Chapter 1 - Part 2
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As I opened my eyes and woke back up to reality, I took off the VR headset on my head.
The VR headset looks a lot like visor glasses, only with the front bulging out a bit and the entire headset goes all around your head. The entire exterior is white except for the front which was a dark-tinted glass lens.
After placing the headset down, I stretched my sore limbs as I've been sitting on the same place for at least three hours.
I looked around me, only to see that everyone who was here had already left. All the couches were bare and the headsets brought back to their lockers. Only me and the clerk who took care of the headsets were left in the empty room.
I stood up and brought the headset to him. After paying for the time I've used it, I left the room as they were about to close.
Outside of the room is a hallway that went both left and right. I took the left turn as further along the hallway, the stairs that lead down to the main floor was located.
The right side of the hallway had the elevators, but they are closed since school hours ended long ago.
After taking the flight of stairs down to the main floor, I was met with a massive corridor that was at least five hundred meters long and thirty meters tall. The roof was completely made out of glass while all ten floors of the school can be seen on the each sides of the corridor.
Since it's already late at dawn, most students have either already gone to their dorms or they went shopping around the shopping districts of Corrosa city. That's why there were almost no one other than custodians in this massive corridor.
After walking out of the front doors, the view of a distant sunset hit my eyes. The orange sun shone through the massive skyscrapers in the distance, making their metallic exterior shine bright amber while casting massive shadows to the ground below.
It was a beautiful sight, however I looked away as the sun began to hurt my eyes.
Once my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I began to walk down the set of steps in front of me. Down below was a circle walkway with a large fountain in the middle. There were three different walkways from there, each going in their own direction.
I took the one on the right as it was the path that leads to the boy's dormitories.
After walking for about twenty minutes, I finally reached the dorms. Since it was about two kilometres away from the actual school building, it took a while for me to reach it. However, I didn't really mind as the scenery was pretty. The setting sun made the trees have a golden ambience while the birds chirped along the branches.
The dormitories are five story buildings and has twelve rooms on each floor; six on each sides. Each room is about 76 meters squared and 3 meters tall. The room can hold two people and still be fairly spacious. This is because we don't really need books, bags, and paper anymore as everything now is one way or another electronic.
My room is located on the third floor and is the 21st room.
I also have a roommate with me and he's probably the only friend that I can trust in this school. He should be in our room right now fighting in the [Grand Raid] as not only is he a part of 『Freedom Hope』's vanguards, but he is also an Administrator. The same Admin that I lost the bet that ultimately forced me to build a trash character.
I knocked the door to see whether Soren, my roommate, was there or not. After waiting for a good minute or so, it dawned to me that even if he was in the room, he wouldn't hear me as he would be in Atlas Commander. All five main senses of the human body would be cut off by the device.
Sighing, I pressed a button that was on the door in which a section began to slide off. Behind the section of the door was a hand scanner.
At first it was red as it's getting booted up, but after five seconds, the screen turned green. I placed my hand on it and let it scan for me.
A bright white horizontal line then appeared on the screen as it scanned my hand. It went up and down before I heard a clicking sound on the door. When the section of the door went back to cover the screen, the door automatically opened.
I then went inside our room, which consisted of two dressers, two closets, two beds, two desks, and one washroom. Within the washroom had a toilet and sink. There is a bathhouse within the campus so there isn't any here.
When I looked at Soren's bed, I was surprised to see that he wasn't here. Also, from the looks of it, he hasn't been here for quite some time now as his bed is tidied up and his headset is lying on his desk.
Shrugging my shoulders, I just dropped myself on my bed. I tried to remember what I did today when I was in the party, only to realise that I barely did anything combat-wise. The only thing that I did was find the dragon, make my party members fly, and then made sure they didn't fall to death.
ReGrelan64 and Lily were our main attackers and the ones who destroyed the dragon. Rufold on the other hand didn't do anything combat-wise either, but he is a {Mercenary} which meant that his inventory is five times bigger than any of ours. He carried most of the dragon for us.
I've just met them today, yet they're already acting as if I've been with them forever. I kinda liked that feeling since I often play solo while doing odd and easy quests. However I'm probably never going to meet them anymore as I'm going to stop playing Atlas Commander as of today. There's nothing left for me to do and even if I did find it, the game is going to end soon so it wouldn't really matter.
From what I've seen, the tenth and final wall is the Demon Lord's castle itself. No matter what the demons do, they're probably going to fall either this week or the week after. That's why there's no point on playing.
After lamenting about the thought, I sighed and realised how uncomfortable it is to be in my school uniform. I took off my black blazer and loosened my tie. After I took them off, I unbuttoned my dress shirt and took it off as well. As for my pants, you should know by now.
I inhaled a breath of fresh air as I felt how good it was to take off my uncomfortably hot school uniform. I probably have the weirdest expression right now, but it doesn't really matter to me. As long as I feel good, I'll be happy.
As I stood in the middle of the room while not listening to my surroundings, I failed to hear the door of the room unlocking. Before I could react, it was already too late. Standing just outside is a person who is wearing the same uniform that I was wearing before while holding a plastic bag.
His short and skinny body just stood there while his girlish face showed the expression of apathy.
For a while there was an awkward silence as we just stood there, looking at each other. But after a while, he finally entered the room and closed the door.
"If you're gonna change your clothes, you could at least use the washroom." He said, breaking the silence.
Snapping back to reality, I retorted, "Or you could've just knocked on the door. You should know by now that I should be here during this time."
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"I shouldn't have to knock on my own room." He replied as he set down the plastic bag on his desk, "And anyways, normally, you don't take off your clothes until like midnight just before you go to sleep. How should I know you were gonna go commando?"
"Today's summer hear was extremely hot, so I didn't want to keep it on. I'm pretty sure you would've done the same, Soren."
Soren is the friend I was talking about before. He is a bit shorter than me and fairly skinny. He has platinum blond hair the reached down to his shoulder and is often jagged down on the ends. His icy blue eyes were large and round, giving him a feminine look. However, his eyes weren't the only thing that looked feminine. His face is spotless, free of any blemishes or scars. His nose is short and pointy while his lips looked soft and supple. It isn't much of a stretch that he looks a lot more feminine than majority of the females in this school. That's why when he transferred to the school nine months ago and told everyone he was a male, no one believed him.
A lot of people constantly followed him where ever he went to see whether he was a boy or girl after that, but they found nothing. Also, the stalking got so bad that the police had to intervene. After that, no one questioned him anymore and publicly accepted him as a boy.
Though, in the end, it doesn't really matter if he was a boy or a girl to me. If he is a boy, then good for him and I curse the gods for giving a wang to such a beautiful looking person. But if he just happens to be a girl, then nothing would happen between us. Not only is he not interested in romance, whether between different sexes or the same, but he is also the child of the CEO of the famed game developing company, Sandstorm. Compared to my commoner status, not only would his parents not allow us to be together, but his followers would kill me. Just being his friend has cause animosity within my class room.
However, no matter what they say, I feel happy to be his friend.
"No, I wouldn't." He sighed.
After that, he didn't say anything else. He just sat on his bed and took out a popsicle from the bag.
During that time, I put my dress shirt back on and then looked at Soren. Not wanting this awkward silence, I began to talk again.
"Anyways, what were you doing outside? Shouldn't you be fighting in the raid as one of the vanguards." I asked him.
"I was at the raid, and we were doing great as well. However, we were all killed during an assault on one of the castle corridors. One of my party member was careless and triggered a pitfall trap." Soren sighed as he licked the popsicle, "You can imagine the rest."
"That's surprising that you actually got killed." I said in shock, "Aren't you an {Imperial Paladin}? Those things are like the tankiest class you can get in the game. Something like a pitfall shouldn't have killed you or your party members."
"If it was an ordinary pitfall, then yes. However, this one not only had spikes that were serrated, but it was also coated with an extremely potent poison. We died almost immediately."
"Wow, that's kinda harsh."
"Yeah, and thanks to that, I lost to a bet."
"A bet?" I asked, interested, "What sort of bet was it?"
"It was to see who would die first." He replied, "Now I have to do the thing she told me."
"And that is..?"
"It's nothing worth mentioning." Soren said as he turned away his head, "Ahem! Anyways, enough about me. How was your party today?"
I really wanted to know what the bet was about and I planned on urging him to tell me, but from the way he looks, it would be better if I stayed out of it.
"They weren't that bad, I mean they got the job done." I replied. After that, I told him the details of our two hour long hunt for the dragon.
I tried to exaggerate it a little, trying to make it sound like I was useful. But with the extreme toughness of the dragon's scale mixed in with over a hundred levels difference, I couldn't find anything to brag about.
"Hahaha, sounded like fun." Soren said. "I'm sorry that I couldn't help you anymore. Thanks to this raid, I barely even have time to go with firends."
"No, it's fine. A very popular game is game is about to end so you should join it." I told him enthusiastically, "And anyways, a small hunt like what we did is nothing compared to raiding an entire continent of demons. I've always wanted to join it as the battles are always on the grand scale. Do you know how awesome it would be to join in battle between armies consisting of millions of soldiers?"
"Chaotic and nerve wracking." Soren replied with a tired voice, "You have no idea what it's like to be in one. It may look cool on television, but it's a whole different story when you're actually fighting. You will often lose track of what you're doing and you'll never know when you would be killed. I've lost at least thirty levels from dying in the battlefield alone."
"Well, a perk of being a support class is staying in the back. Unless I get shot by an arrow or magic, I won't die." I said.
"Good. For. You." Soren emphasised his words.
After that, we ran out of things to say to each other. Seeing that it was already dark and Soren couldn't go back to Atlas Commander due to death penalty of waiting for twelve hours, we decided to call it a night.
Soren changed his clothes in the washroom while I put on my nightwear on my bed. They was just a simple shirt and shorts, but it's comfortable when it's hot in the room.
After a while, Soren got out of the washroom with new clothes. Unlike me, he is wearing light blue pajamas
Before we turned off the lights I asked Soren something, "When do you think the [Grand Raid] will end?"
Soren stayed quiet for a while, thinking about the question.
"Since Parallel Online is going to be released next month and we're raiding the Demon Lord's castle itself, I'm sure it will end either this week or next week." He replied, "Though, from the speed we've been going in the castle, it may even end tomorrow. After all, unlike the first eight walls of the [Grand Raid] which were giant mountains that span around the territory with the circumference reaching thousands of miles, the castle itself isn't very large. The only things that are holding us back now are the mobs and the mini-bosses."
"Oh, well, good luck on that, I guess." I told him.
"You could at least try to sound like you care." Soren replied from the other side of the room, "Anyways, what about you, what are you going to do now?"
"Probably nothing. Using the school VR headsets costs me money and I want to save up so that I could play Parallel Online as well." I told him while sighing.
"Hmm, well, that sucks for you." Soren yawned as he turned his body away from me, "Anyways, I need my rest for the raid tomorrow. Good night."
"Yeah, it must feel good to be rich to the point where the only thing you'd be worried about is homework and your gaming life." I whispered as I closed my eyes.
"What was that?" Soren asked in a drowsy voice.
"I said good night." I replied.
It's not something I would say to him, whether I was joking about it or not. After all, I do treasure this friendship a lot.
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Author's Note: Sorry that some parts may sound awkward. I'll try to fix my way of writing later.