I woke up the next day. Hungry, with a killer headache, and of course, with some fever. I had to stay in bed for almost the rest of the summer... have I ever mentioned how much it sucks to feel sick when the temperature is so hot that you could cook an egg on the ground? It's terrible. And another terrible thing...
(The system has found a bug)
(Debugging)
(Restarting)
(Unable to connect)
(The system has found a critical error)
(Reinstalling system)
'This might be even worse than the fever!'
It's been an entire week... a week! And that good-for-nothing system has been like this the entire time. No quest, no rewards, nothing, absolute blank noise... like a decomposed computer. It doesn't answer to anything I say and can't even see my own stats... and yet...
'That strange priestess diviner.... she said it was a curse... what kind of nonsense is that?' I asked myself 'What Isekai protagonist gets a curse in disguise as a system? That's so stupid... or is it?'
It's too hard to think with the constant error messages floating all around me! I give thanks that only I can see those transparent windows, or it would be so annoying to explain to everyone what's going on! Would people even believe in me?
'If I try to tell somebody about this... I will probably get taken to wherever the crazy people go... And what if I get the Subaru treatment? Scary!'
(Unable to connect)
(Rebooting)
(Debugging)
(Reinstalling)
As I moved around in bed, unable to fall asleep, I began to fantasize about different scenarios and what-ifs... it was something meaningless, but in my defense, I was bored beyond human understanding. I can't watch TV because just looking at the screen sends jolts of pain through all my body, and the system goes crazy with even more messages. As I was lying there in misery, the door of my room suddenly opened, and my trainer entered.
"Oh, you are awake," Said Aoi, looking at me. "How are you feeling, Meek?"
I tried to sit down, but I had zero strength on me; I felt like a puppet with its strings cut. Aoi rushed to help me. The day before I collapsed, they took me to the doctor, but they couldn't find anything wrong with my body, they send me to rest until I felt better, and even the gremlin suggested I was faking it to capture some attention, at the moment I wanted to kick her ass, but she had a point, the reason for my sickness was so damn strange, and of course I refused to comment about my ghostly encounter.
"Here, let me help you," Aoi said with a faint smile on her face.
"I'm sorry, boss," I said with my ears flattened against my head.
"Don't call me boss," Said Aoi, rolling her eyes. "Hey, I'm going to bring you some water. Wait here."
Aoi doesn't like being called boss. The first time I did it, yesterday, she put on that really bad face, but she said nothing. Then, when I repeated myself a couple of times to annoy her, she told me not to call her boss. I smiled, she really was a caring person, and she worried a lot for us.
'That diviner... had told me to contact Fukukitaru... is it Makitanefukukitaru?' I didn't know much about that uma... when I played the game, the only thing I noticed about her was that she had a cute backpack, but nothing more... at the time I was focused on other characters... 'If and only if what she said is true... then it shouldn't be a bad idea trying to contact that girl... now that I think of it... Matikanefukukitaru... Matikanetannhasuer... is Matikane a crown name too? Like Mejiro?'
All of this is so confusing, I feel like I'm missing the big picture. The last days I've been seriously doubting that even my experience with the ghost was real... but then... the badge she gave me, that coin, is resting near me with my smartphone... maybe I got it from a stand and was just divagating? Scary...
'Am I going crazy? What's even real anymore?'
(System unable to connect)
(The rebooting has failed)
(Reading error messages)
'Yeah... who can even blame me?' I closed my eyes. It's not easy going around telling people I saw ghosts, and that an invisible window keeps sending error messages, and guess what... I even died and came back to life, so...' I involuntarily began to laugh, I felt like an idiot doubting about those things after dying and being resurrected in this place 'Yeah... at this point anything is possible'
I smiled, pretending not to know what was going on.
'Maybe I'm just crazy and I'm in my room back home, yeah, I will go downstairs and my parents will scold me for playing until late... I will go back to work frying some French fries...'
I sighed and focused.
'As if... Okay, once I go back to Tracen, I will track down this Fukukitaru girl and tell her the message...'
...
...
...
After a couple of days, the system was still completely useless. I wonder what that mystic lady did to it, but it messed up so much that it died. Or it's very broken at least, I wonder how much time I have until it completely reboots.
But I have two novelties! The first one is that once we got away from that sea resort, I started regaining strength gradually, which supported the gremlin theory that I was faking it to not race against her, and second, is that a mysterious blinking red light began appearing on the floating window of the broken system.
"Liaaaaaaaar! Baaaaaaka!" Flashy was pouting and complaining, "Meek bad loser!"
"I told you I wasn't faking it!"
"Liar, liar, liar, you don't want to race against me!"
"What are you implying?"
"Girls! If you are going to fight, you both will walk back to Tracen!" Aoi was annoyed after almost a full hour of bickering.
Flashy Step took a deep breath, then she crossed her arms and puffed her chest, taking a "superior" attitude.
"It's okay, trainer~" She said after "This superior Flashy Step will forget her chicken team mate for not wanting to race against her." The hand on her chest was the cherry on top.
I began faking a coughing fit.
*cough* *cough* "Flat chested" *cough*
"NYAAANIII!?" Said Flashy Step with tears in her eyes.
I poofed my chest in response and looked at her with an air of superiority. Then smiled.
"I said you are so aerodynamic, Flashy, it's so unfair~"
Poor Aoi had to deal with our fighting for almost another hour until we finally went back to Tracen.