"..."
The way Yami Tsukishiro vanished without a trace only made Utaha Kasumigaoka more certain, he wasn't normal.
This was real supernatural power… right in front of her eyes.
But she also caught the message hidden between the lines.
He hadn't needed to say it outright:
You can't use a gun.
You can't even protect yourself.
You'd just slow me down.
For Utaha, who was both a top student and a rising light novel author, it was the first time someone had looked at her like that.
Her fingers tightened around the pistol. For a moment, her chest felt tight... a tangle of frustration, curiosity, and determination.
She took a slow breath and steadied herself.
Yami's dismissal didn't make her angry. It just lit a spark.
"Next time we meet… I'll make sure you remember me."
She pulled up the holographic map, eyes scanning the marked supply points.
She didn't know how long she'd be stuck in this strange city.
But if she wanted to survive, she needed food, water, and ammo.
Hiding wasn't an option anymore.
She marked a location, checked her weapon, and headed out without looking back.
"...Tch!"
The night was pitch-black inside the ruined shopping mall.
A pack of mutated wolves had turned the place into their den… until the shadows came alive.
Tendrils of darkness sliced through fur and flesh, leaving the creatures no time to even cry out before their bodies burst into scattering motes of light.
"That's another hundred magic stones."
It had been over a day since Yami Tsukishiro first arrived in this city.
He'd spent it hunting non-stop.
The place was massive, way bigger than he'd expected and the streets felt emptier every hour.
Shadows carried him from one hunting ground to the next. In all that time, he'd crossed paths with only a handful of survivors.
[Current number of survivors: 8047 / 10000]
Almost two thousand gone already.
However… there was no way to tell if those deaths were really caused by mutant beasts.
Because the map showed something… interesting.
The entire city only had two thousand supply points. Once a supply point was taken, a little flag icon popped up on the map and those flags changed hands over time.
Which meant one thing: people were fighting over them.
And honestly, it wasn't hard to guess why.
Right now, for example
After Yami Tsukishiro finished tearing apart a pack of mutated wolves, the entire mall interior began to shift.
The cracked tiles shuddered, broken walls pulled back, and a storage vault emerged in the center like some kind of treasure chest in a video game.
Inside was everything: crates of food and bottled water, racks of weapons and ammo, piles of clean clothes… even a proper shower stall.
Everything here mattered.
Especially the food and water.
Because outside these supply points? The city had nothing. Not a single scrap.
And in this "virtual" world, hunger and thirst were very real.
A person who's starving, dehydrated, and exhausted from running from mutant beasts all day… what would they do when they saw this?
Even without counting the darker side of human nature, Yami could guess the answer.
He grabbed a bottle, twisted the cap, and drank deeply.
Not poisoned. And the fullness in his stomach felt… real.
"Whoever built this world… what's their goal?" Yami muttered under his breath.
Because the rewards here weren't just pixels or data. They were real.
In one day alone, he'd taken down 1,700 mutant beasts.
And his magic stone count had jumped accordingly.
[Magic Stones: 22,000]
"Hmm? …So they're here too?"
Yami Tsukishiro glanced at the rankings, pausing when he recognized a few names.
The list had changed a lot.
[Rankings]
1st: Yami Tsukishiro — 1700
2nd: Chisato Nishikigi — 18
3rd: Yor — 17
4th: Takina Inoue — 16
5th: Momo Ryuzu — 10
…
10th: — —
Yami still held the top spot, but the gap was ridiculous... more than a hundred times higher than second place.
But what really caught his eye were the names themselves.
Chisato Nishikigi. Takina Inoue.
They were here too.
And apparently, not just them.
Sixth floor, one of the secured supply point buildings.
A sniper rifle was mounted at the window, Takina Inoue scanning the streets through binoculars.
Behind her, Chisato Nishikigi, Mizuki Nakahara, and Kurumi were huddled around a camp stove, steam rising from boiling instant noodles.
"The first-place guy… 1700 points. That has to be him," Mizuki muttered, keeping one eye on the ranking display.
"That's insane."
Seventeen hundred kills meant seventeen hundred mutant beasts. They all knew how dangerous even one could be... how fast, how brutal.
"Well, he's got powers," Kurumi said with a grin, sprinkling seasoning into the pot.
"If he can drop one of those big monsters in a single hit, no wonder his score's sky-high."
All four of them already knew supernatural abilities were real.
So when they'd been dumped into this world together, they'd immediately treated it as reality.
Working as a unit, they could handle the beasts but even so, none of them were letting their guard down.
Rustle—rustle.
Chisato slurped down the last bite of her noodles, wiped her mouth, and stepped up behind Takina.
"Takina, swap."
"Mm."
Takina handed over the binoculars and moved to sit with the others, while Chisato took her place at the window.
"You think we should go find him?" Chisato asked casually, scanning the streets.
Takina shook her head. "The city's huge. Even if we tried, it'd be pure luck if we ran into him. Better to just let it happen."
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