The Pain of an Inferior: A Blistering Love Comedy That Begins After a Broken Heart - Chapter 14

Chapter 14 – Apocalypse 8

They arrived at the basement stairs to the mortuary without incident.

Haruka and Shinku tied their hands tightly together and slowly descend.

“Why don’t you use the light already? It’s too dark.”

“It would attract attention.”

Though Haruka thought that he was not afraid of scary things, being strangled by the ghost woman was kinda traumatic, he ended up being cautious.

They managed to go down the stairs with their hands against the wall, and finally reached the second basement floor, the lowest level. There is a double-opening door at the back, but it was very far away.

“Why are they so far awa-“

Haruka stopped talking midway, and swallowed his words.

A chill runs down the spines of Haruka and Shinku. The stagnant air had started to move.

There had been no sign of anything until a moment ago. Before they knew it, there was something behind them, exerting intense pressure.

“Run!”

With a shout of “Run!”, the two of them bolted while still holding hands. An eerie laughter echoed through the hallway, sending chills down their spines.

There was something chasing them. Moving their bodies desperately, which were almost tense, they ran toward the goal.

Haruka matched with Shinku’s speed, and ran beside her with their hands tightly tied.

This is the current situation. There must be an end to the mortuary. Haruka reaches the door of the morgue, feeling almost twice as exhausted as usual.

He let go of the hand he was holding Shinku and took out the key card from his pocket. He held the card key over the electronic panel next to the door. With an electronic beep, the door opens.

With a sigh of relief, Haruka and Shinku look back behind them.

A ghost woman with many arms around the walls and ceilings and long, shaggy hair hanging down on the ground was approaching them with spider-like movements.

She was in her final form, which would surely kill them instantly if they were caught.

Haruka closed the door hurriedly and went to the center of the room.

Suddenly, the lights in the room turned on. The bright white light burned his eyes, which was accustomed to the darkness,  he involuntarily covered his eyes with his arms.

In the center of the room, there was a chest. On it lay a blackened corpse. The heart and blood were exposed in the chest area, and the heartbeat was making an unsettling sound as it kept expanding and contracting in a weird, almost inhuman way.

“Die.”

A couple of scalpels lay at the corpse’s side, ready to be used. Shinku picked up one of them and stabbed the corpse’s heart without any hesitation.

A loud, desperate scream came from the speakers in the room. It was so loud that it vibrated the room, it felt as if their eardreams had popped.

The voices died down, and then came silence.

Haruka slumps down on the floor, thinking that it was finally safe.

With a thud, he saw Shinku crumble down in front of him. Before he could get react, he was hit by an irresistible sleepiness. Haruka was relieved to know that the sleepiness has was the reason that Shinku fell down.

Not resisting, Haruka lets go of his consciousness as if he sank to the bottom of a deep lake.

[One piece of flesh of the other world has been destroyed. There are five left.]

?

Haruka woke up. He jumps up as if woken by an alarm and looks around.

He saw Shinku sleeping in her white one-piece dress, which made her look quite vulnerable.

Haruka opened the entrance of the morgue and checked if there were any monsters waiting for him. The corridor, which had been dark before, was now lit. And the distance to the stairs was short.

He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that he had finally escaped from the other world.

In the center of the room, where the dead body had been, was a sniper rifle and bullets for some reason. It was a burdensome prize, since the fog made it difficult to see from far away.

While Haruka was checking out the gun, the phone in his pocket vibrated and a beep sounded. He took it out and checked it, and there are three logs that said that they had destroyed a piece of the flesh of the other world.

It seems that the current notification is an announcement that someone has destroyed the third piece of flesh of the other world.

It doesn’t seem like much time has passed, but it seems that a lot of progress has been made while he was sleeping.

One of the three logs is probably the one that Shinku did. He has no way to confirm it, but he was sure that it is a piece of otherworldly flesh. It was a suitably terrifying experience.

It has been only six hours since the game started. And they were able to destroy three of them in that timeframe, the other players must have been doing it at a very fast pace. Perhaps the Shun and his friend were doing their best.

Haruka shifted his eyes from the screen to Shinku, who was asleep on the floor. Her white thighs are peeking out from the hem, making it hard to look at her.

“Claudia-san, wake up.”

Haruka poke her cheek imperceptibly. It was so soft and plump. He stopped touching her cheek, because if he touched her any more, the report screen would be displayed in her vision.

Haruka put his hand on the shoulder and shook it as if to transmit the vibrations. Shinku slowly opens her eyes. She finds herself being touched by Haruka, and she wakes up vigorously.

She gives a protesting look to Haruka with her blurred eyes.

“You touched my body without my consent…”

“I just woke you up.”

“That’s sexual harassment desu wa!”

“I only touched your shoulder…”

While quieting down the screaming Shinku, Haruka went out of the room while carrying the sniper rifle and some ammunition.

“I think we’re done here, let’s go back.”

“… It’s been quite tiresome, hasn’t it?”

Shinku mutters in a fed up tone.

It felt like hell that there were still three more to kill. Haruka thought that he could only count on the other players to finish the job.

?

Room 404, where Ria was supposed to be, was empty, leaving Haruka stunned for a while.

Searching around on the same floor, he heard cheerful voices coming from the lobby.

Sitting on a couch in the lobby was Ria, Yunika, and Kamisato Reika, who seemed to have came back to her senses after she went crazy, were having a pleasant conversation.

When Ria saw Haruka, he ran to him with a smile blooming like a sunflower.

He looked better than the last time Haruka saw him. He might have used some recovery items. The first-aid kit Haruka brought back seems to be unnecessary.

“Haruka! Thank goodness you’re all right… I was worried when I couldn’t find you anywhere…”

Ria just let his momentum carry him and hugged Haruka . He catches Ria, though he bends over a little due to the force of the hug. The sniper rifle shook behind him.

Haruka felt a little embarrassed because of the others watching them, but he soon felt Ria’s body warmth all over his body and it didn’t matter anymore. He hugs him back with the same force.

“Reika! How dare you shoot me!”

“I’m sorry… But you looked like a monster to me…”

“Who’s a monster!?”

“C-calm down Shinku! It’s just a status effect! That’s all”

Yunika, Shinku, and Reika were having a heated argument beside the embracing couple.

Watching them with warm eyes, Ria reluctantly pulled away, seemingly reluctant to do so.

“It’s amazing, you beat the boss.”

“Though it was Claudia-san who dealt the finishing blow.”

Saying this, Haruka looked at the bustling Shinku. She was a completely different type of girl from Miyako, and her conversation and way of thinking were fresh and fun.

It made him a little sad to think that they would no longer talk much to each other once the game would finish.

He placed the sniper rifle and ammunition on the side as he plopped down on the couch.

“I’m tired…”

“Good work.”

Ria sat down besides Haruka.

“It was scary, but it was fun after all.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Seeing Ria up close, Haruka’s face reddened, and he moved his face toward Yunika and the others to cover it up.

“Let’s eat dinner, everyone. Aren’t you a little hungry?”

Ria called to Yunika and the others. He whispered to Haruka that they had all gathered food and were waiting for his return.

Yunika and Reika agreed with Ria’s statement.

“Guess so. I might get hungry if I felt relieved.”

Reika nodded her head in agreement. It was Shinku who responded differently from the others.

“Hey! Why are you girls with Ise?!”

“Why, because we’ve become friends?”

Yunika answered in confusion. Reika looked frightened and took a few steps away from Yunika and Shinku.

“Yunika! You’ll be disgraced if you associate yourself with a criminal!”

“Don’t be too harsh, Shinku! It’s true that I was scared of him at first, but it wasn’t so bad when I talked to him.”

“Aren’t people like this living with an abnormality?”

“Oh no! gosh… Claudia-san… I didn’t do anything!”

While Haruka hesitated on how to interrupt to the riled up Shinku, Ria pretended to cry with a whimper. All the eyes of the people present turned to Ria.

Ria then smiled to Shinku who was momentarily taken aback.

Shinku’s complexion changed to red in a blink of an eye.

“Yes. …… Let’s have dinner while I talk about my life. Why I became a rank E citizen. I’d like Haruka to know as well.”

“… Now I’m feeling more scared compared to playing the horror game.”

If Ria’s story was too heavy, Haruka won’t be able to handle it.

It was scary to think that there was a common case of a perverted father dresses his son up as a woman, tries to r?a?p?e? him, and then attempts to kill him because he resisted.

The five of them decide to move to a nearby eight-person ward and took a break there.

Whether they were completely safe or not, there was no more danger felt inside the hospital.

Haruka wondered if it was fine to stay like that until the end of the game.