Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 179: Mnemosyne Remembers

The school surveillance system, a network of enchanted crystals humming with passive observation, recorded an unusual movement in the pre-dawn hours following the first snow.

A certain female student was captured on multiple feeds in a nightgown hastily covered by a thrown-on coat, her feet bare in slippers, running in desperate, looping patterns across the pristine white school grounds.

She moved with a frantic energy that spoke of panic, not purpose, her head whipping from side to side as if searching for a landmark in a suddenly alien landscape.

Her first target was the male dormitory. The footage showed her bursting through the main doors, ignoring the curfew violation alarms, and sprinting down a specific corridor.

She stopped at a particular door and hammered on it, her knocks echoing in the silent hall.

When no answer came, because, well, the room, according to all records, had been vacant since the start of the school year, she didn’t pause. A flare of cerulean light, harsh and unauthorized, lanced from her hand. The lock shattered with a sound like cracking ice, and the door swung inward.

She stood on the threshold, staring into the emptiness. The room was stark, clean, devoid of life or personal effect. An unused space. The hope visibly drained from her posture. Shoulders slumping, she turned and walked back out.

By now, the commotion had drawn a handful of bleary-eyed male students from their rooms, rubbing sleep from their eyes. The female student approached them, her movements jerky. She asked questions, her mouth moving rapidly, her gestures wild.

But the security crystal’s audio enchantment, tuned for clarity in emergencies, captured only a distorted, fuzzy murmur. Whatever name she uttered, whatever description she gave, was swallowed by the void.

The faces of the students reflected only confusion and growing alarm at her distress. Seeing no recognition in their eyes, she shook her head, a violent, disbelieving motion, and fled back into the frozen morning.

The footage then became a heartbreaking montage of futile search. She ran to the princess’s dorm, where a longer, more agitated conversation took place in the doorway.

The Princess’s face, initially annoyed at being woken, shifted to concern, then to a helpless, bewildered frustration that mirrored her friend’s. Again, the audio failed. Again, the female student left empty-handed.

She scoured the waking cafeteria, confronting the early staff with the same frantic inquiries. She checked courtyards dusted in white, peered into empty classrooms and cold laboratories, her path a scribble of despair across the map of the Athenaeum.

Her last resort within the school walls was the headmaster’s office. She banged on the heavy door with both fists. Finding it locked, the official day not yet begun, she turned and ran toward the faculty quarters.

She finally intercepted Headmaster Lazuardi just as he was leaving his residence. The footage showed a lengthy exchange on his doorstep.

Cecilia spoke with fierce, gesticulating intensity. Lazuardi’s expression moved from startled annoyance to deep, pondering confusion, and finally to a reluctant resolve.

He didn’t return inside to dress properly. Still in his night robe with only a thick outdoor mantle thrown over it, he nodded, placed a steadying hand on her trembling shoulder, and led her away, their figures growing smaller as they moved toward the town and its public teleportation gate.

The morning, after this strange, silent storm, returned to its usual tranquil rhythm. Students began to crisscross the snowy paths. The sun rose, glinting off the white blanket.

Like nothing was wrong.

Like nothing was missing.

Because the only soul who remembered the loss, who felt the shape of the hole in the world, had already left to search for its source elsewhere.

Only to find nothing, anywhere.

***

Professor Baswara and Headmaster Lazuardi stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway of the guest room, a shared conflict etched on their faces.

Before them, the brilliant, formidable Cecilia Araceli, top student, initiator of vertigo of the former headmaster, was curled on the bare wooden floorboards beside the neatly made, empty bed, weeping as if her soul were being torn in two.

This room in Baswara’s residence was for guests. It had always been for guests. A spare, tidy space that held the faint scent of dust and disuse. At least... that was what Baswara, and his junior Lazuardi, clearly remembered.

That was why, this morning, when a wild-eyed, frost-tipped Cecilia had found Lazuardi and uttered that phrase—"The Key Bearer... you know about the Key Bearer, right?"—a specific, academic part of Lazuardi’s mind had clicked into gear.

It was a term from obscure, theoretical mytho-historical research, a pet project shared between him, Baswara, and two other scholars. He remembered the parameters. A random sacrifice every century, death upon the first snow after a twentieth birthday, followed by total ontological erasure.

Last night had been the first snow.

The myth, perhaps, was not a myth?

But why would this girl, this student of all people, be hunting this phantom? How did she know to come to them? And why, upon being brought to Baswara’s house and shown this innocuous, unused room, did she shatter into this devastating grief?

Cecilia turned her tear-streaked face up to them, her blue-green-grey eyes pools of devastation. "Professor," she choked out. "Didn’t we have dinner together the day before yesterday?"

Baswara knelt, his old joints creaking, his expression one of profound paternal concern. "Yes, Cecilia. You just passed your incredible initiation under my tutelage. So you asked for a celebration here. You invited everyone you know, the princess, her boyfriend, and even Serayu and Lazuardi."

He reached out as if to pat her head, then hesitated, his brow furrowed deeper. "What’s wrong, lass? Can you explain to us what is actually happening?"

You invited everyone you know.

The princess, her boyfriend.

Serayu and Lazuardi.

Her eyes widened. The list was complete. And yet, to Cecilia’s ears, it was a catastrophic omission. A name was missing. A presence, a chair, a laugh, a person was absent from his recounting.

Their memory... had been seamlessly rewritten. All presence of him... had been scoured away.

A fresh wave of agony wracked her. She buried her face in her hands, her body convulsing with sobs she could no longer contain. "You mean... everything... everything about him truly—"

DING!

[Cecilia, we are sorry for the error. Transfer!Oathran has been erased from this world. You will not be able to complete the tasks anymore. Would you like to exit this world?]

[Yes/No]

The prompt hovered in her vision, a garish sign in the darkness of her despair.

This—

Even the System...?