I opened my eyes.
The first thing I felt was the cold.
Not inside the body—outside. On the skin. A foreign wetness striking against my cheek, dripping along my jawline, soaking into the collar of unfamiliar fabric.
My eyes opened slowly.
Darkness.
Above me stretched a sky I didn't recognize. Not the pale grey of morning.
Not the ink-blue of a normal night.
This sky was darker than it should've been—like black smoke churned together with shadow, pulsing slowly behind thick clouds. No moon. No stars. Just movement overhead, aimless and heavy.
And the rain—constant, precise. Every drop fell at the same pace, as if the sky itself had been scripted.
The scent in the air wasn't any island under ANHS. It wasn't anywhere I'd been before.
It carried no trace of modern life—no exhaust, no wires, no warmth of walls nearby. Only the scent of wet stone, stale wind, and a faint metallic sting that reminded me of rusted chains left outside too long.
I shifted slightly.
There was no ceiling above me. No bed beneath. Just uneven ground pressing against my back, covered in thin grass and slick mud.
My fingers curled against the soil, confirming the texture—not artificial. This was real. Tangible.
But this place wasn't.
There were no buildings. No lights in the distance. No footsteps. Just land that rolled out into darkness with no signs of civilization, and the whisper of wind through unseen hollows.
Wherever I was now—it wasn't the world I'd fallen asleep in.
The last thing I remembered was sitting in my room.
I'd been alert, if only barely. Tired, yes—but not weak. Not vulnerable. That kind of drowsiness… it didn't make sense.
I hadn't eaten anything unusual. My vitals had been steady. The routines were strict. And yet, that overwhelming pull toward unconsciousness—no amount of resistance had been enough to stop it.
Even before the knock came, my body had already begun to shut down.
And now I was here.
I exhaled slowly and pushed myself upright.
The movement was off.
Subtle—but immediate. My arms responded late, like they weren't calibrated to me.
The pressure from my elbows reached the ground half a second after I thought it.
My core trembled slightly under the shift. My posture—slightly off-balance. My body was still mine. But something was different.
Too slow. Too light.
I glanced down.
These weren't my clothes.
Gone was the white T-shirt I was planning to sleep in. In its place, a fitted black tunic clung to my chest, darkened further by rain. The sleeves were gone—exposing pale, slightly thinner arms.
Loose, charcoal-grey trousers tucked into weathered boots. The stitching across the fabric was crude, hand-done, but deliberate. Not modern. Not Japanese.
Nothing on me carried the imprint of the world I came from.
I flexed my fingers again. Still mine—but without the strength I was used to. Like this body had only just learned how to obey. My reach was shorter.
My balance misaligned. The kind of changes no ordinary dream would include. Not unless someone—or something—had built this intentionally.
And they had.
That voice didn't echo around me. It didn't come from anywhere I could point to.
It simply appeared in my head, as if someone had spoken straight into my thoughts without needing to pass through sound.
I tried to remember exactly what it had said.
[Aspirant. Welcome to the Nightmare ?????. Prepare for your First Trial…]
And right when I reached that part—there was a missing word—something inside my head twisted.
I winced, grabbing at the side of my skull. The pain was sudden and precise, as though it had been waiting for me to try.
But it wasn't like any normal headache or strain. It didn't come from muscle tension or nerves.
It felt as if the memory itself had been booby-trapped. The second I got close to it, the trap triggered.
What struck me more than the pain was how vivid the rest of the message still was.
I hadn't forgotten it. I remembered it exactly, right up until the point where the word had been—cut out. Or replaced. Or hidden.
I tried once more, slower this time. I wanted to understand what was happening.
[Aspirant. Welcome to the Nightmare ?????—]
My voice caught in my throat. A sound slipped out—not something I chose.
It was rough, strained, and involuntary, like air forcing its way through clenched teeth.
My hands went to my head again as the pain returned. This time, it dug deeper, as though something was pressing against the core of my brain.
And then, without warning, it stopped.
It didn't fade. It didn't leave behind a throb or ringing. The pressure was simply gone, as if someone had flipped a switch.
I took a breath.
Whatever came after "Nightmare" hadn't just been erased from memory—it had been sealed off.
Every time I reached for it, something in my mind reacted. It wasn't me forgetting. It was me being blocked.
And that meant something had been done to me. Something real.
I flexed my hands slowly and looked at them again. They looked familiar. They were shaped like mine. But the moment I tried to move, I noticed the delay. Not large, but noticeable. My fingers didn't respond as quickly as I expected them to.
Even standing still, I could sense the change in balance. My center of gravity wasn't where it should've been. When I shifted weight to my left leg, the joint resisted just slightly—barely off, but enough that I had to compensate for it.
This wasn't the body I had trained. It looked similar, but it wasn't operating the same way.
Someone had altered both my mind and body. The changes were subtle, but exact. And now I was expected to navigate with them in place.
I steadied my breathing and let my shoulders relax.
Fine. If this was what I had to work with, I'd make it work.
The rain hadn't stopped. It kept falling at a steady pace, without speeding up or slowing down. Every drop landed with the same gentle weight, almost as if the storm had been set to repeat itself.
The sound it made didn't change either. There was no wind, no distant thunder, no variation at all.
It didn't feel like real weather. It felt like something copied from memory and looped endlessly.
When I looked at the ground, I noticed something stranger.
There were no puddles forming. The water vanished the moment it touched the soil, sinking in without leaving a trace. It didn't pool or flow or gather anywhere. The earth simply took it in—quietly, completely.
It was as if the world refused to react.
I glanced toward the horizon.
There were no buildings. No smoke or firelight. No signs of shelter or movement. Just uneven hills stretching outward, their surfaces blackened and broken. Some looked scorched, like they had been burned from the inside out.
Scattered across the terrain were strange patterns. Spirals, ridges, and shapes pressed into the dirt. Some looked like bone. Others like ash that refused to scatter.
It didn't feel like a place that had decayed over time.
It felt like something had gone through and erased every trace of life.
The silence around me didn't bring peace. It brought attention. Like the air itself was waiting for something to begin.
I turned in place, slowly scanning the distance. The wind moved past, but it didn't stir anything. There were no trees to rustle, no leaves to shift. Even the grass—if that's what it was—barely moved at all.
But the feeling of being in presence of someone only grew.
I couldn't tell from where. It wasn't close. But something was out there, observing. Not preparing to attack, not yet. Just watching—quiet and steady.
Without thinking, I reached for my belt hoping whoever threw me here was merciful enough to give me weapons.
Nothing. No weapons. No tools. Just a simple outfit I didn't recognize. The fabric felt foreign. I didn't remember putting it on. It didn't belong to any school or facility I knew.
I stayed still for a few moments, going over everything again.
The rain that followed a perfect rhythm. The pain that struck when I tried to recall that missing word. The delay in how my body responded. The stillness in the air. It was all connected.
This place wasn't built to simulate a real world.
It was constructed for a purpose.
Not to fool me—but to test me.
Whoever created it didn't want me dead, at least not yet. They wanted me to move. To respond. To make choices inside a structure they controlled.
That meant it had already begun.
I had no map. No goal. No clear start.
But I wasn't here by chance.
Someone brought me into this space. Someone arranged it.
And I was expected to act.
I stepped forward.
Grchh
The ground squelched—a wet, sucking noise—as if the earth itself resisted my step.
The ground squelched beneath my foot—a wet, hollow sound that came with too much resistance.
It didn't feel like I was stepping on soil. It felt like I had pressed down on something that breathed.
I froze instantly.
Suddenly the ground started making puddles now.
Beneath the steady rhythm of the rain, I heard it.
A shift. A low, dense movement rising from below, as if something enormous had just awakened.
The earth ruptured before I could move again.
A sudden geyser of black mud and splintered root erupted upward, spraying across my legs and arms.
From the heart of that blast, something surged into the air—its form sharp, fast, and entirely unnatural.
It crashed back to the ground with a jarring thud, knees bending beneath it as the soaked terrain swallowed its weight.
My eyes adjusted quickly. Whatever it was now stood between me and the horizon, its long limbs spread wide, claws embedded in the mud, posture hunched but ready to strike.
It stood over two meters tall, its proportions human only in the loosest sense.
The body looked stretched, sinew pulled across exposed bone with no symmetry or grace. Its limbs twitched as if reacting to vibrations I couldn't even hear.
But it wasn't its body that caught my attention.
It was its face—or the absence of one.
There asn't anything that makes a face... A face.
There wasn't eyes, mouth or even nose.
Just a vertical slit running from brow to chin, pulsing slowly like a second heart.
At its center, a dark membrane shivered and clicked open, revealing something alive inside—something that quivered in perfect sync with the rain.
It wasn't scanning.
It was listening.
I didn't move. Not an inch.
I regulated my breathing, slowed my pulse, and shifted my weight inward so nothing echoed against the ground.
The creature hadn't reacted to me directly. It had responded to the sound of my step.
Its head tilted slightly, tracking the memory of noise. The claws on its hands curled against the soil, dragging gently through the mud, as though reading the surface for subtle tremors.
The rain continued to fall with a mechanical steadiness, each drop identical in weight and speed.
That consistency wasn't just unnatural—it was dangerous. With such a perfect rhythm, even the smallest deviation would become obvious.
And to a predator that could only hear, every detail mattered.
I watched the creature closely.
Its body remained tense, ready to lunge at the next sound it could anchor onto.
But it wasn't attacking blindly. It was waiting for confirmation—some faint pattern in the environment to repeat itself.
I took a single step backward, carefully driving my heel into the mud at an angle that would silence the pressure beneath it.
The moment my foot settled, the creature twitched. It hadn't heard the step—but it had noticed the absence of the sound it expected.
It was sensitive. But not omniscient.
That gave me a margin to work with.
I crouched slowly behind a jagged ridge of black stone. My fingers brushed against the wet earth, searching for anything sharp enough to pierce flesh.
A shard of slate. Smooth, heavy, and tapered at the edge.
I kept it in my hand but didn't throw it yet.
The monster was shifting again, claws clicking faintly as they curled in and out.
.....That can work.
Its head swayed toward a spot near me where a droplet had struck a rock harder than the rest. But it wasn't because the rain had suddenly increased or changed its rhythm.
That wasn't it.
It was the stone itself. It had endured dozens of identical strikes, collecting the weight with each one, until it finally tipped.
The rain hadn't changed—but the object had. And that tiny shift was enough.
The rock slipped. A soft scrape, barely audible even to me.
But the creature turned instantly. Its entire posture stiffened, the tilt of its head sharpening with unnatural focus.
Then, without a second of hesitation, it lunged.
Its body cut through the air like a lash, claws slicing forward with precision.
All of its weight surged toward the sound that had betrayed the stillness. The moment it reached the spot, its claws came down—ripping through the stone and splintering it into a hundred fragments.
There was no prey. No impact beyond the rock.
But the damage was done.
I had already moved, stepping in the opposite direction. Not with speed—just control.
My steps were absorbed by the mud, matching the rhythm of the rain so precisely that rain hid away all the sound.
If there was no rain I would have already gone in a confrontation with him.
The way his senses are working, without rain he would be able to hear even my heartbeat.
The creature paused, claws sunk in dirt, head twitching slightly as it processed the absence of a target. It hadn't missed because I was too fast. It had missed because it was listening too hard.
It relied mostly on sound.
That wasn't just its strength. It was also the boundary of its world.
I let my fingers curl around the shard of slate I'd taken earlier, and with the same measured breath I used for silent takedowns in the White Room, I flung it behind the monster.
It landed in a shallow puddle.
The splash wasn't loud, but it was different—too sharp, too rounded to pass as ordinary rain.
The creature reacted instantly.
It twisted, launching itself toward the sound with blind conviction. Its limbs struck the water with brutal force, sending droplets flying out in a scattered arc.
But the splash had no weight behind it. No target. Only reflection and empty noise.
It faltered—not from confusion, but from lack of confirmation.
This... Monster was intelligent... And that was it's weakness.
Due to it's intelligence it got confused when nothing came in his hand.
Confusion gave birth to hesitation.
Hesitation because it realized that it was him... Who was being haunted.
And hesitation was all I needed.
I closed the distance, not in a sprint but in a series of perfectly timed movements.
I stepped only when the rain landed, matching each footfall to a droplet. My weight stayed even. My presence remained hidden within the pattern.
By the time I reached it, the creature was still re-orienting, head tilted toward echoes that no longer mattered.
I moved behind it and climbed its back, each motion controlled to the millimeter. There was no rush—only precision.
My free hand locked onto the seam pulsing down the center of its head. It felt like flesh stretched over bone, warm and trembling.
This... Monster's entire skin was rock hard... One that if someone were to climb without hesitating... It wouldn't even feel it.
There was only one weak point....
With one motion, I drove the stone shard straight into the center.
There was no scream. Just a jolt.
Its body released a violent shiver, and a jagged, static-like sound cut through the air—like rusted metal being torn apart underwater.
It tried to twist around. One arm snapped behind its back in a desperate attempt to pierce me with the nails along its fingers.
I caught its waist with my leg, making each other closer, I was glued to it's back... Where not even his hands could easily reach.
The claws dragged along my side—not enough to cut, but enough to trace their way down and find position.
The nail paused just beside my head, unmoving, waiting for a signal to activate again.
I didn't panic.
I waited.
.....That can work.
Because if it was about to drive those spikes through my skull, then the one thing I could still control… was gravity.
The thought passed through me in perfect clarity.
So I acted.
I shifted my weight back, forcing us both to fall. The impact slammed through my spine, jarring and immediate, but I'd already angled myself to absorb it.
The shard lodged deeper as the creature's own body crushed down on it.
I didn't hesitate.
My hand twisted the shard.
That was enough.
The monster bucked violently, its arms thrashing outward, elbows digging into the mud. One of its claws sliced the air above my throat, but there was no force behind it—just reflex.
Then came the warmth. Thick and sudden.
Blood spread across my hand.
Its movements weakened.
And soon, they stopped altogether.
I lay still for a moment, not from relief—but sensing if anything else was unusual.
My breathing steadied. My thoughts returned to normal.
The kill was clean.
But the delay in this body's reaction time had nearly turned it into a mistake.
I sighed, low and sharp, not because I felt safe—but because I was irritated.
It would've been far easier if this body simply did what I asked of it.
Instead, every action had to be accounted for twice—once in intent, and again in translation.
The creature's corpse slid off me and collapsed into the mud.
And just like that, the quiet returned.
The rhythm of the rain remained unchanged.
But I already knew...
That thing hadn't been the real threat.
It was just the first test.
Soon, the rain stopped.
Not gradually, not with a change in the wind or a shift in pressure. It ended all at once, like a system had powered down.
The last droplets struck the ground in perfect rhythm—then nothing. Silence returned, deeper now, as if the world itself had paused to breathe.
I took a step back and let out a slow, controlled breath. It wasn't relief, not in the emotional sense. But the stillness allowed for reflection, and I made use of it.
Overhead, the thick clouds began to pull apart. Not in streaks or rays, but in a slow spiral, revealing a sky stained with the faint color of dawn.
If it was a sun that broke through, it wasn't one I recognized. The light was pale, desaturated, like it hadn't been meant to illuminate anything fully.
Still, it marked the end of something.
My gaze lowered again to the ground—the broken corpse at my feet, the soaked terrain, the quiet world.
I'd survived the encounter.
But it wasn't over.
My thoughts drifted back to the voice I had heard before awakening here… if it could even be called waking.
That moment was still clear.
I had been in my room. Drowsy, yes—but aware. I had fought the sensation as long as I could. Then the knock came. And everything collapsed.
After that, darkness.
Then the voice.
I said it out, not wanting to trigger the pain mechanism.
"Aspirant. Welcome to the Nightmare. Prepare for your First Trial…"
I repeated it, as if saying it again might unlock the censored word. But nothing changed. That part of the message had been deliberately sealed.
Still, the meaning was obvious enough.
Nightmare.
That word mattered.
If this was a nightmare—then by definition, I was still asleep.
Not dreaming randomly. Not hallucinating. I had been placed here for a reason. And that meant time, in the normal sense, didn't apply.
My body could be unconscious for hours or seconds back in the real world. None of it mattered here.
This space had rules, and those rules didn't care about what was real.
And the second part—
Prepare for your First Trial.
First.
Not only.
That meant there were more ahead. More challenges. More structures layered beneath this false reality, waiting to unfold.
The question wasn't whether I would face them.
It was how quickly I could adapt.
And how far they were willing to push.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse eater's Vowalker.]
My eyes narrowed.
A message.
I didn't see anything, there wasn't anything to see. I didn't hear anything... There wasn't anything to hear.
...
So it was just dormant.
I exhaled through my nose and rolled my shoulders, feeling the tension slowly peel away from my spine. My muscles still responded late—but they were warming up now, adjusting.
I began stretching, rotating my joints with motions trained in white room. The delay was annoying, but manageable.
As I moved, I remembered the rest of the message again in the back of my mind—just once.
Remorse eater.
A name.
Almost theatrical.
That part, I hadn't expected.
…Remorse Eater?
I see.
That must be the boss. Or at least something close to one.
It's structured like a game after all. Classification, notification, monster... Where's my reward?. It wanted me to notice the name.
But if it thought remorse would be a useful metric—
It chose the wrong opponent.
I didn't have any.
Not the kind it wanted.
No lingering shame. No trembling guilt. No regrets pulling at my heels.
I had already made peace with every decision I wasn't supposed to survive.
If this world was built to punish weakness of the mind, then it would need more than a name and a monster to break me.
Still…
That wasn't just a title.
It was a warning.
And if the first was dormant—what came next wouldn't be.
And... If everything is indeed just a game like system.
"System."
The word left my mouth before I could stop it.
It had become a common topic in my class over the past year. Games, simulations, isekai… the idea of a "system" controlling everything was practically a running joke.
Nothing happened.
No screen. No sound. No interface.
"Ability tab."
Still nothing.
"Information."
Silence.
I waited a few seconds longer, just in case it required time to respond.
It didn't.
I sighed quietly.
Either there's no system interface… or I simply haven't found the way to access it.
I am sure that there's a system... Where else does that voice come from?
I continued again.
"Magic"
"Tab"
I tried all the words i could think of.
Nothing worked.
Sigh.
Which means I'm navigating this blind.
But I'll have to assume someone else, somewhere, might know more than I do.
That would be a disadvantage.
One I'll need to correct—quickly.