Back in the concrete area, Tsukuru snapped back to his senses.
As he took another look around the arena, a warm smile crept on his face, as he felt a feeling of nostalgia surge through him.
"Man, that was a really good game." He thought.
Although the game had plenty of criticism, with people complaining about how short the game's length was, and how terrible the writing was, Tsukuru liked the game.
And that was all that had mattered.
Though, even he knew the game was rushed.
The numerous amount of bugs and glitches in the game proved that.
Though, if Tsukuru was being completely honest, some of the bugs were pretty funny.
Tsukuru snorted, a smile appearing on his face, as the memories flashed through his mind.
The game this concrete platform came from was one of his favorite games, after all.
A moment later, Tsukuru burst out laughing.
"Aw, man." He said, a smile on his face and his thumb and index finger pressed against his temple. "Sometimes, I really wonder who's truly responsible for how certain aspects of this 'System' of mine manifest themself, me or whoever actually made it!"
It was then that the sound of electronic interference filled the area.
Hearing it, Tsukuru's eyes widened.
He knew that sound.
How could he not?
It was the sound of his Ability.
Looking up, he saw four giant masses of pixels begin to appear in the air, roughly ten feet above each of the four segments jutting out of the platform like an "X".
The pixels clustered together, and formed four, large, translucent, light-blue screens, looking almost like large jumbo-trons for a sports stadium.
However, they all looked dimmed and muted, an electronic device whose screen brightness was on its lowest setting.
In the center of each screen was the same "True Hero" symbol Tsukuru had identified in the middle of the platform.
A moment later, a System screen appeared in front of Tsukuru.
As it appeared in front of him, Tsukuru winced and instinctively leaned back away from the message from the sheer length of the bricky, borderline page-and-a-HALF of text on it.
[Welcome to the System's Battle Arena.
The Battle Arena is a Survival Mode Challenge.
Fight your way through waves of enemies.
At the end of every Wave, you HP, MC, and Stamina Stats will be fully recovered.
At that time, you will also be given the choice to either continue your Challenge Run, or abandon your Run Streak, and return to the real world.
Your Challenge Run ends when you run out of HP, or your time in the VR Pod ends.
You can redo the Challenge Run any number of times, but you will be forcibly ejected from the Battle Arena when your time in the VR Pod runs out.
The System will record your Run Streak, but your current progress will not be saved.
Each time you re-enter the Battle Arena, you must restart your Challenge Run from the very beginning.
Repeating a Wave that you have already completed will only award you 10% of the XP you would normally receive per kill.
While in the Battle Arena, the Skill Video Summon will become unavailable.]
Seeing the absolutely bloated System message, Tsukuru's feelings towards the information was…complicated.
Firstly, the final line of text stating that he couldn't use his Summons here wasn't a major concern to him.
Actually, he wasn't planning on using them in the first place.
If when his Haunted Knight had killed Riley was anything to go by, it seemed that when his Summons defeated/killed something, Tsukuru wouldn't gain any XP.
Rather, the Summon would accrue "Pawn Points", which it needed to progress to higher "Grades".
Additionally, the concept of a "survival challenge of fighting never-ending waves of enemies" wasn't a new concept to him.
In fact, it was basically how old arcade games had worked.
And over time, this concept had been adapted into video games as a "special mode".
Although, the fact that Tsukuru would only gain a tiny sliver of the potential XP for repeating "waves"did irk him, if he was being honest with himself.
And, if what the screen said about him being forcibly kicked out was correct, it was entirely possible for him to be jettisoned out of the arena just as he was about to complete a wave.
He'd have to very carefully calculate the maximum amount of time he could potentially spend in the VR room to minimize the chance of that happening.
As he was thinking this, something caught his eye in his vision, he saw something.
He squinted his eyes, as if he was trying to focus on something.
He then saw it. Something in the upper-right corner of his vision. It was a single line of information.
It took him a second to figure out what it was.
And when he did, he felt his heart jump.
It was a countdown.
Or to be more specifically, a ticking clock.
It was a fancy clock, the type with three sections that recorded hours, minutes, and seconds, and it currently read "00:54:48".
Seeing it, Tsukuru grit his teeth in frustration.
'Shit, I've already wasted five whole minutes in here!' He thought angrily. 'Damn it!'
It was then that Tsukuru saw another System message, a long, rectangular screen appear over the top of the bigger message, overlapping it at the very bottom in the far-right corner.
[You have received a Battle Arena-Exclusive Main Quest: Survive 21 waves in the Battle Arena.]
Tsukuru grit his teeth in annoyance.
The swiped his hand to the right, dismissing both screens.
They both broke down into square pixels, and disappeared.
Then, another screen appeared.
[Wave 1 will now begin. Would you like to continue?
[Continue] [Retire]]
Tsukuru's gaze hardened.
"Yes." He said.
At his statement, the "Continue" option on the screen lit up, and an electronic noise was heard.
Instantly, the four, giant screens above the four points of the platform lit up brightly, and a message appeared in large, blocky, white letters in the middle of the screen near the top, reading "WAVE 1".
Directly underneath it was a large "1" that took up the remainder of the screen's height.
Suddenly, a sound like an electronic emergency siren was heard, before the sound of electronic interference filled the area.
On the other side of the platform, Tsukuru saw three large masses of pixels appear slightly above the concrete platform.
Tsukuru's eyes widened, as he saw what shape the pixels were taking.
It was that of spiders.
But not normal-sized spiders.
These spiders were each the size of an adult cat.
There were three simultaneous flashes of light, as the spiders fully manifested.
The legs of the spiders were a glossy pitch-black like obsidian, while the remaining parts, the cephalothorax and the abdomen, were glowing bright blue, and looked like strange, pulsing organs.
Additionally, even the spider's legs didn't look normal.
They were sharp and jagged at every joint.
All together, these spiders looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
As Tsukuru looked at the spiders, he was surprised when his "scanner" function didn't automatically activate.
Rather, instead, a translucent, rectangular bar appeared over their heads.
[Swarmer]
It was at that time that Tsukuru received a System message that his System's "Battle Mode" had activated.
A health bar appeared in the upper-right corner of his vision, and a health bar appeared above each of the "swarmers".
Additionally, it was at that point that the information on the large screens changed as well.
Where a moment ago they had simply read "Wave 1" with a large number "1" below it, the screens now showed four lines of information near the left side of the screen, with another line of text appearing to the side of the first line of text in the first column of information.
Each "line" consisted of two sets of information, either one word or image, and a number or sets of numbers spaced out a fair difference from the first set of information.
The first line had the word "XP" with the number "0" spaced out to its right.
The second line had an image of a circular pocket watch. To it's right, it read "00:01".
Seeing how this looked like a digital clock, Tsukuru theorized that this seemed to keep track of how much time he spent in the Battle Arena.
It wasn't too far-fetched. Most games kept track of your play time in some form or another.
The third line had the word "WAVE" with the number "1" spaced out to its right.
This seemed to keep track of which "Wave" Tsukuru was currently on.
The fourth and final line in the first column had a skull image with the number "0" spaced out to its right.
Although Tsukuru had no idea what this line meant, he assumed that since the System told him that if he died he'd have to start all over again, that this was most likely a "kill count", keeping track of how many enemies he defeated.
The final line was spaced out a bit past the "0" of the "XP" line, as if to start a second column.
It had a trophy symbol, with the number "1" spaced out to its right.
Seeing as how trophies usually meant "high scores" in video games, This was probably that "run streak" that first System message had talked about.
Like a "high score" in a video game, it most likely recorded the highest "wave" Tsukuru reached, even if he was forced to start over.
It was at that moment, Tsukuru heard the spiders let out a loud, screeching noise.
He turned his attention from the large screen above them, back down to the spiders, themselves.
And as he did, he saw them scurry towards him at high speeds.
Tsukuru's eyes widened in surprise.
"Whoa!" He yelled.