After forcing a contract upon him, Sora interrogated François with the same cold detachment he had shown Gérard.
"So you're telling me... the first person Rachel had your guild kill was her own husband?" Sora's voice was calm, masking his emotions as he feigned ignorance. Gérard watched from the side, as he was asked to stay silent.
"Yes," François admitted nervously, forced to tell the truth. "His name was Nathan, if I remember correctly. We kept his identity hidden from the lower-ranking members at first. We tracked him for a while, learning everything about him before ambushing him. Rachel was with him when it happened. As he protected her from us, she... she stabbed him in the heart from behind. She was level 20 or so back then! But after she killed him, it felt like she became stronger than us—though we couldn’t be sure. We started suspecting she had some way to hide her true power..."
Sora’s fists clenched at this revelation. His blood boiled with anger at the extent of how premeditated his brother's death had been, and how similar to his own death it was. ‘Nathan... Rachel lead you to your death, step by step... ’
François swallowed hard, sensing the change in Sora’s mood. "I swear, that’s how it happened," he added hastily, feeling the intensity of Sora's glare.
Sora took a slow, deliberate breath, forcing himself to remain calm. "And Nais? Your friend here mentioned her earlier. How was she involved?"
"She was just a rookie back then, not involved in the first assassination," François explained. "But she did help with the killings of Rachel’s friends. Rookies like her were never part of the planning—they were used as cannon fodder until they proved themselves." His tone carried no hint of remorse, only a casual acknowledgment of the methods he’d employed.
The silence that followed was suffocating. François and Gérard began to shift uncomfortably, sensing something ominous from the way Sora stared at them. They would have preferred the questioning to continue, anything to break the tension.
"We... we could work for you—just don’t hurt us, please," François begged, his voice shaking with desperation.
But before he could finish his plea, an immense pressure crushed him face-first into the ground, silencing his plea. Gérard found himself pinned down by the same force, unable to move or even breathe properly.
Sora’s gaze darkened, his voice calm. "I'm no hero," he said. "But when I see trash, I take it out."
With that, Sora summoned flames in one hand and ice in the other. Half of each man was surrounded by blazing fire, while the other half were engulfed in a biting cold. He deliberately kept the intensity low, forcing them to endure the agony of both elements for a long, excruciating minute. Their screams filled the air, but Sora’s expression remained indifferent.
In the end, their suffering ceased. Parts caught in the fire were reduced to ash, while parts trapped in ice became a frozen moment in time of their suffering that he reduced to fine particles.
[You have killed a player who has not initiated a fight with you.] x2 [Player Killing penalty: 24-hour suspension from accessing safe areas.] x2 [20% Experience malus for 24 hours.] x2
He knew there were rules against killing other players and that the punishments got worse if you kept doing it. But right now, he didn’t care.
He had more important things on his mind. ‘Rachel… you’re going to pay for this. You planned my brother’s death so carefully, and you did the same thing to me. Just wait a little longer. Your end will be much worse than ours.’
He sighed, feeling both frustrated and a little relieved. "It was the right decision not to go after her during the first resets," he muttered. "She would’ve wiped me out in seconds. She may still be stronger than me now, with the month I wasted before my first prestige."
His anger faded, replaced by a calm, cold focus. Nothing had changed—Nathan was still gone, and Rachel was still out of reach.
Sora didn’t feel bad for killing Gérard and François. If anything, he thought he’d been kind. He could’ve made them suffer much more through contracts, but they weren’t worth the trouble. Still, he felt dirty inside, like he was losing a piece of himself with every fight. 'I’m starting to feel less and less human,' he thought.
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When he turned around, he saw Kara and Hiyoko walking toward him. They didn’t say anything, and their usual happy energy was gone. The space between them felt heavy.
Sora broke the silence. "Sorry you had to see that," he said quietly. Kara and Hiyoko didn’t respond, but their eyes showed that they understood.
Sora opened the list of players Sin Soo-Yun had provided, scanning through the names. Most of Rachel's acquaintances were in France, Russia, China, South Korea, or Japan. A cluster in South Korea caught his attention. ‘Is this where she’s hiding now?’ he wondered. ‘If what Gérard and François said is true, I think she likely forms groups, betrays them, and moves on. It’d make sense for her to keep scattered contacts in different regions probably unaware of her nature, or for other reasons I'm not aware of.’
He turned to Kara. "Kara, I’m going to track down everyone she’s connected with and investigate. It’s going to take some time. What will you do in the meantime?"
Kara’s gaze hardened, a reflection of the determination she now carried. Everything Sora had told her about Rachel was true, and the full extent of the situation was even worse than she had imagined. "Let’s split up," she said. "You take half the list; I’ll take the other."
Sora blinked, momentarily surprised. He hadn’t expected the usually gentle Kara to take such a resolute stance. But seeing the resolve in her eyes, he knew he couldn’t change her mind. He nodded. "We might even need Alius’ help for this. Let me contact him."
Opening his friend list, Sora froze. Only two names appeared: [Kara Spirine] and [Sin Soo-Yun].
‘What the hell?’ he thought, quickly solving the puzzle. ‘I know each time I prestige, my friend list resets. That's why I don’t have Amélie, Thierry, and Céline on there anymore, but why would Alius be...’ He realized what happened, ‘Alius must’ve prestiged too.’
He quickly tried to add Alius back, only for an inconvenient notification to appear:
[There is no player with the name Alius.]
“Damn it!” Sora shouted in frustration. He was sure of it now—Alius had either changed identities, died, or something even worse.
"Let’s split up," Sora said, his tone sharper with urgency. "You can start with this list of players. I’ll handle the ones in France and work my way east. Maybe you can cover Southeast Asia? For now, we just need information about each of them. However," he added, his voice changing, "I’m going to look for Alius first."
Kara nodded, and after discussing Alius' situation, she understood Sora's worry. They parted ways, with Hiyoko staying loyally by Sora’s side.
Sora’s search took him to the last place he had seen Alius—a level 110-119 zone filled with various monsters. He searched the area relentlessly, crossing the region many times, but never sensed Alius' presence. What was more concerning was the eerie silence in the region.
After an hour of running through the zone repeatedly, a grim realization settled in: ‘There isn’t a single creature left in this entire area. Not a single boss, not a single soul… What happened here?’
Searching for clues for hours, Sora grew frustrated and moved to other regions around this deserted one. All other regions were intact, and only this "high level" region in Europe was affected by such a phenomenon.
'Did something happen to Alius here?' He couldn't help but worry for his other half. He spent the next day looking for him, and even Sin Soo-Yun said they didn't have any clue about the whereabouts of such a player, as they didn't even find his existence.
‘I hope he’s just reset his character and chosen a new identity... and that he’ll explain himself later,’ Sora thought, reluctantly pausing his search for Alius. He decided to resume it in a month, hoping his alter ego was not deceased. If Alius had decided to change identities, he wouldn’t reappear in the world until the one-month period had passed, after all.
Refocusing on Rachel’s friends, Sora utilized the skills he had copied from assassins and thieves he had followed. Now, he could seamlessly blend into his surroundings, disappear into shadows. Spying on many players, he didn't hesitate to copy their skills and perfect them while he was at it. He would even spend time in [Combat Training Center] when he was hungry for specific skills, as he would find people training all kinds of skills there, including instructors.
For an entire week, Sora carefully observed Rachel’s network of friends. Afterward, he regrouped with Kara in Seoul, South Korea.
What they uncovered was unsettling. Rachel’s friends largely fell into two distinct categories: talented, often naïve players, and ruthless player killers who hunted others for profit or to grow.
"The first group..." Sora said, summarizing their exchange,"they’re probably just future victims. She likely picked them as targets to betray when it benefits her. As for the player killers, they’re no different from that [Rouge Sang] guild. She’ll use them until they outlive their usefulness, then discard or destroy them."
"Still," he noted with some satisfaction, "except for her connections in South Korea, we’re stronger than most of her friends in terms of levels." A small smile appeared on his lips as he reflected on the advantage. Despite the time spent gathering intelligence, Sora and Kara remained at levels 110 and 122, respectively.
Sora had one bold idea—a move to make before the upcoming event in Japan.
Kara asked, with a look that seemed to question his sanity. "Are you sure about infiltrating her guild?"
Sora’s smile widened, a glint of determination in his eyes. "This is just the first step of my revenge. She wants to toy with people? Let’s toy with her instead. They say, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer,’ don’t they?"