Ch-5 Dangerous Mom, Cute klutz, and Ghost Parks

"So, did any girl confess to you?" Marina Grey asked as Alex walked into the kitchen.

"I'm hungry, Mom. Stop teasing me."

"Ohh! Where am I teasing? My son is just so cool, after all." She smiled proudly.

She had a beautiful face and looked like she was in her early twenties. But she was actually—

"Ara ara, you're thinking rude things again."

"Ahh… No!"

"Good."

'Am I watching too much anime? Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Still, Mom looked seriously scary just now, even though she was smiling like usual…'

"Oh right, a letter came for you." She pulled an envelope out of her pocket and handed it over.

Alex opened it and scanned through the contents.

"SoraTech High… I can't believe I actually got in." He sighed in relief.

"Hehe~ Well, you worked really hard for it."

"Had no choice, did I? You threatened to ban games and cut off my pocket money."

"Huh? Did I?" she replied with an innocent smile.

Alex stared at his mother for a moment, recalling his father's wise words:

"Alex, my boy… the more beautiful a girl is on the outside, the more dangerous she is on the inside."

Those words that he spoke that day will stuck with him fore-.

"So… what were you and Dad talking about yesterday?"

Alex looked at his mom—still smiling while chopping vegetables with a very sharp knife.

He swallowed hard.

He couldn't betray his father's trust.

Later, in his room…

Alex stared at the extra money he'd mysteriously received.

His conscience ached with guilt… but the temptation of manga and novels was too strong.

"Father was right… the more beautiful someone is, the more twisted they are inside."

"I pray to the God of Games to revive him… if he's dead after that nightmare trial of marriage."

He flopped onto his bed and pulled out his phone.

{Today, the Novaric Syndicate launched their new product}{Great news for gamers: FutureTech's most realistic VR headset will release in about a month!}

"Finally! I've been waiting so long!"

"The last one was decent, but after ten minutes my head started spinning. Hope they fixed that."

Fifty minutes of scrolling later, he resumed his new favorite game—Chaos.

[Resuming…]

The first thing Alex saw was Aiyana's face glaring at him.

"What are you doing?"

"WAHHH—!"

She blinked, confused. "What happened to you?"

Alex stared back, equally confused. These devs… they're seriously cracked. She feels too real.

"Nothing. Just logged out. Traveling got boring."

Even though the game was highly realistic—modeled after real places—he wasn't like those legendary gamers who can drive a car for 8 hours straight without moving an inch.

He admired those Gamer's dedication… and hated himself for not reaching even a fraction of it.

'Logged out?' Several question marks popped up above Aiyana's head.

'This guy is too weird. Just a moment ago, he looked like an undead. I need to take him to Momo-chan later. She might figure it out.'

"So… this is the park?" Alex looked at the eerie scene before him.

Suddenly, a blue screen appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Yūrei no Mori (Forest of Ghosts)- Enter━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Forest of Ghosts?"

"Huh? How do you know that name? I thought you didn't know anything about this stuff," Aiyana asked, suspicious.

"Aiyana, at first I thought you were a tsundere."

"Huh!? Do you want to—"

"But you're actually a klutz."

Her face turned bright red—either from embarrassment or rage.

"YOU—WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT!?"

"Didn't I tell you my skill like, an hour ago?"

Her eyes widened as her face flushed even redder.

"YOU! SHUT UP! I remember! I was just… just… having a conversation. Yes! Just a conversation, okay?!"

'Cute,' Alex thought.

He wasn't an otaku just in name—he loved 2D girls of all kinds. As much as he disliked 3D girls for petty things, that's how much he loved anime waifus.

"Okay."

"Hmph. Let's just go in already." Aiyana marched ahead.

The rusted gates of Yūrei no Mori stood half-open, groaning in the wind. The welcome sign's once-cheerful mascots now wore eerie, cracked grins.

Inside, cracked paths disappeared into overgrown weeds. In the distance, the Ferris wheel creaked—a whisper from a forgotten past.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Entered Yūrei no Mori━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"So, what kind of monsters are inside? Any idea?"

"They're not monsters. They're ghosts."

"Same thing. But there are types, right?"

"Hmph! Then listen carefully. I shall grant you a fraction of my holy wisdom!"

Aiyana stood proudly and began explaining:

"There are three types of ghosts here:

One: Wailing ShadesPale, translucent spirits with crying mouths and shadowed eyes.

Two: MirrorlingsCreepy children made of fractured reflections who mimic people's faces.

Three: Red VeilA woman in a torn red wedding kimono. Her face is hidden under a veil, and her hands are stained with blood."

Alex raised an eyebrow.

'Now that I think about it, they shouldn't be as strong as those Death Flame guys, right? Aiyana should be able to solo this place easily. If I form a party with her, then—'

'Wait. Can I even form a party in this game?'

While deep in thought…

Screams suddenly echoed all around them.

To be continued…