Inside the Principal’s office was Edris, leisurely wandering around the dimmed space.
A wall away from him were three looming shadows, and muffled voices, which seemed to grow in amplitude as whatever they were arguing escalated in tension. The dark interior prevented the professors from discerning Edris’s exact movements.
They didn’t have time to, anyway, as their silhouettes were seen moving across the two ends of the hallway, trying to calm down the parties.
Edris smoothed his hand across the office desk, the paddings of his fingers brushing against the wooden surface. A layer of dust had accumulated, likely from a lack of usage. Edris creased his brows.
How strange.
Despite the spacious room, there were few pieces of furniture. Only a tea table, two sets of couches, and an office table at the end of the room. Edris’s gaze fell on the bookshelf, towering behind the office table and filled with various reading materials.
The books, all maroon-covered, stacked upon each other like a monochrome wall.
Moving past the surface, Edris peered past the table and toward the golden-rimmed bookshelf. He stood in front of the different sections of the shelf one by one, examining its contents. The maroon books, identical to one another, withstood his scrutiny, almost merging before his eyes.
However, he could see it.
Although identical at a glance, a book situated at the very right of the shelf bore a slightly different tint than the rest.
Edris reached out and turned the handle. Not budging.
He examined the handle. It seemed to be welded to the shelf itself. He gave it a few more jolts, then knocked a finger against the surface.
He was estimating how much force he needed to shatter through the glass.
Unfortunately, Edris didn’t get to execute his plans, as the door behind him suddenly swung open.
Two pairs of eyes met each other.
Leaning by the doorframe, Magenta had her arms crossed before her chest. Her gaze dropped on Edris, then swung by his palm that was on the glass display handle. She cocked her head to the side, eyebrow raised.
“The discussion has ended.” Moss emerged behind her. “You can come out now.”
Edris nodded with his usual gentle smile, not at all flustered at the fact he’d just been caught trying to smash open the Principal’s bookshelf window.
Magenta and Moss led him down a narrow hallway, which seemed to stretch without end. With no decor nor patterns, the bland walls on their sides rushed them forward, disorienting all senses of direction. They walked for a good five minutes before the hallway ended with a monochrome lift.
“After you,” Magenta said, taking a step to the side.
Edris stepped forward with a shrug.
Only when he fully entered the lift did Magenta and Moss follow. The three stood shoulder to shoulder, and a pair of transparent doors closed before them.
“What did they decide on in the end?” he asked as the lift began to descend.
“[DETENTION],” Moss responded with a displeasing lingering in his voice. “The Principal decided to be wise in his final verdict.”
“Mhm—I see.”
More like he still needed financial support from the donors.
Moss’s expression turned bitter at the man’s nonchalant attitude. He looked toward Magenta, who only fluttered her eyes in response.
The lift continued to descend.
Identical doors flashed before Edris’s eyes. Each had a single, rectangular window with seeping white light—their afterimages fleeting as the lift accelerated. Beside him, Magenta leaned forward.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” she whispered in his ear. “These are all [DETENTION] rooms.”
The lift finally came to a stop. Before Edris could respond, a strip of black fabric landed over his eyes, moving past his temples and adjoined at the back of his head. With the blindfold in place and any remaining sense of direction lost, he could only allow himself to be led out by the hand on his shoulder.
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The next time Edris opened his eyes, he was in an unfamiliar room.
In the shape of a cube, the entire room was white, pristine without a speckle of blemish. The two professors who’d led him here were nowhere to be found, leaving only him in this vacant space.
Edris surveyed his surroundings.
Three of the four walls were identical, and the fourth was in an opaque shade of grey.
A one-sided window.
As Edris lifted the blindfold off the ground, the ceiling above him flickered. Upturning his gaze, Edris found himself staring at a cascade of aurora lights. They danced with one another, pulsing steadily above his head and filling the space around him.
Taking in his current situation, Edris suddenly froze.
This was giving him an awfully familiar feeling.
“…”
Isn’t this the same setup as the Dread Chamber?
The Dread Chamber was one of The Archivist’s inventions, designed specifically for interrogation. Back in Nolmes, Ace had been placed in the same room in an attempt to dig through his memories and clear his suspicion behind the Slums incident.
Although the attempt proved ineffective due to the man’s amnesia, Edris had watched from the observation room as layers of his memories were ripped out and exposed on the big screen. On this thought, his gaze moved toward the opaque wall.
Now in Ace’s position, Edris couldn’t help but stifle a laugh.
“...No wonder.”
If [DETENTION] was the Labyrinth’s version of the Dread Chamber, it would explain why the players had experienced such suffering after the punishment.
As with the Dread Chamber, [DETENTION] aimed to erode the mind through mana overload. But since the players’ mana channels were forcibly sealed by the Labyrinth system, it made them extremely sensitive to mana level fluctuations and all the more vulnerable to mana overflow.
Mana flow led to the loss of rationality and self-awareness, but that wasn’t their only problem at hand.
Players were given a role to sustain in front of non-players during their time in the Labyrinth, and acting misaligned with their role personality would lead to a drop in [AFFINITY].
However, who was still capable of acting “in role” when [DETENTION] had wrecked their minds to the point where they couldn’t even think straight?
Tapping his foot steadily, Magenta hummed a lighthearted tune as she observed the dark-haired man from the other side of the window. The fact Edris was trapped in there, his movements wholly exposed to the viewers, brought upon Magenta an undeniable surge of thrill.
All the players thrown in [DETENTION] had revealed the most desperate, pathetic reactions after their darkest secrets were taken and thrown under the spotlight. Nobody withstood the first-hand confrontation with their darkness, amplified to the extent that it became their entire being.
As insanity overwhelmed their mind, the players would succumb one after another, their despair painting the originally white room in a splatter of enriching colours.
Magenta’s eyes flickered as they peered toward the man standing amidst the white room.
The corners of her lips curled, reaching all the way to her temples. Sensing the woman’s oozing excitement from the side, Moss shook his head disapprovingly.
“The fact he’s gained your interest makes him truly pity-worthy.”
Magenta gave no response. Her mind was filled with imaginings of the man’s tear-filled expression. She couldn’t wait to see this composure of his deteriorate to nothing as he fell victim to his own emotions, losing rationality like all before him.
At that moment, the dark-haired man in [DETENTION] turned in their direction and, despite the one-sided window, locked gazes with Magenta. The latter’s smile grew even wider.
“Now… I wonder what colour is your despair?”
***
Oblivious to the boiling anticipation on the other side of the wall, Edris stood amidst the room, thinking.
His eyes bearing a rare aloofness to them, he withdrew his attention from the wall and glimpsed back at the sea of aurora above him. His mind was focused on an entirely different matter.
“Memories, huh…”
If the Dread Chamber really enabled his entire life to be drawn out and displayed, he wondered if he could retrieve those memories—those missing fragments of his life.
A soft sigh escaped his lips.
However, now wasn’t the time.
Although it would be nice to rediscover his memories, Edris was someone who kept a clear boundary on ownership. His memories, under his ownership, should be reserved for him to access first.
Until then, anyone who wants to peek into his belongings should know their place.
Edris yanked off his blazer, dropping it to the side of his feet.
If [DETENTION] functioned the same way as the Dread Chamber, its ultimate goal would be mana disruption within the individual. Indeed, its capabilities were quite troublesome for players whose mana channels had been forcibly blocked off.
However, it was no longer an issue for Edris, as he now knew the essence of its makeup.
In truth, the fact [DETENTION] functioned off mana outrage was actually to his advantage.
He did have a cheat, after all.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“It’s been a while since I used this.”
In the observation room, the professors watched in anticipation as [DETENTION] began performing its job. Moss sat with one leg crossed over the other and cleaned his glasses lens, while Magenta pressed against the window, eagerly rubbing her hands together.
As she keened in on the dark-haired man, however, her actions came to a halt. Noticing her irregularity, Moss directed his attention to the centre of the room.
The next second, his eyes widened.
The dark-haired man had his back facing them, so they couldn’t see his exact expression, let alone the smile forming on his face.
What they did see was the whirlpool of purple that surrounded his hands.
Amidst the sealed room, a breeze manifested itself.
The wind of chaos.