The man gripped the steering wheel with one hand and manipulated the gear lever with the other, slamming hard on the accelerator pedal.
The car suddenly accelerated and sped out of the damaged school gate.
Along the way, a school security guard infected with conjunctivitis blocked the way ahead, but the man ruthlessly knocked him aside without any concern for whether the guard would be injured or killed. This manner, combined with the pistol he had brandished before, made me involuntarily think of the underworld when speculating about his profession. Aoba beside me seemed to have had the same thought, and her facial expression appeared slightly rigid.
The car rushed onto a highway.
"Yukio, are they your friends?" The man casually inquired while driving.
"Well, Aoba is my friend." Yukio poked her head out from the front passenger seat and glanced at me in the back row. "But as for this boy... Are you Aoba's boyfriend?"
"Eh?" Aoba's face flushed instantly.
"Isn't he?" Yukio was highly perceptive. "But, haven't your hands been clasped together since earlier?"
Previously, to prevent Aoba from getting separated from me in the chaotic corridor, I had deliberately grasped her palm and hadn't let go until now. This wasn't me attempting to take advantage of her. I truly just forgot to release her hand. And she seemed to have also forgotten about this in her nervousness and was even clutching my hand more tightly than I was. Although I don't mind a beautiful girl holding my hand, this does indeed make me seem rather frivolous at the moment.
I voluntarily released Aoba's hand.
"I am Aoba's distant relative." I responded to Yukio in this way.
"Distant relative... I recall you said your name is Ninghai before? It's truly unexpected that Aoba has distant relatives in China."
Saying so, Yukio still accepted this statement.
I peered out of the car window.
At this moment, the highway was also in turmoil. There were damaged vehicles crashing into each other everywhere and wandering conjunctivitis patients. The car we were in was hurtling along the road at a speed exceeding the limit. While nimbly evading abandoned vehicles, it also brutally shoved aside the patients blocking the way. After only a short while, we had put a significant distance between us and the school.
"Is it really okay to hit them like this?" Aoba asked uneasily.
I could tell that she was extremely worried about the patients who were knocked aside by the car, but from the perspective of the rescued, she didn't have much say in this matter.
"Conjunctivitis is incurable." The man on the driver's seat explained nonchalantly.
Before Aoba had a chance to ask further, Yukio posed a question first.
"Didn't they say that the American medical team hired by the city government is developing a specific drug? I saw it on the news. They said that the research and development progress had achieved a major breakthrough, and the successful development of the specific drug was just around the corner."
I had also seen this news.
Compared to the local medical team's helplessness against conjunctivitis, the American medical team was making smooth progress. That's how the news was publicized.
"That's just false propaganda." The man sneered with disdain. "They first publicized the incompetence of the local medical team and then publicized the strength of the American medical team to win the trust of the public. Because simply reporting good news cannot reduce the panic of the citizens, so the city government presented failure information to make the citizens think this is a real report. After that, it serves as a foundation for subsequent publicity and fully takes advantage of the citizens' admiration for foreign things, making the citizens mistakenly believe that conjunctivitis can really be cured..."
Yukio was left speechless and then asked, "But, Dad, how do you know about this?"
"I have my own channels." The man gave a brief and perfunctory reply.
"That is to say, now those people outside..." Aoba looked complexly out of the car window where the scenery was flashing by.
"That's right. They can never return to normal until they die." The man stated the cruel reality very calmly.
"This isn't necessarily true, right?" Yukio said unyieldingly. "Technology is also advancing all the time. Sooner or later..."
The man didn't respond.
After more than ten minutes, the car arrived at the main entrance of a villa.
There were also houses all around the villa. In this area, there were very few people walking on the road at the moment. There were only three patients wandering. When they noticed the car, they approached and attempted to attack us.
The man got out of the car, took out a pistol, and shot through the calf of one of the patients, causing blood to spurt out.
The other two patients came very close to the car.
I got out of the car and delivered a kick to one patient's head. With the assistance of telekinesis, this high kick instantly knocked the patient unconscious.
"Kid, well done." The man, standing on the other side of the car, cast an approving glance. "But next time, don't kick so high. It's quite easy to lose your balance."
In the martial arts realm, there is a principle that kicks should not exceed the knee. Even I, an outsider, have heard of this. This is because a person's legs are not only crucial for movement but also the foundation for balance. A person in a high kick position is difficult to move and also prone to having their stance balance disrupted. However, this common sense doesn't apply to me. My movement and balance can be achieved with telekinesis, so I can boldly employ various kicking stances.
At this time, two of the three patients who had approached had been incapacitated by us.
The man was about to use his pistol to deal with the last patient when he saw Yukio had gotten out of the car at some point. She was holding a wrench and charging towards the patient.
"Wait, Yukio!" The man shouted in a flustered manner.
The patient was holding a steel rod. When he saw Yukio charging over, he immediately swung it down hard at her head.
Yukio deftly dodged this blow and quickly slipped behind the patient. Then she swung the wrench and struck hard on the patient's back of the head.
The patient stiffened and collapsed powerlessly.
"Hehe, got it." Yukio showed off by making a V sign to us.
The man let out a deep sigh of relief.
"Don't take such risks next time. It's far too dangerous." He frowned. "And when you do this, it's very difficult for me to aim. What if the bullet hits you?"
"It's okay." Yukio seemed extremely confident. "I've practiced kendo anyway. I can take down such small fry in no time."
"Danger is danger. Don't do it again." The man didn't budge an inch.
Aoba also got out of the car and helped persuade: "I also think it's better not to approach them casually..."
"Well, leave the fighting to us." I said.
"Ninghai, you also don't take risks." Aoba nervously looked at me.
Did this person forget that I have superpowers?
"That's right. Fighting is for adults. You kids don't need to take risks." The man concurred with Aoba's words.
"You all..." Yukio muttered. "I know already."
I think she didn't take these words to heart at all.
"Let's quickly go inside the house. Otherwise, there will be more fighting later." The man turned around, bent down, and got into the car. "I'll go park the car first. Yukio, take them inside."
"Yes—" Yukio drawled.
Then, the man drove the car to a garage not far away. And Yukio took out the key and opened the iron gate in front.
Passing through the small courtyard in front of the villa, we entered the house.
"Here, slippers." Yukio retrieved two pairs of brand new, unopened slippers from the shoe cabinet in the entrance. "We rarely have guests at our house, so the slippers prepared for guests are never used. Now there's finally a chance to use them."
"Thank you." Aoba politely expressed her gratitude.
Yukio smiled and also put on her own slippers.
"I'll go make tea for you. Wait in the living room first." She walked away first.
After changing into slippers, we came to a spacious and bright living room.
"So big..." Aoba looked around.
I sat on the sofa, picked up the remote control, and switched on the large-screen TV opposite.
Beep.
Rustle...
The TV only displayed a snowstorm.
I toggled through several channels in succession, but it was all the same. Nothing could be played.
If I kept it on, only annoying sounds would come out. There was no alternative. I turned off the TV.
"There's nothing." Aoba gently seated herself next to me.
"Let's see if the network can still be connected later." I took out my black phone. "I don't know what the situation is with the third person."
"The third person? Ah, it's Alphonse Elric, right?" Aoba also remembered this person. "He hasn't come to school at all. I wonder if he's encountered some problem."
Aoba had said that if we compare our experience to a game, then going to school is a task. If we don't complete the task, will we be punished? I don't know. But as of now, even if we complete the task, we don't get any rewards.
"Maybe he came to school but just didn't contact us." I said.
"Why didn't he contact us..." Aoba was very confused.
"Who knows."
In fact, I have a hypothesis about this. That is... What if the third person, like me, immediately encountered a conjunctivitis patient after coming to this world and was killed by him? Then it's understandable that he didn't contact us.
How can a dead person contact a living person?
Judging from Aoba's appearance, she didn't seem to encounter a patient at the very beginning.
With a precautionary mindset, I asked Aoba. She gave a negative answer.
"If I had encountered a patient at the very beginning, maybe I wouldn't have been able to go to school." Aoba showed an unconfident expression. "Up to now, I've always been protected and haven't been of any helping hand..."
"Well, really useless."
Hearing me say this on purpose, Aoba showed an even more dejected look.
"But..." I changed the topic. "Why did you think of using a game to explain the current situation at the very beginning?"
Aoba blinked her purple eyes.
"Because... I'm an employee of a game company."
"Game company?" I suddenly remembered that Aoba was an older social person than me.
Unconsciously, I had regarded her as a younger girl again.
"Well, is Ninghai interested in games?" Aoba asked me.
"Somewhat interested. Although not extremely interested, I do pay attention to them." I said.
"Then, have you heard of EagleJump?" Aoba asked again.
EagleJump? What is that, eagle jump? No, because the name contains "Jump", so maybe it's related to comics...
I thought for a while and replied, "Never heard of it."
Aoba seemed to be hit hard.
"Never... never heard of it..." She found an explanation for herself. "Right. Ninghai, you are Chinese, so it's normal not to have heard of it. Yes, it's very normal."
"What is EagleJump?" I asked anyway.
"It's the name of the game company where I work." Aoba perked up. "I'm responsible for character design work. But I've just joined the company not long ago, so I can only do things like designing villagers."
"I see."
EagleJump doesn't seem to be a renowned game company.
Although I'm only at the "pay attention to them" level of interest in games, if it were a famous game company, even if I couldn't introduce them all like counting treasures, at least when I heard the name, I should have at least a smidgen of impression. But I don't have even a speck-of-dust-sized impression of the name EagleJump.
"Is making games very tiring?" I asked.
"Very tiring... But everyone takes very good care of me. As long as I'm with everyone, I'm willing to do even a large amount of work." Aoba was highly motivated.
How should I describe her state? I remember having heard the word to describe this. Right, it seems to be called...
At this moment, Yukio came over carrying a tray and interrupted my train of thought.
"Aoba, are you making a game?" She put the tray on the coffee table in front of the sofa. "You've never told me about this. What game are you making exactly?"
It seemed that she had overheard the end of our conversation.
Aoba immediately panicked and didn't know how to answer. Her real identity was a character designer at a game company, but in this world, her identity was just a high school girl. The two identities conflicted.
"This, this... What I'm making is..." She showed a conflicted expression. The contradictory emotions of not wanting to lie but also not being able to tell the truth were written all over her face.
"Huh?" Yukio was puzzled by Aoba's reaction.
The only one who could salvage the situation here was me.
"Rance 10." I answered for Aoba.
Both of them showed expressions of "Wow, what on earth is this?" at the same time.
"Never heard of it." Yukio said.
It's good that they haven't heard of it.
"Ah, right. I almost forgot the main thing." Yukio said to us. "It's almost lunchtime. I'll make lunch for you. What do you like to eat? There are still many ingredients in the refrigerator. I'll make it for you."
"I'll help." I stood up from the sofa.
"No need, no need." Yukio waved her hand. "How can I let guests cook? I'll do it myself."
Although she was sometimes a bit careless, she was particular about this kind of thing.
"It's okay. Although the dishes I make are quite unpalatable, I'm especially confident in cutting vegetables." I said.
"I don't know how to comment on this sentence of yours." Yukio was at a loss for words.
"By the way..." Aoba looked around. "Yukio, your dad went to park the car, right?"
"Well, yes." Yukio nodded.
"But why hasn't he come back yet?" Aoba looked a bit worried.
Yukio was silent for a moment and then said, "You're right. Parking doesn't take that long. Could it be..."
Could it be that something unexpected has happened?
We looked at each other.