I woke up roughly four hours later.

Not because I had slept enough and risen naturally, but because someone was hammering on my door with the kind of urgency that bypassed even deep sleep and went straight for my nervous system.

"Who is it..."

I whispered, voice still thick, dragging my feet across the floor toward the noise.

"K-Kamishiro, this is bad...!" And unsurprisingly, it was Miyabi outside.

The particular pitch of her voice—not quite panic, but adjacent to it—was enough to pull me the rest of the way awake. "Did you see the news?! Come and see it now if you haven’t!"

"News...?"

I unlocked the door and opened it carefully. The moment I did, Miyabi practically lunged forward, pressing her phone to my face with both hands.

"Huh? Wait, what...?"

I leaned my head back just enough to get the screen into focus.

It was a short news clip, timestamped from earlier that morning. A female anchor delivering the headline with a grimmer expression than the usual morning broadcast warranted.

Something about a newly discovered variety of dog—ferocious, bizarre in behavior—that had ended up on the train tracks last night and nearly caused a major accident.

But that wasn’t what had Miyabi hammering on my door at this hour.

It was the dog’s appearance.

A famished, weakened mutt. Body covered in large, swollen blisters filled with green liquid. The kind of image that, once you had seen it, didn’t particularly want to leave.

"This..."

I knew exactly what that was.

The girls wouldn’t mistake it either.

We had spent the better part of the previous night killing things that looked nearly identical inside the dungeon—though this wasn’t a rat, but a dog. A Plague Canine.

"No way." I frowned, hard. "No matter how I look at it, this is way too early..."

On the previous timeline, the earliest monster appearance had been detected roughly three months into the game’s launch—around March, halfway through the time limit before things started accelerating. But right now, only three days had passed since launch.

Even accounting for the fact that I had reset everything, even accepting that some divergence was inevitable—this was still a gap I hadn’t prepared for. Three days versus three months. The difference wasn’t a deviation. It was a completely different scale altogether.

And that was a problem.

"Is this the same as what you told us...?" Miyabi asked, brows furrowed tight with worry.

I watched the clip once more, all the way through, before nodding. "Yeah. No doubt—it’s a Plague Canine. A minor monster that appears after the game starts bleeding into reality."

Previously, monster appearances had come slowly, as if the game world was cautiously testing the boundaries before committing. Introduced inch by inch, giving players time to orient themselves and the general population time to remain blissfully unaware.

If this timeline followed the same pattern, the frequency of sightings wouldn’t increase dramatically in the short term.

But that was a big if.

A lot of things had already diverged from what I knew.

In fact, at this point, the number of things that had remained consistent with my memories was considerably smaller than the number of things that hadn’t. The gap was widening with every passing day, and I had no reliable way of knowing where it would stop.

Worst case—and this was the scenario I genuinely didn’t want to sit with—monsters started appearing in volume over the next few days, while players were still fumbling through the beginner areas and the general public had absolutely no idea what was coming.

That kind of gap between threat level and readiness didn’t just cause casualties. It caused cities to disappear from maps.

"...I need to check this out." I declared, returning the phone to Miyabi.

"What do you plan to do?" She asked, her worry not diminishing at all.

I knew what she was thinking about, of course.

Our real-world stats were nowhere near what our in-game numbers suggested.

Even I was sitting at barely 1 point across all stats in reality right now—physical strength on par with a level one player, no more. Walking out to confront a mutated game monster with those numbers was objectively dangerous.

Though it would be considerably more dangerous if the situation had already escalated beyond a lone Plague Canine wandering onto a set of train tracks.

If something larger had already appeared—or worse, if the source of it was still active—then delaying the scouting even a few hours could cost more than I was willing to calculate.

To settle my worries either way, I needed to see the site.

"Just checking things out." I answered flatly. "You should go to college today. I’ll handle this myself. Wait for news."

But just as I turned to head back inside and change—

"Wait!" Miyabi’s hand shot out and caught the nape of my shirt. "I’m coming too!" She insisted, her grip making it clear this wasn’t a request.

I waved my free hand, trying to reason with her. "No, I can handle it."

"I’m coming too! That’s final!" She countered, without a single moment of hesitation.

"..."

There was no convincing her. I had known that before I even opened my mouth, if I was being honest. I sighed, let it go, and resigned myself to the company.

Let’s just pray that my worst fears don’t come true.

---

After I changed clothes, I waited ten minutes for Miyabi to finish hers.

Along with her came Ram, Gwen, and Sunny, all three dressed in casual sportswear that somehow still managed to look coordinated. Standing together like that, they gave off a vaguely idol-group energy. The visuals were undeniable.

Walking around in public with the four of them was going to draw attention no matter what I did, and that was precisely the last thing we needed today.

"Wear these first." I said, handing out a set of disposable facemasks to the androids.

With half their faces covered, they’d draw considerably less stopping-and-staring from passersby. Buying that pack of disposable masks had turned out to be one of the better small decisions I’d made recently.

Miyabi put one on herself as well, without being asked. She was self-aware enough to know her face created its own gravitational pull in public spaces.

With preparations done, we headed out toward the station.

The sighting had occurred near the premises of Edogawabashi Station, so we rode the train until there. Since the three androids didn’t have transit cards, I just tapped mine multiple times at the gate for each of them in turn.

I wasn’t short on money, and getting them cards would’ve involved a processing chain I didn’t have the patience for—IDs, registration, the whole mess.

The ride was short. A few stops, the familiar rhythm of the train, and then we were stepping out onto the platform.

From the news coverage, I had half expected the area to feel different—quieter, some ambient unease bleeding into the foot traffic. But the flow of people around Edogawabashi looked almost completely normal.

If anything, people seemed unbothered. The existence of the Plague Canine had registered for them about as much as a minor traffic delay: briefly noted, already forgotten.

It was a strange thing to observe, and not entirely comforting.

After leaving the station, we gathered at the fence line and I oriented the group.

"We’ll be following the tracks east, toward where the creature was found. Tell me if you find anything suspicious—anything at all, whatever it looks like."

I turned to Miyabi specifically, and held the look for a moment. "Safety first. Understood?"

"Got it." She nodded, expression settling into something serious and steady.

"Yes, Master."

"Gwen understands, Master."

"Sunny will follow Master’s will!"

The other three confirmed without delay.

Then we moved, keeping to the allowed roads while maintaining a sightline to the tracks above. The search was deliberately open-ended—what I was hoping not to find came in too many shapes and sizes to be useful to describe, so I didn’t try.

We checked the pathways, the nearby trees, the river running alongside the route, the buildings flanking it, anything that broke the expected texture of the environment.

We listened for sounds that didn’t belong—under the car noise and conversation and the constant low push of the river current. We worked through every gap and angle we could reach on foot.

Nothing.

Even after arriving at the precise spot where the Plague Canine’s body had reportedly fallen, there was no trace of anything useful. No residue, no secondary tracks, no sign of where the thing had come from. It was as if it had simply materialized on the tracks, panicked, and died there.

"Weird..." I muttered, more to myself than anyone. "Where did that mutt even come from? Did it fall out of the sky?"

Just as the confusion was starting to compound, Sunny tugged at my sleeve.

"Master, Master. There’s something weird over there." She said quietly, pointing. "Can you please check?"

"Huh?"

I followed her finger.

She was pointing at the river below—specifically at the near bank, just within the deep shadow cast by the wall running alongside it. Something was there. At a casual glance it would read as nothing, just the natural pooling of shadow in a sheltered corner.

But my eyes weren’t that easy to fool.

"That is...!"

I felt the breath catch in my chest. Sunny had found exactly what I had spent the last hour hoping I wouldn’t find. I pressed my lips together, staring hard at the darkness sitting quietly in that shadow, and felt the dread of confirmed suspicion settle in like cold water.

"That’s a rift!"

Unluckily, my worst fears actually came true.