In a quiet office, a middle aged man sat behind a wide desk with a document folder open across the surface, one hand flat against the paper while the other held a pen he hadn’t used yet.

The grey in his hair ran in a single streak above his left temple, sharp against the darker sections. The skin beneath his eyes sagged heavy as if he hadn’t slept for many days in a row.

His suit jacket was buttoned to the collar despite the room’s poor ventilation.

Jaren stood on the opposite side of the desk with both hands loose at his sides. The scar above his brow caught the ceiling light at an angle that made it more visible than usual.

Hwang’s gaze moved from the documents to Jaren’s face. "Officer Stolas recommended you for this mission."

"Yes, Director Hwang."

The pen tapped once against the folder’s edge. "You gained your Path three weeks ago." Hwang’s eyes dropped briefly to Jaren’s hands, then returned. "Enough control over it yet?"

"Officer Stolas wouldn’t recommend me if I hadn’t."

Sighing, Hwang reached into the folder and slid a folded sheet of paper across the desk without extending it fully, leaving the last few centimetres for Jaren to close.

"I’ll assign you a three-member team. Unfortunately, Miss Misfortune is committed elsewhere." He watched Jaren take the paper. "The Ymir plague antidote requires specific cores. Find them before the Krats secure the supply chain. Everything relevant is in that brief."

Jaren had already begun folding the paper along its crease when Hwang’s hand drummed his fingers against the desk surface.

"One more thing."

Jaren stopped.

"The prophecy rumors circulating in the lower districts." Hwang’s jaw shifted forward slightly, the muscle at the hinge of it pulling taut. "I want information. Source, spread, which Forces may be connected to it." His next words came through a tighter arrangement of teeth. "I will not have another sick god-driven catastrophe sitting in front of me before I’ve even finished the last one. One calamity is enough."

Jaren gave a single nod, tucked the paper under his arm, and moved toward the door.

The hallway outside stretched in both directions, its walls showing old stress fractures that had been filled and refilled at different points until the repairs layered over each other in pale mismatched lines.

Jaren stopped a few paces from the office door and looked down at the folded brief in his hand. He released a slow and controlled breath of relief.

"Haaa." His voice stayed low, aimed at the floor. "My heart’s beating so fast. Thank goodness I didn’t say anything out of line." A short laugh followed, dry at the edges.

’The director’s a real scare. How many times did that conversation go on? He threw me out twice for just stammering. Twice. Ack! Now I have a headache,’ he thought.

His system panel opened across his vision.

[Sequence 4 fully eroded.]

[Active sequence: 5.]

[Remaining sequences: 3.]

A stinging pressure behind his left eye had already started building at the base of his skull, the familiar drag that came after a rewind of using his skills. He pressed two fingers against his temple as he walked and kept moving.

---

The briefing room at the end of the east corridor held a low sofa against the left wall and a single chair opposite it.

Two of his assigned team members occupied the sofa. The third sat in the chair with his arms folded and his eyes on the middle distance.

All three wore field-grade corporate suits, the Hawks insignia pressed into the upper left breast of each jacket.

Jaren raised one hand as he stepped through the doorway. "Hello. It’s nice meeting you all."

The woman on the left end of the sofa rose to her feet after his introduction. Her hair ran in short wavy layers to her jaw, pale blonde, and her ears narrowed at the tip like that of an elf. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Crossing the room toward him, she stopped just inside a comfortable speaking distance, her red eyes moving over his face and then down across the rest of him, assessing his exterior.

"To sum it up, you’re the hot-shot who got promoted up the ranks in just a month." Her chin tilted up a fraction. "What rank are you sitting at?"

"21. It’s not—"

"Mhm. I’m at 22." She paused for exactly five seconds. "So don’t get bossy with me, Officer Cyrus."

Jaren’s shoulders tensed up.

Nose wrinkling, she broke first, the seriousness dropping off her face as she burst out laughing. Her arm hooked around his shoulders and pulled him sideways into her side. "I’m kidding! I’m kidding! Hahaha! Look at your face right now! You’re absolutely burning up, aren’t you."

The tension left his posture, relieved that he wasn’t picked on. He laughed, and let himself be pulled.

The red-eyes lady released him just as easily and turned back toward the sofa, already talking.

She pointed to herself. "Seven. That’s my name. The grimly decorated statue of a man over there is Five, he communicates through expression alone, best of luck with that."

The man in the chair didn’t move.

Seven’s hand swung left. "And she’s—"

"Two." The second woman on the sofa cut in. Her hair dissected in two brown buns high on either side of her head and her eyes were wide and dark, looking quite younger than her tone build suggested. "Nice to meet you."

Seven, Five, and Two. Jaren thought about the name. If anything, they should have some sort of connection among them. But they had no ounce of resemblance. "Are you really siblings?" he blurted out.

But it was too late to take back what he said. Even with how Seven stared at him as if he asked a wrong question that he really shouldn’t have asked.

"Pfft! No." Seven disregarded, waving a hand dismissively. "We’re all victims who forgot our names and just went with the flow."

Jaren found no words to say. Confusion filled him. What the hell did she mean by that.

Then Seven laughed again, pulling him closer, her body heat radiating off him as she said, "I’m kidding. I’m kidding! This faction’s not that creative with names, you know? It’s just an inside joke!"

’An inside joke?’ Jaren closed his mouth, looked down at the folded brief, and decided to move on.

Besides, she said exactly the same thing when he reversed the time.

[Remaining Sequences: 2]

---

At last, Jaren’s newly formed team were in a rainforest, covered with nothing but green trees and taller trees, filtering the sunlight above them.

In front of them was a casino building, its architecture completely wrong for the environment surrounding it— wide white facades, decorative columns, broken down signage.

Two trees had grown through the lower section of the east wall at some point and now leaned into the structure at a forward angle, their root systems lifting the ground in ridged mounds.

Two cocked her head back as she took the full height of the structure in. "This is the game arena?" Her voice quieter than the surrounding insects. "It’s enormous."

Rolling her neck in a slow circle until something cracked, Seven stretched both arms overhead, fingers spread. "Even the trees are growing through it sideways." She dropped her arms and yawned into the back of her wrist. "Right. Right. Let’s get things over with. I wanna go back to the base soon and relax. No dying, everyone!"

She turned toward Jaren and pointed at her own temple. "You can intercept anything coming at us, yeah? Spidey sense or something along those lines? Warn us before the danger comes?"

The light in Jaren’s eyes dimmed. "Yeah," he said. "Something like that."

"Nice! I’m counting on you, hot-shot."

They went in through the main entrance.

In an instant, they teleported. A wide flash of blue-white compressed the air out from under their feet completely, blinding them and dropped them somewhere else entirely.

Opening an eye, Jaren saw himself in what seemed to be a white room.

A large blue screen lit up.

[Hmm. There Seems To Be An Issue.]

Five’s hand went straight to his weapon.

[This Game Is Currently In Session. But That’s Alright!]

"In session?" they all gasped in unison.

[The More, The Merrier!]

[Welcome To The Game: The Fool’s Euphoria!]

[Difficulty: SS.]

[Previous Players: 11]

[Calculating Current Players: 15!]

[ "Oh, how many more special players could we get!" ]

When the new environment opened in front of them, it was wider, the interior, ceiling lost somewhere in the dark above.

The floor was wrong underfoot, tacky in places and dry-cracked in others.

Immediately, Jaren covered his nose with his shirt. The smell coming from here was unbearable.

It was something he knew too well. Copper.

Blood.

He processed the bodies across the floor in the same moment his vision sharpened.

Across the room, unhurt, with dark hair falling loose against the back of his neck and blood across his clothes was a young man who was smiling.

Gagging, Jaren’s stomach tightened. "What the hell happened here?"

The young man’s eyes hadn’t moved toward them yet. He was looking at something on the floor near his feet with an expression of complete and private satisfaction.

An unlucky event.