I immediately took out my phone. Of course, the first thing I wanted to do was to call the system master.
“Hello, this is Alpha speaking.”
A peppy voice came through the phone. For the first time, I could confidently say I was happy to hear her voice.
“Alpha, I’m trapped in the scenario again. I need help or I’ll lose my soul.”
My voice sounded haggard, like I’d been running for days non-stop, but that didn’t matter.
“…”
There was no voice from the other side.
“Hello?”
I tried, but only got a reply from an automatic voice.
-This call has been terminated. You shall not be able to call this number again-
An ‘ah’ sound escaped my lips. I shakily took the phone from my ear and brought it down to see the screen. The only contact I had on my phone had disappeared, leaving the contact list blank.
Just then, a new screen popped up.
~Comment: The target has wasted too much time on this scenario. An adjustment was made to the quest in which the target shall be incapable of leaving till they complete the quest~
Reading through it, I wanted to shout “What bloody scenario!? I was just living my other life, don’t bother me!”, but I found myself merely staring at it.
Once the screen disappeared, a clock was put at the top-right corner of my vision and the world suddenly didn’t feel all that real anymore. It was like I was looking at things through VR goggles.
I gulped and got up. The time was 3:49. I still had eight hours to solve my problem. The current problem was how the hell was I supposed to figure this out?
My body fell down lifelessly onto my bed and my vision turned to the white ceiling. I gulped, beads of sweat forming on my face on this snowy day.
“Ok… let’s get things straight.”
I sat up once more, went to my desk, took out a note book and pen and started jotting somethings down.
First of all, I died and was reincarnated as a chicken. Second, I’d spent over a month in that other world. Third, this was just an illusion. Correction, a scenario made by some unknown higher being. Fourth, I have a quest which says I’m to find out the cause of Akane’s sudden transformation. Fifth, I have only 8 hours to do that or I die. For good.
Clues?
I had none from what I could tell.
“This is all a friggin mess. What the hell!?”
Just then, I heard a knock on the door.
“Akkun, you ok?”
Akane’s gentle voice came from the other side of the door.
“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“Good. I’m coming in then.”
A curse flew out of my mouth as I tore the page out and closed the book. The word ‘ENIGMA’ was printed on it boldly, but I didn’t think too much about it. Must have been some unknown book manufacturing brand.
I mean, who cared to remember the names of a notebook manufacturing company.
My chair spun around quickly and I faced the girl as she entered the room with a worried expression on her face.
“Hm? What are you doing?”
She asked me while observing me with a quizzical expression.
“Oh, um, nothing… so what’s up?”
I tried to change the topic. She also looked like she wasn’t going to bother with it, so she took a sit on my bed and faced me.
“Akira, we’ve been friends for quite some time now.”
She started saying something, but my eyes were more focused on what was behind her. A poster for the fireworks show that was being held tonight.
‘Isn’t that the last time I saw her before school?’
I suddenly had a flashback. On this night, something happened that made Akane cry. She left me alone at the fireworks, but I didn’t chase after her. I couldn’t remember why, but it was something I was simply too unbothered by. Maybe there were clues there.
Still, that was way too close to the deadline for this quest. I had to find something else. But, just to be on the safe side, I needed to find out what would make Akane cry.
“Akane, what do you think could make you cry?”
I asked immediately, cutting her off. She paused, widened her eyes then glared at me with a distrustful expression.
“What’s with that completely random question?”
“Nothing… I just really want to know.”
“Hmm, but don’t you know stuff like that already?”
“I forgot. Can you remind me?”
This wasn’t a lie. Ever since that day, Akane became more distant. Publicly we were childhood friends, but she barely ever interacted with me as much as she used to. I assumed it was probably because she was more conscious of me as a member of the opposite sex, but overtime I came to realise that wasn’t the case.
What was the reason she gave, again?
Ah, yes. She didn’t want to spend her free time at home hanging out with a spineless bastard.
I took that for a joke when she said that. It was probably a joke, right?
Anyway, the scenario’s Akane put her finger to her lips in thought for a moment before shivering.
“Spiders! T-they creep me out with their 8 eyes and the way they look at you. Scary insects.”
‘Spiders aren’t insects…’
Ironic how she reincarnated as one.
I tried my best to hold back my laughter at the thought that she ended up as one. And the queen of them at that.
“Pfft… anythi-pfft -anything else?
“I can’t say.”
‘Seriously? So, she saw a spider that day and left, crying? I find that hard to believe, especially at a fireworks festival. In that case, since this is fake, I’ll just not go to the festival this time around.’
“That’s it! Akane!”
I shot off my chair and she yelped, startled by my sudden scream. Still, I did not care for that.
With a 90-degree bow, I apologised to her.
“We were supposed to go to the fireworks tonight, right? Sorry, but I refuse! Just go home and watch some anime or something, I’ll be busy tonight!”
For a moment, there was a silence in the room. I kept my head down, waiting to hear some kind of response. However, what I heard next wasn’t what I was expecting. The door to my room was shut with a loud bang and I looked up only to find that Akane wasn’t even around.
It would seem she chose to run out of the room at full force.
I walked there and opened the door to see if she was standing there.
“Erhn? Onee-san, where are you going!?”
Mitsuki’s loud voice questioned her, but there was no response. But from the sound of things, Akane had already left.
“Nii-san! Did you do something again!?”
Now, she was questioning me. I chose to ignore her and instead my vision turned to the little fella standing in front of my room. A cat with white fur and black and brown spots. Its yellow eyes looked at me innocently and I just picked it up.
“What are you doing here, buddy?”
I closed my door, hoping to not hear from Mitsuki any time soon. Afterwards, I jumped onto my bed and took out my phone. I was planning on scribbling down more ideas as to what changed Akane, but I noticed something.
The timer which was displayed on the top-right corner of my screen had faded.
Merely 10 minutes had passed, yet it would seem I had completed the quest. There was no notification, but now I couldn’t see the clock as usual. That must have meant I was done.
So, I was guessing I’d remain here till the appointed time then.
“Meow~”
My eyes then turned to the cat.
“Well, I guess I needed time to myself to think about that issue as well.”
This was a well appreciated break from the hectic stuff happening on the other side. I may not have noticed, but turns out I was really stressed out, having not slept for more than 10 days in a row.
My mind went back to the little kitten that hatched from the scary egg and called me ‘mother’. I shuddered at the thought of becoming a parent and even worse, the kitten called me ‘mother’ instead of ‘father’. It reminded me of how Ulva called me ‘Big sis’ and never ‘Big bro’ no matter how many times I pleaded with her to.
I guess, no matter what the girl thing was going stick. No point in thinking too much about it. I was now a girl in my other life and I couldn’t escape from that fact.
Back to the kitten, it had the name the system master had given me. So, she probably knew what was going to happen, yet decided to give me the middle finger instead with that message.
There was no way in hell I was ready to take care of someone. I mean, look at how bad it ended up the last time I did? Everyone hated me, though they came back to me for reasons which I couldn’t fathom. I would like to give the kitten up to that chuuni vampire, but for some reason I couldn’t.
I didn’t want the kitten, but I didn’t want to give it up either. Maybe if it was a simple familiar or pet, I wouldn’t have reacted this strongly, but since it calls me ‘mother’, the whole situation suddenly feels more serious.
And what was its gender? I couldn’t tell while looking at it. Ah well, that was an issue for later.
More importantly.
“That damned chuunibyou! What the hell was he thinking!? God, I can’t stop cringing at the thought of him calling himself the Great Bloody King or whatever.”
A cold chill went down my spine as I remembered. His terrible acting, his grandiose gestures and cringe titles. He was a perfect replica of myself in 8th grade. A living embodiment of my very painful past. I didn’t want my unconscious body being so close to him.
Now, I wanted to wake up quickly to run away from him as soon as possible.
I shut my eyes, thinking that maybe I’d wake up to my original state. I was still in the room and the cat was rolling around on my bed like an idiot. I laughed at its cute actions, then placed it down on the floor.
“I guess I’ll just play some VR games till I wake up on the other side.”
I picked up the Vice Master and placed it on my head. I’d missed playing video games and was feeling really nostalgic. The game inserted was ‘Final Fantasy XXV’, the very newest edition. I couldn’t wait to play.
