We didn't run from the forest.
Not at first.
For a few seconds, everyone stood frozen in the narrow path, staring at the crack in the air like it might blink and vanish if we waited long enough.
The blue marker pulsed once more. The tear shivered. Whispering pressed against my ears, a sound that didn't belong to any creature or wind.
Then the red warning text appeared in my vision again, brighter this time.
Critical anomaly detected.
Correction in progress.
The forest trembled. Leaves shook without wind. The light between the trees flickered as if the sun itself was buffering.
That was when the players started moving.
One of them cursed and stumbled back. Another laughed too loudly, the kind of laugh that meant fear in disguise.
"This is definitely a secret event," someone said, voice cracking. "Right? This has to be content."
Kai swallowed and glanced at me like he expected the NPC to explain what was happening.
I couldn't.
Lira's hand found my sleeve and stayed there, fingers curled tightly into the fabric.
"Ren," she whispered. "We should go."
I nodded once.
We backed away slowly, keeping our eyes on the crack. No one turned their back on it, not even the bravest player. As we retreated, the whispering faded, but it didn't disappear. It sank beneath the world like something settling deeper into water.
When we reached the edge of the forest, the air felt lighter. Like the village was a different layer entirely. The trees behind us looked normal again.
Almost.
I glanced back one last time.
For a heartbeat, the forest line shimmered, and I saw faint grid lines flicker along the trunks, as if the world was trying to remember what shape it was supposed to be.
Then it snapped back into place.
Kai exhaled hard. "Okay. That was terrifying."
No one argued.
Players did what players always did when the game scared them. They talked. They joked. They tried to turn fear into something manageable.
"Maybe it's a puzzle."
"Maybe it's a dev test."
"Maybe we just triggered an early boss."
One of them opened a menu that didn't exist for me and started typing frantically.
"Posting this," he muttered. "People need to see it."
Lira looked around as if expecting the village to be gone.
But the houses stood where they always did. The chapel bell tower rose above the rooftops. Smoke drifted from chimneys that were probably decorative, but still looked comforting.
Normal.
That was the worst part.
The world had felt like it tore open, and yet here we were, walking through sunlight like nothing had happened.
I kept waiting for the reset. For white.
For waking up on the chapel floor, Lira smiling at me like a stranger.
It didn't come.
Lira walked close enough that her shoulder brushed mine occasionally. Each time it happened, I felt it. Not like a scripted collision, but like a real touch.
Her reality.
Our reality.
Kai jogged ahead, restless. "Ren, you think the system is gonna patch that? Like, today?"
I stared at the cobblestones beneath my feet.
Patch.
He said it like a minor inconvenience.
"I don't know," I answered honestly.
The honesty startled me.
NPCs weren't meant to admit ignorance.
Nothing punished me for it.
Kai didn't notice. He just nodded like it was normal. "Well, it was cool at least."
Cool.
I almost envied him. Fear that could be called cool.
He ran off toward the inn to talk to other players.
Lira didn't move.
She stopped near the center of the square and stared at the sky.
"Do you feel it?" she asked quietly.
I did.
A pressure, faint but persistent, like the air itself had tightened. Like the world was holding its breath.
"I feel something," I admitted.
The chapel bell rang.
It rang at the wrong time.
Not the clean, measured toll it had always had. This time it sounded strained, as if the bell was cracked or the rope had slipped.
I looked up at the tower.
Lira's voice dropped. "That bell always rings the same."
Always.
She wasn't supposed to be able to say that.
A chill crawled up my arms.
"Has anything else changed?" I asked.
Lira hesitated, eyes unfocused as if she were listening to something distant. "Conversations. People repeat themselves less. The baker didn't drop his tray this morning. He always drops it."
Expectation without memory.
I'd been afraid of that since Chapter 2, but hearing it out loud made it real.
We walked toward the bakery.
The shop was closed.
The sign hung still. No smell of bread. No scripted greeting. No familiar clatter.
Lira frowned. "That's… strange."
Strange was too gentle a word.
"Stay here," I said.
I crossed the street and knocked once. Twice.
No answer.
I pushed gently.
The door opened.
The shop was empty.
Not empty like "no customers." Empty like it had never been stocked. Shelves bare. Counter clean. No flour. No tools. No evidence a person had ever worked here.
Like the system had removed the entire idea of the baker.
I backed out slowly.
Lira stepped closer, peering past me.
"Where is he?" she asked.
I swallowed.
A faint shimmer lingered in the air, barely visible, like the memory of a shape.
A message brushed the edge of my vision.
Correction applied.
My stomach turned.
Lira saw my expression change.
"What is it?" she asked.
I didn't want to answer. Speaking it made it true.
"They're cleaning up," I said.
"Cleaning what?"
"Errors."
She stared at me. "Errors like… the crack in the forest?"
"Like anything that doesn't fit the script."
Her fingers curled around her staff.
"I don't understand," she whispered. "He didn't do anything."
I looked back at the empty shop.
Maybe he had. Maybe he'd glitched. Maybe he'd asked the wrong question. Maybe he'd taken a step outside his invisible boundary, like I had.
Or maybe the system was afraid and didn't care what it crushed in its panic.
Footsteps approached.
A guard staggered out of the north gate tower, one hand gripping his helmet as if his head hurt. His usual rigid posture was gone. His eyes were unfocused.
Lira moved instinctively. "Are you alright?"
He blinked slowly, then looked at us as if seeing people for the first time.
"I… don't know," he said.
Guards never said that.
"What's the last thing you remember?" I asked.
He frowned. "Standing here. Like always. But it feels like I skipped something."
Skipped.
Like a missing frame.
Heat haze rippled around his outline.
He froze mid-breath.
Lira's hand grabbed my arm.
"Ren…"
The air made a soft clicking sound.
The guard flickered once.
Twice.
Then vanished.
No particles. No death animation. No reset. No announcement.
Just empty space where a person had stood.
Lira's nails dug into my sleeve. "That's not normal," she whispered, voice shaking.
"No," I said. "That's not a reset either."
A blue shimmer lingered where he'd been, a thin scar in the air.
Correction applied.
The words appeared again, clearer this time.
My heart hammered.
Lira stared at the empty gate, then at me.
"Are we next?" she asked.
Her voice was small. Not childish. Just honest.
Fear without the ability to hide behind systems.
I looked at her hand gripping my arm.
Warm.
Alive.
And suddenly the thought of losing her was sharper than any blade had ever been.
"If we do nothing," I said quietly, "yes."
She swallowed hard.
Then she straightened, as if deciding something.
"Then we don't do nothing," she said.
It should have sounded brave and dramatic.
It didn't.
It sounded like a promise spoken by someone who was terrified and refused to surrender anyway.
A pulse moved through the air.
Subtle.
Like a heartbeat under the village.
I felt it pass through me, cold and searching, like the world was looking for pieces that didn't belong.
Lira shivered.
"The air feels… heavy," she whispered.
"It's scanning," I said.
"How do you know that?"
Because I had lived long enough inside this prison to recognize its breath.
I didn't answer.
The bell tower creaked.
Up above, the sky dimmed slightly, as if clouds were forming where none had been a moment ago.
Not weather.
Pressure.
The system tightening its grip.
Correcting.
Removing.
And I realized something with a certainty that made my stomach twist.
The crack in the forest hadn't just introduced something new.
It had frightened the system.
And frightened systems didn't negotiate.
They erased.
Lira's fingers slipped into mine again, this time deliberately.
"Ren," she whispered, "tell me what we should do."
For a moment I couldn't breathe.
Not because of fear.
Because I hadn't heard anyone ask me that in forty-eight lives.
Not like I mattered.
I closed my eyes, listening to the pulse under the world.
Then I opened them.
"We need to get out of the tutorial," I said.
Lira stared. "Out of it?"
"Yes," I said. "Before it decides we're the problem."
The pulse under the world quickened.
And somewhere beyond the forest, the whispering returned, faint but present, like something listening back.