Chapter 3 :- Truck-kun Has done it again!!!
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Random Apartment on Earth
Narrator's POV
We find ourselves deep within one of Earth's densest concrete jungles—"XXXX"—home to a most peculiar subspecies of human: the weeb.
Observe carefully.
Within the safety of its natural habitat, free from social obligations and external pressures, the creature sheds all restraint...lounging in minimal attire, wholly entranced by the glowing screen of its handheld device.
Its brow tightens—subtle creases forming.
A clear indication of intense cognitive activity.
What could possibly trouble this carefree creature…..
"What anime should I watch today?"
…
The narrator pauses—momentarily stunned.
Such promise. Such potential. Wasted.
Still, we press on.
Let us take a clo—
…grrrrlll…
Hm?.
The narrator surveys the environment, searching for the origin… yet finds nothing.
Perhaps… an auditory hallucination.
Yes. That must be—
GROOOOWWLLL.
Ah!
There can be no mistake now.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have found the source of the sound, it originates from the subject itself—specifically, its stomach.
A clear indicator to its need for sustenance.
At last, an opportunity to observe the creature's feeding behavior.
…
Five minutes pass.
The subject does not move.
Its body pleads for nourishment—yet it refuses to abandon its hunt.
Truly remarkable!.
Ten minutes pass.
Its hunger intensifies… yet still, it persists.
Such focus.
Such discipline.
Such unwavering dedication...to selecting an anime.
Truly, a fascinating creature.
—
Oh?
At last—it has made its choice.
Observe closely as it captures its prey:-
Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games Is Way Too Tough for Mobs.
…
An unusually long title.
And, one might argue… a concerning one.
Nevertheless, the hunt is complete.
As the subject prepares to engage with episode one, we shall momentarily withdraw… and return after a brief message from our sponsors.
"This segment is brought to you by CycoPass, author of the fan-fic Trapped in a Dating Sim: Eclipse—
which, by a remarkable coincidence, we currently find ourselves within…
…specifically, Chapter 3.
Truck-kun… has done it again, My name is Narrator and thank you for reading this book, see you later Ladies and Gentlemen.".
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Having finished watching an episode of his new anime XXXXX finally stood up having lost to his hunger.
After a while of searching his apartment and finding nothing he decided to go to the store, so put some clothes on and headed out.
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Having just stepped out the winter breeze struck XXXXX with unforgiving cruelty, so he pulled his jacket closer.
Ring ring ring
XXXXX Took out his phone, seeing the caller ID 'Jonathan' he didn't hesitate to answer.
"Sup dude?" XXXX spoke first.
"I'm good man, but…umm how you doing?" Jonathan asked hesitation present in his voice.
"Well it's been rough man but trying to stick to your advice and just chill".
"I'm glad you're okay, but I still can't get over how the school threw you under the bus like that" Jonathan complained.
"What could they do? He is the son of their biggest donor " XXXX responded in a melancholic tone.
"But you have the highest IQ on their whole student roster, plus since you got there you've held the top spot consistently" Jonathan, not ready to stop, just kept on complaining on XXXXX's behalf.
"So how are you going to finish the semester" Jonathan asked.
"I don't know, lately I've been thinking of giving up on it"
"You can't, you're just one exam away from the finish line" Jonathan shouted.
"What can I do? They took my scholarship! I can't afford to pay the tuition".
"So what about that PhD, last I heard the professors had pushed it up the pipeline?"
"I'm giving that up too".
"I'm sorry man, I wish there was more I could do".
"Stop stressing dude, you're here in my time of need that's all I need right now".
"You're 24, you'll find something else to do".
"I sure hope so."
"So my car's been a bit shoddy lately, you think I can stop by the shop later?" Jonathan asked changing the subject.
XXXXX remembered the time last week when he told Jonathan that business had been slow at his late father's auto-shop which he now ran.
"You don't have to do that man, I'll manage" XXXXX protested.
"What are you talking about, I'm just a dude who's having car trouble and is asking his buddy if he can see Wats up for a substantial fee" Jonathan corrected.
Giving up XXXXX just said "Thanks man".
Jonathan said "Anytime Brother". He then added "so what are you doing".
"I just found this anime, Trapped in a Dating Sim. I just finished watching episode 1 and now I'm on my way to the store for some grub before I binge the rest".
"Oh I know that one it's low-key fire my guy" Jonathan glazed.
At that moment when XXXXX was halfway across a road one of the numerous pedestrians bombed into him and he dropped his phone.
Turning to the person who bumped into him he just shouted "Dude!".
"Sorry mate I'm late for an interview!" The person who bumped into him shouted back as he kept running towards his destination wherever that maybe.
Leaning down he picked up his phone which was now covered in cracks, "That is not going to be cheap to fix" XXXXX commented.
"Hey! XXXXX you're still there, Hey!" Jonathan's voice came from the busted up phone.
Putting it up to his ear he was about to respond when the headlight of a truck filled his field of vision.
"MotherF…." Was all he could say before his lights turned off.
SKREEE—HONK! CRASH!
Ahhhhh! Someone call 911.
As for the phone "Hello XXXXX, what was that, hey you there, come on man this ain't funny, say something man, XXXXX.
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In a Parallel Earth
YYYYY's POV
Ideas like good and evil are relative and differ based on point of view.
Ordinarily, such philosophical pretension never crossed my mind, but I was beyond exhausted. Mentally, I was wiped. Emotionally, let's just say that my face had been devoid of all expression for hours.
What I really wanted to do was flop down on my bed and spend the rest of my meager time on Earth immersed in my favorite manga. Or maybe an anime.
Playing a game wouldn't have been bad either, so long as it was one made for a male audience, i.e., me.
Unfortunately, I—a full-time employee and functioning member of Japanese society—was playing an otome game instead, my eyes dead-fish glazed. These dating sims were made principally for women. They featured female main characters with a bevy of male love interests to pursue. The opposite of these were galge—dating sim games targeted at men.
That's right. A man like me had no business spending his precious afternoon off on a game like this. Maybe if I genuinely liked otome games it would be a different story, but I exclusively preferred galge.
"Uggghhh, why do I have to spend my whole freaking day trying to rack up affection points with a bunch of dudes?"
The blushing man on-screen did absolutely nothing for me.
Of course, most of the characters in this game were some kind of gorgeous. A popular artist had done the character designs and sprites, and the cast was voiced by famous actors. If this were a galge and these were all female characters, I would have been crying with joy. But what was I supposed to do with this guy's husky voice?!
I wasn't playing this game for pleasure, so I was using a guide on my phone to clear it quickly. My eyes flitted between the game and the walkthrough as I made my selections. A cheery little sound echoed, indicating I had successfully raised my affection points with the idiot love interest I was currently pursuing. The character's 3D model struck a pose, his cheeks flushed as he pushed his hair back.
"You're not like all the other women," he said. "Tell me your name."
This man was some kind of prince, and he was oh-so-popular at the academy. The protagonist had encountered him by chance, and since she didn't know his true identity (gasp), she was treating him just like a normal person (gasp!) in this scene.
"What a load of bull," I couldn't help grousing. I'd already completed my first playthrough and this encounter was old news to me. "She's lying. We've been through this before. She totally knows who the prince is. I'm telling you, this protag is calculating. Conniving, even."
But no matter how I warned him, the prince was completely oblivious to her scheming.
"Acting all happy, blushing like a fool," I grumbled at my screen. "This guy really has no taste."
A Few Moments Later.
"I'm so sick of this! The prince keeps dying!" A thought occurred to me.
"Is that what the developers want? Are they trying to coerce me into microtransactions, is that it? You want my money that bad?!"
For an offline game, this one had a wide selection of extra paid content.
Players could purchase special items to make the battles easier to get through. I wasn't sure if it was to placate complaints that the game was impossible to beat or if the developers were just being calculating.
I didn't want to spend more money than I already had for my stupid sister, but there was no denying that the strategy elements were sucking up all my time.
Everything else was the same as any galge. As long as I followed the guide and got all the right answers, I'd have no problems clearing it.
I took a break from playing to look at the paid content—which was plentiful. Most of the stuff sold for about a hundred yen a piece, but the battle items, such as the airships and mobile suits, were more like three to five hundred yen, some even as high as eight hundred.
"These extra fees are precisely what killed this company's reputation," I noted. It had been a heavily anticipated release, but players soon criticized the game for being unbeatable without paid items. The outrage prompted the company to lower prices in their online store within a month of its release. I still thought the items were expensive, though.
As I browsed, I noticed one of the items was a men's swimsuit.
Exasperating. "No thanks, I don't wanna see a dude in a Speedo."
Granted, if this were a galge, I'd probably buy every single item just to see all the girls in their swimwear.
"Guess there's not much difference between men and women, huh?" I chuckled weakly, feeling drained.
It was personally way uncomfortable to think about female players enjoying guys waiting on them half-naked. But really, games and anime had a lot of situations like that. If it was a male character surrounded by a bunch of women, it was called a harem; if it was a female character surrounded by a bunch of men, it was a reverse harem.
"Wonder if girls feel the same way about harems as I do about reverse harems?" The fact that I was even giving such a thought serious consideration was proof I was utterly beat.
"Eh, not like it matters." I needed to focus on finishing up this game.
"Okay, so what do I need to buy to beat this thing?"
All the paid content items were powerful. There were exclusive weapons for the male characters and equipment for the protagonist. Personally, I wanted something that would serve me well in battle; cosmetics could suck it. As long as I could beat the game, I didn't give a crap how it looked.
"Oh, how about this?"
My eyes landed on the most expensive item of the bunch: a battleship. It didn't require resupplying and it ignored all of those annoying RNG battle elements. Most importantly, it was a super strong unit.
"Although it looks more like a spaceship than an airship," I mused.
Its metallic exterior had a completely different aesthetic than the other airships in the game. It was enormously powerful, living up to its thousand-yen price tag. I gave the description a brief glimpse and saw it was an ancient blah blah blah… TL;DR: It was a prodigiously powerful spaceship.
"Wait, so it really is a spaceship? That has to be a typo, right?"
Had someone messed up when they wrote the item description? Frankly, it didn't matter as long as I was able to clear the game. At this point, I'd buy whatever just to get through.
Disgusted with the game and still hungry, I stood, reaching for my wallet. The whole business with my little sister could be put on hold until I had a chance to eat. At any rate, I didn't need to worry about that godawful otome game anymore.
I stepped out the front door feeling strangely light, almost as if I were floating. It was the same kind of happiness you might get leaving work after a hard day.
"I think I'll splurge a little tonight. Really treat myself."
I made my way along an oddly empty road, streetlights flickering eerily, then started down a set of stairs. That was when the dizziness hit.
"Aw, crap." I grabbed for a railing. "This isn't good."
I fell.
It was like I was a marionette, and all my strings had been cut. My strength was gone. I watched helplessly as the ground came closer, anticipating the pain of hurtling down the stairs…and all I could think of was how I'd lost my precious weekend to my sister, and now I was probably going to die.
God, I was pissed.
Right then, my vision shifted. Was my life flashing before me? But no… I'd never seen anything like this before.
A land floating over ocean. Airships soaring above me. Blue skies and white clouds. My own hand reaching out toward the sun.
"It'd be too…pathetic…to die like…this…"
And then my consciousness faded.
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I am writing my A Levels this year so I'm already stumped and if you add the time I use writing I think I'm entitled to POWER STONES sooooooo give them to me
P.S
Let it be known that the Story is undergoing a Rewrite, hence if you read the unedited chapters its on you, they are no longer part of the story.