Chapter 31

[07:00 PM Tokyo Time]

Hiro took off his VR equipment and stretched his sore muscles. After feeling a little better, he headed straight to the kitchen to heat the frozen food he got from the supermarket owner, Kira, free of charge.

After just 15 minutes, the delicious-looking shrimp dim sum was piping hot with thin hot vapor, ready to eat.

Hiro put the plate of dim sum on the table and, without waiting for a second longer, began to happily enjoy the hot dim sum.

‘Relax, Hiro, you’re going to be rich soon. Just wait a little more, buddy.’

…

After finishing his food, Hiro walked toward his hard bed and lied down.

This time, he intended to observe LSO’s VR sales, and coincidentally, the fifth sale batch was tonight.

However, his sleepiness got the best of him. Before the online sale of LSO’s VR equipment was opened, he had slipped into dreamland.

…

Hiro was asleep on his bed with his skinscreen still active, displaying a 3D hologram near his android bracelet.

Ding!

[Liberty is trying to contact you]

A notification appeared and his android bracelet vibrated, waking him up.

With his eyelids heavy, he moved to check the notification.

[Liberty: Where are you? Did you leave? At what time? Why didn’t you tell me?]

Hiro deeply sighed. It seems that she wasn’t going to let him live peacefully.

‘What a possessive girl.’

“Ah.”

He just remembered that he logged out while he was still at her house.

‘No wonder she’s looking for me.’

[You: I’m still at your house, I just logged out]

Ding!

[Liberty: ???]

[Liberty: Do you think I’m stupid? What do you take me for? I’ve searched for you everywhere and you’re not here]

[Liberty: Don’t lie to me, Hiro]

Reading Liberty’s displeased messages instantly snatched away Hiro’s sleepiness. He looked at her messages for a second, dumbfounded.

He felt that it would be better to explain what he did directly, because it seems that the girl didn’t understand a certain piece of basic information.

It made Hiro’s throat itch to explain.

[Checking connection…]

[Synchronizing player information, please wait…]

[All set]

[System linked]

[Welcome to Last Shelter Online: Closed Beta Test Version]

Hiro returned as NightFall. At that moment, his avatar quickly reappeared at the same spot he was at before he logged out, sitting on one of the sofas in Liberty’s guest room.

When his eyes could optimally work and focus again, the first thing he saw was a girl with only a white towel covering her beautiful body.

Liberty was shocked to see him suddenly appear out of thin air.

“KYAAA!!!”

A flip-flop slipper flew at Hiro, who was frozen in place upon seeing her smooth and flawless skin.

Smack!

[HP -90]

To his surprise, the slipper actually hit his face quite hard.

“Ugh…”

“What are you doing? How did you turn invisible?” Liberty looked at him with wide eyes. “Did you do it on purpose to peek at me? You pervert!”

She hurriedly ran to another room with her face bright red from embarrassment. She didn’t expect that her appearance right after she took a bath would be seen like that.

‘So embarrassing!’ The girl felt like crying.

It took Hiro a moment before he finally snapped out of it.

“Libe, come back! I didn’t peek, you’re misunderstanding! I just logged in!” He stroked his aching nose.

The flying slipper hurt quite a bit. The timing of his arrival was simply terrible… or was it terrific?

He didn’t know what to do. On one hand, he felt lucky he got to see something he shouldn’t have, but on the other, he couldn’t accept her accusation.

‘I should’ve logged in earlier…’

Clack!

The door to the other room opened and Liberty returned with a normal appearance. She was now wearing a cream-colored casual dress with a puffy lower part covering just a quarter of her thighs.

Even without any wind blowing, Hiro could smell the sweet scent of her perfume despite being three meters apart.

“Listen, I didn’t see anything, and I didn’t peek either, okay? I just logged in. How could I have peeked if I hadn’t logged in?”

Hiro regretted not logging in sooner even more now. If he had logged in sooner, perhaps he might’ve got to see more.

“What do you mean? Don’t lie to me!”

“Libe… log in, log out, do you not know what they mean?”

“Log in? Log out? You mean like email accounts?”

“…”

“Yes, but it’s for game accounts. I logged in and logged out of my game account. NightFall is my avatar. It doesn’t go anywhere when I log out, it just disappears. You can’t see it when I’m logged out, but now that I’m logged in, you can see it again. Do you understand?”

The girl tilted her head. She understood what he was telling her, but she didn’t expect that something like that was possible in the world she had been living in all this time.

“It would probably be easier to understand if I show you.”

Hiro called his HUD system and set it to screen sharing mode. At that moment, a semi-transparent blue screen appeared in front of him, displaying a copy of the HUD page he was seeing.

However, it was visible to Liberty.

Liberty walked toward him to look more closely at the screen that just appeared.

On the main menu, Hiro pointed at a circle with the symbol of a door and an arrow pointing out; the logout button.

The girl looked at the button and then at him. She knew the function of the button.

Under Liberty’s confused gaze, Hiro touched the button.

[Player has logged out]

[System off]

Poof!

Liberty was taken aback when Hiro suddenly disappeared in front of her. At the same time, the screen he was showing her also vanished.

However, before she could exhale her held breath, Hiro reappeared out of thin air in the same spot.

“Like that. Is that clear enough? I didn’t peek, I logged out of the game.”

“How did you get out? What did you do?”

Hiro heaved a long sigh. The girl was now staring at him with prying eyes.

It seems that she was so confused that something went wrong in her brain.

‘Just what…? Has she never logged out before? How long has she been here without logging out? Is that even possible?’ Hiro’s mind was also a mess.

None of this made sense. The only thing that would make it make sense was that Liberty was only pretending not to know anything right now.

However, the girl instantly broke his theory.

“That’s strange, I’ve never seen anyone disappear and reappear at the same place like you before, Hiro. Usually, people disappear in one place and reappear in another, like teleportation. I know some people here, they’re definitely going to be surprised when they find out about your ability to disappear.”

Because there was no progress, Hiro asked Liberty to share her HUD screen.

Surprisingly, it had no logout button.

He also asked her to check the other menus one by one, but there were no signs of a logout button.

He gave up.

Liberty and the other CBT players probably experienced the same thing. They don’t log out.

But that was not all. Even though Liberty didn’t remember where she was from and how she got a house, she believed that she was born in the world of LSO.

“That’s enough, Hiro. Your theory is making my head hurt.”

Hiro stopped trying to explain. He couldn’t force her. It was as if she didn’t care about the information he just shared. Despite not being able to log out, she didn’t care.

Instead, she called him strange for having an ability that allowed him to disappear.

No matter how much he tried to look for a reason, he still couldn’t wrap his head around what was going on.

He furrowed his brows.

But still…

‘Why can’t she log out? Is she actually an NPC?’ Hiro stared at her. ‘There’s no way… An NPC can’t be as expressive and lively as she is.’

…Right?