Legends:
*...* — Onomatopoeia/Sounds
'...' — Emphasis
"..." — Speech
(...) — Thoughts
[...] — System's Text
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Ginza business district, Tokyo, Japan.
In a certain bedroom of a luxury apartment building, a beautiful girl with a delicate, charming face, fair skin, and long, flowing flaxen hair, wearing pajamas and appearing to have just woken up, frowned and stared at the string of blood-red text displayed on her smartphone screen.
[Congratulations, Asuna Yuuki, you have been selected as a Player. You will enter the novice dungeon in ten minutes. Please be prepared.]
"...Dungeon? Is this... some kind of advertisement for a game?"
Seeing the string of blood-red text that had mysteriously appeared on her phone screen, a look of doubt and vigilance appeared on her pretty face.
The time was 4:55 a.m.
Five minutes earlier, she, Asuna Yuuki, who had been sleeping soundly, had suddenly woken up. Following a strange and irresistible urge, she immediately reached for her phone, unlocked it, and found a strange app that had appeared out of nowhere, its icon resembling an eye and giving off a strange and eerie feeling, then a string of strange and incomprehensible text as mentioned earlier appeared on the phone screen.
Her first action was, of course, to close the notification window and uninstall the app. But she found the mysterious app icon reappearing right after uninstalling it, and the notification window also reappeared, filling her phone screen. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get rid of the app and the notification window completely.
"Is my phone... infected with a virus?" Asuna Yuuki muttered, looking at the message on her phone's screen. The blood-red text reflected in her eyes, and a bad feeling welled up in her heart.
From a rational perspective, Asuna Yuuki didn't believe that there were supernatural phenomena in this world. Perhaps her phone had been infected with a virus, which was why such a thing had happened to her phone.
But what if it was not?
Thinking of this possibility, no matter how impossible it might seem, Asuna Yuuki changed clothes as quickly as possible, even running to the living room and taking the sharp fruit knife on the coffee table in her hand. After doing all this, the countdown displayed on her phone screen was only sixty seconds left.
"*Huff*... *Huff*..." As the countdown ticked down, Asuna, who was gasping rapidly, became increasingly nervous, and even her right hand, which was holding the handle of the fruit knife, began to tremble involuntarily.
As the countdown ticked down to zero, a notification window with a line of blood-red text suddenly appeared on her phone screen.
['Player: Asuna Yuuki' is now entering the novice dungeon.]
In the next instant, a blood-red mist appeared in Asuna Yuuki's vision. She tried hard to restrain herself from screaming in fear at what was clearly a supernatural phenomenon.
The thick blood-red mist writhed and several lines of black text appeared, floating in her field of vision.
[Location: ??? Asylum
[Time Limit: One Hour
[Mission Objective: Escape from '??? Asylum' within the time limit.
[Public Hint: When the ward where 'Player' is located is closed, it is a safe area that no 'caregiver' is allowed to enter.]
As Asuna Yuuki finished reading the last sentence, before she could read it again, the thick blood-red mist suddenly dissipated, and what appeared before her was a pale yellow wall covered in stains and even moss.
"This is..."
Before Asuna Yuuki could finish her words, she heard a voice that sounded like it belonged to a man, with a hint of amusement mixed with relief.
"This really does seem like the Master Space in Terror Infinity. This is going to be very interesting."
Asuna Yuuki was startled by the sudden voice, subconsciously tightened her grip on the handle of the fruit knife in her hand, and turned to look at the owner of the voice. At that moment, she felt very fortunate that she had brought it as a weapon for self-defense, just in case. That way...
The next second, what appeared before Asuna Yuuki stopped her thoughts. Her lips parted slightly, as if in surprise.
In the room that looked like a hospital ward, there was not only her, but also another person, who should have been the one who had just spoken.
What surprised and confused Asuna Yuuki wasn't the presence of another person in the same room as her, but rather this person's appearance.
This person, who appeared to be a man, was wearing a thick black coat, typically worn only in winter, with a long-sleeved black shirt underneath, black trousers, and sneakers. He wore a black mask and sunglasses, completely concealing his face.
Even stranger was the man's clothes, which were bulging, as if something had been stuffed inside, causing them to bulge out.
And most outrageous of all was...
"Are those... an electric drill... and... an electric saw?" Asuna Yuuki, seeing the electric drill in the man's left hand and the electric chainsaw in his right hand, was completely stunned. But she soon came back to her senses, then asked cautiously, "You... are you also a... Player?"
The man in black heard her words and replied in a cheerful and relaxed tone: "Yes. Nice to meet you. My name is Akira Fususeki. What's yours?"
"I..." Asuna Yuuki was about to answer, but as soon as she finished her first word, she paused, took a few steps back, and tightened her grip on the handle of the fruit knife in her hand. She stared warily at the man in black and said: "May I not answer?"
"You're quite cautious. That's good." The man in black nodded in affirmation. Although there was a hint of amusement in his voice and he hadn't done anything aggressive for the time being, Asuna Yuuki didn't dare approach him easily due to his strange attire and intimidating 'weapons'. Her back was almost leaning against the wall.
(Is this person also a Player like me?) As she thought this, Asuna Yuuki looked at the fruit knife in her hand, then at the drill and chainsaw in the other party's hands, and a strong sense of disappointment welled up in her heart. She had initially felt fortunate that she had brought a fruit knife as a self-defense weapon with her, but she hadn't expected to meet such a skilled person!
From the appearance of that strange app to officially entering the so-called dungeon, there had only been ten minutes of preparation time, which was relatively too short for someone who was completely unprepared.
(Where did this guy get an electric drill and an electric chainsaw?!) As Asuna Yuuki was thinking, the man in black, who had already put down the chainsaw on the floor, took his phone out of his coat pocket and opened the strange app with the eye icon, the same one that had mysteriously appeared on Asuna Yuuki's phone.
[Player Name: Asagiri Utsunomiya
[Player Level: Novice
[Overall Physical Quality: Outstanding
[Overall Mental Quality: Outstanding
[Job: Not Yet Unlocked
[Talents: Not Yet Unlocked
[Skills: Not Yet Unlocked
[Equipments: Not Yet Unlocked
[Items: Not Yet Unlocked]