Takemura Itsuki

“H-Haruto…” With my scared and desperate eyes, I looked at him and moved my trembling right arm at him.

“What happened?” Haruto asked me, trying to console me.

“I-I…” I stuttered, and then grabbed his right arm. I turned back and then walked down the corridor with my trembling hand holding his right arm. He was pushed forward as he walked behind me. I turned right inside the room after a quarter dozen steps and then pointed at the screen of the television with my right arm. “See this.” He stepped forward and bent his back down, trying to look in the front of the screen which was facing our right. He tilted his neck rightwards to get a sneak of it, and then he read the text on the screen ‘The mission starts in sixty seconds’.

‘Fifty nine’.

‘Fifty eight’.

“What’s this?” He turned his head back at me.

I smiled. “Just kidding again, man.” I walked by behind him and then sat in front of the game. “I guess it must be the epilogue of the game’s story. I want you to see this.”

“You had me scared for a second there, pal.”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to badly see this.”

“Why?”

I turned my head at him and then smirked. “Fan service, man.”

He took in breath, sighed, and facepalmed.

“HAHAHAHSSHHA!” I laughed as I turned back at the screen. I ten crossed my legs and sat on the ground again in front of the screen. I took up the controller in front of me, and Haruto walked towards me and crouched beside me.

“You know what, I must head back home now.”

“After this, you’re free to go,” I replied.

“Yeah, even I don’t wanna miss,” He replied as he looked at the screen and smiled.

“No human existing would like to miss shit like this, man. It’s rare.”

‘Three’.

‘Two’.

‘One’.

‘Look outside the window’.

“Huh?” We both said at once and turned our heads at each other. “What’s this?” Haruto asked.

I moved my chin up and shrugged. “Let’s see.” Haruto turned his head rightwards on the window on top of the bed from where the sunlight came in. He then stood up as he seriously observed the empty outside lane between this house and the other one on the next side of the street. I turned my eyeballs up at him for a second. “You don’t really need to look outside the window for damn’s sake, man. Lemme see what’s wro—”

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!” A feminine scream filled the whole room and I quickly rose up on my feet reflexively and looked out of the window. I frowned as I looked at the window outside. Haruto continued to stare outside the window with his expressionless eyes. We both looked at a woman’s figure running from our right to the left in the street. Then suddenly, from the right side of the window, we heard a thump like something just crashed into the ground. Another thump and then we looked at the thick brown hairy leg of some kind of ape. It then stepped his right foot forward, and then tilted his back backward, and looked at the sky. “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” The ape, which had those sharp long fangs inside his mouth and his brown skin below his dark brown hairy body, screamed on top of his lungs. I noticed some people coming out of their homes as they looked from where the voice came, and shouted at that big ape thing, running away from it in all directions in the street. It then tilted his back down frontwards and got hold of the back bumper of the car. He crunched the metal bumper from the places he held it and the paint started to come out and tiny bits of metals rained down on the ground. He then moved the car up his head and moved it down on the ground again. The depressions on the road were made and the car was shred into pieces of metals spread out on the ground. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” He shouted.

“W-What the heck is that?” I asked with my eyes wide open.

The white letter of ‘I’ showed up in front of us with light blue outline on it. “I will be your assistant throughout this tutorial, Takemura-kun.” We both turned at the letter in confusion, fright, and suspicion. “Leaving why this is happening right now, let me tell you the situation where you are in. That beast in front of you on the street is named ‘Yeti’. I expect you might have heard about its legend. Your task, for now, is simple. In this small village of Chizu, you must face these ten creatures and…” It then soon showed the hologram of the village map, which had the thick narrow lane of box-like structures representing houses at one edge of the mountain with a lot of depression and uneven land on the right of the narrow village. It got a red dot in the center of the whole village’s houses. “… and must get that sacred crystal.” I turned my head at the Yeti-like figure in front of us outside the house, with my eyes scared and confused. “And the game starts in…” The Yeti turned at me, and looked at the two of us with his bare thick fangs surrounded by the drooling saliva beneath his furious eyes. “Three. Two. One…”

“Let’s begin.”