It All Started By One Single Tear (Rantaro x reader x YandereMastermind Kokichi)

Chapter 4 Part 22: Exploring the Mansion

Your POV:

We were all gathered around in a fancy looking hallway due to the fact that Miu told us that she made a map of the Virtual World for us. Earlier, I had left the room we logged into before anyone else because Kokichi yelled at Rantaro and I for being quite on quote, "flirty".
    I knew if I showed a reaction, then he would just continue. That was part of the reason why I left the room, and that's what brought us to where we are now, standing before Miu, waiting for her to show us the map that she prepared for us.
    "Look, there's the map I prepared for you guys," Miu explained.
    After Miu said that, I saw two pieces of paper on the wall behind her. I noticed those papers when I walked into the room. I was guessing that those were the maps she was talking about.
    "Study it, and you'll know the Virtual World like Tsumugi knows the back of her neck!" Miu exclaimed.
    "Huh?" Tsumugi asked in response, "what about the back of my neck? How did you know that spot's...sensitive?"
    "O-Okay...I see," Kaito replied, "the back of your neck, huh?"
    "Why are you interested in that?" Maki asked, "you're gross..."
    I honestly couldn't get my head around what was going on right now. Looking over at Rantaro, it seemed that he had a deadpanned expression on his face. It looked to me like he didn't know how to process what was going on either. That was kinda strange to me, considering he pinned me down, and kissed me. I knew very well he knew that was something that made me really flustered.
    "You degenerate male..." Tenko muttered in an angry tone, "if you say one more word about being interested in Tsumugi, I will kick you so hard that you won't be able to reproduce!"
    "Geez, alright!" Kaito exclaimed, "I didn't really mean it anyway!"
    "Guys, please don't post this online..." Tsumugi muttered, "if this spreads, people will start trying to play tricks on me during photo shoots..."
    "How do you know people won't start playing tricks on you now?" Kaede asked with a smile, "I mean, it sounds kinda sexy."
    "This again, Kaede?" Shuichi asked, "we should really focus."
    After Shuichi said that, I nodded in response to that. He was right, we needed to focus. I decided to walk up to the two pieces of paper Miu was talking about to take a closer look at them. Looking at these papers, I would have a good idea on how big this place would be.
    The first piece of paper that I looked at had "Mansion-1F" labeled on it. It was a simple layout with a Dining Hall, Kitchen, Bathroom, Main Hall, Rooftop Stairway, and a Salon. The part of the map labeled with "Salon" was marked in yellow, signifying that we were in that room.
    'No wonder this area looks so fancy... it's a mansion...' I thought.
    "This is the map to the mansion, which is the building we're in right now," Miu explained, "this area is the entrance hall, and that room with the phone is the salon. The dining hall, kitchen, and bathroom are also on the first floor."
    "There is no second floor..." Shuichi muttered, "but I do see a rooftop area."
    "The rooftop, huh?" Kaito asked, "I guess that'd give us a good view. Let's go check it out later."
    "That's a great idea, Kaito!" Kaede exclaimed, "we should check out the rooftop to see if we can spot anything suspicious!"
    "Guys, shouldn't there be at least a bedroom?" I asked, "last I checked, a mansion is a house for someone who is pretty wealthy. It's kinda odd that there isn't a bedroom."
"Oh ho, so you're trying to find a way to get Rantaro to fuck the shit outta you in this world, huh?" Miu asked, "ah-hahaha~! If I were you, I would just get down to business!"
I let out a frustrated sigh in response to Miu as the all too familiar blue lines appeared over my avatar. Miu always seemed to have a knack to give inappropriate lines even if the question was actually one that had a reason to be answered.
"Miu, can you just be serious for five seconds?" Rantaro asked, irritation seeping through his calm voice, "(y/n) actually asked something that should have an answer, and you decided to be inappropriate about that. We don't want to do that sort of thing. Get that through your thick skull so we can find what we're looking for here."
"Alright, fine, Craptaro..." Miu muttered in response to that, "you don't have to be such a fuckin' buzzkill."
I was honestly thankful Rantaro said something. It felt like no matter what I could possibly tell Miu, she wouldn't listen. Hopefully Miu would listen to Rantaro. We really weren't planning on doing that.
In any case, I needed to focus. I needed to look at the second map that Miu created for us. The second map was bigger in size than the map for the mansion. We already saw that map, and we also knew our location from the help of that map. The mansion... That was the building we were in now, but what else was there?
I decided to take a look at the bigger map. I wanted to take in all of the details the map was showing. There was two buildings, the bigger one I assumed to be the mansion. There was a trail leading from the mansion that seemed to lead across a river. After the river, the trail led on to another building. I had no idea what the second building was, but I knew it was there. On the mansion side there was what looked like some sort of forest or trees behind the mansion, and white going across the whole map, signifying what I believed to be was snow.
Those were the main things I noticed. Continuing to inspect the map, I also saw what looked like a black border around both the x-axis of the map, and the y-axis of the map. There was what looked like a squiggly line in the center of the map. While I didn't know what all of this meant, I had a feeling that it was important to the layout of the world.
This map also told me that in reality, the world wasn't that big. That would make it way easier to search for the secret of the outside world. I knew Miu would explain the map, but I inspected what o could understand thus far.
"Listen up shithead!" Miu exclaimed, "make sure you remember everything about this world!"
"It looks...pretty expansive," Shuichi replied, "it even continues past the river. Is this an ellipsis here? Showing that it continues?"
"Yeah, I'll tell you what the sign means later," Miu replied, "you'll understand once you actually go there."
I wondered what Miu meant by that. I knew she was replying to Shuichi's question, but I was curious on what she meant by her words. Shuichi then seemed to notice the second building. Miu then explained that it was a chapel that was a cluttered mess inside.
'So that second building is a chapel...' I thought.
Kaito told everyone that the secret of the outside world could be in the chapel if it was a cluttered mess. It did make sense. If the chapel had a lot of clutter inside, the thing we were looking for could possibly be in there.
    That did cover the other building on the map. Now the only things that needed to be explained were the black lines drawn around the whole map, as well as the squiggly line in the dead center of the map. It seemed that Kokichi went straight to that specific topic. He mentioned to Miu that he noticed the black lines across the whole map. He asked her if that meant anything.
    "Heh, how nice of ya to notice! Of course it means somethin'!" Miu exclaimed, "the black line represents a wall!"
    "A wall?" Shuichi asked in response.
    In response to Shuichi's words, Miu explained that the Virtual World was surrounded by a huge wall. This brought on the question on us being trapped in this world, but Miu instantly shut it down. She told us that past the black line was the end of the virtual world. Everything ended past the black line.
    This made me realize that the world we were in was pretty small in size. If everything ended past the black line, then this was what we had to search. With the maps Miu created for us, we had an understanding on how big our search area was, as well as where we would need to search.
    "By the way, Miu, you prepared these maps yourself..." Kokichi trailed off, "...not Monokuma, right?"
    "Th-That's right...I prepared the maps," Miu replied, "what about it...?"
    "No, it's nothing," Kokichi replied, "I just wanted to know."
After hearing Miu's words, something felt off to me. Something was defiantly off with Miu's response. I didn't get why Miu was stuttering about it. I would think that she'd be prideful of doing that because it would be showing off her talent. Why was she so nervous about admitting that...?
I knew there were more important things to focus on. I knew that we needed to focus on finding out where the secret of the outside world was hidden. Maki seemed to be the first to mention that, and Kaito agreed with her. Kaito then mentioned that it was going to be difficult to find something that we didn't know what to look for. Kaede seemed to agree with that assessment.
After Kaede agreed with Kaito, in the corner of my eye, I saw Kokichi's avatar move towards the door in the area we were in. That door was most likely the exit of the mansion. I wondered where he was going, but a specific someone beat me to that question.
"...Where do you think you're going?" Maki asked.
"Hm? I was gonna go investigate alone," Kokichi replied, "there's a lot of interesting stuff I wanna check out."
"Kokichi, we don't know anything about this place," I told him, "you really shouldn't go off on your own."
"Awww~! My beloved (y/n) is worried about me," Kokichi replied, "nee-hee-hee, maybe I'll let you investigate with me. Even if you don't want to, I'll still go alone!"
    "Hey..." Kaito muttered, "like hell am I gonna let you do whatever you want."
    "Whatever I want...?" Kokichi asked in response, "and why do I need your permission, Kaito? I'm free to do whatever I want. I'm going, no matter what you guys say. Well, it'd be a hassle if someone kept watch over me—"
    "Kept watch?" Kaito asked, tick marks appearing over his avatar.
    "You degenerate..." Tenko muttered angrily, "I might as well knock some sense to you."
    "I think Kokichi is trying to get on our nerves," Kirumi explained in response to Tenko's words, "we shouldn't give him the satisfaction on making us upset."
    I agreed with Kirumi. I felt like Kokichi did certain things only to get a reaction from others. Knowing that he caused people to be upset with him was enough to keep him doing it. It was simple logic. Don't give them the reaction they want.
    Paying attention back to what was going on in front of me, I saw Gonta's avatar walk up to Kokichi. I wondered what he was going to do. I knew Gonta wanted to help everyone, so I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen.
    "Gonta not understand what's going on," Gonta explained, "Gonta not sure how helpful he can be... But Gonta can watch Kokichi so he not do anything weird!"
    "Gonta, you're so sweet...but I knew you'd say that," Kokichi replied, "even without your ridiculous physical strength, as long as you're selfless and courageous...you'd make a terrific bodyguard!"
'Bodyguard...?' I thought in response to that.
I realized something after Kokichi said that. Kokichi was trying to use Gonta... as some sort of bodyguard. It seemed like some of the others realized the same exact thing as I did as well.
"With you by my side, I know I'll be safe from any trap!" Kokichi exclaimed, "okie then, let's gooooo!
After Kokichi said those words with a happy tone of voice, he ran out of the door pretty quickly. I found myself reaching towards the door. I didn't want Kokichi to go off on his own. We still didn't know much about this world.
"Kokichi, wait!" I exclaimed, "and, he's gone..."
I let out a sigh as I realized I was too late. Kokichi was pretty fast, and I knew he was just trying to leave as quickly as he could. I understood that he wanted to do his own thing, but why did he want to do that when we didn't know much about this place?
I couldn't really put my finger on that thought as Gonta stood in front of everyone. He told us to leave it to him, and he also told us that he was going to keep an eye on Kokichi. After that, Gonta too left, leaving the room to keep an eye on Kokichi. After this happened, I turned to everyone as I let out a sigh.
According to Maki, Kokichi seemed to have planned this, and I couldn't help but agree. Rantaro seemed to agree as well, mentioning that Gonta was pretty gullible, so Kokichi would probably use him. Kaito mentioned that he knew how to manipulate people, and that fact was also true. Kokichi really knew his way around manipulating others. I had no idea what Kokichi's motives were, but I knew he would use anyone he could to accomplish his goals.
Snapping back to what was happening around me, Kaito told everyone that we should check the rooftop. In response to those words, Miu told everyone to follow her... and if anyone wanted to check up her skirt, to go for it. I couldn't help but let out a small sigh. Miu was still Miu... She left to go up the stairs, probably waiting for everyone on the rooftop.
"I really hope Gonta can see that Kokichi is manipulating him..." Rantaro muttered, "if Gonta can prove that he's better than that, Kokichi shouldn't use him anymore..."
"I agree..." I muttered in response, "I can't help but think that Kokichi planned that... Maki was right..."
"It's not your fault that Kokichi wants to manipulate people," Rantaro explained, "like you said in the past, people can't change unless they want to. Hopefully Kokichi can see that."
I nodded in response to Rantaro's words. I knew he was trying to cheer me up. I knew we needed to head to the rooftop now. It was important that we didn't keep Miu waiting for too long. I knew if we did, she'd be very angry.
    "Hey, guys, we should head to the roof now," I said.
    "I agree," Kirumi replied, "it would be in our best interest not to keep Miu waiting for too long."
    "Nyahahaha! I agree!" Angie exclaimed, "it's more like, Atua agrees! I can still feel his radiant energy course through me in this world!"
    "Angie, I still think your god is a shady weirdo..." Tenko muttered, "don't link technology with religion... especially technology tinkered with by Miu..."
    "Tenko, you shouldn't say anything bad about what Miu does," Kaede replied, "I know Miu has...interesting things to say, but that doesn't mean that she didn't do this for the good of everyone else."
    "Being completely honest, I still think this world is pretty suspicious," Rantaro spoke, "but no more side tracking. We need to get to the roof."
    Everyone seemed to nod to themselves in response to Rantaro's words. With Kokichi and Gonta's disappearance on our minds, we headed up the stairs that led to the rooftop. There were two staircases that we had to go up, and the closer I got to the top of the stairs, the colder it got. I had no idea why it felt colder, but it did.
    Opening the door that led to the rooftop, I instantly knew why it felt colder as I went up. Walking onto the rooftop area, I could see snow falling around me as well as snow on the ground where I was walking. The weird thing was that I felt genuinely cold. I knew we could feel pain here, as well as our avatars being like our actual bodies. I guessed that it wasn't that surprising to feel cold when it was cold.
I was in awe as the others made their way outside where I was. It seemed that some of the others were confused about this. Kokichi and Gonta must've known about the snow once they made it outside. Even if it was surprising that there was snow, I couldn't help but feel a happy expression go onto my face. I've seen heartwarming scenes in anime happen in the snow. Even though we were avatars, I felt happier... relaxed even. Rantaro seemed to make his way towards me, soon standing next to me as everyone saw the weather outside.
"...Snow?" Shuichi asked, "there's snow here..."
"Whoa! It's snow!" Kaito exclaimed, "look, Maki Roll! It's snow! Look! Snow!"
"Are you a dog?" Maki asked.
"I think the snow is beautiful even though the graphics suck!" I exclaimed, "but the thing is... I actually feel cold..."
"Is it...cold here?" Tsumugi asked in response, "our avatars can feel cold?"
"Yep! Isn't it great!?" Miu exclaimed in response.
I closed my eyes in content as I grabbed Rantaro's hand. I knew that if our avatars were happy, a music note would appear as we spoke. I could feel the warmth of Rantaro's hand.
"I've seen some heartwarming scenes in anime, so yes I think it's great," I replied.
    "Who the hell cares about anime!" Miu exclaimed in response, "not only can you feel cold in this world, but you can feel pain and pleasure too! In fact, you don't even need to use birth control here!"
    "Hey...try to be quiet, please," Tsumugi requested as a tick mark appeared on her avatar, "I feel like the more you talk, the more I'll dislike you."
    "I feel the same way," Tenko replied.
    "How about we start by exploring the rooftop?" Keebo asked.
    "I think we should do that," Rantaro replied, "I think we should investigate before any heartwarming anime moments start to take form."
    I could feel myself start to laugh nervously in response to that. I knew Rantaro was right, but I couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed about being excited to see snow. I was on par with Kaito, if not worse. I knew we needed to explore the rooftop. If we knew what we were dealing with here, it would make it easier to find places the secret of the outside world could be hidden.
    Looking around the rooftop area, I instantly noticed something to check out. Walking to the left of the door we entered the rooftop from, I walked to what looked like a lookout point from the rooftop of the mansion. There was a pair of mounted binoculars there, so it's kinda obvious on why I thought this was a look out point. Shuichi seemed to notice the binoculars as well, so he walked over. Once Miu noticed Shuichi and I were looking at the binoculars, she walked over, commenting that Shuichi had a lot of experience with the binoculars, telling him that he was an obvious peeping Tom.
    "I'm gonna take a look through these binoculars if you all don't mind!" I exclaimed.
    "Alright," Shuichi replied, "would you mind if I took a look after you?"
    "I don't mind," I replied.
    With that said, I took a look through the binoculars. I could see pretty far with these. I was able to look down at the entrance of the mansion. There were a long set of stone stairs outside. There was even the river as well as trees.
    Even though the avatars had bad graphics, I actually thought the sight of everything was beautiful. Part of me wanted to get lost in the sight seeing, but I did have to focus. I saw a dark grey trail, and I started to follow it. I soon saw what looked like a wooden dock on the river. I recalled seeing it on the map. I could see past the river, but after that, I couldn't see past that. That area seemed to be where that squiggly line was on the map I saw earlier.
    'What is the purpose of that line on the map...?' I thought.
    I couldn't help but try to figure out what that line was as I tried to see past that area. Suddenly, my line of vision through the binoculars were blocked by something. I jumped slightly from shock, before I was pulled away from the binoculars by an all too familiar person.
    "Ah-haha, gotcha," Rantaro laughed.
    "You scared me!" I exclaimed my avatar looking like it was pouting slightly, "I was trying to figure out why I couldn't see past the area the line was on the map!"
    "Are you mad, princess?" Rantaro asked, "I know it's important to find out where the secret of the outside world is, but I couldn't help myself."
"Can ya two cockroaches stop actin' like you're both in heat!?" Miu exclaimed, "and I told you all! It's not a line!"
In response to that, Shuichi asked Rantaro and I to move out of the way. Rantaro and I were both looking pretty upset over Miu's comment as we moved out of the way. Shuichi looked through the binoculars after that, and a few moments went by as he looked through them. It was dead silent as he looked through them, and it seemed to be a pretty uncomfortable silence.
"Miu... what is that line...?" Shuichi asked, "why do the binoculars stop there?"
"Krgh..." Miu muttered angrily, "aggressive men are always going and coming too soon. I'll explain it to you when we get there, so don't get your panties in a bind."
I let out a small sigh when Miu said that to Shuichi. I knew she'd let us know when we got to that area, so I didn't need to worry about that right now. All I needed to worry about was exploring the rest of the rooftop.
That led me to being face to face with a sliding door that was near the mounted binoculars. It looked like some sort of storage room. I knew very well that I should see what was inside that storage room. I was sure that I wasn't the only one who had that thought.
I opened the sliding door, walking into the storage room. The room was pretty small in size, harboring a shelf with three layers. Even with three layers, you could still put things on the top of the shelf...
There was a box on top of the shelf, as well as a couple of items scattered on the shelves. There was a lattice on the ground of this room too, and there were a few thoughts in my mind.
Miu mentioned that she did remove all dangerous items that could be used to kill someone, and I didn't see anything that could be used as a weapon. It looked to me that she was telling the truth. The storage room probably used to have a bunch of dangerous items... that's why the shelves were empty.
"Why did Miu go through all the trouble to remove all dangerous items...?" I asked, "this is a simulator... no one can die here right? Is this like Sword Art Online..."
I let out a small sigh as I walked out of the storage room. After I walked out, Shuichi and Kaede walked in. It looked like I explored everything on the rooftop. After everyone looked around, it seemed that we found everything we could, and everyone seemed to discuss that.
   A well too obvious gag happened after Miu said that Himiko tripped easily, and I found myself really confused on that. It was after that that Miu told us that we were going to head to the chapel.
    We were able to explore part of the mansion, so now we were going to head to the chapel. We all walked in, Keebo and Shuichi having a chat before going in themselves. Hopefully we would find the secret of the outside world soon... that's all we could hope for.

Sorry for the rushed finish for this chapter. Tomorrow is gonna be a pretty pretty stressful day XD I wanted to get this update done, so we could get into chapter five more quickly.

The rooftop was discovered, so we are getting closer to the events happening. As for the Fanart competition for chapter 5, a couple of weeks from today will be extra time.

I hope you all have a wonderful day! Thank you for reading this week's update! Ciao for now!- yuki_no_fuyu