I Live To Play VR-MMORPG

Inside of an underground bas.e.m.e.nt, James was tied to a chair where no matter how much he struggles he can't escape.

His face was full of fear, he didn't expect things would've come into this direction when he was following a kid's order to find a man.

"I ask you one more time... "

"Tell me."

"How do you know?"

A young African man threatens James by holding a scalpel against James' throat.

Obviously James can feel the sharpness of the scalpel as his throat was slowly bleeding already by a slight touch.

Right now he's trembling in fear hoping that his answer will satisfy the man behind him.

"My boss told me."

"Oh? And just who's your boss?"

-----

[The first day of James arriving at South Africa]

[James' POV]

Finally! I have arrived in South Africa.

At first, glance when I arrived at the airport I figured it's not that bad compared to Indonesia.

I even managed to get myself a tour guide that could speak and understand English.

But soon I realized this place... is not for a naive tourist like me to visit.

At first, things went smoothly. The guide I hired managed to find me at least a relatably clean hotel.

It's not a good hotel with great services. There's also no bar, swimming pool or gym. None of those existed in the hotel but I barely care.

Since I lived at that beach alone, I'm not as picky as before anymore.

I just live like a normal person and focused on searching a person as I was told to.

Opening the notes I made, where I have written the name of the person that I need to search for and the area that I need to search for.

Let's see...

Khayelitsha...

Where's that??

After putting my stuff, take a shower and change into my casual clothes, I went down to see my guide again.

"Do you know where's Khayelitsha?"

Hearing the name of the town, the guide frowns.

"Why?"

I was confused when he asked me 'Why'. I mean, It's just a town name right?

"I need to find someone there."

"Oh, to find someone. I see..."

"If you really need to go there, I'll bring you there, It's just ten minutes drive."

"Great! We'll go now!"

Following that, I entered his car and we instantly on the way to the destination I mentioned.

As we're about to arrive, I was greeted by an unbelievable view, those wooden sheds and filthy garbage everywhere, I even spotted some sheds that were made by trash. How could a person live in that place?

This was probably the first time I see a place as filthy as this.

Only later when I realize that the filthy place that I'm talking about was the place I wanted to go and search for a person.

"This is the place."

I was dumbfounded. Did Andy send me to the wrong place? How could he want to someone from a filthy place, a slum?

Despite my disbelief, I still kept my composure and tried to search for a person called Sir John.

I went out of the car and was about to visit the place only to be stopped by my guide.

"What?! You're going in there? I thought that you're meeting someone?"

"No, I said that I need to find someone."

"Argh... I heard it wrong then."

Finding and meeting, they didn't even sound similar.

"Anyway, I suggest you drop the thoughts going in there. It's dangerous for a foreigner like you going inside."

"I'm not being racist here, but they don't like white people like you, bro."

"No offense here, I just don't want you to get hurt."

I shrugged, ignoring his warning. I'm not really scared of those people. No matter what, I still need to do my job.

"I still need to go, I have a job to do."

"Besides, who said I'm going alone? You're coming with me too, I can't speak your language so you'll have to help me."

Gulp*

"Do I get extra pay?"

"Of course! I'll pay you double!"

Hearing that I will double his pay, the guide can't resist the temptation of money.

Thankfully he's coming with me or else the search will be ten times harder or maybe worse if I go on my own.

"Alright then, but before going in I suggest you put all of your valuable things in the car."

I don't know why but since he asked me to do it, I complied with his suggestion.

After the guide parked his car at a safer place, we went in together.

"Just say to him that I wanted to find a doctor called Sir John. Can you?"

"A doctor? Sir John?"

"Yes."

"S-sure."

We started asking around, approaching every person we encounter.

Each of them only shook their head, not knowing a doctor around.

Why would there be a doctor in a slum anyway?

Half-day passed just like that and we're already exhausted with moving and asking around.

"Should we come again tomorrow, I'm starving..."

Hearing the complaint of the guide, I nodded my head as I'm also starving too.

"We'll come again tomorrow then, let's return to the hotel."

...

...

The next day around in the morning, after I ate my breakfast, I called the guide to begin our search again.

The same payment as yesterday will be paid, of course, he didn't reject my offer.

Another hard day passed after going around the slums, asking every people we met about Sir John and the doctor.

No matter what, no one seemed to know a doctor inside of a slum.

Third day...

Fourth day...

And there's still no results from the search.

However... on the fifth day, there's finally a person that said that he knows such a person.

"You really know a doctor called Sir John?"

"Yes, Yes. I know him. Would you like to meet him?"

The guide was overjoyed that I finally found a person that knows something. He immediately relays the message to me in English.

"That man said that he knew someone called Sir John and asking whether you would like to meet him?"

"Really?! Yes! Of course, I wanted to meet him!"

The guide translated my message to the person and that person started to lead us to the doctor.

Damn...

How stupid of us to not be suspicious of him...

We were lead deep to the center of the slums, where things were better-looking compared to the outskirts, the sheds around it looked better too.

This made me think that it made sense to search here instead of the outskirts.

This whole time we mainly spend our time searching on the outskirt of the slums.

The reason is that, before we're could get to the center, we already gave up as we're hungry and return to the hotel.

Anyway, we came in quite deep walking for about five minutes and arrived in front of a house.

Yes, a house. We were led into a house. A nice house that was humane to be lived in and could be seen as the best shed in these slums.

I said to myself that this must the place the doctor lives in.

As we got inside, we didn't get greeted by a doctor but a bunch of people holding an iron bat.

Seeing that they're holding a weapon, but much more dangerous is their deathly stare, meaning they don't have any intention of sparing us.

We're too late to realize that there's something wrong.

Bang*

From behind before we could react, both of us were knocked unconscious with a huge impact on the back of our heads.

This is why I'm regretting.

The moment I woke up, I found myself tied on a chair with no way to escape, inside of an empty room.

Well, the room could be said empty except for the lamp on top of my head and surgery tools beside myself, which I don't what they're for.

While I was struggling to escape, trying my best to squeeze my limbs out of the ropes, I heard an awful cry.

It's a scream of pain. The person constantly screaming and screaming, until suddenly it stopped as though the person died.

I was scared to death and realized maybe the tools beside was for torturing.

This made me more scared of the situation I'm in right now.

I really started to struggle badly as though my life depended on it, to escape out of the ropes.

No matter how hard I tried, the ropes got tighter and they're hurting me way than before.

Not long later, my worst nightmare came true, a person wearing an apron with blood splattered on it came into the room.

This was as though a horror movie that I watched before, except that this is happening to me right now.

"Hello there~ I'm not good with English but I'm sure it's good enough to make you understand me."

Gulp*

As he got closer and closer, my mind blanks out. The fear of getting tortured by the man in front of me consumed all of my sane thoughts.

I only kept staring at the blood on his apron, wondering who's blood, was it?

Was it the guy that screamed just now?

As though he could read my mind, the man answered me.

"This blood? It's the blood of a friend of yours. Your tour guide, I presume."

The moment he said I then recalled the screams before. I don't want to but I have to admit that it does sound like his voice.

Only then my face turned paler and realized that this could be it.

I'm finished.