I am a nameless newbie nurse.

My hobby is playing games that make your head empty.

In particular, the ones where you ceaselessly shoot zombies with guns and otome games, which you can play while fooling around with friends are my favorites.

…..No.

To be precise, they『were』my favorites.
Even though I chose super carefully, I still ended up in a 『failure』workplace, so now I don't have time to play games anymore. This month too, I was in the middle of service overtime that far exceeded the legal overtime hours.

(I have to finish quickly….but my brain isn't working at all…)

On that night too, I was sticking to the worn-out computer at the nurse station and writing the daily nursing record.

Location: Shinjuku. Time: Midnight. The godforsaken ward where you can see the night view.
The nurses which are on duty in this ward are always oddly early in the morning and leave so late at night that it almost makes you dizzy.
Work hours are so long that even if you give up on your meals and shower time, you have to ensure at least 5 hours of sleep.

(I haven't done anything recently, have I?
Playing games is impossible and I haven't hung out with my friends either…or rather, I haven't even turned on my phone.)

While thinking about things like this, I sighed inwardly.

── In my opinion, nurses have a strong image of being『promiscuous ・strong-willed・well-payed』in society. Indeed, it's a fact that such people exist too.
….But, my case is absolutely different. It's completely a false accusation.

I got hooked on playing games during my teens and because I was too uncaring about my appearance, it was a non-stop path towards an unpopular road.
During my college years when I started to take care of my appearance, at the same time as throwing myself into studying and practicing, I was also engrossed in wearing stupidly high heels and playing out at night with my friends.

I like talking with various people, but I'm not strong-willed so I'm suffering from being yelled at by my superiors all the time and I have zero romantic experience, to say nothing of playing with men.
…When I'm partying, I get called out to by obviously blessed flashy men, but I'm unpopular type at the root so I hate blessed people with self-confidence. I like researcher-type people who are indifferent towards their appearance, but I have no chances of getting to know such people in the first place.

(….My attributes are really twisted, even if I say so myself. At this rate, I'll turn 30 without ever loving anybody while being told that I「have high standards」…)

I involuntarily sighed.

By the way, I'm probably not that「well-paid」 either. Then again, a job with a net income of 180k and over 100 hours of unpaid overtime might still be considered high income in this declining Japan.

Nurses have their problems too.

I'm neither well-payed nor a veteran romance enthusiast. I'm just a zombie-loving pseudo-gal. I love my work as a nurse and hold pride in it, but these days I've been crushed by exhausting work and losing even that spirituality, turning into a manual labor machine.

(Uu, I wanna kill zombies and feel refreshed…I don't wanna work anymore…)

While thinking about such things, I unwillingly returned to my record-making.
Well then, the day of such newbie nurse which doesn't even have enough time to look at her phone, not to say anything of those zombies, is as follows.
Immediately getting out of bed after sleeping for 5 hours & going to work, going into the ward and checking the assigned patient's data on a junk PC. After finishing, it's time to start checking the medicine & setting up IVs. After taking over the night shift people, it's time to start running around the wards. There's no time to even drink water or go to the toilet.
Long working hours are basically equal to having no lunch breaks.
Both the newbies and seniors actually have 5 minutes for a break.
It's really 5 minutes, without any exaggeration.
During the busiest times, it's only 30 seconds…you jump into the break room, stuff as much rice balls as you can in your mouth, then return to the nurse station while chewing and continue writing records or preparing for the afternoon briefing session.
It's definitely…definitely not a special place.
It's a regular dreary ward that you can find in any hospital.

(…whoops, that was close. I almost fell asleep.)

Is it because of my lack of sleep? my consciousness grew distant for a second, so I instinctively shook my head.
The sound from the telemeter that was monitoring the patient's condition systematically resounded, together with the sound of other nurses, who were also working overtime, typing on the computer.
When I glanced at the wristwatch fastened at my pocket, the time was 00:30….slightly later than usual.

(It's already midnight, huh… even if both the dormitory and my home are close by, in my opinion, Shinjuku at night is still dangerous,)

And yet, nobody from day shift has returned. This is that kind of workplace.
I suddenly raised my face from PC.
A gorgeous nightscape stretched beyond the glass window at the end of the corridor, on the other side of the nurse station,
Rainbow-colored neon signs and the window lights from large amount of offices lined up next to each other.
I also saw a lot of low-intensity red obstruction lights that are required to be installed on high-rise buildings.
The red light weaved its way through the darkness of the night and the window lights coming from the buildings, staying afloat. It flickered and looked as if it was pulsating. No matter how many times I see it, this scenery is always unrealistically beautiful and almost otherworldly.

…Even though it's getting so late at night, the city shown no sign of sleeping.
There are as many people still awake as the number of lights I see from here.

(Shinjuku's night view is something that we, corporate slaves, built with our blood and sweat. I only realized it after I started working…)

Today too, people are worked to death in order to maintain this kind of beautiful, dazzling world.

….The next moment when I was thinking about such things, the night view swayed in a bad way for a second.

(Huh….? that's strange.)

Right now, I couldn't judge if my eyes got blurry or my brain's activity worsened. Although, it was definite that I was tired.
As I shook my head lightly in fluster, my vision immediately returned. With a sigh of relief, I pressed down on my chest with a bitter face.

(I might die…yup, I'm gonna die.)

I realized that my heart was beating in a bad way, so I took a deep breath and shook my head again.

….Frankly speaking, my physical condition isn't quite good right now.

It's been the same recently.
Just as I was sluggishly refining sentences in my brain while enduring the nausea from sleep deprivation…suddenly, Chief, which was working night shift with dead eyes, rushed in with a flustered face.

"――――It's the nursing department's patrol, hide in the Linen room!"

Just when I thought that Chief shouted quietly, she grabbed my shoulders and made me stand up.
And then, without giving me enough time to even think "huh?", Chief pushed me into linen room (a storage-like place where dirty laundry and sheets were shoved in) that was at the back of the nurse station and closed the door with a violent motion.

(….Jeez, again?…..)

I sighed in spite of myself.
In short, in order to avoid getting busted by the nurse department's higher-ups and  scolded for making『a newbie work overtime』, chief hid me in the back room. In this ward, it's an everyday occurrence.

―― Even at this kind of Black Hospital, the management's aiming to get rid of overtime work.
Or more precisely, it has turned into『not letting the newbies work overtime』
That's why, every time the nurse department's patrol comes, us, the newbies, are hidden at an inconspicuous place like this..

(That's fine, but…Uuuh! shit!….if you don't operate the hospital computer enough, it'll log you out and all the unfinished data will disappear……)

In other words, I'll have to rewrite the records.
I'll definitely have to stay more than an hour…I unintentionally sighed and crouched down.
At a time like this, I can only sleep and wait until the door is opened.
As I wearily closed my eyes, I felt a strange vibration from my pocket.

(…..huh? was that a ringtone just now? I should've turned off my phone though…)

As I doubtfully took out the phone from my pocked and looked at it, strange characters appeared on a dark screen.

(….Hmm, it's in…English…?)

It should be English, but there are many symbols so I'm not quite sure.
I discovered that the phone's dark screen was lit up just enough to realize it was turned on, and was filled with green, English text.

(….What the hell is this? did a supaah hakka invade my phone? actually, can a phone even be hacked?)

When I tilted my head and looked at my phone…Huh? what? Wait a minute!
The green letters were being input at a frightful speed and the letters I was trying to read from the end disappeared!

"…..What!?"

My drowsiness flew out of the window. I unintentionally raised my voice. One beat later, I hastily held my mouth. There should've been patrolling staff outside. It'd be bad to let my voice out right now.

"H…..huh? What!? Scary! What the hell, what the hell!!)

SF-like extraordinary scenery that was completely different from the usual depressing everyday life was unfolding right in front of me.

(Eh, what the hell is going on? Is my phone really being hacked? Does hacking really work like this? No, rather, isn't this actually just magic!?)

Alas, being the primitive person which couldn't even do additions in Excel I was, I couldn't understand what was happening.
I didn't understand it…but what I did understand was that something extraordinary was happening.

(sudo….sudo? what's that?    apt?? install…insutouru? Huh? install what? wait a minute!! Don't go installing weird things on my phone! it's asking for password…eh, you're inputting that too!?)

Frozen stiff and with eyes open wide, this time I watched password being inputted as ●●●●● on its own…in front of me.

How could that….even though I haven't touched anything…
I was rendered speechless out of shock.
Ignoring me, who was speechlessly frozen in place with my eyes open wide, this time the door was violently opened…and somebody jumped into the room.

—
Notes:
I love zombies but I'm not sure I can endure the game terminology that supposedly comes up during other chapters so I thought I'd at least do one chapter as a teaser.

病んでいる suffering? ill?
“turn 30” was actually アラサー or arasa,  which means “woman around 30” . Apparently arasa is short for the engrish “around 30” (araundo saati)
限界病棟 “endmost”?

lmk if you get the reference

anyway, I translate with the help of Google so don't forget to point out any mistranslations, typos and bad grammar

If you are interested in this novel, please read the author's comment below.