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“Double Snake-san… Do you want to become a Spiritual Ability user?” Isamu couldn’t help but ask.
“Of course! As long as I can become a Spiritual Ability user, I’ll…” The snake-masked woman suddenly stopped in the middle of her words.
Everyone fell silent once again.
“First of all, I need to emphasize that all of this is only a guess,” Seiji spoke in a serious tone. “Right now, it’s impossible to know whether the Mask of Sin will become strong enough to be used in real life if you power it up.
“Not only that, even if this is real, you have to carefully consider whether it’s worth it to risk your life for spiritual powers.
“Failure will equal death! Not death in a game, but real death!
“And even if it’s as you suppose, that you can successfully receive supernatural powers, will the crow-masked boy and his organization really just congratulate you and let you go? I highly doubt that.
“It’s highly likely that they’ll take advantage of whomever managed to obtain powers! They’ll use you as a combat tool or something similar.
“That’s why it’s definitely not a good idea to try fighting to obtain such a power.”
“That’s only your personal opinion,” the snake mask woman stated coldly. “You’re enemies with the crow-masked boy, so of course you’d say that.”
“If you’d rather believe the person who created such a dream that dragged so many people in it to kill each other over and over again for a dangerous experiment, then I have nothing to say.” Seiji looked directly at her. “I’ve already said everything I think I should say. You’re free to make your own decision, and you’ll also have to bear the consequences.”
The atmosphere became heavy.
“White Night… Double Snake-san…” Isamu looked back and forth between the two and wanted to ease the atmosphere. However, he didn’t know what he should say.
“I won’t die!” The snake mask woman gritted her teeth. “I will obtain spiritual powers! I shall change my own fate!!”
She then turned around to leave.
“Double Snake-san! Wait for me…!” The horned rat fatty chased after her.
“White Night…”
“Let them go. Just as I said earlier, I won’t force them to leave.”
Isamu fell silent.
“I apologize if that made you feel uncomfortable.” Seiji sighed.
“No… you don’t need to apologize. I understand how it is,” Isamu said. “I don’t know them very well. They’re simply acquaintances.”
At this moment, a rumble resounded.
The fire that burned everywhere as a light source suddenly grew into glorious flames that also shot out powerful magma!
“Danger!”
Seiji, Shika, and Isamu immediately started moving to dodge the magma spurts.
This was how the dream world forced the players to constantly change locations to meet other players.
Not long after Seiji left, the district he was just in was completely flooded by hot and sticky magma!
A player that was burned to death by the magma would be reborn in a safe district. However, this type of death was rather painful.
Isamu had experienced being engulfed by magma before. He never wanted to experience it again.
Of course, Seiji and Shika weren’t interested in learning how this type of death felt.
They gradually increased their speed. However, Isamu was unable to follow them as quickly.
Seeing this, Seiji decided to simply carry Isamu and then increase his speed even further. Seiji and Shika basically flew through the dangerous magma area!
Isamu got to personally experience what it felt like to be carried at high speed. He now truly realized that his two allies were no ordinary people.
Meanwhile, Horned Rat and Double Snake weren’t nearly as fortunate. They died painful death to the unexpected magma and respawned in a different location.
“What’s that sound?” Karen asked after she heard explosions.
“That’s magma… but no magma has appeared here, which means that this is still a safe area.”
Karen was talking to a boy who wore a black hoodie and had a three-eyed cat mask on.
“Magma?”
“Could it be that you don’t even know what magma is?”
“I know… the sticky substance that volcanos spew.”
“That’s right. Magma will periodically spew from certain locations and flood entire districts, forcing the remaining players to move to the few remaining districts,” the three-eyed cat boy explained calmly. “Since there’s no magma here, this means that this is one of the safe districts and other players will soon be coming here.”
More players coming here meant that there would be a battle. Karen became nervous.
Earlier, she had died when her younger sister pushed her off the building.
But luckily, it wasn’t a real death.
This was currently a game within a dream—a game where all the players kept killing each other!
She learned all of this from the boy before her after she respawned.
This boy called himself “Three-Eyed Cat” and saved her, so she didn’t die again. He also told her the information regarding this dream. However, this assistance wasn’t for free. He wanted Karen to take a weapon and help him fight as well.
Karen didn’t want to fight. But when she was forced into danger, she could only do as Three-Eyed Cat said as she used her gun and fired!
After several battles, three people died due to her shooting.
Although this was only a game in a dream, Karen was still scared.
That was because this all felt too real!
‘What exactly is going on with this dream? Why was Kaho able to take me in here!?’
Karen really wanted to find her younger sister and ask these questions.
However, she was unable to even protect herself in this dream game. If it wasn’t for meeting Three-Eyed Cat, she knew that she probably would have been stuck dying over and over again.
She was told that she would automatically quit this game after dying a sufficient number of times or through committing suicide.
Karen thought about committing suicide here to quit the game. Yet, Kaho was still within this dream. And she came here precisely because she had requested to fight against Kaho!
She wanted to defeat her younger sister so that Kaho would return the demon’s power.
Yet she never expected that Kaho would end up bringing her to such a location.
Committing suicide to quit this game would be the same as admitting defeat to Kaho. Karen definitely didn’t want that!
She had to find Kaho… perhaps she would even need to fight and defeat Kaho.
No… she actually didn’t need to especially go and find Kaho. Karen suddenly had a realization.
‘According to what Three-Eyed Cat-san says, this is a game where the players continually fight against each other. That means that as long as I survive and Kaho survives, we’ll definitely meet each other sooner or later! And if I don’t see her even until the end, that means she’s already been knocked out of the game, which means it’s my victory. So, I don’t need to find her at all. I only need to survive!’
Karen made up her mind to focus fully on survival.
“I forgot to ask you something,” Three-Eyed Cat asked after a moment of silence. “How did you come here?”
“My younger sister brought me here…” Karen told him honestly. “What about you, Three-Eyed Cat-san?”
Something flashed in Three-Eyed Cat’s eyes.
“I don’t know how I got here. Five days ago, while I was sleeping, I suddenly arrived here in my dreams,” he stated calmly. “It’s been the same every night since then… and I’ve met some other players that are reasonable and willing to communicate. They’ve all said the same thing. You’re the only one that’s different so far. You said that you’ve never met the crow-masked person, so I was wondering if you came in here with a different method from everyone else… It was as I expected.”
The boy looked deeply at Karen as if he was trying to see through behind her butterfly mask.
“Just who are you? And who is your younger sister? Butterfly-san.”