???
The hatch closed.
The game pod went dark for a split second before the lights came on, and there was a floating line of countdown lighting up right above it.
The countdown slowly pulsed to zero.
The game pod came to life, there was the sound of a machine starting up, and Ichijō Mirai felt the pod shrinking, and then, as if he had been stabbed in the back of the neck with a needle, he blacked out.
A mechanical beep sounded: [Data being analyzed.]
[Detected that the character 'Ichijō Mirai' has been created in advance, and is being loaded directly into the game.]
[Login successful, nice to meet you, Player 001.]
In the darkness, a brilliant blue light shone brightly, and a line of Japanese characters appeared: [Second Life]
After a few seconds, the writing slowly dimmed again, and there was the sound effect of a typewriter's click-clack-clack-clack and one by one, the Japanese writing appeared:
[At the end of the twentieth century,
[Whether it's the bottom, the middle, or the top, they're all caught in a moment of life and death.]
[And you...]
There was only the last sentence in the darkness, the ellipsis at the end of the sentence emerging one dot at a time.
At the same time, countless small, dark, or light handwriting crossed like shooting stars: [Detective], [Doctor], [Police], [Yakuza], [Convenience Store Clerk], [Firefighter], [Lawyer]...
Densely packed occupations occupied every inch of darkness.
A line of fluorescent writing appeared, shattering these occupations and shaking out countless starlights: [How will it start what kind of life?]
The light words were fixed for a few seconds, the words all disappeared, the darkness came back, and a blinding light came back on.
[Welcome to 'Second Life', a free and open world, your second life.]
[The game begins.]
All of the light fades and darkness descends anew.
Ichijō Mirai realizes that he can no longer perceive the existence of the game pod, and can only feel as if he's floating in the water, constantly sinking, and can't help but go, "Wow, that's cool."
It's a neon, middle-of-the-road line, but it's hot enough.
A new light outlined and intertwined from the darkness, spreading to form a few lines.
[In the mesmerizing security of being made of water, you welcome a second life, a brand new one in which you are:]
[A. Both parents]
[B. Single-parent family]
[C. Fatherless and motherless]
Below the options is a line so faint that you can't even notice it without staring: [Hint: Different options symbolize different plot lines and attributes, so please choose carefully].
Ichijō Mirai looked at the options and without hesitation chose Fatherless and Motherless, which he was skilled at.
With the choice, new white writing emerges: [Your name is 'Ichijō Mirai', an orphan whose parents are dead].
[Just a short time ago, you learned of a clue related to the death of your parents, and...]
The writing dispersed, the darkness thickened steeply, the feeling of falling replaced the feeling of floating, and there was a harsh wind blowing.
A gunshot rang out abruptly, the sound of it deafeningly bringing the sound of shattering glass.
The wind brought the smell of blood.
The darkness faded, and Ichijō Mirai's sensory descent was precipitous, as the sky swirled and landed on solid ground.
The blackened vision gradually became clearer, and at the same time, the sensation of touching soft leather objects under the body and hands became clearer, the smell of the stuffy fishy smell and gunpowder smell at the end of the nose, and...
"Hiss," Ichijō Mirai groaned. He didn't have time to open his eyes to see where he was lying, so he raised his elbow pressed hard on his painful abdomen, and judged without much thinking, "Gunshot wound."
Intense pain brought on by a gunshot wound.
With a quick scan, he found himself in a car, lying on his back in the backseat of the car, in a black and white-trimmed sweatshirt, a black baseball cap on his head, and the black fabric of his abdomen swooshing with a large wet color.
In the center of the field of vision, an alert lit up, [Detected that you are in a constant state of blood loss, please take painkillers as instructed to regain blood].
Faint fluorescent arrows lit up, spreading from Ichijō Mirai's right hand, which was pressed against his abdomen, to his pants pocket, hinting at the location of the painkillers.
It was a newbie tutorial.
Given that the pain was similar to that of a real-life abdomen shot, Ichijō Mirai had reason to suspect that this was not just a newbie tutorial, but also the game's official bragging rights: we're having the same level of pain as in reality, so the realism is great, isn't it?
It was great and deserved a one-star bad review.
Resisting the urge to go up and over the wound to check for realism, he followed the tutorial guidelines and removed a red pill bottle from his pocket, swallowing the only red pill inside.
The pain disappeared.
In the lower right corner, a prompt flashed: [You have taken 'Low-level Painkillers' and will be in a painless state for eight hours, please keep an eye on your body to avoid passing away senselessly].
Ichijō Mirai scanned the wound, lifted his shirt to confirm that the painkillers could only stop the pain, not heal the wound, and after pressing briefly to confirm that there was no bullet residue in the shallow part of the wound, he simply ripped off the fabric on the seat of the car and bandaged it to stop the bleeding.
In the upper left corner, a fluorescent light is flashing.
Time: [Year 0, June 14, 03:02].
Location: [Eleventh District, Tokyo.]
Quest: [Meeting with a mysterious person.]
Mission details are: [I heard that the mysterious figure has clues about your parents' deaths].
What is blinking is a newly triggered check quest, and the details are: [After simply stopping the pain and bleeding, you perked up and decided to gather clues around you before the mysterious figure arrives, please analyze the surroundings according to the instructions.]
[Countdown: 3 minutes.]
The time of the game is 3:00 a.m. It's still late at night, and the car is parked in a dimly lit alley with no streetlights.
In the dimness, there are individual squares of fluorescent lights that illuminate, hinting at objects that can be analyzed.
Ichijō Mirai looked first at the nearest hint: the floor beneath the hand seat.
He reached down and felt a compact gun.
The square analysis cue shattered into a detailed description: [A police pistol with six rounds of ammunition, with residual heat, now belongs to you].
Police pistol, 'now belongs to you'?
Combined with the gunshot wound to the abdomen, Ichijō Mirai raises an eyebrow, "Okay, 'parentless' and 'enemy of the police', I'm pretty good at all of them."
He unloaded the clip to check for residual rounds and turned on the safety to avoid misfiring before locking on to a second analyzed pattern near the driver's seat.
The fluorescent light illuminates a black police ID card. As the eyes look at it, the analysis pattern breaks and condenses into the ID photo of an old police officer in the air. Under the photo, there are words:
[Police Department Inspector]
[Yamada Tarō]
This is a police filler named Yamada Tarō, who appears to be about fifty years old, chubby, and naive-looking.
The third analysis pattern is also a police ID, also belonging to Yamada Tarō, but it looks like a younger photo of him, and his position is in the police department.
The fourth analysis pattern is the bag on the side of the driver's seat, which contains white powdery items of unknown composition.
The fifth pattern is the suitcase on the passenger seat. The first layer of the suitcase is stuffed with beautifully packaged mooncakes. Under the mooncakes, there are layers of fragrant Fukuzawa Yukichi.
It was two million dollars in total.
There was also a slip of paper that read 'Happy cooperation, please take care'.
Ichijō Mirai reached out and examined the Fukuzawa Yukichis, and naturally and smoothly tucked each of these belongings away on various parts of his body.
He made a preliminary guess as to what kind of police officer this car belonged to: a gray guy who was demoted instead of being promoted in his old age, and who had illegal transactions with black officers.
The sixth analysis pattern is hidden in the car body. It can only be found by following the fluorescence scattered in the air. The explanation after it is broken is very unbelievable:
[A time bomb with inferior ingredients. ]
[Forty pounds of bad-quality bombs are installed in this car, even the air is filled with the smell of death, once it explodes, the car will instantly turn into fragments, disappearing into the world with all traces of it.]
[Countdown: one hour.]
Ichijō Mirai: "..."
No wonder the air smells like gunpowder... a forty-pound bomb would not only destroy this car, it would also destroy anyone close by.
All the analyzed patterns were analyzed as much as they could be, and a hint of mission completion surfaced in the lower right corner: [Clue collection complete, 'Low-level Painkillers' +1 piece, Yen +2 million].
The smell of gunpowder interrupts, and a prompt reappears: [After three minutes of the trial, you have experienced 'Second Life', which is as colorful and dangerous as the sea, and you have decided to:]
[A. Exit the game and pay the 10,000 yuan courier fee to return the game pod.]
[B. Continue playing.]
Ichijō Mirai: "?"
Do you have to pay to return something that's in your hands? That was bound to be impossible!
Even if he ran away with thirty billion dollars in arrears on his back, Ichijō Mirai would still run away with the game pod!
He decisively chose B.
The cue dispersed and the smell of gunpowder hit.
In the darkness outside the car, there were the crisp footsteps of leather shoes, coming from far away.
The door was open, and Ichijō Mirai could see a flickering firelight approaching unsteadily in the darkness outside the car.
It was the glow of a cigarette butt.
The fire stopped a few meters from the car.
Ichijō Mirai saw the owner of the cigarette: a man dressed in a long black trench coat with long silver hair, a typical NPC that only appears in typical games.
The silver-haired man's head was: [???]