Chapter 1 - Otherworldly Dating App

Name: Leo, age 21.

I'm just your average college student. There's nothing special about me, really. Well, except for one thing—I'm single. Not that being single at 21 is some kind of anomaly. Plenty of people are single, even those older than me.

"Ugh, it's just self-justification," I muttered to myself. Just because there are plenty of single people out there doesn't mean I'm proud of it. The truth is, I haven't even managed to make a single female friend, let alone get a girlfriend, despite spending over a year on campus. And this is a campus where the gender ratio is skewed heavily in favor of women, which clearly means there's something wrong with me.

"My face isn't bad at all…" I tried to reassure myself. My face and body aren't terrible. I'm decent enough to make a good first impression—or so I think. But here I am, still single. "I'll have to go to the military soon. If I come back to school after that, nothing's going to change. They won't treat me any better than they do now. I'm not a high school student anymore. I'm a college student, and I'm still single—until I graduate? At least in high school, there were plenty of single people like me, so it wasn't a big deal. But now, as an adult, being single is... humiliating."

The thought of graduating college without ever dating someone? I couldn't stand it. "Ha, but going to a place to 'get it done'... yeah, that's really the last resort," I scoffed. My pride wouldn't let me stoop that low, no matter how desperate I felt. If I had to live as a so-called virgin until I turned 30…

"Gulp... I'll eat and think about it," I said to myself, grabbing a pack of ramen and starting to cook it like I always did. Ramen was my lifeline as a broke student living alone. But as I stirred the pot, my mind wandered. If I had a girlfriend, we'd probably be eating pasta instead—pasta that costs over 15 dollars a bowl.

I imagined it for a moment. A date. A meal for two. 30 dollars for one dinner, including my girlfriend. The thought sent shivers down my spine, and not in a good way. That was an expense my wallet couldn't handle.

"It seems like it's almost cooked. Where's the spot to put it?" I muttered, propping up my textbook as a makeshift stand for the pot. It wasn't like I actually used the textbook much; professors only ever taught from their boring PowerPoint slides. The stupidly expensive book just sat there, mostly useless—except as a ramen stand.

"Ah, whatever," I sighed. "If I get tired of this... what else can I even do?" I knew the answer. Nothing. I was just a student with no money and no options. So, I slurped up my ramen and turned on NewTube for some distraction.

As I scrolled aimlessly through the feed, something caught my eye. A news headline I wouldn't normally give a second glance.

"A new S-class hunter appears in Japan!"

"It's chaos," I muttered, clicking on the video. If I remembered correctly, Japan now had 15 S-class hunters. Fifteen. That was insane. Meanwhile, here in the USA, we only had four. Just four. It was laughably inadequate, especially for a country that had to deal with the evil spirits constantly pouring down from the north.

"USA is... pretty safe," I mumbled, more to convince myself than anything. Sure, the spawn points weren't as active here compared to places like South America or Southeast Asia, but that didn't mean it was all sunshine and rainbows.

Even though people die from monster attacks sometimes, the country wasn't overrun by villains. While I was thinking about something else, a woman who had recently become an S-class came up on stage in the video. She was so damn pretty. The Prime Minister of Japan was on the stage too, and he put something like a medal around the woman's neck. They shook hands and took pictures together while laughing.

As I watched that, I felt my appetite completely disappear, so I put my phone aside. I was jealous. Even if I couldn't become an S-class hunter, if I just awakened an ability, I could stop living a life of eating ramen and make a pretty girlfriend. Of course, I knew that such a thing would never happen, and that such a life was absolutely impossible in this world, so I just laughed it off.

My mouth tasted bitter. Still, I felt bad about wasting what was left, so I stuffed some ramen in and grabbed my phone to find something to cheer me up.

Tiring!

A notification popped up. [Otherworldly dating app has been installed.] At that moment, I froze. It wasn't a notification that an app I'd ever seen before had been installed.

"What is this?"

I hadn't installed anything like this. How could I have installed something like this while watching NewTube? "Did you click on an ad while putting your phone away?" I thought to myself. If not, there was no other explanation. No matter how advanced voice phishing technology got, there's no way a strange app would just install itself without a link or a text message.

"Anyway, a dating app…"

I've done random chats a few times before. I've always gotten into rooms where people would ask me, my name, age and ask for my gender, so I quickly quit since it was just pointless. But anyway, this was my first time using a dating app.

"Should I give it a try?"

It seemed like something I could try to kill time. From the sloppy icon design to the strange naming sense of "Otherworldly dating app," it felt like it was hastily made with the intention of making a quick buck and running away. But I had no intention of paying for it anyway. Usually, these apps offer the first match for free, but the problem is there's a very high chance that the matched person will be an employee trying to sell me something.

When I launched the app, a really insincere design greeted my eyes. [Otherworldly Dating App] [Store] [Match] [Profile] …

"Look at the design of the main screen."

It was almost like it was made with Paint, not PPT. Well, the important thing is not UI design. Whether it was a company service or an AI, it was enough to kill time. After thinking for a while, I went to the profile first. As expected, it was a place to fill out my information, and there was a unique place to write down my race.

"Is this why it's called otherworldly dating app? The concept is a bit strange."

I just wrote down my age and name. Next, I went into the store. As I said before, I had no intention of making a purchase, but I was just curious about what they were selling.

"The store function is currently locked."

"What?"

What the? Weren't they just trying to make a quick buck and run away? I couldn't understand why the most important feature, the store was locked.

"Now that I think about it, I don't see any advertising banners or anything."

Is there a profit structure? If money isn't the goal, then is this an app made with less financial personal information in mind?

Well… if they don't want to make money, so it's not my concern.

Anyway, as long as the dating app makes good matches, that's fine. I pressed the matching button, hoping that the AI would at least be a little less strange.

[Initial match confirmed.]

[Thank you for using this app, and please conduct a survey before matching.]

[Preferred race]

[Preferred gender]

[Preferred age range]

[Preferred hobby]

"…Wow…"

Now that I looked at it, this wasn't an app made to make a quick buck. But an app made just for fun?

If not, there would be no way they would have put things like "race" in the survey and dissecting corpses as their favorite hobbies.

"Well, you've got a good concept."

It was starting to get interesting at this point. I didn't know who made the survey, but it was clear that they had put a lot of effort into it because there were so many different races. I was impressed but filled out the list half-seriously and half for fun. My favorite race was elf, my gender was obviously female, and my preferred age was around 500 years old.

After that, I filled out the items here and there and clicked "submit."

[Thank you for cooperating with the survey.]

[Matching will begin soon.]

[Please understand that matching will take some time.]

I started to feel a little excited at the thought that the app developer might reply with a 500-year-old elf concept.

"…It's taking a long time."

Contrary to my expectations, matching wasn't as easy as I thought.

"Did everyone get off work because it's evening? Then why don't you just use AI?"

In the end, even after finishing my ramen, the match wasn't made. Waiting too long didn't suit my temperament, so I just threw my phone down and cleaned up the table. As time passed, I forgot that I had even tried to match.

Tiring!

A strangely jarring notification sound was heard. I picked up my phone at that sound.

[Matching completed.]

"Oh, finally."

The developer is finally working. The moment I hurriedly touched my phone with a strangely expectant heart—

Paatt.

"Huh?"

[Moving to planet EB-17.]

The enormous light that emitted from the screen engulfed me.