In the fifth hour of the game, as every student watched with a mix of tension and anticipation, all of the vending machines in the library dissolved into particles of light. The glowing fragments converged in the center of the atrium and formed a single enormous number visible from every floor—2.
After five hours of grinding, Rita had collected a total of 421 numbers. She reverted to her human form, sat down cross-legged in the shadow world, and began doing math problems.
So did everyone else. All across the library, students ducked into corners and behind shelves, huddling in silence as they scribbled equations.
Not only did they need to reach the final number using equal counts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, they also had to make sure they had the highest number count in hand.
Rita had eleven negative numbers.
It looked messy at first, but in truth that gave her control. Multiply large positives by negatives, and you could easily drive the total downward.
After long calculations—and after using every single item she had ever purchased from the vending machines—Rita’s smallest possible result was fifteen. Barely acceptable. She even used all 421 numbers perfectly. But it still wasn’t enough.
Because the rabbit had gone to the third floor.
The sound of that whip cracked through the ceiling. It was attacking other players again?
Since the librarian director had appeared, it had remained stationed on the second floor, whipping only the player who held the most numbers. The fact that it had left meant it had found a new target.
Rita immediately dropped out of the shadow world and used Absolute Freedom to teleport to the third floor.
From atop a bookshelf, she watched the massive rabbit—most likely the same White Bear from the Demon Metropolis—stride right past her to chase Maple Syrup.
It had chased her for five hours straight. They’d built a kind of bond by now, and suddenly it just... switched targets.
No time for sentiment. Rita leapt after it, using the chaos to hunt for opportunities of her own while the rabbit and Maple Syrup clashed.
She wasn’t the only one. Students from every floor were converging upward. For more chapters visıt 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⚑𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚⚑𝙣𝙚𝙩
During the long hours of number-hunting, everyone had learned the director didn’t attack without reason. And the message at the beginning of the game had made it clear—the director always hunted the player with the most numbers.
Which meant Maple Syrup.
Killing Maple Syrup would make you the richest player in an instant, no matter how few you started with.
After five hours, the game’s hidden mechanics had all been exposed, including the most valuable one: killing another player allowed you to choose which of their numbers to take. You could claim all of them or just the ones you needed.
Perhaps realizing her divine relic was already exposed, Maple Syrup stopped hiding.
The third floor’s player count nearly doubled. Everyone charged toward her. Her health bar plummeted and spiked wildly, but she didn’t flee. She stayed on that floor, dodging with impossible precision.
Rita took advantage of the confusion to kill a few students of her own, but Maple Syrup still hadn’t struck back. What was she waiting for?
When no more players were coming up the stairs, the lights of the library dimmed.
A soft whisper of wind through leaves filled the air.
Tree shadows returned, flooding across the walls and floor. The entire floor became a forest of silhouettes, flickering as invisible wind stirred the phantom branches.
Maple Syrup turned midair, her gaze sweeping across the students, the librarians, the rabbit, and finally landing on Rita.
She opened her palm. Resting there was a sliver of wind unlike anything else in this world—drawn only in shades of charcoal and gray, like someone had sketched it with a pencil in just a few lines.
That tangible breeze danced between her fingers, graceful and obedient.
The rabbit froze, lashing its whip from a distance, but the shadows of the trees intercepted it.
Rita, who had been keeping a close eye on the rabbit, stopped as well.
Then the rabbit jumped backward into a spot without shadows. Rita followed it like an echo, switching into her hunting form midair and landing right by its legs.
Deceitful Bloom clenched its teeth, resisting the urge to stomp her flat. "...Don’t you have something better to do?"
Rita replied without a hint of shame. "I do. Finding you is the most important thing I can do right now."
Deceitful Bloom said nothing.
While they spoke, Maple Syrup unleashed her ultimate.
She shattered a book herself to trigger Riot Time. In an instant, the trees’ shadows—covering nearly eighty percent of the library—came alive. They solidified, sweeping through player after player.
Maple Syrup’s health, which had dropped to twenty-six percent, filled back to maximum in a single pulse.
The library plunged into darkness again, transformed into a spectral forest. Rita followed the rabbit, dodging attacks while glancing at the gray wind swirling in Maple Syrup’s hand with undisguised envy.
Why was her divine relic that strong?
Unlike most divine relics, which specialized in survival or defense, Maple Syrup’s was overwhelming, majestic.
Trying to pry some answers out of the rabbit, Rita let her thoughts slip into words. "Divine relics really are tied to their owners, huh?"
The rabbit gave her a sidelong look. Then, after a pause, actually answered, "It depends on the master’s nature."
Which was basically saying nothing.
Rita leapt to another open space, dodging a librarian’s whip that cracked through the air.
But even as she thought she’d escaped Maple Syrup’s strike, she felt those piercing eyes fall on her. Heavy and calm, they looked at her like at a stranger she almost recognized.
A chill went down her spine. Her [Blue-striped Bluru] trait screamed a warning.
The purple-gray sphere shimmered into existence, absorbing the hit that would have killed her.
It wasn’t an enemy that had struck her. It was her own shadow.
A shadow in the shape of the Orchid Mantis.
Maple Syrup had taken control of it.
No matter what floor Rita fled to, her own shadow would follow—and Maple Syrup could use it to bypass Absurd Story’s reflection effect.
"What’s your divine relic called? That’s way too strong!"
Wait. Who had just yelled that?
Even as she fought her own shadow and dodged tree strikes, Rita glanced over—and spotted Crab, who had somehow made it to the third floor.
Maple Syrup’s lips curved. Her smile was strange, magnetic—the kind of smile only adults could wear, one that held stories too complex to label as happy or sad.
The shadows of trees danced across her face, hiding her eyes from view as she spoke in a soft, lilting rhythm, like reciting poetry.
"It’s called... Faded Homeland."