"Deactivate!"
As Alice silently chanted the command in her mind, the invisible conceptual force field—the "background character" effect—that constantly enshrouded her instantly receded like the tide.
It was a bizarre sensation. It felt as if a ghost permanently floating in midair had suddenly regained its gravity, its feet planting firmly back onto the solid earth.
Simultaneously, the world's perception of her returned to normal.
Immediately after, a wave of intense vertigo struck her.
Alice swayed on her feet. She had to lean heavily against a nearby palm tree to keep from collapsing.
"This damn backlash."
She pressed her fingers against her throbbing temples, her face turning slightly pale.
Equipping the System's character cards consumed mental energy. This wasn't some quantifiable mana bar from a video game. It was a very real, physical drain on her brainpower and willpower.
Even though [Megumi Kato] was merely a non-combat utility card, abilities that warped causality and interfered with cognitive perception exacted a heavy toll. Maintaining it for even a single minute severely overtaxed her fifteen-year-old body.
Since mental stamina couldn't be quantified, Alice had developed her own strict set of survival rules.
The moment the immediate danger passed, even if only by a second, she had to deactivate the character card. On a deserted island completely devoid of antibiotics, the sluggish reflexes caused by mental fatigue were often far more lethal than a beast's claws.
She rested for a few minutes. Once she finally suppressed the urge to vomit, Alice stood up straight and stepped out from the edge of the jungle.
She had already braced herself mentally. Yet, when the hellish tableau unfolded completely unhindered before her eyes, she couldn't help but hold her breath.
This was a crescent-shaped beach on the western side of the island. Originally, the sand here was as white as snow, and the seawater sparkled like a sapphire. It was as beautiful as a heavily edited landscape wallpaper.
But now, that wallpaper had been torn to shreds and splattered with glaring red ink.
The rear half of the massive Boeing airliner was currently half-submerged in the shallow reef area. The severed metallic cross-section twisted hideously. It looked like a limb bitten off by a leviathan, still billowing thick columns of black smoke.
Debris lay scattered chaotically all across the white sand. Shattered suitcases, torn clothing, sparking electrical cables, and bodies.
Some bodies were still strapped to their seats, having been violently thrown hundreds of meters away. Others were mangled and incomplete, half-buried in the grit and sand.
The waves washed ashore, turning the originally pristine white foam a pale pink before receding again. It was as if the ocean itself was trying to scrub away this human tragedy.
Yet, amidst all this chaotic death and destruction, a few silhouettes were actually moving.
It was an absolute miracle of life. Plummeting thousands of meters inside the metal tube of a doomed aircraft, only divine intervention could explain why a fraction of the passengers had somehow survived.
"Help..."
"Somebody, please help me... my leg..."
"Oh God, where is this? Where are we?"
"Amy! Amy, where are you? Please don't scare Mommy!"
The cries, pleas for help, and hysterical screams converged into a miserable, deafening wave of sound that hammered against Alice's eardrums.
Alice took a deep breath, forcing herself to stay calm.
A man entirely covered in blood staggered past her. He wore an expensive, tailored suit, though it was now torn into mere ribbons. One of his sleeves hung completely empty, his arm dangling uselessly at his side.
His eyes were vacant and unfocused. It was as if his soul had already been ripped away, leaving only an empty shell moving on pure mechanical instinct.
"Sir?"
Alice hurried forward, reaching out a small hand to support him.
"You're bleeding. You need to sit down so we can stop the bleeding."
However, the man appeared completely delirious. He acted as if the young girl blocking his path didn't exist. His unfocused pupils didn't even shift.
He mumbled incoherently about "reports" and "meetings." Moving like a zombie, he simply bypassed Alice and shambled in a daze toward the perilous depths of the primeval jungle.
"Hey, don't go that way! There are wild beasts in there. It's dangerous!"
Alice spun around, trying to grab him.
This was a textbook acute stress response. To protect itself, his brain had completely shut down his external perception. In layman's terms, he was scared out of his mind.
But just then, a far more agonizing and lucid cry for help rang out nearby.
"Somebody! Anybody! Please help! He's not going to make it!"
Alice abruptly halted her steps. The voice came from beside a massive reef about twenty meters to her left.
The zombie-like businessman was merely suffering a mental breakdown. He wasn't in any immediate, life-threatening danger. But that cry for help sounded undeniably urgent.
This was the first rule of battlefield triage: prioritize those with a chance of survival who have the most severe injuries.
She gritted her teeth. Abandoning her pursuit of the delirious man, she pivoted and sprinted toward the reef.
The person pleading for help was a middle-aged man. He wore a shredded, gray plaid shirt. He had a full, scruffy beard, and his messy curly hair was caked with sand and dried blood.