Koharu Miura sat on the edge of her bed, her fingers mechanically sliding across her mobile phone screen.
Once the hypothesis of “multi-person collaboration” took root in her mind, it grew like wild weeds.
She logged into that livehouse internal forum again and found Post Forty-nine, which she had already marked.
Based on her “previous” experience, these forums usually showed the poster’s IP location.
If she followed the trail, she might catch the culprit’s tail.
However, the underlying logic of the game world seemed to manifest its crudeness and simplicity at this moment due to resource saving.
Or rather, perhaps the concept of an IP location did not exist here at all.
After all, it was hard to say if other cities truly existed in this world.
‘The System is certainly good at “saving resources” at times like this.’
Koharu fell back somewhat dejectedly, the light from her phone screen flickering feebly against her glasses.
If she could not prove that multiple people were involved, the threat level remained in a blurred range.
Was it just a single individual obsessed with stalking, or a malicious network infiltrating the school and society?
This sense of the unknown felt like invisible hands tightening around Koharu Miura’s throat.
As the screen dimmed, Koharu’s brain shut down after overworking.
She lay on the bed with her clothes still on, her consciousness sinking into a thick darkness amidst her doubts about Post Forty-nine.
Then came the gift of extreme anxiety.
She dreamed.
The streets in the dream seemed covered by a gray filter.
The familiar path home now appeared exceptionally long and distorted. Koharu found herself walking with several girls.
They were not laughing, and she did not recognize them—yet she could sense they were close friends.
They chatted idly, the content of which Koharu could not quite hear.
Even though she did not know them or remember their names, she felt they were what she wanted to protect.
However, everything collapsed after she turned around for no reason.
The mundane conversation was silenced as if a mute button had been pressed.
When Koharu turned back, the empty spaces beside her were filled only by cold air and a few performance posters drifting in the wind.
She instinctively tried to call out the names of these unknown friends, but her throat felt stuffed with cotton, and the sounds she made were fragmented.
The bright street darkened rapidly. In the pitch-black alleys, it felt as if 10,000 eyes were blinking.
The sticky sensation of being watched crawled up from her ankles like countless venomous snakes hissing in the shadows.
Koharu started running.
Her soles hitting the ground sounded piercingly loud in the silent street.
The gazes from the shadows grew more intense, carrying a cold malice, as if waiting for the moment her strength failed.
‘Save me…’
She screamed in her heart, tears blurring her vision. In extreme despair, a name escaped her lips.
“Kanzaki… Kanzaki Sou!”
At that exact moment, a massive force surged from behind.
It was not to save her, but pure malice. It was not an accidental nudge; it was a deliberate strike.
Koharu’s thin body was like a kite with a broken string, lunging forward.
Cold asphalt appeared in her vision along with two blinding white lights approaching rapidly from the side.
The sound of a car horn was deafening.
“Ah!”
The girl’s figure jerked upright. Koharu pushed herself up, cold sweat sliding down her temples and soaking her pajamas.
She looked out the window. Sunlight peeked through the gaps in the curtains, painfully bright.
Ring, ring, ring—
The palpitations from the dream had not subsided when she realized a sound just as urgent as the dream’s horn was ringing—her phone was vibrating tirelessly on the pillow.
Still dazed and stuck in the moment of being pushed, she grabbed the phone. Her blurred vision swept over the screen.
It was her mother.
“Hello, Mom…” Koharu answered, her voice raspy.
“Koharu? You finally picked up!” Her mother’s voice was gentle but clearly anxious. “I called several times. I thought something happened to you at home…”
Koharu rubbed her throbbing temples and checked the time—it was already after 10:00 AM.
“Sorry, I just… I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’ve been sleeping in.”
She tried to sound like a normal high school student who overslept to hide her terror.
“Phew, as long as you’re okay, Koharu.”
The background noise on her mother’s end decreased as she moved somewhere quiet.
“Your father and I are on our way and should be home around noon. Get washed up. Do you want to go out for lunch with us?”
Koharu looked at the empty room.
The loneliness from the dream and the lingering sensation of being watched made her instinctively reject being alone.
“Yes, I want to go,” she answered softly, as if grasping a lifeline.
“Great. I’ll call you again in a bit. Remember to answer, okay?”
“I know, Mom.”
After hanging up, Koharu did not get out of bed immediately.
She sat in the bright sunlight, her body feeling heavy.
She opened LIME, where red unread message markers jumped on the screen.
Two names at the top made her heart tighten again.
It was Kanzaki Sou and Kondo Haruka. Both had sent her messages.
Koharu’s eyes sharpened. She opened Kondo Haruka’s message first—the pressure was slightly lower than reading Kanzaki’s.
At least Haruka had not appeared in her nightmare.
Koharu felt as if the force that pushed her in the dream was still making her back ache.
The message from Haruka had been sent at 8:00 AM.
[Someone always takes first place, why can’t it be me?: Although you said it was a small matter yesterday, I still feel uneasy.]
[Someone always takes first place, why can’t it be me?: Sou said he is going to school today. I was already going for club practice. If you come to school today and have something to discuss with Sou, you can talk to me too.]
[Someone always takes first place, why can’t it be me?: I meant what I said yesterday. If you need help, just come to me. Don’t always think about troubling Sou alone.]
“…”
Koharu placed the phone against her chest, feeling drained.
One was investigating proactively with a calm mind, the other was pursuing relentlessly with incredible intuition.
As expected of childhood friends; once they set their minds on something, Haruka and Sou’s patterns of behavior seemed to align perfectly.
The girl covered her eyes.
‘This is just too terrible.’
In order to keep the plot on track and prevent Kanzaki Sou from meeting Kiyono Arisa prematurely, did she really have to act under such harsh conditions?
‘If Haruka thinks about it any more and actually goes to ask Sou… it will only be a matter of time before they both get dragged into Arisa’s Event.’