Qiren raised the revolver.
He knew the truth even as his finger rested along the frame—she could still die. Arms, jackets, resolve, stubbornness… none of it guaranteed survival. The rules he had set allowed chance, not mercy.
To be honest, he had grown fond of Missy. Enough that he'd considered letting her become a co-star in his one-man act—maybe even a bridge to recruit the mechanics as temporary grunts before he disposed of the bodies below.
He needed manpower to raid the scrapyard. Even after emptying the weapons vault, he couldn't do it alone—not if the operation was meant to look human.
So that was the answer: stop the game, let her live, and grow in the shadows.
If only it were that simple.
Missy was bizarre.
She loved chaos—unpredictability, the feeling of control slipping through her fingers.
That was her high.
A self-destructive, psychopathic craving that eclipsed everything else. Murder, violence, sex, death—it didn't matter, as long as her blood was pumping.
And that made him hesitate.
If he broke his own rules, would it kill the thrill? Strip the danger from it? Knowing her, she'd be upset—then bored.
But if he gave her what she wanted—real excitement, the kind only proximity to death could provide—then that would become the bar her mind would chase.
And he would be the only one who could raise it.
The cylinder turned beneath his thumb.
Click. Click.
As it spun, Qiren let his spiritual flow bleed outward—not enough to break the game, not enough to nullify the shot.
Just enough to change how the damage arrived.
His energy wrapped around the revolver like a second skin.
The dull metal shimmered, then shifted, its surface flooding with symbols—clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades—etched, painted, and inlaid across the barrel and frame as though the weapon itself had become part of the deck.
A loaded card.
He exhaled slowly.
"Missy," he said, his tone almost casual. "Have you ever seen a one in a card deck?"
Her arms tightened instinctively around her head—but she hesitated. Just a little.
"…No," she said. "There's no one."
Qiren's mouth curved faintly. "Of course you have."
Her breath caught.
"It's right over your eye."
Something brushed her face.
Light pressure. Cool. Flat.
Missy stiffened as she felt it—a card pressed gently over her right eye, resting against her skin as if placed there by an unseen hand.
"What—"
Qiren pulled the trigger.
Bang.
The revolver roared—and then something impossible happened.
Instead of a clean muzzle flash, confetti exploded outward. A violent bloom of color and paper fragments burst into the air, fluttering like a celebration torn apart mid-cheer.
Within it—
a bullet.
It punched through her wrapped arm with a sharp, bone-rattling impact, tearing through muscle and cloth. Pain detonated up to her shoulders, stealing her breath in a broken cry.
But for the briefest instant—
the world slowed.
The bullet struck the card over her eye.
One.
Not a rank.
A concept.
For less than a heartbeat, it resisted—slowing the round just enough, shaving away the fate that would have followed. Not stopping it. Never stopping it.
Just… lessening what came next.
The bullet pierced through.
Missy screamed as darkness swallowed her left side, pain flaring hot and blinding. Her body collapsed forward as the chair scraped violently across the floor.
The confetti drifted down around her like mockery.
Silence followed—ragged, broken only by her breathing.
She was alive.
Qiren lowered the revolver. The card suits faded from the metal as the spiritual pressure receded. The cracks along his skin eased, though they didn't vanish entirely.
An eye.
Only an eye.
He looked at her shaking form and closed his eyes for a moment.
Brutal—but survivable.
The rules had been followed.
And the damage…
had been contained.
"Ouch," he said mockingly. "That looks like it hurt~"
Missy grunted, clenching her face in white-hot pain.
"Ha… hahaha… hahahaha!"
She burst into sobbing laughter.
"I'm fucking bleeding," she wheezed, her fingers digging deeper into her eye socket. "Hahaha—"
Her endorphins flared, numbing the pain as she pulled the bullet free.
Clink. Clink.
It slipped from her trembling fingers and struck the floor.
"Thank you. Like, really." Her grin stretched from ear to ear.
"Thank you for accepting my rule."
One arm pressed against the bloody socket while the other reached for one of the cards.
"Now I can play one more round~"
She flipped the four of diamonds face down.
Leaving the five of clubs—the one that had earned her a bullet.
This time, she didn't hesitate.
She remembered exactly where she'd seen its counterpart. She flipped twice to indicate a new attempt, then reached to the right, selecting its pair with a wicked smile.
"Bravo," he remarked with secondhand joy. "I can't wait to see how far you go~"
The game continued.
Qiren never had the chance to shoot her again. It was as if Missy had opened a third eye for danger. One by one, she flipped the cards, collecting bullets into his revolver and removing them by accurately selecting life cards.
She reused the same cards, tracking which sections he shuffled them toward and exploiting the pattern again and again.
Slowly but surely, forty cards were matched into pairs under her relentless memory.
Even so, she couldn't complete the task.
Ding.
A timer sounded—one only Qiren could hear.
He blinked, surprised at how much time had passed.
Is it over already?
His gaze shifted slightly toward the deck of penalty cards.
Above them, an illusory lock snapped open. The timer froze at fifteen minutes before vanishing along with the deck's invisible chains.
He turned back to Missy just as she was about to try her luck on another card—
—and raised his gun.
He fired.
Missy jerked back as the bullet punched a hole through the table.
"Hey! Trigger-happy much?" she snapped, holding a blood-soaked cloth to her eye with one hand.
"Time's up~," Qiren said, lifting the penalty cards.
Missy slumped back into her chair, chest heaving, blood slick and warm beneath the cloth pressed to her ruined eye.
For a long moment, she just breathed.
Then she laughed.
Not the sharp, manic bark from before—but something looser. Spent. Satisfied.
"…Damn," she said hoarsely. "Guess I lost."
Qiren didn't answer right away. He watched her instead—how she leaned back, how the tremor in her hands slowly settled, how her grin lingered despite the pain.
She tilted her head toward him.
"That was—" she exhaled, laughing again, softer this time, "—the most fun I've had in a long time."
She dragged the cloth aside just enough to flash him a crooked, feral smile.
"Honestly? You're sitting in second place right now."
He arched a brow.
"Don't look so disappointed," Missy continued, rolling her shoulder. "Physical time with you wasn't bad. That's why I kept playing. I wanted the blessing we made together."
Her voice dipped, almost sincere.
"Maybe I'm a rotten girl for wanting your memories of that."
She chuckled.
"Ah, you really broke my sexual restraint. Now I can't stop thinking about what you might've felt while being so rough with me~"
She drooled slightly.
"You completely corrupted me in one day. The old me wouldn't have been this adrenaline-hungry."
She tapped the bloody socket with two fingers.
"You really take the cake for bad influences, don't you~?"
Qiren let out a quiet huff—amusement, or something like it.
"I planned to make my stay here quick," he said. "Get information from all three head mechanics. Find out whether you'd seen me on the forest cameras."
"Then deal with you my way and proceed to dispose of my murders."
"If anything," he added flatly, "you're the bad influence."
"I have no idea what you're talking about~," she mused, batting her fingers over her mouth. "I'm just a poor, susceptible girl searching for my next thrill."
Qiren regarded her for a second longer than necessary.
Then he shuffled the deck.
The sound was crisp, practiced. When he finished, he fanned the cards between his hands—all face down, their backs identical, impossible to distinguish.
"Rules were rules," he said. "Time's up. You lost."
She groaned theatrically.
"You really know how to kill a mood, Mr. Solitaire."
"However," he continued, spreading the fan wider, "you haven't chosen how it ends."
Her remaining eye flicked to the cards.
"Oh?" she said, interest sparking immediately.
"Pick one."
She stared at the spread—not with calculation this time. No mapping. No counting.
Just instinct.
Desire.
Missy reached out and pulled a single card free.
A jester.
But not spades. Not clubs.
A heart-ranked joker filled the center—red, black, and white—laughing as it juggled a set of beating hearts.
"Oh, would you look at that."
Qiren stared at the card.
"You cheated the possibility of death once more."
Missy held the penalty card as Qiren folded the rest of the deck away.
The card lit up.
Its center rippled—
—and so did the world.
The walls, table, bookshelves, and carpets warped into something circus-like. Jack-in-the-boxes sprang from shelves. Juggling pins littered the carpet. Confetti fell from the ceiling.
A tricycle bell rang, drawing her gaze to a small children's bike circling the desk.
Her vision zoomed in and out.
"Uh…?" she murmured, watching it pass. "Mr. Solitaire…?"
She turned to where Qiren should have been.
He was gone.
In his place stood a new table—a fifteen-seat dining table.
Silver trays lined its surface.
Food.
Wine.
And…
hearts.
They pulsed with an energetic glow, made of something unreal.
She gasped.
The room was gone, replaced by tent silk walls. Wooden beams supported the interior, and grass covered the floor—suggesting this place lay somewhere far from anywhere at all.
The tricycle kept circling.
Her eye drifted to the walls, lined with magical funhouse mirrors—some tall, some warped, some thin and twisted.
She recognized them instantly.
What are these doing here…?
Then the empty bike passed one mirror—
—and she saw a little girl in a clown outfit riding it, smiling brightly.
More reflections followed.
Clowns dancing.
Juggling pins.
Throwing knives at a figure strapped to a spinning wheel.
Missy found herself drawn to them, leaving the table behind. Her steps were uneven.
Is this Mr. Solitaire's penalty?
She wondered, skeptical.
Unknowingly, she walked farther into her inner sea—drawn deeper into the reaches of her mind and soul the moment she touched the joker card.