The horses that seemed to be forged out of stars trotted down the deserted street. It was the early morning, cold and quiet.
Haro, Sayaka and Sonya were now a party.
Their first upcoming location was Shizuoka, now renamed the "8 Legged Hell".
Haro rubbed the top of the horse's head to signal it to walk up to the front. Once in front of the two other horses he looked back.
"So just a recap for the viewers, what specific places do we have to stop at?"
Sayaka reached behind her and grabbed her bag. She place it in front of her and pulls out the map they looked at before.
"Let's see here.. First we got Shizuoka, now renamed '8 Legged Hell', secondly we have Hiroshima, now renamed 'Ground Zero' thirdly we have Yamaguchi, now called 'Orb Hideout' and lastly we have Okinawa, now called 'Lake of potions'."
"Interesting names.."
Sayaka put the map back into her backpack.
"Well when the world goes to hell you gotta find at least one way to stay sane, for the scavengers that was renaming all these places."
Haro sympathized with how the scavengers felt. HE felt as if everyone in this new apocalyptic world had a way of staying sane.
I suppose for me to stay sane, I just think of streaming.
***
After riding the horses for a little bit, they hit a bump in the path. It was a long, black smoke that stretched for ages to the right and left.
"So this is it, huh?"
Haro tried to ask Sonya, but looking at her he saw that she was fast asleep on her horse.
She opened her eyes and slowly blinked, forcing herself to sit up.
"Are we there yettt.."
Haro thought it was fair of her to ask this question. They started in Shinjuku and have been on their horses for about five hours (those star horses were surprisingly fast!).
"You know since you are a god, or like a demi-god, maybe, doesn't that mean you don't need sleep?"
Chat:
Viewer #7469 - "Good point! It doesn't make sense for them to sleep."
Viewer #11567 - "Wait I'm late to the stream, there are gods in the apocalypse now?"
Viewer #156743 - "I'm a god and no you don't need to sleep."
"Well you know it's more of like a habit thingy.. It's like when humans eat spicy or sour things, you aren't eating it because you are hungry you are eating it because of the taste! The enjoyment! Same goes for when gods want to sleep!"
Haro smirked and pointed finger guns at Sonya.
"Now THAT is a soundproof logic, good job!"
Sonya giggled slightly but cutely at his 'over the top' reaction.
Sayaka's horse trotted in between them, all three horses were now facing the big wall of black smoke.
"The map says that past the smoke it the 8 Legged Hell. There is no telling just how thick the smoke is, so it should be a good idea to holds hands as we go through."
With Haro on her left and Sonya on her right, she held out both of her arms to them.
Sonya crossed her hands and stared away in displease.
"Sonya, what's wrong..?"
"I wanna hold Master's hand!"
There was a profound disdain in Sonya's voice as she spoke.
Sayaka let out a frustrated sigh.
"Look, if you want to help Haro-"
"Let him speak for himself! I wanted to be the one holding Maste-.. I mean.. Haro's hand!"
Sayaka looked at Haro, waiting for him to put Sonya in her place so they could get on with the adventure.
"Sonya, just for the time being could you please listen to Sayaka for me?"
"Okii!"
Sonya shined a bright fruitful smile towards Haro.
This girl must have bipolar disorder!
The both of them grabbed one of Sayaka's hands and they began to trop into the black smoke.
It was thick, Haro couldn't see anything in front or around him so just to stay safe he kept firm grip onto Sayaka's hand. The fog was so thick that it didn't even feel like they were going forward.
Out of nowhere Sayaka's hand left his.
"Huh? Sayaka!"
He immediately screamed out for the girl that was once holding his hand.
He blinked and when he slowly opened his eyes he found himself in a small town. The streets were deserted and stuff from stores had been sprawled out onto the floor.
Haro looked around to find Sayaka and Sonya but they were nowhere in sight.
Looking to his left his horse was there, but instead of it's usual shining yellow colour with the blue ring on it's head, it was now missing the blue ring and the yellow colour was now a black. After a few seconds the horse faded away into dust, ceasing to exist.
"Sayakaaaa! Sonyaaaa! Where are youuuu?!"
Haro cupped his hands around his mouth a yelled those words into them. But there was no response back.
Haro was now completely stranded.
"The black smoke that was behind me is nowhere to be seen now... It wouldn't have disappeared that easily, it was huge!"
Chat:
Viewers #5784 - "Just what the hell is going on?"
Viewer #9075 - "Where are the girls!!!!"
Viewer #13358 - "Stay on alert Haro."
"Only a few seconds had passed as we traveled through the smoke, so there is no way we traveled far enough to the point where it was out of sight.."
Haro felt like it was a good idea not to do internal monologue. It was more engaging if the chat could hear his thoughts.
"I suppose I can't do anything else, so I'll just walk through the streets until I find something.
A long screech roared out suddenly, the source of the sound came from behind Haro.
It was not the screech of a human.
He slowly turned back and what he saw was an abnormally large spider. It was the size of a camper van, it's shell was furry and it's eyes were crimson red.
"J-just what the hell.."
Haro slowly backed up but with every step the spider crawled closer and closer.
"S-shop.."
The shop interfaced appeared in front of Haro.
"Maybe I can purchase a weapon, possibly the twin daggers from the fight with the orb."
Stream Shop:
Balance - 0
"Huh?! Why?!"
Stream Shop Notification:
Pending earnings from streams take a minimum of 24 hours. Once it has been 24 hours earning will appear in your account.
Pending - 3 million yen
Time left until earnings - 2 hours
"Just my luck!"
Haro was angry but he did not direct his anger toward the system, he blamed himself for not knowing this.
"well can I use a Stream Ad?"
Stream Notification:
Action - Denied
Reasoning - You cannot accept Stream Ads without the person you are soul bound with.
"No no no!"
Haro looked at the spider and the spider looked at him. It was drooling as it crawled toward him slowly, the drool that landed on the ground burned through the road.
"I underestimated just how dangerous a journey to the Long Bridge could actually be!"
Stream Objective:
Locate and secure soul bounded partner.