“Eh?”
For an instant, Karen didn’t realize what had just happened.
Or, perhaps she realized but was unwilling to accept it inside.
But no matter what, she now had to face the fact that she was currently falling down.
“Ahhhhh!!!” A scream of fear came out of Karen’s mouth.
Falling down from a tall building onto the ground would definitely result in death!
Fortunately, there was a corridor in midair hanging right below this building. She crashed into it with a heavy thud. It really hurt.
The pain caused Karen to scream again. Her consciousness became hazy.
In her haziness, she saw someone running over.
“How lucky, it’s a total noob.”
“And she’s a noob that’s almost dead.”
“I’m going to take the kill.”
A man wearing a monkey mask laughed as he sliced down with his sword.
He was pulled into this strange dream yet again.
Isamu Seima sighed helplessly when he saw this familiar place once more.
Ever since five days ago, he was being pulled into this strange place every night in his dreams.
At first, a black-clad crow-mask-wearing person told him that this was a dream, and that a game would be played within this dream.
The game’s rules were quite simple. The goal was simply to continuously kill other players and be the final survivor. The final winner would be able to receive 100,000 sakuras as a cash prize in reality!
100,000 sakuras was a significant amount of money to a high schooler like Isamu. This was greatly appealing to him. However, it was an issue whether or not he would truly be able to receive the money.
This situation was far too abnormal! Just how was he and other people pulled into such a dream? Why was he chosen? Would he suffer any harm in real life? What exactly was the real purpose of this game?
The crow masked person had vanished right after explaining the basic situation to him. Isamu didn’t even get the chance to ask any questions.
He then immediately met another player.
This player immediately attacked him!
Isamu tried telling him that he didn’t want to fight. Isamu only wanted to talk and get a better idea of what was going on. However, the other person completely ignored him and only tried to kill Isamu!
Isamu could only run away.
Although the crow masked person said that this was only a dream, Isamu didn’t want to experiment with his own life to see whether he would be able to leave if he died here. Nor did he want to kill anyone.
Isamu really loved to play video games ever since he was young. He spent just about all his spending money and birthday money on video games. Now that he was in high school, he even worked a part-time job just for the sake of spending more money on video games. He was definitely addicted to gaming. Still, his parents were strict about his schooling, so he had fairly good grades and was physically active as well. He counted as a relatively good student.
Of course, he had played battle royale games before as well. Still, this wasn’t the type of game that he liked. He preferred singleplayer games rather than competitive multiplayer games. He was the type who didn’t like to be hurt or to hurt others.
Maybe a battle-royale-game-loving person would have more fun or even be excited to join such a game in their dreams. However, this was nothing more than a bother to Isamu.
Isamu continued hiding and running away, but reached his limits. Someone shot him with a bullet in the back, causing pain to almost completely rob him of his consciousness. Since he couldn’t run anymore, he started resisting, and used his starting dagger to stab the other party in the neck. Both Isamu and his attacker died!
Isamu was then revived in another corner of the battlefield.
Although he didn’t die for real, the pain and fear greatly stimulated Isamu. He realized that only hiding and running would bring nothing but harm upon him.
This was a slaughter game!
Since he didn’t know how to quit this game, he could only play it.
Isamu then used his long-time gaming experience and carefully considered his strategy for how to move around, kill others, and protect himself.
All the other game players he met were difficult to communicate with. Isamu began to suspect if these were even real people at all or something like NPCs. He also wondered if this was nothing more than an ongoing nightmare of his. However, this dream seemed abnormally real…
Still, Isamu didn’t give up trying to talk to the other players. He finally met a person that was willing to talk to him!
After a discussion, Isamu and the other person formed a temporary team and fought as allies.
But not long after, an incredibly powerful maniacal player ambushed and killed them both. Isamu was separated from this other person afterwards and never saw him again.
Isamu was now certain that this was no mere ordinary nightmare. There were other reasonable players that he could talk to and ally with. He tried to locate that former partner to team up again, but Isamu was killed off over and over again before he finally woke up in his bed again.
In the next five days, he entered this abnormal dream a total of four times.
Every time he woke up, Isamu felt as if some deep part of himself had gone missing. This mysterious sense of loss made him feel greatly uneasy. Although he went to the hospital for a checkup, the hospital couldn’t find anything wrong with him at all.
And now, he was in this dream yet again.
Just how the hell was he supposed to quit this damned game!!
After feeling helpless, he now felt rage. But no matter how angry Isamu got, it was all useless.
‘Perhaps I’ll be able to quit this nightmare if I finally win this game…’ Isamu began to think in such a manner.
Every reasonable player that Isamu met and was able to talk to told him that they hadn’t been able to “win” this game.
Although Isamu had now proved that committing suicide several times in a row would allow him to quit the game for the night, suicide wasn’t something fun at all. He was also quite worried about the feeling that he kept losing something each time.
Rather than constantly running away and meeting an unknown end, Isamu preferred to try his hardest to win. Even if he won but was still unable to escape from this dream, could he at least get 100,000 sakuras?
Isamu made up his mind to begin fighting at his very best.
Fortunately, on this round of the game, he soon found an unopened wooden chest. He opened it, only to find a gun and several ammo clips inside.
Isamu wasn’t all that delighted at obtaining a gun from the very start. That was because his past experiences here helped him to learn that he didn’t have any talent at shooting.
When playing shooting video games, the game would typically have aiming aids and other assistance for the player. But here, he had to physically aim at things himself, and this damned place had such a complex terrain that long-distance shooting had really low accuracy.
It was quite different to be a shooting expert in a video game vs. being a shooting expert in real life.
Still, guns were far more powerful than melee weapons. Although it was limited by ammunition, it was still far better than any melee weapon.
Isamu filled the gun with bullets as he continued onward.
He suddenly sensed two people to his right.
This was a rather subtle sensation. It was an ability that the dream world gave to him, just like a minimap in a game that would allow him to know the other players’ locations.
Isamu was rather confused as the minimap sense would only activate after he killed several other players in the game. Why did it activate from the very start this time?
Although he was confused, he continued moving towards the other two people’s locations.
He then saw the two players.
They were a jacket-wearing boy and a girl who wore a one-piece dress. Both of them wore gray masks that were completely blank.
All players in this dream would automatically have masks on their faces. The mask wouldn’t feel like it was there, but it would be possible to touch the mask.
This mask would also evolve together with how many players a person had killed. The more players one killed, the more colorful and detailed the design of the mask would become.
Since these masks were completely blank, these two players had yet to kill a single other player.
Right after seeing these two people, Isamu then saw several other masked players with various weapons attacking the duo!
He figured that the duo was absolutely certain to die.
Even if it was himself with his gun, Isamu felt that he would die there as well. Not to mention, these two players appeared completely unarmed.
However, the next scene surpassed Isamu’s imagination…
*Smack smack smack smack…*
The duo avoided the ambushers’ attacks at an astonishing speed. They defeated all the attackers with just their empty fists!
The smacks sounded so loud as if heavy hammers were smashing into the other players’ bodies.
This all happened so quickly that Isamu was unable to see the process clearly. It seemed like only an instant before the weapon-wielding players were all knocked onto the ground.
The male and female duo remained completely uninjured.
Their masks immediately started changing. The boy’s mask turned into a golden red demon face that seemed quite authoritative and angry, giving him an imposing martial aura. The girl’s mask became blue-white, smooth, and beautiful, giving off a cold and dark aura.
Although there was still quite some distance between them, Isamu could sense the extraordinariness of those two masks. He couldn’t help but swallow his saliva.
He then saw those two people looking in his direction!