Terror Infinity Side B

Chapter 23 - 3, BTOOOM Intermission

The third point was more shocking than the other two combined.

Everyone stared at Saki with craze excitement. After all, anyone who experienced such terrors, no matter how disappointed with the real world he/she was, or how much they loved becoming a character in a manga, anime, novel or video game... That person would lust for the real world and not stay to suffer without an end somewhere in their hearts.

We all looked at Saki with doubt and began asking her questions.

Shin: You plot too much, I'm suspicious of whether you have something up in your sleeve. How do we get back to the real world?

Saki: I'm not forcing you to do anything and this is no trick. It's your freedom to choose whether you want to go back. Aqua, you never looked at the Days Exchange category carefully, right? It's in the Entertainment section. I checked it yesterday and found that not only can you exchange for days to live in the previous mission worlds, you can also go back to the real world.

Aqua: We don’t need you to tell us thst. Anyone can go back with 50,000 points or what, do you think any of us have the points? Are you trying to tease us or what? The only one here who is crazy enough to stay and give up on a chance to go back to the real world is this guy here.

Shin: Who is that?

Hikari: She means you, otaku baka!

Shin: Ah...

Saki: Can you all stop fooling around? Now, did I say that you can go back completely? At where you exchange regular days, I found a Record Function. It recorded Halloween 1, Saw 3, The Grudge, Halloween 4, Predator 1, High School of the Dead and our last mission BTOOOM!, for a total of seven missions, five of which were before God changed the rules and invited you into the world of manga, anime and such. And other than the five horror movies and the two manga/anime there’s also another world. The real world!

Aqua turned slightly pale when she heard these names. Most likely those are...

Aqua: Those are all the missions I've experienced thus far, so why is there a record? What about the ones before those? I had comrades in my first two missions that said they had been to Bio-Hazard 2/Resident Evil 2, Aliensu and The Mummy.

Saki: There are no records of anything before those seven. God probably deleted them. After all, you are the only one among us that survived seven missions. This is not the key point. The key point is you can unlock the these worlds. After you unlock them, you can go into any of them, including the real world! You use a rank D reward to unlock a world in the records, then you can exchange for days to live in that world, but you have to spend five times as many points, that is you have to pay the high price of 50 points a day ( 10 points a day in the previous world they just experienced. Any other world needs 50 points a day and the D rank reward ). In order to go back to the real world temporarily, you need a rank D reward and a lot of points.

Everyone fell into silence.

Aqua had already told us about the rarity of the ranked rewards and I am living proof of what they can do for a person. If I didn’t exchange my Ki whole enhancement and One-eyed Ghoul genetic mutation, then where would I be and would any of us have survived BTOOOM!.

For something that directly concerned their lives, how can anyone just use it up so easily? Furthermore, not only did you need a rank D reward, you also needed a lot of points. The cost was too high for just going back for a few days. Also, Aqua was right. I had no interest in going back to the real world any time soon.

Hikari: So you want one of us to go back to the real world to confirm the truth? Whether this is a virtual reality or our entire bodies have been pulled into this world?

Misaki: What do you mean?

Hikari: I don’t know if you ever thought about this world. I gave it some thought before and I have two hypotheses. One is our consciousnesses were transported here and our bodies are still in front of the computer. This is the theory that Aqua denied right away when we first arrived in this dimension. Second is that our bodies were transported here along with our consciousnesses. I've learned from Aqua who heard from her human creation that no matter how much time we take on our missions, when we come back, only a day has passed in this dimension. In other words, God can control both space and time.

Saki: Hiakri is correct. That is like a real god, but the important thing isn't that. I too was always wondering if only our consciousnesses are in this world, then the enhancements and everything else could be just illusions. This would be like a virtual reality game. Similarly, our bodies will go into a vegetative state. If we don’t confirm it as soon as possible, then our bodies might become ruined.

Shin: I think I understand what you’re trying to convey. If our bodies are in this world, then we can forget about everything in the real world before we have the points to go back. We just have to focus on surviving. But if only our consciousnesses are here, then nothing can be brought back to the real world, and our bodies are also in danger. And in the worst case scenario we might as well want to forget about the real world where we are brain dead and are dying, too just stay here.

Misaki: Who would want to stay here!?

Shin: I know you are worried about your little sister, but you also have Mokoto here to consider. What if... Retuning to the real world means you are unable to bring her with you? You would have to effectively watch her die a second time.

Misaki: The... That's...

Shin: Living here with Mokoto and hoping for the best for your sister might be the right choice as well. These worlds are hell, but we just have to go somewhere else that is peaceful to live out our days there. With 50,000 points used in just a safe part of the previous Mission World BTOOOM!, we could enjoy 13-14 years of peace. Actual money and gold flows out like water from a sink long as you have a few points, so you could live a great life in peace with the woman you claimed that you wished to marry.

Misaki: ...

My words really must have had an effect on Misaki since he stopped talking. I was going to say something to him, but Saki interrupted me.

Saki: Hikari was right that we need to check out the real world, but... It doesn't just have to be one of us that gets to go.

Aqua: What do you mean? You want all of us to waste points and D rank rewards for a short break in the real world? Being that wasteful would endanger everyone other then Shin and I in the next mission.

Saki: I didn't mean for it to sound so wasteful. What I discovered is that there is actually a group voyage option in the Record Function. If one Player here pay a C rank reward then other Players can apply the points for the days spent in the real world. If say you payed one C rank reward the rest of us could combine our points for a total of 250 points, we coild all stay in the real world for five days. That is kinda too short for my taste, so we will all pay together 1500 points and either you or Shin who have an abundance of rewards will pay the C rank reward. This way we can stay in the real world for one whole month!

This was a tempting offer if we could all go back to the real world for an entire month.

Not all of them all them were like me and had left things behind in the real world. Hikari has her parents, Misaki had his little sister, and during Day 6 of Btooom in a conversation with Kampa, he said that had a family, a wife and a three year old son waiting for him in Russia.

For them, after returning back home from this dimension, putting their affairs in order comes as to a close second. No one wants to say it out loud, but we are all aware that we could die at anytime here. It is better to be prepared then to believe everything will work out one way or another.

We all then quickly agreed to Saki proposal, but Aqua who was the only one thinking straight came up with one condition.

Aqua: Wait a minute. None of us had exchanged anything for our own survival yet and going back to the real world is a luxury. If only, and only after we increased our battle power to the fullest and if we had any points left over we will go with the plan to return to the real world. If not then neither Shin or I will pay for the C rank reward.

Aqua made this decision, not bothering to get my opinion, but I agreed with her, and everyone else agreed with her once she pointed out the obvious. Aqua was probably more afraid that one of us would want to dish out more points to stay in the real world longer. Everyone in this room did have more then 2000 plus points to their name after all.

Shin: But isn't something off?

I said this when no one else was listening as they were immersed in talks about returning home to the real world, so I was only talking to myself.

Shin: This group voyage to the real world... Sounds far to good to be true. I just checked it out myself that it was true, that with a C rank reward a group could go back, but isn't this for too convenient of a offer? It... It is like God want us to be able to temporarily return to the real world, and in groups at that. I haven't seen or found any other exchanges so far that clearly state that you could pool points and rewards like this.

Yet, I then decided to hold back my suspicions to myself. I had no proof to suggest otherwise that this is anything more than a good deal, but still... I chose to keep an open eye on our journey back to the real world.

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Authors Note:

Rate/Follow/Favorite/Comment.

I am sure some of you thought that this would just be a cut and paste from the original, but things will take a new turn when they return as a group to the real world.

Also, they have yet to realize it, but Players can use their points and rewards on others Players like in the original, but pooling points and rewards as a group wasn't in the original far as I know. For what this means... Look forward to it!