Essence Of The Void: Part 1

Swift movements through the bloodied terrain leave shallow footprints in the layers of thick snow. The red snow clumps together, creating a powdery, deep red blanket that covers the ground, with the added benefit of suppressing the constant ringing in Tang-Ji's ears.

Kazami's eyes darted around, noticing a red splattering of snow coating the trees and huts. Tang-Ji was surprised at how still everything seemed. The only sound she could hear was her half-broken boots crunching softly in the snow.

The initiation of Dusk Protocol left the three helpless individuals scurrying through the blizzard.

Tang-Ji squinted her eyes as fresh snowflakes gently fell onto her eyelashes. As she exhaled, her breath hung in the cold air for a brief moment, forming a delicate cloud of mist. She watched as the vapour danced and swirled, carried away by the harsh weather. It's a simple yet mesmerising sight, a tangible representation of the frosty atmosphere. The game was truly real.

"We're almost there." Kazami's voice trembled as a result of the blistering cold.

"I see it; on my mini map, there should be a large mansion here that acts as the cornerstone of this floor, along with a low-level quest that we could take to earn some extra experience points."

"I have scanned the surrounding environment; there should be no more mobs approaching us," Ukiyo said nonchalantly.

"Thanks, we couldn't have shaken those snow golems off if it weren't for you warning us about the Dusk Protocol beforehand.'' His sentence was abruptly interrupted as his body came crashing down onto the slippery concrete.

Kazami groaned as he massaged his injured behind. He slowly turned to get back to his feet. However, something unexpected happened: Ukiyo's hand jutted out before him.

"Please look where you're going next time," she urged coldly before pulling him up.

"Thanks," said Kazami, rubbing his head out of embarrassment.

Pulling her right sleeve down, Ukiyo paced herself ahead without responding.

The journey continued in silence for a while longer before they stopped altogether, besides a snow trail, to stare at the sky in disbelief. The moon had taken on a beautiful, reddish tinge. Tang-Ji's eyes lit up at the sight, admiring how the crimson moon's light reflected on a small bed of well-tended oleanders, which were one-quarter buried in the red snow, each flower blooming pink and white in short, straight rows.

As they passed through a short corridor of trees, the group was met with a gateway composed of two pillars of ruined stone, with a snow-covered path leading out between them into an empty field. Short oleander trees ran up each side of the road in uniform rows until they formed a square-like formation around the field at the end. Inside the square was a line of oleander bushes, seemingly following along the edge of a small, frozen river, whose flow was stopped by the frigid weather.

The tree branches brushed against Tang-Ji's arms, and the night grew steadily darker as she walked along the path. At last, with one final effort, she cleared a tangle of dead, frosted branches; her coat now slightly dampens from the frost. What lay before the three players now was a clearing before the ornately carved gate of an icy mansion.

Tang-Ji thought to herself, 'oleanders are poisonous,' she remembered, 'Could they be here guarding something or perhaps keeping something in.' She also had the fleeting thought of a potential safe haven to escape from a never-ending nightmare. She thought to herself, perhaps she had wandered into a fairy land, protected poisonously from the glares of outlanders and creatures that awaited her impending demise.

"Could we stay here?" She mumbled before stopping mid-sentence as Kyushu's words began repeating themselves in her head.

"There will no longer be a safe place to hide."

"From this moment onwards, once your avatar health bar reaches zero, you will be permanently deleted both from the game and the real world."

His words continued to form a loop in her mind before she could feel an arm reaching from the back and grabbing onto her shoulders. She slowly turned around to see Ukiyo staring into her eyes with a sort of saddening expression.

"Don't worry; if you are afraid of getting lost in this land or encountering dangerous enemies, you won't. I will guide you safely to the next town." Ukiyo reassured her.

Tang-Ji tried to calm her posture to maintain a neutral expression as she steeled her nerves before hasting towards Kazami, who stood at the metallic gate.

Here the gate was tall, ominous, and heavy, set strongly into a metal wall that went off through the silver trees with naked branches adorned with snow.

Tang-Ji could see the padlock in the chain that was twisted around through the bars. Beyond the gate, she could only see that the road continued to turn shadowed besides the still dark trees. Since the gate was so clearly locked—locked with double locks and chained and barred—she could slowly feel her skin turning inside out.

As Kazami glanced up behind the tall bars, he could see the ginormous mansion covered entirely with a sheet of white blanket. Its windows were as shy as eyes, large enough to welcome any ray of moonlight. The rock walls belonged right where they were, as if perchance they had grown up right from the hallowed ground. It was as if it had been called into existence to encapsulate those who came to dwell within, to quell the elements, and to allow heat to build from hearths into the inhaled woodland air. The ominous and eerie sensation sent chills down Tang-Ji's spines.

'Click, click, grinding click.'

"Did you hear that?" Tang-Ji quickly twisted her body towards Kazami, who was examining the sinister-looking entranceway. She paused for a split second before becoming startled by the bewitching noise. The constant sound of grinding clicks and pops vibrated in her ears.

"WAIT KAZAMI! Don't touch that gate," she shouted, frightening Kazami, who slowly moved back a few steps from the entrance."

"What's wrong, Tang-Ji? You scared the heck out of me. Either way, we have to get inside; otherwise, we will die from hyperthermia." Kazami mumbled slowly with an obviously agitated attitude.

Ukiyo began placing each of her fingers slowly on the metal bar as she scanned the interior of the aged infrastructure.

"So, are there any hostile mobs in there?" Kazami questioned Ukiyo.

"This place holds a quest that players can interact with. To initiate the quest, you must interact with the object behind the mansion's wooden doors." She informed.

Kazami threw a puzzled look at Ukiyo before lightly shaking his head. For all he knows from the beta testing, NPCs in this game should not be able to comprehend the concept of questing, but rather they should only be programmed to speak in a manner that depicts events that happen in their world. The fact that this NPC is able to understand that this is a quest that can be interacted with is proof of her humanoid nature.

"Maybe I'm just being too paranoid," he murmured before looking back at Tang-Ji, who shivered under the icy conditions.

After letting go of his dubious assumptions, Kazami quickly summoned his Leere once again, but instead of the large blade that directly deflected the vicious boss at spawn, this time it was a dazzling fire. A flame blade lit up, creating an abnormal amount of heat in the arctic environment.

He swung the two-handled blade, deliberately making a wholly unnecessary display of melting and slashing through the padlocks. Not before long, Kazami threw the gate wide open, crashing sharply into the steel bars behind it, producing a clanging sound that rang throughout the snowy land.

Inky specks appeared on the snow as a result of sparks leaping from Kazami's red blade.

Tang-Ji was perplexed by the brilliant presence of the blade and the person who had summoned it as he glanced at the sword's hilt.

"Huh? Hey Kazami, didn't your Leere transform into a huge sword? Why does it suddenly appear to be so different?" She asked inquisitively.

After pausing for a few moments, Kazami turned to face the sword that was flashing in his grasp.

"Well, if I'm being completely honest with you, I've only just begun to understand the full potential of my Leere. It appears like it can shapeshift into whatever form of blade I can think of in my head. That fire blade before, I think I've seen it in an anime when I was a kid, considering I was able to make an identical copy of it."

"So, you can summon any type of sword that you've seen before and can imagine the shape?" Tang-Ji asked out of curiosity.

"I believe so," he said before making the sword disappear into thin air. "I did try to imagine a long sword with a dragon as a head before, but nothing appeared. I'm guessing this ability will only work if I've seen a sword long enough for me to at least capture some of its basic features."

Despite her excitement at seeing such a bizarre phenomenon in his Leere, Tang-Ji decided to halt her questions.

A girl who used to be obsessed over video games would typically be loud and vocal in her excitement over a new in-game find; it was normal that she would care nothing else. Her enthusiasm for VR MMORPGs is gradually returning despite the loss of her memory.

Unfortunately, Dusk Protocol wasn't a game she could enjoy; rather, it was a game of survival.

Slowly, her excitement turned back to the fear she was experiencing. She was on the verge of being able to let go of Kyushu's remarks and her ongoing terror of the mansion for a fleeting instant.

However, a strong will to survive temporarily occupied Tang-Ji's mind. She was aware of the imminent danger lurking at her side, yet there was a part of her that wanted to learn more about the new world. 'Wallowing in fear and despair won't be able to change my current situation, so why not make the most of it?' She thought to herself before zoning out into the winter land.

"Hey Tang-Ji, it's odd that you can't call for your Leere considering you were able to do it so flawlessly back at school," he said as he turned slowly to face her. "I want you to remain close to me in either case. Who can predict what dangers may lie ahead?"

Regaining her focus, Tang-Ji subconsciously nodded before walking through the metal gate behind Ukiyo and Kazami.

However, before she could continue her journey into the ominous realm, there was a burning question on her mind that needed an answer.

"Hey, Kazami, can I ask you something?"

Kazami halted in his tracks.

"Ukiyo, you go ahead and examine the trail for danger, just in case; we don't want a surprise assault." He spoke calmly, trying not to raise the decibel level above a specific threshold that would draw in hostile creatures.

Ukiyo whispered, "Alright," before pacing herself slowly up the dark path, leading towards the mansion.

Kazami moved slowly back towards Tang-Ji, who was now hunched down in between the gates. She stared down at the snow as if she wanted to say something to him.

"Hey Tang-Ji. Are you feeling alright?" He asked with a puzzled expression.

She muttered under her breath, "Kazami, I just wanted to know something," before raising her head to look at him.

Kazami, who seemed even more perplexed than before, was also intrigued by what she had to say.

"Yes, what is it?" He asked.

"I realise this isn't the right time to bring it up, but have we met before?" Tang-Ji spoke with a serious tone.

A blast of icy winter air blew across Kazami's face as he stood transfixed in response to the unexpected question. Yet this unexpected change of events has him breaking out in a cold sweat, as if he had anticipated this enquiry all along.

"I dunno, what do you think?" His gaze was instantly diverted from hers.

There was a moment of awkward quiet between the two people before Tang Ji broke the ice.

"I've never shared this with anybody before, but when I was a kid, I completely lost my memory and had to start a new life again at the age of eleven. It's hard to believe that I've already lived for six years. Everything is fuzzy, and sometimes I see glimpses of my former self. I often see a boy's hand reaching out to me in human form." She told him.

Kazami stopped moving, his eyes bulging and his mouth hanging open.

Tang-Ji saw the horror on Kazami's face and knew she was right. She continued to speak firmly about the issue.

"Have we met previously, Kazami?" She pleaded, "Just be honest with me."

Kazami's body trembled clearly as he clenched his hands; his face was red and puffy from fury.

"Can you really not remember anything?" His face was twisted in a grimace of pain that hid his inner rage.

As Tang-Ji saw Kazami's emotions change, she flinched.

"Huh! Not at all; in fact, I can't even remember my life before the age of eleven."

"I see," Kazami mumbled as steam slowly rose from his lips before softening his expression.

His expressions slowly softened. "Come on, now is not the time to be talking about this; we need to find warmth to stabilise our temperature." Before walking through the gate.

"Alright." Tang-Ji said as she stifled her curiosity before proceeding to follow him gradually up the foreboding ice slope.

'I can't help but wonder about our possible relationship and whether or not he would have treated the old me the same way if we had really met back then. Now I'm curious about my past selves almost as much as I am about my present selves.' She thought to herself.

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'I should have turned back at the gate,' Tang-ji thought. The house had caught her with an atavistic turn in the pit of the stomach, and she looked along the lines of its roofs, fruitlessly endeavouring to locate the badness, whatever dwelt there; her hands turned nervously cold so that she fumbled as she tried to search her in-game inventory for the remaining health potion that was nearly depleted of its durability. Beyond everything else, she was afraid—afraid of the subtle clicking sound along with the sick voice of Kyushu whispering her death.

The mansion came around her in a rush; she was shadowed by its size, and the sound of her feet on the wood of the veranda was an outrage in the utter silence. She brought her hand up to the heavy iron knocker that had a large flower pattern, determined to make more noise and yet more; however, this was shortly interrupted by Kazami, who insisted on being the first one to enter the mansion.

Tang-Ji turned around only to be greeted by Ukiyo, who silently stood aside. Her pastel gown, slightly damp with snowflakes on her hair, was neat, and yet she gave off an indefinable air of dirtiness. The suspicious sullenness of her face was a match for the malicious petulance of a devil.

An eerie breeze pushed dust particles out of the shadows as the old door cracked open. Kazami had to readjust his eyes to the low light levels before he could make out the huge outline of the forsaken mansion.

The hall in which they stood was overfilled with dark wood and weighty carving, dim under the heaviness of the staircase, which lay back from the farther end. Above there seemed to be another hallway, going the width of the house; Kazami could see a hallway, and then, across the staircase, well, doors closed along the upper hall.

When Tang-Ji tried to speak, her voice was drowned in the dim stillness, and she had to try again to make a sound.

As they walked through the heavy door, they heard a loud 'ding!' And a notice appeared in the corner of their eye, just below the green bar over their head, indicating their current health. It looked like a blue exclamation point with yellow and blue lights. Kazami drew a finger just over his eyebrows and gently tapped the icon.

His words were soft: "It's a quest."

Before he could turn to Tang-Ji, he saw that she was in complete and utter astonishment. She stumbled away, suppressing a scream as her gaze fixed on the dead eyes of a puddle of blood in front of them.

"Step back, both of you," Kazami urged as he slowly brought his hands together in front of his hips, as if he were carrying an imaginary sword.

He took a step closer with his knees slightly bent, his face pale but determined, and slowly, as if unsheathing an unseen sword, he reached out his hand. A few seconds later, a long red katana appeared in the midst of a flashing light. When he summoned his weapon out completely, Tang-ji fumbled uneasily in the rear and finally addressed him.

She pointed behind the counter. "Please be careful." She alerted him.

Kazami turned his head away from the centre of the staircase, where a large wooden desk had been strangely positioned. The previous blood trail had led him to the desk, he realised. Kazami gasped as he felt sweat trickle down his cheeks. Immediately, he sprang for the desk, fully prepared for combat. However, his eyes widened before he slowly lowered his weapon.

"This is something you probably don't want to see." The sword disappeared into thin air as he unsheathed it and whispered gently.

It seemed like Tang-ji had stopped moving after releasing the seriousness of the situation.

The petrified look was written all over Kazami's face, so she knew precisely what was behind that desk as she replied, "I understand." She murmured.

It was the body of a dead man.

When Kazami approached the corpse, he felt the slight sogginess and moisture of his boot; it felt almost like a liquid surface, which made him almost lose his footing. He took a few seconds to inspect the body on the floor. The ground was covered with blood, and the air was tainted with a metallic scent. Scars and wounds in the form of magical runes cover the body, or what's left of the body, of the deceased guy.

A voice reverberated down the snowy corridor, exclaiming, "That dead corpse isn't from a player." It was Ukiyo who stood there, unfazed by the situation.

"You should not worry, since it is not a real player like yourself, as this is a quest, and you accepted it before." She spoke nonchalantly.

Even though Tang-Ji was relieved to see that the corpse behind the counter was not real, Kazami is nevertheless paralysed by horror.

A few seconds later, he made his way towards Ukiyo.

"You said that this was connected to a quest, right? In other words, this wasn't a legitimate player, right?" He had to ask again just to be sure.

From afar, Ukiyo nodded.

Kazami raised his finger gently and indicated the right side of the desk. Tang-Ji saw, however, and was perplexed by Kazami's remark. She focused her vision narrowly, hoping to see more of what Kazami had pointed out. Yet it just served to further puzzle her when she finally did.

"Is it a tiny bag, or what?" Tang-Ji questioned.

"Not any small bag, but this one in particular, the one that's grey and has gold outside linings." Kazami, visibly nervous, stumbled over his words for a while. He was hesitant to continue his thought, and his hands fumbled nervously.

"Only after a player's death will they drop that particular bag."

"How is it even possible, though? The metal shackles were sliced through by you. The metal gate was completely covered in frost, so nobody could have climbed over." Tang-Ji expressed discomfort.

Kazami mumbled for a few instances before replying with his eyes widening, "No, it's possible; this player could've come here before us way ahead of time, in fact, so long that the gate that they destroyed to get into here must have respawned."

The atmosphere underwent a dramatic shift after those words left his mouth. However, the silence in the hall was abruptly broken when a sudden bell-like sound rang in Kazami's ears:

"DING!" An electronic chime could be heard by everyone.

He quickly traced his eyes to the top left corner of his field of vision.

<Investigate the blood trail> complete.

<Examine the body> incomplete.

"Stay back, you two. Keep the door open behind you in case we have to escape," Kazami asserted firmly, still somewhat tense from the thought of a real dead person being there.

Tang-Ji nodded; however, before she could turn towards the door, a sudden, spine-chilling sensation struck her.

In her ears, a familiar 'click, click, click, click' sound echoed. Her lips trembled, along with her pupils, slowly constricting.

"Hey! Kazami! Did you hear that?" She shouted anxiously, her voice reverberating along the empty, cold corridor.

"What the hell!" Frightened by Tang-Ji's voice, he quickly leapt back from the body.

He was clearly out of breath as he demanded an explanation: "Don't just scream out like that, God, what is wrong with you?"

Tang-Ji fumbled back at Kazami's sudden aggression. "I'm sorry," she responded clumsily.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but I swear there was a faint clicking sound, like someone was choking on something while wailing. The whole way here to the mansion, I keep hearing it." She spoke slowly and steadily, trying not to lose her composure.

"You're probably imagining it; the cold must have gotten to you, and at one point I was also feeling lightheaded as well. Besides, Ukiyo had already checked the location for us, and assured us that there is no mob here, so please stop making up such crazy stories."

Kazami was up ahead, examining the blood stain. Behind Ukiyo was Tang-Ji, who stood motionless while processing the idea of a dead person. She glanced down at the blood stains before slowly reaching out her hand. She watched the wavering reflection of her hand on the blood stains going down and down in the deep shadow of the tarnished floor. The eerie pressure hastened down her spine; it was as though the place itself was slowly sinking its fangs into her soul.

Suddenly, she found herself gasping for air on her knees.

"Hey, hey, hey, HEY!!! Tang-Ji!" Yelled Kazami. His voice rose to a shout.

Huh? said Tang-ji. She swallowed down her thoughts before speaking, "I'm sorry; I just feel a little worn out from the journey."

Kazami responded, with a tinge of irritation, "It's fine; if you don't want to come inside, you can wait at the door. I'll go examine this quest upstairs."

"No, wait," she whispered to him.

"I'll come with you too; I know I won't be much help without my Leere, but I'll help with investigating the other rooms," she pleaded.

He gave her a worried look, but it was impossible for him to let her stay with the suspicious NPC. After all, he told her to stay close to him in case of an emergency.

"Fine, but you better stay really close to me just in case," he warned her before the two of them carefully climbed the creaking staircase.

<Examine the body> complete.

<Investigate the rooms upstairs> incomplete.