Role-Playing Game

"Eheheheh, teacher! We just happened to be walking by, and we met this senior of ours!" Shanon tried to please the teacher, while shifting his attention on the senior who happened to be here. How sly.

"Why are you pinning this on me!"

"You were about to make us sacrifices, this is just a payback."

"Stop whispering, you two. I believe it is quite clear that this area is forbidden and dangerous. Punishment for the three of you." He summoned a leash and attached it to our wrists.

"Oww! This burns!"

"What is in this thing?" While the two exclaimed, I never felt a thing. What is going on?

"The punishment has never begun. This is what you get for breaking the rules here." He forcefully dragged us three into the classroom and tied us to the chair with the same leash, earning some pained moans from the two.

"My body, it's burning!"

"Help me!" I watched as they tried to wriggle their way out of their chair.

"Alright. I will start the very first torture that you will experience. Reminder, this will go on until the next class." T-torture? This is too much, yeah this must be. I know I did something wrong, but what the hell is this punishment?

I gulped hard, seeing him take out a whip casually. "See this whip? Make sure you survive this for three hours, because things will get worse as the time goes on."

"W-w-wait, wait a minute. You have something else to do, right? Yeah you must be." I felt my body quiver uncontrollably as I watch him wipe his whip with something.

"I have all the time I need. I can do this for years, even." I shut my mouth, trying to stop my body from shaking.

"Teacher, we just wanted to see what's outside. It's not our fault if our curiosity got the best of us." The senior tried to coax him, but he looks pretty unconvinced.

"Your curiosity? Does that even matter? What matters is that you broke the rules of this world. You didn't even wait for two weeks, you just barged out of the nursery."

"Don't talk as if we don't matter!" I glanced at Shanon who started crying. "People here expect us to just accept everything we've been through so far as if we weren't brought to a prison in another world after dying! Do you even know that this place has been too strict for no reason at all?" She kept crying, when the teacher suddenly spanked her torso with the whip, making it ooze black blood that stained her white clothes.

"You think I would show pity to you just by seeing you cry? You broke the rules, so you must be ready for punishment." I gulped as I think about what life has been to her so far. Even though she knew that killing was bad, she was still seven. She didn't get enough guidance.

"I've been merciful already. It's time for punishment." My body froze like solid ice. Is this really what I deserve? What kind of sin did I even commit in order to deserve such thing?

The whip hit me so hard that my body started bleeding. I tried to calm myself down, but my fear slowly grows as I watched those two scream harder. It somehow affects them more than me.

"Time for the second kind of torture." My whole body went numb as soon as he summoned some kind of liquid and poured it all over our bodies.

"Wait no, not this!" I feel lightheaded and my mind is becoming hazy, but I can still make up my surroundings. I'm the only one feeling this way. Shanon is screaming loudly, while the senior is trying to get rid of the liquid. What the hell is this liquid anyway? Is this perhaps the reason why I feel so lightheaded?

"Seems like the two of you didn't know. This liquid is a pain inducer. As soon as it makes contact with your bodies, it slowly seeps through your veins, making it so that you can feel the pain from every inch of your body. I will be watching as you try to repent for the sins that you made." No wonder, my brain has always blocked any signal of feeling pain. I feel every inch of my body becoming numb, as well as my consciousness slowly slipping away.

"Welcome home, son." Huh?

"Where am I?" I looked right up and saw my own father, sitting on the table.

"What do you mean? Your home, of course!" He looked at me like I was crazy.

"What do you mean home? I was just in the Demon-!" Oh. I must be dreaming.

"Demon what? You know, I'm supervising you this time. You're not doing any of your homework, nor play any video games, understood? Sigh, you're such a high-maintenance kid." I happily chuckled as I entered home.

Yes, I'm home. I must be.

"Oh, you're home? Eat first, we have Tteokbokki and Bingsu tonight. Your brother also came home from Paris yesterday, so he brought in a lot of local sweets from France. You should go call him for dinner as well, he's in his room." I ran to my older brother's room and opened the door.

"Hey, Kalla! Long time no see! Oh right, I bought you Cyber World III!" He happily greeted me.

"Really?" I hugged him, but it feels like he was never there. I sighed with the realization.

"You should sneak and play with me tonight." He held two controllers in his hand.

"Of course, but we should eat first. Mom and Dad are waiting at the table."

"What's the meal tonight?"

"It's Tteokbokki and Bingsu."

"Really? Then let's go right now!" He hurriedly dragged me to the dining table.

"Don't run, you two! The table will fall!"

"Sorry, sorry!" I sat down on the floor and grabbed my bowl.

"Huh? This feels real. What's going on?" I looked at my family members, looking at me confused.

"Son, are you okay?"

"Do you need any help with anything?" I ignored them and closed my eyes shut. Was everything just a dream?

"Of course, it is. This is just a dream." I laughed bitterly and ate my fill as my tears ran down my cheeks. I miss the Human World already.

In a blink of an eye, my dream vanished as if it was never there.

"Hey, wake up!" I felt someone violently shaking my body.

"Ugh, where am I?" I tried to wake up, but dozens of injuries stopped me from doing so.

"Don't even try! I just started patching you up!" I looked at the source of noise. It was none other than Shanon and this guy who tried to kill us.

"How long was I out?"

"You've been out for a day. I tried to tell the teacher to patch you up, but it looks like they don't even have any mercy for you. He even tried to kill you after I begged to heal you, saying that only by killing you could you regenerate." This dude is weird, why would he be trying to kill us first then save us after?

"He said that he only used his knowledge of first aid to patch you up so it looks like you won't be up soon." Shanon looks really disturbed as well.

"How about you two, weren't you tortured with me as well?" They looked at me with utmost pity.

"Look at you, having concern when you're in critical condition yourself." The guy looked away in guilt.

"Well, we have the same injuries as you, so we're stuck in here as well." I looked around the room right after what Shanon said.

"It's my room, and what do you mean by critical condition?" The guy looked back at me.

"We all have the same injuries physically, but that can't be the case mentally." He gazed down the floor, hesitant to tell me what's happening.

"Just tell me what's happening." I said in a stern voice.

"You see, he's actually some kind of psychologist back in the Human World."

"That's true, and I have detected a serious case of escapism." Escapism? I've heard about that before.

"He said that escaping from reality is common, but it's different when it starts to affect your daily life, that's called escapism."

"She's right. And in your case, it became part of your defense mechanism. I assume that you barely sleep at night to do something else, right?"

"Yeah."

"I knew it." The room went silent for a bit.

"Anyways, enough about this now. Don't we have a class to attend?"

"You're right, but-"

"Let's just find a way to heal ourselves. There must be a magic like that, right?" The feeling of officially knowing that you have a mental illness feels really odd. I knew there was something wrong with me, but it feels different coming from another person.

"Do you need any mental treatment whatsoever? I feel the need to repay you from saving me, as well as a way to repent for trying to use you as a bait." This feels quite offensive.

"Do you have any other motives?"

"Not like I have other plans than to survive." He looks like he's telling the truth this time.

"Then no, and why are you even here?"

"You know, I need a friend to survive in this hell, and you look just like the right person."

"After you tried to kill us? Yeah, I can't trust you."

"I know, but I'll try to earn your trust somehow."

"So you want to leech off of me?"

"I can be of help too, you know!" I sighed before eyeing him from head to toe.

"Fine. But as soon as you seem suspicious, I'll be leaving you right after."

"I'm fine with it."

And just like that, days passed with little change. We managed to learn healing magic by using our own demonic magic and healed ourselves from inside out after so many tries. Kaneki was away for the rest of the week for some reason, so it was a different teacher who supervised us with spellcasting training. He treated us all just the same as him, but we learned more about this realm.