"Be quiet." She warned again, this time more intentionally, the tone of someone who knew exactly what happened when things got loud.
For a moment, we just remained in that still position, her hand covering my mouth, her index finger pressed to her lips in a shush, while whatever zombie was on the other side of the door kept banging at it like it had made a personal commitment to this activity.
It took a few minutes before the banging stopped. But the relieving part of it was that it stopped. Eventually. Then she pulled away from me and moved up the stairway like she'd done this before.
"They're gone." She took a seat on one of the staircases, settling in like someone who'd been surviving here long enough to know which steps were comfortable. "You're safe now."
Maybe she looked like she was expecting a thank you. But I never said one. Originally, I wasn't the kind of guy to show gratitude. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't ego or belief-driven— it was just a bad habit I couldn't shake at this point. A personality defect I'd made peace with.
Moreover, the words 'thank you' weren't exactly in line with my thought process at that moment. Something deeper and less appreciative was moving in there. Confusion. Questions. And the nagging, unsolvable fact of this redhead's face looking like something I should recognise.
"Are you an NPC?" I asked, because apparently, the question 'do I know you' would've sounded more absurd. Situationally speaking.
"That's the new title for extras, I guess." She sighed, placing an arm over her wounded shoulder. Then she studied me for a second. "I'm guessing you also are—"
"I'm the main player."
She raised an eyebrow at me. The same way you'd look at someone who'd just said the craziest thing ever. Unbelievably.
"What?"
"You don't want to be that guy." She said, her tone foreboding. "He's the whole reason why we're both in here."
I didn't know what she was talking about, but I just nodded anyway, like I actually understood. My brain couldn't put the pieces together still. I was about to give up and ask her what she meant when she moved on to something else entirely.
"How many minutes are left on your timer?" She asked, pulling out a bandage roll from somewhere in her clothes.
How does she know I have a timer?
"About fifty minutes," I said, glancing at the system screen for a quick confirmation. The numbers matched. "By the way, how long have you been in here?"
I watched her loosen her shirt buttons, about to pull it off. And then she looked up at me, issued a pair of acknowledging eyes.
"Turn around."
"Uh, sure." I turned around in agreement, but I never agreed not to turn back and glance at her once in a while.
I guess that's what happens when you think you aren't being influenced by the perverts in your school.
"I've been in here for so long, I pretty much lost count." She said as she wrapped the bandage around her shoulders and down her arm. "Hopefully, this time, I'll complete this node."
I turned back to her. By now, she was done wrapping her wounds up. "By chance, did you get revived every time you failed the node?" I thought about asking, because she'd mentioned getting it right this time.
What Amelia had told me after all was that revival wasn't possible in this tournament. That once dead, there was no extra life, and that the death remained permanent even in reality. How then was she talking about extra chances?
"I guess?" She replied, unsure of her own answer. "Every time that stupid zombie boss killed me, I just kept being brought back to this stairway."
Like a reversal, apparently. Maybe the rules didn't count for NPC characters after all. Developers always had a method of reserving the highest stakes for the main players. And dying in reality was just one of those stakes.
But it was still quite weird. The feeling that I'd seen her somewhere before still didn't leave my brain. The picture before me right then— a red-haired girl in a blood-soaked uniform— the image struck a resemblance in my head, something I couldn't quite decode. Like a word sitting at the tip of your tongue and refusing to come out.
"What's your name?"
"Paula." That name. Even something about it sounded familiar — something that held tales in the line of Silvic High's dark history. The problem was, there were too many dark histories to pick from. "You?"
I raised an eyebrow, in a split-second effort for mental purchase. "I'm Ren."
"Well, Ren, here's the deal." She stood, determination set in her eyes. "We complete this node together by defeating the zombie boss. After that, we figure out how to survive the other nodes."
If I remember correctly, Amelia had mentioned that NPCs were dangerous and would try to kill me at some point. Even if this girl — Paula — had a huge pattern of recognition I couldn't quite decipher, I still couldn't bring myself to just trust her.
Moreover, from what I'd understood so far, this whole system setup was just an illusion. If she was here, she was probably a replication of some real-life character — someone placed here to trick and ambush me at the most convenient time possible.
Nice try, system.
I had the option of being three steps ahead of her. Observe her movements. Use her for the boss fight. Kill her after it was dead. After all, I didn't know how tough the zombie boss actually was. If it had been cycling her on repetitive mode for this long, it probably needed two people to go down. I just needed to play along.
At least until I completed this node and had the hang of how things worked in this tournament. I needed guidance. Even if it came with a potential betrayal attached.
"How do you plan to beat it?" I asked, activating precaution mode.
"I dunno. I guess we'd just hit it until it becomes weak."
"And how did that work out the last few times." I lowered my eyes at her. "If we're gonna beat this thing, we're gonna do it on my terms. Unlike you, I'm not ready to risk my life just to test my attack moves."
She folded her arms, and a thin smile made its way up her lips. "And how do you plan to beat it, genius?"
"Well..." I thought for a while with my fingers on my chin. And eventually, I came down to the first and only answer in my head. I looked up at her. "We use you as bait."
"What?"
"Hear me out, okay?" I said in an attempt to calm her storm before it struck. "All this time, you've been going head-to-head with a monster who'd do anything to feed. And that's the problem. Instead of going for its weakness, you're treating the monster like a noble combat master. Playing a fair game with a zombie boss."
NPCs and their traditional methods. I'd had enough of it at this point.
"So, you're saying you're going to try to feed me to the monster— just so you can attack it?"
"I'm saying surprise attacks deal more damage than an attack that was readily prepared for. It's simple. We just need to make the zombie guy think his pals brought him lunch. And trust me, most people feel comfortable while having lunch. I don't see how that'd be any different in the case of a monster."
Paula seemed to put this into consideration. She did that long blank stare that decided how things were going to go eventually. Not that she had much of an option anyway. It was a pretty smart idea. At least smarter than her battle-rush strategy, which had clearly been working great.
"Alright, fine." She said. "But I'm landing the attack. You're the bait."
"Wait, what?" I wanted to argue, but she'd already started moving. "Wait, you don't understand!"
"I can't trust your strength, dude. You're new to this. You probably have no idea how strong that thing up there is."
"Up there?" I glanced up the stairway. "The boss has been up there all this time?"
Now that gave me some real chills. The rooftop was about two to three floors away from us, and if the boss had been up there the whole time, it only meant that this stairway — Paula's supposed safe zone — wasn't actually safe at all. It never was.
Paula didn't seem concerned about that. She was already heading up the stairs, sword in hand. A common type of sword, I guessed. About the same length as mine, edges glowing with that same density that already explained everything about the weapon — which was nothing much.
"Wait!" I called after her. "We don't even have a detailed plan yet."
Apparently, she wasn't a fan of strategy. The look on her face as she ignored me and continued moving was something completely ambitious. An angry determination. She had unfinished business with this monster. The kind that made a person stop listening.
I didn't bother stopping her anymore. I knew she wasn't going to. I just followed behind her, defensively gripping my sword— at least the way I'd seen characters do in movies, which was probably not the technical hold but felt correct.
When we got to the top, she approached the escape hatch with stealth, twisting the lock open as quietly as she could. The moment the door opened, cold air slammed against my teeth. The kind of cold that reminded you of being stuck on an ice desert during winter.
Except that nothing outside looked like winter. Dull evening sun. Vibrant green trees in the distance. And on the rooftop — a seven-foot-tall giant monster that looked like it was generating something from its scaly body.
"The...hell...is that?"
Paula didn't hesitate. She pushed me out while I was still busy trying to process— snatching my sword from me. And before I could turn back and argue, she waved her fingers at me and slammed the door shut.
"Hey—!"