Chapter 28

I walk outside with Reina and En.

"Guys!!" Exclaims Ika once she sees us, she runs to Reina and hugs her.

She then looks at En and smiles too.

----------

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Says Reina.

En taps at my shoulder and brings a small whiteboard with a marker.

"Oh, En has something to show us," I say.

?

Reina and Ika walk over to see what's up.

We look at what En drew on the whiteboard and was puzzled for a second. It shows a defensive system and an alarm system that can be put into place using the materials in this base.

Oh!!

"Ah! I get it!" I exclaim. "En says we should use this base as ours for now. After all, it's empty now and it is in an area avoided by many players so the chance of us being found will be very low."

"Oh...i see."

En then takes out her notebook and writes something: "We need someone to go outside and set the alarm sensors around the base parameters of up to a 100m radius."

The girls started staring at me.

"What."

En then pulls a radioactive yellow protective suit and shove it into my face.

"Okay okay, I'm doing it!!" I say.

----------------------

System announcement:

The first part of stage 2 is coming to an end.

Players will be able to exit the game shortly.

---------------------

Oh yeah, I forgot about this.

"What's going on?" Says Reina.

"Oh uh, to prevent too much stress and workload in our brain, stages are divided into different parts. Each part consists of 5 days of in-game time."

"Oh, the previous stage ended early so there weren't any second part." Says Ika.

"Yeah...we sort of got carried by Karma..."

...

"Oh yeah, we haven't used our blessing skills on you yet, should we use it?" Says Reina.

I shake my head. "Until I can find a way to gain lots of stats faster, let's not waste it. Besides, it should be around lvl 3 now, right?"

Both of them nods.

"Good. Then that's more of a reason not to waste. I will see you all tomorrow." I say.

---------------

Player off mode.

The system is switching off...success.

Disconnection with the brain...success.

Safety precautions check...success.

Mental Health check...stable.

User "Karma" will now be logged out.

----------------

...

I open my eyes as I yawn.

This damn alarm is annoying.

My phone rang at that moment and I answered.

"Hello..."

"Oh! Uh, it's Reina."

"Oh...hi Reina...*yawns* what's up."

"You sound tired?"

"Yeah, I am, get to the point."

"Oh um, En wanted to call all of us together to her house and strategize for the second part of the stage." Says Reina.

"Oh don't worry about that, the next part starts 5 days later on the weekends. BOG always starts on the weekend so that it doesn't disrupt our lives too much and we can still go to school, work, etc."

"Um...but the earlier the better!"

"True but I have things to do," I say, changing into my attire for my shift. "In fact, quite a lot."

"A lot? Like what?"

"...a player called silverfish, in real life, he is Lim Kong and he is probably hunting me down, I need to take care of him. The second thing I need to take care of... is THE DEVELOPERS OF BOG."

!!!

"What?"

I quickly put the bread inside a toaster and prepare some jam from the kitchen cabinet.

"You see...i have some grudges with them as they seem to be trying to get my elimination from the game because they removed a core skill I have and reset my level back down not to 0 but negative 10."

"N-Negative!?!" She exclaims.

"Yeah, so I have to quickly deal with them and confront them. If not...i really might be eliminated."

"I see...En has agreed that you can be excused." Says Reina.

What is she? My boss or something? Why do I need En's permission? Ugh, whatever. Those damn immature kids.

"Anyway, I will go now."

I hang up and quickly stuff the jammed bread into my mouth while quickly making coffee.

--------------

Phew...my shift is finally over.

I look at my phone and notices I have one unread message.

It says:

"I am here."

I smile when I see it.

"What? A text from your girlfriend or something?"

"Huh? Of course not! I'm not like you, a playgirl!" I retaliated.

"You damn brat, what did you say!"

She immediately attempts to pinch my cheek but I duck to the side immediately.

!!!!

"Since when was your reflex so good? Were you secretly training to avoid my attacks?!" She exclaims.

"Y-Yeah!!" I say. "I am!"

This childish woman in front of me is my senior in this convenience store, Aini. Although having such a mature and sexy body, her mind and pranks are similar to a 10-year-old! Or...does she just view me as a child as she only does all of this to me...

She is 1 year older and also my childhood friend but we are not so close.

Either way, I don't like being around this woman.

"Anyway, I got to go. I will pass on the shift to you now."

"Alright~ have fun with your girlfriend!" Says Aini

"I don't have one!"

*BAM!!*

...

...

"A girlfriend huh..." Mumbles Aini. "Should I be happy...or sad."

--------------------

A suspicious middle-aged man dressed in a black hoodie is leaning against the wall outside a train station.

I walk up to him and lean on the wall beside him.

"Igurashi Saikirei, Right?" I say.

"Yuro Karma?"

I nod.

Saikirei returns the nod and gestures me to follow him.

We reached his bad-looking apartment. And I noticed how poor he is. It is in such poor condition I think the monthly rent is around only 10000 Yen.

(The average annual salary of a Japanese citizen is around 4.14 million Yen[as of now])

Damn...mine was 50000 Yen a month, didn't know someone can be even poorer than me.

"I'm sorry, I have no fridge so I can't pour you any drinks. Well, I won't have any even if I do have a fridge..." Says Saikirei.

In this one cramped room, I can only see a single door and it leads to the bathroom. Other than that is a dirty kitchen, a mat with a very small coffee table on it, a very old fashioned television and a futon which smells weird.

"You are ridiculously poor." I accidentally blurted.

"Heh. Thanks for stating the obvious. Either way, what do you want? Suddenly contacting me and saying that you can provide money for me..."

Oh yeah, this morning, I contacted him...because...

"You were fired from the BOG department a few days ago, right? Before the BOG was even released, you were fired."

His expression remains emotionless as if he expected this.

"That's right...within just a few days, I lost everything, my future, my family, my spouse...everything..." Says Saikirei.

"You did dedicate everything to BOG after all. You were the lead designer and programmer of the development."

"So? What's the deal? I'm even willing to sign a devil contract with a top player like you to earn money now."

I smile when I hear that.

"Good, I want you to do something to my account...and to the game," I say.

!!!!

"I get about the first part but why the second part?"

"I am helping you take revenge for both you and me," I say. "I had a core skill before but they not only edited it to turn the effects but they also reset my level down to negative 10."

"What!" Exclaims Saikirei. "I didn't know they would snoop to this low...they must have a reason for trying to eliminate you...either a rich player bribed them or you managed to break the system..."

I wanted to reply but Saikirei stops me as if he knew what I was going to say.

...

"There would be an inspection tomorrow from the higher-ups...this is your chance to have your revenge."

...

"So? I don't want revenge, for now, I need money the most. Where's your end of the deal?" Asks Saikirei.

"I can't give you money BUT I do have information to EARN you money. Heck, you might even become a rich freelance reporter or something."

I take out a document from my bag and passes it to him. He receives it and his eyes widen.

"I see...this can surely expose Lim Kong's deeds in the past. With all this evidence, there's no way he can go scot-free this time."

Saikirei sighs and takes out his computer. It is a famous branded computer so I assume he bought this before he became so poor.

"But...they have a very complicated firewall...i need to break through it-"

"Oh, I can do that."

I take hold of the computer and starts typing right away. Within 13 minutes I managed to break into the system.

"Done."

I pass the computer back.

"What the?! If you are this good at hacking why not do it yourself??"

"I don't have the time to search through everything and find the game and profile database."

Besides, I also don't want to expose my hacking skills learnt in the future just yet.