45 New Game+
It seemed that his bad feeling had come true.
The man in the double suit, who did not hesitate to make wild statements, spread his arms wide and looked up at the sky. He had an expression of ecstasy, as if he had reached the peak of something, and a smile mixed with joy .
He felt dizzy from the unpleasantness.
“Why can you continue the game? Once a game is decided, it shouldn’t be possible to change the results anymore.”
‘That’s right. But this is a new game! If you start over, there’s no problem, right?’
That was too much sophistry.
As long as Ryugo’s level continued, it was nothing but a quibble. However, there was no sign of deception on the man in the double suit’s face.
‘So, let me explain the rules right away.’
“I have no intention of obeying.”
‘Even if you don’t obey, your opponent will come to you. Well, listen.’
The man in the double suit began to speak cheerfully, as if a child were telling his parents about his favorite book.
‘The number of participants this time is “100 people”!’
“…What?”
His brain refused to understand.
He continued to talk as if he didn’t care.
‘If you’re the last one standing, any wish will be granted! Of course, you can hide or fight. There is only one way to defeat someone. Erase your opponent’s Experiment, or destroy the device it’s in.
If you eliminate your opponent, you can get half of the level they had. In other words, it’s a game where fighting is also important. Even if a human being under hypnosis makes a player drop out, the level goes to the person who cast the hypnosis.’
The basic rules seemed to be the same as when he was fighting Enka, but something quite sinister had been added to the latter half.
He seemed to really want them to fight.
‘By the way, all the participants are people in this town. If you escape outside the area, the app will disappear automatically because it will be considered an defeat. By the way, I didn’t choose people who wouldn’t have time for the game because of work or school activities.’
“Hey, wait a minute…”
‘That’s right. It will be difficult to find the participants scattered throughout the town.’
Ryugo had been thinking about it, and the double-suited man spoke smugly.
“That’s where the additional rule comes in. When you get close enough to each other, the app will show you the location and level of the target.”
“Seriously…”
“This is how the detection range changes depending on your level. At level ‘1’, it’s twenty meters. At ’50’, it’s a hundred meters. And once you exceed ‘100’, it’s two hundred meters.”
“Is that… the distance from which you can be detected by the enemy?”
“That’s part of it, but you can also detect them within that range. The higher your level, the easier it will be to fight and the easier it will be to detect enemies. By the way, the range will increase over time.”
I guess that means someone stronger than me will come to meet me.
It’s scary to think about, but there’s probably no one with a higher level than me. Surely no one has reached this level without a hint.
What’s more, you can’t do good deeds in a flashy way. Just as Ryugo was passive when he first got the app, the participants must be refraining from acting so that they don’t reveal that they are the possessor.
“This is too much of an advantage for me.”
“I thought so, so I leaked your information to the participants. There’s a high-value target (HVT) over level ‘100’. If you beat them, you’ll level up significantly. Of course, I’ve also told them your approximate living area and physical characteristics.”
“That’s an invasion of privacy!”
“This is a necessary measure. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise.”
“What are you going to do if the police get involved?”
“I’ve taken care of that, so don’t worry. You can beat up your opponent as much as you like! You can interpret it as meaning that anything related to the game will be ignored.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Ryugo slammed the punk’s smartphone on the ground and smashed it with a shovel.
“Ugh…”
The pitiful man whose belongings had been smashed to pieces let out a groan and slumped his shoulders. He had completely lost his will to fight.
When he checked the app, he saw that his level had indeed increased. It had gone from ‘160’ to ‘170’.
“…I see.”
“So, is this the end of the tutorial?”
“You bastard, you started it on purpose when you knew I’d come into contact with this guy, didn’t you?”
“Who knows? But it was fun, wasn’t it?”
What’s so fun about it?
It was already hot and sunny, but I felt even hotter when I moved. I didn’t want to think about anything difficult anymore.
But there was one last thing I had to ask.
“What did you do with the bunny suit?”
“I’m keeping her for the time being.”
“Why?”
“If you ask the bunny to grant you a wish, you might be able to end this game! I can’t let that happen, can I!?”
“I get it. That’s enough. I’ll definitely crush you.”
From Noble mtl dot com
“I’m… so excited! I can’t wait to see what you’ll do! Tanuki, you’re the best! hahahahaha!”
I remember him putting me down before, but I don’t have the energy to answer him anymore.
“Just you wait.”
“What will you show me first?”
“I’ll cut the number of people in half by the end of today.”
“That would be amazing. But can you really do it?”
“I can.”
◇
Shizuru Manto finally understood that God exists.
It was that suspicious fellow in the double-breasted suit who gave it to him that day…
Once he realized the hypnotic app called “Experiments” was real, Shizuru’s crappy daily life came to an end.
“With this, I can…”
He had pent-up desires from his student days.
The key to unleashing them was right here in his hand.
He no longer had to abide by decency. The delusions rampaging in his head would no longer be delusions.
“Tee-hee…”
At present, Shizuru was cornering a woman walking down the street in a narrow alleyway.
“N-No…!”
Her face was painted with the color of fear as she pressed her back against the wall.
Her skin was fair from applying sunscreen and walking with a parasol every day. It shone especially white, even under the summer sun.
“Don’t come any closer…!”
“That’s right. I want you to cower like that.”
To Shizuru, this reaction was exactly what he was looking for.
The sight of her being depressed, angry, and disgusted, and then having her emotions forcibly rewritten through hypnosis. That was what excited him more than anything.
“Cower!!”
“Gasp…! S-Someone… help…”
Her voice was hoarse.
She probably couldn’t speak up because her voice was trembling from fear.
Finally, pearl-like tears welled up in the corners of her eyes and fell without resistance.
“Tee-hee, tee-hee-hee-hee…!”
Shizuru’s excitement had reached its peak.
This was enough. This woman weeping and begging for forgiveness would become coquettish and whisper sweet nothings to him in a matter of seconds. How wonderful!
“Well then, I’ll have you become… my lover.”
He selected “Attitude: Lover” from the app.
In an instant, the woman stiffened awkwardly, and then her eyes—
Screeech!
—The sound of screeching brakes echoed behind him.
“…Huh?”
Shizuru turned around without thinking.
At the end of the narrow alleyway, a van was visible from the main street. It was the source of the noisy screeching from earlier.
…What the heck, just some reckless driver.
He thought that as he was about to turn back to the woman, he saw it.
The back doors of the van swung open with great force, and from within,
“…!?”
Six men who looked incredibly strong stepped out in a leisurely manner.
Their muscles bulged, their shirts straining as if they were screaming, and their eyes were all Bl00dshot.
And… they were looking straight at him.
“Huh…?”
From behind them, a young man appeared and pointed at Shizuru.
“He’s the possessor!! Kill him!!”
“Yes, sir!!”
The muscular men immediately followed the order and charged towards them with terrifying footsteps.
“Uu-uahh!! A horde of meatheads is coming this wayyyyyy!!!”
I have to run…!
Shizuru judged so, but his legs were frozen with intense fear.
The bulky muscular men surrounded Shizuru and grabbed him.
It must have been less than ten seconds.
“Stop it, please!!!”
Shizuru was screaming while his body was being groped by the strong men.
His clothes were taken off, his pants were pulled down, and he was thrown out naked under the scorching sun.
“eeek!!!”
“We found it. His smartphone.”
When one of the muscular men reported to the young man,
“Destroy it.”
“Yes, sir!”
Before Shizuru could finish saying, “Wait,” the muscular man smashed the smartphone on the concrete floor with all his might.
A loud, ominous sound rang out, and the smartphone bounced and flew high.
“W-wait! Stop! Please! II still have a woman I want to threaten, you see!!!”
Ignoring Shizuru’s pleas, the muscular men accurately and swiftly smashed the smartphone to pieces.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, sir! Yes, sir!”
The muscular men and the young man returned to the van and drove off somewhere.
What remained were Shizuru and the woman, and the smartphone that had been bent and broken, with its parts scattered somewhere.
“Th-this is horrible… What did I do…? I just… I just played with a woman I liked a little bit… Th-this is too muuuch! hahahaha?!”
Before he could finish, the concrete block that the woman had thrown hit Shizuru on the head, physically shutting him up.
◇
“That makes twenty.”
Ryugo was currently hunting down possessors caught within the app’s range while riding in a van.
Of course, this van belonged to the hypnotized muscular man.
It was past seven in the evening.
He was taking down about one person every ten or twenty minutes.
Even though it was midsummer, the sky was starting to get dark around this time. The cold smell of night filled his nostrils.
“By giving ‘soldiers’ to the muscular men through hypnosis, I can deal with most situations. But it doesn’t seem like I’ll reach fifty.”
Ryugo’s level had become ‘265’ at a pace that he had not expected.
Since he could take the opponent’s level, he had expected it to easily exceed ‘300’, but it seemed that the penalty was considerably reducing it.
That was only natural since he had attacked the possessors more than once or twice.
All he had obtained was ‘Number of Hypnotizable People: 9’.
From the app, I check the number of remaining Holders.
There was no explanation for the Double Suit, but this is displayed on the screen that shows the Holders within range.
It’s vague, but I was able to find out where and who was defeated.
“The current number is ‘fifty-two’…”
‘You’re decreasing at an amazing rate, huh?’
Suddenly, the voice of the Double Suit echoed from the smartphone speaker, and I woke up in surprise.
“Don’t just start talking all of a sudden… It must not have been possible to annihilate them all. But I did manage to halve them.”
It must be because of the level-up and the time I spent getting used to the app.
Even so, there are still fifty remaining…
‘Even for me, it makes me feel down when half of what I worked so hard to collect is already gone… I wanted to enjoy it more.’
“That’s good. I’ll make you feel even more down.”
‘But I believe it. Everyone who survived today will do something even more interesting tomorrow!’
“No, tomorrow will be the same as today.”