No one had words to speak after they heard that only twenty six of them had made it to through the Crimson Night.
Ishiki even felt a few glances towards him. He couldn’t help but curse that damned fool—Sam, standing some steps away.
What made it far more worse was the fact that it was not just "who disappeared"—they literally couldn’t remember who had been there before.
The two names existed on the list where there were thirty one names in total. But the people had turned to empty spaces at the gathering. Their memories were just... gone.
Erased as completely as if those people had never existed at all.
Ishiki could feel... actually, everyone could feel it. The cold fingers wrapping around their hearts. The physical manifestation of fear, dread, and helplessness coiling tighter and squeezing.
Ishiki saw the faces of his fellow players darken, one of the girls even fell to her knees gasping and crying.
No on moved. Nobody had the energy left to comfort others when their own sanity was hanging by threads.
And, no one could blame her, after all... despite gaining supernatural abilities, despite months of survival sharpening them into something harder than they had been, they were still fundamentally human. The mind could only endure so much before fracturing.
’Damn it, damn it... how did this happen? I didn’t even see anyone moving out.’ Ishiki clenched his hands.
He stood at the crowd’s periphery, studying faces. People who had survived months of impossible challenges only to end up in some cosmic queue, waiting to be erased from existence without trace or reason.
Where was the fairness in that?
’Well... when was anything even fair.
He tried looking for tells that might indicate who was responsible in this group.
But the more he looked, the more he suspected nobody human was behind this.
The odds of one person orchestrating these disappearances while also erasing memories? Explicitly speaking... the chances of that were as low as they could get.
At some point, he even considered whether the forest itself was responsible. Maybe the trees’ melody had shifted to some frequency that could seduce Players, drawing them out to be consumed slowly.
But then again, that wouldn’t explain why were they forgetting about the individuals that disappeared.
With all the dark thoughts, something very dark and ominous made its way to Ishiki mind. ’What if... what if, this all is just a dream? Am i sleeping?’
Suddenly, his whole body shook... feeling a particularly cold shiver run down his spine. That was... not right.
He knew that this was all reality and not some, nightmare that his brain made up.
The Princess stood at the center, trying to maintain order, but even she was at a loss. Not for words necessarily—she had never been particularly verbose. What she lacked were answers.
And that was what mattered.
This wasn’t a problem that could be solved with combat prowess, leadership skills, or even basic logic. This was something that existed outside conventional frameworks.
Filch leaned against a house some distance away, one of his infinite cigarettes burning between his fingers and his expression was harder to read, it always had been. But there was tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there yesterday.
Nina was standing quietly just besides him, staring at the ground with a blank expression. For some reason, Ishiki felt especially more hurt as he looked at the broken girl. She was just a child.
No—they all were.
They were just ordinary modern day children. They had never trained for combat, they had never learned wilderness survival, nor did they ever imagined facing anything remotely like this.
Most of them had probably spent their days worrying about exams, social drama and whether they would be able to escape the lower sectors.
Now they were fighting for existence itself.
’Screw it... this is bull crap! What did we ever do to be treated like this?’ There was no answer. The system had pulled them here, the Neural Matrix system had changed their... Fate.
Twenty-six people.
Once, sometime ago... there had been thirty-one. Then twenty-nine. Now twenty-six.
Five people had just disappeared, if they even existed.
Ishiki gritted his teeth in fury. ’At this rate, there wouldn’t be much of us left by the end of the week.’
And they still had to cross two hundred kilometers of nightmare forest. The odds of doing that were going down... every damn minute.
Ishiki felt something cold settle in his stomach. It was not fear exactly, it was something worse and vile.
The realization that the clearing—their safe haven, their refuge—had become just as dangerous as the forest outside.
Hell, it maybe more dangerous.
Because at least the forest’s threats were visible. You could see the trees, fight the Withering Beasts and avoid the Demons.
There were plenty of ways to survive if you were careful, skilled and lucky.
But this was like fighting blind on a cliff’s edge which had nothing but fall on all sides... you will be doomed eventually.
The meeting continued... and ended fruitlessly. At the end, there were too few clues to go after someone... something.
Two hunting parties were formed and Ishiki volunteered to be in one, he... he wanted to grow stronger.
He needed to grow stronger. That was the only clear path forward now.
Earlier, he had never really thought about strength. He just wanted to survive and get through each day. Make it home to—
Live? Not like he could.
He had been born in the lower sectors. And there too, in the poor district where poverty wasn’t just economic status but an inherited condition passed from parent to child like genetic disease.
His father had abandoned them when Ishiki was too young to remember his face. That bastard had left his mother to raise a child alone in a world that didn’t care whether they lived or died.
Yeah, he left them something... debts.
Survival had been his only goal. Not living, but surviving. There was a difference between the two, living implied purpose, joy and a secure future.
Surviving was just not dying yet. Making it through another day, maybe another week and another month.
That’s all he had ever done. Survive and wait for something better... actually it came too.
’It doesn’t matter... nothing matters anymore.’
Now there wasn’t even a home to return to. The world had ended. Everything he had known was a memory.
So what was he surviving for?
The question hung in his mind like smoke that wouldn’t dissipate.
***
Standing before the Crimson Canopy’s edge, Ishiki stared at his status window.
The translucent platinum interface floated in his vision, displaying information only he could see. His eyes focused on the section under [Ghost Blade].
Progress - 22/25
He closed his eyes and opened them to stare at the darkness beyond, they were a little shaken... but the flame in them had not yet extinguished.
’Just three more, i am coming for you bastards.’