Chapter 134: To Try Plan
———Fiss———
<9: 16 am>
It doesn't look like the other residents realized what’s going on. They can just leave through the teleporter, and right now it’s still early for some.
So this spear I am holding can’t kill me even if I tried, and other humans won’t get hurt by it either. It should only affect these ‘virtual creatures’ that are roaming around this expanded area. Weird how this thing works. It has the handle area that is real and can shift around its length, and it projects out the rest of the weapon based on what you want, be it a sword or an axe or a spear. Basically an item that can morph into most weapons, but it’s only good for this area.
I don’t really know if all of that info I read up on is all accurate. I need to remember that all of this happened… Last night? I think? I mean at what other time can they actually set all this up.
*Smash* *Crash*
Before I could actually try anything else, suddenly I saw a monster being punched across the corridor and crash into the fake sky before dissipating into pixels. Just a tiny fuzzy creature so sending it flying is quite easy.
So, did someone else also get out of bed? I was checking the instructions for a while and didn’t pay any attention to the surroundings.
“Huh. Weird.” A voice that I’m not familiar with rang out. I never greeted the others so obviously I don’t even know who is living here. Not any of my classmates, their houses are just fine. Other classes have some people with their house wrecked but my class? Only I have a destroyed house. Ain’t that just sweet…
“Why are there so many pixelated things here? Like that tree over there.” A voice I am familiar with rang out. Now this person I do know isn’t supposed to be here.
“What are you guys doing here?” I walked over to them and asked.
“Whoa! Where did you get that spear from? Also, hi.” Lynda casually greeted while the others moved and looked around.
“Surprised seeing you here. How in the world did you get here?” From what I remembered, the school is closed off to most people outside of some staff and us.
“Huh? You don’t know? Did they not give you any heads up?” She asked me a question instead of answering. What does she mean by that?
“Heads up? Did you know something I didn’t? I just woke up and found the simple corridor turned into this!” I have no idea when this even happened. I didn’t feel any disturbance at all yesterday. No interrupted sleep or anything.
“Seriously? How did they work so silently?” She muttered, believing me pretty easily. It’s good that she does, since that’s the honest truth, but she’s being alarmingly accepting of that explanation. Will she be fine? “Looks like they are planning a lot more things going forward. Really a damn shame we can’t be for most of it… Speaking of which, why don't your parents just have you study at the old place?”
“...Most schools were still out of commission or afraid to open at the time. This is basically one of the only places that are planned on opening and actually in driving distance.” Did I never mention this particular point before? Then again we didn’t talk with each other often. Not in the same class and all that. She’s part of the old guard so she’s with others who are already around here. Me and the others are basically outsiders to them.
“Right… I guess that makes sense. I forgot how much stuff got wrecked from the first incident, even though there aren’t salt hails and snakes. Why was there so much terrorism anyway?” It’s basically all human faults with the first incident. Looking back at it, it makes no sense as to why people start fighting and killing each other before they even really get the hang of magic.
It was… a lot. We were holed up in our house and only popped out when necessary, like getting groceries and stuff. Never in my life would I expect mundane stuff to feel so dreadful just from the prospect of some superpowered nutjob coming to kill us for no good reason.
I think there were some rumors about demons or monsters or something wrecking things as well, but there wasn't any evidence outside word of mouth. It was definitely a time at which we are all equally lost as to why things happen the way they are. Certainly reflected in how all of it felt like they happened in a flash. Time seems to flow by quickly during that period of time.
“Okay, let’s talk about the elephant in the room here. Why are all these things here? What even is all of this?” Lynda said as she looked up at the fake sky and other odd decorations and attractions in what used to be a simple corridor. “Did you figure something out, at least?”
“Yeah. There’s a touch screen next to each door that seems to explain what all of this stuff even does.” I said while pointing at the screen embedded in the wall behind me. “I don’t really fully get everything either even after reading up on the details for a while. The simple thing is that this is all fake. Like illusions or augmented reality. Basically set up just to spice up the place and give us folks here something to do… At least I think that’s the case?”
“That’d explain why the monsters feel rather weird…” She muttered out loud. “Is this meant to be some sort of testing ground? I can’t see the benefit of this place if it’s just meant to entertain the residents. Seems like way too much effort… Then again…”
“Then again… what, exactly?” Looks like she was gonna say something important, but cut herself short.
“Nothing important. They’ve been doing crazy shits for a while now so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is like reorganizing a room for them.” She clarified. Could they really do something like this so easily? Then again if they can’t then I doubt I would even be here right now. Wasn’t it that the school was remade in a single night? And now the same thing happened again. “Okay. So where did you get that spear from?”
“You can get a weapon just from touching one of those pads. Seems like it can only harm creatures in this virtual space, outside of the main part here.” I said while pointing at the handle.
“Ah! Fuck! Too close!” Both of us heard someone shout out. Seems like someone is doing an obstacle course and almost lost his footing.
“...This corridor is obviously very wide for what it is, but it doesn’t look like there are too many things to do here outside of monsters and obstacle courses, and it doesn’t look like it could house that many monsters in the first place. This is like some weird twisted playground.” Lynda remarked. It’s certainly a very wild-looking area for what is supposed to be a simple corridor, but she is right that there aren’t too many things to do here yet. The fact that there is a path in the middle that nothing intersected with kinda ruins the immersion of the detailed fake sky and other really advanced tech used to make it looks like we’re in a different world, but I get why that is the case. It would be troublesome to not have a straight path up to the surface just in case you don’t want to use a teleporter for whatever reason.
Lynda walked over to the screen in the wall I was talking about and figured out how to get a weapon pretty quick. Naturally she makes the item take the shape of an axe.
“Alright, let’s go see what these ‘virtual monsters’ can really do.” She said with a smirk while looking at the axe in her hands. “Have you been fighting these things at all?”
“No. I only just walked out.” It’s a force of habit, basically. Going through the door instead of the new and very convenient way to go outdoors because I’m not used to it. This is one of those days that I actually forget about the teleporter.
“Ah. I see.” She replied. So I guess she’ll be doing some light exercise by fighting those things. I have no idea how it’s going to go down, or if there’s gonna be any real difference…
———Wiina———
<9: 34 am>
“So right now, the school’s gate is open. They want to see how people will react and what attraction they will utilize. Thankfully you don’t have that traveling stream planned for today, so you can go there right now, if you want.” With that last bit of explanation, let’s see if there will be any change in plan.
“...I don’t know. I guess I could do it for the content, but couldn’t it possibly involve getting other people unnecessarily involved?” She said, clearly skeptical of getting involved. Seems like she is talking about the other people who might be part of the experiment right now. I don’t really know if there is actually anyone actively engaging with it right now. The others should have a way to keep track of it. I didn’t bother setting one up for myself once we were done with the changes. I mean there’s really no need for me to go to all that trouble when I don’t really need to monitor it myself. I have ways to quickly check it.
“Eh. I mean I can go check it for you. It’ll only take a few seconds.” I said before putting my hand to one of my eyes, and Karra quickly flinched before I could even try anything. “Alright, turn around. Don’t look at me for a while if you feel like you’ll get queasy.”
She does so quickly and I dig my right eye out before throwing it out of the window. The eye sprouted wings and flew towards the school, its small body making it undetectable once flying at high altitude.
Now there is a path down without the need to use the teleporter, but it is a bit off the main path unlike the teleporter that sent you straight inside.
Let’s see here… More people than I thought. Seems to be those who are already quite close to the school, so they probably saw the gate opening and felt alarmed. Even a teacher is involved. Hopefully he can be the adult in the room and sure no accidents happen. We have bots around to make sure it doesn’t happen, but I’d rather there not be any accidents in the first place.
“Alright, I just checked, you can turn around now.” I said before teleporting the eye back into the socket, making sure to put those wings away first, of course. “There are quite a few people there. It looks like it might get more lively as soon as more people notice what’s going on. What do you think?”
“Hmm… Nah. I think I’m good. I think I’d rather go do something at my own pace, not bother others.” She answered. “But despite what I said, there’s one thing I was thinking about doing today, unrelated to the around the states trip we were discussing yesterday. I was thinking about that stunt we pulled with other streamers in the dungeon.”
“...That plan? What about it? Last I checked, after it was all over you were playing hard to get, and then nothing happened after that.” Considering we were playing into a popular trope in live streaming novels, I’m surprised she’s not pushing further.
“Yeah. I think it’s time we pull it out of the fridge. We’ve been sitting on that prospect for way too long.” She declared. Now this is interesting. “After we are done with the travel stream, I think we should try doing a collab with the streamers who are still insisting on doing dungeon runs. Those guys we saved are still active and a few are quite accomplished.”
“So you have been keeping track of that.” I thought she got cold feet and went on to do other projects. Guess she was saving it for a time when she does have a lot of free time. This kind of thing would be harder to schedule when she has school to worry about. “So. I guess we will be focusing on that then.”
“Yeah. Though we should actually think about the travel plan first. I’m thinking about announcing possible collabs right before that stream ends.” She explained. With that kind of stunt with possibly a lot of people attending to watch, it would be a good time to announce something. We still didn’t really announce the travel plan though. She only very vaguely alludes to it after yesterday’s stream. She decided on pulling that stunt very quickly once she saw how many votes a troll pick got and how she actually went for it.
Now this could be interesting. Finally something that looks like it could come out of one of those NovelFires… that aren’t sickening stuff like those underground experimental labs. As if people in the real world aren’t comically evil enough…
———Lynda———
<9: 52 am>
*Smash* *Chop*
“Hmph. Way too easy.” I said before swinging my axe around just to show off a bit. Guess they don’t want to implement harder monsters like the ones in the training rooms. I really should go visit it and actually try the harder ones once I get the chance. I barely completed Rank D+ by myself back then. There are a lot of ranks after that. I oughta get to at least B. “Even a kid should be able to beat these guys. Are there no stronger monsters around?”
“I don’t really know. I haven’t checked the entire place. Weren’t some of your friends exploring deeper inside?” Fiss said. I guess I should remember that she is just as lost as we are.
“I guess we shouldn’t keep those guys waiting. Histon might yell at me if I did…” That guy is always one to complain. “Alright, let’s go after them.”
Fiss nodded and both of us walked deeper into this wide corridor full of bizarre imagery. It certainly looks more like the inside of an amusement park.
Just what in the world could they be planning for this kind of thing? It would probably take until the school opened up again until we even get a hint at the motivations.