Kazami moved slowly back towards Tang-Ji, who was now hunched down in between the gates. She stared down at the frost-covered ground, her fingers tracing faint patterns in the ice like she was trying to etch out the words she couldn't bring herself to say.
"Are you feeling alright?" His voice steady, though his brow twitched, betraying his confusion.
Tang-Ji hesitated, her gaze dropping up and down. Her words came as a whisper, barely louder than the wind. "Kazami... I just need to know something." Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet his, the weight of unspoken thoughts lingering in the space between them.
He tilted his head slightly, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. "What is it?" he asked, his tone cautious, as though bracing for a blow he couldn't see coming.
Her lips quivered as she dared the question: "I know this isn't the right time, but… have we met before?"
For a moment, everything seemed to freeze. A biting winter wind whipped against his face, but he stood motionless, his expression carefully neutral. Only his fingers, curled just slightly tighter than before.
He exhaled slowly, the air steaming like smoke from an unseen fire.
"What do you think?" he finally replied, his gaze darting away, afraid her eyes might burn through his resolve.
Silence lingered, heavy and sharp, before Tang-Ji spoke again, her voice steady but carrying a fragile edge. "I've never told anyone this before, but… when I was a kid, I lost my memory. Completely.
"I had to start over at eleven, piecing together a life I don't remember. It's been six years now, and everything is still so hazy. Sometimes, I see flashes—fragments of something I can't place. I see a boy's hand reaching out to me, but I don't know who he is."
'There was sun in that fragment—too bright to hold—like noon on wet pavement.' She thought to herself before pausing, as she searched his face. "Kazami, was it you?"
His body stiffened, his shoulders rising to shield him from an invisible entity. His lips parted, but no words came. A flicker of horror danced in his eyes, there and gone too quickly to hold onto.
"Tell me," she pleaded, her voice gaining strength. "Have we met before? Just be honest."
Kazami's hands trembled at his sides, his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists. His jaw tightened, and for a moment, his eyes flashed with something raw, an emotion he couldn't contain.
"You really… don't remember anything?" he asked, his voice low, almost guttural. The words carried a weight that made her chest tighten.
Tang-Ji flinched slightly under his gaze, but she forced herself to stand firm.
"Nothing. Not a single thing before eleven."
He inhaled sharply, his breath visible as a thin cloud curling from his lips. His expression softened—not fully, but enough to let the tension seep out of his frame.
"I see," he muttered, the words barely audible.
He turned toward the gate, his footsteps crunching against the snow. Without looking back, he added, "This isn't the time for this. Let's find somewhere warm before the cold gets us."
"Alright." She stifled her curiosity before proceeding to follow him gradually up the ice slope.
'I can't help but wonder about our possible relationship and whether or not he would have treated the old me the same way if we had really met back then. Now I'm curious about my past selves almost as much as I am about my present selves.'
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'I should have turned back at the gate,' Tang-Ji thought.
The house had caught her with an atavistic turn in the pit of the stomach, and she looked along the lines of its roofs, fruitlessly endeavouring to locate the badness, whatever dwelt there; her hands turned nervously cold.
It made her fumbled as she tried to search her in-game inventory for the remaining health potion that was nearly depleted of its durability.
Beyond everything else, she was afraid—afraid of the subtle clicking sound along with the sick voice of Kyushu whispering her death.
The mansion came around her in a rush; she was shadowed by its size, and the sound of her feet on the wood of the veranda was an outrage in the utter silence.
She brought her hand up to the heavy iron knocker that had a large flower pattern, determined to make more noise and yet more; however, this was shortly interrupted by Kazami, who insisted on being the first one to enter the mansion.
Tang-Ji turned around, only to be greeted by Ukiyo, who silently stood aside. Her pastel gown, slightly damp with snowflakes on her hair, was neat, and yet she gave off an indefinable air of dirtiness. The suspicious sullenness of her face was a match for the malicious petulance of a devil.
An eerie breeze pushed dust particles out of the shadows as the old door cracked open. Kazami had to readjust his eyes to the low light levels before he could make out the huge outline of the forsaken mansion.
The hall in which they stood was overfilled with dark wood and weighty carving, dim under the heaviness of the staircase that was receding into the far end of the room. Above there seemed to be another hallway, going the width of the house; Kazami could see a hallway, and then, across the staircase, well, doors closed along the upper hall.
When Tang-Ji tried to speak, her voice was drowned in the dim stillness, and she had to try again to make a sound.
"This place... it feels like we're meddling with something that we shouldn't be," she said softly. Her rooms in the real world used to be rooms she could breathe in. This one pressed down like a hand on the crown of her head.
As they walked through the heavy door, they heard a loud 'ding!' And a notice appeared in the corner of their eye, just below the green bar over their head, indicating their current health. It looked like a blue exclamation point with yellow and blue lights.
Kazami drew a finger just over his eyebrows and gently tapped the icon.
His words were soft: "It's a quest." Of course it was. Games always offered names for the unknowable.
Before he could turn to Tang-Ji, he saw that she was in complete and utter astonishment. She stumbled away, suppressing a scream as her gaze fixed on the dead eyes of a puddle of blood in front of them.
"Step back, both of you," he urged as he slowly brought his hands together in front of his hips, as if he were carrying an imaginary sword.
He took a step closer with his knees slightly bent, his face pale but determined, and slowly, unsheathing an unseen sword, he reached out his hand. A few seconds later, a long red katana appeared in the midst of a flashing light.
When he summoned his weapon out completely, Tang-Ji fumbled uneasily in the rear and finally addressed him. "Please be careful."
Kazami's gaze shifted away from the staircase to the large wooden desk unnaturally stationed at its centre, like an anchor in a sea of shadows. The blood trail had pointed him here, its dark thread winding towards the desk's legs.
A bead of sweat traced a cold path down his cheek, the air itself held its breath. He lunged forward, weapon raised, the weight of the moment coiling tightly in his chest—until his steps faltered. His weapon dipped, the tension unravelling as his eyes took in what lay before him.
"This is something you probably don't want to see." The sword disappeared into thin air as he unsheathed it and whispered gently.
It seemed like Tang-Ji had stopped moving after releasing the seriousness of the situation.
The petrified look was written all over his face, so she knew precisely what was behind that desk as she replied, "I understand." She murmured.
It was the body of a dead man.
When he approached the corpse, he felt the slight sogginess and moisture of his boot; it felt almost like a liquid surface, which made him almost lose his footing.
He took a few seconds to inspect the body on the floor.
The ground was covered with blood, and the space around was tainted with a metallic scent. Scars and wounds in the form of magical runes cover the body, or what's left of the body, of the deceased guy.
A voice reverberated down the snowy corridor, exclaiming, "That corpse isn't from a player." It was Ukiyo who stood there, unfazed by the situation.
"You should not worry, since it is not a real player like yourself, as this is a quest, and you accepted it before." She spoke robotically.
Even though Tang-Ji was relieved to see that the corpse behind the counter was not real, Kazami was nevertheless paralysed by horror.
A few seconds later, he made his way towards Ukiyo.
"You said that this was connected to a quest, right? In other words, this wasn't a legitimate player, right?" He had to ask again just to be sure.
From afar, Ukiyo nodded.
Kazami raised his finger gently and indicated the right side of the desk. Tang-Ji saw but was perplexed by his remark. She focused her vision narrowly, hoping to see more of what he had pointed out. Yet it just served to further puzzle her when she finally did. "Is that a... bag?"
"Not any bag, this one in particular, the one that's grey and has gold outside linings." he said, stumbling over his words as his hands fumbled nervously.
"Only after a player's death will they drop that particular bag."
"How is it even possible, though? The metal shackles were sliced through by you. The metal gate was completely covered in frost, so nobody could have climbed over." Tang-Ji expressed discomfort.
Kazami mumbled for a few instances before replying with his eyes widening, "No, it's possible; this player could've come here before us way ahead of time, in fact, so long that the gate that they destroyed to get into here must have respawned."
The atmosphere underwent a dramatic shift after those words left his mouth. However, the silence in the hall was abruptly broken when a sudden bell-like sound rang in his ears:
"DING!" An electronic chime could be heard by everyone.
He quickly traced his eyes to the top left corner of his field of vision.
"Stay back, you two. Keep the door open behind you in case we have to escape," he asserted firmly, still somewhat tense from the thought of a real dead person being there.
Tang-Ji nodded; however, before she could turn towards the door, a sudden, spine-chilling sensation struck her.
In her ears, a familiar 'click, click, click, click' sound echoed. Her lips trembled, along with her pupils, slowly constricting.
"Kazami! Did you hear that?" She shouted anxiously, her voice reverberating along the empty, cold corridor.
"What the hell!" Frightened by Tang-Ji's voice, he quickly leapt back from the body.
He was clearly out of breath as he demanded an explanation: "Don't just scream out like that, God, what is wrong with you?"
She fumbled back at Kazami's sudden aggression. "I'm sorry," she responded clumsily.
"I know you don't want to hear this, but I swear there was a faint clicking sound, like someone was choking on something while wailing. The whole way here to the mansion, I keep hearing it." She spoke slowly and steadily, trying not to lose her composure.
"You're probably imagining it; the cold must have gotten to you, and at one point I was also feeling lightheaded as well. Besides, Ukiyo had already checked the location for us, and assured us that there is no mob here, so please stop making up such crazy stories."
Kazami was up ahead, examining the blood stain. Behind Ukiyo was Tang-Ji, who stood motionless while processing the idea of a dead person. She glanced down at the blood stains before slowly reaching out her hand.
She watched the wavering reflection of her hand on the blood stains going down and down in the deep shadow of the tarnished floor. The eerie pressure hastened down her spine; it was as though the place itself was slowly sinking its fangs into her soul.
Suddenly, she found herself gasping for air on her knees.
"Hey, hey, hey, HEY!!! Tang-Ji!" His voice rose to a shout.
"Huh?" She swallowed down her thoughts before speaking, "I'm sorry; I just feel a little worn out from the journey."
Kazami responded, with a tinge of irritation, "It's fine; if you don't want to come inside, you can wait at the door. I'll go see this quest upstairs."
"No, wait," she whispered to him.
"I'll come with you too; I know I won't be much help without my Leere, but I'll help with investigating the other rooms," she pleaded. If she couldn't remember the old paths, she could still choose where her feet went now, she thought.
He gave her a worried look, but it was impossible for him to let her stay with the suspicious NPC. After all, he told her to stay close to him in case of an emergency.
"Fine, but you better stay really close to me just in case," he warned her before the two of them carefully climbed the creaking staircase.
A draft threaded the stair like a thin, warm breath—gone before she could believe it had been there.