The key he received was not shaped like a normal key. No bow or blade part either. It looked more like a cheap flash drive you could find in Walmart. As a key, it should be used on the door, but because of its design, Rei became unsure.

All the screens that filled his sight contained very 'gamey' information. Strangely enough, the game had already ended. He already got the winner declaration from the system. So why? Could it be that the hologram window is a built-in feature in his bracelet?

Before he could draw a conclusion, a scream immediately robbed his attention.

"W-what are you guys doing? I still haven't answer Rei's question–"

Two adult-sized robots came out of nowhere and handcuffed Morgan from behind. They forced him down and duct-taped his mouth. Morgan struggled, did his best, yet he couldn’t overpower them.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Rei yelled.

Before he could run, his little companion shot out some sort of metal net to bind his hands and made him unable to take his first step.

"You can't defy the rules, Rei. Morgan lost and he has to take the punishment."

Punishment? For a card game?

That was the most ridiculous reason to punish people!

“Stop joking around! That’s not funny anymore!” Rei swung his arm as he moved forward, forcing the little robot to wobble in the air as it held him back from moving.

"Stop it! Rei!"

One of the robots that caught Morgan, turned its head towards Rei. "Halt your feet,” it said. “You are the winner of this trial and have nothing against this loser."

"You call him a loser just because he lost a fucking card game? Or perhaps, because the racist ideology embedded in your processors is dumbing you down?"

"It has nothing to do with the latter. However, this matter has been settled. And no one can change it. If you keep coming forward, then we will raise the security to one level higher."

Ignoring the robot's warning, Rei persisted to march forward. The moment his feet came close, his head dropped to the floor followed by a bum sound.

Huh? He suddenly lost control over his own body. It was hard even to move his finger.

 

"Sorry, Rei. I have injected level 2 anesthesia into your body. You will lose your consciousness soon. But no worry, you will be fine." The little backstabber finally released the grip on Rei’s hand.

“You … fucker …” Swearing came out in words as imperfect as a baby's babbling. Yet, it didn’t do anything to his situation.

His eyes followed as the little robot walked towards its kin. They seemed to be talking about something, but he couldn't get a clue of whatever they discussed. Ringing noises blocked his ears.

"Good job. Stay with him until you reach the first floor."

“Understood.”

Those were the only things he was able to hear.

The two robots dragged Morgan out like a rice sack. Even if Rei couldn’t move his entire body, he tried to extend his hand to reach him. Even though in the end, he only saw them from a distance and they disappeared.

He shouted a muted scream. Every word he threw out sank into the void as he said it. The more he tried, the more dizzy he had.

In the end, the invading drowsiness forced him to sleep without his consent.

***

He woke up and found himself in another white room. A sudden rush of panic struck and made his eyes open in all directions.

No girl. No blood splattered. No corpse.

He breathed in relief.

If he met the same thing twice, he didn't know if his mental state could take it. After all, it was still a nightmare for him. Not an easy thing to forget. Still, he wondered why he slept in this room in the first place.

The answer he sought was found after the door opened.

“Good morning,” it said, “are you ready to go to the R-Room?”

R-Room. The word was displayed after he chose the “Memory Sphere” button before. He couldn't figure out the meaning of R in there. Or was it a typo?

Also, what does morning mean? Did I just skip the day?

Rei got up from the bed, but the muscle stiffness made it necessary to go slowly. After a few massages on his shoulder, he got up from the bed and walked towards his small companion.

“I can get my memories back after going to that room, right?”

“Correct. No need to worry.”

That’s what made me worry! How could you retrieve something intangible like memory in the first place? Is this robot or administrator behind this bullshit actually able to pull it off?

Rei sighed again. He scratched his head multiple times then recalled what happened yesterday. “Speak to me, what actually happened to Morgan?”

“Nothing happened. In the first place, you shouldn’t talk about that loser. Buhee.”

That response made him gritted his teeth. “What do you mean by loser? Does losing in this card game bring you down from human to animal?”

“Wrong,” it argued back. “If you lose and still have the chance or something to offer, then you won't lose anything except what you give to the system.”

“Chance? Offer? What does it all mean? Do you think it's all about business and games? Or does the system act like a god in this building so it can do anything it wants?”

“I don't have permission to explain everything. But Rei, if you lose that trial, then we will treat you the same as Morgan. Because you no longer have anything to offer with."

Rei lied if he didn't feel frightened by the intimidation caused by those words. He realized he was alone, in a very unknown circumstance. That fact itself terrified him.

He took another long breath and pressed his temple next with his thumb. He tried to digest whatever this robot said to him, but he couldn't. It made no sense in the first place. All of those felt like a cheap sci-fi movie script.

Did he play a role in that kind of movie by accident? If so, he would sue them hard.

But for now, He only wished nothing bad happened to Morgan.

“Anyway,” It turned its body towards the door. “We should go to the R-Room soon. You have no time to spare.”

The small robot went ahead and Rei followed it behind. Even after winning the duel, the question he had on his head still left unanswered. He was quite disappointed about it.

They went into another corridor and took a straight path. Both of them arrived at the front of the wall. A wall, literally.

“Put the key in the middle of the door.”

“Door? Where?”

“In front of you, Rei.”

Rei squinted. He couldn’t distinguish the door from the wall. They had the same pattern and color. Somehow, his eyes caught something in the middle part, there was a small hole. Very small one.

He took the key from his pocket and injected it into it.

The loud noise occurred, followed by light quakes. The wall in front of him came down and broke apart revealing a new room with a cozy atmosphere.

They took a step inside and suddenly the door closed. It took him by surprise, but he ignored it a few seconds later because the room captivated his attention.

Rei’s eyes slowly scanned the room. Somehow, he felt so familiar even though it was his first time to be here. The bed, desk, the wallpaper, and the carpet also had the same pattern like he knew. He really knew it. Because it felt like an exact copy of his room.

“What the hell is this room?” Rei asked.

“R-Room.”

“What does that mean?”

“A room named R-Room.”

He scowled. If the robot answered the question with a joke, then he should give up. No matter hard he pressed on it, it would never give an appropriate response.

Another long suffering sigh was taken.

“Okay. Then, where is my memory?”

“Find something shiny in this room, like a shiny jewel.”

“Huh?” Although Rei didn't quite understand what it meant, he scanned around the room once more.

He walked toward the desk, the picture frame on it was glowing. It was so bright that he couldn’t see anything inside it. The moment he touched it, something like a film played inside his head.

That was the first memory he successfully retrieved.

***

Sunday, May 13th, 2XXX

The glare of the sun disturbed his eyes. He wasn’t sleeping, but sitting on the carpet and facing the open window.

"So how was it? You're coming, right?"

Huh? Who is there?

The blurry scenery before him suddenly turned into a person.

"Where?"

Rei heard him sigh. His voice was heavy, definitely a man. In front of him sat a handsome figure, a slender body with neat bangs. He was wearing the same school attire as him.

"Huh? Don't tell me you've forgotten?" The man once again sighed. "To the tournament. This weekend."

Tournament?

What tournament?

A sudden shock jolted his brain. Revealing a short flashback.

Ah. I remember.

In my region, there's a card game so popular that national tournaments are often held. And this man in front of me is ….

"Sorry, Apollo. Maybe because I didn't sleep well."

"That excuse is unacceptable, Rei. Look how you spent your savings to put together this deck." Apollo handed a deck of cards to him. "It's strange that you forgot, isn't it?"

Rei tried to come up with another excuse because the worried gaze of the person next to him was difficult to handle.

"Are you okay? Perhaps this summer heat struck you too hard. Or maybe your daily push ups have finally bitten you,” He stood up. “I'll get Akane to bring you some drinks."

Akane?

Akane!

I finally remember. Akane Dixon. That's my younger sister's name. Since my mom is Japanese, our names are a mix of Japanese and Western names.

"No need,” Rei tugged at the hem of his friend’s trousers. “Let her have fun."

“Don't tell me you guys had a fight?” He sighed. “You siblings get along really well, huh."

Apollo sat back in his seat again while Rei just flashed a smile.

Before he got carried away, he wanted to stay on topic. He didn’t know how long these memories could last.

"By the way, where will the event be held?"

“Oh, finally.” Apollo stood up and walked to the window. "Come here. You can see it from here."

Rei pulled his butt and walked over to him. "Where? I don't see it?"

He poked his head out to follow where Apollo's finger was pointing. Quite far to the left.

He found the mist. On such a sunny day there was a thick cloud of fog covering the city. And as he grew more focused, the fog slowly dissipated and revealed something he never remembered.

A building with a width almost enveloping the entire city and he couldn’t measure its height. As far as his eye could see, its height pierced beyond the clouds. It was something taller than the Burj Khalifa and perhaps, longer than Great Wall China.

"What was that?" His hands were trembling. The spectacle amazed and terrified him at the same time.

Yet, Apollo shrugged his shoulders. He let out a small dry laugh. "What kind of question is that? I don't know either."

"How could something like that exist and we don't know about it?"

"No one knows, Rei. No one knows. Perhaps it was exist since the begin–"

“Begin what?”

Rei turned his head and a glitch occurred. Apollo's face became shapeless, as did the rest of the room. Apollo's lips moved, but no sound could be heard. He handed Rei a card containing a word.

Dragun0va.

Before Rei could ask, everything was engulfed back into darkness. His chest tightened all of a sudden. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't breathe in any air. Those memories kept playing at high speed repeatedly … until he jerked awake.

***

“I don't know what you see, but you need to wipe those tears on your face first, Rei.”

His mind snapped back into reality. He felt stiff all over his body, like taking a long trip without a rest. Yet, the nostalgic feeling took him by a surprise. The scenery he saw, the name he remembered–all of those was enough to bring water into his eyes.

He brought his lower part of clothes to wipe the tears. When Rei showed his face, anyone would know that the boy cried his soul out. Anyone would give him time to sort out his feelings. Guess what, that common sense didn’t apply to robots.

“Let’s go. We have no time to waste. The Grand Elevator is waiting.”

“Yeah … let’s go.”

He didn’t want to argue with it. That kind of talk would damage his feelings right now. He felt happy, yet sad at the same time. He regained some of his memories, some of the unknown knowledge about where he lived, also that suspicious building.

Is that building the place where I am standing now? But if so, why do they need to erase my memories in the first place? We are just playing a card game, right? I don't think the government will let any organization do something bizarre like that. Neither memory erasure nor abduction.

He followed the robot into another long corridor. He went past some iron door and arrived in a huge hall. Rei tried to measure how wide and tall this hall was, but he was convinced that this was the largest room he had ever been in in his life.

They kept moving until they met a bunch of lockers. The small robot stopped at one of them. It turned its back and faced Rei.

“Take the bag, including any item you want to.” The locker opened and showed quite many items.

“Do I need to go somewhere with all of these items?” Rei asked.

“Correct. You will need it. Not for long if you are able to find someone else.”

“Just to duel again?”

“Dueling is only required for Trial.”

While thinking about what the robot just said, Rei chose and picked any items like canned food, tissue, and rope? He didn't understand why all these items were needed when they were in the building? So, he just added random things inside.

“Oi, Iron dwarf. What is a Trial? From any perspective, it's just part of the game, isn't it?"

"I will explain. The main purpose is to gain access to the upper floors. Currently, we are at the Root, Floor 0. If you want to move from one floor to another, you need to use the Grand Elevator there." The robot raised its iron arm and pointed to the grand structure at the center of this massive hall.

Perhaps too big to be called an elevator, from where Rei stood, the size of the object referred to as the Grand Elevator was half the width of a soccer field.

'Ridiculous' would be the perfect word to describe the structure. Even if someone surfed the internet all day, they would find nothing about this kind of bullshit.

How could you build something this large inside the building? Just imagine, how massive would the exterior be?

Rei gulped. His hand stopped moving for a while. He just didn’t know if he needed to be amazed or terrified right now. The more the robot talked the more nonsense he felt.

“Okay. Stop it. Don’t explain that kind of bullshit anymore.”

He pushed the locker’s door with a slam. He wore the bag on his back and stared at his little companion.

“Do you think I lied? You need to get that idea out of your head, Rei. What I said is written in the system and I have no ability to lie."

That kind of answer made him frown. “You have no ability to lie? You don’t even know what the truth is, you little tin can. You're just spouting lines that you didn't even think of yourself.”

“...You have a point. Yet, you are wrong.”

“Wrong? How?”

“Perhaps, the one who doesn't know the truth is you, Rei.” The small robot said it in a colder tone. Strange, usually its word weighed nothing. Yet, the sentence it just said made Rei’s neck hair stand up. It felt like a human was whispering directly into his brain.

He shook his head while convincing himself that wasn’t the case. Over and over again. If he managed to get out of this building, he would surely discover the truth that the robot was trying to hide.

He repositioned his bag and took a step ahead. “We just need to go there, right?”

“Correct.”

He started walking and the little robot now followed him from behind. Eventually, it took the lead in the middle. Rei didn’t care about that at all, he was simply focused on his goal. Moreover, it wasn’t a competition in the first place.

And then, they arrived.

From where they stood now, the Grand Elevator definitely looked more like a royal palace archway than your usual elevator. Its door was made of gold, decorated with luxurious ancient Roman-style ornaments with unfamiliar alphabetic writing. Images of humans, animals, and figures such as gods and monsters are carved on its surface as if depicting a culture. Or a fiction.

Amazement filled every space inside his eyes. No matter how long he watched, the grandeur of the elevator did not fade for a second. As if God had directly intervened to build it and made its beauty eternal.

"Please use this, Rei." The discordant voice immediately broke his daze.

He picked up something from the robot's hand.

A credit card? he thought. As he observed it, its shape was nothing special. Just a regular card you could find anywhere in the city.

"What is this?"

"The access rights to use the Grand Elevator. Put it into your bracelet and the feature will be unlocked."

He followed the instructions and suddenly a new screen appeared.

[The Grand Elevator Key is obtained]

–Unlocking… Feature Unlocked–

[You can access Floor 1: CRADLE via Grand Elevator]

[How to use it:]

[1. Put your hand on the Scanner on the Door]

[2. It will scan the validity of the key]

[3. The door will be open and the elevator is ready to use]

[END]

Rei followed the new procedure neatly. He placed his hand on the scanner and a new red screen appeared in front of him.

[XXX--ERROR--XXX]

[Access Denied]

[Try Again]

He put his hand down one more time.

[XXX--ERROR--XXX]

[Access Denied]

[Try Again]

The crease on his forehead knotted. "You gave me a used card, didn’t you?"

"That should be impossible. The card is only issued once in a lifetime. If a second one is issued, it becomes invalid. Why don't you try again, maybe you misplaced your fingers."

Misplaced my fingers? Does it think human hands can be removed like Legos?

Rei sighed and repeated the procedure carefully. He even looked at how his fingers rested on the scanner.

[XXX--ERROR--XXX]

[Access Denied]

[Try Again]

Fourth and fifth attempts.

[XXX--ERROR--XXX]

[Access Denied]

[Try Again]

Sixth attempt … failed.

Seventh attempt … failed.

The annoyance inside him almost blew up, but quickly subsided knowing he wouldn't be able to get anything out of it. Yet, his eyes glared.

"Seven attempts and the result is the same. It didn’t work at all. You want to scam me so bad, huh?"

"I've already said it. I have no benefit by scamming you. Please wait, I will contact the authority on this floor for a moment." The small robot suddenly froze and a telephone icon appeared on its screen face.

He stared at it. Intently. He even tapped the surface of the screen. After the telephone icon disappeared, he took a few steps behind and sighed.

"So, is this elevator the only option I have?"

"No. This elevator is the fastest available route for Duelist.” The robot raised its head, shot a flash and made him close his eyes.

A glitch appeared out of nowhere and vanished before he actually saw it.

“Oi, What are–?”

“I see,” The small robot cut his sentence. “Do you want an alternate route?"

“Huh? Tell me what are you–” Rei sighed, he decided to give up asking what it just did. “Yeah, sure. Instead of waiting for you to confirm about that cheap access card you gave me, another passage would be more useful, wouldn't it?”

The little robot gave a stare.

“I understand. However, before I lead you there, let me give a brief explanation,”

Rei wasn’t too sure about it, but he nodded anyway.

“If you go from that route, I cannot accompany you for the rest of your journey. You are alone while climbing this world. No one would be kind enough to lead you where to go unless you have the worth itself.”

There was a pause.

“Once again I ask you, Rei. Are you sure go down to the alternate route?" It suppressed its tone at the question, like whispering a love confession to him. Or perhaps, a cold bloody warning.

He didn't understand what 'climbing this world' meant, nor did he care for the fantasy-like terms, but he was certain about something.

"Hmmm... isn't that a better option?" Rei smirked. If he went this route, he would be able to escape from those who were monitoring him until this moment. At least, one spy down.

A hush descended between them. Both exchanged a glance yet no one showed any regret on their face. Rei certainly found zero annoyance on the robot’s face either. Just long dots, as if it was thinking about something.

After a short buzzing sound rang out, it finally spoke, "Very well. I'll lead you the way."