Why do I still continue to live?
*
...
...Liam.
...Hey.
...Liam Keene!
A voice of a man continuously reverberated through his ear.
"Hey! Liam Keene, wake up!"
"Huh? What?" Liam Keene, who made a half-hearted response, woke up from his deep slumber.
He was just contemplating about his own life due to extreme boredom and before he knew it, he fell asleep. Like what he usually did on any other day.
"What do you mean 'what'? The devil of a professor is already here, idiot!" The student who woke him up went near him and spoke in a low voice yet high tone.
"Okay, just... Just a few more minutes. Wake me up in three minutes, alright?"
Still feeling drowsy, the student named Liam Keene ignored the warning before shortly burying his face into his folded arms on the student desk.
"...Crazy basta–"
"Stand up!"
A loud, thunderous voice, almost a roar that one could only often hear in movies echoed throughout the whole room.
A woman with her sharp-glaring eyes and her fairly voluptuous body stood firmly behind the classroom's podium.
Hearing her exclaimed, except for the still dozing Liam Keene, all the students immediately stood up and looked straight at her without letting a second pass.
"You may sit down. Have you already finished the tasks I have given you?"
"Yes, miss Anna." The whole class responded.
"Question. What did the historian from..." The female professor trailed off with her words.
She looked at one of the students with disdain in her eyes as if she was witnessing an unforgivable crime scene. She walked towards the student and stopped at his side without looking at him.
"Name?" Glancing at the empty air, she asked.
One of the students near her, already expecting this, answered.
"Liam Keene, miss..."
"Hmph."
The professor leaned her body towards the napping student.
"Liam Keene!"
"Gah–! Huh?"
With the shout of his name directed to his ear, Liam Keene almost jumped out of his seat.
'Who the hell did...'
He was about to be pissed at the person standing beside him until he discovered who the person was.
"Ah... M-Miss, good morni- I mean, good afternoon, miss Anna... haha..."
After rousing from his nap made by the ear-shattering call of his name, he quickly swept the saliva near his mouth, stood up, and bowed his head.
'Ah, now I've done it...'
"You... You actually dared to sleep in my class?"
The enraged voice that she was holding back so hard that her veins started to show made her expression extra scary today.
'Devil...'
"Get out of the room, stand up with your arms wide open, and prepare to call your parents to my office!"
Bang!
Liam Keene was kicked out of the room and was told to stand up in the corridor.
"Jeez. That woman, really... Does she not know that I'm an orphan? Who even calls for students' parents in this day and age."
"If only at least one of my classmates woke me up..."
Liam continued to bicker alone thinking it was yet another bad day.
Though it was obvious whose fault it was.
Liam walked to the other side of the corridor, stopping to stare at the deep blue sky.
A heavy, long sigh was vented followed by his eyes seemingly pondering about his existence with a hinge of nihilism.
"...Just when will this pointless life end?"
Ding!
As if to let him have an idea on what to do now, his phone rang.
Staring back at the closed doors of his classroom, he smiled awkwardly and let out a dry cough.
"Somehow, my legs started hurting. It wouldn't be bad to take a break."
Liam nodded as if to consent with what he said.
Fortunately, he was from one of the lowest classes of his grade placing his classroom at the lowest floor of the building.
"There."
While walking towards the nearest bench on the school grounds, he opened the phone and looked at the contents inside.
Halt–
"Huh?"
Liam stopped in his tracks as confusion filled his face.
"Wait, what's this app? Where are all the other apps here?"
His face crumpled as he began to realize that he wouldn't be able to relieve his boredom without the apps and games in his phone.
"What's wrong with this now."
Liam Keene aggressively swiped his fingers in every direction to the point that his phone almost fell from his hand yet he still couldn't find a single application that used to be there.
"Haa... Now even the phone won't let me be in peace."
The only thing left in his phone was an unfamiliar app.
"Is it glitched? A virus? What even is this app?" He grumbled in frustration before deciding to open the app.
Ding!
"Oh, so this was also the one that rang earlier."
He thought, recalling the same sound earlier.
After a few seconds, the screen turned smoothly from black to a shade of blue consisted of gold-colored lines. Then, a text appeared in the middle.
— Heaven's App
"Heaven's what now? Who would name an app like tha–"
Before he could even finish what he was saying, new groups of texts started appearing on the screen.
— Do you want a classmate to wake you up when needed?
— Or do you want to experience being with your parent once again even if it's only for a short while?
— Or maybe you want to disappear from this world?
"This..."
It seems nonsense at first glance but he realized that those messages somewhat relate to what happened to him today.
"..."
— If you desire all, then you're already prepared to use the app!
— Do you want to continue?
— Yes or No
"What the hell is this, seriously..."
Thump–
Now sitting at the bench, Liam continued to stare at his phone.
— Do you want to continue?
— Yes or No
'It's dumb to not be even a little suspicious after what this app said earlier, but I mean...'
"What could it possibly do to me who don't have a life."
'If they could pull it off, a blackmail or something to do about my identity, maybe?'
Smirk.
"But, that would finally bring tension or excitement in my life, or even a good reason to... End it all?"
Liam's pupil trembled at the thought.
He shook his head to clear his mind.
"I'm overthinking again."
He grabbed his phone.
"Let's just get this over with."
It was then that another message popped up right after he pressed [Yes].
— By clicking Yes, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.
— Yes / Go Back
Sigh.
'Of course, this exist.'
A link to the Terms and Conditions of the app was placed there. However, as a normal human being, he did not, and would probably never read the Terms and Conditions but, of course, still 'agree' to it.
Click.
Suddenly, glowing in blue hue, his phone released a light.
— To cease the pain, a measure of temporarily taking the user's consciousness is now in place.
"Huh? Wait, what the fu..."
Thud.
Liam's body collapsed on the bench and his phone fell to the ground.
— Initiating the invasion of the user's [Mind], [Body], and [Soul].
— First process: Mind
...
Tick, tock, tick–
"Liam?" A brown-haired woman at the door looked back.
"...."
"Me? Liam... I won't suddenly just... Disappear, okay?"
"....stay....scared.....alone."
Tock–
The woman patted his head.
"Look, son. Even if something really did happen to me and you get to be left a~ll alone in this world... I know that you're strong enough to live with a smile."
The woman smiled.
Tick–
In his mouth, he tasted blood and dirt.
"Liam!"
In his vision, he saw a young female student with tears in her eyes.
"I believe you, so please... Don't die!"
Tock–
"Did I not already tell you that if you want to die, don't do it anywhere near me?"
Such a delicate woman yet why was she wearing those clothes meant for prisoners.
"...You better square up to your lonely ass and find something to live for even in this rotten place."
Oh.
Tick–
Gasp!
Liam moved his torso upwards as he woke up.
"..."
Events that slowly faded from his memories day by day, or rather, momeries he tried not to remember.
"Why did that..."
Ding!
"...Happen."
His eyes immediately went to look for his phone as he heard the familiar sound.
On the ground lied his phone. He tried to grabbed it when suddenly...
— The [Mind] process is now complete.
His hair stood on end as a voice resonated in his mind like a spatial sound saying the same words that appeared on his phone.
"...What."
He felt naked and it made him nauseous, but he didn't even have the time to be distracted as the voice appeared in his mind again.
— Initiating the app's contents...
Realizing what caused this to happen, Liam now grabbed the phone.
"...What the hell are you?"
— A new content was loaded.
— [Store]
"...Store?"
It didn't seem like it meant him any harm.
"Was I only overreacting?"
— Initiating other contents and the next process...
"...Is this a new technology? A trend?"
He thought of different cases of why and how an app could do such things.
'But nothing explains why I fell asleep and recalled those memories.'
Ah.
"Well, I do sometimes fall asleep at bad moments and bad places... Maybe I was having a bad dream?"
Or was he only coping?
Sigh.
'Me and my talking-to-myself tendency.'
"But, seriously. What is this app?"
Liam still couldn't wrap his head around the things this app showed him.
'What kind of half-baked app would work and begin the content by itself without the touch of the user? Even worse, it only had one feature.'
"Is this secretly an online shopping app? If they're gonna hack my phone they could've at least make an interesting game as a distraction but also have my character as overpowered instead of something like this."
He already began to feel tired of this that he even started saying bullshit.
"Screw it. I'm gonna mess with this app since I have nothing else to do."
Just as Liam told himself, he pressed the store icon within the app.
He thought he was about to see the contents of the store but the voice and text appeared again.
— The Heaven's App is still a prototype version so opening the store has a cheap cost. Does the user want to accept paying the cheap cost?
"So suspicious yet so shameless. Fine, I'll accept. What even is the cheap cost? 2 minutes of advertisement? Or more virus?"
— The user accepted.
"Oh, what? it has voice recognition? Wait, that's actually creepy."
— In a short while, the user will be transmigrated into another world.
"Ah, ah! So it is a game! Well, that's a cool way of introducing a game."
He chuckled as if he realized it too late.
He was not expecting too much, but Liam was at least a bit happy at the thought of what would be the real game is gonna be in this so-called [Heaven's App].
'Another world, huh. Is the game supposed to be a Fantasy RPG?'
While trying to imagine what the theme of the game would be to excite himself, he heard the shout of his teacher inside his classroom and the voices of his classmates.
"Eh?"
Then the school bell rang.
"Ah, damn! How long have I slept?!"
He was supposed to stand up in the corridor but he was instead sitting at the bench on the school grounds.
'Well, shit. I don't want to deal with that teacher!'
Liam immediately ran towards the hallway towards his classroom as the door slowly opened.
Ding!
— Second process: Body
He was about to prepare his standing posture, but he got distracted by the voice and, perhaps he's a godforsaken existence, his body lost its strength making him slip and fall on the floor.
'God fucking damn it!'
Tap!
"The hell?"
Liam's movements stopped completely, no, he tried to stand up but his body won't listen to him.
— Last process: Soul
'What now!'
Then, he saw his professor's foot coming out from the door.
'I'm dead...'
The lady professor wholely came out of the room. She looked left and right with her dreadful demeanor before his expression turned grave.
"...That child. He really dared to run away from me!"
Liam tilted his head while still lying on the floor.
"...Huh?"
Ding!
— The preparation was completed.
— The new world was chosen.
"What?"
Liam stared fixedly at his phone that fell from his hands and was now on the ground in front of him, then he noticed that his hands and arms were half-transparent and distorted.
"H-Hold on."
— Transmigrating the user into another world.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
As soon as he said that, his consciousness faded.
— Please be aware that the chosen world includes dungeons and monsters.