—¡New users detected! Welcome to all guests, both the expected and the unexpected. I, your beloved Game Master for this little session, am pleased to announce that the server is now online.
The voice paused, accompanied by the sound of a "level-up" effect, before continuing.
—For this particular excursion, I've prepared something special for the viewers' enjoyment. To complete this campaign and leave the server, you have two victory conditions.
A screen appeared in front of all the players.
------------------------------
Option A, for fans of grinding and patience: Survival Mode.
Stay alive for a full year, exactly three hundred and sixty-five days, without your health bar hitting zero.
Think of it as a long, "very" long, all-expenses-paid vacation at our exclusive open-world resort. If you choose this peaceful path, the itinerary of recreational activities is practically endless.
You can unwind by mastering the classic minigame of catching your own lunch in our crystal-clear waters. If you're looking to unplug from stress, you have total freedom to nap on the soft sand while listening to the waves, just hope you don't get swept away by the tide.
¡Or unleash your inner architect!
Take advantage of our complex crafting and gathering system to build your own stronghold. Log cabins, sandcastles, or impenetrable trenches, our physics engine handles it all. Just relax, enjoy the coastal scenery, and avoid dying of starvation or madness for twelve months. ¡A true spiritual retreat!
Option B, for the speedrunners: Assault Mode.
Conquer the map's five zones and clear out the industrial complex at the center of the island. If relaxing beach tourism bores you to tears, we offer you this magnificent tour of non-stop carnage.
Your recreational activities will be truly stimulating: play hide-and-seek with relentless predators, practice target shooting against high-level abominations guarding each zone's borders, and take an industrial sightseeing tour while dismantling a heavy-machinery stronghold. It is a continuous excursion where the only rest stop is the grave, or, in the best-case scenario, victory.
¡Ready your weapons and enjoy the tour!
—Phase One, The Coast:
Think of this spot as our primary relaxation zone. The atmosphere is completely peaceful, free of hostile locals, and features a natural buffet of limitless resources. Perfect for recharging your energy under the sun.
—Phase Two, The Jungle:
The local wildlife has rather pathetic stats, so they won't give you much trouble, but we strongly urge you to respect the flora. If you see fruit glowing like hidden treasure or an innocent-looking flower, please resist the urge to take a bite.
—Phase Three, The Blood Glacier:
A picturesque biome of perpetual winter. We recommend dressing warmly, as the low temperatures will drastically reduce your attack speed. Also, the adorable native aberrations are a bit shy and hunt exclusively by sound, so we suggest enjoying this landscape in absolute silence.
—Phase four, the lava range: A true geological marvel of liquid fire.
Bear in mind that the extreme climate will drain your vitality with every breath; it's a genuine sauna experience. The local guardians are very effusive, so much so that they'll happily incinerate you long before you can even draw your weapons for a photo.
—Phase five, the industrial complex:
An iron marvel that serves as our boss's lair. It's an exclusive labyrinth designed with guaranteed-annihilation mechanics, making it incredibly easy to find eternal rest here.
¡Enjoy your stay, and may luck be on your side during your first night with us!
------------------------------
Hi, I'm Miwa, the fool who let herself get caught in what I assume is a Domain Expansion the very second I stepped onto the battlefield. It's hard to explain the situation I'm in, and I'm not even fully aware of the danger level of my surroundings, but I can say this.
I'm in serious trouble if that message was telling the truth.
Domains represented the pinnacle of sorcery; a user who successfully invokes one creates a barrier imbued with their innate Cursed Technique, which in turn boosts that technique and guarantees a hit against anyone inside. Personally, I'd never had the chance to see one firsthand, but unless my limited knowledge and studies were completely off-base, it was impossible for an expansion to be this... vast, or to function in such a complex way.
The bushes swayed and the wind whipped against my face, while the powerful roars of animals, I really hoped they were just ordinary animals swept up along with me and my gear, left me on edge. Vegetation surrounded me from head to toe, yet the foliage and plants felt... off. To the touch, they felt like any normal plant, but the sensation itself was strange in a way I can't quite explain. It felt almost like touching plastic.
I suppose I could liken it to the feeling of going to lift a milk carton you expect to be full, only to realize it's empty and surprisingly light.
It was artificial. A highly detailed disguise, yet one where you could still spot the flaws in the seams if you looked closely.
—¡I really should have stayed home!
I dropped to my knees on ground that, to my surprise, felt soft and rubbery. I spent a few minutes bemoaning my luck before accepting reality and moving on. I hadn't taken even five steps when instinct forced me to draw my katana; with a clean slash, I sliced in two a wooden object that had been a hair's breadth away from slamming into my ribs. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a sort of articulated mannequin, like the ones used for sketching, but child-sized and clad only in a filthy loincloth.
That crude attack certainly wasn't part of the guaranteed hit from a Domain Expansion. Reaching that conclusion brought a wave of immense relief, but that peace was shattered by sheer terror when a single detail became apparent.
I couldn't use cursed energy.
I was completely cut off from any inner aid. It was a terrifying sensation of nakedness, like standing exposed in the open during a snowstorm. I tried to focus and wring out even a meager drop of power into the blade of my sword, but it was useless. My senses felt sluggish, slow, and painfully mortal. Without the ability to shield my body with energy, a simple scratch from another wooden dummy, or something far worse, could prove fatal; the despair of knowing I couldn't defend myself threatened to make me drop my weapon.
But I clung to the hilt. I wasn't the only one trapped in this nightmare. I had to hurry and find the rest of the team. I was certain everyone had been stripped of their energy, putting us in mortal danger if we remained separated. Mai's face was the first to flash into my mind. Not that she was weak, far from it. She had brought a substantial supply of bullets, but unlike katanas, firearms have their limits.
Faced with the perils of such an unpredictable environment, even if she carried a hundred or a thousand magazines, her ammunition would run out before we could destroy the curse and break its hold.
—¡I'm on my way, Mai-chan! —I shouted at the top of my lungs, hoping she would hear me.
The sound of snapping branches warned me just in time. Dozens of wooden mannequins emerged from the nearby undergrowth to greet me, each more bizarre than the last. Some were the size of a child; others slithered along the ground in elongated shapes; and a few loomed as large as wild bears. It was the latter that set off alarm bells in my mind when the horns on their heads flared with a dark, crackling spark.
I really should have pretended to be sick and stayed home.
------------------------------
Mai finished processing the message and shifted her gaze toward the dark, dense jungle rising up before her. Given her specific situation, the sudden loss of cursed energy didn't make much of a difference. Her limited reserves barely allowed her to reinforce her body even under normal circumstances, so relying on other methods and tools in combat was nothing new to her. The idea of sitting idly by for a whole year was dismissed the moment it crossed her mind. Trusting the promise of a lunatic capable of expanding such a Domain was a surefire way to end up dead.
Mai had no intention whatsoever of rotting away on a fake beach until an invisible timer hit zero. On the other hand, a frontal assault would be a death trap if she tried it alone. Her combat style wasn't suited for traversing glaciers, mountains of magma, and poison traps solo. If she started wasting bullets on every low-level creature she encountered in the jungle, she'd reach the center of the island forced to fight with her bare hands, and that wasn't going to happen. Her only smart move, and the only plausible one, was to find her team immediately. If they had all been swallowed by the same Domain, they had to be lost somewhere within those five zones, or, with any luck, in the very same zone where she had ended up.
Together, they stood a real chance of breaking this absurd game and exorcising the cursed spirit that had trapped them. All kinds of Domains exist, so the existence of one where survival depended on "playing a game" wasn't far-fetched at all. In fact, the sudden loss of her cursed energy gave Mai the final clue regarding the type of technique they were facing. It was not a modern Domain featuring an automatic sure-hit effect, but rather a space governed by a binding vow. In barriers of this kind, direct attacks are often prohibited at the outset, forcing those trapped inside to engage in a specific dynamic with very clear rules. The creator established the conditions for victory, and in exchange for offering a theoretical chance to win, the Domain exacted a price upfront. Confiscating their techniques, their energy, or something else entirely.
And the hardest part lay behind her.
At the water's edge, a small-framed girl held a fishing rod, focused on the ebb and flow of the waves.
Mai scanned the deserted coastline, feeling irritation rise in her throat. She had scoured the area herself the moment she landed and hadn't seen a single straight branch, let alone a perfectly functional fishing tool.
¿Had the Domain instantly materialized that tool for her simply because she had given up and chosen survival mode?
Setting aside the mystery of the object, the girl's presence was dead weight she would have to shoulder. With that ordinary, youthful appearance, she was almost certainly one of the students from the bus mentioned by the elderly survivor outside. A mere civilian with no training or preparation whatsoever, dragged into a hell she couldn't comprehend. Seeing her there, fishing as if at summer camp while a death sentence hung over their heads, confirmed to Mai that terror had short-circuited the poor girl's mind.
The girl in question glanced at her out of the corner of her eye at the exact moment the sorceress pictured her as a high school student, a gesture that went unnoticed by the worried Mai.
The thought of dragging an ordinary schoolgirl across the island and having to burn through ammunition to protect her gave Mai a splitting headache. Her dwindling bullet supply was already a problem in itself, but much as she hated the idea, abandoning the girl to certain death while the others pushed toward the center wasn't something she was willing to do.
In the end, Mai's paranoia won out. Absolutely nothing confirmed that this stretch of beach was free of monsters, and leaving a defenseless student at the mercy of the island was a recipe for disaster. Taking a deep breath to steady her irritation, she trudged heavily along the shoreline.
She had barely reached the girl's side when the fishing rod suddenly bent. The child was yanked forward, within a hair's breadth of being dragged face-first into the ocean by the force of the pull. With lightning-fast reflexes, Mai threw herself onto the sand, grabbed the girl by the ankles, and hauled her back toward solid ground using her full weight. After a brief but intense struggle, the line snapped. Both of them tumbled backward, and the catch, a fish of outrageous size, flew through the air in a perfect arc before slamming, still thrashing, right into Mai's face.
—Hey... —Mai grabbed the fish by the tail, pulling it away from her face, and glared at the girl. —You seem to be having a little too much fun for someone who was just dragged to this place.
That was, deep down, what unsettled Mai the most. She couldn't detect even the slightest trace of fear in the girl. On the contrary, she radiated an aura of near-arrogance and a nonchalance that bordered on the absurd, given the circumstances.
—It's no big deal. —the girl replied, bowing low. —My uncle usually forces me to strip and play with him, so I'm used to nasty situations.
Mai felt her blood run cold. Knowing all too well the kind of scum that inhabited the world, and her own clan, that statement left her utterly horrified. She didn't know what to say or how to react to an atrocity voiced so casually. While the student from Kyoto waged an internal battle, the girl simply gave her a friendly tap on the shoulder, the corners of her mouth turned up, picked up the fish, and continued along the shore.
Of course, Rémy wasn't worried in the slightest. Now that he understood this was all part of the excursion, and not a shipwreck on a desert island straight out of a survival movie, his anxiety vanished completely.
¡It all made sense!
His counterpart had done exactly what he'd asked. The only issue was that neither of them had foreseen Richie reaching into the game board to forcibly drag him to the center and compel him to take the trial. Walking along with the fish in his hands, he mentally drafted an apology to his other self, even though that guy would never even know that, for a few minutes, he had been the target of all Rémy's hatred.
His mind was made up: he would choose the peaceful route without hesitation.
He remembered his last forced adventure inside a Mayan temple all too well; he had been trapped there for two whole months. Instead of giving in to despair, he had spent that time patiently studying every mechanism and threat in the place before making a move, ultimately emerging victorious with barely a scratch.
And thanks to some quirk of time distortion, or absurd magic he never bothered to understand, he discovered upon returning to the real world that only a few minutes had passed. Therefore, camping for twelve months on a quiet shore, catching unlimited food via a crafting system that screamed "Minecraft meets Terraria," was a vacation retreat he would welcome with open arms.
And one he needed.
The only real problem of the day was dealing with this unexpected visitor. Rémy had no idea how the hell Mai had ended up dragged into this dump, or if she was the real deal rather than some bizarre copy created to test his mettle. The fact that any random sorcerer could accidentally stumble into his excursions, instead of sticking to their own summons, was a rather irritating flaw in his routine. Although, in fairness, given Richie's theatrical nature and the rules of this stupid system, the truly illogical thing would have been for the host to pass up the chance to drag every unsuspecting passerby into the game.
Mai stopped her by gently grasping her shoulder.
—Listen, girl, the situation is far more serious than you realize. —She shook her head. —At this point, there's no use hiding the truth from you.
Taking great care not to stumble over her words and aiming for maximum clarity, Mai ventured to reveal the world's hidden truth. She spoke of curses born from human negative emotions, the duty of sorcerers, and the chilling details she had managed to gather during the few minutes they had spent inside that domain. She made sure not to omit a single crucial detail, summoning a patience she rarely displayed and mentally bracing herself for the panic, the tears, and the inevitable barrage of questions.
And Rémy, of course, reacted exactly as expected.
Playing up the role of the clueless victim, she gasped and covered her mouth with both hands, letting the fish drop to the sand. Her eyes went wide as she feigned absolute terror.
—Wait, wait, just a second — she stammered, taking a trembling step back. —¿Are you telling me monsters actually exist? ¿Magic? ¿Cursed energy? ¿We're trapped inside a pocket dimension created by a psychopath? ¿You're some kind of ninja exorcist? ¡I don't understand any of this! ¿How are we supposed to fight if you don't have your power? ¡I haven't even had my first kiss yet!
The sorceress felt a pang of pity mixed with the onset of a migraine as she heard the hysteria in the girl's voice.
As the hours dragged on, boredom gave Rémy the perfect excuse to analyze the environment's parameters more precisely.
While Mai complained about something for the umpteenth time, he pretended to play with the seashells and drove a stick into the ground, right amidst some marks in the sand, to track the movement of the sun's shadow. In the real world, Earth rotates at a constant angular velocity, making the sun appear to shift fifteen degrees per hour, equivalent to one degree every four minutes. After mentally timing the shadow's movement, he noticed that this place's artificial star was moving at a rate of only seven and a half degrees per hour.
If a full day outside lasted twenty-four hours, the diurnal cycle in this dump stretched to forty-eight. He kept this discovery to himself, choosing instead to complain aloud about how long it was taking for dusk to fall, thereby maintaining his facade of an impatient schoolgirl.
It wasn't a discovery worth sharing with the sorceress, or if it was, he simply couldn't be bothered to go into the details. With a quick sweep of his foot, he erased the marks in the sand near the shells and picked up the stick just as Mai turned to look at him, letting out an exaggerated sigh about the heat, which showed no signs of letting up.
—Time to get moving. —Mai announced, lifting the rustic basket, which Rémy had woven and filled with fish during his spare time, off the ground.
—Mmm... good luck out there —Rémy said, waving a casual goodbye without taking his eyes off the ocean.
Even though he could feel the student's inquisitive gaze boring into his back, he made a superhuman effort to maintain his passive demeanor, crossing his fingers that she would simply turn around and leave. he had already exhausted her repertoire of frightened-girl excuses in an attempt to convince her to stay on the beach and wait out the entire year, but the girl from Kyoto was incredibly stubborn and stuck to her decision to take the hardcore route. Deep down, he didn't blame her. Without the comfort of knowing that time was severely distorted, the idea of remaining idle for twelve consecutive months sounded like torture.
Much to her intense displeasure, Mai didn't take a single step alone. With a rough, unrefined motion, she grabbed him by the waist and hauled him forcibly toward danger, insisting it was for his own good.
Just as they crossed the line where the sand gave way to dark undergrowth, Rémy saw his chance; he thrust both hands forward and clung to the trunk of a nearby tree.
—¡I told you, I can't leave you here! —Mai growled through gritted teeth, digging her heels into the ground and straining to drag the stubborn girl along.
—¡I don't want to! —Rémy shouted. —¡Just go and leave me behind! I don't know how to fight, and I don't have a weapon. ¡I'll just be dead weight, and we'll both end up dead because of me!
Mai tightened her grip on the girl's midsection, refusing to let go.
—¡It's precisely because you don't have a weapon that I can't leave you!
Seeing that brute force wasn't working against the girl's tenacious grip, the sorceress opted for a different tactic. Without releasing her waist, she slid a hand to the girl's sides and began to tickle her. The surprise attack completely shattered Rémy's concentration. An involuntary, traitorous laugh escaped her lips, forcing her fingers to loosen and let go of the tree trunk. Mai seized the opening instantly. She quickly wrapped both arms around Rémy from behind, pinning her in a tight embrace that immobilized her limbs against her own torso. The student from Kyoto began walking into the dark undergrowth, dragging Rémy along as he thrashed about in vain.
The stifling heat of the beach was instantly replaced by a heavy humidity that clung to their clothes. Mai loosened her grip on her hostage just enough to draw her revolver, quickly scanning the perimeter. There was something unsettling about the jungle rising up before them. The tree trunks were absurdly thick and grew at such perfect right angles that it seemed unnatural, intertwined with vines that resembled taut, heavy steel cables. The canopy overhead was so dense that it almost completely blocked out the artificial sunlight, plunging the forest floor into a greenish gloom.
Worse still was the silence; there was no birdsong or buzzing of insects, though, she later reflected, it would have been even stranger if there were. There was only the crunch of dead leaves beneath her boots and the heavy sensation that the entire forest was holding its breath.
The vegetation had a manufactured look, completely unlike the beach. It felt as though everything were a replica cast from the same mold to fill the space, reminiscent of the repetitive textures of a cheap stage set.
—If I were you, I'd turn right around.
Mai merely snorted at the stubborn woman's words. But the very next instant, she raised her weapon and fired at point-blank range. The blast was deafening, and the bullet punched straight through the head of a macabre animated doll that was hovering just inches away from the young woman.
—¿See? This is what I mean, exactly this.
—Just shut up.
No sooner had the last syllable left her lips than the ground trembled slightly. A mannequin shaped like a giant toad burst from the thicket like a projectile. The monster seized Rémy with its segmented tongue and tore her away with a colossal leap, hoisting her several meters into the air.
Mai calculated the trajectory and fired straight at the beast while it was still airborne. The frog exploded in a shower of splinters, but the force of the impact sent Rémy spinning out of control, hurtling toward the depths of the jungle.
Mai broke into a run, and an articulated wooden snake descended from the high branches. Like a living whip, the beast snatched Rémy in mid-air, coiling its thick body around her and squeezing her neck to suffocate her within seconds.
The air was rapidly leaving the girl's lungs, yet the student from Kyoto remained rock-steady. Mai adjusted her aim in a split second and fired. The projectile tore through the air, dangerously grazing the snake's coiled body and passing mere millimeters from Rémy's ear, a suicidal maneuver that ended by shattering the creature's skull with a hollow crack.
The wooden rings gave way, dropping the young woman, but a mannequin shaped like a giant centipede emerged from the leaf litter to snare he in its many jointed legs and drag him into the darkness. Mai's second shot rang out instantly, splitting the beast in two. Rémy tumbled across the ground, coughing and covered in splinters, as a third attacker, a wolf made of twisted branches, leapt from the underbrush. Its jaws clamped onto his shirt. A third blast lit up the gloom, pulverizing the wolf's head into a shower of wood fragments.
Freed by the final explosion, Rémy's momentum sent his sliding backward down the slope of moss and loose earth until he came to a sudden halt right at Mai's boots.
—Sometimes I wonder... — Rémy gazed up at the sky through the treetops. —¿What crime did I commit in a past life to deserve this?
For a moment, Mai considered the peaceful route as she grabbed the girl's ankle. First, they passed the ruins of an ancient white-stone fortress, its watchtowers choked by thick, thorny vines. Further on, the terrain dipped to reveal what looked like an underground bunker with heavy, rusted iron hatches, surrounded by a moat of stagnant water. The domain's aesthetic shifted without any apparent logic; one kilometer they would encounter rotting wooden palisades, and the next, majestic marble staircases leading to temples shrouded in gloom. The urge to seek shelter or supplies inside those structures was strong, but reality forced them to keep moving.
Before each clearing, Mai would pause behind the undergrowth and check the ammunition cases in her uniform pockets with mounting anxiety. Her supply of bullets was dwindling at an alarming rate, as she had not expected to have to use them this way. She had brought only forty rounds, crafted over a long period through a herculean effort.
Each fortification was heavily guarded by those stupid, rigid silhouettes: mannequins armed with rusted spears, stone statues that turned their heads at the rustle of leaves, or wooden beasts patrolling the entrances in set patterns.
Entering meant starting a firefight she couldn't win in the long run. Without the guarantee that the place concealed a shortcut, useful loot, or vital information, risking her last few rounds only to end up empty-handed was a suicidal move Mai wasn't willing to make.
—You don't need to use your weapon, either...
Mai glanced sideways at her annoying companion.
—¿Got a better idea? Because I'm all ears.
Instead of addressing the urgency, Remy stepped forward and extended her palm, waiting for a formal handshake.
—First of all, my name is Hotaru Kurumi. Thanks for asking.
The sorceress blinked.
—Oh, I forgot. —Accepting the handshake almost out of habit, she replied with her own name.
"Hotaru" crouched down by the roots of a nearby tree and began gathering materials from the area. She snapped off a couple of straight branches, gathered some brush, and picked up a sturdy piece of bark. Instead of trying to carve or join them by hand, she cleared a patch of flat ground and arranged the objects in a specific pattern, forming a small, imaginary four-by-four grid.
Mai watched her, frowning with her arms crossed, on the verge of scolding her for wasting time playing in the dirt. However, the reprimand died in her throat as curiosity compelled her to pay attention to the process.
The young girl stacked the two branches in a straight vertical line and placed the solid wood right at the base. The moment she pulled her hands away, the air above the objects flickered like static on an old screen. The materials floated up a few centimeters, were drawn toward one another, and fused together instantly.
Seconds later, a perfectly balanced wooden sword dropped onto the moss, leaving Mai completely speechless. Hotaru picked up the weapon and held it out to her with the most arrogant smile she could muster.
—While you were busy doing magical things on the beach — Hotaru continued —I was experimenting with this, that, and the other thing. And, ¡boom! Turns out all we need is a little imagination and the right materials.
—So that's where you got the fishing rod and the basket —Mai deduced, stroking her chin.
—Well, I wove the basket by hand using palm fronds, but you get the idea.
Mai reproached her for having withheld that information. Had she known weapons could be conjured out of thin air, she never would have wasted her precious bullets. Cornered by the student's murderous aura, Hotaru could only shrug and brazenly admit that she had hoped the lack of ammunition would frustrate Mai enough to make her give up and go back to camping in the arena. Mai didn't say another word; she simply raised her fist and delivered a resounding knock to Hotaru's head.
Night finally fell over the jungle just as the terrain opened up before them. They left the suffocating undergrowth behind, stepping into a flat expanse of short grass bisected by a crystal-clear river. In the center of the clearing, a floating sign glowed with the message: "Safe zone reached."
The entire area was encased in a dome of perpetual light that repelled the monsters outside; a massive ape-like construct leaped backward, unable to breach the barrier as the two of them entered. Once assured of their safety, Mai let her weapon drop to the side and collapsed onto the ground, overcome by exhaustion.
—¿Ready to turn back? —Hotaru suggested, leaning over Mai to drop a freshly crafted pillow beside her head.
The sorceress couldn't have cared less what it was made of.
—Go ahead. I dare you to leave. —Mai muttered, her voice raspy. —I doubt you'd last more than two minutes out there.
Hotaru gritted her teeth, and Mai allowed herself to close her eyes.
The constant tapping of a hammer and the rasp of a saw cutting through wood threatened to ruin her well-earned rest. Mai furrowed her brow without opening her eyes, determined to keep sleeping come what may. She curled up on her side, letting herself be enveloped by the texture of the spectacular mattress that cradled her like a fluffy cloud. Several seconds of absolute peace passed before her brain registered the massive anomaly.
—Wait a minute... ¿A bed?
The dream vanished in a split second. Mai sat up on the blankets, expecting to see the sky above the clearing. Instead, the pitched roof of a cozy cabin blocked her view. The place was modest yet impressively well-built, featuring thick walls of polished logs that shut out the sounds of the jungle outside. A small, newly installed stone stove sat in one corner, alongside a sturdy workbench, a small woven rug lay in the center of the wooden floor, and a storage chest, holding who knew what, stood by the door.
Still marveling at the luxury of the bathroom and bedrooms, Mai pushed open the cabin's fourth door, which led straight out to the yard. There, she spotted Hotaru, utterly focused on assembling, piece by piece, what looked like a massive wooden barn.
—¡Hey! — the sorcerer shouted.
The sudden shout nearly caused Hotaru to slice her finger, but Mai didn't care. Ignoring the near-accident, the student from Kyoto strode over heavily.
—¿Did you really put this up all by yourself? ¿Did you not sleep a wink all damn night?
Hotaru removed a pair of safety goggles made of glass and wood before climbing down from a small scaffold attached to the barn wall.
—I usually stay up all night. This is nothing to me.
A pang of pity pierced Mai's chest. In her mind, this civilian came from a background riddled with trauma. It was a different kind of cruelty than what she had endured under the yoke of the Zenin clan, and she couldn't find the right words to say.
Not for a second did it cross her mind that her companion might simply be a hardcore gamer accustomed to staying up late in front of a screen. Instead, she saw her as a victim whose innocence had been stripped away time and again.
Suddenly, guilt hit her with the force of a train as she recalled how she had treated her over the past few hours. Grabbing her forcibly, yanking her arms, and dragging her through the jungle against her will. Feeling like a monster, Mai sank to her knees in the dirt, a lump forming in her throat.
—Sorry for treating you this way...
Hotaru merely raised an eyebrow.