The Pain of an Inferior: A Blistering Love Comedy That Begins After a Broken Heart - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 – Apocalypse 2

Haruka found himself lying down on a street in an unfamiliar city.

As he moved, gravel and dust rubbed his arms and cheeks, clinging to him. Apparently, the game had started with the players crawling on the ground.

“Ria?”

Ria was lying on his face. Haruka grabbed his shoulders, put his hands on his back, and slowly turned him onto his back. He placed Ria’s beret, which had fallen on the ground, on his chest.

Ria’s vulnerable sleeping face was so entrancing that he couldn’t help but admire it.

“…. Mhmm…”

Ria was gradually awakening. Haruka turned his attention to the side and observed their surroundings.

The town was shrouded in fog. It was not so thick that he could not see what was in front of him, but it was thick enough that he couldn’t see the scenery from around thirty meters away.

It was currently nighttime, Haruka wondered if morning will come. This was a horror game, after all. There was a chance that it will always be night throughout the game.

“Haruka….”

“Good morning, Ria.”

Rubbing his sleepy eyes, Ria slowly sat up. He checked out his surroundings just like Haruka did.

“Looks like we have arrived safely.”

“Yes, we did.”

Haruka stood up. He held out his hand towards Ria, who was sitting on the ground in a girlish manner.

Giggling, Ria took his hand. Haruka pulled him vigorously, which raised Ria up to his feet. Haruka had wanted to try this action, which was often seen in creative works.

Suddenly, a small electronic sound rang. Haruka and Ria shook their shoulders and hurriedly searched for the source of the sound. It was a small sound, but it seemed to echo well in the silent city. They were compelled to turn it off.

The sound seemed to be coming from their pockets.

Noticing that there was something hard inside his pocket, Haruka dug his hand into it. What he found was an information terminal with a touch screen.

There was only a phone, a tutorial, and a torch function on the terminal.

As he tapped onto the tutorial icon, three items popped up.

[Clear Condition]

[Safety System]

[Extended Functions].

When he selected the clear condition icon, a short description that conveyed vague information was displayed.

[Destroy six pieces otherworldly flesh within 48 hours],

There were no images of the pieces of flesh included in the information. Since there was a forty-eight grace period, he could infer that looking for it themselves was part of the game.

Haruka pressed the back button and tapped the [Safety System] icon.

[This game is equipped with a safety system. Please note that amnestics will only be administered for the scene if it is determined that traumas would persist in the player.]

After reading the passage, some off-handed knowledge sprang up in Haruka’s mind. VR machines couldn’t be marketed unless there was a safety system included in it.

Numerous individuals inside the virtual world are prone to experience psychological harm due to various factors, such as getting attacked by monsters, falling from a high place, or getting murdered by rabid player-killers.

Once the system recognizes that an individual had suffered from mental trauma, the safety function would kick in. Memory processing, or simply put, memory erasure, would be implemented on the user.

The first time a person would use a VR machine, whether it’s from home or from an institution, had to give consent to the usage of the safety system.

Haruka was reminded of the ridiculous post that he had read about a player who had played the Apocalypse game, saying that their memory was so blurry to the point that they could not remember much of the contents inside the game.

Ria tugged at Haruka’s sleeve as he was busy fiddling with his terminal.

“Hey, Haruka… Is that a person over there?”

“…..Hmmm?”

He turned his head towards the direction Ria had pointed in a stiff motion.

There was a silhouette of a human figure behind the fog, which was illuminated by the streetlight.

It was slowly moving towards Haruka and Ria.

Its left arm seemed to be too long to belong to a person, since it was dragging it on the ground.

At a distance of around twenty-five meters, Haruka had finally saw the figure clearly.

It was a horrifying looking human-like creature with no skin, its muscles and nerves were laid bare.

Its face was such a mess as if it had been plowed by something. There was almost nothing left of its mouth, eyes, ears, or anything else that could be judged as a human.

Its long, misshapen left arm looked as if it was made of several pieces of body parts stitched together. Two sharp bones had protruded from the tip of its arm.

To put it simply, it was a monster.

It was groaning in a muffled voice, as it made its way towards Haruka and Ria.

The monster then thrusted its left arm forward.

Its arm made a creaking sound, as it exploded with a spray of blood.

The two backed away reflexively.

Along with the pieces of flesh and the black blood were several long tentacles sagging on the ground, which seemed to be stored in the left arm.

Unlike its sluggish main body, the tentacles crawled towards Haruka and Ria in a swift motion.

“Let’s get out of here, Ria!”

The two froze as they stared at the monsters’ erratic movements. Haruka was the first one who had came to his senses as he noticed the tentacles approaching towards them.

He took Ria’s hand and urged him to run. Ria followed suit, a step behind.

The two held hands tightly as they ran through the city, keeping pace with each other.

“Oh my gosh, what was that?”

“That was probably just an in-game mob…”

The thought of having to stay for up to forty eight hours inside a world populated with such creepy monsters was terrifying.

Haruka wondered if Miyako was going to be okay, though he figured that she should be fine since Shun was by her side.

?

Just as Ria had mentioned, Uta Miyako had also entered the fog shrouded city, the same match Haruka was in.

She did not come to the amusement park to play with Haruka, but only to socialize with Shun and her freinds.

Initially, Miyako had thought of refusing the invitation, but her friends’ enthusiasm made it hard for her to turn them down. Since she was going to be participating anyways, she considered on making some memories with Shun in order to talk about the experience with Haruka, stirring up his emotions.

While Miyako was thinking of such a trivial thing, she had found herself witnessing an unexpected sight.

It was Haruka and a beautiful stranger walking together. Shun, who was nearby, seemed to have noticed Haruka and walked over to him. Miyako watched the exchange of the two from a distance with astonishment.

Miyako promptly tried to use the zoom function of her Talisman in order to examine girl’s face from up-close and check out her profile. But before she could do so, Haruka had already taken the girl by the hand and walked away.

Who was that girl?

She had pondered about it deeply, but she couldn’t arrive at the right answer. The identity of the girl had eluded her. At the very least, she was certain it was not Yuzurika, Haruka’s older sister.

As soon as she had saw the girl’s hand made contact with Haruka’s, a horrible chill ran down Miyako’s spine.

After watching Haruka and the girl until they were out of sight, Miyako hung her head down and stared at her palm, which had turned pale from her clenching it too hard.

Come to think of it, when was the last time I touched Haruka?

She could not remember the warm feeling of Haruka’s hand.

Suddenly, the sounds around her had came to a halt.

Miyako’s expression had clouded as she clutched her chest. She couldn’t help but feel restless and uneasy.

She decided then and there to play the game of Apocalypse with Haruka.

There was a few minutes of waiting time for matching with other players before the game would start.

Although there were other players that were matched online, Apocalypse has a system that prioritized matching players from within the same facility.

If she had joined the game shortly after the time of Haruka had dived into the game world, there was a probability that she would get matched in the same lobby as him. No, she was hoping that they would be in the same match for sure.

Miyako would feign in being terrified inside the horror game, creating numerous opportunities in skinship with him. Moreover, she was confident that Haruka would protect and love her.

If Miyako stayed close to Haruka, he probably wouldn’t pay any attention to the girl who was with him.

I will look for you.

I want to see you.

Miyako started to move in pursuit for Haruka whom she doesn’t know for sure if they were matched in the same lobby or not.

I don’t care about clearing the game.

Leaving her friend Shifu Yunika who was unconscious at her side, Miyako began to wander the fog-shrouded city alone.