《Apocalypse Step》Step 01: Truck-san's secret
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Ein and the two members of his little harem, Zwei in front and Drei next to him, are walking home from class. It's not their real name but they tend to call each other with the nickname they use on the internet. The three are a group of players in an MMO. Their group is pretty average as they only play for fun and nothing more. Well, Zwei plays because she wants to be superior over other people. She spent a lot of money on the game, but it's far from enough to reach the top.
They just had a good laugh after seeing Rex, their classmate, attempt to 'Teleport' out of the class. Drei is a little dreamy about fantasy world but she never shows it to anyone other than her group. Ein reads web novels every now and then so he could understand Rex and Drei's dream. However, Zwei is your traditional 'rich girl looking down on everyone', and in order to keep their friendship, Ein and Drei had to laugh their lung out with Zwei.
"Haha, I could not stop laughing whenever I think about it! He went 'pwoosh' and ran out of the class." Zwei is still laughing non-stop. "Why did he not just jump out of the window? Haha"
"He would die, you know. Our class is on third floor." Drei gives out exposition.
"Didn't he say he is immortal or something? If he died, that would be the best."
"That's mean!"
"Careful, Zwei!" Ein suddenly reaches his hand toward Zwei who is walking backward in front of them. However it was too late as Zwei feels gravity shifts around her as she fall backward. In the split second, she turns to look back and sees a huge manhole in the middle of the road. It's way too big to be a sinkhole, and she is sure it wasn't there a moment ago.
Just as Ein thought he grabbed Zwei's hand, all three of them suddenly feel a sense of weightless. The bottomless sinkhole just gets bigger all of sudden and is under them. Without anything to embrace themselves, the three fall into the darkness.
It took me a while to swallow the situation. It's not hard for a chunni to accept that he was transported to another world by the in/famous truck-san. However, it's still too weird for me. Dad is laying on the grassy field, looking at the sky, waiting for me to get myself together. There are too many questions to ask him that I don't know where to start.
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After God knows how long, I could finally exclaim my first word in the other world:
"THIS IS NOT HOW IT WORKS!"
"Huh?" Dad sits up and turns to look at me. The constant smile temporary leaves his face as he show a cute confused look, even leaning his head to side like a puppy. It doesn't work though.
"Dad! By the script, I was supposed to be hit by the truck, not riding on it!" I say without being able to hide my smile. Soon, the smile turns into a laugh. "Am I in another world? It's not a dream, right? Dad, it's not nice if you hypnotize me like this. Yes, that must be hypnotizing!"
"If you want to return, I could send you back anytime. Heck, you could still go to school everyday. It's just that your mom is sick so I have to stay with her for awhile."
"Ah right, about mom…" I abruptly stop laughing altogether.
"We will talk about her later. Now we have to enter the town." Dad says then looks around like searching for something. I curiously follow his line of sight but all I could see is the green of grass, some green mountain or hill from afar and the deep blue of water. Everything looks straight out of Paint. For a second I thought this was a poorly drawn VR game.
"The Gate is that way." Dad points at one direction. Town Gate, I guess. But I see nothing in that direction. "Okay, get back to the carriage." Dad says then walks toward the truck behind me.
"Haha, very funny." I say then turn back. The truck is gone. Totally gone. In its place is your traditional carriage with curved cloth roof. I could not be surprised anymore and start wondering if it's better to call that a wagon, though I could not check now since there is no internet… right?
I pull out the smart phone in my pocket. The signal is even stronger than in my old house. Just what? Dad said it's a sword and magic world, so there is no way they have mobile phone here, right? Even if there is, how did my phone catch the signal?
"Oh, that." Dad turns to look at me who is still standing in my spot. "This truck slash carriage is a Pan-Dimensional Spaceship. The disguise function is obvious. About the phone signal… I thought you wouldn't want to miss any call or text from your fri… acquaintances."
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I involuntarily let out a sigh. The only text I get would be the messages from the school. I only go to school so I could get into a good college and later get a better job than my father to help him. However… a freaking Spaceship? What does pan-dimensional even mean? Dad is way richer than anyone on Earth! Why should I care about going to school?
"Dad, I don't want to go to school."
"That's fine. I will deal with that… and done." He simply stands there and says. Is he a God or something? No, he has a Spaceship, so he is an Alien? Does that mean I'm an alien too? What about… ah, my mom?
"Dad, about mom…"
"Did I say we should go back to the town first? It might be safe here, but monster could appear at any moment." He says and climb onto the driver seat of the carriage. At first I thought the carriage would move on its own like a car or something, but in literally a blink of an eye, two horses appear. It's not a figure of speech, but rather, before I close my eyes, nothing is there; when I open my eyes again, the horses have already been there, attached to the carriage with dad holding the reign. I am more convinced that this is not real and just Hypnotizing or Virtual Reality, but VR on Earth is currently nothing more than a pair of screens sticking to the face.
I climb on and sit next to dad before he starts driving it forward. Looking behind me into the carriage, our cargo is still there but in reversed order like the truck turned around before transforming into this. I stare at the cardboard box that contains my game console. I planned to play something after moving to the new house, but is there even electricity in this world? Maybe magic could do the trick, or I could ask for an outlet on dad's so-called Spaceship. It could transfer phone signal from Earth, so there wouldn't any surprise if it could offer other lifelines like gas, water and electric.
"Look, a slime!" Dad suddenly says and point at the front. I stand up to see over the horses while bracing myself on this bumpy ride. There is something green in the grass. It's obviously not grass as it has a round shape and is moving. Dad casually drives the carriage to avoid it. The slime thingy is green and transparent with a darker-green spherical core. After years of gaming, I know the core is its weak point. It peacefully lets us pass, and we pass by it without any problem.
"You don't look very surprised." Dad says after I sit back down.
"I see it in games more time than I see human." I casually say, tho' it hurts my confidence a bit.
"Oh well, you played too many games so you probably wouldn't like this world. The monsters and races here are pretty generic."
"Is there catgirl?" I suddenly ask before realizing how embarrassing I just sound.
"The beastmen live on dangerous floors so it would be hard to reach." Dad casually answers.
"Floor?" I frown at the mention of such thing. There are a few games that have this term. "Does that mean they live in dungeon?"
"Not really. But you probably need a lesson about this world soon." Dad says and points at something in front. I turn to look at it. Two huge stone pillars supporting an arch. A Gate in the middle of nowhere. I immediately speculate that it's a portal to town. However, the most surprising thing is the cliff behind the gate. The closer we get to the gate, the clearer I understand. The reason that the horizon looked closer than normal is because of a an endless cliff that stretches to the end of my view of vision. I lean up to see over the cliff, but there is nothing. Like a horizon right in front of me, this is where the land meet the sky.
At this point I understand the meaning of 'floor'. This grassy plain is on a floating ground in the sky.
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