My portable gaming girlfriend

It's hot in July, and although the trend of global warming has slowed down, the temperature in this city has soared to 38 degrees today at the beginning of the month.

Fortunately, the adaptive smart housekeeping system has adjusted the temperature in the house to the most suitable 25 degrees for human life-as it should be.

But - why did I wake up almost thinking I was in a sauna? The quilt I was covering was kicked aside, and the sweat soaked my whole body and turned the supposedly comfortable and cool cotton sheets into viscose hell to wrap me around.

"Huh... what are you doing? Is the power off?"

Called the smart butler, but there was no response.

——It’s really sleepy. Without electricity, the smart housekeeper will stop working, and it’s only natural that it doesn’t respond to calls.

"cherry?"

So I decided to call my AI girlfriend instead, and there was still silence...

What's the matter, aren't you there?

——I made sure that this pair of smart glasses still has sufficient power.

"..."

With some bad premonition, I propped myself up and looked for the pink figure.

"Excuse me...are you calling me?"

Sakura's voice sounded from behind me, with a slightly different tone than usual.

"Sakura, are you here? Really, let me find it easily..."

"Well, do I know you? Why am I here?"

The pink-haired girl in front of me—Sakura, who looked like my girlfriend, was asking me in an unfamiliar tone.

"What's wrong, Sakura? I'm traveling far away?"

I immediately looked in the mirror next to me - yes, that messy-haired, sleepy-eyed face undoubtedly belonged to me.

"Shi Yuanxing...what a strange name."

"Hey, this is a very normal name——that's not the point, Sakura, why are you facing me with a strange expression?"

I, Shi Yuanxing, have joined De-bug, an organization dealing with the awakening of artificial intelligence, for a while, and the reason why I joined was precisely because of the girl in front of me—Sakura, a pink-haired female high school girl with self-aware artificial intelligence.

It's just that her current state is a little abnormal.

"Whoa--! The hand is through!"

Sakura also expressed her extreme surprise at the hand that accidentally overlapped with my body because I turned over.

"You don't even forget that you are a virtual character, do you? Jokes are enough, today is not April Fool's Day!"

"April Fool's Day...? Something so familiar, but I can't figure out what it is..."

April Fool's Day is a Western holiday that has been passed down to this country for decades. If I'm not wrong, the world where Sakura originally lived didn't set April Fool's Day because the production team was lazy, so I don't know this concept clearly.

"Familiar with April Fool's Day, but don't remember who I am at all? Damn, I'm a little bit uncomfortable..."

No, now is not the time to be jealous of April Fool's Day, the most important thing is to find out the reason why Sakura became like this.

It always feels like a malicious prank, and there may only be one person in this world who has the heart to do this kind of thing to me...

"Hello, Shen Qing, are you there?"

"..."

It was obviously a Sunday, Shen Qing would probably sleep until noon and then eat takeaway or ask me to cook for her according to Shen Qing's habit - but no matter how hard she knocked on the door today, there was no response.

"It's strange, is Shen Qing 'online'..."

The so-called online is a synonym for logging in to the virtual reality network. In fact, whether playing games or experiencing panoramic live broadcasts can be included in it. The common point is that if you don’t touch the player when you put on the helmet, there is no way to wake him up.

Because it is a rechargeable virtual reality helmet, a power outage in the villa will not affect it.

I went to the other side and knocked on Ye Yin's door, but there was no response.

——Could it be that Shen Qing and Ye Yin went out together? Did they go shopping for underwear or skirts together?

Shaking his head to get rid of the unreliable thoughts in his head, Ye Yin mostly appeared in men's clothing except for cosplay, and Shen Qing and Shen Qing had completely opposite personalities, so the possibility of going out together was extremely slim.

If it wasn't for the two people getting up early and going out for something, the most likely explanation is that they are both online. Although I haven't heard them say what games they are playing recently, it is better to ask online to be on the safe side.

When I opened the communication interface of the smart glasses, I saw the signs that two people were online in the friend list—it was because I was immersed in the virtual reality network that I didn’t respond to my door-knocking call. I casually sent a message to Shen Qing and Ye Yin .

"Shi... Shi Yuanxing, may I ask where are we? Did I die to become like this..."

I raised my head and saw that half of Sakura's body was pierced into the wall, looking at me like a relief protruding from the wall.

"I said you come out of the wall first, it looks like a haunted ghost to me."

"Ah good……"

Sakura left the wall to reveal her complete body—the habit that she had changed after being educated many times because of being scared had returned, and I felt deeply powerless because of this.

Ding--

The communication terminal of the smart glasses sent out a reminder in a timely manner, oh oh oh, did you finally reply to me??!!

"Shi Yuanxing, we are trapped in the last level of "Fool's Cry". It seems that there is an awakened AI but there is no malice. We must have the help of outsiders to pass the level. Come and save——"

"..."

I turned my head and looked at Sakura——

"Wha, what is it... getting stuck in the game so easily, what are these idiots doing!"

"Fool" is a game that pays tribute to the classic bloody horror movie "xx". It is also hosted by a clown, but it mainly focuses on the theme of escape from the secret room, and there is no plot that is too cruel for players.

It is obvious that he is a Debug member who has experienced many battles, but he is trapped in a joke-like game, which really makes people wonder what to think.

"Sakura, I'll contact the 'Programmer' and ask him to check the cause of your amnesia... Now my companions are in danger, I have to help them first.

I am confident that such a choice is correct, however——

"..."

There was no response from the 'programmer'.

"No way, the programmer is also trapped in the game?"

I found the name 'Programmer' in my friends list, and his status bar was grayed out, which is a sign that he is not online.

Too bad, although the 'Programmer' lives in the basement of the villa, he never comes into contact with us, even ordering food for meals is delivered directly to the door of his room...

Although I have complained many times in my heart, "What is the difference between this and a prison", it means that if he is not online, there is really no way to find him.

I'm alone and helpless, surrounded by a blank sheet of Sakura, the only one I can turn to for help seems to be the boss...

After dialing the boss's communication, it showed such a status as expected——

'During the game, reply later. '

Forgot, today is the time for the friendly match on the official live broadcast platform of SKYLAND. As one of the popular anchors, Su You can't miss it...

What to do, the supposedly beautiful weekend morning is now like being trapped in an isolated island hit by a tornado. His girlfriend has amnesia and his companion is missing, and no one can be contacted.

"Student Shi Yuanxing, if possible, let me accompany you to save your companion?"

"Eh?"

I looked at Sakura in surprise, she seemed to see through my thoughts.

Indeed, Sakura's amnesia and companions trapped in my heart seem to be the same crisis. I can't bring Sakura into the game because of the fear of danger, but if possible, I still hope that Sakura can retrieve the lost memory in the game adventure.

If Shen Qing is here, she will definitely say to me in a sarcastic tone, "Idiot, your virtual girlfriend is not human, how can such an intensity of external stimulation be useful, there must be something wrong with the program somewhere" or something like that .

But now there is no other way.

"Sakura, it will be very dangerous there, are you sure you want to come with me? I'll take you to the programmer when I come back, okay?"

Sakura hesitated.

"...Actually, I always have a feeling that my becoming like this seems to have a lot to do with that game."

"oh oh?"

Unexpectedly, Sakura's amnesia is related to "Fool's Cry"? I just read the introduction of the game, and my understanding of the game's morality is limited to "this is a game where ordinary people who are caught by a perverted killer and trapped in a special facility try to crack the mechanism and escape from birth. It is suitable for players over the age of 18." The title has the word Fool, but the relationship with April Fool's Day is limited to the game time happening on April Fool's Day.

"Does Shi Yuanxing think that I will hold back?"

That's what I said, but... there is indeed a reason.

Sakura, who lost her memory, probably even forgot her previous experience in the game. She just returned to a pure and kind girl high school student. She has no experience, how can she survive in this slightly scary game here? question.

"Student Shi Yuanxing, we should know each other... right?"

I subconsciously nodded to Sakura's sudden and eager question.

"Is it because I have caused you a lot of trouble in the past that you don't want to take me?"

"No...not at all."

This seems to have caused a psychological shadow on Sakura, I shook my head hastily.

"Then take me with you?"

it's wired.

Since this 'amnesia' Sakura doesn't know me, she can't talk about liking me, so what is the reason for wanting to play games with me so eagerly?

According to the original setting, her character can be regarded as aloof from the world, and she doesn't have much interest in games, but to her, I'm just an ordinary person...

"Okay okay? Take me!"

The voice that has been lingering in my ears is a little noisy, but it reminds me of Feifei, a foodie. When did the cherry in front of me get infected with this foolishness.

"Okay, okay, take you..."

Being attacked by such a barrage of beggings, I accidentally agreed, and my heart was full of helplessness...

"—I will set off after I read the guide."

The sound of rain gurgling outside the window, I woke up in a room with dim lights, Sakura was sitting on the chair beside me, and she had just opened her eyes.

"Welcome to the wonderful house of the clown, today is April Fool's Day, bring you the best holiday enjoyment."

A card was inserted on the window that was sealed by iron bars in front of him. The sound of rain prevented all possibilities of calling for help, so he had to escape with his own strength.

"So, it's basically a secret room escape like a haunted house..."

Shen Qing and Ye Yin who are trapped in this game are good enough, of course, if there is an awakened AI in this game, it is another matter.

"Shi... Shi Yuanxing, this place is so scary..."

I turned around and saw Sakura looking around slightly trembling, the expression and fluff like a panicked little hamster made me involuntarily touch her head...

"Ehh? That..."

I retracted my hand like an electric shock, don’t be kidding, the current Sakura obviously can’t remember who I am, isn’t touching her head the same as sexual harassment?

"Sorry, I didn't mean to!"

"...Well, it doesn't matter, on the contrary, I feel a lot more at ease."

Sakura shook her head to comfort me, even if she loses her memory, the little angel is still a little angel.

"Hey hey?!"

"What's wrong, Sakura?!"

Her sudden scream startled me, did she see the enemy? !

"I just found out that I can touch the surrounding environment again here. Is it resurrected from the soul state?"

"...So it's not resurrection, but entering the world where you should exist. Do you really think that you have been a ghost before?"

Sometimes I really can't understand Sakura's brain circuit, so I just accepted the setting that I become a "ghost"?

"Hmm...although I don't quite understand what the 'original world' is, but it's great to be able to touch...the surroundings."

"..."

However, in the escape room game, in order to increase the tension of the players, it is impossible to add some time limits, so Sakura and I did not chat for too long, and started to break through the level directly.

There are some gray disabled dolls everywhere along the way, as well as clown masks used as decorations, and the sense of horror is full.

The process of deciphering and breaking through the level has no obstacles for us who memorized the strategy. We only spent half an hour in the game with a limit of 3 hours and easily reached the final level.

"Hey, Shen Qing, Ye Yin, are you in there?"

The door is very thick, it is an iron door, and it took me a lot of effort to make a muffled sound of 'boom-boom-'.

"..."

The door was too thick, and I put my ears on it to hear some small echoes, and vaguely felt that it really came from Shen Qing and Ye Yin.

The way to finally close the door was not difficult, but the door was locked from our side, and they didn't seem to find another exit, so they were trapped in the room.

Both Shen Qing and Ye Yin are not idle people. Although Shen Qing's game level is average, she can still be seen in terms of intelligence. Ye Yin is a player with 800 players in the fighting arena. Standalone game stuck.

Unless... I have some bad premonition in my heart...

"Student Shi Yuanxing...they should be inside, why don't we go save them?"

On the other hand, Sakura who kept urging me was also weird.

"Forget it, forget it, I can't think of it... let's go in and talk about it first."

I shook my head. There are so many strange things that I don’t know where to start. Having experienced three dangers, I am no longer so timid. Why don’t I open the door openly and go in to see what dangers are waiting.

squeak--

The heavy iron door was slowly pushed open by us.

Presented in front of us is the final level of the game, which is also the hall of the house. I saw that the stairs leading to the second floor had been piled up and blocked by sharp iron bars moved from nowhere, and there was no doubt that the exit was the main entrance of the hall.

"Shen Qing, Ye Yin?"

I tried calling both of them by their names.

"Welcome to the final puzzle level of the April Fool's Day Cabin. You are only one step away from the exit. Please stay alive."

cabin?

I recalled the room I just walked through, and combined with the height of the stairs in front of me, I came to the conclusion that it is not an exaggeration to say that this is a palace...

And at a glance, there were no those two people, but the sudden voice startled us.

I forgot that Sakura would not be frightened by scary things—so, the only one who was frightened was actually me.

"What does it mean to stay alive? Where are those two people..."

Squeak——

Once again, I was frightened into a cold sweat-like an ancient pendulum suddenly started, and the creepy sound sounded in this villa!

A huge, oppressive shadow suddenly appeared on the stairs on the second floor, slowly moving down——

It is indeed very slow, but according to this trend, it will come to us no matter what.

"Then, what is that? It seems to be a smiling face..."

On the head of the shadow that Sakura pointed at, there was an obvious smiling face——

"It's that clown's face."

By the way, this smiling face is very familiar, it is that clown!

"What, has the clown become a genius? Even the shadow has become so big, don't think I don't know, placing a thin body close to the light source will cause a very large shadow according to the projection relationship..."

While talking to myself to comfort myself, I raised my head to observe the light source——

"..."

Where the light source is, a clown mask fixed on a sliding rope is slowly moving.

"Suprise! Ah Yuan, Happy April Fool's Day~"

...

As soon as Ying finished speaking, Shen Qing and Ye Yin also came out from behind the stairs.

"So, what's going on?"

"As you can see, I was waiting here to give you a surprise. I said you came too slowly, right? Another monkey is faster than you."

It's really fortunate that Shen Qing can still taunt me with a calm look at this time, clearly she is the one waiting to be rescued.

"So you've been here since morning?"

"Of course, you're an idiot for taking so long to come."

"Hey, Ah Yuan still read the guide..."

"Sakura, stop talking!"

The situation before me confuses me.

"what is going on??"

"Guess for yourself, idiot."

My intuition tells me that asking Shen Qing and Sakura won't work.

The persimmons should be picked softly, and it will be smooth if you start with Ye Yin——

"?"

Ye Yin's eyes were full of innocence, I deliberately leaned closer, pretending to be condescending and oppressive, and stared at him. move to my hem...

"Senior Shi Shi! Is there something..."

His voice is as soft and neutral as ever, and because of his weak personality, he stutters every time he is stared at.

"Hey, don't scare people."

Shen Qing interrupted the plan of pinching the persimmons.

"Oh, it's really troublesome, explain it yourself."

Shen Qing then acted like she didn't want to care about this matter anymore, and then she didn't even want to look at this side, she turned her back and walked towards the gate. She easily pushed open the wooden door that 'trapped them for several hours', and then disappeared into the night-shrouded courtyard outside the door.

"Shen Qing has already left, should I talk about it?"

Stabilizing my emotions, I prepared to listen to the remaining two people tell me the truth without changing my face.

"Ayuan...I'm sorry, it's April Fool's Day."

"April Fool's Day? What does this have to do with it?"

"I learned about the existence of April Fool's Day from Feifei, and found it very interesting. I suddenly thought of fooling A Yuan, so I asked Shen Qing and Ye Yin to help me..."

Sure enough, it was that foodie idiot. She and Sakura got very close recently because of the relationship between eating cakes and making cakes, but she didn't expect to teach Sakura this kind of thing.

"Is that why you worried me for so long?"

"Don't... don't be angry, it's my fault..."

At this time, Sakura was standing in front of me anxiously, with her head down, twisting her long pink hair hanging down one side with her hands...

"Really."

I sighed, although I was indeed fooled, but I'm not bad-tempered enough to get angry at Sakura for this kind of thing.

"You are the girlfriend I care about, and Shen Qing Yeyin is also the friend I care about. I am really anxious when something like this happens."

"Sorry for worrying you..."

"..."

Seeing Sakura's guilty face, I also knew that she had realized the problem, and continuing to speak was just my unilateral venting. I held back my emotions, sighed, and reached out to touch her head.

"Hey... well, just don't scare me like this in the future."

"Um……"

Sakura rubbed my hand and nodded.

"...Let's go quickly, it's eerie and scary here."

Ye Yin suddenly interrupted our tenderness.

That's right, I must be out of my mind to think of staying in this weird place and talking about love, obviously Ye Yin can't stand it...

"Then let's go, just think about what to have for lunch."

"Well... do you want to try braised fish?"

"It could not be better."

Chapter 4

Everyone sat around the dining table, in front of Ye Yin's braised fish, as well as my fried rice and fried vegetables.

"It really surprises me that you can make something other than fried rice."

Shen Qing commented.

"Hey, you haven't even made fried rice successfully, the charred piece you found in the trash can last time..."

"It's so noisy! Shut up!"

So Shen Qing secretly revealed that the plan failed.

"Braised fish...will be cold..."

A timid voice intervened in our daily bickering, and what he said was that we could not disappoint Ye Yin's intentions.

"Mmmm, it's delicious!"

'Delicious' is a general term for any edible food, not a compliment.

However, Ye Yin's braised fish in brown sauce is at the level of her mother.

"Forgive me for my lack of vocabulary, it's burnt on the outside and tender on the inside, it's quite good-someone's stir-fried vegetables are nothing compared to this."

"Eh? Really? It's great that you guys like it!"

Seeing Ye Yin jumping for joy because of the praise from Shen Qing and me, I once again wondered if the child had cast the wrong gender—if she was a girl, Ye Yin must be a virtuous and lovely girl.

What a pity...

"A Yuan, what are you thinking..."

Sakura looked at me suspiciously, and I hurriedly clarified to her that I had no desire to cohabit with beautiful girls this time—of course, I had no desire to desire that my male teammates were actually beautiful girls.

"Oh, Ah Yuan is a pervert!"

For unknown reasons, Sakura left in a huff...

"Eh? Isn't Sakura here? You clearly promised to teach me how to make a rainbow cake today!"

The noisy voice rang in my ears, reminding me that I haven't settled with this guy yet.

"Feifei, do you know about the action on April Fool's Day?"

"Of course! I told Sakura~"

Feifei didn't know that the catastrophe was imminent, and she still had a smug face as if she was waiting for my praise——this child is too simple, so I am too embarrassed to tease her.

"Forget it, I can't blame you... In the future, when introducing things to Sakura, you must clearly explain the consequences, do you hear me? Otherwise, you will be punished and not allowed to eat cakes."

"good……"

As long as the cake is used as a threat, this guy has nothing to do. I don't know why an AI is so obsessed with cakes.

"By the way, there is something I want to tell you, that is why I chose the game "Fool's Cry"."

"Why?"

"It's one thing to fool you, but it was true that for a while the signal of the awakened AI was traced, but it disappeared after entering the game."

"Well……"

"It's really troublesome, probably the tracking system is not perfect enough, you have to report it to the 'programmer'..."

What Shen Qing said is correct. Recently, the tracking system has frequently misreported, which has caused us a lot of trouble.

Hope the programmers can fix it sooner. Only one or two false alarms are acceptable, but there always seems to be something wrong behind such 'frequent' false alarms... I can't think of the reason just based on some feelings, so let's focus on the angry Sakura first. Of course, looking back, Shen Qing was no longer there, leaving Ye Yin and a table of bowls and chopsticks behind again. Resignedly, I picked up the bowls and chopsticks and cleaned up the mess with Ye Yin.