Event Clear
Only when Minel saw those yellow eyes did he understand.
Every last one of these characters had been overrun by the Arcade's Wildness and twisted into monsters.
Mascots meant to laugh and pose for photos with children. Once-cute, playful dolls. Even the familiar character figures.
In the yellow eyes hiding in the dark, a clear hunting instinct burned.
Then, in an instant—
The white and red lights flooding the Arcade interior began to strobe in rapid succession. As the seconds ticked by the red grew fiercer, until the whole space was drowned in blood-crimson. Lights spilling from the ceiling rippled like gore, and the characters beneath them shuddered with a low vibration, as if someone had flipped their power back on.
In that blood-drenched tableau the characters swayed, ever so slightly. Joints of the figures hanging from the ceiling creaked and bent at wrong angles; the sculptures bolted to the floor began to move with the slow rhythm of breath.
And then—
They all lifted their heads at once.
The simple premise that objects could not move of their own will shattered to dust. They were no longer powerless decorations strung through an arcade.
Creak. Creak.
Click. Thunk.
“……”
“……”
Hina and Minel sprinted for the exit at a speed that made three weeks ago look like a crawl. The steel door, however, was sealed shut; even their combined strength could not budge it. It refused to yield by so much as a millimeter, as though some special force held it fast.
“Looks like we have to finish the event to get out……”
Hina whispered, barely breathing the words.
Minel said nothing. He simply closed his hand around Silence’s hilt and took in the whole of the Arcade. Machines, dolls, mascots—every one of them began to sink into a low crouch, like a pack of predators settling in for the kill.
“……They’re coming.”
Minel murmured it flatly.
That same instant a Jumping Monster character—still wearing its cheerful little smile—burst from a machine and lunged at Hina, claws flashing.
“Hina, behind you!”
“Kyaa!”
Hina threw herself into a roll and barely slipped past the strike. Without the physical ability she had forged in the Arcade, the dodge would have been impossible.
Minel drew Silence in the same breath and drove the blade into the creature’s nape. The smooth flow of his swordsmanship carried every hour of the three weeks he had spent honing it.
“Grrr……!”
Frost bloomed from the point of impact. The Jumping Monster’s entire body stiffened, locking into place while its teeth were still bared in fury.
Cold sweat traced Minel’s temple. He had wondered whether real combat would answer the same way; luckily his body had simply known what to do.
As if some unseen signal had been given, everything inside the Arcade charged Minel and Hina at once.
Hina sucked in a sharp breath, snapped open her inventory, and drew her gun.
“Is it okay to shoot?”
“Don’t ask—just shoot!”
Bang-!
Bang-!
A perfect thousand-point score had not been empty boasting. The rounds punched cleanly into the mascot’s joints; the creaking body folded and dropped. Minel seized the opening, surged forward, and took the head in a single cut.
Slash-!
Slash-!
He switched to Noise without pause and fired into the frozen ranks. Bullets shredded the monsters, scattering fragments in every direction.
I only meant to lock them down, but guns work on these things too. Different traits for different monsters?
He cut the idle thought short as the next wave closed in. Dropping low, he swept Silence in a wide arc. A crescent of cold air unfurled, locking every creature in ice. Hina’s follow-up rounds found their brows with clinical precision.
Bang-!
Bang-!
The frozen monsters shattered and spilled across the floor.
Minel carved through the next rush of character-monsters one after another.
“Weaker than Hounds. We take it slow.”
“Meaning save the bullets?”
“Yeah. Only when it counts.”
They moved as a single unit. Minel held the front with unhurried calm—cut, freeze, shatter. Hina watched every shift of his weight, breathing evenly, and laid down covering fire the instant he began to strain. To her it looked like a frame from an action film; his swordplay against the horde flowed with the precision of choreography. The illusion came from how fluid his offense and defense had become.
What Minel did not know was that these character-monsters lacked only claws; their raw physical power rivaled that of Hounds. He could stand against them not because they were weak, but because he had grown strong enough.
Character after character froze, then exploded into glittering shards. Ice piled endlessly at Minel’s feet, melting into black mist that crawled along the floor. Yet no matter how many they dropped, the numbers never thinned. The entire Arcade had become a stage, and the battle was trying to swallow them whole like a show of death.
“Uh… when do you think this ends?”
“Who knows.”
Under ordinary circumstances Minel would already have collapsed, but the enhanced body the Arcade had forged for him carried stamina to match. Even so the monsters poured out without end, and that hard-won stamina began, slowly, to run dry.
Hina paused just long enough to take a cold-eyed measure of the field. She found the focal point where the creatures kept emerging, narrowed her gaze, and let her shooting-honed vision pick out the anomaly.
“Black smoke is being sucked into the center. The monsters are coming back out of there.”
“Good eye.”
“But I can’t see past the ones in front. What do we do?”
Minel lifted his blade. Endless attrition meant nothing.
“We break through.”
Hina’s face went pale. More than twenty monsters were already charging them head-on.
“Th-that many?”
“Stick close.”
He spoke the words like a verdict and exploded forward. Terrified of being left alone, Hina followed on instinct.
Slash-! Boom-!
Slash-! Boom-!
Silence in one hand, Noise in the other, Minel carved and shattered everything in his path as if he had slipped into a trance. Breath clawed at his throat; he simply clenched his jaw and refused to stop. The nearer they drew to the heart of the darkness, the denser the monsters became. He slipped past strike after strike by fractions, but the pressure mounted until at last he left his side open.
Bang-!
He braced for the impact—yet none came. Hina had already put a round through the fist that had been racing toward his ribs. No words passed between them; that single perfect exchange said everything. Minel stripped his defense to the bone and poured every remaining scrap of strength into the attack. Fists he could see coming he simply ignored, stepping into them so he could swing Silence and fire Noise first.
Slash-! Boom-!
Bang-!
Slash-! Boom-!
Bang-!
They moved as one body. Minel’s economical cuts and Hina’s pinpoint fire locked together into perfect synergy. The closer they came to the source, the deeper the dark grew—darkness shed by fallen monsters that had not yet been reabsorbed, pooling and overflowing where it lay.
“That’s… a box!”
A heavy crate, each side roughly a meter long, sat squarely in the center. Darkness poured endlessly into its base while fresh monsters continually erupted from its lid. The box was far smaller than the creatures themselves, yet the ones that emerged swelled to full size in an instant and crashed toward Minel and Hina.
“I’ll open a gap. Shoot the second you have it.”
Even enhanced stamina was spent. His vision swam; his legs trembled. Still, with the single thought this is the last one, Minel wrenched every last reserve free. He hurled his whole body forward, arms flung wide, and carved a great arc with Silence.
Slash-!
Five monsters froze at once. Along the same line Noise spat five successive blooms of fire.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-!
Cleaned out in a single breath. The cost of the grand motion, however, left Minel buried in the middle of the remaining pack—completely exposed. Yellow eyes flared with killing intent; dozens of fists hammered down.
In that same heartbeat the last obstacles between Hina and the box vanished.
“Now!”
Both hands locked around the grip, she centered the box and emptied the magazine.
Bang-!
Bang-!
Bang-!
Every remaining round punched through the surface, riddling it with holes. Darkness erupted from the wounds in a violent flood.
Whooooosh—!
Whooooosh—!
Black mist swallowed every scrap of vision and filled the Arcade. Inside it Minel and Hina lost their footing and crumpled to the floor. The monsters that should have finished them simply unraveled into the same black mist and vanished without a trace—as though a typhoon had scoured the room clean.
“……”
“……”
Facedown on the tiles, they looked at each other. The same deep, exhausted smile spread across both faces. Minel let out a long breath; Hina sprang upright, laughing bright and clear.
“We did it! We actually did it, Minel!”
“Good teamwork.”
I never expected her to pull that off. Teaching her marksmanship was the right call.
Stamina gone, Minel simply flopped onto his back. His body felt like lead; his eyelids hung heavy enough to fall shut at any second.
Then multicolored beams of light flared from every direction and lanced through the air.
EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR! EVENT CLEAR!
……Could the congratulations be a little less creepy?
He wanted nothing more than to sleep where he lay, yet he forced himself upright. The Arcade was a place where Wildness accumulated. If he drifted off now, he might wake already turned into a monster.
“Minel! Over here!”
Hina had already dashed off somewhere, her voice bright and alive as if the hellish fight moments earlier had never happened. Minel dragged his exhausted legs after her.
A treasure chest waited in the awkward gap between machines—oddly conspicuous for how casually it sat there.
Wait. Isn’t this exactly where the Digital Vein machine used to be?
“Is this the real reward?”
“Want to open it?”
Hina, face alight with excitement, threw the lid wide. In that instant a brilliant light erupted from inside the chest.