[Year 2, Day 92… Approximately three months later]

POV Swap – Tobias

Flipping the Decima game token in my hands, I internally sighed. The situation had become more complicated than I hoped for. The time has passed by quickly and it’s already the time to enter the Decima game.

I had decided to wait around in the Hard Difficulty Zone, partly because I didn’t know where the teleportation beacon was. Searching around mindless for the teleportation beacon seemed to be a waste of time.

Part of the reason I didn’t bother to search for the teleportation beacon was I needed the Decima game token. If I had left, it would’ve been impossible to buy it off the twins. Something I hadn’t appreciated before was that they found the token in this marsh. I had gotten lucky and managed to purchase the token from the twins and replaced their spot in the game.

To be honest, even though I failed to inform Kara in time, I’m glad I entered the Hard Difficulty Zone. If I’d waited in the Residential Zone, Lina and Laura wouldn’t have been able to trade the token to me before Decima game began. By that point, there would've been nothing I could do but cry.

Anyways… when I registered for the game, I replaced the twin’s spot taking the player 2 position. The number two appeared as a tattoo on my left hand with three dots below it.

Actually, a side-worry of mine was potentially being unable to register for the Decima game without the system, but it appears that hadn’t become a problem. The system seemed to have temporarily reactivated to allow registration when I came into contact with the token.

It’s unfortunate that my delay in talking to Kara resulted in her using her ability before I could warn her. That means that all my plans to save her have basically hit a dead-end. Building a healing artifact failed and the idea of finding a healer failed due to her uncooperative personality.

I can only hope that Rin’s plan to save Kara is better than mine.

My mind wandered as I waited for the final moments of the countdown to finish. Teleportation soon sent me into the Decima game.

Appearing inside a small closest-size room, I tried to open the exit door.

…But the door doesn’t have a handle?

Oh… Right.

Last time, Rin slashed through the door last time and didn’t bother to solve the puzzle. I could probably do something similar, but I might as well try the puzzle.

Someone worked hard to create it… Although that someone was probably Schrödinger, the annoying holographic cat. This puzzle might not actually be worth solving on second thought.

Rolling my eyes, I searched the room.

The room contained three cubes; a red, yellow, and blue cube to be specific. Each cube was approximately an inch in size.

There was also a box with a standard lock on the front and slots with colors between them. The slots were on the side of green, purple, and orange strips.

Color theory.

The cubes are primary colors and the slots are secondary colors.

Easy to understand, the puzzle wants you to insert primary colored cubes on either side so they would mix and create the correct secondary color.

Only problem with that… is I have completely forgotten color theory.

Seriously, how am I supposed to remember that kind of useless information? Was it red and blue that mixed to create green? Or was it blue and yellow?

Rubbing my hands through my hair, I rolled my eyes and decided to just randomly insert them into the slots. There weren’t that many possible combinations.

Before that, I picked up the box and examined it.

There didn’t seem to be anything particularly impressive about it. It needed a key to open, unless I wanted to break it open… or I could try my hand at lockpicking.

I know the basic theory behind locking… although I don’t exactly have the tools to provide tension to the lock or push in the pins.

Err… Let’s ignore how I know the in-depth theory behind lockpicking. It was purely academic purposes, okay?

I messed around with the cubes and slots for a bit and left the locked box alone. Groaning in annoyance after five to ten minutes of playing around with the cubes, I decided to just break down the door.

As it turns out, inserting the cubes into the slots didn’t provide any sort of feedback. My current theory is that the puzzle had to be done entirely correct before anything happened. Considering I don’t know any color theory, it’s a waste of time to keep trying.

The time I would take to do this random puzzle is too much when there’s little purpose to completing it. My patience has already whittled down to zero.

Pushing on the exit door with a fair amount of strength, the hinges of the door buckled and it fell outward onto the floor with a slamming noise.

At the same time, I noticed that the number of dots tattooed onto my hand decreased by one.

What? My points? Why did it? Ah... -1 point for cheating.

I completely forgot about that detail. That’s kind of unfair, as you cannot see the rules until you’ve left the closet. I doubt Schrödinger would care about my protests, though.

Gazing around the room, it was mostly empty with only a few people looking over the holographic paper by the projector in the center of the room.

I didn’t recognize them… but I’ve basically forgotten everyone who was in this game to begin with… or did I never bother learning their names in the first place?

Honestly, I don’t remember at this point.

Analyze.

{Dylan Farell – Extremely weak, seems to be ordinary.}

{Isana Lira – Weak, beware of the darkness.}

{Tom Raven – Equal strength, prepared adequate soul defenses before assaulting.}

I leisurely analyzed the three of people in the center before my eyes widened in surprise. I stared at the last man with surprise.

Equal strength? What?

I reanalyzed him to confirm, but got the same result.

This Tom Raven had black hair, and relatively normal appearance save for pure black eyes.

My mind raced with thoughts.

Specifically, whether I could afford to leave him alone. I hadn’t appreciated how powerful the people in this place could be, I’d assumed they’d all be weak.

Analyze described his strength as equal to mine, meaning he could pose a definite threat to me. More importantly, analyze mentioned to prepared adequate soul defenses meaning his ability is related to the soul and a serious danger to Rin.

... but that didn’t make any sense? Rin must’ve entered the Decima game multiple times, she’s still alive and well. If this Tom was here last time, then his ability must have strict conditions… Otherwise, he should’ve used against Rin in a past timeline.

Wait, analyze said ‘prepare adequate soul defenses before assaulting’… is attacking him is a necessary condition for his ability to trigger?

Upon figuring out that I was overreacting, I relaxed my hostility.

Likely his power is entirely defensive in nature. There’s no need to fight a hedgehog when you can avoid it.

Deciding to leave him alone, I headed toward the storage area. My first task is to change out of these clothes. After three months in a swamp, I’m absolutely sick of these mucky clothes.

It didn’t take long to find some new clothes in a storage room. Dark leather pants and a light green T-shirt with a brown leather jacket.

I changed carefully and while moving the time stone over into my new jacket.

Straightening out my clothes and hair, I looked into a mirror and nodded to myself. With clean clothes, at least I won’t look terrible when I meet Rin and Kara again.

*Ding-Dong*

A chime sounded before a female voice began an announcement, “All players have entered the game… please return to the main lobby within 15 minutes…”

Listening to the announcement, I decided to head back into the center room. Although I didn’t know whether there is a point deduction for failing to comply, I couldn’t exactly afford to lose another point when I’d already lost one for cheating.

Waiting in the corner of the main lobby with people gathering around the projector in the center, I heard people chatting with one another.

Kara was standing in a corner by herself examining the room, while Rin was nowhere to be seen.

Going through the entire group with analyze…

{Adin Opana – Weak, seems to have control over light.}

{Barin…}

{…}

After going through everyone with analyze, I relaxed. None of them seemed particularly stood out as dangerous besides the hedgehog from earlier.

Seems that Stanley still made it though.

“Perfect~ everyone’s here!” Schrödinger’s childish voice filled the room, “Now we can begin the DECIMA GAME!”

A quick glance around the room didn’t reveal where Rin was.

His holographic cat form appeared in the center of room, tailing swishing freely. “-Nyow, I’d normally be explaining the situation to you… but I have a question.”

“Who exactly are you?” Schrödinger jumped across the room, landing right in front of me. The holographic cat pointed his tail straight toward me into a quizzical manner.

Uhh… Okay, that’s certainly different.

“What are talking about?” I reached out and tried to touch the holographic cat. I was still curious as to whether he could be touched to begin with.

Avoiding easily avoided my hand, Schrödinger bolted to the side and pointed his paws accusingly toward me. “How do nyu have one of my talents? Those are supposed to be a reward you know?”

Blinking in surprise as I thought over the situation, I quickly realized the problem. My reward for completing the Decima game last time was ‘Analyze’ which is one of Schrödinger’s talents and he could tell that I had it.

...Or at least Schrödinger could tell that it was being used.

“Nyu shouldn’t have one of my talents! How could they bypass my restrictions?” Schrödinger cried out in distress and seemed particularly upset by this revelation. “Cheaters! Liars! Hackers!”

The cat pointed his tail at me in an accusatory manner, flinging line after line of insults toward me. After exhausting himself of insults, Schrödinger huffed and jumped back to the center of the room. “Ten points wins, only those with ten points can leave. Exit portal only opens once. The dots below your tattoos are your points. Nyu can figure out the rest of the rules yourselves.”

His form disappeared from the projector and everyone in the room turned back to stare at me.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about?” I shyly rubbed the back of neck, before activating my unnoticed active and hiding behind one of the closet-sized rooms.

I probably shouldn’t have activated my ability to hide, but I panicked upon seeing all those people stare toward me. Attracting that much attention definitely wasn’t what I had wanted.

This makes the situation more complicated.

Keeping hidden, I examined the room searching throughout the crowd and as I moved about I found her.

Rin was sitting on the floor in the far corner with her eyes closed.

She looked… peaceful.

Walking closer until I was a good few meters away from Rin and sat down. I opened my mouth to speak, but ultimately I found myself unable to speak. The noise from the talking people seemed to muffle and the sound of my heart beating remained.

Rin… you really are beautiful, you know?

While I was unable to speak, I still mouthed those words and watched Rin from a few meters away. Deciding to waiting until Rin stood up or moved about herself, I continued to sit quietly.