On the other end of the phone came a slightly troubled voice. From Rina's perspective, it had genuinely been almost two months since she'd last seen her friend—but from the other party's point of view, Rina was probably a friend she'd seen only "not too long ago."
"What's wrong, Rina?"
The cool, clear voice carried a hint of confusion, obviously puzzled by Rina's attitude. Realizing the problem in her own words, Rina quickly coughed.
"Ahem, sorry, sorry. It's just—I missed Yuuko so much...I couldn't wait to see you~"
"…That's actually troubling—I don't have that kind of interest."
It seemed the other person misunderstood something, and from her tone, it wasn't a joke. She sounded genuinely a bit "troubled."
Rina immediately choked on her own spit, launching into a dramatic coughing fit.
"…Ahem, can we just pretend that never happened?"
"Mm, sure… So, about this afternoon's plans?"
"Same old time, same old place~"
Dropping the "secret code" only friends could understand, the other party softly acknowledged, then promptly hung up.
Right then, Rina put down her phone, looking somewhat dazed.
"So weird, it was such an ordinary conversation, but I actually feel moved enough to cry~"
Though she said that, Zero couldn't sense even a hint of tears from her tone. But after expressing her sentimental thoughts, Rina's expression soon grew conflicted again.
"Coming back is great and all, but what about the Digital World side of things?"
As a human who had returned to the Real World, theoretically, the Digital World's problems were no longer any of her business.
But she had promised Gennai that she'd save the world, and besides, she'd genuinely grown quite interested in the Digital World.
Leaving things unattended just didn't sit right with her, no matter how she thought about it.
"We can't rush it right now," Zero calmly reassured her. Having personally experienced such a drastic identity shift from human to Digimon, Zero had become quite calm about these things.
"We currently have no means of traveling back to the Digital World. Stressing out won't help. Last time you got abruptly pulled into the Digital World, you didn't even have a chance to sort out your Real World issues, so…"
Even if they wanted to return to the Digital World, they at least needed to settle Real World matters first. Although, considering the time difference, spending a day or two here could mean half a year or more passing there.
But in the original Adventure, the Chosen Children had also returned to the Real World for a while during their fight with Myotismon, and ultimately, nothing critical was really delayed.
Taking a day or two to handle family matters shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Meeting friends and family you haven't seen for two months wouldn't hurt. At least it could set one's mind at ease before returning to battle.
Besides, currently, there was simply no immediate way to go back. Rushing things wouldn't help anyway.
Once Zero had methodically laid out these points, Rina blinked, casually laughing in admiration.
"Mm, Zero-kun feels so reliable~ If…"
Before she could finish speaking, Hajime, who had been unconscious beside them, suddenly stirred, opening her eyes in confusion.
"Zero-kun, Rina? Where is this…"
Rina hurriedly gestured for her to keep his voice down. Fortunately, they were tucked away in a corner, and with other patrons' voices mixed together, no one would recognize whose voice it was.
Seeing Hajime wake up, Zero relaxed slightly, quickly whispering an explanation…
"This is Rina's world—the Human World."
Spending a few minutes, Zero explained their current situation, and Hajime soon grasped it.
"And that's roughly how it is…" Zero concluded quietly, summing things up, "The situation's complicated. Humans in this world have no knowledge of Digimon, so to avoid causing a disturbance, let's pretend we're stuffed toys when we're outside."
Conveniently, Hajime had reverted to Tsunomon form, greatly shrinking her size, perfectly resembling a plush toy.
In the original series, partner Digimon had similarly passed themselves off, so all they had to do was follow suit.
"Well, it's about time to go…"
Rina glanced at the clock. It was nearly time to meet her friend. Out of habit, Rina usually killed time in an arcade, so naturally, their meeting place was typically her favorite arcade.
Zero's memory of arcades mostly belonged to childhood. Modern arcades in Area 11 (Japan) had long since evolved into something unrecognizable to him.
He had no nostalgia left to speak of, but experiencing something new wasn't bad either.
It was a pity he couldn't personally try a few games, left only watching others play.
With about ten minutes left before the appointed time, Rina decided to stroll around the arcade. The familiar scenes appeared unchanged, exactly as they existed in her memory.
"Hey, hey, what's going on here?"
Just as Rina was leisurely strolling about, several startled cries suddenly rang out from somewhere inside the arcade, quickly spreading in her direction.
"What happened?"
Rina curiously glanced over, seeing a few players gathered around several arcade machines, anxiously pointing at their screens.
The character models displayed appeared badly glitched, fragmented and corrupted, the entire screen covered in patches of pixelated distortion. Even the player ID names had become strings of garbled characters.
After ten-odd seconds, the corrupted graphics restored themselves—but a heart-stopping prompt appeared on the screen…
…Your save file cannot be loaded. Please check if your ID card is damaged.
…Data corruption.
Modern arcade machines were nothing like the primitive versions in Zero's memory. Nowadays, national online rankings, data saving, loading, and similar functions had become standard.
Unlike free-to-play games, arcade games required inserting coins every single time. These save files were bought with real money.
Just as the commotion here hadn't yet subsided, several cries of alarm erupted from elsewhere…
…Similar situations rapidly began spreading throughout the arcade, and within moments, the place had descended into noisy chaos.
Faced with this sudden turn of events, Rina was completely baffled. At that precise moment, the Digivice hanging from her waist vibrated gently, its screen swiftly flickering with a faint glow…
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