“I killed myself. I killed others. I killed and killed until the meaning of human life was no different than squishing an ant. And it was all to get to this point. My final attempt… Attempt four hundred and forty-two.”
Sen’s legs moved on their own. His breath ached as he inhaled the chilly air. He realized he could not control any part of his body, no matter how hard he tried. It was as if he was a puppet, controlled by invisible strings from above. Yet he could see everything around him—well, almost everything. It felt as if he didn’t even get to control when he blinked or where he looked, like watching a man running in a movie from the comfort of theater seats.
But why could he feel his throat ache from the icy air as he ran? Why could he feel the drip of snot rolling down his nose? Why did it feel like he had been here before?
He was not running in the dark forest as he once remembered. No, this was a much different land—a land filled with tall skyscrapers lined beside shoddy streets crowded by pedestrians. Orange light from the rising sun cast shadows along the city and its people, drowning everything in its glow. Sen’s body ran on the sidewalk towards the horizon, his hand reaching to grasp the sun, but to no avail.
And then, the world started to shift. Sen could feel his consciousness slipping, losing sensation in the body he couldn’t even control. The world around him bent and whirled, growing dizzily blurry, his head aching with sharp pain and confusion. But it didn’t last forever.
The setting shifted amid the twisting chaos—from the city to a large metallic doctor’s operation room, lit by lifeless white lights on the ceiling. Shelves filled with doctor’s equipment lined the walls, while two low metal workbenches stood on opposite ends of the room. Most strikingly, a metal operation table stood in the center, and a young child was strapped to it with steel rings that fastened his whole body, eliminating any movement. He was a well-defined young boy, no more than four or five years old, with predominantly white hair and a touch of black. His eyes were closed in sleep.
It was him. He was looking at his younger self.
Just like before, his tall body moved on its own, reaching for his younger self to free him from the operation table. With just a pinch of his fingers, Sen’s body snapped the metal cylinders that fastened the boy as if they were mere twigs. He quickly grabbed his unconscious young self and held him. Sen could only watch it all, unable to control anything, dismayed and confused.
Then Sen’s body turned to something at the end of the operation room. A person sat in a revolving chair with their back facing him, wearing a pure white hazmat suit. Against his will, Sen’s body spoke, but Sen himself couldn’t hear what he was saying. The words were muddled and distorted. Yet he knew he was talking because he could feel his vocal cords vibrating as he spoke.
"...don’t know what you’ve done…" Some words were vaguely distinguishable.
The man in the white hazmat suit replied murkily. "...know…created the perfect…"
Sen’s body responded, "...deal with…later."
The world began twisting again, sending another sharp pain deep inside Sen’s consciousness. It bent until the world fell still, transforming into a different setting. Sen’s body was back in the city streets, running beside the sidewalk, his black trench coat fluttering as he ran. Resting in his arms was his younger self. Sen’s body—or whoever’s body it was—moved with a sense of urgency, as if he needed to be on time.
The faces of onlookers blurred past as he took a left onto another street. Apartment buildings and stores lined both sides—some newer and cleaner, others older and worn down. Sen’s body pushed past small circular robots that advertised businesses and others patrolling on behalf of the AOK. The more he ran, the sturdier and cleaner the buildings became—a sign of a wealthier part of the city. Finally, he stopped. Or rather, his body did.
In front of him stood a simple two-story building with a fenced front entrance. Sen recognized it. One hand grasped the child, the other opened the gate. His body walked to the door and rang the doorbell. At first, no one answered. With a tense silence, his body waited until finally, a beautiful woman with pale blue eyes and white hair answered.
Her cheerful smile faded, and she screamed.
----------------------------------------
It was around noon, and the sun hung brightly above the campsite. Beside the fire pit, Hana prepared lunch for their team while they were out slaying monsters and gaining points. She cracked open a few cans of beef soup and dumped them into a pot, then correctly allocated slices of bread onto disposable plates. It was simple and much easier than fixing a feast from scratch. However, the trade-off was the bland taste.
Nevertheless, Sen recognized there was no room to be a picky eater in the wild. The food was simply fuel to subside the aching hunger and give energy. Pleasure and the ferocity of nature could not coexist. Even what they were having tonight was something to be thankful for. Others who were truly in their position—without it being a game—weren’t as lucky. Sen couldn’t imagine how hard it would be. Even he was starting to grow tired of the challenge, even though it was only the third day. It felt much longer than that.
He sighed as he carried a few wood sticks across the clearing to the dug-up fire pit. He threw them in and watched as the weak flames latched onto their new victims and grew stronger, crackling.
“You look… dazed,” Hana observed as she lifted the pot of beef soup and set it on two metal rods positioned over the circular pit, creating a makeshift stovetop. Sen fell silent, watching the soup slowly come to a boil.
“It’s nothing. I’m just tired.”
Hana frowned, sitting cross-legged across from him. “You’re having trouble sleeping or something?”
“Something like that.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s freezing out here. Not to mention, the bugs are a pain in the ass. I wake up every goddamn day with a bite somewhere on my body. I can’t wait until this stupid challenge is over. I hope the last one is indoors, maybe like a written test or something.”
“Yeah…” Sen said distantly. Hana looked at him suspiciously, clearly seeing something was wrong. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” she sighed. “Seriously, what’s wrong? It’s not like you can’t handle a bit of sleep deprivation. You’re a strong guy.”
Sen wasn’t exactly lying when he said he was tired. But that term lacked context. He was tired of a lot of things. The fact he couldn’t recognize how he acted anymore. The fact he had no explanation for the weird things that kept occurring to him. And the dreams… especially the dreams. Dreams that simply made no sense.
The last one was still fresh in his mind, though only in fragments. The full dream began to gradually fade away despite how hard he tried to remember. He once prided himself on having a good memory. What a joke that was now. But he remembered the main events: I saw my younger self strapped onto a doctor’s table and a man with a white hazmat suit sitting in the room. And then… I… I’m not too sure. Sen searched every inch of his brain for fragments of memory but to no avail. The events that occurred confused him to no end. It was so outlandish that he told himself to ignore it. He’d had many dreams in the past that made no sense, so this one had no reason to be the exception.
Yet, there was a feeling. A feeling he simply couldn’t shake off. The dreams—or sometimes even daydreams—he’d been having felt too real. Too raw.
It was like remembering a distant memory. He could still feel the sting in his throat from the cold air and how his finger effortlessly broke the steel latches that confined his younger self. And how… Wait… what happened after?
I was running back into the city, wasn’t I? Yes, that’s it. The houses looked more run down and destroyed than they are today. It almost looked like how Tokyo was post-World War. I was running while holding my younger self, and…
That was the farthest he could piece together. The rest was lost and blurry. He sighed. What am I doing? Constantly dwelling on a dream won’t achieve anything. I have more important things to worry about. Like passing the challenge and… Sen paused. Right, finding information about my father.
Now that he thought about it, the primary motive for even being in the challenge wasn’t on his mind as much as it used to be. The hole in his chest was not the same as before. He had thought that if he found information about his father, it would fill that gaping space within, but now, as the challenges went on, that was merely an afterthought.
He was constantly bombarded with more questions that he had no answers to, slowly filling the place where his desire to find his father had once been. He didn’t know what to do anymore. His whole life, everything he did had logical reasoning—every problem he faced had an answer. Now, there wasn’t a way out of his issues because those very issues didn’t even lie within reality.
I feel… Sen thought slowly.
What did he feel? Was it sadness? Stress? Depression? Emotions he couldn’t even recognize, perhaps?
No… none of them were it. I feel lost.
The light of the auburn fire reflected off Sen’s pale blue, distant eyes, and the twigs crackled in the pit, sending embers fluttering out. One landed on his sitting leg, but he offered no reaction. He decided to simply admire the fire and keenly listen to the noises of the forest in an attempt to clear his mind. Just like Baru had taught him yesterday, he began searching for ways to distract himself, soon settling on guessing how many crackles the flame would give within a minute. He put in a mental guess of twenty and patiently waited for the results.
One crackled.
Then another, and soon a dozen more. As the number was inching closer to his guess, another crackle sounded more loudly than the rest. But something about the sound was odd, and even Hana lightly jolted from the noise. Sen soon realized it had not been the fire at all.
Someone had stepped on a twig in the forest.
Immediately, Sen rose to his feet, signaling his sister to be cautious. Without questioning him for even a moment, she stood next to him, her hand gripping the sense sword around her waist. To an outsider, their defensive reaction would look unwarranted. It could just be their friends returning from hunting monsters. Except Sen knew it wasn’t, because they had explicitly agreed to call via their ear device before returning to the campsite so they would recognize intruders. Luckily, Sen found his earbud inside his tent, which he thought he had lost when he had sleepwalked in the forest. In this case, neither Sen nor Hana received a warning call, meaning the person or people nearby were most likely not their team.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Are you sure this is the way?” A male voice said close by in the forest, followed by another pair of footsteps. Sen recognized it.
“Yeah, I scanned the area for a while with my Sense. This is definitely where they are.”
Both Sen and Hana glanced at each other with a sigh, and she released her firm grasp on the sword.
“Well… I sure didn’t expect them,” Hana looked at the newcomers.
“On the contrary, I expected to see them at some point,” Sen shrugged.
Soon, two blue-haired individuals appeared at the edge of their camp. It was Ayame and Genkai.
“Wow, I guess you were right,” Genkai said to his sister, almost sadly. Ayame sneered back.
“Told you. Give me my twenty dollars!”
“Well, I don’t have it on me now. I’ll give it to you after the challenge,” Genkai cleared his throat.
“You always forget, though!”
“I have no idea what you mean. I always give you the bets you win, fair and square.”
“That’s a lie,” Ayame glared at her brother.
“No proof. Where is the evidence? Everything you do or say will be used against you in the court of law.”
Sen and Hana blankly gaped at their argument.
“Do we fight like that?” Hana asked him, still staring.
“Maybe, but it’s usually one-sided.” He always won every argument he had with his sister, since he was right in most cases. Usually, it was just Hana being hot-tempered.
“True…” Hana murmured slowly, then frowned. “Wait a minute—” Sen didn’t allow her to process his statement fully. He greeted the twins with a wave.
“This is a surprise,” Sen eyed them suspiciously. He couldn’t help but feel cautious; after all, he still didn’t know who was responsible for his rumor. The timing was lined up too perfectly not to suspect Ayame or her brother—if she had told him by now, which was most likely the case. He didn’t want to believe it, and his gut told him it wasn’t true, but he’d always been realistic. The odds were simply too high to ignore. “You guys were looking for us, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah, why would we be here if not that?” Ayame replied candidly.
So blunt… Sen thought. If they were the ones responsible for the rumor, showing up in front of us is a pretty bold move. Maybe a bit too bold.
“How did you guys manage to find us?” Hana asked curiously, perhaps sharing a bit of his concern.
“On top of my already good vision, I can also briefly see heat patterns, though it does take a lot of energy. Our camp is also on high ground, making it easier to spot people, but we did run into at least half a dozen contestants before finally getting it right,” Ayame responded, half boasting about her skill.
Sen did find it impressive. It was known that being able to perceive heat patterns was incredibly rare and difficult to learn, even for advanced Knights with Sight. Most went their whole lives without ever achieving it.
“I should have canceled my bet with you after the fifth fail,” Genkai grumbled.
“Your loss,” Ayame scoffed. “In any case, that’s not important right now. We came here to talk to you about something.”
Sen sighed. “I don’t like the sound of that.” He had a bad feeling about what they had in mind. There goes the thought of distracting myself for a bit.
“You guys probably haven’t even heard about it yet,” Ayame said. “It’s a rumor about you.”
----------------------------------------
Sen told himself that there couldn’t possibly be something that could make the situation any more confusing. Yet, constantly—almost out of spite—something out there yearned to prove him wrong time and time again. It was almost comical. Opposite Sen and Hana, the two twins quietly sat beside the fire pit, the stew slowly boiling and their expressions shrouded with confusion. He recognized that his own face wasn’t any better either. Kneeling with her feet tucked beneath her, Hana opened her mouth.
“So let me get this straight…” She massaged her eyelids with her fingers. “Sen told you he was senseless when you were on the train?”
“That’s a bit of a stretch,” Ayame retorted. “It was more like he implied that he was.”
“Implied?” Hana echoed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just answer the question. Did you, or did you not realize that Sen didn’t have a Super Sense after your conversation?”
Ayame scowled from her brash question, refusing to make eye contact. In all honesty, Sen couldn’t blame Hana for her skepticism because the timing was too suspicious to ignore. However, his sister was missing something very important.
“I suppose,” Ayame muttered loudly enough for Hana to hear. “But why should that make a difference?”
Hana looked at Sen, then twisted toward the twins as if they had gone mad.
“Sen, do you not see the issue here?” Hana demanded. “They’re the ones that started the rumor. The timing adds up! This only started at the beginning of the second challenge. Do you know what happened before that? You blabbered about being Senseless to an enemy!”
Her remark struck a nerve within him. And you revealed that I was senseless on at least two different occasions. Who knows how many more times you would have if I wasn’t there to keep you quiet?
“HUH?!” Ayame jumped from her crouched position, her eyes flickering blue threateningly, fists clenched. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would we even start a rumor like that? We have nothing to gain.”
“How should I know what goes through your sick brains?” Hana matched her stance.
“Sick? What am I, a villain? This is so childishly ridiculous. Grow up, will y—”
“Enough, you two…” Sen sighed, breaking off the argument. He was growing tired of this. “Hana, they’re not the ones who spread the rumor. They already told us that their friend said he’d heard it before the first challenge even started. It’s not possible.”
“Sen, that’s obviously a lie to cover up their tracks! Do you honestly believe a word they say?”
He wasn’t so sure himself, but his gut told him that they were telling the truth. Not just that, however, it also wouldn’t make any sense why they would even come here to warn them. Genkai pulled his sister back down to sit peacefully around the fire as her glowing eyes eventually flickered away. Exhaling, Genkai rubbed his chin in thought, attempting to devise something that would convince them they posed no threat.
“I understand your apprehension towards us, and I won’t tell you to trust us by any means, but let me ask you this at least. Why would we go out of our way to meet with you right now?” Genkai asked. Hana opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Faced with no reply, Genkai continued calmly.
“At the very least, you must recognize how stupid and rash it would be for us even to come here if we were at the bottom of this rumor. I think staying distant and quiet would have been a much better move, so why didn’t we do that?”
Hana conjured no response to his question again.
“Of course, you could point out that perhaps we were using the most unconventional method of clearing suspicion. Maybe we’re specifically putting ourselves in a risky position to come here so both of you won’t suspect us. But even if that’s the plan, wouldn’t you say that’s quite bold? Maybe even a bit too bold? Again, there are plenty of better ways to go about this that are way less risky,” Genkai said.
He’s smart, Sen noted. Smarter than he carries on. He and Baru shared remarkably similar traits. Genkai was more academically advanced, and it showed, but in terms of strength, Sen could only wonder how much he was capable of.
“I…” Hana started but trailed off, embarrassment showing from her redness. “I may have… overreacted. I’m sorry.” With a sigh of relief, Genkai smiled thankfully.
“Well, no harm done.”
Sen looked at both of the twins. “Why did you want to warn us anyway?”
Genkai shrugged, then looked at his sister. All the eyes were locked on Ayame, making her visibly uncomfortable. “What? Why are you guys looking at me?”
Genkai snorted. “Well, to be quite honest, it wasn’t my idea. I said that, most likely, you guys were already aware of the rumor, so it would be useless, but Ayame insisted on coming here.”
Ayame’s usual pale white face was growing redder and redder as Genkai explained. “She looked so worried, not to mention serious too. She was going to come here even if I agreed or n—”
“SHUT UP!” Ayame punched her brother on the arm, making him yelp in pain. “I… I thought it was only fair to send a warning since we worked together on the first challenge. Our truce had never officially ended, you know.”
It most definitely did, but Sen didn’t bring it up. Judging by her flushed face, Sen couldn’t help but wonder something. Girls often get defensive and lash out when they’re flustered, or so I’ve heard, at least. Kaiyo is a different case since she’s a more timid and reserved person. But Ayame… is it possible that she likes me? Romantically, that is? Maybe it’s a stretch, but the psychology books I’ve read do match. I don’t know how to feel about that.
He’d had his fair share of confessions in the past. Usually, it was only because they didn’t know he was senseless at first. When they did find out, they would avoid him, feeling embarrassed that they had just confessed to a Senseless person. Sen had no interest in them from the start, and quite frankly, didn’t care back then. But looking back on it now… he couldn’t help but grimace at that fact.
“In any case, it’s appreciated,” Sen finally said. “It definitely wasn’t useless. Thanks to you guys, we now know roughly when the rumor started.”
Genkai nodded. “Any clue about who it might be?”
“Honestly, I don’t have the faintest clue,” Sen said tiredly. “The only person I could suspect is Hono since she overheard us before the academy opened its doors, but after that, my team didn’t allow her to leave on her own anywhere.”
“Yeah, I was with her the whole time. She didn’t even talk to a single person there. So there’s no way that she started the rumor,” Hana agreed.
“This is making very little sense…” Genkai ruffled his hair. “But, at this point, it doesn’t even matter who did or didn’t. What’s concerning is the lengths people would go to once they hear this rumor. From what Yior said, it didn’t sound too promising. I would be careful,” Genkai told him.
Sen nodded in appreciation. “We already planned out what we can do. All there is to do now is hope no one tries to kidnap me or something.” Sen bluntly joked, although it wasn’t all that far from reality either.
“You have your work cut out for you. Remember, you still have the monsters to worry about.”
Sen chuckled. “I almost forgot.”
Just then, Sen felt a slight buzz in his ear. He double-tapped his inconspicuous ear device and heard Baru reporting to him.
“We’re heading back,” Baru said through the earpiece. “And boy, do we have some things to share.”
Sen snorted. “Same on our end. Some familiar faces decided to show up.”
“Blue-haired chick and her brother?”
Sen was glad Ayame couldn’t hear him. “…Yeah.” Sen could feel him grinning on the other end.
“Well, say less. Now I gotta get there quicker!” Just like that, the call ended. Sen couldn’t help but snort in amusement. When he turned back to Ayame and Genkai, they were looking at him with puzzled expressions.
“When did you… get that?” Ayame asked.
Sen pulled out the blueberry-sized device from his ear. “Oh, this? We sneaked this one in as a precaution, just in case we get split up. It has come in handy quite a bit.”
Ayame and her brother blinked at him. “Isn’t that cheating?” Ayame said.
“Perhaps a little, yes,” Sen shrugged. “Technically, the very fact I’m in the challenge is a risk on its own, so might as well make the best of it, wouldn’t you agree?”
“…You’re unbelievable.”
“I get that a lot.” He wouldn’t exactly say he’s rash or anything… well, perhaps a little. Above all else, he was just as calculative. However, recently, he had been having trouble being his usual self. If the word “usual” even meant anything, that is. He frowned inwardly in thought as the two twins got to their feet for some reason. He judged them with a narrowed eye.
“You’re leaving?” Sen asked. Genkai nodded his head.
“Yes, unfortunately. We’re still in a challenge, after all. There’s a lot of slaying that needs to be done.”
“How far have you come?” Hana probed to get an answer, wondering how many points they had acquired. Sen was quite interested, too. He wondered how different it was from their team, which included more than triple the people. Right now, they had three hundred and two points, leaving Sen to assume they couldn’t possibly have more while being so shorthanded.
“I think around three hundred and fifty,” Genkai answered indifferently. Sen and his sister gawked at them, lost for words. Once the number began to process in his brain, he breathed out—
“Incredible…”
Ayame shrugged. “It’s not that impressive, really. Many of the monsters in the forest are no greater than silver rank, so they’re barely a challenge. Surprisingly, we’re having a problem finding enough monsters to fight. You’d think there would be more in the infamous danger zone,” she deduced skeptically.
Sen knew the answer to that but held his tongue. He wasn’t going to share what Baru had told him yesterday. It was too personal and, above all else, seemed too farfetched for someone even to believe.
“That’s still impressive, nonetheless. Our team has only around three hundred, and we have triple the amount of people on our team,” Sen said, and his sister slowly nodded in agreement, almost reluctantly.
Ayame’s face only grew redder as Sen made eye contact for some reason. She twisted her head and avoided his stare, clearing her throat.
“In any case, I’m glad we could share some information that you needed,” Ayame said, nudging her brother and signaling him to start leaving. “Stay safe.”
“Would you like to have some stew before you leave with the rest of our team?” Hana suddenly asked, to even Sen’s surprise. Either she is inviting them out of suspicion, to keep a closer eye, or she’s trying to fix her reputation after that blowout, Sen thought curiously. The two twins froze in the middle of their departure. Ayame specifically didn’t want to stay here any longer for some reason. Perhaps it had something to do with her flustered behavior around him, but he wasn’t sure.
“…No, no, that’s not necessary. We really should get going.” She didn’t turn around to face them to answer before she started walking away again. However, Genkai grabbed his sister by the shoulder to stop her and grinned as he turned back to them.
“Sure,” he replied, and Ayame turned pale. “We would love to.”