I'm enamored with this opening act, and truly feel that I've encountered a budding gem.
Out of the many VNs I've read in a similar genre, I've never encountered one with this fascinating brief, dramatic irony-heavy writing style. The momentum that this opening act carries- introducing the characters, a gesture at their intentions while leaving plenty of room for questions, and the unsettlingly capricious if not hostile world around them- is thoroughly enjoyable and impressive. It's a very different approach to the usual visual novel belaboring of introductions with paragraphs of the protagonist slowly assessing the people around them and being inundated with seemingly pointless and banal information. It's gracefully concise, leaving every scene flavorful with questions to be asked and answered about the characters' bleak and surreal circumstances, which themselves promise to be a fountain of interesting trouble.
I'll be excited to see the story develop, and to see the pieces on the board start moving.