A voice cut through the murmuring water.
"Hey. She's awake."
Kazami turned to see Ji-Soon standing at the tunnel's edge, his usual disinterest replaced with a flicker of something taut—concern maybe, or suspicion dressed in its clothes.
When Tang-Ji opened her eyes, it felt like waking from beneath ice—clear, breathless, unreal.
Shadows loomed above her, shapes barely settling into faces. Their outlines wavered, like paint bleeding on wet paper.
The boy with blonde hair leant in first, blinking hard, mouth twisting like he'd licked a battery.
"Well, I'll be fucked. She's breathing. Guess she really is that strong after all."
Emiko immediately smacked him on the arm without hesitation. "Funny, coming from the guy who was barely conscious half the fight."
"Fuck off! And don't touch me again," Decker scowled, rubbing his shoulder. "You were moving slower than a dead snail and almost when committed suicide. I can't believe I was fighting for my life to protect some weaklings."
She scoffed. "At least I wasn't out flopping around like a fish in a puddle."
"I wasn't out—I was conserving energy just in case the plan failed. You keep forgetting that someone had to hold off an entire army of bone-stick fog freaks." He waved his arms, pacing.
"Those things had mist pouring from their skulls and ribs stabbing out like spears—and I was out there soloing them. You think any of you lasted more than ten seconds without me?"
The others just stared at Decker.
"What?" he snapped. "You all saw it. I carried the whole goddamn fight. Start showing some respect."
"Uh-huh," Emiko muttered, deadpan. "Very heroic. Lying flat on your back."
Tang-Ji blinked again, vision steadying.
A slow drip echoed in the distance like time melting.
She tried to speak, but the words slipped.
"I…" Her voice cracked, unfamiliar.
Emiko leant in, brushing a loose strand from Tang-Ji's forehead. Her touch was soft—too soft for her narrowed eyes. "You okay? You look like someone tried to paint you twice with different colours."
Decker huffed. "More like someone dragged her through a glitch."
The boy with mercury red hair stepped in, arms crossed, but his eyes weren't cold. Just tired.
"What… what did you do?"
Glances skittered and slid off; someone tugged a sleeve, a heel scraped stone, breath gathered and held
"You saved us," Emiko said.
Tang-Ji stared back. "What?"
Ji-Soon crouched beside her, hands resting on his knees.
"At the last second… that bastard tried to take us all with him. There was a flash—blinding. Then dark. Next thing we knew…"
He looked around, still not trusting the cave walls.
"…we woke up here."
Click-clack. A low whirr.
Junyo sat cross-legged to the side, eyes glued to the holographic keyboard projected from his gauntlet. Blue symbols danced across the air as he typed furiously.
"That wasn't just a normal skill deployment," he muttered as lines of data flickered across the holographic screen in front of him. "It was a full-scale mass teleportation skill with first-priority clearance. Last-second cast. Broad-range spatial override."
"What in the nerd are you talking about?" Decker chimed in but was shut down by his partner's glare immediately.
Junyo paused, narrowing his eyes as a figure began to form on the screen—ghostly and flickering.
The outline was unmistakably Tang-Ji's.
"A priority skill," he went on, tapping again, "overrides all other actions in the queue—casting, movement, even death triggers. It means that nothing can interrupt the caster," he said, voice low, "It will always activate first. No interruptions. No counters."
His tone darkened slightly. "Just like the skill that he used to almost take us all out."
The screen pulsed. It showed overlapping logs of the recent battle against the one that called himself Esmeray. His final attack was initiated with first priority, but right beneath it, Tang-Ji's skill could be seen firing first.
"Yet yours… took priority first."
He turned slightly, blinking at Tang-Ji.
"You're the only one among us with a teleportation ability."
He paused before another voice cut in.
"So? You gonna fill us in—or keep pretending we're on the same page?" Ji-Soon said as he squatted down onto a small rock next to her.
All eyes turned back to her.
Tang-Ji sat up slowly. Her limbs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else.
"I don't… I didn't mean to…"
She looked down at her hands. They trembled faintly.
"It felt like… something else took over. I just didn't want anyone to—"
She stopped, brows pinched, lost in thought.
"I don't know what I did." Her voice felt too big for her mouth.
"I was there, but… not me. Like falling asleep inside your own skin." She looked at her hands.
They were hers. But they weren't. "I saw myself fighting. Talking. But I couldn't stop it. Like dreaming with my eyes wide open."
Junyo adjusted the mechanical keyboard on his arm nervously, eyeing the others. "Maybe you're just lagging? Whatever it was, it doesn't seem like a bug."
Decker snorted. "Bugs? Bruh, I'm playing a game where my life's on the line. I'm not dying to a glitch. 'Oops, patch Tuesday'—game over? Miss me with that bullshit!."
His partner rolled their eyes and shouldered him. "I said it doesn't seem like one, dumbass."
Ukiyo stepped forward into the group, silent as a shadow. The air around her seemed to bend, the world didn't quite register her presence.
Threads—fine, shimmering, veins of light—flickered at her joints, weaving through the space in the subtle dance of exposed nerves. Her gaze settled on Tang-Ji.
"There is a mode," she said quietly, her voice soft but steady, "deep in the sublayers of the game's architecture. A... synchronisation ability. Rare. It triggers when a player reaches their existential limit."
She knelt besides Tang-Ji, her knees brushing the cold floor with almost no sound. "Some call it a reverie. A state where memory and desire collapse into function. The system stops recognising you as a user—and begins writing you as a story."
Kazami frowned, a deep crease forming between his brows. "That's not in any release notes, nor was that in any of the beta versions."
Ukiyo's expression flickered—was it a smile? Maybe a hint of regret? It was gone before it could be caught, replaced by the calm clarity of her next words. "It wouldn't be."
Before anyone could respond, Ji-Soon's voice cut through the tension like a hot knife. "Drop the act." His words were biting, and his stance was already defensive, fists clenched at his sides. "We all know you're not some NPC. Stop talking like you're one."
There was a moment's pause as Ukiyo's gaze softened. She seemed to shrink into herself slightly, her mechanical posture faltering just enough for anyone watching to feel the weight of her admission.
"Sorry," she murmured, almost too quietly. "I guess... it's a habit now."
She took a slow breath, her shoulders relaxing as she rephrased her words, this time with warmth, without the cold edges of robotic speech.
"What I'm saying is... when someone hits a breaking point in this game, when their mind is stretched to the limit, the system offers them a... a kind of reset. It lets their mind merge with the game. It's not a glitch, not an error. It's just... a way to keep going when everything else breaks down."
Her hands flexed slightly, as though she was still finding the words she'd never used this way. "In that brief moment, the system won't see you as a player. It sees you as part of the story itself." She glanced at each of them briefly, her eyes softer now. "It's not about control. It's just survival."
Ji-Soon scoffed. "Right. Of course you know about it." He stepped forward, fists tight at his sides. "How convenient. Real convenient, considering you're the one who's been lying to us about who you are."
Ukiyo's eyes didn't waver. But the glow behind her dimmed ever so slightly.
"She's not lying," Kazami said, standing slowly, his voice low. "If it weren't for her, we'd still be freezing to death in that snow city."
"You don't know that; she could be using you for her plans." Ji-Soon snapped before continuing.
"So let me get this straight," he started, voice low but cutting.
"This 'Reverie' thing is some hidden function of the game, right? Some sublayer triggered when we hit our limits, when the system stops recognising us as players and starts turning us into characters in some damn story? You expect me to believe all that bullcrap?" His gaze flickered over the group, daring anyone to interrupt.
Ukiyo opened her mouth to speak, but Ji-Soon was already barrelling forward. "And don't give me that 'synchronisation' explanation. The Leere—our Leere—has always felt like it was tied to us," his voice rising.
"But now, this? You're telling us our emotions are controlling this game, but this... this is something else entirely. Something that wasn't even supposed to happen!" He stabbed a finger towards her, his breath ragged. "What else are you hiding? You've been playing us this whole time!"
Ukiyo flinched, her blue eyes shifting uncomfortably under his gaze. But before she could respond, Kazami stepped forward, his voice even but firm. "Hey, relax, man. You're not seeing the bigger picture here." He placed a hand on Ji-Soon's shoulder, attempting to defuse the tension.
But Ji-Soon pulled away sharply. His jaw clenched.
"Don't tell me to relax, Kaz. You've been defending her from the start—like you've got everything figured out. How long have we been stuck in this game, huh? And you're telling me to trust her when she's been hiding things from us this whole time?!" His voice cracked with frustration.
Kazami didn't flinch. "You think I'm defending her for no reason? Maybe you're too caught up in your own anger to see the bigger picture. Ask yourself why you're so quick to accuse everyone around you."
Ji-Soon's face twisted.
"Maybe because you're so blinded by your trust in this random person that we just met that you can't see what's right in front of us!" His tone was sharper than the rocks jutting from the cave floor. His fists trembled, his shoulders drawn tight as wire.
"She's definitely been pulling strings. She's been keeping things from us—hell, you saw how that freak protected her. It means she's valuable to them, the same monsters that are torturing millions of other souls as we speak. And you're telling me to calm down?"
He took a step forward, the splash of his foot against a shallow puddle punctuating his fury.
"This is about our lives, Kaz!"
Kazami stood still, barely lit by the dim, bioluminescent moss crawling along the cavern ceiling. The blue-green glow flickered across his face, but his expression was unreadable.
"I don't need to justify anything to you."
His voice wasn't raised, but it struck with precision—ice against heat.
"I trust Ukiyo. You either get on board or get out of the way."
The words hit like a slap.
Ji-Soon's mouth twitched. A bitter laugh slipped out, strangled halfway.
"Is that all you care about? Just yourself?" He lowered his gaze briefly, but the cave shadows only made his eyes darker when they rose again. "You think I wanted any of this?"
His voice dropped, not out of calm, but because the weight of it threatened to split him open.
"I didn't come here to play some survival death game." He gestured wildly to the stone around them; the dripping water mixed with the suffocating air. "I came because I just wanted to hang out with my friends. Laugh. Mess around. Forget about that hellhole! I call home!"
Kazami's brow furrowed. The sudden shift in tone knocked something loose in him.
Ji-Soon pressed on, voice trembling like a faulty controller in his hands. "You ever think about why I even started gaming? Why am I online every damn day?" He stared at Kazami like he was trying to peel back years with his eyes alone.
"Because it's the only place I can breathe."
The silence that followed wasn't peaceful. It was swollen—tight, alive with all the things neither of them had said for years. The kind of silence that would push your ears inward, that could make the river sound like it's roaring.
"I did what I was supposed to," Ji-Soon muttered. "Played the part. But when I logged in... I could forget who I was supposed to be."
He stepped forward, pointing—not in accusation, but desperation.
"And you—what are you even playing for, huh? What the hell are you trying to escape?"
Kazami took a step back. It echoed sharply in the waterlogged air. He looked at Ji-Soon like he was seeing a stranger in his friend's skin.
"Kang… why are you acting like this?"
His voice faltered. "You've never… not even back then."
Ji-Soon let out a dry laugh.
"Yeah. Because back then, all you saw was a profile pic and a username."
He looked away, bitter. "That version of me? He had it together."
The light shimmered faintly off the wet stone. A single droplet echoed in the dark like a warning bell.
Next to them, the blue-haired girl did not speak—but something in her expression flickered. Briefly. Almost imperceptibly. The words had grazed her, too.
Kazami's lips parted, but no words came. His throat worked around something heavy.
"I didn't know…" he whispered.
Ji-Soon shrugged.
Not angry anymore.
Just... tired.
"No," he said. "You did… just never cared."
The drip kept time; water carried on over stone while mouths stayed shut.
Kazami looked at him—really looked—and for the first time, he saw someone different.
Ji-Soon's voice dropped, barely audible above the current.
"I just wanted to escape."
Decker's mouth twisted into a grin, weight rocking back on his heels before he snapped forward.
"Okay, great!" He abruptly clapped.
"Why don't we all just share our IRL trauma with everyone. Fantastic," he drawled, leaning against the nearby wall, arms crossed casually as he watched the two with mild amusement.
Junyo threw up his hands, clearly done with the escalating mess. "Everyone just chill the fuck out for a bit! Maybe instead of pointing fingers, we figure out where the hell we are."
The tension thickened—words firing like sparks on stone, no one quite looking each other in the eye.
Until the man at the edge of the chamber—silent until now—stepped forward.
His presence was a stark contrast to the chaos around him.
Tall and imposing, he moved with a quiet authority that made the noise around him feel insignificant. His eyes, sharp yet unreadable, passed over the group, not settling on any one individual, but rather scanning them, he could see beneath their words.
"Enough," he said, his voice low but carrying an undeniable weight. The words cut through the air, and suddenly, everything fell silent.
"There are more important things ahead than your egos. This was just the first delve. If we don't reach the second by tomorrow, none of this will matter."
After a beat of stillness, Kompto spoke again, his tone softer, but still carrying authority.
"We've been pushing too hard. Everyone's worn thin. Try to communicate again after you all cool your heads with some rest. We'll wait until sunrise to move forward."
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly, calculating the weight of their exhaustion. "We won't make it further if we keep this pace."
The suggestion hung in the air, weighted with the knowledge that their bodies could no longer keep up with the toll the world had placed on them. There was no choice but to rest now, even if their minds were unwilling.
One of them, usually quick to argue, threw his hands up in frustration, a sharp exhale escaping him as he turned and stalked off. His footsteps echoed loudly, the sound of him kicking loose stones against the walls.
As he moved, he muttered under his breath, "The monkey's right for once."
No one else spoke. Wet stone exhaled; the bioluminescent moss flickered dim, then on again.
Emiko, still standing close to Tang-Ji, tried to reach out—though it was a touch as fragile as the first flutter of wings before a storm. She lowered herself beside Tang-Ji, her body almost trembling with the effort to connect. Her hand lingered briefly, the warmth of her fingers just brushing Tang-Ji's arm, but her face—a canvas of the unsaid—remained distant.
Her eyes, usually so full of energy, now seemed hollow, they too had been drained by an unseen force. She attempted a smile, but it was an empty gesture, a curve of lips that didn't touch the sadness veiled in her expression.
The weight of the world had placed itself on her shoulders, yet her hands were still empty, as if she were reaching for something that had slipped through her fingers long ago.
Without a word, Emiko slowly rose, her movements stiff, her body no longer recognised the lightness of movement. Her gaze drifted towards the river just beyond them, its currents flowing lazily, carrying with them the endless passage of time. She walked toward it, the sound of her footsteps soft on the earth, the sound of the water, a quiet murmur at her back.
As she neared the water's edge, the cool breeze brushed through her hair, her eyes fixed on the moving tide as though searching for something among the ripples—answers, or perhaps just the release of what weighed too heavily on her heart.
Tang-Ji watched her, still grounded in her own swirling thoughts, her body steadying but her mind lost in the haze of memories half-formed.
Something had been borrowed from her, something she couldn't reach. And in the silence, as Emiko's form became a silhouette against the water's edge, Tang-Ji felt that something was slipping further away with each passing second.