“.. and ever since, humanity has conquered Gate after Gate in the hopes that doing so will one day give us an answer as to their sudden appearance.”

In front of her stood a nurse with hair the colour of a forest fire; various hues of red, orange and auburn. It was tightly bound away from her face, and Rina was left to blankly stare into her green eyes as she continued to explain the current situation to her. 

Apparently, all this had happened five years ago and she was currently the last known human to have awoken from the world-wide coma state enforced on random victims.

If she was being honest — none of it made any sense to her. Was she in some sort of manga? No, this sort of genre is what one typically sees in manhwa, right? 

Hey.

Did she transmigrate in her sleep or something? That couldn’t be right. This felt like her original body, and.. well, she couldn’t remember much but the view from the window feels familiar enough that she’s pretty sure she didn’t just up and die. 

Ok, well. That was. Kind of a lie? The bit where outside looked “familiar”, anyway. The buildings were still reminiscent of skyscrapers but there was just a slight.. alien feel to it. Which was probably from all the sharp angles and lack of obvious window panes. 

This.. were the materials from this “tower” the nurse had just told her about? Speaking of — wasn’t she supposed to get some magical girl powers?

[ Ne.. Us..R D..ete..cTeD! ]

Jesus— fuck!

Rina winced at the sudden pain ringing in her ears. There seemed to be a weirdly discordant voice echoing from within her mind. She knew this to be the case because its sudden emergence gave birth to a splitting headache not dissimilar to that of a migraine, and with her nauseatingly swimming vision, she saw that the nurse beside her remained unaffected.

Obviously, this was something that was only happening to her. 

“Ms. Yane? Hello?” The nurse—Olivia, read her name tag—slightly bent over her with a light frown on her face.

Rina jolts upon seeing her face so close.

“Y-yes!” She stuttered and hoped she didn’t embarrass herself too much. 

[ New User Detected! ]

This time the automated voice came out crystal clear. Following the announcement, a screen had appeared in her vision. 

Rina squinted in suspicion. What the hell was this? However before she could do anything a hand swiped across her eyes.

Oh, right. With cheeks flushing a bright red, Rina was rather embarrassingly reminded that she wasn’t exactly alone, and therefore was not the time to be investigating whatever the hell this floating screen was lest she appear to be some madman.

“Are you feeling alright?” The nurse asked her.

Huh..? Oh! 

With that, Leorina belatedly realised that the migraine-like pain had subsided. Instead it feels like something begins to swell—but then with a pop! her ears clear and suddenly everything comes back into full focus.

[ Sync now? ]

“No!” Rina instantly blurts out before she quickly corrects herself at the nurse’s weird look. “I mean—yes! I’m fine!” She stared distractedly as the screen seemed to blink out of existence and so didn’t actually catch whatever it was Olivia had said in reply—or if she even said anything at all.

《 COMMAND ACKNOWLEDGED. 》 

A new screen(?) quickly appears in a flash of bright green before it's replaced with a more familiar shade of surgical blue.

[ >May the User please set a later Install date from the following list:

• 30 minute snooze

• 2hrs

• 24hrs

• 3 days

• 1 month

-/+Note: It is not recommended to choose longer than a month, hence the option not being made available. ]

Her face soured at the little note. Preferably, she would’ve liked to choose ‘‘never’’. But, well, seeing as that wasn’t possible, then the closest she could get to that would be the ‘‘1 month’’, right? But for some reason when she raised her hand to select it, she’d paused. 

Wasn’t she just putting off the inevitable? Rather than procrastinating, shouldn’t she simply accept her circumstances, and get this, ah, ‘‘installation’’ over and done with?

Rina had never been one to operate on logic though. 

《 1 MONTH SELECTED. 》

“Oh! Are you accessing your Interface already?” The nurse had yet again interrupted. However in Rina’s eyes this was a good thing. Because from her words—didn’t this mean that this nurse held more information about all of… this?

“Sorry, my what..?” Rina tilted her head and frowned. 

The nurse blinked before she smiled and shuffled on her feet. “The Interface that all Users have access to,” she explained. “Unless you wish for it, no one but you can see its contents! Including all information about yourself.”

So.. this screen was normal? Well. Looks like she didn’t suddenly turn into a protagonist then.

Rina crookedly grinned at that stray thought. She was worried that being asleep for such a prolonged amount of time had caused her to develop some kind of… syndrome. 

Specifically—chuunibyou!

“Well!” The nurse tapped her pen on the clipboard, probably to gain her wandering attention. “Your vitals seem stable enough, and there’s no visible sign of injury!”

“Does that mean I can be discharged?” She asked a bit confusedly. Wait but did she even have anywhere to go? The apartment she was renting had probably been leased out to someone else already!

Olivia shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. You’ll need to be kept in for a few more days just to make sure that everything is functioning as it should be.”

That made sense. Because although she felt completely fine—which in itself was odd—a complication could easily sneak up on her when she wasn’t looking. After all, a five-year coma wasn’t anything to sniff about!

Olivia spends a few more minutes hovering around her just to be sure she’s currently ok to be left again on her lonesome. Once Rina had insisted that was the case, the slightly overbearing nurse had left. 

Well, actually.. she kind of needed to pee — but that could wait! 

After all, Rina should look more into this ‘‘Interface’’ thing, shouldn’t she?