Ch-4 To Amusement park

Capital of Velmora – Velvaris

"Hmph! Let me tell you—I'm not easy to get close to! I have millions of pursuers. Many are young masters from great families—or even princes! So just give up!"

Alex heard Aiyana's voice through his headphones.

"Jeez, is the real Aiyana Kisaragi Novaric also like this...?"

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Ten Minutes Ago

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

Alex gave a quiet "Wow" at the girl's reaction. The dubbing was really well done.

He realized that he had to speak himself. It was a new experience.

Alex was amazed by this game and wondered why there wasn't any news about it anywhere. While Aiyana talked, he started to get a better feel for the mechanics. The NPCs had a different kind of energy—unlike him. His power source seemed to be "CP," though it was currently 0.

After giving her a fake name—since the game never asked him to set a player ID—he asked for hers, just to push the plot forward.

To be honest, he had no idea what to say. After all, what do you expect from a loner?

Still, it wasn't so bad. He had at least talked to his guildmates in Game of Guild War.

"I am the Young Miss of the Novaric Syndicate and the daughter of the current head of the Japanese Imperial Family—Aiyana Kisaragi Novaric!"

Hearing that name, he felt like he'd seen or heard it somewhere before. Now that he looked at her closely, she did seem familiar.

Ignoring her rant, he opened a quick search.

What he saw explained everything.

"No wonder..."

The devs were insane. They had used real-life people—dignified people at that—as characters.

He was lucky to have found this game... but he'd better never tell anyone about it. It was basically like playing a game using a VPN and a fake identity.

As the scene dragged on, he became a little impatient. He wasn't into dating sims, and this felt a bit too close to one.

The character felt too real—like he was talking to an actual person.

He looked for a skip button... sadly, there wasn't one.

So, he asked directly:

"So… can we skip this?"

But Aiyana didn't seem to understand what he meant. Well, it was an AI after all.

Thinking hard about what else to say, he used his skill, only to get—

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Skill Analyze: Failed━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Apparently, she was even stronger than the Death Flame guys. So why was she running?

"I have a question."

He asked, only to find out that the place was stranger than expected—even her attacks didn't work properly.

Then she asked how he knew the enemies' names. That's when he explained the skill.

"Skill? You mean magical arts? But I don't sense any energy from you."

Her question confused him. Technically, with 0 CP, he shouldn't even be able to use any skill.

Maybe it was a bug?

He answered casually.

Then came the classic "Where are you from?"

He replied, and again, she impressed him. Her AI behavior was top-notch—too real, honestly.

When she insulted him in a weird way, he laughed.

"Stop laughing! It's creepy!"

If it had been a real girl, that might have hurt less. But being called creepy by a game character? That hit different.

Then came the real shocker:

"Anyway, you're lying about being from the U.S., right?"

AI is dangerous, he thought again.

Then she walked off. No quest. No prompt. Just vibes.

So he shamelessly followed her.

When asked why—

"For the plot."

Thankfully, the devs must've expected socially awkward players. He could follow her just fine.

It's just... she seemed to get the wrong idea about him.

And apparently, the game was too real. Even travel time wasn't skippable.

"So, you didn't tell me where you're from."

"Velmora."

"Really? You're not lying?" She stared into his eyes.

"Of course not."

"So where are we going?"

"Amusement park. It's just along the way."

"Huh?"

"You... why are you even getting involved if you don't know anything?!"

Aiyana stared at his character in disbelief. Her expressions were scarily lifelike.

"The amusement park was reported haunted last year. It became a famous ground for beginner exorcists."

"Because they couldn't exorcise the main one," she added.

"Hmm. Why don't stronger ones handle it?"

Alex knew it was beginner content, but he still asked to test for plot holes.

"As expected of an idiot. You think everyone's free like you? Just roaming around playing hero?"

"Let me tell you—exorcists don't have it easy. There are evil spirits and cults always stirring up trouble."

"The experts are too busy. They can't move freely."

"Besides, it's just a low-level spirit. Barely a mosquito for them. They only step in if it's really annoying."

"I see..."

So, no forced plot at least.

Alex opened his map and set the amusement park as his destination. It really was just outside Kyoto.

Once he set it, a timer popped up.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━01:02:59━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Looking at it, Alex felt like leaving a bad review.

Luckily, he noticed an Auto Journey Mode option. That meant he could log out and the character would reach the spot on its own.

Selecting it, he quit the game and thought if he has to travel to different Country just travelling will take a lot of time.

Streaching his hands he took off his headphones.

He heard some sound coming from downstairs.

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IN JAPAN

"So I have been meaing to ask you're so weak... and don't seem to know much about anything. Hmm... then how did you get caught up in all this? Normal people's memories get wiped if they get involved in supernatural stuff."

Aiyana asked with curiosity.

But Alex didn't reply.

Annoyed, she looked over at him.

"Hey, say someth—"

She paused, staring at his eyes.

Her own widened.

"N-No soul?! What happened?!"

To be continued...