Chapter 2

Outside world

A lone young woman was hunched against a laptop in the darkness.

"Where is she …where is she? "she mumbled while typing furiously.

Then a knock resounded through the room making the figure turned to the sound and straightened herself.

" Come in !" she called out.

The door opened and light flooded from the opening.

" Excuse me, Ms. Delton, Mr. Delton and Mrs. Delton want to see you. " a maid said.

"I understand." She said as she rose to her full height. Her golden dress glittered as she turned on the light.

The maid bowed and walked away after she delivered her message.

Ms. Delton walked gracefully out of her room and into her parent's study. She knocked and after hearing her father answering, opened the door.

Her father's and her mother's stern faces greeted her. She didn't flinch and instead kept her posture. Head held up high. Eyes carefully blank but still showed rapt attention.

It's all about keeping up appearance after all.

"Arisa. We are going to Japan for a week. There is an opening ceremony for Themis corporation which was founded by investors through the global internet conglomerate Themis. " Her father said straight to the point.

"I understand. Should I prepare myself for the ceremony ?"

"No. You are not going with us. You will stay home and will be the head of the Delton's corporation for the week. Every report should come to you and you will be the stand-in should any situation happen—which is unlikely in the first place. This is the first step for you to inherit this corporation. I expect a lot of great things from you. Do not fail us." Her father said—very business like.

"I understand, Father." She said swiftly, bowing her head a little.

"You may go." Her father said.

Without further ado, Arisa went back to her room. Only then she sighed, her façade broke down as she stared down at her beautiful golden dress tiredly.

No matter how many times she had done this it was still tiring to her. Putting on a perfect young woman inheritor facade too many times she had lose count had stressed her a little.

It had been like this ever since she was a kid though. She was always pressured to be like this, like that. Sometimes she wondered if her parents wed and birthed her just for the sole purpose of grooming a heir. It was as if she was just another business partner in their eyes.

She shook her head, 'Never mind that, I still need to search her…' she thought as she pushed all thoughts about self-pity out of her head.

She straightened up and went back to her laptop to continue searching for Mitsuki Hana, her friend that should have come two days ago…right after she finished meeting with Kira Kosuke, her client in that murder and rape case.

Problem was, she never contacted her again after that. Given it had only been two days, but Hana was pretty punctual and she never missed anything without telling first. That left the option that something had happened to her in which she was trying to uncover.

Which brought her to this problem. For some reason, her phone can't be tracked anymore. Now that's pretty ordinary because that could just as well meant she had blocked any trackers off , but what she meant with 'can't be tracked' was the fact that for some reason her phone's signal had just…disappeared.

It didn't make sense…she knew that Hana would never leave her phone behind whenever she left.

She sighed and leaned back after getting nothing for the third try this morning.

'Maybe I'm approaching this at a wrong angle…? Maybe nothing happened and she just turned off her phone…for two days straight…?' she thought as she went to work again for the fourth attempt. 'Right then, let's try this in another way…'

This time though, she didn't try to track her, but instead opened the search engine and typed 'missing person in Japan ' then clicked at the first result.

'There has been a significant increase in the case of missing person in Japan. It is said that the cause is by this flyers that are distributed around Japan. All you need to do is to write a person's name and the person will disappear. And there's no saying about where these people went to. Nothing else was said about this. (This is the photo of the flyer.)'

She studied the flyer photo closely. It seemed like a prank…, nothing authentic. But in the slightest possibility that these flyer are real and that Hana was actually nominated by someone that hate her—which was very likely considering her profession as a lawyer which meant she had made a lot of enemies…maybe she should checked this out. Just in case.

She opened the search engine again and search for the address in the flyer—where it was supposed to be send to…, not actually expecting anything…, but to her surprise there really was the address place…and it belongs to Tyrannos Japan.

She frowned.

'This is….weird. Tyrannos Japan….Isn't that the one that developed Btooom ! online game ? The popular game that Hana had mentioned at one time ? ' she thought.' What a coincidence that there's a prank that goes there…or is it actually coincidence ?'

"I have to find out everything about Tyrannos Japan." She mumbled to herself.

Then she set to work.

Mitsuki's pov

I had decided almost immediately after we started walking that I hated tropical forests.

The forest was damp. My shoes had already been covered in mud and pieces of grasses that had ruined my once pristine black flat shoes. I was somewhat thankful that I decided to wear flat shoes instead of high heels though considering the fact that I was now obliged to walk to anywhere and that this was basically a game made into reality. High heels never were meant for running and while my shoes weren't in any way designed for sports and running, it was still better than high heels.

The forest was also full of mosquitoes that for some reason would just not stop biting me. I already knew mosquitoes tended to grow overly attached to me that they would always bite me even though there were other people beside me but I had never hated that fact more than now. Especially since mosquitoes in forests were way harder to kill than the mosquitoes in cities considering it was way harder to catch them when it was easier to lost the tiny black flying dot in the maze of green.

And I did tried.

I had started clapping in hope of killing mosquitoes while walking since my foot and hands had started to feel really itchy. I had even occasionally scratching them until the skin hurt and became red alternating between clapping and scratching. Mostly to no avail though I did kill 5 to her credit-and the itchiness still came.

Making me seemed like the perfect example of dancing monkeys. Like scratch...scratch...clap clap...scratch scratch clap...

It did feel a little ridiculous to do that...a lot actually. Kosuke had looked at me weirdly the first time I had started the rhythm to which I just gave him an impish smile and told him that I was trying to kill mosquitoes. He laughed at me openly though it later died down into snickers every time he looked at me scratching and clapping here and there. Which was...a lot...seeing as they did travel together.

"Maybe we can go to the beach instead ? " Kosuke suggested, his face seemed torn between snickering and pitying me,"There must be lesser mosquitoes than here."

"No." I said automatically," With mosquitoes or not, the beach is a very open place that doesn't offer much protection and cover unlike the forest which mean we will be easier to attack there. Staying here has a higher rate of surviving. "

"You look like you would rather face the other competitors than face the mosquitoes though."

That's true. But that would mean endangering Kosuke who was technically still under my responsibility as I was the adult here.

"I value my life more than my own comfort." I said instead.

Kosuke let out a snigger as I scratched my hand with my other hand. I could feel blood started to leak from all the scratching I had been doing but I ignored it. Damn, I hate mosquitoes !

"Stop scratching it ! It will only make it worse !" He said as he stopped my hand from scratching my foot now," It's funny at first but not when you just won't stop scratching. "

I shot a glare at Kosuke which he ignored.

"Let's just stop there now." he said pointing at the clearing in front of us,"It's already dark anyway."

"Alright." I said as I put down my bag and supplies under the big tree at the center before sitting down cross legged ,"Do you want to eat ?"

"Yes of course. I want the ramen."

"Sure." I opened the supplies and took the instant ramen, " There."

Kosuke took the cup and opened it before he stopped as if he remembered something. " Uh...how am I gonna cook this ?...Do you have any hot water ?"

I nodded, rummaged my bag, grabbed the thermos and gave it to him, " Use as little as possible okay. We need to make sure we still have hot water to cook the instant ramen."

"I know I know." he said as he poured out the hot water into the cup and gave the thermos back to me. It's still pretty heavy so I suppose he really only used as little as possible.

I stretched my foot and leaned to the tree, " I'll be sleeping first then. Wake me up if you need me to keep the first watch or second watch or if something happen."

"You're not eating ?" He asked.

"Nah, I'm not hungry." I answered as I closed my eyes, " Good night."

I was actually hungry but I couldn't exactly eat now right ? I needed to save the supplies because I'm pretty sure while the supplies would be dropped every day we wouldn't be able to get it everyday, so saving food was a must. Seeing as I'm pretty sure I still could go a long way before the hunger couldn't be ignored...I hoped I wouldn't need to eat at least until tomorrow lunch.

My mind drifted away and the oblivion claimed me.

A/N : Chapter 2 finally :D ! I'm sorry if it takes really really long for update. I've been busy lately with exams and assignments and I really don't have time to write but no worries, I'll update this once I have time to write \^^/