Takeshi slipped into a stretch of stairs in the north wing of the building that no one used because it connected the third floor with a storage room that remained locked.

The hallway leading to those stairs had no classrooms, just a wall with old bulletin boards and a curtainless window at the end. In the days he had been at the school, he hadn’t seen anyone pass through there.

He leaned against the hallway wall, checked that no one was around, and spoke in a low voice.

"Need to talk."

The god’s voice answered him.

"Two days in a row. You’re breaking your own self-sufficiency record."

"I have a specific question."

"Go ahead."

"The names Aoi and Yuki are similar to mine and Akari’s."

Takeshi paused.

"So why are there names like Nyx and Merwyn?"

After a brief silence, the deity replied.

"Good observation."

"It’s not a compliment, it’s a question."

"I know."

The voice sounded slightly more animated.

"The answer is that I don’t choose the characters’ names by myself."

Takeshi waited.

"The viewers can vote."

"And the result was Solynmar Nyx and Lansholt Merwyn?"

"Unanimous."

Takeshi processed that.

"Unanimous among how many votes?"

"Everyone who voted."

"How many voted?"

"That’s internal production information."

"So you’re not going to tell me."

"Correct."

Takeshi looked at the window at the end of the hallway.

It wasn’t the first time the game had elements that depended on the viewers. He had already seen donations, real-time chat comments, and the deity had mentioned before that the audience’s reactions influenced certain decisions. Having secondary characters’ names voted on was an extension of the same thing. It was strange, but consistent with the system’s logic.

What still didn’t add up was the level of intervention. Letting viewers vote on the name of an elf who had just appeared was something else entirely. The scale was completely different.

’What else can they vote on?’

He was about to ask that when the deity spoke first.

"There’s an update in the shop. A new item has been available since this morning."

Takeshi opened the [SHOP] panel.

[Capsule of Sanity — Recovers 10% sanity. Single use. Cost: 1 point]

[Quick Teleport — Takes you immediately to a nearby point. Single use. Cost: 1 point]

[Healing Drink — Recovers health. Single use. Cost: 1 point]

[NEW] [Reset Button — 8 points]

He looked at the new item and asked.

"What does the reset button do?"

"It’s a reset button."

"That doesn’t tell me anything." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"I know."

Takeshi stared at the panel for a moment longer and then closed it.

"What does it do specifically?"

"It resets."

"Resets what?"

Takeshi waited in silence for several seconds.

"You still there?"

No one answered.

He pushed away from the wall and looked down the hallway in both directions, confirming he was alone.

Takeshi stood still in the hallway for a moment.

Eight points was all the points he currently had.

’That price is pretty expensive...’

After that, Takeshi headed home.

The next day, on the way to the library, he kept thinking about what the god had told him.

He had an item in the shop that cost eight points, had no description, and was called a reset button.

"Reset" could mean very different things depending on what it reset. It could be an enormous advantage or something that created more problems than it solved.

’The deity disappeared right when I asked what it does.’

That could mean it didn’t want to explain, or it could mean the answer was part of the entertainment for the viewers and discovering it in the moment was the point.

Neither option gave him useful information right now.

Takeshi stopped overthinking it and continued on to meet Nyx, who was probably already waiting for him.

He had a long list of unresolved things and none of them would be solved in the next forty minutes, but what he could make progress on was magic—the clearest deficit in his combat stats and the only problem of the day with a concrete solution available.

The rest would still be there when the session ended.