9 HQ

Ye Delun opened his eyes to once again meet with an unfamiliar ceiling. Instead of the complex details like he saw in the manor, it looked more simple and concise. The air felt stale in his nose. and a band of light shined on the stray specks of dust dancing in the air. It gave him a nostalgic feeling.

He rubbed his tired eyes and sat up.

[Welcome to HQ!]

[To start Chapter 2, please pick one!]

[Fast pass; 0]

[Wait]

Two options appeared in front of him, a past pass option and a 'wait'.

'What's a fast pass?' He questioned.

[A fast pass is a pass you can buy to quickly move to the next chapter! You currently own zero, but work hard to gain coins to buy some of your own!]

Without an option, Ye Delun was forced to wait. He took a look around the room. It was dim and the only light came from the strand of light and some strange glowing blue accents on the wall. He thought it looked super techy.

His eyes followed the light to the window above the bed he was sitting at. The curtains were pulled closed. He pulled them aside and looked at the sight outside. He couldn't see much, the sight was terrible. He could only see several other buildings around the same height he was at. All of them look identical.

He moved the thin blankets off his body and stood onto his feet. The cold feeling of the floor on his bare feet shocked him.

'Where are my shoes?' He looked down at his clothes to see that they've turned into boxers. "W-what happened to my clothes?!" He studdered.

[To gain accessories, get coins to test your luck with 'Clothing Gacha'!]

[Get enough coins and you can buy clothes with our shop!]

"So if I don't get coins, I don't get any clothes...?" He looked at his small body. His mature-looking self from the game was gone and was replaced with his normal body. His frail pale arms were back and his muscular biceps were gone...

Standing only in his underwear, Ye Delun's stomach grumbled loudly. He placed his hand over his stomach and as if reading his mind, the system said through a message.

[Use food to replenish your energy!]

[You can buy food with coins, but as a first-timer, OtomeHorror has gifted you a free meal!]

The area in front of him glowed and sparkles appeared out of nowhere. A soothing tune played and a standard Japanese bento with cutely decorated rice balls, star-shaped vegetables, and octopus-looking wieners appeared in the air in front o him. Ye Delun looked blankly at the panda-looking rice balls and a message appeared as a label.

[A cute bento made with love from your special someone >~<!]

[It's almost too cute to eat ~(´-ω-`)~!!]

"..."

He popped one of the panda balls into his mouth and chewed without hesitation.

[You're fueled by the consideration from your loved one so much that your energy has skyrocketed!!]

He didn't care for the interpretation of the message and continued to eat the rest of the lunchbox.

'Tasty...' His thoughts pondered as he gobbled on the cute octopi.

[Your energy is high enough to work! Go to the town and find a job that fits your level to earn some coins!]

"I can work? Where do I go?" He asked as he threw the empty bento box to the side. He didn't care where it went.

[Just follow the dotted line that will bring you to town, there you can then pick one of the many job options!]

A pink sparkling dotted line appeared on the floor, leading up towards the door. Ye Delun walked up to it and twisted the doorknob open. With the door opened wide, Ye Delun was startled by the multitude amount of young girls walking around. And just like him, they were only in their undergarments. There were girls talking to each other, others rushing through the hallways. Only around one or two in the batch he saw here actually wearing something more than their bottoms. That something though was things like a pair of shoes, or a strange hat or scarf.

He slammed the door closed and stood in silence with his hand on the knob. He had almost forgotten where he was for a moment. He was in a female-oriented otome game. Where because he was a man, he was misplaced during the game and put into a capture target's body. It didn't seem like the game was able to be all that gender-aware. So of course, most of the people who got the same message as him were female so it's only normal for the rest of the people here to also be female.

"What a giant loop hole..." He thought that if a game could transport a human into a completely different kind of dimension it should have different options for different genders. But he guessed it wasn't quite there yet...

The pink dotted line still urged him to walk past the door. But his moral consciousness wouldn't allow him to see so many girls in such a state. He didn't want to be seen as a pervert. He took a quick look around the room for an idea. The thin blankets covering the low-quality bed gave him an idea. He wrapped them around his skinny figure to try and cover most of his body. He once again put his hand on the doorknob and slowly peaked out of the keyhole.

Several unsuspecting women walked past his door. He tried his best to not look at their revealed parts. When he thought that the time was right, he burst through the door and ran as fast as he could. While only looking at the ground, Ye Delun followed the blinking pink line.

Several girls looked at the young man. Or at least, he didn't look like a man through their perspective, but instead like an insecure little girl that didn't want others to see them. That wasn't that rare.

Ye Delun was not a runner, nor was he at all athletic. He trusted the system's guidelines and ran without seeing where he was going. He already felt tired as he panted for air. His barefoot feet hit tile after tile and he wondered if anyone has gotten sick in this place. 'They're all wearing close to nothing, so could they get a cold?'

The guidelines took a sudden turn to the left. Ye Delun followed without thinking and ran directly into something. "Ouch!" He cried out. He rubbed the sore spot on his head and looked out from the blanket. In front of him stood an interesting-looking elevator door.

The blue tech lines all over made it look cool and the occasional white speck going through them made it look like some kind of brain neuron. But the plastered hearts and flowers all around it threw him off.