Under the dim glow cast by walls etched in ancient runes, Copper spoke softly, as if uttering a forbidden name that was never meant to be spoken.
"Plaedem…"
The sound wasn't loud, but it resonated through the space like a distant bell echoing from the abyss. It wasn't just a name. It was a mark.
"It's not just them," he said, voice rough with the dust of ages. "It's me. It's all of us, those who were once rejected by this world… and yet became the only things left when everything else collapsed."
"Plaedem doesn't return the way others do."
"They are no longer who they once were. In truth… they may not even be human anymore."
"They carry a different essence. A purpose without a name. A longing reborn… that no longer belongs to them."
Ren slowly raised his head. His eyes followed the wavering light dancing along the stone walls...but in those pupils, no flame or rune was reflected.
...Only a different kind of light, deep and cold, like moonlight beneath the sea.Distant. Alien. But hauntingly familiar.
"Plaedem..." Ren whispered. The sound slipped from his lips as if it wasn't his own voice, like something else was borrowing it to remember itself.
The second time he had heard that name… but this time, it felt like it answered. As if it had waited to be summoned for longer than the world itself could remember.
Copper said nothing more. He stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the glowing glyphs, flickering like the last breath of a dying candle.
As if they, too, were alive. Remembering. Calling back to something buried deep beneath the dust of time.
"Plaedem… Plaedem… Pla… Player…" he muttered, slowly, brokenly, like someone sleepwalking through the last remaining thread of a rotted memory.
The calm brown eyes he always carried now shone with something unusual. A glimmer dangerously close to panic, yet pressed down so tightly it could almost be mistaken for understanding.
Ren stood beside him, silent.But at the same time, a cold thought pierced through his mind:
"Is this… really just a death game like I once believed?"
A question not asked to seek an answer, but to confront the growing shadow within.
Maybe… he had known the answer all along. But never dared to say it aloud.
"We…" Copper finally spoke, turning to look at Ren. His voice was no longer steady, but dreamy, like the echo of a dream already broken.
"We are the ones who wandered into this world… whether by accident or intent. But now that I think about it… maybe it was this world that summoned us."
"Plaedem… isn't a name. Not a title. It's an outcome. The result of a tear… between two worlds."
"Torn from the old reality, yet unable to merge with the new."
"Do you understand, Ren? We are… the crack."
Ren didn't reply. He looked up, toward the stone wall that glowed with a dim light like ash blowing in the wind, not the light of life, but something that existed between memory and dream.
Like the moon, drowned in the bottom of a dried-up well.
"Plaedem…" he repeated, softly, like wind brushing across a shoulder.
"If we are the crack… then who created it?"
No one answered.
The room fell silent, like a forest long dead.
No sound.
No breath.
No movement.
But the question didn't vanish.
It lingered, suspended in the air, as if even the world itself was listening.And waiting for a reply.
"Tch…" Copper let out a small hiss between his teeth. Then he laughed.
A dry, sudden, joyless laugh.
"It's ridiculous… Why are we even thinking about stuff like this?"
"Whether this is a game or a real world… the ending is the same. When that health bar hits zero, it's over. No legacy, no title, no glory. Just a cold corpse."
"So why bother?"
He spoke as if spitting out a stone lodged in his chest, a weight from thinking too much, going too far, while the truth remained brutally simple: live or die.
Ren watched him silently. For a moment, his eyes softened, and the tension in his brow slowly faded.
He didn't smile...but something inside pulsed gently.
Not agreement. Not denial.
Just… understanding.
"That's right…" Ren thought quietly.
"Real or not, logic or emotion, everything ends when that number hits zero.So what am I still clinging to?"
The silence returned.
Not because there was nothing left to say, but because in a world where death is the final bell…
Words no longer mattered.
Only footsteps echoed faintly…
Like the ticking of a clock.. on a face that had forgotten time.
"We've discovered so many strange things… haven't we?" Copper said at last, voice light as a breeze, eyes still fixed on the glowing ancient runes carved into the wall.
"I never used to read storylines when playing games… Usually, I just wanted to win. But this time…"
He smiled, a vague smile, uncertain whether it was joy, regret… or resignation. "This time, something's holding me back. Like this story... is whispering into my ear."
Ren glanced over, then looked down at his feet. He sighed. Not quite out of frustration, more like trying to exhale a heaviness his chest no longer had room to hold.
Maybe Copper was lying to himself. Or maybe... he truly believed what he said, that this was just a game, and they had merely stumbled into some "content" they'd never paid attention to before.
Just a game…
A phrase repeated like a cheap mantra. Yet it worked. Because if they believed this was real, that every emotion, every fear, every drop of blood was real, they would collapse.
Ren knew that. And he knew... maybe he, too, needed to learn how to pretend to believe.
Pretend he was just a character, following a prewritten storyline.
Pretend the pain wasn't real.
Pretend death wasn't real, as long as the game over screen hadn't appeared.
It wasn't denial. It was a way to survive.
Because if you couldn't turn life into a game, then it would become a prison.
Something lifted lightly from the top of his head, a feeling as if his brain had been drained, no longer crowded with fear and unfounded doubts from deep within, but replaced by an emptiness so vast it was terrifying.
Ren sat still, trying to steady his breath. The survival battle was over, but the next one loomed: hunger and thirst.
The urgent task now was to find a way out of here… before their bodies crumbled from exhaustion and they died slowly in the dark, not from monsters or horrific creatures, but from a quieter death: starvation.
Ren frowned. He just remembered that most of their supplies had been discarded to move faster, especially during encounters that demanded quick reflexes.
A tactically sound decision at the time… but now, he was paying the price.
No water. No rations.
And worse still, he realized he still had food, a frog leg meat drop from the sewer frogs on the dungeon's first floor. The only edible thing. But he had no cooking skill. No firewood. No way to make a flame.
Nothing but an empty stomach and an infinite darkness closing in from all sides.
Copper turned toward him, his expression more unfamiliar than usual. No sharpness or confidence in his eyes. Just a question, almost shy, "Do you have… any water left, Ren?"
Ren looked at him, his brow furrowing, not out of irritation, but from a dull, burning pain in his throat that made him swallow dryly.
His tongue felt like paper.
His lips cracked like parched soil after a drought.
He just realized… since falling into this maze, they hadn't eaten.
Hadn't drunk. Hadn't rested.
Only run.
Run like people trying to delay death for just a few more minutes, a few more seconds.
But death took many forms. And the one drawing closest didn't carry a scythe, it came from inside their own bodies.
Ren opened his inventory.
His hand moved slowly and carefully, as if one wrong move would shatter their last fragile hope. In the dim light of the safe zone, a small water bottle appeared in the virtual space.
He picked it up. It was tiny. So light it felt almost empty. But in this moment, it was worth more than a river.
Ren stared at the little object for a long time. His gaze wasn't hesitation… it was calculation, weighing. Between life and death. Between selfishness and sharing. Between human and… human.
Then, without a word, he threw it to Copper.
Copper caught it by reflex, but couldn't hide his surprise. He looked at Ren for a silent second, then gave a small nod, a gesture of sincere gratitude.
"Thank you."
Copper's voice dropped, no longer carrying his usual pride, but something else…
Light as smoke, real as weathered stone.
He unscrewed the cap and sipped carefully...as if spilling even a single drop would be a crime.
Ren turned away, sitting back against the wall. His throat burned. But he didn't speak.
Partly because he knew the thirst wasn't just in his throat, it was deeper. And death was circling, where neither of them had the strength left to cry out.