant scent had wafted around Haruka, just like it did in real life. He was impressed by the fact that the cocoon-type VR machine had managed to reproduce such a smell.

With Ria on his back, Haruka went to direction where Yunika and Reika had fled. He slowed down his pace to an extent so that he wouldn’t sway too much.