If I were to cut to the chase there would be no spice to this.
My name is Tomisawa Katsunosuke, although everyone just calls me Issei, which is for the better, given how my full name is almost comically long.
I am a senior highschooler, or well, given my situation, I used to be, before today.
It all began when I was in the metro station, tightly holding onto the bar as every seat was taken.
Some idiot in front of me, he seemed right around my age, refused to give his seat to an elder woman, if the train were to collapse, he'd be the last person I'd save.
Not like I could save anyone, knowing me, I would die on the spot.
My train ride was destined to Aoyama Gakuin Senior High School. It was a nice school that I somehow managed to snag a spot in despite being from the Kanagawa prefecture.
The Tokyo landscape gave me the energy I needed to survive the school day, I've always been a fan of metropolitan areas, the sky-high buildings, all the people walking by, chaotic yet perfectly organized.
I checked my phone.
7:00AM already. This train better hurry, the school gate closes at 7:15. And my first class is with Ms. Hana.
For someone named after something so beautiful as a flower her personality was the opposite of said adjective. She was more like an Atropa Belladona, rather than something like a rose or a sunflower.
The angriest old woman I'd seen in my life. It seemed as if her face was about to melt off anytime soon with how wrinkly it was, combined with her short temper, and the fact she doesn't know even how to teach her class.
Her subject is math, which is my personal favorite subject, but the way she manages to drag-on even the simplest of operations makes me want to drop from the tallest window in the building.
I glanced back down at my phone. The screen had gone black.
"Hm?" I muttered out loud without thinking, I got embarrassed since I didn't want to break the silence in the train, but it was odd, I wasn't lost in my mind for that long for the phone to go back to sleep mode, had I?
I pressed the power button again, but nothing.
Perhaps it just broke...? Oh, the day would be such a pain if that had happened.
My dad will be furious if I don't reply to his calls.
Then the train came to a full stop.
The inertia made me trip, thankfully my grip on the bar above me was strong enough that stabilizing myself was only a minor effort.
Right when I was on a rush, the train decided to malfunction.
It took a moment for the conductor to walk to our car.
He seemed worried, I could see sweat dripping down from his forehead.
"Please, forgive us, but we're currently experiencing technical issues. The whole subway system has unexpectedly shut down in the entire country."
The entire country? Well that was something interesting to kick-start my day with.
I could hear some gasps and faint whispers of conversation bouncing off the walls.
I looked at the window, we were pretty high up for any sort of evacuation route. In any case, we were currently stuck.
Then, it appeared.
< Main Event #1 - Subway antics >
Difficulty: F
Objective: Find an escape out of the subway.
Time Limit: 30 minutes
Reward: Starter Pack x1
Penalty for Failure: Death by Drowning
It seems the message windows popped up above everyone's heads. I blinked in disbelief, reaching my hand out to swat away the message, but it simply went through it, like if it was a sort of hologram only visible in the individual's vision.
"D-Death by drowning?"
The young man next to me muttered out, his voice shaky with fear.
We were above water indeed, about 15 meters above it. Meaning something would make the train collapse, and whoever wasn't successful in the event would fall into the water, and die.
The car turned into chaos in a split second. People were calling the police, useless, phone service was down completely. Others struggled to escape the cars, but the doors wouldn't budge.
I waited for the ruckus to settle down, which took a while. When people say they weren't getting any outside help they gave up.
My mind was oddly calm, as if this was something I had been expecting. No, I had. Every time I'm always imagining 'what if' scenarios of the apocalypse.
Should I follow them?
They're 'what if's after all, there's no guarantee they'll work, however, a video-game-esque pop-up appeared in my view just a couple minutes ago, so now was not the time to be questioning logic and reality.
First, I should gather a team that could help me in completing the event.
"I-I'm so scared, I don't know what I'll do, my parents, I need them, I need to know if they're safe."
The young man next to me was talking to himself, biting on his nails.
"If you complete the mission you'll know if your parents are safe."
I said, reaching out for his hand. He looked like the coward type, but young blood was better than the old men and women that were surrounding us.
He looked up at me as if I was some sort of savior, he wiped his tears down and reached out my hand, standing up.
< Do you wish to form a team? >
A prompt appeared in-between both of us.
"Yes."
We both stated.
< An alliance has been formed between you two. >
It was still pretty weird to see videogame pop-ups in my vision, but I could get used to them.
We found two other people that could help us form our perfect 4 member team. A young woman, about our age too and an older man, probably a university student.
< Alliance member limit reached. >
Perfect. 4 people is the max amount an alliance can hold, pretty standard for something like an RPG like Final Fantasy or Persona.
We'd seen the conductor walk through the cart door, so we just needed to do that ourselves. If we were to investigate every cart individually we could find some way to escape.
I reached out for the cart door. Damn this thing is hard to push, no wonder the conductor took so long. My alliance saw my struggle and helped me push the door open. It was one of those sliding doors so we all pushed from the same side towards the same direction.
And, it came open with a little bit of struggle.
We were now in the next cart.
"This one's... completely empty?"
"What?"
"How odd..."
Before us was indeed, a completely empty cart, not even a trace of humans was left, at least some blood or broken stuff would've been helpful, but no. Just emptiness.
And it wasn't like this train took off during the calmer hours of the day to have an empty cart like this. I literally saw people enter this cart when I first entered the train.
"Maybe they opened the cart door and moved on?"
"But, all of them?"
"Perhaps they didn't have old people in their cart..."
We rushed over to the next door and pushed it open just like we did the first time.
Empty.
Once more another empty cart.
"H-Huh?"
I looked out of the window, this didn't seem to be one of those endless loop situations, given how the buildings in the distance had moved a couple centimeters with us.
"I-I'm getting the creeps..."
"Found something over here!"
The young woman shouted from across the cart, when had she spread out from us? She was fast as hell.
"It's some sort of... rock?"
The rock in her hand was shining with a mysterious green aura around it. If only I could know something about it...
< Hello. My name is Echoes. >
An androgynous voice spoke out. It seemed to come from inside my head, our our head? It was hard to know.
Echoes...?
< I will be your personal assistant, master Katsunosuke. >
You can just call me Issei.
< Great, then I will be your personal assistant, Issei. >
"Did y'all get a voice in your heads too?"
"Yes."
We all replied in unison.
Echoes, could you tell me what's that rock.
< With pleasure. That 'rock' you're referring to is known as a Monster core. >
Monsters...? Almost everything around me fell silent. This was really the apocalypse, if they were the aggressive type, then this is the end for humanity.
< Monster cores are dropped by grade C to A monsters upon being defeated. >
So someone has already defeated the monster here... And these ranks how do they work?
< The rank system is global. Events, monsters and gear can be classified with it. The ranks are F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS and- >
Echoes was cut off the moment they tried to explain whatever came after SSS.
So this event was the easiest possible one, then why is there a C class monster here. No, it's a range from C to B to A, so it could be even worse than that.
More importantly, I needed to find the madman that had managed to eliminate that monster. I could kick out someone from my alliance to make space for that mysterious person. A great asset.
Does this make me a backstabber? No, it's just survival, right?