After resting and recuperating my HP and stamina after eating... I again turned to the unexplored regions of the map... I now have 56% of the whole floor mapped. There was also a perk in having a mapped map. You can see other players that roam that certain area. You can use this to successfully establishing an ambush for the other players... Players that have mapped the whole region of the current stage will be marked yellow while those who are not are marked green, and enemies are marked red.

I can see new players entering from the entrance just now... It must be the troublesome hounds once again engaging battle with players... The first two were easily defeated and the third one withdrew... It then came back almost immediately with 6 more... It is the hounds... That'll be endless if you don't kill the last one.

"Ah!"

One of the 8 players who entered was gone from my map... Did he die? Or did he go to an unmapped region of my map... This time all of the enemies were defeated and it seemed they were still vigilant and didn't move there for a while.

"That's just sad... There were 8 of you and one of you got killed... No teamwork at all..."

Well, I didn't see how they fight so I don't really know if they didn't have teamwork or not.

"That's enough rest... How many hours have I been here already?"

I checked my playtime recorded and it's already been 18 hours 6 hours IRL. Wow! It's just been six hours! Should I log out for a moment?

|Logging out in a dungeon is not safe... You're body might get attacked while you're out? Will you continue?|

So my body's vulnerable if I logged out, huh?

I went back to the locked door and sat next to it. Monsters seemed to keep out of this area so it must be a safe place... I once again tapped the log out button and was prompted once again. I tapped the yes button and my vision blurred and soon blacked out.

×××

I am now again in my room... I looked up and saw the blue ceiling and walls that had anime posters posted up everywhere. It was already 7 in the evening. The light that shined earlier could no longer be seen. The blank darkness of the night sky seemed to envelop the world. I stretched my arms upward and wriggled continuously... My body felt tired lying all day... I put the VR machine in my desktop and went out of my room... I could hear Mira and sis' k-pop songs on the other end of their door.

"How can they listen to that nonstop? They don't even understand a single word."

I muttered lightly and went downstairs. As I closed in on the fridge a sticky note was patched up in the fridge door with writings saying "Mom and Dad won't be home till the day after tomorrow! We'll be playing K-pop songs all night! So don't disturb us!"

"What in the heck?"

There was another writing at the back... "Cook something for yourself we already ate outside the money is in the Fridge's side pocket... At the left side"

"How can you leave me out?"

That darn woman... Well, it's not like she can wake me up when I was playing... I reached for the left pocket of the fridge and got a 200 peso money.

"Convenience store it is..."

I took my jacket and put on my slippers... It's December... and I was lucky that my participation for the game was scheduled in our semester break... I guess they scheduled it with a majority of students in mind.

"Welcome!"

I opened the store door and headed to the cup noodle section and took one cup noodles then went to the drinks section and took a can of soft drinks. I then went ahead to pay for my items.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"That'll be 60 pesos, sir!"

I handed the 200 peso bill and got my change. I heard the cashier say "thank you come again" but ignored it. I went back to the house and ate the food I just bought...

×××

*Slurp* *Slurp* *Slurp*

The hot thin strips of the cup noodles warmed my mouth... I had eaten the chili one so I'm actually breathing in a hurried manner... "Woo! It's hot! I love this..."I said while slurping the last of it and drinking the seasoned water.

"Puuwah!"

I opened the can soft drink and drank it after doing so.

*Glug* *Glug* *Glug*

The warm and cold sensation merged together inside my stomach...

"Buuuuuuuuurp!"

With a dignified expression I held my hand up high as if I won in something. "How childish!" I heard at the back of my head there stood Sis and Mira... Sis had an angry expression while Mira had an unreadable one... I don't know if she's disgusted by my action or what...

"I can do what I want! I won't be doing this kind of behavior if I knew you were there! It's not like I did it on purpose for you to hear it."

I stood and cleaned up my trash. Mira's gaze was locked in to me all the time... It's been like this since June... I'm getting creeped out... Even if you have a nice face if you're like that any boy will be creeped out.

After I washed the spoon I used and threw the trash away... As I was going up the stairs sis talked and said "I'm sorry you had to see that! That guy is extremely childish at times so bear with him okay?" I didn't wait for Mira's reply and headed towards my room and locked it. I sat beside the locked door and cast my head down...

"I'm a failure..."

These past semesters I've been playing games almost non-stop. Problems that piled up. Piled up more and more... Faced with this kind of problems I wanted to run away. The games were my salvation. There, no problems existed... and so I started to get addicted... Going to school became a tedious cycle and at times I didn't even go to school anymore... Heading straight to a computer centre that was what became of my daily activities. Act like there were some tiring work at school, sleep and lie accordingly... I became good at lying... I wasn't caught until one day. Mira consulted Sis... She said that I was not coming to school...

"It's because of her..."

That's right... Everything would have went smoothly... If it weren't for her meddling. If I were to fail this year... I will no longer be able to go to school anymore... Sis felt indebted to Mira for looking out for me...

But the fact that I was the one who failed can never be changed... I couldn't blame her for that... I know she didn't have any ill will for what she did... She only wanted to rescue me from my addiction or something close to that... Sis wasn't always like that she always took my side on things... But since I've made a grave mistake this time she could not take my side. I know this for I was a smart person... If I were not I would've interpreted it wrongly making them villains in my interpretation. Hating them so harshly.

I decided to leave things to fix themselves in time... I wanna apologize to sis.., I yelled at her earlier...

No, I might make things worse than it already was. I'll do that later... For now let's play to let my mind calm down... I have to let loose some stress that started accumulating once again.

I once again donned the eyeglass VR machine and assumed my sleeping posture then once again entered the game