The hotel manager didn't look like a hospitality worker anymore. He looked like an avatar of the System itself. His eyes, once a mundane brown, were now bleeding a viscous, dark gold light that pulsed in time with a low-frequency hum vibrating through the floorboards.
"Leave now," he said, his voice no longer human. It sounded like several dozen people speaking in perfect, terrifying unison. "I will take care of discarding the Woman."
He gestured toward the unconscious woman on the scorched carpet.
"Discarding?" Kami stepped forward, ignoring the heat still radiating from the walls. "Wait a second. We aren't going anywhere. We need to interrogate her. She knows something that we need to know, you can't just get rid of her."
Kaito nodded, his hand hovering over his bag of iron balls. "He's right. We can't just let our only lead be 'discarded' by a glorified janitor, or whatever you're supposed to be."
The manager's head tilted at an unnatural angle. The golden glow in his eyes intensified, turning a shade so dark it was almost black. The air in the hallway grew heavy, the atmospheric pressure spiking until Kami's ears popped.
"You do not dictate the terms of the Hotel. This is my domain," the manager hissed.
Before Kami could reach for his jacket to manifest a 2D blade, the manager slammed his palms together. A shockwave of pure kinetic force erupted from him, a wall of golden energy that hit the trio like a freight train.
Kami felt the air leave his lungs as he was launched backward. He saw Kaito and Inu, back in her cat form, tumbling through the air beside him. They crashed through the hotel's front glass windows, the shards turning into a spray of diamonds in the streetlights, before skidding across the cold pavement of the Tokyo street.
Gasping for air, Kami pushed himself up. "That.. bastard.."
"Kami, look!" Inu cried out.
They turned just in time to hear a single, blood-curdling scream rip through the night. It was the woman from room 007. Then, silence. It wasn't the silence of a quiet street, but the silence of a vacuum.
The hotel, the neon sign, the brickwork, the scorched room 007, began to pixelate. It didn't crumble, it simply ceased to exist. In a flash of white-gold light, the entire building vanished, leaving nothing behind but a perfectly flat, empty lot of grey concrete. No rubble. No dust. Just an empty space where a landmark had stood seconds before.
"It's gone," Kaito whispered, staring at his empty hands. "The whole building. Just... gone."
They stood in the center of the road, three small figures against the sprawling, indifferent backdrop of Tokyo. "Which way?" Kaito asked, his voice shaking.
"Does it even matter?" Kami muttered. "Let's just move. Away from here."
They walked in silence for several minutes, the adrenaline fading into a dull, rhythmic ache. As they turned a corner near a shuttered ramen shop, Kami's head suddenly throbbed.
It was a sharp, biting sensation, like a needle being driven into his head. A flash of a memory, one he didn't recognize, seared through his mind. He saw himself standing over a crowd, his eyes glowing, and he saw strings of gold numbers floating in the air.
"Wait," Kami gasped, clutching his head.
"Another headache?" Inu asked, her tail twitching with concern.
"No... it's like a dejà vu, but... I think I know how to do something." Kami took out his phone, focusing on the interface of the System on the display. "Enable HUD. Show Settings."
On his phone now a golden/white settings menu opened. There wasn't much to see there but there was one thing he could switch on and off, which was currently set to "off". And that was the "show numbers" option.
He clicked it, to switch it to "on", and then it happened. Floating three inches above Kaito's white hair was a shimmering, golden 007. Above Inu's feline head, a steady 023.
"Kami? What is it?" Kaito reached out to steady him.
"I can see them," Kami breathed. "Your numbers. Kaito, you're Seven. Inu, you're Twenty-three. It's right there, above your heads!"
"What are you talking about?" Kaito looked up, seeing nothing but the night sky.
"Try it," Kami urged, his voice frantic. "Don't look with your eyes, look with the System. Imagine opening the settings, and the should really open. There's a switch to turn this on, just like settings in a game"
Kaito and Inu went quiet, their expressions shifting into masks of deep concentration. After a few heartbeats, Kaito's eyes widened. "Holy... I see it. Kami, you're 003."
"This shouldn't be possible," Inu whispered, her green eyes darting between the two boys. "This isn't an ability we've heard of. Kami, did you unlock an upgrade?"
"No," Kami said firmly. "It felt like I just... remembered it was a feature. But I've never done it before. But this has to be the reason why Umbra and that random woman knew our coder numbers, without us even knowing our own before"
"This changes things," Inu said, her feline instincts overriding her shock. "We need to get back to the Pocket. If we can see IDs, we can identify threats before they even move. Akira needs to know this."
The journey back to the hidden alley felt shorter this time, fueled by the nervous energy of their discovery. When they crossed the glitch-like shimmer into the village, the contrast between the cozy timber houses and the digital horror they'd just witnessed felt jarring.
They found Akira in the main estate, staring at a map of Tokyo spread across a low table. When they told him about the hotel and the ID numbers, the seasoned Coder didn't look relieved. He looked grim.
"If the System is revealing more data," Akira began, his voice low, "it means the 'grace period' is over."
As if on cue, every phone in the room, and likely every phone of the coders in Tokyo, began to vibrate with a violent, synchronized hum.
Kami pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen didn't show the lock screen. It was a solid block of gold-white light.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: PHASE 2 INITIALIZED]
New lines of text began to sear themselves into the display:
[NEW FEATURE UNLOCKED: KILL COUNT TRACKING]
Target visibility updated. All Coders will now display confirmed kills to all participants.
[MANDATORY PARTICIPATION RULE ADDED: THE HARVEST]
To ensure the progression of the Successor Selection, a minimum quota is now in effect. RULE: Every Coder must eliminate at least ONE (1) other Coder per month.
FAILURE TO MEET QUOTA: Immediate System Termination (Heart Failure).
The room went ice-cold. Kami looked up. Above Kaito, the number 007 now had a secondary counter: 0. Above Inu, the 023 stayed steady, but a small 0 sat next to it, the non-human kills Kami saw earlier didn't count toward the God Game.
Kami looked at his own reflection in a nearby darkened window.
003 | Kills: 0
Days until Termination: 30