She was surprised that he had the strength to talk, and even more surprised that he wanted to introduce her to someone. “Who is it, dad?” she asked.
Taro patted Hayate, the man with horns and wings next to him on the back. “This is...”
Taro looked at Hayate, silently asking for permission if he should give his name away. Hayate nodded so taro continued.
“This is Hayate. He...” taro paused, not sure how to explain what Hayate was exactly. “He...he is..my old friend..don’t worry he’s cosplaying right now.”
Sakura looked at Hayate, more than a bit shocked at the sight of a man with horns and wings. But the mention of “cosplaying” made her relax a bit, even if he looked so realistic. She had heard of that word, it meant to dress up as a fictional character.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Sakura said, trying to sound polite and composed. She couldn’t help but wonder why her father’s “friend” was cosplaying as a horned demon, but she didn’t want to be rude.
Hayate looked at Sakura and thought for a moment. He could tell her the truth but did he really want to tell her that he was actually in a demon’s body? Probably not, it would cause quite a commotion if he did. “I’m not cosplaying as any particular character,” he said. “I just like dressing like this.”
Sakura looked at him, a bit surprised at his response. She had expected him to be specific about who he was dressing as, but the fact that he had no specific character in mind was interesting. “I see..” she said. She couldn’t deny that Hayate looked very convincing in his “costume”. He had a young face, which made his horn’s and wings look out of place, but somehow they didn’t look bad at all. He looked like a fallen angel, and his robes looked very expensive.
Sakura couldn’t help but think that he must be wealthy if he could afford such nice clothes. She glanced over at her father and saw the jug of orange juice on the carpet next to them. It was the most pure, natural orange juice she had ever seen, and it must have cost a small fortune and the same could be said for the carpet.
She then turned to her dad, “Dad, why are you sitting here? You should be on your bed, and why did you remove the pipes?” she asked, referring to the tubes and IVs that were connected to her father’s body.
“I’m fine, Sakura,” he said, trying to reassure his daughter. “I feel better than I have in years. And as for the medical equipment, it’s unnecessary now. I don’t need it anymore.”
“What do you mean, you don’t need it anymore? You’ve been on life support for years, how can you just suddenly be fine without it?”
Her father sighed, closing his eyes for a moment before speaking. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “But I feel better now, stronger. I feel like a new person. And I don’t need those tubes and machines clinging to me anymore, those make me sick.”
“But, but...” Sakura was confused and worried. She had seen her father in his worst condition, she had seen him on the verge of death. How could he suddenly be feeling better, without any medical equipment? It didn’t make any sense.
“Please, trust me.” Her father said, his voice earnest. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m telling you the truth. I feel better, stronger. And I don’t need those machines to keep me alive anymore. Please, just believe me.”
Sakura looked at her father, her eyes searching his face for any sign of deception. But he looked so earnest and sincere, and she couldn’t see any signs that he was lying. She let out a deep breath, knowing that she had to trust him. “Okay but you still have to take your daily meds,” she said softly.
Her father nodded, a small smile on his lips. “Of course, I’ll still take my daily meds. I’m not exactly young again, after all.”
Sakura felt a wave of relief wash over her. She was glad that her father was feeling better, but she was still a bit puzzled as to what had caused it. But as long as he was okay, and he was taking his meds, she was going to trust him.
Sakura seemed somewhat relieved, at least he was still taking his meds. She turned to hayate, “excuse me..is that juice..and this carpet.. your’s?”
Hayate was slightly startled as Sakura suddenly turned to him, but he quickly composed himself and nodded. “Yes, that’s my carpet,” he said, gesturing at the object that was underneath them. “And the orange juice too, I made it fresh, just a while ago. Would you like some?”
Sakura’s eyes widened at his words. Freshly made orange juice? She couldn’t believe it. Fresh fruits and vegetables were so rare these days, not to mention something as expensive as organic orange juice. “Yes...please..”
Hayate smiled and reached for the jug of orange juice. He poured some into one of the glasses on the carpet and handed it to Sakura. “There you go.”
Sakura took the glass gratefully and took a small sip, her eyes widening with surprise. It was delicious, the best orange juice she had ever tasted. She took another sip, savouring the taste.
Hayate looked at Sakura and spoke politely, “Excuse me, but we need some privacy to discuss some things. Would you mind if you could go outside for a while?”
Sakura looked at him, slightly confused, but she nodded respectfully. “Okay..” she said, standing up. She looked at her father, who gave her the look. She knew that look..it was her father’s “it’ll be fine” look. She sighed softly, not really liking the idea of leaving her father alone with a stranger, but it wasn’t as if she could refuse.
She made her way to the door and opened it, looking back at her father and hayate for a moment before stepping out and closing the door behind her. Hayate waited for the door to close and then he casted [sensory deprivation], separating the room from the outside world and any possible spying. He wanted to be absolutely certain that their conversation would remain private.
“Taro,” he said, his voice serious. “I have some questions regarding hollow, and I need you to answer them truthfully. No lies, no half-truths. I need the full truth.”
He leaned forward, his eyes locked onto taro’s. He had a serious look on his face and he made sure that his voice was firm, not that he would hurt taro of course. “Tell me taro..what happened to my account after I went missing?”
Taro looked back at Hayate, his expression serious. “Your account...” he said softly, “it was deleted.”
He couldn’t believe his ears. His account had been deleted? How could that be? When he got transported to the future his pc was shut-down so nothing of sorts should have happened to it, unless somebody came in his room and manually deleted it. That shouldn’t have been possible. Then how the fuck did it happen?
“Are you sure about this?”
Taro nodded, his expression serious. “I’m sure. After you went missing we all didn’t play hollow for a while, i was the first one to start playing again and when I saw my friends list you weren’t there. I looked up your player tag and it showed that you account had been deleted.”
“What about hollow, what happened to it?”
“It shut down in 2035. 1st jan, 2035. They said it was losing too much money. A lot of the players were angry, they started a petition but it was too late. The servers were already shut down.”
Hayate nodded at the information he received. It definitely was interesting. He wondered, why would his account be deleted after he had transported himself to the future. But he could understand why hollow had shut down. Games were expensive to run, and if they weren’t making enough money then it made sense for them to shut down the servers and 10 years was a lot.
Hayate was deep in thought when taro coughed, snapping him back to reality. “Hayate,” he said. “There’s something else you need to know.”
Hayate looked at taro, his interest piqued. “What is it?” he asked.
Taro seemed to hesitate for a moment before speaking. “I don’t know if you know this...” he said softly. “But before hollow shut down, something weird happened with the game. Just before it shut down nearly all the NPCs disappeared alongside much other stuff. I was the only one online at that time alongside 20-30 other player’s but we saw it.”
Hayate’s eyes widened at the news. NPCs disappearing just before the game shut down? That was definitely weird. “What do you mean, disappeared?”
Taro shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it really. All i can say is, it was like they all got deleted. They were there one moment and the next they weren’t. And they didn’t disappear just from in front of your eyes, i mean they disappeared from the game completely. Even stuff got deleted. Like weapons and items. They just vanished in thin air like they never existed in the first place. A few players did ask the Dev’s about it and they mentioned that nothing of sorts happened, atleast in the code and putted it off as a bug.”
Hayate felt a sense of unease as he listened to taro’s words. NPCs and items disappearing from the game just like that? And the Devs said it was a bug. He was sure the dev’s were lying, but why?
“Did any of those players have any videos or screenshots?” he asked.
Taro shook his head. “Not that i know of, it happened so fast it was hard to record anything, but i remember that some players lost their most valuable items due to it. Stuff that was nearly impossible to get, like ultimate end gear, boss drops, etc. One of the player’s had a mythical item too and that too disappeared.”
Hayate’s eyes widened in surprise. Mythical items were extremely rare. There were only a total of 50 in hollow. Back in 2024, before Hayate had been transported only 7 out of the 50 had been found and Hayate had been in possession of one. Those items were more rare than boss drops.
“Those items are more rare than boss drops,” Hayate muttered. If what taro was saying was true and what the Dev’s said was also true. If the NPCs and items disappeared without a trace just before the shutdown and the Dev’s didn’t do it. Then, maybe it could have something to do with what happened with him. Hayate got transported to the future and his account disappeared, then if what taro said is true. Maybe, all of those times got transported too to some point in time, probably even further into a yet to come future and thus went missing from the base game.
That could be it, atleast that was what Hayate thought. But he wasn’t sure either, this was a wild theory that he had just made up in his mind after hearing the story.
“Are the forms still up? Any post? Anything official related to hollow?”
“no,” taro replied. “They shut down their servers in 2035 and a year after that they removed anything related to hollow from the internet like the hollow webpage, their forums,etc, everything was completely shut-down. They said that was because it was taking money to run those sites and since hollow was basically dead by then, it was a valid enough of a excuse.”
“hmm..” Hayate let out a small murmur of agreement. He could understand their reasoning but at the same time was annoyed. He would have liked to dig through the forums and see any information he could find but it seemed like that wasn’t a option.
He was silent for a moment, thinking. There was nothing he could do right now other than take Taro’s word for it. He had no proof of what was said is correct. But, even some information is better than no information.
He looked at taro. “Tell me something, did anything weird happen after hollow shut down in regards to the players?”
“not really.” Taro shrugged. “The players who kept playing after hollow were all already prepared for its death, they got over it quickly. Including myself”.
Stolen novel; please report.
Hayate let out a small sigh, he didn’t really know what answer he was expecting but he was hoping for more information. He looked out the window of the room and thought of what to say next, if he should ask any other question or just drop the matter as a whole. After a moment he decided to drop it for now.
The matter of hollow wasn’t finished yet, he still had a lot of questions that needed to answered but there was little information he could gather right now. The servers are gone, the official website of the game was gone and the forums were gone. The only thing he could rely on is the players who played hollow back then and even then, they wouldn’t know the true answer. At best they had a lot of information which could help give him a direction to look in but where would he find said players? He didn’t know. He sighed again.
“Alright then, thank you for answering my questions.”
Taro nodded in response, “You’re welcome, I tried to answer them the best I could.”
Hayate gave him a soft smile, he knew it must have been hard for him, to recall such old memories of hollow before it shut down. But, he was grateful to him. At least now he had a basic direction to follow. He knew who he needed to look for now and the information he had to gather.
They both became silent for a while, both immersed in their own thoughts. The room seemed to be quiet, the noise from outside blocked out by the [sensory deprivation] spell. All they could hear each other breathe.
The silence of the room was suddenly broken by the chiming of a bell. The chiming echoed in the room, signalling 6 O’clock, it was probably a timer that taro had set. When Hayate had came in here the time was 5 O’clock. Time sure did fly by while they were talking. An hour passing in the Blink of an eye.
The chiming of the bell caused both taro and Hayate to break out of their trances. They both looked at each other, their eyes locking for a moment before They looked away. Then, Hayate dispelled the [sensory deprivation] spell. They could hear the noises from outside once again.
A knock was heard from outside and the muffled voice of sakura speaking. “Its been nearly half an hour. Is everything okay in there?” she asked.
Taro gave Hayate a glance before responding to Sakura’s voice. “We’re fine, just discussing some things” he replied.
“You should eat something, dad.” Sakura said from outside.
Hayate looked at the door, he could hear the worry in Sakura’s voice. It was clear that she didn’t like the fact that her father was talking to a stranger for nearly half an hour behind closed doors.
But, she didn’t say anything else and the sound of her footsteps walking away could be heard, indicating that she had left. Taro let out a small breath as the sound of footsteps faded away. “She’s a good kid.”
Hayate nodded. “I can tell.” He said, a small smile on his lips.
There was another moment of silence. But it wasn’t as awkward as the previous one.
“So..what should i do now....I have no idea..”
Hayate said to taro.
Taro shrugged, his expression calm. “I can try to help you get acclimated to this time period. But there is only so much i can do. But, you can stay here for as much time as you would like.” He said.
“thank you.” Hayate replied. He was slightly surprised by taro’s willingness to help him stay. “but, i don’t wanna be a burden to you..hmm...I’ll try to help you as much as i can.”
Taro chuckled. “Don’t worry about me. I got enough money, well. Enough to live support one more person.”
Hayate shook his head, “no don’t. I don’t need to eat and even if i had to i would never eat the food in this time.”
Taro chuckled again, seemingly finding what Hayate said amusing. “Whatever you say.”
Hayate spoke again, “yeah..i don’t need cloths, or anything else either. You can just consider me non-existent.”
Taro looked at hayate for a moment, a look of thought on his face. “Hmm..i guess you could be considered non-existent if you didn’t need anything. But, even if you don’t need to eat.. I still don’t want you to starve yourself.” He said with a slight chuckle.
“fine, but i won’t ask anything from you.” Hayate replied with a slight frown, he didn’t want to be a burden even to the slightest and that was exactly why he didn’t want taro to go out of his way to comfort him in any way, and this wasn’t Hayate being rude or anything. He really didn’t need anything, if he wanted anything he could get it from his inventory or using his magic.
But, there was something he did need...a new home. Sure he did have his old house but that was basically broken down and unliveable, Hayate was going to repair it in the future but for now that was out of the question to live there 24/7, so he needed a new home. And for that, he needed to earn money but how would he earn it? And even if he did, he was from another time, it would be impossible to get a normal job if he didn’t have any of the paperwork’s needed. He sighed, if only instead of the future he was transported to another fantasy world of sorts like those protagonists in isekai anime’s. He could have just worked at the adventurers guild or something and made money by hunting monster’s but sadly no such thing existed in the real world.
He sighed again, closing his eyes and massaging his temples with his fingers. He was thinking too much for his own good, even his thoughts were giving him a headache. He needed a nap.
He opened his eyes again, he was feeling a little too tired. He couldn’t understand why though. He wasn’t tired when he walked in, well. There was a status effect in hollow which basically produced the same effects as being tired in real life but one of his rings had a effect which prevented it. This wasn’t physical exhaustion. It was mental.
And it was a new type of mental exhaustion too. He had felt mental exhaustion before, like after grinding for hours or spending hours thinking of strategies to beat a boss but this was like a whole another level. A whole new type of mental exhaustion. A type of exhaustion you feel when nothing goes your way, he was feeling it because well nothing has been going his way.
Hayate was feeling depressed.
He just wanted to sleep for now. Maybe sleep would put an end to his feelings. Hayate asked taro, “taro..can i..have a room?”
Taro nodded, “Yeah, you can use my room for now. I’ll be outside.”
“You have my thanks, buddy.”
“No problem.”
Taro said before standing up and walking out of the room, leaving Hayate there alone. A small amount of time passed after taro left and a thought came to Hayate. If he was gonna go to sleep, he could have atleast gone to his own room back to his house. But he didn’t. He wanted comfort. And to not be completely alone right now.
Hayate grabbed the carpet from the floor opened his inventory, grabbed a pouch and put the said carpet into the pouch and back into his inventory, and then walked over to taro’s bed. He slumped down onto the bed, it was very soft and comfortable. The smell of medicine was strong in the bed but it didn’t bother him much. He was feeling too tired to care at this point. His eyes slowly shut as he fell asleep but he couldn’t.
Hayate laid there, staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes. He laid there trying to fall asleep but couldn’t. He tried forcing himself to sleep but he was just stuck there in that same position, eyes closed but wide awake.
He was thinking, he was thinking about a lot of things but then he realized the reason why he was couldn’t sleep. His entire body tensed up as he realized the reason why. He was wearing the “Gloves of All Seeing Eye.”
The Gloves of All Seeing Eye, a legendary item with the highest tier of all mental magic resistance. It protected the wearer from all forms of mental attacks and mental attack’ spells could be casted when the target was asleep too so this didn’t allow his character in hollow to sleep unless he un-equipped it. And in turn, this was the reason why he couldn’t fall asleep now. This thought ran through his head and Hayate realized that maybe he should take them off. If he did, the chances of falling asleep would increase but that would also make him vulnerable to a mental attack in case if someone were to attack him in his sleep while he didn’t have the resistance of the item but that wouldn’t happen. No one knew about it. No one in this world other than him had access to magic from hollow..well atleast as far as he knew.
But, still he thought..wasn’t a mental attack very rare? It was. He had never met a single person in his years while playing hollow who used a mental attack. Everyone preferred physical attacks and attacks and magic attacks which could cause damage to you and your opponents at the same time, mental attack skills were very rare and almost all of them were weak except the high tier ones. It was a very under-used and underrated build.
He let out a small sigh and sat up in the bed. His mind kept telling him that it was stupid, that it was very very unlikely that someone in this world even knew how to attack mentally using magic. It was very unlikely that he would even need the mental magic resistance provided by those gloves to be in top performance.
But, but he was just feeling anxious for some reason. Anxiety, he hated that feeling. It just made the brain overthink things.
Hayate thought for a moment and decided to just close his eyes and rest instead. He thought it would be safer than falling into some kind deep sleep. Even if he couldn’t fall asleep, resting would be enough atleast for now.
————————————————————
Six hours passed. Ken awoke at 12 in the morning, he had slept for a few hours, but was feeling quite rested. As he woke up, he couldn’t help but feel a bit curious about what was going on. He slowly walked out of his room and into the living room and there he saw something completely unexpected.
His grandpa, who couldn’t even walk to the bathroom by himself was sitting on the couch, watching television. The thought of it even happening was completely ridiculous. His grandpa couldn’t even move, he was bed-ridden just a few hours ago! How did he get here? How the hell was he even sitting on the couch in the first place? Ken was feeling very confused.
Ken’s thoughts began to race, his confusion slowly turning into a feeling of dread. There was no way this could happen, it wasn’t possible. The only reason he had even agreed to sell his grandpa to the rich assholes was because he was about to die. If his grandpa was getting better, then...no, he couldn’t cancel the deal now.
He had already said yes and signed the papers, the deal was done and dusted. But, if his grandpa was actually getting better, then he didn’t need the money from the deal anymore. The medical bills would be easy to pay off with his mom’s job. If only if the deal was cancelled..but it wasn’t. He had signed the papers.
Just then, there was a hard, loud knock on the front door. Oh god no. He knew who it was, he knew who was knocking on his door. It was the enforcers coming to collect the payment for the deal he had made last night.
He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he forgot the enforcers were coming today. But, this was too soon. He was just not ready for this. He was just not ready to give his grandpa away to those people.
He stood there, frozen for a moment, contemplating what to do. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was panicking. But, if he didn’t let them in, they would most likely break the door or just pick the lock and force the door open anyway. It was inevitable.
Ken’s grandpa looked at him and asked him to check who was at the door. Ken knew that he had no choice. He slowly walked over and stood in front of the door, his hand trembling as it reached out to open the door.
He hesitated for a moment, he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to let those people inside and take his grandpa away. But, he couldn’t keep them from coming inside. They were enforcers, gangsters with all sorts of tech implants. They had the power to force themselves inside if he didn’t open the door.
With a deep breath, Ken put his hand on a scanner and the door slid open with a soft woosh, revealing three enforcers.
two enforcers standing in front of the door were around 5’10 in height and one was 5’11. They were wearing military grade exoskeletons that were black in colour, the exoskeletons had red lighting coming from small gaps in between the plates as if there was some sort of energy flowing through them. These exoskeletons were definitely top-of-the-line tech, expensive stuff, more expensive than a car. The design of them was streamlined, it probably didn’t even add much weight to the wearers and it could definitely boost their strength to a significant level.
And it didn’t even look like the exoskeletons were the only things that the enforcers had on them. They most likely had cybernetic implants in them too, specially the 5’11 one.
The 5’11 enforcer looked like a higher ranking member of the enforcer group, or whatever organization they worked under. The other two were probably just there for backup and to look good. The 5’11 one was the one who spoke first as soon as the door was opened.
“You’re the one who sold us his grandpa right?,” he said, his voice sounding monotone even though it came from a human. Probably another side effect of the cybernetic implants inside him.
Ken slowly nodded, he didn’t trust his own voice at the moment. The 5’11 enforcer just nodded.
“Right,” he said as he spoke to one of the other enforcers. “Take the old man.”
The enforcer was about to walk into Ken’s house but Ken stopped him by putting his hand on the enforcer’s chest. The enforcer looked at Ken with a cold, unreadable face.
“The fuck are you doing.”
The enforcer’s voice was cold, emotionless. It sounded artificial too. Ken swallowed, his mouth felt dry. He had just put his hand on a enforcer, a enforcer part of an extremely dangerous gang. He was surprised the enforcer didn’t break his arm or shoot him after just that.
The leader of the group, the 5’11 enforcer, grabbed Ken by his throat and lifted him up into the air with just one hand. He was strong, surprisingly strong, stronger than the average man for sure.
Ken coughed and tried to grab the enforcer’s arm to free himself, his feet kicking uselessly in the air.
“Just move out of the way and let us do our job. This is what you agreed to.”
He held Ken up for a second longer before releasing his grip and letting him fall to the ground, Ken coughed and he was surprised that the enforcer didn’t just choke him to death. He held his neck where the enforcer grabbed him and took deep breaths.
The enforcer just turned around and motioned his head towards the other enforcer, “Let’s just get going. Take the old man.”
The men started to walk inside, but Ken made one last effort to stop them. He reached out and grabbed the 5’11 enforcer’s legs, trying to pull him back and stop him from walking further inside.
His attempt didn’t do much. He pulled as much as his 60 or so kilograms of body weight would allow him to but the enforcer didn’t even budge. The enforcer just looked down at him and kicked his left and right arm, breaking it.
Ken screamed as he let go of the enforcer, clutching his arms to his stomach as they flared in pain. That single kick had just broken both of his arms, like twigs. “Just stop, you’re making this harder on yourself.”
The enforcer said, not even a hint of malice in his tone. He walked further inside and the other two followed after him. One of them pulled out a handgun and shot a dart at his grandfather. His grandfather was about to shout but then fell unconcious.
His grandfather, who was watching television moments ago was now lying lifeless on the couch. The dart that was shot by one of the enforcers had just knocked his grandpa out, Ken knew what that meant. That was the last he was going to see of his grandfather.
Just then, the door to his sister’s room opened. His sister must have woken up due to the commotion, and before she could even come out of her room, the enforcer shot a dart at her. She fell down unconcious onto the floor.
The door to his grandpa’s room opened, and Ken wondered who was in there. His grandpa was in the living room so it wasn’t him, his sister was knocked out, he was right here and his mom was at her workplace so it wasn’t her either. So who was in there...?
He couldn’t see inside the room as the view was blocked by the enforcer’s bulky body but he could hear someone say, “What the fuck do you guys think you are doing with my friend.”
A male voice. Deep and gruff. It came from inside the room, probably from the person who was in there. Ken couldn’t see him but he was clearly pissed. Who was this person?