Trapped in this Boring Room!

Translated by LysUltima

Loop 2

● Day 1 ●

When I regained consciousness, I was standing in the middle of the room.

There’s no memory of me getting up.

However, I felt like I woke up from a dream.

“Huh?”

The next moment, a strong unpleasant feeling came over me.

First…

Yes, the bed.

The bed that used to be messy, was now neat.

Then, the edge of the desk.

The thing that gave off a strange presence was now gone.

The reset button was gone.

Yes, that reset button that was supposed to have been pushed last time.
“…”
Something was off.
I had that feeling, so I looked around the surroundings.

I thought intuitively that something changed.

I carefully decided to see various things.
First, the door.
It didn’t change.

It was tightly closed just like before.
The bed, I was carefully watching it since before, but it seems that nothing more has changed.
To do all this without me noticing, there’s a high degree of preparation.
Ceiling. Unchanged.
PC, this too…
No, the screen changed.

Before I could notice it, the words “GAME OVER” disappeared and the screen changed to the desktop.

On the desktop, there were the characters that I became quite used to recently, 【You cannot leave this room unless you rank first on the novel posting site, “Let’s Write a Novel”】

I tried moving the mouse, and the mouse cursor moved with me.
I was a little relieved.
It stopped working some time before.

At least, it seemed that the problem was solved.
“Hmm?”
Another thing.
I found something unfamiliar on the desktop screen.

This too, that makes two.

One is the bottom part of the desktop.

There was a thick black line.

It’s a taskbar.

Only, unlike the taskbar I knew of, the start menu and icons weren’t there.

Then how did I know that it was a taskbar?

It was because the time and date were displayed at the right end of the bar.
There, the text, “7:00 2017/04/01,” was written.
04/01.

April 1st.

Odd.

Today was supposed to be April 26th. But for now, let’s leave it.

It displayed the time and date, and, next to that, there was an icon.

If I’m not mistaken, if this was Wind○ws^[1], there would be a notification from the action center.

That’s the guy that lets you know when something happens to your PC.
I tried clicking it.

A large window was then displayed on the right side of the screen, and these characters were written there.
“First comment: A word processor has been given.”
A word processor.
They were software for writing sentences such as W○rd or Ichitar○^[2].

Last time I wrote directly on the input form on the site, “Let’s Write a Novel.”

Apart from that, it seemed that something else had become available.

Since I didn’t really get it, I decided to check the other strange thing on the desktop.
It was right under the shortcut for “Let’s Write a Novel.”

A folder.

The yellow folder was labeled as, “First loop, author: VWXYZ”

In this room where everything was white, it was the only yellow-colored.

Except for the contents of the folder.

I thought that I should be a little more careful, but it was just a folder. Well, there’s no reason not to look inside the folder.

The inside was further divided into folders.
Each one of those folders had a familiar title.

“Rhapsody of Egoism”
“The Tides of Eternity”
“Transparent Windowside”
“I’m Being Confined, Somebody Call the Police”

The title of the three novels that I posted and the title when I asked for someone to report to the police.
I tried opening the first folder.
There was one more folder in the middle.
“2017/04/05”
Who knew? That was the day when I posted “Rhapsody of Egoism.”
No, if today is truly 04/01, there is a chance that I misunderstood…

Anyway, I tried opening the folder.
There, six icons were displayed.
It was a mysterious icon that seems to be familiar. Specifically speaking, it was similar to W○rd.
However, I knew each title.
The title of each chapter in “Rhapsody of Egoism.”

I opened a chapter to look.
When I double clicked on the first chapter, a window that resembled the icon appeared on the screen, and, immediately, words were displayed.
A word processor.
Of course, I was able to change the words inside.

“I see, so this is what it meant by ‘word possessor was given’…”

It really was hard to say what was different from writing it directly on the input page on “Let’s Write a Novel,” but, at least, I didn’t have to open up the site.

“…Then, what became of that site?”

Honestly, I’m scared to look at that site.
I remembered that my account got banned.
At long last, the PC was fixed, but “GAMEOVER” could pop up again, and it might become frozen.
Though, at this stage, I could somehow guess that it wouldn’t be like that.
Probably…

“…”

I swallowed my saliva, and opened “Let’s Write a Novel.”
The page was displayed without any problems.
At that, I was confident.

“Yep, it’s like that.”

There was a list of newly posted novels.
And then, there were some words.
The date of the newest novel was written as follows:

2017/04/01 7: 01

Apparently, it seems I came back to the moment when I came into this room.
It’s a time loop.

● Day 2 ●

I used this day to organize information.

First of all, in this room, the concept of time exists, but the concept of food doesn’t.
I don’t get hungry, and I won’t starve.

The way to get out is probably “rank first on the novel posting site.”
Doing so will open the door and let me leave.
I don’t know if I can really leave, but I’ll believe it anyways.

The browser can’t access anything other than “Let’s Write a Novel.”
Perhaps there would be more sites that I could access in the future, but this is the present.

I could basically do anything at the site.
Post a novel.
Read others’ novels.
Search for novels.
Browse the rankings.
Write and read blogs attached to the site’s “Activity Report.”
Etc, etc.

When registering a member and submitting a novel, it’s posted completely normally.
On the second day, a reset button appeared next to the desk.

If some condition is satisfied, it becomes “GAMEOVER,” and the PC is disabled.
One of the conditions to get the game over is when the account gets banned due to the violation of rules.
In that situation, it’s checkmate, so I have to use the reset button.

When I press the reset button, I’ll return to 7:00 on April 1, 2017.
However, not everything returns to how it was originally.
Novels posted on previous loops are put into folders and saved.

Furthermore, at this time, the PC’s function was given.
Although it’s just speculation, I think that it’s like an achievement in a game; whenever I achieve something, a function is released.
By getting comments for the first time, the word processor was given.
I was lucky.
If I didn’t get the comment, I wouldn’t be able to see my past novels.

It was given by getting a comment.
That means that if I continue my activity in “Let’s Write a Novel,” other functions will be given.
And probably… The last thing will be the unlocking of the door.

Basically, whatever the case, I need to write novels, post them, and aim for the top spot in the rankings.

● Day 3 ●

For now, I decided to write a new work because it was hard to enter the ranking with my previous work.
What should be the theme?
Oh yeah… How about this kind of story?
The setting is the universe.
The time period is the future.
Human beings have entered an era called the space exploration era, and the government gives out a lot of money when people find an undiscovered habitable planet or a star rich in resources. Therefore, adventurers are traveling to outer space one after another.
The protagonist is one of the adventurers, taking a single worn-out spacecraft, traveling while dreaming of a fortune.

Okay, let’s go with this.
Writing down a plot beforehand isn’t necessary. All the plot is in my head.
This will be more interesting than any work that I have ever written.
I have a feeling that this will be my best masterpiece.

● Day 30 ●

I managed to finish writing.
It took quite some time. A masterpiece.
There’s nearly 400 sheets of manuscript paper.
The writing speed was pretty fast because there was nothing else to do.
Writing this much at such a speed… Yep, I have talent as a writer.
Now, let’s post.

Uh, I have to register as a member before that.
Since I posted Sci-Fi, why don’t I make my username a little more elaborate?
How about Denym Rottenmeier?

● Day 31 ●

No points.
No, that doesn’t mean that there were absolutely no points.
A total of 8 points. 4 people bookmarked it.
But, that’s it.
There were no comments either.

● Day 33 ●

That’s it! I thought of a good idea.
I saw it when I read another work before, but I should, in the description, in the author’s notes at the beginning, and in the author’s notes at the end, put the statement that I want readers to bookmark and review.
If everyone who reads reviews the novel, my points will rise by a lot.

● Day 35 ●

A warning came from the operation.
It seems that writing that you want the novel to be bookmarked and reviewed in the novel is a violation of the rules.
For now, since I wanted to see how effective it is, I reply that I wanted them to leave it for a week.

● Day 36 ●

My account was suspended.
It’s GAME OVER.
I could not see how many points it increased by, and I did not know how much of an effect it had.

● Day 37 ●

Soon, I need to admit it.
I don’t want to admit it, but I need to if I want to move on.
Forever, I’ll continue to be stepped on.

I have no talent.

Writing a work by hand will not get explosive popularity. I don’t have such talent.
Perhaps, while writing, I could improve, but, right now, let alone getting on the rankings, nobody will read it.
I have to do a different way.
I don’t know if there’s another way to do it.
However, novels are made with human hands.
Techniques, tricks, procedures, and plans exist in what is made with human hands.
There are also ways to improve.
It’s the same as sports and games.
Let’s start from 1, as a beginner.

With the full intent to reset, I pushed the red button.

[1] That weird ○ is the Japanese censor symbol; I really don’t see how that censored anything at all.
[2] Another obvious censorship; it’s MS Word and the second is Ichitaro.