CHAPTER 39: SCENARIO

Ishiki kept staring at hand.

One moment he was sitting in that condemned waiting room, trying to look at the time. And now he was laying on the ground, peering into the lightless abyss of nothing.

He sat up and looked around, taking in details that he was rather familiar with. The vast plain stretched endlessly in all directions—not ground exactly. Endless grass that swayed in wind that didn’t exist, moved by currents from nowhere.

A bitter chuckle escaped his lips. "This place is exactly the same. Its like time doesn’t exist here."

His NEXUS Chamber.

The personal dimension the system had carved from reality and given him as both gift and prison. The space where he learned that survival meant accepting impossibilities as mundane truth.

Nothing had changed. The grass still swayed in phantom wind. The sky—if it could be called sky, remained that same featureless expanse of pure black that hurt to look at too long.

His eyes found the familiar towers stretching out of the ground towards the lightless sky. But now they seemed different, earlier they looked like solid shapes. But now Ishiki noticed that the surface was everchanging and moving like liquid.

And between the two towers pulsed the Orb.

His breath caught despite having seen it before, because some things commanded awe regardless of familiarity.

An incarnate sphere of gold and purple energy, chasing each other in eternal spiral. Gold bleeding into purple and purple bleeding into gold, dancing, merging, separating and reuniting in patterns.

Beautiful.

That word felt inadequate. Like calling the ocean "wet" or the sun "bright"—technically accurate but missing something.

Ishiki smiled despite the fear churning in his gut. "So that’s my Synth Reactor, huh?" His voice echoed strangely in the void. "Wonder what it actually does besides look pretty."

Before he could contemplate further—

A blue window materialized in front of his eyes.

[Scenario about to begin...]

[Transferring Player -??? to NEXUS]

[Scenario Code - 2]

Ishiki’s chest suddenly felt heavier, like someone had placed weights on his ribs and was adding more with each breath.

"Damn it." He gritted his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache. "It’s the same as before. Nothing’s changed."

"So our preparations were in vain?" The question came out hollow and rhetorical. The answer was still not clear.

All those days of training as a team. All those assumptions about fighting together, watching each other’s backs, surviving as a unit.

Were they all useless?

He took deep breaths and focused at what mattered the most.

He probably had minutes, maybe less. Before the transfer completed and he was dragged into that hellscape called NEXUS, It wasn’t exactly hell. Earth was in no better state right now, maybe worse.

He sighed and summoned the system window. The platinum lustrous window materialized in front of him.

========= Player : ????? ========

Name : Ishiki

Age : 16

Title : [Memory Reaper]

Rank - [Mythical]

Exclusive Skill - [Soul Archive]

Skill Description - [Allows the bearer to chain the very consciousness of the Slain in an eternal collection. The new master can reap the memories within.]

Exclusive Corruption - [Phantom Voice]

Corruption Description - [Listen closely When the Reaper speaks, You may hear the whisper Of everyone they’ve reaped.]

Synth Reactor Tier - Innate

Level - 8/50

Data Fragments - 50/4,000

Basic Abilities :

Strength : 13/100

Agility : 13/100

Endurance : 13/100

Charisma : 11/100

Protocols : [Recursive Anomaly (Unknown)], [Curse of the Forgotten (Exclusive)]

Attribute : [Half Royalty (Epic)]

Skill Cards : [Ghost Blade (Epic)]

==============================

{Vestiges}

{Relics}

{Shop}

===============================

His eyes scanned the familiar information, but lingered on the section that mattered most right now—the skill he’d spent nine days desperately trying to level up.

He focused on [Ghost Blade] and another window expanded.

=====================

Skill - [Ghost Blade]

Rank - [Epic]

Skill Description - [The wielder may shroud their presence, becoming difficult to detect by both mundane and supernatural senses. Additionally, any weapon touched by the wielder gains unnatural sharpness]

Skill Level - 1

Progress - 3/25

[Use Ghost Blade to kill 25 enemies to level up]

======================

Nothing had actually changed, the written information was the same as it had been the last time. But he felt the change and he was very much happy that he leveled it up.

The main difference was the range of his perception, it had increased significantly. He couldn’t tell how much exactly, but it was at least 500 meters now.

[Scenario about to begin]

Ishiki’s body started glowing and then his hands started to vanish into motes of lights and then he, himself ceased to exist.

***

Ishiki’s eyes flickered open, he felt dizzy and his head throbbed as if he had just hit something hard.

He forced open his eyes and pushed himself up.

Ishiki saw trees... trees surrounding him on all sides, their canopies forming a lattice overhead.

The leaves were yellow, brilliant yellow, the kind of autumnal gold that belonged in paintings rather than reality. They swayed gently in the cold night wind.

Magnificent.

The word formed unbidden in his mind, accompanied by warmth spreading through his chest, relaxation seeping into muscles that had been tense for... how long? Days? Weeks? He couldn’t quite remember.

’This is nice.’

The leaves rustled softly, and the sound was... musical. Each movement of foliage produced notes that harmonized with their neighbors, creating melody that swelled and faded like waves on shore.

The song was hypnotic, soothing. It promised rest to bones that ached, offered peace to mind. It suggested that lying here—right here, in this perfect spot beneath these singing trees, would be the most natural thing in the world.

’Just rest here, close your eyes and sleep.’

He laid down on the soft grass.

The melody intensified, wrapping around him like a blanket, pulling him down toward unconsciousness.

His eyelids grew heavy, breathing slowed and his body began to relax completely, surrendering to exhaustion.

’Its so, good. These trees sing so marvelously.’

Ishiki blinked a few times.

"Wait... trees are singing?"

Ishiki’s eyes snapped fully open. His body jerked upright as panic flooded his system, washing away the unnatural calm with fear.

He looked around wildly, taking in details his enchanted mind had conveniently ignored.

The trees weren’t just yellow-leaved and musical. They were not trees at all.

Cold wind assaulted him suddenly, cutting through the false warmth the song had provided. It bit into his exposed body, raising goosebumps across his entire body.

He looked down and realized something.

He was naked.

Again.

For the third time since the Great Fall, Ishiki Senju found himself completely, utterly, embarrassingly nude in a hostile environment.

"Are you KIDDING ME?!" The shout burst from his throat. "What is it with this system, taking my clothes?! Is there some rule that says—"

Pressure around his waist cut off his rant mid-sentence.

Something was wrapping around him. Constricting with slow, deliberate malice.

Ishiki’s breath caught in his throat. His hands moved to his waist on pure instinct, fingers encountering something that made his skin crawl.

Wood.

A branch—thick as his arm, rough as sandpaper coiled around his midsection like a snake made of timber.

His head snapped up in horror, following the branch to its source.

The tree directly in front of him had a face.

It was not pareidolia or imagination.

An actual face. Carved into the trunk or grown from it. The features were crude—roughly humanoid but twisted, distorted, caught between plant and animal. Eyes like knots in wood stared at him with terrible awareness and below them was the worst feature.

The maw.

It split the tree trunk vertically, opening wide enough to swallow a human torso. The interior was darkness and hunger. And lining that impossible mouth were wooden teeth. Sharp and jagged. Arranged in multiple rows like some botanical shark, each one honed to a point that tearing would not be a problem.

The tree’s mouth opened wider. The branch around Ishiki’s waist tightened, began pulling him forward with irresistible force.

’Screw this!’

He tried to stand— something grabbed his ankle. A root, emerging from earth like a hand reaching from a grave.

The thing yanked him and dragged his body across grass and earth toward the waiting maw that grew larger with each heartbeat.

’Crap! I take my words back. This place is indeed hell.’