Archive of Our Own

How could Dejun have said no to this city?

Here, take a look. Glowing paths, cars hovering off asphalt as a train hurtles by, sunlight glinting in the glass windows of buildings disappearing into clouds. 

Turn around. Holograms shifting and morphing on every corner, cloudy crystal balls suspended in the air. 

Blink, just once. Sparks flying from two clashing blades, shimmering violet lava in a cauldron.

This city is alive, always changing, and Dejun is in the midst of it. Its name is—

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING - LAVAN

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY?

WELCOME BACK, PLAYER DJ808.

“Nice work,” Renjun grins, pushing himself away from the screen, “mala before we head back? I think I have a discount voucher somewhere in my bag.”

Dejun is leaning into his own screen, scrutinising his statistics. A moment passes, then two, as Renjun powers down the PC and pulls his coat on. Dejun is still stuck in the same position, statue-like apart from his eyes flitting over the numbers and bars next to his avatar.

Renjun leans over Dejun’s shoulder, peering at the screen, and nudges Dejun lightly. The contact makes him jump, and Renjun pulls back with a frown. “You okay? Your stats are fine, we just didn’t manage to take out all the minions at the third checkpoint, but it doesn’t do much to either of our points—look, you’re still first on the leaderboard, I’m still second. What’s wrong?”

By now, Dejun had gone back to staring at the screen, unmoving. He raises a hand to wave Renjun away carelessly, “No, I just think there’s something I can adjust to do better. It’s fine, let’s go another day. We could even get more people to come along, since we never manage to finish the food anyway.”

“Well...alright. Don’t stay too long, don’t you have an early class tomorrow?”

Renjun leaves then, the bells on the glass door of the PC room ringing out loudly in his wake. It’s close to midnight and Dejun does have an early class the next day. He can’t exactly afford to be up so late, so why was he still here, the colours and movements of Lavan reflecting off his glasses? Still, the innermost corner booth of the PC room, hidden away from direct view, is much warmer than the snowy trek Dejun has to take back to the dorms. Stats or not, Dejun would rather just stay here. He’s so, so tired - maybe a nap would be nice. Just ten minutes, and he’ll power down the PC, just like Renjun had done, and trudge his way back to his dorm.

The PC room empties, bells jingling against the door with every customer that leaves, and with the arrival of the morning shift staff with cups of coffee and pats on the back for their graveyard shift co-workers.

Someone’s there in the inner corner of the PC room, glasses askew, head resting on his arms, with the lights of Lavan flashing down at him on the screen. A white-haired character in long, carefully arranged robes pops up on the screen. His eyes, blue as the azure accents on his unusual attire, wander around, looking at the sides of the screen before narrowing at a point below him. It’s almost as if he’s peering at the figure slumped in front of the monitor.

As for Dejun - he isn’t there anymore, not really.

“—hear me? Wake up, Dejun!” Blearily, Dejun cracks an eye open, only to groan and slap a hand over his eyes to block out the sunlight hitting his face. He must have forgotten to close the curtains again—

“Dejun?”

Dejun lives alone. Renjun’s holding onto his only extra set of keys, and Renjun has a morning class today he’d never miss.

He shoots upright, now wide awake and unblinking in the light. A man, perched primly on top of the low table across him, startles at the sudden movement. Dejun vaguely registers that one, this man is, for some obscure reason, wearing actual, traditional robes; and two, this cannot be his dingy and unfortunately overpriced dorm room. Neither of those are really of much concern to him right now, though. The voice that woke him up is now telling him about missions in his inbox and something about a weapon but it’s not...robe man speaking.

“Do you hear that?” Dejun blurts out when the voice pauses for a moment, “Who’s talking about weapons and stuff?”

Robe man, still a little frozen in his earlier flinch, fixes Dejun with a knowing look. “Yes, but only the two of us can hear him. That’s Kun, and he serves as a guide for magical players like you.”

“Um,” Dejun replies, utterly lost and convinced that this is probably a dream, “magical players?”

The other stretches, before standing and holding out a hand that Dejun takes hesitantly. “Yeah, magical players. I’m Taeyong, by the way! Welcome to Lavan.”

It’s this handshake that makes Dejun recognise, with more than a little bit of horror, that this is real —Taeyong’s hand in his is very much solid. The clothes on him, as well—his heavy jacket is nowhere in sight, and the turtleneck and jeans he remembers last wearing has been swapped out for a plain t-shirt and rough, scratchy cargo pants.

Taeyong, without missing a beat, gives him a very fast, very animated run-down of what he can and should do in-game. Here’s how to pull up your information screen, and then your stats panel, do this to open your inventory, then close it like this, the map is here, mailbox there, tap this to get that. "Any questions?" Taeyong beams at Dejun, who, frankly, remembered nothing from the introduction. "I can't stick around for long because I have plenty of people to welcome, but Kun should give you things to do!"

Dejun nods, peeling his gaze away from the holographic screen floating in front of him, which has his health bar displayed, amongst other stats Dejun fortunately recognises and knows how to read. “So you’re telling me I’m just stuck in Lavan now? Why? And how am I supposed to stay alive - I was last in a PC room, is my body just there, what if people think I’m dead— ”

“Woah!” Taeyong laughs a little, silvery and light, catching a now frantic Dejun by the shoulders, “That’s a lot of questions, but I saw that coming anyway. Yes, you live in Lavan now, but you know this place really well, right? Since you’ve spent so much time playing the game? Your body...I took care of that, and it doesn’t really exist back there anymore, so there’s no need to be worried. Lavan is open for you to explore, and you can go out there and experience all of it! Exactly like how you used to play it, just that you’re doing it in first person now. Simple, right?”

Dejun, not at all reassured by this information, falls backwards onto the sofa he first woke up on. Despite Taeyong’s valiant efforts to make him feel welcomed and comfortable, this all was a lot to take in. He can’t even remember if he left his tap running at home, and he’s never going to be able to catch up with his classes again. Think positively , he tells himself, and lifts his head again to ask, “how do I get back, then?”

Taeyong’s encouraging smile falters, and he looks down at his clasped hands, wringing them together. “There...isn’t a way to. Believe me, there isn’t. There’s no particular reason why you’re here too. I’m sorry, Dejun, but that’s all I can tell you about this.” he mumbles, tone a little stiff but gentle all the same.

A moment of silence, before Taeyong excuses himself, telling Dejun that he has other duties to see to. Dejun watches as the front door clicks shut and as Taeyong steps out into the open, robes so pristinely white he almost blends in with the afternoon sunlight, the hem trailing behind him a little. Funnily enough, Dejun almost feels abandoned, left alone in a completely foreign world, even if one he was technically familiar with—Dejun’s mind is still stuck in a foggy haze.

Still, it’s only now that Dejun takes in his surroundings. He’s in a house, he concludes, seeing as he’s on the ground floor, with a yard outside his window, and the view outside comprises house after house along a road, though in various states of personalisation. One has strange contraptions attached to the roof, and another one has...a cauldron, simmering with a violently orange broth and yet another with a hammer pounding away at...a longsword floating just above the front porch. Common sights in Lavan , Dejun notes grimly, but definitely not in real life . His own home - Dejun realises with a wince - is comparatively barren. There really isn’t much furniture inside, just that sofa and the coffee table, a bigger worktable, two chairs, and a tiny, clearly new cauldron. He looks down at the holographic panel, which tells him that he’s currently in COTTAGE, LVL. 1. A quick glance beyond the window—the panel follows his line of vision—confirms that his neighbours occupy quarters of much higher levels.

Miserably, Dejun waves the panel away, though it takes him a few tries to actually get it right. Familiar as he is with Lavan, this situation certainly isn’t ideal. University isn’t something he’ll have to deal with again, he supposes, but the knowledge that he likely won’t see his family, his friends, Renjun ever again...is rather nauseating. Dejun decides that he needs a distraction fast , but is, frankly, at a loss about what to do. Who wouldn’t be, after getting sucked into a MMORPG, even if one’s favourite?

Just as Dejun is about to have his third existential crisis since waking up, a cough is heard, resonating in the empty room. Dejun whips his head around, panicked, before remembering that this is a game and, well, these things happen. “It’s just me,” the voice sighs, “Taeyong introduced me, remember?”

Ah , Dejun does remember now. “Um, Kun, was it? You’re...supposed to give me things to do…?”

Kun, in response, launches into another speech about daily missions Dejun can complete. Today’s tasks include “getting to know Genesia” and “forging your own weapon”. Dejun remembers all this from when he first started out in Lavan, though it’s taking a lot more time since he can’t skip past the dialogue - monologue, rather. Genesia, is, of course, the district every Lavan player first encounters as an introduction to the game, and weapon building is a special part of the whole Lavan experience. Each weapon is mostly unique to every player, with the game offering players the opportunity to fully customise their own weapon—if they were up for it, of course. Dejun, having played with the tech preset, made himself a pretty good pistol based off the in-game template and loaded it with tech enhancements, but he’s seen his fair share of niche weapons like…shurikens. Strange, but still functional.

“Dejun, did you hear me? I said that you can do whatever you want with your weapon, just make sure it functions magically. You’re a magical player now, don’t forget.”

Dejun did not, in fact, hear, and in response he smiles sheepishly to no one in particular. This smile quickly melts off - “did you just say magical ?” 

A muffled scuffling is audible, before a loud microphone feedback resounds throughout the house and a new, child-like voice chimes in, “You heard him right! Please stop asking questions. We have a lot to do other than spoon feed you with instructions, so run along! Go explore the city.”

“Sorry about...that,” Kun sighs. Dejun can almost hear him gritting his teeth. “But he’s right, go explore the city, don’t forget that you’re a mage. I really am sorry about all this, Dejun, but there are things in this game nobody can explain.”

There is nothing left for Dejun to do, then, other than do what he’s been told.

And just minutes after he stepped out and squinted in the sunlight, and he hates to admit it, but Dejun is very, very lost. Genesia should be like an old friend, he remembers, but there’s nothing much he can really remember about it. At some point he only aimed to complete the missions in more advanced districts, where they were more difficult but also gave him better rewards. He wanders down the street of neat, yet eccentric houses, aimless. The only thing he’s done since leaving his own is watch other magic players' potions brew in their yards and a tech player's lawn flamingos frolicking on their porch (He’s pretty sure they had to pay real money for those. Terrible way to spend money, Dejun thinks, watching one of the birds tumble down the steps.)

“Lost?” a familiar voice asks, and Dejun whirls around so fast he cracks his neck. It's just Taeyong, thankfully, similarly squinting—has Dejun mentioned how unnervingly realistic Lavan is? Everything except the magic and tech and excess of weapons is a carbon copy of the real world.

"The weapons workshop is two blocks down, just turn right at the next junction and go straight ahead. You can’t miss it.” Taeyong chirps, now leisurely ambling beside Dejun.

Dejun thanks him awkwardly, and Taeyong nods happily in response. Even with all the happenings around him and his very important task to complete, Dejun finds it impossible to ignore the bubble of silence he and Taeyong have become trapped in. This, in the real world, would call for small talk, which Dejun hates on a normal basis anyway. He sucks in a breath—

“I can go on myself from here, no need to escort me! I...know what I’m doing, and...you should get back to your duties! Um, see you next time, Taeyong!” And with that, Dejun takes off in a brisk walk, leaving a confused Taeyong behind. Fully aware of how abrupt his statement was, Dejun is way too embarrassed to look back, and doesn’t slow down until he’s standing outside his destination. 

Kicking at a pebble on the path, he grumbles to himself —how pathetic can he get? Top player on leaderboard doesn’t know his way around the most harmless, beginner-level district? Thoroughly humiliated, though it is all self-imposed, Dejun pushes open the door to the workshop with an angry frown.

Upon his entrance Dejun almost immediately trips on a stray axe lying on the ground, its blade buried in the wooden floor. Though he isn’t sure how he missed a weapon, glowing red, right in front of him, it isn’t really his fault either—who leaves these things lying around on the floor?

The slim man rushing over to him does, it seems. “Welcome!” he exclaims, grabbing onto Dejun’s elbow and leading him haphazardly through the workshop. Dejun spots a rapier assembling itself on a worktable, with its beefy to-be owner dozing off on a chair nearby. Dejun isn’t much taller than the man dragging him through the workshop, but he has to duck a few times to avoid the various weapons and weapon forging equipment hanging off the rafters of the low roof. “I’m Ten, and I’m here to help you forge your first weapon! Don’t worry, we have lots of options here.” He doesn’t look back as he speaks, focused on weaving between the assembly of weapon making players in the workshop.

Stunned and unused to the sight and the new character, Dejun doesn’t reply. Ten eventually leads him towards an empty workstation and with a wave of his hand, beckons the lights overhead to switch on, illuminating the flat surface Dejun finds himself standing behind, opposite Ten. The other clasps his hands together, peering at Dejun. 

“A magic user, hm? Well, there are plenty of models for you to choose from.” Ten summons a holographic panel—they’re much more functional than Dejun thought they were, it seems—with another gesture, and scrolls through the templates for Dejun to examine. 

“I'm sure you already know this, but you can opt to customise your own type of weapon, of course, but if you’re not feeling up to that, we have gloves, staffs, hammers, wands, fans, even, and-”

“It’s alright,” Dejun blurts out, “I’ll take the staff.”

Ten lowers his hands, splaying them flat on the table. “I see,” he says slowly, leaning forwards peering over his round glasses to fix Dejun with a firm look. Dejun gulps on reflex, taken aback by the suddenly piercing gaze, sustained even as Ten stands upright again, nodding, hands clasped together. “Of course, it's up to you. You’re a very special player, Dejun. Are you sure? There’s a wide range of other tools you can choose from, ones that...suit you better , perhaps.”

He knows , Dejun realises, and even though he sees the good in Ten’s suggestion, he shakes his head in reply. Even before stepping into the workshop, Dejun knew that he was going to opt for a staff. Partially because he was new to playing with the magic preset and a simpler weapon would help, but also because it simply was Renjun’s preferred weapon when they played together. 

Call Dejun sentimental, but having something that he was relatively more familiar with would be comforting.

Ten sighs, giving the screen a few taps. “Very well, you’ll get a staff. Come over to this side—you have a few more features and elements to decide on.”

An hour later, Dejun leaves the workshop, new weapon in hand. It’s nothing special, but Dejun had wracked his brain to replicate every detail of Renjun’s staff. Crafted out of alder, with gnarly branches on the top curling around a carved green crystal (Ten had picked it out for him, plucking it out of a box of various stones and gems, and set it in place with a trained, steady hand), the staff, like Lavan itself, feels foreign in his grip, yet familiar. 

The sun is setting, just like it would in the real world. Dejun sets off for home.

Even as his sense of reality fades and Dejun recognises his new-found lack of any responsibility, the next few days sees Dejun falling into a routine. He wakes up to Kun’s suggestions of what he should do for the day, which usually involves learning about new skills and then practicing them, and that’s pretty much all he does for the day. 

He has fun aiming at targets in his yard and shooting them down with the variety of new spells he’s learned, but it’s apparent that the casting of spells is still unfamiliar to him. When he still played the tech preset all he had to do was point and shoot, and maybe lob a delicately timed, personally designed grenade, but with the magic preset...let’s just say that Dejun is convinced that he’s never looked more like a fool in his life. The casting of spells with a staff involves waving it around , Dejun learns (there truly is no better way he can put it). He only hopes that none of his neighbours are online to see him clumsily pointing and swinging his glorified long stick of a new weapon.

It’s still trippy, though, what he can do in Lavan. Funnily enough, the concept of food and water is non-existent here—the only human process Dejun still needs to partake in is sleep. He can go for hours and hours, practicing the same few spells, then he looks up at the sky or beckons over a screen and realises that 6 hours have passed. Despite being an ex-tech player, being physically surrounded by advanced technology is overwhelming. Granted, the holographic displays make things like viewing inventories and stats easier, but they’re still a strange sight.

To make matters worse, what is unfamiliar is not only the physical environment and Dejun’s only needs, but his identity as a whole. He’d discovered that he looked exactly like himself in the real world, but settling into the “I am a magic players and I do magic” identity is a struggle—Dejun enjoyed Lavan as a player, but never considered genuine magic possible. Yet—here he is. On the third day, he’d helped a “neighbour” (an NPC, no doubt, seeing as Kun reported it as a mission). Where a tech player would receive, say, spare parts like gears after helping others complete a tech addition to their weapon, Dejun collected materials for a potion and received passionflowers in return. Suited for healing, Dejun reads from a manual he manages to holographically project in his living room. Which is to say, nothing he’s used to.

It’s quite miserable, Dejun knows. The only thing keeping him sane and existential-crisis free (freer than on the first day, at least) is the perpetual availability of tasks and things he can explore and experience. Like—the satisfaction of taking out targets when he practices his spells, the knowledge of what a herb is without having to look it up. He’s getting better, even managed to get the targets to move to make things more challenging, and he hasn’t failed at either of the two basic concoctions he’s brewed.

Other than his newly found skills, Dejun just wasn’t settled into Lavan yet, let alone settle into his identity. This whole district, this whole city —its simply unbelievably real, yet ingenuine.

On his eighth day, though, Kun offers something new.

“Good morning,” Kun greets, as Dejun pushes himself upright - he’s still sleeping on the sofa. “It’s day 8. There’s a more difficult mission for you today, and you’ll get to fight. If you succeed at completing it, you’ll get the chance to explore places other than Genesia. Would you like to try?”

Yawning, Dejun nods sleepily. He’s a little excited, even. His first real mission in Lavan, finally. What does he have to lose, anyway?

“Good. Go get the things you think you need, I’ll tell you more in five minutes.”

The location of the mission is a healing centre. For a place that should technically be easily accessible, it really isn’t. Dejun had to travel to the outskirts of the district, and he’s now pushing through an endless field of very tall grass, unsure of whether he’s even heading in the right direction.

But like they usually do with Lavan, Dejun’s instincts pull through. The roof of a pristinely white building comes into view, though mostly still blocked by the grass. A single story, Dejun deduces, much smaller than the ones he’s familiar within the city centre, but as expected of one in Genesia. There aren’t many missions set in Genesia where one can get hurt enough to warrant a visit to a healing centre, after all. At a mere level 15, Dejun may be considered an advanced player here, other than others visiting after qualifying for more advanced districts. This mission was probably one of the most difficult available in Genesia, too. Dejun expects no surprises, just a few oppon—

“Hello!” the grass directly in front of him suddenly parts on its own accord, and Dejun tries to hide his flinch. So there is a surprise for Dejun, though said surprise doesn’t seem to even notice Dejun’s less than positive reaction.

“Are you here for the healing centre mission too? I just completed it, so I can tell you some things about what’s in there!” The surprise is a boy , Dejun can gather, because though he’s broad and decked out in heavy armour, he sounds young, and also way too enthusiastic.

(“Kun? I don’t want to pry or anything, but my...neighbour. They’re a male character but speaks with a female voice?”

“Oh,” Dejun hears a faint thud in the background, something like a mug being set down on a table. “Don’t worry about that. The system automatically picks up on player’s voices when they speak while playing, even if they’re not talking about the game. Every voice you hear here is what the player actually sounds like.”

So Dejun’s voice was ingrained in the Lavan system all this time. Kun admitted it easily, but it’s an uncomfortable fact. Dejun tries to brush it off, and turns back to target practice.)

The boy doesn’t wait for a reply from Dejun, rambling on right away. “Anyway, I’m Yangyang! We’re the same level, I think!” He’s right. Dejun finds yet another holographic panel floating near Yangyang’s elbow, displaying his stats—Dejun really needs to used to those things. “Also, the mission is really simple, but you have to fight about two minions in there and then there’s a boss. I can’t really help you with what you should do because I play tech...but you should be fine! Good luck…?” 

“Dejun,” he replies hastily, and then a thought strikes him. “Yangyang? Do you live in Seoul?”

“Uh, sure I do. Most of us in this server do, I think.”

Dejun beams. Maybe there is some hope, after all. “Great, could you contact a friend of mine for me? Just tell him that Dejun needs a little help in Genesia. His name is Renjun, and his number—”

REVEALING SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION IN LAVAN IS FORBIDDEN. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM DOING SO, LEST YOU BE BANNED FROM THE SERVER.

Dejun squints at the pop-up in front of him, unable to speak. Fair enough, but still disappointing, when all Dejun wanted was contact with the real world again. He tries to steel himself, but he still feels lost . 

“I think the game is lagging, your message didn’t send out properly? I...don’t think asking someone here to help contact your friend is a good idea, too. Why not contact him yourself?” Yangyang states, suspicion creeping into his tone and replacing the previously cheerful one. Dejun really has ruined things for himself. Why did he think that anyone could help him, when even Kun couldn’t tell him why he was here? “I’ll be going, I guess. Good luck with the mission.”

Right, the mission. Dejun spares one last look at Yangyang, now beginning the trek back across the grass. He tries to suppress his despair, adjusting his grip on the staff, before turning towards the healing centre and trudging on.

The field of grass doesn’t end, even when Dejun is right at the entrance of the healing centre. As he approaches, though, the glass doors slide open with a faint hiss. Dejun couldn’t see past them before, but he takes in the inside of the building now. 

The floor is, like the exterior, blindingly white and the hallway is well-lit—though Dejun can’t for the life of him figure out where all the light is coming from. There are no fluorescent lights on the ceiling or the walls, and there are certainly no windows, only vague anatomical diagrams and overhead signposts pointing the way to X-ray rooms, triage rooms, rooms after rooms after rooms. The corridor is way longer than Dejun expected. At the end of it sits a counter, devoid of calendars and papers and logbooks one would probably be able to see in a typical hospital. As he gets closer he realises that there’s also someone sitting behind the elevated front of the counter - someone wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with double red stripes running down the sleeves and a strange, red visor in front of his face. Like a flimsy welding mask made out of cellophane and with no window, if you will.

GUANHENG, GENESIA NPC, Xiaojun reads off the panel he pulls up. Guanheng-the-NPC is sitting stock-still, but when Dejun arrives at the counter he stands up unnaturally fast, regaining the animated nature Dejun now associates with Lavan’s NPCs.

“Welcome to the healing centre!” Guanheng chirps. “I’m Guanheng, and I’ve got something in store for you!”

ACCEPT MISSION? A pop-up asks, blocking the NPC from Dejun’s view. Unsure of what to do, Dejun vaguely gestures towards the glowing “YES” at the bottom, and soon enough, Guanheng’s beaming visage is back in sight. 

Guanheng raises his right hand, then swipes it down. A dense list appears, floating in mid-air, while he tells Dejun, “Reception duty here is never easy. You have to know everything that goes on in this building, and then after that, people ask you for things too. That’s where I need your help.” He pushes the list towards Dejun, and the words melt into the screen hovering on his left, the same one he read about Guanheng’s identity on.

“Find these things for me, won’t you? Just bring them back here once you’re done! Good luck, and remember to look out for the creatures lurking in the corners!” Guanheng sends a final dazzling smile in Dejun’s way, and on reflex, Dejun thanks him. Guanheng’s smile falters a little, but he says nothing more. To a careless eye, Guanheng appears to be completely lifeless and unfeeling. Dejun would have thought so too, if he hadn’t known that every person in Lavan is, in a way, alive . 

(“Kun,” Dejun asks the ceiling on his third night.“Do the characters in Lavan really have emotions? The people I met all have such rich expressions, but I never saw that when I wasn’t...here.”

“That’s because nobody notices. Every character in Lavan has their own personality. Remember what I told you about your neighbour’s voice? The system doesn’t just record voices, but also traits and characteristics based on the players’ habits and interaction with the game. The NPCs are sentient.”

Dejun pretends that he didn’t just find out that his favourite game knows him better than he knows it. “So you’re sentient too?”

Kun pauses and hesitates more frequently as Dejun probes for more and more answers from him. “Apparently,” says Kun grimly, “But I wish I wasn’t.”

Dejun, in a moment of sensitivity, doesn't press for more explanations.)

The corridor is T-shaped, Dejun finds. Turning away from Guanheng (still smiling like a model, flawless NPC), he studies the list he’s been given.

Cauldron (1)

Chamomile (9)

Crutches (2)

Gingko leaves (3)

Gold woven bandages (4)

Healing ore (6)

Purifying crystal (8)

Moonstone (2)

Syringe (10)

Test tube (20)

Huh. Dejun certainly has never even heard of half the things on the list. Being a tech player blinded him to all the things involved in the magic side of the game, he supposes, feeling a little guilty. Nevertheless - he can learn, and he’ll begin with the corridor on the right. It’s not much different from the main corridor he came from, just...shorter, but Dejun’s certain that there’s a turn ahead he can’t see from the counter.

Here goes nothing. Dejun pushes open the door to the first room.

There are only two things Dejun can conclude, after shutting the door of the twenty-first room. One, this mission is very, very slow paced—he only found about 6 test tubes so far, and hasn’t even fought anything yet; and two, this healing centre is built like a maze. After every five or so rooms, the corridor branches again. It’s a struggle, really, to decide on which way he should go. Dejun would typically be able to use various clues, contextual and environmental, to deduce which choice would be beneficial for him (and for Renjun, for that matter). But there are simply no clues he can identify now, and Dejun can’t help but wonder if he’s been choosing the right paths at all.

But finally, as he rounds the left corner after checking inside the twenty-fifth room, a welcome sight greets him. (Maybe not exactly welcome , but Dejun longs to do something else other than hunt for items like a kid playing scavenger hunt at a birthday party.)

In front of room number twenty-six stands a girl dressed in a similar ensemble to Guanheng, with double red stripes on her uniform and the strange red visor.

“Access to this corridor is restricted. Please leave,” she says coldly, eyes staring straight ahead, and though Dejun is definitely taller than her, with a weapon in hand to boot, he can’t help but shudder at her tone. He doesn’t back down, however. Locations within mission venues in Lavan were never really restricted, so this girl is probably someone he needs to, to put it simply, fight.

Sure enough, a scythe finds its way into the girl’s hand, blade glinting mercilessly in the sterile light. Still unfamiliar with his staff’s length and weight, Dejun grips it even tighter, anticipating the clearly impending fight. 

Just as the girl raises the scythe, though, she freezes mid-movement, and a new hologram lights up beside her, hovering at waist-level.

Taeyong, gentle as ever, appears on that new projection. Dejun’s getting along the game just fine, why show up now? Amidst Xiaojun’s bewilderment and mild panic, Taeyong smiles brighter.

“Look at you, it’s your first fight in Lavan! Don’t be nervous, you’ll do just fine. Here, I’ll help you along!”

Dejun sighs, and tries not to roll his eyes. Of course - Taeyong is supposed to help him along every milestone, so…it’s only natural that he’s here the first time Dejun has to cast a spell in a real fight. But Dejun doesn’t need it, he’s practiced the same spells for hours before in his yard, and he’s honestly not too bad at it. There’s no way he can get them wrong, so he mutters to Taeyong while nervously keeping an eye on the girl still stopped in motion, “Hey, uh, Taeyong, thanks for dropping by, really appreciate it, but I really can handle this, like, I practiced a lot , and I’m sure I’ll get past. Could I…maybe...skip your tutorial?”

Different from the last time, however, where Dejun successfully avoided Taeyong’s meticulous, yet long-winded guidance, Taeyong simply gestures to a new image now being projected in Dejun’s direct view. 

“Sorry,” Taeyong whispers back, a hint of guilt slipping into his expression, “I’d love to leave you to your own devices, but this is how I’m programmed. Please just let me do my job.”

Dejun can’t fight him—couldn’t even walk away if he wanted to, because Taeyong is nothing more than a voice and a projection right now, so he just watches miserably as a familiar pattern appears on the screen.

“Hold your weapon out, pointing towards the target,” Taeyong instructs, and Dejun obeys, “Follow this pattern, and you’ll cast an attack spell! Let’s practice once.”

Exasperated, Dejun does what he’s told to. From his side, Taeyong beams encouragingly at him. “Great work! Now, let’s do it for real. Trace the pattern again, but be careful! Your strokes have to be precise.”

Dejun draws the shape again, with his staff outstretched, convinced that he’s wasting time. Ironically, though, there’s no time to think about that. As soon as he begins to spell the girl is moving again, and he barely has time to complete the pattern. Small sparks fly as Dejun’s spell collides with the blade, and the force causes the girl to stumble back.

“Look out, she’s getting up fast!” Taeyong all but shouts, “Cast this protection spell, quick!”

Another spell template appears on screen for Dejun to follow. The girl does recover quickly, raising the scythe again. 

To hell with tutorials , Dejun decides, and ignores the template. He holds his staff tightly, and casts a different, more complicated spell. He shouldn’t have learned this specific spell yet, but his neighbour was excessively helpful, perhaps more helpful to Dejun than Dejun was to him, and taught him a thing or two.

In a flurry of sparks, Dejun succeeds at casting the spell. A blast of golden light is sent towards the girl, while Taeyong watches, speechless. Dejun’s aim is truly impeccable by now, and the spell hits the girl square in the chest.

This time, the girl collapses fully, and she fades away, leaving the scythe clattering to the floor.

“Congratulations on winning your first fight!” Taeyong scrambles to say as the corridor clears. “You’ve done well this time. Keep it up, you’ll be a great player in the future!” 

Taeyong fades away with the projection immediately after, leaving Dejun to hunt for whatever it was that the girl was guarding—probably something on the rare side. And sure enough, a box of purifying crystals was under a table in room twenty-six, knocked over with its contents spilling out. Though rare items weren’t present in the subsequent rooms, Dejun does find something in every one of them. He turns into a new corridor with a much fuller inventory, methodically opening the door to the next room.

He only encounters one other opponent after the first—another identically dressed girl outside room fifty-two who jumped at him the moment he stepped out of room fifty-one. Still, he takes her down just as easily as he defeated scythe girl from earlier. Both respawn shortly after Dejun moves on, he notices, standing back in the same position, unmoving and unreactive. Still, Dejun doesn’t find much more, and the final fight must be near.

And just as suddenly as the previous fights appeared to him, he chances upon the mission boss in room sixty-six - a fitting number, Dejun supposes.

It’s a patient this time (LVL. 10, Dejun reads), sitting serenely on the lid of a healing pod and curiously observing Dejun as he opens the door. 

“Traveller,” the patient says— sings , melodious lilt to his voice, “what are you looking for?” He looks like he’d be Dejun’s age, but there’s something wise, something knowing about him and the way he speaks.

“Are you lost in the city?” the man asks, delicately adjusting his position on the curved surface, fingers tracing the white enamel edge. A pink light glows gently from the inside of the healing pod. The ambience of the room is so comforting, Dejun nearly lets down his guard. He pushes away his fringe, plastered to his forehead, while the other simply watches. Is that fascination or knowing or a challenge, or all three?

“Maybe,” Dejun finally replies, “or maybe not. Are we supposed to talk this much?”

“Why, no, but you’re different!” He laughs lightly—the healing pod glows a little brighter, almost like its responding to every sound the patient makes. “It’s not nice to ignore a question you've been asked, traveller.”

Dejun's eyes flit quickly to Guanheng's list, still hovering near his waist. "Not much, just some bandages."

The man nods, eyes innocent yet understanding. "I can help you," he tells Dejun, bright, and slips off the healing pod gently. "Come and get it!"

It's a trap.

It's a trap, it's a trap, it's a trap, it's a trap, it's a trap—

But why can't Dejun back away?

His staff isn’t even held at an active position—he keeps his grip on the handle tight as ever, but he’s in no position for a fight.

Dejun is one step away from the healing pod. The patient smiles sweetly at him in encouragement, and the pink glow of the pod only shines stronger. 

Dejun lifts the lid—

And everything happens in a second.

The patient now towers over Dejun, having knocked him to the ground and sent him sprawling across the room, crashing into the closed door. His eyes and hands glow red, matching the scarlet hue the glow of the healing pod has changed into. The healing centre is cold, both in terms of temperature and ambience, but Dejun’s opponent simply looks like he’s on fire. 

Dejun’s still on the floor, reeling, when he speaks again.

“Come and get it,” the patient sings, still sweet and inviting. “You think anything in life is free , Dejun? It’s not. Not there, not here.”

Dejun has to act fast , and he’s a little desperate.

None of the spells are coming to him now, so like what anybody at their wit’s end would do, Dejun raises his staff as he stands, up and above his head. Before the patient can respond, Dejun brings the wood down over his head with a sickening crunch .

His opponent falls back with a high-pitched howl, and though Dejun winces at the pitch and volume, he can’t waste any time. This is your chance , he tells himself, propelling himself towards the pod, now flashing dangerously. He can feel the heat of the patient’s powers as he turns towards Dejun, can feel him catching up, closing in from behind, gaze burning into Dejun’s back.

But he’s still too late, too slow. Dejun stands with the back of his calves pressed against the pod, now plain white and cold, while he leans away from the patient, creating as much distance between them as possible. In his left hand, exactly five gold woven bandages, scooped out from the pod; and in his right, his staff, the glowing crystal, now a flaming red comparable to the patient’s aura when he attacked, mere centimeters from the tip of the patient’s nose.

The patient crumples to the floor. Looks like Dejun hadn’t forgotten how to cast the stunning spell, after all.

Except now he almost feels guilty, because the red had bled out of the patient, and now he was a normal man again, lying on his stomach, face tilted up to look at Dejun. The tables have turned, Dejun won, but why is he guilty ?

“Don’t be sorry,” the patient smiles, albeit weakly, “you haven’t killed me, NPCs don’t die. I’ll be here again the moment you step out of this room. Over and over, months and months on end. Congratulations on completing the mission, Dejun. On you go, now.”

He disappears soon after that, departing in a silence Dejun didn’t know how to fill. He just exits the room, closing the door gently in his wake, and finds that the counter is just around the corner.

Guanheng’s smile is still as bright as before. He greets Dejun with the same enthusiasm, and peers at the items excitedly as Dejun empties his inventory and lays out all the things he’s collected on the counter. The surface is soon covered with Dejun’s findings, and Guanheng looks up with a satisfied twinkle in his eye.

“Great work! You’ve really found everything, and even more! I hope my colleagues didn’t give you much trouble—” Dejun gives him a pained smile—“Since you’ve done so well, I’ll keep what I asked you to get, and you can take the rest with you!” Guanheng waves his hand, and a portion of the items laid out between him and Dejun disappear, leaving Dejun to hurriedly pack everything else back into his inventory with multiple clumsy gestures.

Guanheng’s still smiling at him when he’s done, just as widely as before. Again, Dejun doesn’t know what to do other than turn and leave. At the end of the long corridor, just before he exits through the sliding doors, Dejun sneaks a look back. Guanheng isn’t standing anymore, and now that Dejun knows he’s there he can see Guanheng slouching in his seat behind the counter, head bent down towards the counter.

Dejun looks away. It’s clear that Guanheng isn’t as bubbly as he appeared to be. But it’s not Dejun’s place to wonder, and so he lets the doors slide shut behind him. It’s already noon.

Cut to Dejun falling into another routine. Boring, he knows, but he’s bored.

After he got back to his place after the healing centre mission, Kun had commended him for completing his first combat mission so successfully, but at the same time, had chastised him for resorting to use physical force at a crucial point.

“A good mage,” Kun stated, in such a drained tone Dejun knows Kun must have said this exact thing over and over again and was sick of it, “will never have to use physical force to defeat the opponent. You did well, but you have a long way to go.” Dejun slumped on the sofa and toyed with the crystal on his staff instead of listening to Kun’s debrief.

Being a good mage, it seems, also meant that said mage would have to be more proficient in potion making beyond making potions from scrappy materials from simple missions.

With this in mind Kun set Dejun on tasks requiring him to brew more complicated concoctions. First an acidic mixture that ruined the grass Dejun spilled it on, then a healing potion that Dejun hasn’t had the chance to test out, and now, a vague lavender potion with the consistency of soap. Dejun hasn’t figured out what it is yet, but he’s following Kun’s instructions, so he must be doing it right.

Right?

Kun wakes him up on his fifteenth (or is it the fourteenth? Dejun doesn’t really know anymore) day just like any other day.

“Good morning,” Kun’s calm voice resonates in the cottage. “That potion you know nothing about is ready. Don’t go and check on it now, though.”

Dejun, already half standing, lowers himself back onto the sofa. His hair is sticking up on one side, but Kun’s next message feels like it would be too important for Dejun to bother with anything else.

An exhale from Kun’s end. “Congratulations, Dejun. You’re proficient enough with the, ah, art of potion making, so you’ve got the essentials of being a mage down. Time to explore. You do know about Nucleopolis, don’t you?”

Dejun bolts up straight. Nucleopolis .

“Dejun?”

“Um, yeah, yeah, of course I do, thanks, Kun, when can I leave and get there?” Dejun is already on his feet, reaching for his staff, lying on the ground behind the sofa as he slept. Nucleopolis .

“Well, someone’s excited. You just have to gather up the things that you have here and need in a different district,” Dejun squints at his empty shelves and barren countertops. “...which, for you, is nothing. So you can leave now, I suppose.”

The journey to the edge of Genesia isn’t a long one, nor is it a difficult one to travel. Dejun is there before midday, hiking up the hill Kun had pointed him towards with a glowing blue arrow. He remembers having to get to a transport station every time he had to travel between districts, and this travel wasn’t any different. He spies a pavilion at the top of the hill, built much like a pagoda, with red pillars and a set of white marble stools surrounding a matching table. There’s another man sitting inside, sitting serenely while looking down on the other side of the hill.

Dejun steps in hesitantly. It’s not uncommon to see guides or even other players looking to cross between districts at a transport station, but meeting new people in-game is uncomfortably similar to meeting new people in real world, and Dejun was never really good at said meetings.

The other doesn’t pay him much attention, only quietly telling him to sit down as Dejun approaches a stool. His tone is soft, but like with many other NPCs he’s encountered, Dejun suspects that he’s another one who knows more than he lets on. Consulting a holograph discreetly, Dejun learns that he is, indeed another NPC - SICHENG, GENESIA TRANSPORT STATION MASTER.

“So, Dejun. What do you think of Lavan?”

Sicheng turns to fully face Dejun for the first time, and Dejun’s jaw can’t help but fall open. The only word Dejun finds appropriate for Sicheng in his stunned haze of a mind is gorgeous . Though dressed relatively plainly in comparison to the “armour” other players and even Dejun himself wears, his aura is unmistakably powerful, like an all-knowing entity. Heck, Dejun finds himself shaking a little.

“Um,” Dejun tries to keep the tremble in his voice under control, “it’s alright, I suppose?”

Sicheng only hums in response, turning away again, adjusting the lapels of his coat. It’s a pretty one, with flowers embroidered along the sleeves. Overcome with a sudden courage, Dejun expresses this.

“Thank you,” Sicheng replies politely, and immediately follows that up with, “a word of advice for you, if you’d like?”

He laces his fingers together, leaning forward to peer at Dejun, and makes his statement without waiting for any form of reaction from Dejun. “Learn to work with people. Nobody here is as powerful as they think they are, or as they would like to be. This includes you. This is a truth you must learn to come to terms with.”

What the heck . Dejun is immediately indignant, previous nervousness from being around Sicheng gone without a trace. He sits up a little straighter as he stares at Sicheng stubbornly. As much as he would like to, he can’t just brush this off as vague NPC talk—if interactions with Kun and Ten were anything to go by, it’s evident that Dejun’s... unique identity is known to all in-game characters.

“Well,” Dejun shoots back at Sicheng stiffly, “you’ve just met me. How would you know?” But Sicheng is, again, not looking at him. How annoying can this guy get?

He doesn’t offer much of a response. The corners of his lips lift upwards ever so slightly, and Dejun catches a twinkle in his eye. Something flares up in Dejun because the NPC is so perfect but yet infuriatingly enigmatic , and if he hadn’t known better he’d probably have thrown a hissy fit. Finally, though, Sicheng turns to face Dejun again.

“Didn’t I just say to never think too highly of yourself? I know things that you don’t. Like...the fact that your ride to Nucleopolis is here.”

And of course Sicheng is right—a sleek car is pulling up to the front of the pagoda, sunlight reflecting off is shiny holographic exterior. A truly beautiful machine, Dejun has to admit, with neon lights running along the frame, visible even if it’s the brightest time of the day. Dejun can’t see the driver but can read his stats: JAEHYUN, NUCLEOPOLIS TRANSPORT STATION. He stands just as the car door opens and— oh . Not another gorgeous one.

Jaehyun, all dimples and dazzling smile, is now leaning out of the car, eyes crinkled and lavender hair tousled from the wind blowing through the station. Jaehyun is very conventionally handsome, Dejun has to admit, though in his state of annoyance he doesn’t wish to acknowledge it.

“Win!” Jaehyun calls out in delight. “It’s been a while!”

Dejun can feel Sicheng breaking out into a much wider grin behind him. It’s clear that the two are close, and he shifts uncomfortably in his spot before striding towards the car, taking the stairs down and out of the pagoda two steps at a time. Before he can reach it, though, Sicheng calls out for him.

“Dejun—always remember to keep things that are important close to you. Like this, maybe.”

Ah—Dejun, now at the bottom of the stairs, clenches his fists and squeezes his eyes closed. Of course . He whips around, and sure enough, Sicheng is tossing him his staff. Dejun barely manages to catch it before wrenching the door to the passenger side of the car open and climbing in with some difficulty—the staff is hard to maneuver in the first place and the car doesn’t have too high of a roof. 

“Seatbelt on, mage,” Jaehyun greets cheerfully as he slides into the other seat and strapping on his own. 

Dejun, just wanting to get to his destination, yanks on his seatbelt so hard he nearly jams it. 

On his right, Jaehyun holds in a laugh, and the car peels away from the pagoda, away from Genesia. If Dejun looked back, he would see Sicheng still standing at the top of the steps, hem of his blazer lifted by the wind.

Travelling between districts would typically just involve arriving at the transport station and logging off for about six hours as your character travelled the distance. For the better, perhaps.  Dejun finds, now, that there’s not much to see in the stretch of Lavan between Genesia and Nucleopolis in the first place. He stares blankly at the view beyond the window—fields after fields of what he assumes is rice, a flowing, golden river in the setting sun.

Jaehyun clears his throat, a small, noncommittal noise. Neither of them pays the other much mind. Dejun wasn’t in the mood to chat in the first place, but soon it be a apparent that Jaehyun wasn’t much of a small talker anyway. But it’s nice like this, Dejun realises, a moment of quiet. He’s headed for new, bigger things—not that the past 2 weeks have been anything short of wild . It’s not time to be excited yet, and there are bigger, way  bigger things to come. For now, Dejun will enjoy this: the view, the silence, the space.

It’s not long before this is disturbed, though, by Jaehyun, gently calling out Dejun’s name.

“Look ahead,” he tells Dejun, smile audible in his voice. “Welcome to Nucleopolis.”

And indeed. Even from this distance, Nucleopolis is such a welcome sight. Dejun has dreamt of this place—skyscrapers, neon lights, and a busy, winding looped highway around the district—time and again. Glowing, dazzling, splendid, almost utopian . Jaehyun takes a tunneled exit out of the highway they were driving on, but when they emerge from it again Dejun is once again breathless.

Nucleopolis is just as beautiful and alive on the inside as it is on the outside. Driving along the roads and avenues Dejun sees weapon addition merchants along the sides of the pavements, with gear he would die to get his hands on as a tech player. He sees players weaving in between each other on the streets, and though crowds would usually never be his thing, he wished he was in this one, brushing shoulders with strangers, strangers who are familiar with the same things as he was. He sees heavily armed warriors, mages and technicians, entering and exiting buildings and hidden alleys. 

They’re in pairs . This thought clicks into place in Dejun’s head, but he wipes it away quickly. He’s proven that he can survive on his own. Things won’t be any different, he tells himself, watching the glowing lights and signs on the streets speed by and blur. Things were always the same, will always be the same. He was alone and fine in Genesia, and he will be alone and fine in Nucleopolis. Dejun’s hand reaches for his staff, resting on his shoulder and on his right leg. He survived and he will survive.

“Hey,” he hears from his right. Jaehyun’s tone is placid and steady as ever. “This is your stop.”

Being the central district, Nucleopolis’ transport station is much larger than Genesia’s, of course, since it handles so many players travelling to other districts every day. Other than players arriving in cars like he did, there are trains, buses, motorbikes, even. The depot is just like the rest of the district—bright, bustling, busy. Dejun takes a deep breath and unbuckles his seatbelt.

He’s out of the car almost immediately after Jaehyun pulls into one of the drop-off spots, marked by glowing green paint. Stretching out his legs with a hand on the closed car door, he leans down to thank Jaehyun through the open window, but Jaehyun beats him to it.

“You know,” Jaehyun smiles, one hand still on the steering wheel, “I know Sicheng is really vague when he talks to travellers. He’s a little weird, yeah, and he says weird things. But he’s right. Think about what he said, won’t you? His words are more useful than you think they are. I mean it. Good luck, Dejun.” 

Before Dejun can reply, Jaehyun is already pulling away from the terminal, merging lanes into the main road, and disappearing in the stream of cars—pastel, neon, holographic. 

In other circumstances, Dejun decides, he and Jaehyun would have been good friends.

Now that he’s arrived in Nucleopolis, Dejun is left to do whatever he wished to, with no real home to return to nor missions to complete. The night is young, he decides, as he strides towards the exit of the transport station. Standing at the arch serving as the point of entry and exit from the station , he breathes in, and smiles at what of the starless night sky is visible between skyscraper after skyscraper. 

The night is young, and the city is alive. Dejun steps out onto the street, electric blue of the street lights washing over him, and allows himself to be swept away by the crowd. He loves this—not knowing where he’s going but going somewhere anyway, the tingle of magic he feels in the air, the advanced tech he sees in every direction he turns in. No other real city could compare. Sure, Nucleopolis is just a district in this city, but with all that’s going on, it manages to offer Dejun so many things. More than Seoul, more than Dongguan, more than anywhere else he’s known.

And he knows this place so well too—like the back of his hand. He’s lived in Dongguan for half his life and Seoul the other, but yet these physical, tangible places never stick around in his memory too well. But on the other hand, Lavan, and particularly Nucleopolis, is built like a modern take of old Hong Kong movies, sleek cars and bikes streaking down the wide highways and looping around the district loop road, towering buildings with glinting glass windows, and always had new stories for him to explore. Where the streets and sights and memories of Dongguan and Seoul have blurred into each other over time, Nucleopolis isn’t like any other, and so Nucleopolis is easy to remember.

And remember he does.

Dejun hasn’t actually bought anything during his time in Lavan so far. The missions he completes gives him whatever materials he needs to complete tasks, and the credit rewards that also come along with it aren’t exactly meagre either. So with two weeks’ worth of earned credit, Dejun is, simply, loaded.

Now, if any other player, new to the district with this much credit, were here, they wouldn’t have known what to do or how to use all this credit. They’d probably have ended up getting scammed into buying a useless weapon addition by another player, or just lodged on the streets.

But Dejun, beelining through the crowd, headed for the opposite side of the street, isn’t new, is he?

He smiles—an assured, confident one. Gotcha.

“Hello,” he bows politely. “I come from afar.”

The woman Dejun approached is an unassuming character on the corner of street 74 in Nucleopolis. With a tattoo of a dragon stretching from her jaw, down her neck, ending at her right shoulder, a grimy tank top, and perpetually straggly hair pulled into a low ponytail, most players pass her without a second look, and sometimes, without even a first. But Dejun knows who she is.

The woman flicks a strand of hair away from her face, and without looking up from her neatly filed nails, asks, “What’s real but not real, tangible yet intangible?”

Dejun leans his weight on his staff, pondering. “Dreams?”

The woman snorts, uncrossing her legs. “Not really, but I suppose you’re close enough,”  she comments, standing up and ambling into the alley she was sitting at the entrance of. “Come along.”

Dejun wishes that he could recount what he saw, but this seller is especially strict about leaks on how she operates. All we need to know is that Dejun leaves the alley with three new crystals to set into his staff—one for attacks, one for defense, one for healing—and half his credits spent. Only experienced players, tech or magic, mess with Seulgi and her (top tier) ware, and Dejun sure is one. Humming, he heads down the main road, and checks into a high level lodging. There aren’t really any extra benefits of staying in one, but Dejun spends most of the rest of his credits on a room there anyway.

As it turns out, there is one additional bonus after all—Dejun finally has a bed .

And with this bed Dejun thought he wouldn’t have woken up until noon the next day, but no—at seven in the morning he hears a painfully familiar voice.

“It’s day 15. Good morning, Dejun, I hope you remember that you’re in a new district today. For today you can—”

“Kun,” Dejun mumbles into his cocoon of pillows and blankets, “why are you still here? Thought you were attached to Genesia.”

“No,” Kun sighs, a common occurrence when the two converse, “I am your guide until the trial period is over. Now, your tasks to—”

Dejun smacks his hand into the mattress with a soft thump . For Christ’s sake, he’s capable of getting around this place himself! He doesn’t even have a partner now, but he doesn’t need one, and he certainly doesn’t need random NPCs pestering him about what he should and shouldn’t do. What was he top on the leaderboard for, otherwise?

“Well, your trial period does end today. 15 days.” Kun’s voice is stiff, sounding genuinely annoyed for the first time in two weeks, and Dejun’s face scrunches up, starting to sit upright— maybe he really did just mess up.

“I can tell you that there’s news posted on the district bulletin board, and it’s important if you want to get further in Lavan. That will be all. Good luck, Dejun.”

And Kun is gone. Dejun, shamed but too prideful to apologise or thank the guide, runs a hand through his hair and picks up his staff. Is he really wrong, anyway? It’d be wrong only if he actually needed so much help from people in-game. Experience, knowledge, skill—he’s got them all. He can survive.

Of what use is a guide? Dejun knows where the bulletin board is, too.

It turns out (quite pleasantly) that Dejun’s memory doesn’t fail him this time like it did back in Genesia. He finds the bulletin board easily, at the junction between 2 major roads. Even if he didn’t know where exactly it was, he’d probably have been able to find it anyway—for some obscure reason, everybody on the same road seems to be heading there too.

In fact, the crowd in front of the board is so ridiculously thick, Dejun has to physically fight his way through the mass of other players to even catch a glimpse of the wooden frame of the board, let alone the notice he’s looking for. He does finally get much closer to the notice, though, after ten minutes of aggressive (but apologetic) elbowing people out of his way.

Amongst the various ads and posters for weapon enhancements, advanced potions, and the like, there is a singular yellow sheet of paper, text neatly formatted and magically pinned to the board. Dejun ducks between two smaller players, and squints. Immediately, a holograph floats into his peripheral vision, informing him of a potential mission. That’s the one, then. He squeezes between the two in front of him, and the crowd pushes him forward.

“Explore the Victorian Mansion,” he mutters to himself, hands braced against the board to avoid being shoved into it by the jostling crowd. The notice reads like a travel advertisement, Dejun realises, before a much bigger player elbows him in the head and knocks him away from the poster. The Victorian Mansion is obviously no holiday destination, Dejun can gather, but he isn’t here for one anyway.

Fighting his way out of the bulletin board crowd, he nods at the mission holograph from before. It shifts and morphs into a familiar blue arrow, pointing Dejun towards a secluded and rarely taken path.

Dejun is ready .

The whole young-innocent-lad-explores-vampire-infested-property cliche seems to be happening to Dejun in this instant—the Victorian Mansion is certainly deserted and very dusty, and the floorboard Dejun first steps on when he pushes open the heavy ornate door creaks unnecessarily loudly. The hallway he finds himself in is illuminated by torches of emerald flames on the walls. Dejun would be creeped out, but he reminds himself that he is a magic player now, after all. Magic should not scare him, he reminds himself. He’s magic. Dejun takes a shaky breath to steady himself, before breaking up a large spider web with his staff and ducking under it.

Shh .

Dejun whips around. “Who’s there?” he shouts down the empty corridor, and in reply he gets an echoing, “who’s there—‘s there—there—ere—”. Eyes flitting to different corners, taking in every shadow, every flicker of a flame, he startles at a movement, but realises that it is merely his reflection in a mirror. Maybe it’s just the wind or—

Shhh.

There’s the hushing voice again—Dejun is certain that it’s there. But where?

“I’m not afraid of you,” he declares, staff properly gripped tight and shoulders squared. “Show yourself.”

There’s no reply.

Cautiously, and taking every step so slowly it’s almost painful, Dejun starts down the corridor again, this time turning the knob of a door and entering. Turns out it leads to another hallway, with paintings hung along its walls and no less than six chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Dejun is no architecture student, but he can tell that this mansion sure has a strange layout, alright. Why build a door between corridors? And—something is really off about this house other than the layout. 

Where’s his mission, by the way?

Dejun frowns, narrowing his eyes at the door on the opposite side of the corridor. At the very least, there seems to be another way out and he won’t be stuck here. As Dejun takes careful strides forward he glances at the paintings—portraits, with peeling paint and headless subjects. Dejun shudders involuntarily. Just get to the other door .

He does reach the other door without any harm being done to himself, but when he opens it—

Another corridor?

Dejun sighs, stabbing the end of his staff into the marble floor. Maybe there’s no real mission, after all, and the mansion is just here for him to explore and test his navigation skills. But it did show up as—

Shh.

And there it is again. Dejun raises his staff, now gripping it with both hands. He can’t see anyone . This corridor has emerald torches, just like the first one, and this lighting certainly isn’t ideal when Dejun’s trying to spot threats. Nevertheless, he moves forward again, staff ready. This time, he makes an effort to take note of the mirror standing in a corner, so as to avoid alarming himself again. Soon enough, he comes to a stop before another door, identical to all the ones before.

Dejun isn’t even really sure of where he’s going, at this point. He twists the door open, and sure enough—

Another corridor.

This one is similar to the second one with the paintings, all portraits, peeling paint, headless, six chandeliers. 

Unless—it is the same corridor?

Slowly, and this time fearfully, Dejun looks up to observe one of the portraits. It’s one of a lady in a robin blue ruffled dress with a high, frilly collar, a large garnet set into the ring on her right hand. She does look familiar, but Dejun still isn’t sure.

Now that he knows that there are probably no hidden traps in the places in the mansion he has been to, Dejun turns on his heel, dashing for the door at the end of the corridor of paintings. He bursts through it, ending up in a hallway with—that’s right, emerald torches, and a mirror standing in the corner, and slams open the only other door along that corridor to see—

The portrait of the lady in the blue dress. Dejun is , for the second time since he arrived in Lavan—

“Lost?”

Dejun really never learns—he yelps and lets out the most embarrassing sound, jumping away.

“Christ, be quiet ,” the owner of the voice—a man in a black turtleneck with blond hair parted down the middle—chastises. Dejun slaps a hand over his mouth in reply, backing away from the other as subtly as he can. 

“You are lost, huh,” the man continues. He sounds nice and gentle, but Dejun is too nervous (and scared) to blatantly summon a panel to find out who he is, so he just lowers his hand and nods.

“Who—”

“That doesn’t really matter, you just have to know that my name is Jungwoo.” The man takes Dejun’s hand, and with a surprisingly strong grip and brisk tone, starts pulling Dejun down the corridor again. “I’ll help you find your way around here, things get pretty weird. Just hold on and try to keep up, hm?”

Try to keep up indeed—Dejun finds himself breaking out into a jog to keep up with Jungwoo’s long strides, and...the mansion itself isn’t helping either. To Dejun’s devastation, the mansion really isn’t as simple as recurring corridors. Jungwoo leads him through a door—where did that come from?—and down a different corridor, exiting that to climb a flight of stairs. The stairs begin to shift halfway through their ascent, and Dejun has to catch hold of a railing to avoid falling over. Jungwoo, on the other hand, is perfectly comfortable, tapping his foot on the step they’re trapped on until the stairs connect to a landing. At the back of his mind, Dejun wonders if he’s accidentally stumbled upon Hogwarts.

Finally, but not before Dejun gets increasingly dizzy in their journey through what seems like a mirror maze, Jungwoo stops in front of an intricately designed iron door, still holding Dejun’s hand (his palm is beginning to sweat, Dejun bemoans, but he can’t let go), and smiling down at him.

“That—That’s the way out?” Dejun squeaks, looking up at the other. What is up with him inevitably being intimidated by half the characters he encounters in Lavan?

Jungwoo gives him an encouraging nod, motioning towards the handle on the door. After casting him a final doubtful look, Dejun pulls the door open.

But instead of the forest of evergreens Dejun trekked through to get to the mansion, he sees another room—upside down. Dejun is hanging upside down, and his staff has fallen out of his hand clattered to the carpeted floor. He’s held off the ground by a glowing…golden lasso of sorts, wound tightly around his right ankle, and the other end of the lasso is held by—

Jungwoo. Damn, Dejun really should’ve known.

“Didn’t think you were lying,” Dejun admits, looking at Jungwoo exasperatedly as he paces away serenely.

“And he wasn’t—he said that this was the way out, not that you would be outside the moment you opened the door.” It’s only now that Dejun recognises the presence of another person in the room. A red-haired man, with his feet propped up on a desk that Jungwoo is now also seated on. He’s dressed in a navy pinstriped suit, while flicking a pocket knife—open, close, open, close. “So there is a way out, obviously, but if you thought it was easy then you were just foolish.”

He hates to admit it, but Dejun did , for a second, think that it would be this easier. Red-hair (really nice undercut, but that’s besides the point) has started to pull out an assortment of knives, all from within his suit jacket. Dejun watches as he delicately produces knife after knife—large, small, plain metal, holographic. He holds each up in front of him almost lovingly, adoringly, squeezing one eye closed—Dejun thinks he’s aiming. At him. That’s not good at all. There’re no less than twenty knives on the table, Jungwoo’s grip on the lasso looks and is probably really sturdy, judging by the grip he had on Dejun as he was led here. And to top everything off, Dejun genuinely can’t reach for anything to help him right now. His staff is a full thirty centimeters away from him.

But you know...this is a game, right?

Yes, Lavan is a city, but it’s a game . NPCs always respawn. Enemies always respawn. Players certainly do always respawn.

Red-hair has picked out a knife now, it seems, half off his chair as he pulls his arm back into an aiming position. Dejun twists around as best as he can while still swinging upside down, trying to get a good look at him.

“Kill me right now, then,” Dejun declares, still swaying a little from his movement. “I can’t do anything, so I might as well just start over. If you kill me fast, nobody’s time is really wasted.”

Red-hair lowers his arm jerkily then, looking genuinely puzzled. “What—  Dejun, are you here for a suicide mission ? And what is it , Jungwoo?”

Still seated on the desk with his feet off the ground, Jungwoo has collapsed into a fit of giggles, though his grip on the lasso doesn’t loosen. “It’s just—sorry, bossman—he really doesn’t know . Go ahead, this one’s an easy kill.”

“Uh...yeah! An. An easy kill.” Dejun laughs nervously, eyeing the cold glint of red-hair’s (bossman?) knife in what little light is streaming in from the window. 

Red-hair smiles, then, a truly charming and confident smile. He raises his right arm, closes an eye—he aims—Dejun squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for impact—

It never comes.

Instead there is a loud crash, and the sound of splintering wood as a million shards of glass fall to the floor—Dejun doesn’t know, he doesn’t like to depend on what he hears. No matter, though, because he’s suddenly falling to the ground, all support lost, but before he can do as much as open his eyes there is already a pair of arms hauling him up, pressing into his back, and when Dejun finally opens his eyes, he’s already out of the door, running.

It’s a little reminiscent of how he entered the room in the first place, guided by someone who’s holding his hand, except this time he’s running faster than ever before, a knife just whizzed past his ear, and—his staff isn’t in his hand.

“My st—”

“No time for that! How many times did you go through the first two corridors?” They’re ducking through the mirror maze now, and Dejun thinks he sees Jungwoo’s lasso dart at their feet.

“HOW MANY TIMES?” the stranger bellows as they hurtle up the stairs. Shakily, Dejun shouts back a “four!” as they burst back into a familiar corridor. The stranger unceremoniously pushes Dejun’s head down to avoid another knife thrown their way, before immediately taking off again.

Red-hair and Jungwoo are hot on their heels, but Dejun doesn’t dare look back to check how far they are away. Cursing as Dejun shoulders a door open, the stranger pulls out a blaster—Dejun doesn’t recognise that template—and fires backwards. The last thing Dejun sees before pulling the stranger through the door and slamming it close is Jungwoo, sprawled on the carpet.

And before Dejun can begin to catch his breath, they’re off again, the stranger pulling Dejun down the corridor—portraits, emerald flames, portraits, emerald flames—before they’re tumbling out of the front door. Dejun hears an angered yell, before the stranger is pushing the heavy door closed and bolting it.

They sit on the dry grass for a moment, breathing heavily. Dejun tries to say something again, but the stranger beats him to it again.

“What the hell . What the hell were you thinking?” the stranger glowers at Dejun. It’s only that Dejun really sees him, actually—he’s very tall, and...very broad. Like a varsity rugby player, Dejun concludes, just with a custom blaster. 

“Hello?” Dejun snaps back to attention, the stranger’s hand waving around a mere inch from his nose. “You didn’t even have a protection spell around you! What did you learn during tutorial week—what kind of magic player doesn’t know how to cast a protection spell before a mission? Taeyong should have told you, unless you didn’t—”

Dejun bats the hand away irritably. “My staff,” he states flatly, “I don’t even have my staff anymore.”

The stranger stands, towering over Dejun, who scrambles to get up too. “That’s on you, buddy. I can fix that,” he shoots back stoically, arms crossed over his chest, voice dropping low and threatening, “but you have to follow me and stop being an ass.”

And with that, he turns and walks away without as much as a glance backwards at Dejun. Dejun takes the chance to call for a hologram of the other’s details, glaring at his back.

XUXI, LVL. 79, PLAYING CHARACTER.

Dejun scoffs quietly. What the hell is a playing character, anyway?

But Dejun does need a new staff, now, so he kicks at the dirt and stalks after Xuxi with a huff.

It’s not long, really, before they’re back in the centre of Nucleopolis again, but it felt uncomfortably long to Dejun. Xuxi didn’t offer as much as a look in his direction, so naturally, Dejun didn’t spare him anything either.

Xuxi is definitely certain of where he’s going, weaving between the throngs of players on Nucleopolis’ streets with a practiced ease. It’s not hard to follow him, either—Xuxi is head and shoulders over just about everyone. Dejun, squeezing and shoving people out of his way, and getting squeezed and shoved back in return, is having a much harder time. It doesn’t get better when Xuxi turns down 41st street, a path even Dejun rarely frequented and thus isn’t familiar with, where the crowd thinned significantly but where the people were also...shadier.

He hesitates outside a darkened shop, after passing by a particularly heavily armoured and weaponed player, with templates so unrecognisable and add-ons so many Dejun can’t for the life of him imagine how the game allowed it. But still—he needs a staff. Dejun clenches his fists, shoves them in his pocket, and marches on after Xuxi. He can’t have not noticed Dejun’s struggle, but still hasn’t slowed down even once, the asshole. Dejun isn’t even really sure why he trusts him.

When they eventually reach the end of the street—alley, more like, Dejun can stretch his arms out and touch the walls on either side—Xuxi parts the curtains hanging at the entrance of a shop on the left, bending slightly and stepping in. The curtains are rough to the touch, a little worn but still clean, and very heavy. Heavy enough to block out the light from inside the shop, Dejun realises as he copies Xuxi’s actions and enters (but...without having to bend down). It’s much, much brighter inside than he thought, and thus much brighter than every other shop on the street.

He follows Xuxi down a short hallway, with pristine white floors and various machinery built into the walls. Examining them, Dejun recognises some of the apparatus. It’s as if...someone took the equipment from Ten’s weapons workshop in Genesia, modernised their design, and put them in a room with floors like the healing centre’s.

“Need a staff or something, Mark,” Xuxi calls out as he steps into the next room, setting his blaster down on a work surface. “Also thanks, Hyuck, this one works like a gem.”

Presently Dejun has two new pairs of eyes scrutinising him, one belonging to a boy standing at a counter built against the wall, screwing a screw into a blaster similar to Xuxi’s, the other belonging to another boy seated on a counter opposite that one, tossing a small gear into the air and catching it again. He squirms under their gaze, and while blaster boy (Mark? Yes, the holograms confirm it—LVL.86, PLAYING CHARACTER) turns back to his work quickly, gear boy (Donghyuck, not just “Hyuck”, also LVL. 86, PLAYING CHARACTER) is still burning holes into Dejun with his obvious stare.

“Of course it works like a gem, I made it,” Donghyuck replies smoothly, eyes never leaving Dejun’s increasingly uncomfortable expression, hand never ceasing to toss the gear up, never failing to catch it again. He slides off the counter as his sentence is finished, moving around the space fluidly—like a cat, Dejun observes, slumping as the attention is taken off him. “A staff. What kind of mess did you get yourself into, magic boy?”

It takes Dejun a good moment to register that the question is for him , and by then, Xuxi is already answering in his stead.

“Many messes, Hyuck, let’s do a rundown,” Dejun rolls his eyes, placing his hands on his hips and turning away as Xuxi raises a finger. “One, didn’t cast a protection spell before entering that Victorian mission. Yeah, the basic Taeyong tutorial one. Two, didn’t even hold his staff properly. He dropped it the moment Jungwoo got the lasso around his ankle, so he didn’t even had a chance to begin with. Third—sweet Jesus, Hyuck—he gave up because you thought he could respawn.”

Dejun whips around, fists clenched, furious. Enough .

“And what right do you have to tell me that I was wrong?”

Silence, again. Dejun expected Xuxi to flare up at him, but he’s only staring blankly at Dejun. Donghyuck, on the other hand, gives Dejun a “yikes!” expression before reaching for the gear again, but this time to place it in a deconstructed weapon.

Mark speaks up for the first time here, but without stopping his work.

“Do you know what your character identity shows up as, Dejun?”

Mark has a soft voice, but it’s deadly—like he knows too much about the world, and about you. Too much for you, but too much for him too. Dejun watches him set a heavy-duty battery into a blaster, and thinks of Sicheng. “No.”

Mark lays his hands on the counter, stretches, and turns his head to look at Dejun. “LVL. 47, PLAYING CHARACTER. Sounds familiar?”

Of course it does.

Dejun doesn’t know if he should be terrified that this extends to people other than him,or if he should be relieved that he isn’t alone. “So...we’re all the same. Got stuck in here without reason?” 

“Correct,” Xuxi answers, beginning to strip off his fingerless gloves, velcro loudly ripping apart and putting a scrunched frown on Donghyuck’s face, “but also, wrong.”

“Think about it,” Donghyuck continues, leaning into the workstation, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “Lavan is an exceedingly elaborate and powerful game. Nothing that happens in it is an accident. So the fact that we are here—”

“—is also no accident.” Xuxi’s gloves are fully off now, discarded on the table. “What was the noticeable thing about you as a player before you got in here?”

Dejun was first on the leaderboard. Best player in all of Lavan.

“And where do you think the best players before you went?”

Dejun mimics Xuxi’s stance, arms crossed, hip jutting out. “I don’t know, stop asking me questions, maybe they lost interest or something—”

“Of course not ,” Mark snaps, voice still quiet as he sets his tools down and turns around. “No top player loses interest in such a game so easily, especially after they’ve reached the top. You don’t know where the top players before you went? Three of them are right here.”

Dejun opens his mouth, but he doesn’t have anything to say. They’re all top players, were once top players , “But still, why would we be here?”

At that, Mark gives him a crooked smile. “Do you like losing, Dejun?”

Of course not.

“Neither does Lavan. And—we know you went to Seulgi’s, so open your inventory, let’s see what you’ve got. What kind of design you want on that staff, by the way?”

Even though Mark offered to replicate his previous weapon, Dejun leaves the design and extra features up to him. The truth is that though he’s only spent a grand total of twenty minutes in the same room as Mark, Dejun trusts him already. Mark knows what he’s doing and has all the experience Dejun doesn’t, at the very least, and...likely knows better.

Mark hands the blaster off to Donghyuck, who giddily slips into an adjacent room, and starts on Dejun’s staff. His only company is Xuxi, nudging a bench out from under the worktable and sitting down, but without offering Dejun a seat. He’s left standing, awkwardly bumping his thigh against the table, and with a question he’s been wanting to ask ever since he got out of the mansion.

“You didn’t have to...save me. So why? And what did you mean when you said I messed up when I thought I could respawn? Anybody would have done the same. Why wouldn’t you save resources and energy and just choose to respawn?”

Xuxi breathes out, a heavy, heavy exhale, and drags a slow hand across his face. Must have been a stupid question to ask, Dejun knows, but he tries to stand still and avoid looking guilty.

“For the latest person to have been on top of the leaderboard, you’re not very bright—no, don’t even try to deny it. You should know by now that you— we —are not just anybody . I don’t think there’s a point of asking you questions until you figure it out yourself, so I’ll just tell you: you die in Lavan, you die in real life. Simple, but clearly you haven’t caught on. Didn’t you talk to Sicheng too?”

Dejun takes a moment before replying, clenching his jaw. He saved you. Don’t lose your temper. “Yes, but I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Xuxi barks out a laugh, loud and jarring, echoing around the room and makes Dejun flinch (Mark, on the other hand, is so concentrated on his task he doesn’t move at all). “Don’t tell me that, Sicheng doesn’t speak in riddles. And then Jaehyun told you to listen to him, right? You don’t need to answer me, they do that with everyone, it just depends on whether you do listen to them or not. Should you listen to them? Yes. Always.”

Xuxi’s words hang heavy in the air, while the whirring of Mark’s tools is the only sound that occupies the space. They weigh heavily in Dejun’s heart too. It becomes clear now—Dejun is condemned to this city because he could have been more than it—so could Xuxi, and Mark, and Donghyuck. How many more of them are there?

“Many,” is Xuxi’s reply. “There’s no definite number, and no definite rate at which more of us arrive. Sometimes one comes along after three months, others come within a week of one another. It’s hard to keep track of everyone. Can you sit down? It’s uncomfortable talking to you like this.”

Dejun takes a moment to actually pull out the bench on his side, but the moment he sits down he drops his head and presses his forehead to the surface. This was, again, a lot to process after all. And if there are so many other people who met with the same fate before him, but yet no one seems to have escaped yet, then—

“Not to say that there isn’t a way out,” Dejun’s head snaps up for him to see a contemplative Xuxi. “There is, we’ve found. But no one has succeeded yet, because they either failed, died before they could even start or find out about. Or with most people, they’ve settled down and couldn’t be bothered to have a go at it again. That’s all.

“So you,” Dejun raises his right hand tiredly, gesturing around the room in a vague wave, “all three of you settled down? Not going to push to get out?”

It’s Mark who speaks this time, back still facing them. “Do you want to try, Dejun?”

Dejun slaps his hand down on the table, making the various spare parts and magical items on it shake and roll around. “Of course I want to! I’m not a coward, and I bet I can complete the escape.”

Mark turns around as Dejun finishes his sentence, exchanging a smile with Xuxi—Mark’s knowing, Xuxi’s mocking. Dejun sits up sharply, affronted. “What’s wrong with wanting to get out of the city? Tell me how, then. I’ll prove that I can.”

“Oh, no,” Xuxi leans back, frustratingly easy smile on his face. “Only the three of us at the workshop really know about it, and none of us can make it through without a partner. Which means you can’t make it without a partner, too.”

“So—”

“Yes, you’re stuck with me, because Mark and Hyuck here have the workshop to maintain. More like I’m stuck with you, actually.” Xuxi sighs, but the ghost of a smile is still lingering on his expression. “Unless you don’t want to get out anymore?”

Xuxi is the one to slam his hands on the table this time, standing up so suddenly the bench tilts and nearly topples over, startling Dejun. “Do you want to work together and get out, or do you want to continue that foolish solo endeavour of yours and be stuck here forever?” Xuxi’s voice has dropped to a whisper, but it doesn’t fail to get his point across. Dejun gulps, and nods.

“Good,” says Xuxi, standing up straight again, volume returning to normal. “You can stay with us, we have a spare room upstairs. I’ll tell you more tomorrow morning, and you’ll have your staff by then, too.”

Dejun wakes up the next day earlier than usual. He squints at the time on the digital clock lying by his bed, but finds that he still isn’t as early as his fellow...players? Friends? They’re all absorbed in their own tasks—Mark frowning at a screen full of programme commands, Donghyuck carefully painting symbols onto a fan, and Xuxi spreading a large map out on the main worktable. There’s something else waiting for Dejun too. His new staff is set on the same worktable. Standing in the stairway, with no one yet to acknowledge his presence, Dejun can’t help but admire what a masterful work it was.

Mark does know his stuff. The new staff looks significantly more intricate than the last, with delicate carvings in the handle and a new, brighter gem set into the round design at the top, with the spare crystals from Seulgi molded into the handle. Even from a distance, it’s clear that this staff is much more well-made than the one he forged in Genesia.

Only Donghyuck glances in his direction when Dejun steps out into the workspace, before quickly turning back to his task. Dejun steps right up to the table, and leans down to scrutinise  the newly finished weapon. The carvings are clean, clear-cut lines of symbols—much like the ones Donghyuck is painting on the fan. Dejun isn’t a knowledgeable enough magic player in runes to know what they mean or how they can help, but nevertheless, it looks like he doesn’t just have Mark to thank at the end of all this. 

For now, though, he doesn’t say anything to either of them, sitting down at the same place he was yesterday, across Xuxi. They don’t exchange greetings. Instead Dejun simply watches as Xuxi traces a finger across the map, a route from Nucleopolis to...the Sanctorium. Dejun has never really been there before. The Sanctorium was simply NPC haven, where every character you met there can only offer you vague advice on tactics and weaponry. Though the center of the district was marked by a gleaming glasshouse, it perpetually bore a sign that read “Coming Soon!” So...why the Sanctorium? He asks Xuxi this, breaking the near silence in the room.

Xuxi twirls a red marker in his right hand, frowning at the map. “It’s true that the Sanctorium isn’t much to typical players. But for us ? Headquarters. Lavan’s most important characters are based there. We don’t know for sure what’s inside the glasshouse, but we do know that there’s definitely a way out in there.”

He uncaps the marker, the cap between his teeth, circling a point in the heart of the Sanctorium. “And that’s where we’re going to go.”

“Oh, but not now ,” Donghyuck sets down his brush with a flourish, wheeling and spinning in his chair to join in on the conversation. “The Sanctorium isn’t an easy place to get into when you’re actually in here, and headquarters is even more guarded. Sorry to break it to you, Dejun, but you’re not...fit for it yet. There’s more to playing magic than you think and know.”

There they go again. “How else— ”

“You’ll train, of course! Plenty of things to do here in Nucleopolis, things that you can try out to hone your skills. And other than that,” Donghyuck smiles sweetly, “you have me. Ten days. I’ll teach you everything and anything you need to know.”

That is reality, and Dejun can’t deny it. He’s not the player he used to be. He has too little knowledge about who he is as a magic player, so how can he win the game without knowing who he is what he can do?

“Xuxi will be with you, anyway.”

And there’s what Dejun has been avoiding his entire time here—the need to have a partner. The only reason why he didn’t play alone in real life was because he knew nothing at all about Lavan back then, and it’s always nice to have someone with you while you make mistakes and find your way around. But now? Dejun has a little bit of pride, and he doesn’t want to have to depend on anyone.

But yet Dejun knows he won’t survive alone now . Every other person in the room, admittedly, knows better than he does. As much as Dejun hates the idea, he needs help.

“We start today,” Donghyuck declares, picking up the staff— Dejun’s staff—and handing it to him, before picking up his own. “Come on, we’ll have to get to the district square within 10 minutes.”

For someone who’s an expert at painting intricate symbols onto weapons, Dejun somehow expected Donghyuck to be more mellow and calm in serious situations. But that assumption is quickly proven to be false—Donghyuck really is ruthless.

He puts Dejun through an intensive knowledge trial on the first day. At the district square is a stimulator, which Dejun has visited before to test his knowledge on common tech weapon parts and enhancements. This time though, he sits through test after test full of magic based questions. 

How many ounces of bismuth do you need for a smoke bomb? How do you cast an explosive spell without triggering landmines planted by your opponents? What is the best counteragent of an acid burn? And then, of course there are the strategic questions. When in battle, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using magic as defense? What do you do when your partner is held back but you are coming close to the goal? 

Still, Dejun didn’t reach the top of the leaderboard while taking his exams for no reason—he’s a fast learner, that’s for sure.

By the end of day five of Donghyuck’s training regime, Dejun has come close to defeating him in a duel, held in a neighbouring, mostly empty alley. Impressed, Donghyuck decides that he’s qualified to move past the basics, and move on to actual fights in various conditions—all within the boundaries of the district center stimulator.

And so on day six, Xuxi joins in during trainings.

It’s considerably more difficult with one more person in play, Dejun concludes after their first duel against Donghyuck alone. But it’s a lot easier too. Though he and Xuxi move clumsily around each other, accidentally firing at each other when they attack, and tripping over each other’s movements. At the same time, it’s never not useful to have someone else watching their back, though they still have to work on...telling each other what they see.

Mark joins in on day eight. Donghyuck is incredibly good at making Dejun and Xuxi work with each other while being a tough opponent, but with Mark added to the equation, things really get interesting.

The four of them in the stimulation arena are a sight, truly. Mark and Donghyuck are a formidable duo to begin with—Dejun learns that they were an exception, two players who held the top rank at the same time, and were thus pulled into Lavan at the same time. Their teamwork and coordination may be unparalleled, but Xuxi is an extraordinarily adaptable player. Combine that with Dejun’s rapid progress (by day eight, he’d reached level 67), and you get a pair capable of tying in a draw in a duel with Mark and Donghyuck. Dejun allows himself to feel a little proud of his progress.

Where Mark and Donghyuck rely on perfectly timed attacks and strategic defenses, Dejun and Xuxi are reckless, explosive, quick on their feet.

Amongst the flashes of light and clouds of dust kicked up at their feet, Dejun feels alive .

There’s a lot he learns about Xuxi in the span of ten days, too. Xuxi wasn’t always a blaster user, he used to be an archer, but switched because blasters were more precise. Xuxi, out of the three of them before Dejun came along, still enjoys playing Lavan’s games the most, and the mansion was his most frequent haunt—which is how he found Dejun in the first place. Xuxi designed the entire layout of the weapons workshop because he had a surprising interest in interior design. Before that, Mark and Donghyuck were working in a dim, cramped space. 

And most of all—Xuxi used to be just like Dejun .

“It’s quite funny,” Xuxi tells him, tossing his gloves between his hands, when they were sitting down on the curb outside the arena after another sparring  session. “I was pretty hostile to you when we first met, but when I first got here, I did walk into a mission meaning to die.”

Ignoring Dejun’s look of shock, Xuxi smiles, “I was miserable back then, and I didn’t want to do anything but find a way to get out. But I didn’t know how , so I...gave up. Same as you, actually—I walked into the mansion unprepared. Before I got to do that, though, Mark saw me on the way, and talked to me about the whole getting sucked into Lavan thing. Till now, working with them at the workshop is the only reason I haven’t gone mad.”

Xuxi doesn’t say more after that, and they’re instead surrounded by the call of merchants, the clang of metal against metal, and the rustle of fabric as other players jostle one another on the pavement. Dejun moves just an inch closer to sit right against Xuxi, but neither of them acknowledges the proximity.

This is nice, Dejun decides, “But why did you never try to leave again? Until now?”

Xuxi hums, tapping two fingers against his weapon. “Never met anyone who’s just as desperate to get out. But you surpass me, I think. Let’s get back to practice, partner.”

Dejun manages to get up before Xuxi on day ten, but not before Donghyuck and Mark. While Mark is, like always, working on something in his own space, Donghyuck has his feet  propped up high on the main worktable, beaming at Dejun as he enters.

“Good morning,” Donghyuck chirps, “today is supposed to be the last day of your training, but I found a faster way to get you and Xuxi to qualify for the Sanctorium faster, so if you’re ready for it…”

“Ready for what?” Xuxi yawns, stumbling into the room, eyes still half-closed.

“Competitive duels at the arena,” Mark answers, sliding a sword back into its hilt as Donghyuck whines about how he ruined the suspense. “If you come out on top, you automatically get access to just about any district in Lavan.  Not sure who you’ll be against, but I’d say if you two weren’t stupid about it, you’ve got a pretty good chance.”

Dejun jumps at chances—so does Xuxi.

The sheer number of people who are milling about the arena on this day are quite overwhelming, but still Dejun (being, unfortunately, the shortest of the four) manages to get through the crowd and to the registration panel without losing the others. Standing in front of the panel, he and Xuxi log their names into the system, pressing their palms against the panel. The moment their names are in, they’re immediately jostled out of the way by the crowd. As Xuxi tries to push back to look at the other duos, Dejun turns to Mark and Donghyuck.

“Are you two not joining?”

Donghyuck, lightly tapping Dejun on the shoulder with his staff, laughs. “We did this a long, long time ago. Think you and Xuxi could beat us? Besides—no reason to. We’re not the ones going to the Sanctorium, anyway.”

Dejun opens his mouth to ask again, but Xuxi beats him to speaking, bounding over to them. “The crowd is restless, but there aren’t too many pairs who actually entered. Our first duel is in five minutes...are you two staying to watch?”

“Course we are,” Mark cuts in, looking not at any of them, but at the arena, “it’s time to go in, anyway.”

Not a word is spoken after. The four enter the colosseum—Xuxi and Dejun to the grounds, Mark and Donghyuck to the audience.

The first few fights are easy enough—Xuxi and Dejun breeze through them almost effortlessly. Each round gets longer and longer, but ultimately they’re way less challenging than the duels with Mark and Donghyuck. The majority are players of lower levels, and Dejun is amused to find them making the same mistakes he and Xuxi made when they first started fighting together too. Donghyuck—and Mark—were truly teachers he could never dream of having, trainers who gave him a head start ahead of everyone else. Knocking his tech opponent’s weapon out of her grip and ending the match, Dejun reminds himself to thank them properly afterwards.

He doesn’t get the chance to do it before the final match, though. He and Xuxi made it into finals, where they battle one last pair for their ticket to the Sanctorium—for Dejun’s ticket, more like. Xuxi probably qualified a long time ago. That being said, Xuxi pulls him aside to stand near the entrance of the arena grounds.

“Proper tactics, this time,” Xuxi’s hand is still holding on to Dejun’s elbow, eyes scanning the rugged terrain of the arena. “Our last opponents are not as easy to beat. They’re the same level, and they’re not amateurs, they’ve been watching us. We could bypass everyone before, but it’s unlikely that we can defeat them with the same tricks.”

Dejun stabs the end of his staff at the ground, leaning against it. “Aren’t you usually the one thinking of and coming up with our game plans—” 

Xuxi looks down, shooting a withering look at Dejun, who yanks his arm out of Xuxi’s hold.

“...Alright, I get it.” Dejun huffs. In the five minutes before their duel begins, the landscape has started to shift, and they’re given the same amount of time to observe the environment they’re fighting in. It’s a forest-like layout, this time, with dense foliage and towering trees. From the outside, Dejun can already barely see past the first few rows of trees. Things will probably be worse once they are inside—difficult to navigate, difficult to aim, difficult to spot anyone, friend or foe. The most important thing they have to know, though—

“What kind of weapons do our opponents use?”

Xuxi frowns, clasping his hands behind his back, blaster resting against the back of his leg. “Unconventional ones. The tech guy uses a spear, which is alright, I guess, but the magic...uh. Talismans. I know it sounds weird! But that is what I heard. We should have stayed to watch just now, really, they’re way more unpredictable than we are, and I couldn’t really gather much about them—”

“But we’ve heard about you.”

A clear voice rings out behind them, and Dejun groans inwardly before turning around to appraise their new... companions . They look friendly enough , at least. The one who spoke is clearly the tech one of the duo, with a confident gait, a sharp smile. and what looks like lab goggles sitting on his head. Dejun catches a glimpse of a thin rod strapped to the inner side of the sleeve of his checkered blazer. He can’t tell what it is right now, nor is his opponent’s weapon in sight, but said opponent looks conventional enough. His partner, though, is the exact opposite. No one in Lavan really wears robes—not unless you’re Taeyong, Dejun supposes—but this player is decked out in an exceptionally elegant white one. The sheer brightness of the white rivals his hair—Dejun is quite sure that’s platinum blond. In comparison, he stands and walks with a slight slouch, hands hidden in the wide sleeves of his clothing, and makes no attempt to interact with Dejun and Xuxi. Dejun senses no real hostility in the other’s body language, though, so he makes no comment.

“I’m Doyoung, and that’s Yuta, my partner,” the tech player nods courteously at Dejun and Xuxi, who rush to return the greeting. “It’s true that we’ve heard much about you. Well done in the last round! You two are genuinely exceptional, and we’re glad and honoured to be able to challenge you in the last round.” Doyoung spreads his arms—comparable to a king holding a celebratory banquet, Dejun thinks, and stifles a laugh. “Best of luck to you and us, then! See you in the arena.”

With that, Doyoung strides past them, with Yuta trailing behind, still not having said a word during the entire exchange. Dejun watches them leave, probably to take their place at the opposite end of the arena grounds.

Xuxi turns to Dejun, anxiety seeping into his tone. “Well?”

Doyoung and Yuta have long since disappeared from view, but still Dejun is staring in the direction they left in. “He’s clever. You know those people who anger you to distract you? He feels like that sort of person. But we don’t know for sure, and his weapon? Nowhere to be seen. We can’t judge them right now.”

“Then when can we, we need—”

“Tactics?” Dejun catches hold of Xuxi’s shoulder, tone suddenly demanding and firm. “The tactic is to be flexible. There’s nothing we can know for sure right now, not about them, and the forest is too dense for us to really tell what’s inside. The only thing we can do is to keep in mind that we have to put the elements of our environment into good use, but never assume that they’re not doing the same thing. Otherwise—we’ll just have to go in and see what happens.”

See, if there’s one thing Dejun has learned about Xuxi during the training period, it’s that Xuxi finds solace in having a plan. Being certain of what he’s going to do helps Xuxi perform, it seems. It’s always do this thing first, then that, and throw in a plan B if it really doesn’t work out—though that rarely happens. But now Dejun is telling him to go in blind . Dejun knows that he makes sense, and he knows Xuxi knows this too. It’s frightening, still, Dejun can tell, but he can’t offer much other than this explanation and a pat on Xuxi’s shoulder.

Xuxi gives the floor a small nod in response, but his head immediately snaps up again, fully alert. A gong rings out and echoes throughout the arena grounds—the match is about to begin. Xuxi straightens, squaring his shoulders and facing the entrance, as Dejun takes his place on Xuxi’s left.

Dejun hears the blare of the bodiless announcer’s voice, the roar of the crowd, and then a deafening silence. 

The duel commences.

He sprints forward, leaping right into the forest, Xuxi at his side.

The silence is still present inside the forest, so quiet Dejun is uneasy the moment he’s in. The foliage is just as dense as it looks on the outside, and though his height is usually a disadvantage, Xuxi’s view is probably not any better. Dejun pulls Xuxi closer by the back of his jacket, and mumbles to ask if he was any good at climbing trees— and travelling between them. 

Without another word, Xuxi turns away, scaling the nearest one effortlessly, long legs and arms giving him an extra boost upwards. His blaster, latched to his belt, bumps against his side, but it doesn’t take long for him to be perched carefully on a stable branch, almost invisible amongst the leaves. Satisfied, Dejun reverts his attention back to their surroundings. There’s no use staying here and waiting for their opponents to find them, Dejun realises—they’re too close to the border of the grounds and it’ll be easy to force them out and end the duel. Dejun raises a finger to his lips, looking up at Xuxi, before pointing forwards. Once he’s sure that Xuxi got the message, he creeps forward too, careful of where he steps.

They’ve travelled for about five minutes towards the inside of the forest when Dejun hears it—the distinct crack of a branch. Dejun ducks behind a tree, pressing his back to it and looking up. But it’s not Xuxi, who frowned down at Dejun before retreating back into the cover of a denser branch of leaves.

“I see you,” a voice calls out—must be Doyoung. Dejun tenses, pulling his staff closer to his body. It’s not possible to tell if he’s on the ground or up in a tree like Xuxi is. Is Doyoung a hand-to-hand combat kind of person or an aim and shoot one? Dejun doesn’t dare blink, but he breathes in, slamming the end of the staff into the ground, and without missing a beat, points it out in the general direction of Doyoung’s voice. The spark emitted hits a tree instead, which cracks down the middle before toppling over. But just as Dejun expected, no Doyoung there.

“Wrong way, Dejun.”

Before Dejun can respond, something distinctly metal clatters to the ground. He looks down behind him and finds Doyoung’s spear, with the handle glowing red-hot—Xuxi’s doing. He’d have to give Xuxi credit for his spectacular aim and for saving him, but now both their positions are exposed. He’s at least clever enough to immediately move away, though, indicated by the soft rustling of leaves, loud enough for Dejun to hear, but not Doyoung, who must still be some distance away. As for Dejun himself—he’ll just have to face Doyoung and hope Xuxi will take care of Yuta, wherever the hell he was.

The spear shifts on the ground, and Dejun, again, is too late to respond. He fails at stepping on the spear, which instead shoots away from him. Doyoung is visible to him now, a hand stretched out to catch the spear as he steps out from the back of another tree, swiftly approaching Dejun.

Doyoung’s arm is poised in a throw but this time, Dejun’s prepared. He ducks, throwing himself to the ground, and the spear sinks deep into the tree behind. From this distance, Doyoung can’t retrieve the spear himself, and however he called the spear back just before, it didn’t seem to be working now. From the ground, Dejun takes aim—no better chance than now.

It only takes him a second to cast an attack spell, and this time is no different, but still someone is still somehow faster than he is. A blink, and Dejun is being dragged on his back, right arm pinned to the same tree the spear is lodged in. Not by a physical weapon, Dejun looks up to see, but damn, he forgot about Yuta’s talismans. He clearly can’t understand it, but he sees Yuta now, a pair of glittering eyes amongst the leaves overhead. Dejun’s thrashing around and defenseless now, while Doyoung’s finally arrived within Dejun’s immediate vicinity and retrieved his spear from a distance.

It gets worse.

Doyoung smiles, wide, showing just a little too many teeth to be friendly, and then his figure wavers. Once, twice, and in just the time Dejun takes to blink, there are one—two—three—ten Doyoungs, looming closer and closer to Dejun, so excruciatingly slowly Dejun wonders if its his own mind or the game the is messing with him. There’s no way he can get out of this—Yuta’s talisman was just annoyingly effective, and the multiple Doyoungs must be his doing too.

Where the hell is Xuxi, anyway?

He gets his answer almost immediately after the spear is freed, when Yuta quite literally is knocked out of his tree, a white figure crashing down on the branches and falling to the ground. (Again, who knew Xuxi was this good of a sniper when they’d practiced with him on the ground and running all the time?) The talisman falls off Dejun’s arm along with Yuta, and he scrambles to stand to face Doyoung.

Doyoung, on the other hand, isn’t as disciplined as Dejun thought he was, because as the illusion warps and dissipates he turns his back on Dejun and cries out to the unresponsive heap of white robes that is Yuta. An unmistakable moment of weakness, and Dejun lunges forward to strike Doyoung in the back with a stunning spell, and kick the spear out of reach. At the same time, Xuxi leaps down from his position, chest heaving.

There are two important things Dejun will take away from this duel.

One: a player’s timing—whether when attacking or defending—must always be perfect.

Two: never assume anything.

By the inverted red holographic triangle hovering over Yuta, it’s clear that he’s out of commission. A little surprising, the fact that he’s so easy to take out, but not really—when defenseless, no one can properly withstand a direct shot in the chest from Xuxi’s blaster. The match is theirs to win, and Dejun turns to smile at Xuxi.

But Xuxi’s eyes widen, and the next thing Dejun knows, he’s doubled down and on the ground next to Doyoung, staff rolling out of his hand quickly. Doyoung’s spear is buried in his calf. Of course—Doyoung is a tech player, Dejun should’ve known that the bracelet around Doyoung’s right wrist was the key to his spear-retrieving ability. The important thing to make unavailable to Doyoung was not just the spear, but the bracelet too, Dejun realises bitterly.

It all happens very, very quickly. Doyoung viciously yanks the spear out, shortening it with a click—since when could he do that? Teeth gritted, and with a vengeance burning in his eyes, almost maniacal, Doyoung raises the spear above Dejun. Dejun squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for impact—

Until, of course, it doesn’t happen.

One, two, three seconds pass, before Dejun opens his eyes and finds Doyoung slumped on the ground. He can see Xuxi still in shooting position out of the corner of his eye, and how, though having been shot by Xuxi, Doyoung has managed to drive the spear into the ground a mere inch from where Dejun’s head was. He watches as the same inverted red triangle materialises above Doyoung’s figure, and the same sounds ring out—the blare of the bodiless announcer’s voice, the roar of the crowd.

This time, the match is over.

Xuxi hauls Dejun up by his arms, and they limp towards the edge of the forest together.

The moment the pair exits the forest, the noise and artificial light washes over them, and Dejun briefly feels like he’s drowning in how overwhelming all of it is. Not only is the announcer declaring their victory again, but a spotlight is upon them, forcing Dejun to squint and blink as his eyes adapt to the sudden change. Xuxi comes to a stop as a group of NPCs dash past them and into the forest to retrieve their opponents.

Exhausted and wounded, Dejun bends over slightly, catching his breath, while Xuxi cheerfully waves at someone with his blaster-occupied hand. It’s Mark and Donghyuck, obviously, the former of which thrusts a flask of glittering blue potion at Dejun upon nearing, telling him to drink up. Donghyuck, on the other hand, throws himself at Dejun and Xuxi, laughing obnoxiously and holding them together in a hug so tight their heads knock together messily.

“Told you they could do it,” Donghyuck exclaims, head lifted high, hand smacking into Mark’s chest, “ I taught them, after all! We’ll give Dejun’s leg ten minutes to get it together, and then it’s time to have some fun .”

Donghyuck’s concept of fun is, unsurprisingly, clubbing. Truthfully, Dejun hasn’t been to a club in Lavan, where all there is to do is talk to NPCs. Though—he’s realised by now that things are very different depending on the point of view in which you experience Lavan. Where going to the bars was a pointless venture before, Nucleopolis’ night life is very much alive , filled to the brim and spilling over with pulsating energy. Mark and Donghyuck don’t hang around after a couple of congratulatory clinks of their respective glasses of various coloured drinks, leaving Xuxi to nurse his own quietly at the bar counter and Dejun to observe the surroundings, legs dangling off the ground.

Objectively, this is an exceedingly ugly bar, with neon orange lights, blue lasers and a standard disco ball dangling too low upon the dance floor. Dejun has seen at least six people’s heads bump the glittering sphere and send it swinging over the mass of heads nodding along to the song playing.

With the bad lighting and generic bad tropical house music Dejun would love to leave, but sitting down with a half-healed ankle and a slushy pink drink he frankly can’t get enough of, he supposes that he’s content. The boom of the bass bounces around fuzzily around the inside of his head—what is in this drink? Not that Dejun is complaining. It tastes like strawberries and something else really familiar, but he can’t put his finger on it, so he just drops his head onto the counter, left cheek cushioned on his arm, hair brushing against Xuxi’s elbow.

Dejun traces circles on the counter, dipping his finger in the condensation left behind by his cold glass. Once, twice, to the beat—in this state, his victory, their victory, starts to sink in. Duelling other, equally capable opponents is worlds apart from duelling Mark and Donghyuck all the time, and though they haven’t acknowledged it, Dejun is proud of Xuxi and himself. It was...comforting to have Xuxi beside him. Detail-oriented and plan-obsessed as Xuxi was, those traits admittedly helped them a lot, and filled in what Dejun was incapable of doing. Dejun feels himself smiling before he could register just how genuinely, undeniably euphoric of a state he was in, finger still dragging along the counter. Not bad.

Then Dejun’s glass of pink slushy heaven is taken away abruptly, and he’s forced to groan and push himself up from the counter to glare at whoever took it away. It’s Xuxi, Dejun finds with a pout, not that it could really have been anyone else. Xuxi’s the one who’s downing the remnants of the liquid in one go, setting the glass down on the counter with a dull clunk. Dejun doesn’t find it in himself to banter with him, frowning forlornly at the rings left behind on the wooden surface instead.

They sit in silence yet again, the same tropical track bouncing off the walls and pounding in their ears, all weapons stored away safely in their inventories. For this moment of sobriety, Dejun still manages to find some comfort in a place still foreign to him.

It’s Xuxi who breaks the silence. He slides off the barstool, taking Dejun by the arm and pulling him out of his own seat before he has the chance to protest in any way. They squeeze their way out of the crowd and out of the bar, taking the stairs upwards and out. Where Xuxi takes large strides and positively bounds up the stairs, Dejun has to start jogging to keep up—a little bit of deja vu, he smiles dreamily, and immediately trips over a step. Xuxi looks back for a moment, concern flashing across his face, but he doesn’t stop, not even when he pushes open the glass door at the end of the stairwell and they stumble onto the street.

They keep going like this—Xuxi walking purposefully, Dejun half-running behind him, with Xuxi still holding onto Dejun’ elbow. They take several turns, weaving in and out of different streets and alleys, but Dejun doesn’t bother to keep track of where they’re going, because Xuxi must know where he’s going, and it’s okay. Xuxi’s okay.

Dejun looks around him instead. It’s late enough for even Nucleopolis to be quiet, with just the few stray players shuffling around under the street lamps, the blue of the pavement still luminated at their feet. There are no stars nor moon to see here, but Dejun thinks the gentle glow of the shops along each side of the street suffices. Rather than the obnoxious glare of the same lights in the day, these signs were somehow soft, gently lighting their path.

And—ow. Dejun’s daydream (nightdream?) is broken by his crashing into Xuxi’s back, who doesn’t even flinch at the impact. Torn away from the newfound dreaminess of the main district area, he takes a moment to reorient and take in his surroundings.

Maybe Dejun has been a little drunk after all, because he hadn’t noticed that Xuxi was leading him up a hill this entire time. It’s not too different from the one in Genesia, just a small mound, but one tall enough to be overlooking the district. Instead of a pagoda there is a lone wooden bench, which Xuxi sits down on. Dejun takes a moment before joining him, and they gaze out at the lights beneath them.

They slip into many, many silences, Xuxi and Dejun, but like always, Xuxi is the first one to speak.

“Nucleopolis’ old transport station,” Xuxi says quietly, as Dejun’s head snaps in his direction. “Fell out of usage a long time ago when they expanded Nucleopolis as a district, so normal players can’t really get access to this place. Given our ...circumstances, though, you’ll find that there is close to nowhere in the district we can’t go.”

Dejun doesn’t know how to reply, so he just nods and leans forward, hands wrapping around the edge of the bench, flaky white paint peeling off onto his palms. The district is no less breathtaking from here than when one is within it, a sprawling web of lights. Dejun squints, finding its centre—the arena, and he smiles at the thought of how much they’ve accomplished within its grounds. His gaze lingers on it for a moment, before tracing a path northeast, shifting at a junction, and narrowing down to a slightly darker area—where the workshop is. He wonders if Mark and Donghyuck are heading back there right now, hands just barely touching the other’s, before Xuxi clears his throat and Dejun’s attention shifts again.

“Um,” Xuxi starts awkwardly, hand rubbing the back of his neck. Neither of their faces are exactly visible in the darkness, but Dejun tilts his head and bumps his knee against Xuxi’s to let him know that he’s listening.

“Um,” Xuxi breathes in deeply, “thanks for...shaking me into state in the afternoon. You were right about Doyoung and Yuta, and I don’t think any plan would have worked against them, anyway. So, uh. Thanks, Dejun. You did good.”

It takes a moment for Dejun’s still-fuzzy mind to register the statement, but when he does, a grin crawls its way onto his face. Dejun leans towards Xuxi now, and if Dejun weren’t so out of it he’d have noticed that Xuxi is holding his breath. “So,” he drawls obnoxiously, “I taught you something. I taught you something, haha!” Dejun flops back, throwing himself against the back of the bench, sighing and shaking his head. “I’m just as good as you. But you did very well.”

Again, Dejun doesn’t realise, but Xuxi exhales and relaxes visibly at his statement. There’s an extra note of comfort hanging in the air now, so present even Dejun, in his tipsy state, recognises that it's there, slumping down contentedly. This is nice.

“But really, you’re good too,” Dejun voices out, nodding aggressively. “I could never plan as well as you do. I always just go by gut feeling and after today I think...that’s not always the best. Though,” he grins slyly, “I did win us the last duel with that trait.”

Xuxi splutters, shoving at Dejun’s shoulder, “But I was the one who saved you! Twice! I adapted well!”

“Yeah, but I was the one who told you to learn to adapt in the first place! Don’t forget your roots, Xuxi!”

They glare at each other as best as they can, two pairs of shining eyes with knitted eyebrows in the dark, before Dejun bursts out laughing, pressing the top of his head into Xuxi’s side. Xuxi, influenced by Dejun, starts chuckling too, and their laughter echoes around the hill and fades into the night before Dejun sits upright with a satisfied sigh.

“What—”

“Hey—”

“You can go first,” Xuxi gestures vaguely, dragging a large hand over his face after.

Dejun laces his fingers together, setting them in his lap, and crosses his ankles, pondering.

"I think," Dejun says, gently, only so that he doesn't break the delicate bubble of comfort they've settled into. "...maybe forever here wouldn't be so bad after all."

A beat. 

"What?" Xuxi replies blankly, and Dejun can't quite tell what he‘s thinking, here in the dark, so he just goes on. 

"I mean, think about it in this way, yeah? I am—I was a university student before I ended up here. And since we all look like what we really do, we must be around the same age. So isn't this the perfect place to be? No responsibilities, no deadlines, nothing. The only thing we have to do is make sure we don't die, which is...what normally happens anyway. I can help you and Mark and Donghyuck out at the workshop, and since I’m familiar with both tech and now magic I can probably help in some way or another, and I’ll get better! When I'm bored - or if you are, for that matter, we can just get out and do some missions. Just the two of us going after missions and coming home to the shop...isn't that ideal? I think—this all isn’t really that bad." 

And Dejun knows instantly that he's wrong, wrong, wrong, because Xuxi is sitting up all too fast, turning to him with an expression that must be far from gentle, and the bubble is broken. 

"Do you know why the workshop even exists, Dejun?" Xuxi’s voice is forcefully calm, and it's gnawing away at Dejun’s insides already, forcing him to be sober again—god, he wishes he were actually drunk. 

"Do you know why?" Xuxi demands, and the frustration in his voice reminds Dejun of them running around in the Mansion again, deja vu but in all the wrong ways. "It's because Mark and Donghyuck live in the hope that their work will help people figure out how to get out of the game, and that hope is the only reason why they haven't walked right into a high-risk mission without any weapons or potions and let themselves die like I wanted to." 

The silence falls upon them again, but this time it feels as if Dejun poured the whole cauldron of he and Donghyuck’s newly made corrosion concoction over himself and let it fester. 

“Think about it. Sentience is a curse," the bitterness in Xuxi’s voice reminds Dejun all too much of someone —Kun, maybe. “No responsibilities, no deadlines, but did you really want to give everything else up in exchange? Did you never want to go back home? Did you never want to see your friends again? Never see whoever was your partner, the person who was right behind you on the leaderboard again?" 

"Xuxi, I don't—"

“Wake up, Dejun,” Xuxi hisses, venom dripping from his words, “this isn't home. The workshop isn’t home, Nucleopolis isn’t home, Lavan will never be home. Nothing here is real. What’s real should never become the past tense to you."

And with that, Dejun is left alone, Xuxi’s footsteps behind him fading away into the dark. He breathes out shakily, but he can’t bear to find solace in the lights of the district beneath him any longer.

He stays like this for minutes, devoid of thought, not having the courage to dwell on Xuxi’s words. He stays like this until a warm hand is set on his shoulder, but he doesn’t turn to look at who it is.

“Let’s go,” Donghyuck says, quieter than all the times Dejun has talked to him, and all Dejun could do was follow him. They descend the hill in silence, shoulder to shoulder but never brushing against each other, trudging along the blue streets and ducking past the entrance of the shop. Donghyuck wordlessly joins Mark, who’s seated at the main workbench, hands wrapped tightly around a white mug. Xuxi is nowhere to be seen.

Dejun retires to his room. His night is sleepless, and till he hears someone tinkering around downstairs again, he thinks. He thinks of the stars, he thinks of Seoul, he thinks of Dongguan, he thinks of Renjun, and all that is real .

“I heard about it,” is Mark’s greeting when Dejun emerges from the stairs and into the workspace. “Sit down, let’s talk.”

If there’s anyone amongst the three Dejun still felt intimidated to be around, it had to be Mark. Mark didn’t talk much to anyone in the first place, let alone Dejun, as the newest addition to the inhabitants of the shop. Without work or an ongoing duel to occupy Mark, it is only now that Dejun really gets to look at him.

As Mark rounds the corner of the table to sit opposite Dejun, Dejun sees this—tired eyes, a perpetual slouch, and slumped shoulders. This Mark is almost fragile , disciplined alertness Dejun’s seen in all their duels all gone, walls all let down. The white mug from last night is now in Mark’s hands again, a murky liquid sloshing around as he swirls—come to think of it, it always seemed to be around whenever Mark was working on something, fully concentrated.

“We’re not trying to guilt-trip you into leaving and, by extension, helping Xuxi to leave,” Mark takes a long sip out of the mug, “but after last night...you do see why Xuxi wants to get out so desperately, right?”

Dejun only offers a nod, prompting a sigh from Mark.

“Then again—it’s obviously not just about Xuxi. We’re not going to kick you out if you really don’t want to do this, but we—Donghyuck and I—just want you to think about it: why were you so eager to leave in the beginning?”

Dejun does know the answer to this, doesn’t he?

Lavan, in all its glory, was painfully suffocating even with the allowance given to players like the four of them—this was the truth. Everything was always the same around here, never mind patch updates and district expansions. Life here will never differ, will always be players fighting monsters, fighting evil figures, fighting one another.

As morning approached and Dejun lay in bed just a few hours ago, the one question he had to keep asking was now what ? He settles down in Lavan, now what? He starts working properly at the shop, now what? Does he still go on missions? Does he still travel between districts? Does he still fight alongside Xuxi? Even if the answers to all of the former three was yes, now what ? Dejun will never have anything truly new to do.

“And maybe back then, I really knew,” Dejun rocks back and forth in his seat, avoiding Mark’s gaze, “I knew why sentience is a curse to us all.”

From Dejun’s peripheral vision, Mark nods thoughtfully, “And sentience shouldn’t ever be anything but a gift. What do you think now?”

At this Dejun chokes out a laugh, and startles himself with the pain he hears in his own voice. He’s heard it before—in Kun, in Xuxi. “I think I was really stupid to have ever thought that it was okay. To keep living like this, I mean.”

“Damn right you were.”

Ah, it’s Donghyuck. The gentleness from last night when they walked back together is gone without a trace. Donghyuck has a scowl etched into his face as he shuffles sideways to sit beside Mark on the bench, though with his hair sticking up funnily like that, Dejun finds it difficult to be in any way intimidated by him. Smiling weakly at Donghyuck, Dejun leans forward, resting his cheek on his palm before Donghyuck shoots him another question to consider.

“What Mark was trying to get you to tell us is what you’re going to do now . We all have different paths to take—in life or in Lavan—what’s yours?”

With two people now staring intently at him Dejun can’t find himself to lift his head anymore, staring down at the streaks of paint and stubborn grease along the workbench instead. “My path...the Sanctorium. I think—”

“You think what ?”

All three of their heads snap up. Xuxi, eyes glazed over in his state of half-awakenness, rubs at his eyes blearily, standing at the bottom of the staircase.

“Xuxi—”

Dejun beats Mark to it, pouring all his words out in a hurry. “I think that maybe we should leave today. For the Sanctorium. If— if you’re okay with that.”

Silence in the room, as they watch a frown etch itself into Xuxi’s expression while he registers Dejun’s statement. At one point Dejun thinks he glimpses Mark open his mouth to speak, but his face contorts in pain—thanks, Donghyuck. Dejun has never been more nervous since he arrived in Lavan.

“I— yeah.” Dejun exhales when Xuxi smiles back gently. “That’s okay.”

Their departure isn’t really a sad affair—Donghyuck simply packs their inventories full of potions, Dejun’s spare crystals, way more ammunition for Xuxi than necessary, and tools for fixing up their weapons. Mark tries to give them some kind of profound talk about being careful and always having each others’ backs, but Donghyuck, in true Donghyuck impatience, smacks him away lightly, claiming that “they already know all this, they’re not amateurs!”.

And then, with a final wave and pat on their backs from Mark, they’re off.

Truth be told, Dejun was genuinely upset to have to leave the workshop behind. Perhaps not the place itself, but the inhabitants. Mark and Donghyuck were good company, what with their skill and knowledge, and he’s sure that they were capable of leaving Lavan with he and Xuxi. Then again—like Donghyuck said, they all had different paths to take. At the very least, he still has Xuxi, right?

Speaking of Xuxi—Dejun swallows nervously, shooting a glance at him. Xuxi’s expression is neutral, and though just three weeks ago Dejun would never have entertained the idea of taking responsibility for what he said in Lavan, what he was about to say had to be said at some point.

“Sorry,” Dejun mumbles, repeating himself when Xuxi turns to him with a confused tilt of his head. “I said sorry—I do want to leave and help you leave too, I just...wasn’t really thinking last night, I guess. Or maybe not. I don’t really have an excuse for why I said that last night, I just—”

He’s interrupted by the swarm of players they just encountered, all flocking towards the bulletin board. Must be another fresh mission, but Dejun elbows his way against the crowd this time to get away from the board, not towards. In the sea of heads Dejun can barely see where he’s going, and to make things more disorienting, there’s no Xuxi in front of him to follow this time.

“The transport station is on our left,” Dejun hears a voice tell him lowly from behind—Xuxi’s voice, and Xuxi’s hand, holding tightly onto his shoulder, gently steering him through the crowd. And sure enough, they break off from the crowd shortly after, with Dejun tripping over his feet as soon as they escape from the mass of players. Thankfully, Xuxi is there to catch him, accompanied with his response to Dejun’s apology.

“There’s really no need to apologise,” Xuxi’s tone is nonchalant as they head towards the transport station, now well within sight, “not when I...really shouldn’t have been so imposing, anyway. Stop flapping your hands at me, I think it’s true. To be honest, you haven’t been here for a long time—around a month, right? No one’s entered after you, either. It’s actually normal for you to feel like staying here isn’t too bad. We all feel like this at some point, I can tell you that, it’s just that some of us get past that stage, and others just don’t. And—”

At this, Xuxi coughs. Squeezing past the entrance of the transport station, Dejun turns back with a raised brow, prompting Xuxi to continue. He gets a reply said under Xuxi’s breath, so quiet he just barely manages to catch Xuxi’s words.

“Didn’t want to see you give up just yet.”

There’s no reply Dejun can give to this. It’s touching, definitely, but—Dejun doesn’t know. He gives Xuxi a squeeze on his arm, pulling him over to a hologram to key in their destination. He presses his palm to the hovering green screen, and their possible destinations fill the panel beside the palm scanner—Genesia, Cogskid, Tigate—Dejun taps lightly on “the Sanctorium”. 

Instantly, a green trail lights up at their feet, weaving between other players following similar paths of light. Their own leads them to a far-flung platform within the transport station, where only a few other players were waiting. The signboard overhead (holographic, yes) reads NUCLEOPOLIS > THE SANCTORIUM. To Dejun’s surprise, they were travelling via—

“Gondolas. Don’t look so shocked, the Sanctorium is headquarters, so they decided that it’d be nice to add an element of...mystery. The entire district is suspended in mid-air and enshrouded in clouds and fog, because this is a game and anything is possible.”

Calmly, Xuxi nudges Dejun towards one of said gondolas. As they slide into the seats, a bar lowers down in front of them. The gondolas here are, disappointingly, not much different from the ones Dejun took when he went skiing that one time. It’s a little rickety and concerning to ride on, and if this was real life he’d be beyond terrified right now. The gondola itself is nothing more than a glorified metal garden bench with an extra safety precaution, and Dejun’s feet dangle in the air, with nothing to set them on. He looks down, which he immediately regrets, seeing winding roads and vehicles speeding around hundreds of metres below. Given any other location, Dejun would be happy to admire the outskirts of Nucleopolis from above, but now? He unconsciously scoots towards his left, thigh brushing against Xuxi’s. Not that the gondola was comfortably wide for the two of them in the first place, anyway.

It’s not long before the view from beneath them disappears as a whole, and the fog that Xuxi mentioned quickly surrounds them. Just a few minutes ago Dejun was still able to watch the pair of players a little way in front of them converse animatedly, but now that the fog has set in, they’ve faded away too. In contrast, Dejun and Xuxi haven’t said a single word to each other ever since setting off at the transport station. For once, Dejun decides to be the one to break their silence.

Tapping the handle of his staff lightly, Dejun coaxes the crystal set into it to light up. Its glow isn’t bright enough to help them see anything at all, but a little bit of light is always comforting. Seeing Xuxi turn towards him as the beam grows a little stronger, Dejun grins.

“Hey, there’s so many things I still don’t know about you! And we’re stuck on this flimsy thing for who knows how long...so you might as well tell me more. You’ve never mentioned why you use a blaster?”

In the dim light and heavy fog, Xuxi’s features are a little blurry, but the two are close enough to each other for Dejun to be able to see Xuxi shrug lightly. “No reason,” he states simply, “I used to use a sword for some time, but really traditional weapons are just...harder to play tech with, you know?”

Of course Dejun knows, he used to be a tech player with a traditional weapon. “Anyway,” Xuxi continues after a pause, “Donghyuck made this, so...it can’t get any better.”

At that, Dejun raises a brow, smiling widely. “So if Donghyuck made your blaster,” he bounces his staff against his knee, before remembering that they were suspended in mid-air and abruptly grips his staff with both hands, “and Mark made my staff, but they’re partners...so which of us has the better weapon?”

Beside him, Xuxi scoffs, hugging said blaster to his chest. “What’s this, 20 questions?”

“Well, if you want—”

“Of course my blaster is better—”

“ Don’t push me ,” Dejun shrieks, clutching onto Xuxi’s arm and leaning away from the side of the gondola. “We’re hovering in the middle of nowhere! If you push me off, you won’t have anyone to help you!”

Still, Dejun’s statement was accompanied by a laugh, bright and clear, soon joined by the sound of Xuxi’s own. Again, this scene was vaguely familiar—the two of them, seemingly alone, laughter fading into nothingness, and all is well. At the very least, Dejun hoped that all was well.

Xuxi seemed to have latched on to the idea of playing 20 questions as they waited out their journey. In between shaking Dejun around by the shoulders and collapsing into giggly fits, he manages to ask Dejun a question of his own—“why were you so against getting help from us?”

Ah, here comes the serious question. Dejun sucks in a breath sharply. “Just...pride. Wasn’t I obvious, though? It’s a long fall down from being first on the leaderboard to a whole new identity and start, you must know that too. I just didn’t want to admit that I needed anyone to assist me, but that’s obviously stupid, because I would have gotten myself killed immediately, right? I wouldn’t know even half the things I know now, and…” He shifts in his seat, hand holding onto the bar. “...I wouldn’t know how to leave this place, either.”

A hum of comprehension is audible from Xuxi’s side, and out of the corner of his eye, Dejun catches Xuxi nodding along too. As the gondola tilts slightly as they round a corner blindly, Dejun smiles at a thought. We’re the same , he sighs, unfortunate to be here, lucky to have met.

And there’s something else he’s curious about—

“Is there really no way to get through headquarters alone?”

Xuxi stiffens, and Dejun is quick to follow up to exclaim, “Not that I’m thinking about it! I just...was curious.”

As Xuxi’s shoulders sag down slowly, he answers solemnly, “Probably not. So really, it’s just safer to have a partner and be sure.”

He glances at Dejun, just a fleeting sweep of the other’s expression. But as Xuxi turns back, he answers Dejun’s unspoken question—“You’re the only one I’ve met so far with enough willpower and skill to match up to whatever security they have up there at headquarters. So—even if you were insufferable at first , better try than not have a chance at all, right? But now...I guess I’m glad it’s you.”

Same as the night after they won the duels, Dejun has nothing to reply with, so Xuxi is forced to cough awkwardly to ease up the tension. “Anyway, that was two answers, so I get to ask you two now. What’s the worst thing about suddenly becoming a magic player?”

Dejun’s response is immediate—a deafening groan, and a lifeless slouch. “Don’t even get me started.”

They’re careful not to slip into heavy questions and answers again, instead cackling and debating with each other for the rest of their trip. They argue about trifling matters (“Mixed berry yoghurt is the best yoghurt.” “You’re a fool, yoghurt is disgusting.”) and pry into each other’s real lives (“What did you study in university?” “Psychology, but no one told me that I need to do so much math.”). They converse about topics far and wide, but can’t help poking fun at each other once in a while, breaking out into bouts of obnoxious laughter time and again. 

As such, when Dejun and Xuxi finally stumble off the gondola and onto the still-foggy platform of the Sanctorium’s transport station, they do it holding their stomachs, the ghosts of their latest laughing fit still lingering in the crinkles of their eyes.

This platform, like the one they came from, is mostly empty. But with the fog floating in the air, the Sanctorium’s transport station seems even more barren. Dejun and Xuxi begin to bounce down the stairs in the middle of the platform, but given the sheer plainness of just about everything around them, they slow down, and eventually exit the station with much steadier footsteps. 

By then, the fog has mostly thinned. The Sanctorium is clearly no Nucleopolis, nor is it Genesia. It is headquarters, like Xuxi said, but frankly Dejun doesn’t find joy in the “capital” of this city like he can in anywhere else in Lavan. It’s bright enough for Dejun to extinguish the little light at the top of his staff, but beyond the fog, everything is too grey . The buildings, most noticeable of all, are a uniform, drab concrete, and when Xuxi puts a hand against a wall to balance himself as he adjusts his boot, his hand comes away dusty with a chalk-like powder. They continue on with no end in sight, rod-straight rows and columns of buildings, but with seemingly no purpose for them. There are no windows in them, and few visible doors. There’s no serenity Dejun saw in Genesia, nor is there the magic and excitement of Nucleopolis. Dejun watches as Xuxi exhales, and a puff of his breath becomes visible in the air. Though physically unfeeling in this state, Dejun’s heart sinks. The Sanctorium, to put it simply, is a dead district. They may not be here to have fun, but it’s never, never fun to do serious things in a lifeless place.

They soon have company, though.

“Hi!”

“Oh— I’m sorry for alarming you two, I don’t mean any harm.”

Dejun peers out from behind Xuxi (since when was he standing in front of Dejun?), staff clutched in both hands. The speaker is tall and pink-haired, with a charming smile. Suddenly reminded of the presence of holographic panels in Lavan, he calls one up now, to find that said speaker is JAEMIN, LVL. 72. Beside him is JISUNG, LVL. 70, who Dejun assumes to be his partner, and whose hands are on his knees, panting as he bends over. They’re both just boys . Suddenly, Dejun snaps his fingers, pointing at the pink haired player. “You two were in front of us on the way here!”

Upon Dejun’s exclamation, Jaemin only brightens further. “We were! And well...we saw you two wandering around after getting out of the station, and we figured that it must be your first time here. Not that it’s we’ve been here before, either, we just thought—” Here, he pats Jisung on the back rapidly, while the other straightens up slowly, “—we could help you out a little? We found a store or something in the next lane, and we can take you there to, I don’t know, replenish supplies or something, there are certain materials around, I think, we—”

“That would be really great,” Xuxi cuts into Jaemin’s ramble, hand hovering in the space between them.

In response, Jaemin hops a little with genuine excitement, and Dejun can’t help but smile at his energy.  “Well,” he pulls Jisung along by the elbow as he bounces away to lead the way, “over here, then! Hey, how long were you guys in Nucleopolis for? We were there for a while , but we never saw you two, but I suppose that isn’t surprising, haha! I hope you guys brought enough extra materials with you, because it sure looks like it’s going to be hard to get anything here, but if you didn’t I’m sure you can get more at—”

Jaemin’s excited chatter lasts all the way to the store. He skipped the entire way there, pulling Jisung along, but not forgetting to slow down and look behind to check if Xuxi and Dejun are too far behind. Like an excited pink bunny dragging a ragdoll (that was also bigger than itself), Dejun mumbles with a stifled laugh when Xuxi turns to him with a perplexed look in his eyes and his mouth hanging slightly open in disbelief.

“Here it is!” Jaemin declares, open hand motioning towards a dusty storefront. It’s a stock-up store, Dejun observes delightedly, pressing a button for the double glass doors to slide open. The quartet step inside, and soon Jisung has already strode past and ahead of them all, beelining for the rack of arrows near a counter-like surface. While Xuxi and Jaemin set off into the depths of the shop to examine its contents, Dejun finds himself watching Jisung prod at the quivers of arrows—gold, silver—

“You use bronze?” he calls out, and Jisung drops the quiver he’s holding with a clatter.

Jisung barely falters, though, and the quiver is back in his hands in a flash, with all the arrows it held intact. “I do,” he states flatly, voice small but chin raised in a show of confidence, though his eyes flit around and don’t meet Dejun’s. “And what about it? It’s a classic material, and though it’s supposedly heavy, it doesn’t matter here. It’s durable, it’s malleable, it looks good . I might as well take advantage of it.”

Definitely just boys, both of them, Jisung and Jaemin. Dejun shrugs amusedly, shoving his hands in his pockets and scanning the rack. “Nothing about it. You know your stuff.” He glances at the quiver now slung across Jisung’s torso, leather strap digging into one shoulder. “Crossbow?”

“Wha— yeah.” Jisung nods, the smallest of movements, before hesitantly holding out his hand. He pauses for a moment, before the form of said weapon begins to form in his hand. Soon, it’s handed over to Dejun, who carefully cradles it in both hands. It’s a beauty, the crossbow, crafted from a sturdy dark wood, and garnets set into the limbs.

“Oh— wait, here.”

Jisung taps the foregrip gently, and instantly, a holographic system sets up, glowing red. Of course , Jisung's a tech player. Dejun hoists the crossbow up, closing an eye and angling his head to mimic a shooting position. As he points the bow in different directions, Dejun watches the projection draw lines and bounce off in angles against the walls. “Holographic accuracy system?”

“Absolutely,” Jisung replies without missing a beat, tone and volume rising in excitement, “started out with a traditional scope, then I went back to the Genesia weapons workshop and designed it myself. The guy there made it, though. I didn’t know NPCs could actually help with so much. But— it’s cool, right?”

Dejun lowers the bow, then, looking over at Jisung. The boy’s eyes are shining with earnest, fists slightly clenched in excitement and hope. He smiles, more gentle than ever before. “It’s very cool.”

"So you two were here all along!" Jaemin's voice rings out from behind Jisung, his head popping in from the adjacent room, closely followed by a radiant Xuxi, beckoning them over.

And they do—Dejun carefully returns the crossbow to its owner, who stows it away with a flourish and flick of his wrist. They all flock into the room Xuxi and Jaemin were exploring. In better conditions, the store might have been a cosy cafe, but at the present it was worn down and dusty. After their inspection, the state of said room was just a little messy, but no matter. Jaemin, as magic player and master telekinetic, waves the items scattered around away, settling  them into their previous locations, be it racks or shelves. They shuffle into a booth of sorts, Xuxi's knees touching Jisung's opposite him. A window on their left opens into the barren lane, grey as ever, lifeless as before.

“Xuxi told me that you guys are here to take a look at headquarters,” Jaemin leans forward towards Dejun excitedly, elbows pressing into the table between them. “That’s cool! Jisung and I are just here to look around the district in general, but there doesn’t seem to be much to see in the first place... headquarters , though! Wow.”

Jaemin’s eyes glimmer with fascination and just a dash of admiration, and while giving a nod and smile in response, Dejun can’t help but glance worriedly at Xuxi beside him.

It’s Jisung who picks up on this lag in verbal response. “Don’t worry, Jaemin and I won’t try to tag along or something,” he follows up quietly, while Jaemin nods in rapid succession.

“But it’s always nice to find friends, right, Dejun?” Xuxi speaks up, shifting to get a more comfortable position—the sofas have exceptionally stiff seats and unnecessarily straight backs—while peering down at Dejun.

He’s right, Dejun knows this. In a monotone landscape, where nothing is really alive, it’s always nice to have friends.

“Anyway, given our identities in this game, I would like to present my weapon—weapon s —because they’re truly-”

“Jaemin, please just get on with it.”

Being the bubbly conversationalist he is, Jaemin has no problem driving the conversation along. Sitting by the window of the same dingy shop, they first become acquainted with one another’s weapons and equipment. It’s at this time that they recognise that Jaemin really didn’t lie—his weapons, a pair of holographic pink swords, were so highly and specifically customised he paid real money for it. Even then, Dejun knows Xuxi, good old practical Xuxi, thinks it’s worth it—the sheer wonder in his gaze and the way he gingerly held one of the blades gave it away.

And even after they’ve all exchanged their in-game knowledge (Dejun already knows most of the things the younger pair tell he and Xuxi, but Jisung has a way with metaphors that is particularly endearing to listen to), Jaemin pulls a classic move. Truth or dare, he asks, prompting a quickly-silenced groan from Jisung, but Xuxi is eager to play, so Dejun is too.

It’s not long before they realise that Xuxi is exceptional when it comes to truth or dare. A dare for Jisung (shoot an arrow through a spare low-level crystal while standing across the street with your eyes closed), a truth for Jaemin (partner up for a mission with Xuxi or Dejun?). Now, though Jaemin seems to be unable to speak anything but the truth and Dejun notices that Jisung relies way too much on his accuracy system, they complete their tasks and questions anyway—but the expressions of struggle they make along the way is certainly the most entertaining thing present in the entire district.

And now Jaemin is spinning the spare healing crystal Dejun contributed for the purposes of their game, and it lands on Xuxi himself. He picks truth without hesitating. Dejun doesn’t have anything to ask him that he hasn’t already, and Jaemin is deep in thought, so eventually, Jisung is the one to ask the question.

“Say, the goal of the mission you’re on is within your reach, but your partner was left behind and will die if you do not help. In the event that you can only choose one to go far, which would it be?”

Jaemin lets out a low whistle as Jisung ends his sentence, Dejun tenses visibly. Xuxi, on the other hand, doesn’t waste a second before answering. 

“Go back for my partner. Why would I leave them behind in the first place? If this really happened, I probably made a mistake I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s...interesting.” Jaemin says slowly as the mood in their small group suddenly takes a dive, before brightening again. “But I suppose I can understand! If it’s a life or death situation, certainly, but since it’s just stats here, I know Jisung would just go for the goal.”

“Well,” Dejun speaks up this time, “I think I would do the same as Xuxi. Each to their own pair, I suppose.”

The game doesn’t continue for long after that, and soon Xuxi and Dejun are waving at Jaemin and Jisung as they depart, heading towards the outskirts of the district. Dejun hasn’t said anything to Xuxi since, but silence is something they’ve long learned to be comfortable with.

When the figures of their two companions finally disappear into the fog, Dejun turns to Xuxi, staff in hand, hands behind his back. “I really would, you know. I wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“Suddenly?” Xuxi replies without turning to him.

“Yes,” Dejun tells him calmly, now pulling at Xuxi’s elbow and prompting him to start walking. “We’re here for a purpose, remember? And the stakes are high. If I don’t establish this now, then when? You said you won’t leave your partner behind, so I, as your partner right now, would like to reassure you that I wouldn’t leave you behind either.”

Xuxi suddenly stops in his tracks, causing Dejun to turn around quickly, all concern and frowns, “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Xuxi laughs, a clear sound that bounces off the drab walls of the buildings lining the streets. “No, in fact, I’m very glad that you said that. But you’re going the wrong way.”

Well, of course—Dejun was always terrible with directions. He’s lucky to have Xuxi here to point him down the right path, he reminds himself, as they set off down a different lane, shoulder to shoulder.

Dejun isn’t sure what he expected headquarters to look like, but really, this was an underwhelming sight. So underwhelming, in fact, that Dejun waves over an information panel in disbelief, but it only confirms that the structure is, indeed, headquarters of Lavan. Headquarters is no more than another one of the boring grey shops, the only thing they’ve seen ever since they got here, just a slightly taller version.

No use delaying anything, Dejun comments, and Xuxi hums in agreement. They check their equipment—Dejun’s crystals firmly set into the staff, Xuxi’s blaster supplied with ammo and whatever else it runs on, healing potions and other healing materials in each of their inventories just in case , shoes tied and double knotted. With a deep breath, and Xuxi close to his side, Dejun reaches out to lay a hand on the handleless metal door.

To his surprise, the door simply melts away to reveal a long, similarly grey corridor. But there are no strange creatures, no NPCs, no enemies for them to fight, just a concrete corridor and an invisible source of light. Xuxi enters first, blaster raised and ready, but both he and Dejun reach the end of the corridor safely. The passageway has no more to offer than a plain, industrial-like elevator, which slides open upon them approaching. With nowhere else to go, the pair enters the elevator.

There are no buttons on the inside of the elevator, whose doors shut automatically with a smooth hiss when Xuxi has stepped inside after Dejun. Other than the door, the walls of the elevator are constructed from thick sheets of glass, extending from the metal floor to the similarly metal ceiling. At first, there’s only an endless darkness to see, but they’re soon met with a sight , overwhelming and shocking even by Lavan’s standards.

The elevator overlooks a void of sorts - Dejun isn’t well-versed in architectural terms to know what it’s really called. Kind of like the scene in The Matrix when Neo wakes up, Dejun muses, trying to distract himself from the fear rising in his throat. Below, a bottomless fall, and above, a ceiling impossible to see. And along the sides? Dozens, hundreds, thousands, of little cubes, a mass of pods lined up in a ring, stacked on top of one another. If either of them pressed their noses to the glass and looked any closer, they would find that the pods resembled office cubicles, rooms upon rooms of standard chairs, standard desks, standard lamps. Nothing within the red-tinted clear walls of those pods hinted at any sign of individuality, only a definite similarity.

Still, as the elevator slows to a halt, the uneasiness from merely witnessing the general structure of the void sets in further. Before the elevator doors open once more, Dejun hurriedly casts a protection spell over Xuxi, then himself. With the protective force field encasing him, Xuxi turns away from silently staring out of the elevator to shoot an amused smile at Dejun.

“Just in case,” Dejun clarifies stiffly, avoiding Xuxi’s gaze and turning to the doors. This was the spell Xuxi chastised him for not casting, for not even knowing , when they first met. It honestly felt like a good few months ago when Dejun wandered into the Victorian Mansion, but really, it was just a matter of about two weeks. Either way, this was the first spell Donghyuck taught him. And come to think of it, it must have been because Xuxi complained about it to him before training commenced—damn, now he misses Donghyuck. And Mark, by extension.

There’s no time for Dejun to dwell on this sudden bout of nostalgia, though, because the elevator doors slide open in the next moment. In a flash, Xuxi is by his side again, both their weapons raised and ready for any situation.

Though, again, they lower them almost immediately.

“You’re sure headquarters is the key to getting us out of here?” Dejun puzzles, as they stare out at the empty corridor, much the one they first encountered upon their entrance to the building. “Is it supposed to be this easy?”

“Well—I guess?” Xuxi breathes back, and the confusion is just as present in his voice. “No one’s ever tried this before, so we’ll just have to...try.”

But the moment Xuxi steps out of the elevator warily, he steps back in shock. There’s nothing in the corridor, as far as Dejun can see, but Xuxi turns to him, panic-stricken.

“Did you hear that—someone just said hello—in some kind of child-like voice—really loud—but I don’t know where it’s coming from, it just seems to be everywhere—”

Xuxi, desperate, searches Dejun’s face for any kind of confirmation that the voice really was there. The truth is that Dejun heard nothing, so the corridor must be more than they thought it was. One hand on Xuxi’s arm, he’s the one to venture out of the elevator this time, staff held out firmly in front of him.

“Hello!”

Xuxi was right. The voice reverberates all around Dejun, as if he was enclosed in a ring of speakers. It’s certainly child-like, too, with a playful lilt and high pitch.

“Hello?” he echoes, still just halfway out of the elevator.

The voice giggles now, and Dejun thinks he hears the sound of gleeful clapping in the background. “Hello, hello! Why not you and your friend both step out of the lift, that way you can both hear me!”

This all sounds like a threat already, but since they do have nowhere else to go, Dejun waves a hesitant Xuxi forward.

“Good, good!” the voice calls out once the elevator’s doors have slid shut again, this time behind them. “Now I’ll tell you the game you’re here to— whoops!”

Dejun can’t help but flinch back, as a sleek object comes hurtling at him, shattering the protective force field he set up earlier. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be aimed at Dejun himself, embedding itself into the wall behind him instead. Taken aback, Dejun checks what it is while Xuxi stares stonily forward—a silver arrow, feathered. 

“Then, of course, you’re thinking, the force needed to do that must be off the charts!” The voice is back, stating as matter-of-factly a child’s voice can, “And you’re right! Jeno is really good. And you won’t just be playing with him, you’ll be playing with me too!”

The voice drops sinisterly, almost a whisper, but echoing louder and louder, booming in Dejun’s ears, and he notices Xuxi flinch slightly before standing rigidly again. “Come on, now,” the voice laughs lowly, and the walls on either side of them melt away, revealing a wide, empty space. “Let’s play!”

Thank heavens for Xuxi’s alertness and reflexes, because had he not pushed Dejun to the ground, the next arrow would have gone right through his temple. The only cover the space can offer comes in the form of pillars scattered around in no visible rows or columns, and they both duck behind one each.

Then there it is, again—

“Hi, Dejun,” the childish voice has returned, bouncing around in Dejun’s head, sending chills up Dejun’s back and prompting him to look behind him. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not here! All you have to watch out for is-” 

Another arrow, this time piercing cleanly through the pillar Dejun is crouched behind. Dejun only just manages to roll out of the way and join Xuxi. “ That! ”

Xuxi, though having looked over when Dejun narrowly escaped getting crushed by the now-fallen pillar, is looking through the scope of his blaster. Lifting his finger off the trigger, he puts a hand over his eyes briefly, mouthing:

He’s blind.

It’s now that Dejun knows it's safe to peer out from behind the pillar, and sure enough, the archer shooting at them is dressed in white robes—similar to Taeyong, but with sleeves that clung to his arms instead of hanging and draping. The most striking thing about his appearance, however, is not his attire, or his sleek and obviously well-made silver bow, but the thin strip of white fabric covering both his eyes. The archer is already setting a new arrow in place, ready to shoot.

Since he’s blind—this wouldn’t be too hard, would it? Xuxi had the same idea, rising from his hunched position slowly and stepping out. But before he can cover much distance, his face contorts, and Dejun hears a small tsk of annoyance—just barely enough for him to pick up.

Still loud enough for the archer (the voice mentioned a Jeno?), it seems. The next thing Dejun knows, he’s throwing out the fastest defense spell he’s ever casted, while Xuxi slides behind the next nearest pillar.

And again, a maniacal laughter in Dejun’s head. “That was just a warmup ! I’ve got more for you. Let’s have a chat, shall we?”

Dejun knows to not pay the voice any mind, but there’s something magnetic about it—he simply can’t help but listen.

“There’s no one here who doesn’t know who you are, Dejun, this is, after all, headquarters . Bold move, coming here! We haven’t really had any visitors, and we’re really getting so bored. Though, a little cowardly, don’t you think? Just hiding behind pillars and waiting it out? Look, Jeno’s here!”

And in his panic to get away Dejun drops his staff, a series of thuds against the concrete. He narrowly avoids the arrow again, but it’s not long after that Dejun realises that it was a lie. The voice cackles, growing to a volume so unbearable Dejun can feel a headache setting in, but Jeno is still a significant distance away. Trying to control his panting, Dejun glances over at Xuxi, who simply looks confusedly at him—the voice only affects Dejun.

Then again, if Dejun can do anything, it’s to think quickly. He raises his staff, careful to not knock it against the floor, takes aim at a pillar behind Jeno, and shoots. It works—Jeno shoots an unhesitant arrow into the flames that have engulfed said pillar. Taking this chance, Dejun runs, a crouched, half-rolling movement towards the pillar in front of him.

Jeno must have come from somewhere . One doesn’t play this game to run away and avoid your enemy, one plays to find out what they were guarding in the first place.

Xuxi, adaptable as ever, quickly catches on, swiftly shooting at a pillar similarly behind Jeno, but on the opposite side as the one Dejun hit previously. He, too, scrambles out as Jeno turns towards his blast, joining Dejun.

“Huh! It’s time for the real stuff , then!” The voice remarks, and Dejun can’t help but flinch in a vague mix of fear and tension. They must keep going. Dejun points a finger forward, receiving a nod from Xuxi in response. He aims at another pillar further away, fires, and together, he and Xuxi make a mad dash to take cover.

Dejun rolls into place after Xuxi, collapsing and crashing into Xuxi’s back. They don’t make any noise, but Dejun is truthfully terrified.

“DID YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE?” the voice continues, volume having risen to a horrible, horrible bellow. Dejun almost drops his staff again, hands pressing against his ears on reflex, trying to block out the voice, but the voice is inside . By now Xuxi has caught on, a steady hand pressing into Dejun’s back to keep him grounded. Beyond the pillar, Jeno’s catching up to them.

“Come now, Dejun. It’s not wise to be here, really. Is Lavan not good enough for you? It’s your favourite game, so shouldn’t this be paradise, hm?” Xuxi has resumed firing, but not even the sound of crumbling concrete can distract Dejun now. “This is foolish of you, Dejun, you can’t trust anyone here.”

It’s agony, really, how much Dejun wants to respond but can’t, forcing himself to stand upright and weave between the rubble now littering the ground, crouching for cover as the voice grows louder. Their goal is in sight—a door similar to the ones in the elevator. Dejun knows Xuxi is carrying the entire procedure right now, and he’d be apologetic if his skull didn’t feel like it was going to split open at any moment.

And then, finally—after three more narrowly dodged arrows, several shots from Xuxi, and a scramble to get them within five metres of the door—

Quietly, but louder than ever before:

“Is this worth dying for, Dejun?”

Yes.

It’s too loud.

Dejun sees Jeno release his arrow this time, and with his staff held loosely in his hand, he squeezes his eyes shut tightly—maybe it won’t even hurt when he fades away. Nothing here is real except for death.

But of course—Xuxi is here for a reason, and in this split second, he tackles Dejun to the floor as they reach the door. The arrow grazes against Xuxi’s arm and his sleeve splits, but he doesn’t bleed. Dejun, now opening his eyes, starts to come to his senses again, and the voice has finally been silenced—for now. The door is right there .

Dejun reaches upwards with some effort to press a palm to the recognition pad, and—

Crunch. Xuxi winces.

It’s a sickening sound to hear, and Dejun looks down to find that it’s from all the pebbles of what remained of the pillars they’re now kneeling on. Jeno, perceptive as ever, turns to them, in a movement so steady and sure Dejun feels like he’s watching it in slow-motion as compared to the archer’s previously lightning fast reactions to any sound they make. The bow is readied—with two arrows this time. Dejun thinks that maybe this really is the end for them, pressed shoulder to shoulder for the last time, just a few centimetres from what they came for.

Dejun debates. Close his eyes, or give Xuxi one last nod and smile?

The game proves Dejun wrong once more—Jeno doesn’t release his arrows. His arm relaxes, the string loses all tension, and the bow is lowered, all with the same smooth steadiness. As Dejun finally blankly presses his palm to the pad, Jeno sighs silently, turning away from the pair.

The last of Jeno Dejun sees is him standing amongst the concrete ruins, bow limp at his side, and a dozen arrows to find.

Then he hears Xuxi reload and cock his blaster, and a familiar voice.

“I can’t do anything to harm you.” The voice belongs to another boy , sitting neatly in a corner. He’s perched in a chair reminiscent of the ones Dejun spent so much time sitting in when he was visiting PC rooms. He had earth-toned robes resembling Jeno’s, and a matching fan—though Dejun hoped someone told him that the bright orange hair really didn’t go with everything else.

The resignation is palpable in the voice, while still child-like. “My name is Chenle,” he smiles forlornly, fingers tracing the patterns on the handle of the fan. “Congratulations, and sorry—” he nods at Dejun, “—for shouting in your head.”

“You’re not going to do anything?” Xuxi’s voice is a little hoarse, but instead of weak he sounds infinitely more intimidating instead. His blaster is still in position—right, Dejun needs to be more prepared.

As Dejun adjusts to hold his staff in front of him, Chenle replies hurriedly, waving his hands. “No—no—I can put it this way—Jeno’s the bodyguard, I’m the secretary, our boss is—” he nods nervously at the door in front of Dejun and Xuxi, “—in there.”

With Xuxi still aiming at Chenle, Dejun steps forward, appraising the door to who was supposedly their way out of here. It’s not really special in any way, just a plain, solid door—something you’d probably find in a university dorm. Chenle’s watching his every move, leaning forward in his chair, almost like he’s just as excited to see what lies beyond the door.

Dejun doesn’t make any of them wait any longer. Out of a strange urge to express some form of courtesy, he raises a hand to knock—

“Come in.”

The voice is familiarly calm.

“ You ,” Dejun hisses as the door slams shut behind Xuxi. His voice echoes in the room, venom-laced and dripping down the walls. “So it was all you . You were here all this time .”

Dejun may have never seen him before, but this voice and tone—placid, neutral, steady—is just about as unique as voices can get.

Kun looks just like his voice. Expressionless, but teetering on the edge of boredom, he holds his hands out nonchalantly. “Was it really a surprise? Where else could I be, Dejun? And hello, Xuxi.”

Behind Dejun, blaster still held as tightly as before, Xuxi nods curtly.

Backing towards his office chair with a sigh, Kun sits down heavily, waving a few panels hovering over his table aside with a gloved hand. “It’s not fun to be here, by the way. Sit down, there are some things you still don’t know.” And with another wave, two stools materialise on the opposite side of the table.

Obviously, neither Dejun or Xuxi move, weapons still at the ready.

A few moments of silence pass as they start a glaring match with an unresponsive Kun. Then—a hand slamming down on the table, and a slight waver of Xuxi’s hand.

“I said, sit. ” Kun lifts his head slightly to snarl at them, teeth gritted. A flick of his finger, and before either of them can adjust in any way, they’ve slid forward, collapsing involuntarily on the two stools. Kun smooths the front of his vest down, and folds his hands neatly on the table as soon as the two are in place, any hints of his previous expressions wiped cleanly off his once again neutral visage.

“All this—” he starts almost immediately, waving another gloved hand around the room. “—is obviously not an accident.”

The room is quite the barren...office. Other than Kun’s spot-free table, with the only clutter present being the layers of panels now flanking the sides of said table, there’s really not much to the room.

Well, there still is something —a translucent white door set into the wall directly behind Kun’s chair. By now Dejun has caught on to the trends and patterns—strange doors that don’t seem to lead to anywhere in Lavan will likely turn out to be important. So if Dejun’s guess is right, that translucent door may be the key to their escape.

Kun, sharp as ever, doesn’t miss Dejun’s scrutiny of the door, following Dejun’s gaze and glancing backwards casually.

“Stop looking,” he says, snapping his fingers in front of Dejun’s face, “the door is something important, and it will get you out, but obviously—I’m not going to let you do that. First of all, though, any idea why you’re here?”

Clearly not, as made apparent from the blank stare Xuxi gives Dejun and vice versa as they exchange looks briefly. Kun, the insufferable know-it-all he’s been all along, gives them an almost mocking smile.

“All I can tell you is that Lavan doesn’t like to lose. But you already know this, don’t you? Or maybe—Mark already knows this, and tried to tell you both this. He’s way more clever than you already think he is. He’s clever for figuring it out, yes, but he’s also clever for learning to settle down and be content with what he has now.”

“So,” Xuxi begins slowly, finger never leaving the trigger on the blaster, still on standby. “So we’re in here because we got so good at the game, the game had to figure out a way to beat us before we won over it for good?”

Kun grants Xuxi an approving smile at this, “Correct! You’ve learned well.”

Dejun’s hands clench around his staff. That’s disgusting.

“I guess it is,” Kun shrugs carelessly, “But what can we do? I wasn’t the one to decide on this, whoever coded me did. This, ah, scenario isn’t programmed since they managed to make me sentient, they just trust me to keep anyone like you two away. Anyway, isn’t it a good way to keep the game going? They—the ones up there—don’t have infinite ideas. How should they keep players around if people started figuring out how to finish the game before they could figure out how to expand it?”

“Think of it as a routine...clean-up, of sorts. If you get too good, they can’t control you, and they don’t want you here.” Kun delicately tilts his head sideways slightly, gaze slowly alternating between the two in front of him. “Of course, control is the keyword here. What better way to keep people out of your way than trapping in them in the world they’ve enjoyed so much? For some of the people who have brought in...it’s almost doing them a favour.”

Dejun finds his voice again, standing and knocking his stool back, one shaking hand pressing into Kun’s desk. “A favour .” His voice is shaking, yet dangerously calm, so foreign he surprises even himself. “For some people it is, but what about the rest of us? You’re not doing us a favour. You’re taking our whole lives away.”

“Dejun—” Xuxi starts, but a weary Kun beats him to saying anything more, gesturing with a single hand again, bringing Dejun’s stool back in position, and forcing him down on it.

“It’s not fair, I know. But I also know that you’re not going to leave without a fight. So,” he pinches the bridge of his nose, standing with his other hand on his hip, “might as well get it over and done with, right?”

This time, Xuxi makes the first move.

Kun’s desk is blown upwards and back, the result of a shot aimed at the underside of the table. Now, if they were fighting under more typical circumstances, their opponent will likely be on the floor, with the desk on top of them. But it’s Kun, after all, the most trusted character in the game by...the gamemakers as a whole. So when the desk comes to an abrupt halt in mid-air before falling to the floor slowly to reveal Kun, with a palm raised and the other hand behind his back, Dejun isn’t surprised.

Quite the contrary, actually. Dejun is ready this time, leaping over the desk with ease and casting an attack spell as he moves. Kun, skilled as ever, dodges it easily, raising his hand again to fling Dejun to the side before receiving Xuxi’s attack. If it wasn’t clear before, it sure is now—that Kun’s dominant fighting skill is telekinesis.

But weaponless skills taking centre stage in battle is practically unheard of in Lavan, Dejun knows this very well. And as powerful as Kun may be, his abilities are probably enhanced by—

“Gloves!” Dejun yells at Xuxi, shakily pushing himself up from the floor (though without physical contact, Kun still can deliver a solid blow), holding onto his staff tightly for support. Xuxi was in the midst of kicking said opponent square in the stomach and sending him stumbling backwards, and as Kun sends the table crashing in Xuxi’s direction, Dejun’s shout goes unheard by the other two.

No time for that anymore—Dejun takes matters into his own hands. Casting a spell and freezing Kun’s legs as the other is preoccupied with going after Xuxi, (who’s ducking and dodging fragments of furniture faster than Dejun has ever seen him do anything before) Dejun latches onto Kun’s left hand, catching hold of the glove and tugging it downwards with him as he falls to the floor. The glove, a deep violet velvet with a satin lining, slides off more easily than Dejun thought it would, and he quickly tucks it into a pocket and charms it to stay secured.

At this moment, with Kun’s abilities likely to be greatly reduced and Xuxi sliding next to Dejun, the both of them kneeling where the desk once was—

The translucent door slides open. It’s, yet again, another elevator.

A slight intermission—throughout the training process and the smattering of missions Dejun has experienced in this wild, wild journey, he’s had his fair share of intense moments, whether the mere seconds before what seemed like an imminent death or reaching whatever goal he had. 

It’s exactly the same now, with the pathway to he and Xuxi’s escape within reach. Time slows to, if this were a movie, a beautiful slow-motion montage, with he and Xuxi sprinting forwards, side by side, a seamless duo. In front of them, the elevator with the translucent door, with what must be the ending of this story; around them, the flurry of the fragments of what the room once contained, sharp splinters of wood speeding through the air like dozens of tiny arrows; and behind them, Kun, hand with his one remaining glove outstretched, mouth held in a grimace, eyes blown wide with panic.

A beautiful moment, truly, the scene before a long-awaited victory.

But with all that has gone right before this moment, something has to go wrong .

For Dejun, it’s a velvet-gloved hand closing in on them, wrapping around his ankle.

Here, time speeds up again—Dejun barely has the capacity to register what has happened. He only knows the sudden absence of the hand around his ankle, the shove to his back, the yell of shock and of pain, and the the unceremonious tumble onto a cold, tiled floor instead of the wine-red carpet of the room.

But it goes something like this after.

In the fleeting moments before the elevator door slides close silently, Dejun sees this: his staff, just by the side of the elevator, still well within his reach; Kun pressed to the floor amongst the splinters of wood; and then—

Xuxi, understanding, skilled, adaptable Xuxi, who was the one who so desperately wanted to win this game. Wonderful, wonderful Xuxi, holding Kun down with the blaster pointed to his temple. Dejun thinks his smile doesn’t say “I wish I was there”, but rather “congratulations”.

The door slides close. This is the last glimpse Dejun has of Xuxi, and of Lavan, before the elevator rises upwards in a green glow, hundreds, thousands of familiar holograms speeding around the glass walls in a whirlwind. Had Dejun cared to look, he’d have noticed his staff disappearing, glowing gently, then flaking away in a flutter of infinite tiny triangles, glowing the same green and blue that he’s come to associate with this world.

For Dejun, there is shock, then there is despair, then there is a deep, deep darkness.

Dejun wishes, fervently, that he could say that it was good to be back.

With a quick glance at the clock and his surroundings Dejun realises that nothing has changed—same seat in the same PC room six blocks down from his dorm, three blocks from Renjun’s, with the same login page on the same screen in front of him.

But yet it’s not the same—there is no staff resting against his leg, no high collared training attire chafing against his neck, no holograms telling him what is going on.

And then, of course, there is no partner. No partner there to help him decide on what to do, no partner there to watch his back, no partner here in the real world.

For the first time in two weeks Dejun is truly alone once more—has he succeeded or has he failed?

You failed , he tells his warped reflection in the darkened screen, faint against the login page. What’s the point of winning if no one’s here to win with you?

It’s an awful, awful, feeling, sitting there in that chair, that corner, waking up to reality. Dejun smiles bitterly, wheeling himself back and forth in the chair. All this is real, but does he really want it to be? Does he want to be here, back in the real world, when Xuxi is back there, stuck in a place he fought to leave?

A pained chuckle, as Dejun studies his reflection. The irony is almost suffocating, the knowledge that just two or three weeks ago, this was exactly what he would have wanted—to make it out alive, alone and unbothered.

But Xuxi—oh, Xuxi. Dejun didn’t just fail Xuxi, he failed himself too, didn’t he?

You said you won’t leave your partner behind, so I, as your partner right now, would like to reassure you that I wouldn’t leave you behind either.

It’s painful to think about. He’d give anything to be able to assume that the elevator must have gone back down to headquarters after sending him away, that Xuxi must have gotten in the elevator too, that Xuxi must be sitting in a chair like he is now, login page in front of him and feeling almost surreal to be real again.

He’ll never have that luxury. Dejun won the game, but at what cost? The game won’t be beaten again. This is real. Xuxi is real, but yet not real at the same time.

Dejun wishes it were as simple what he’s doing now. Simple as keying his username into the login page, finding Xuxi in that broad, broad landscape of a city, in that bustling capital of a district, and just reaching out, reaching in through the screen, and pulling him out. Just like that. From virtual to tangible, from lines of code to physical, real . He’ll have Xuxi to hang around again, have Xuxi at his side, have someone else to go eat mala with before they head back to their dorms.

And the cycle goes on— think of it as a routine...clean-up, of sorts. If you get too good, they can’t control you, and they don’t want you here.

Almost on reflex, Dejun’s gaze flits to the leaderboard in the top right corner. It’s only been a month, but instead of DJ808 and RJ323 at first and second, with 138000 points and 136000 points, he sees a joint first place: JM813 and JS205, 130000 points each. Both he and Renjun’s usernames have disappeared from the leaderboard. But that means—

Renjun’s dorm is three blocks away. Renjun is real.

Dejun pushes away from the desk, tripping over the wheels of the chair as he exits the corner. He navigates through the maze of computers and desks with ease, and he runs with the same kind of desperation he had when he lunged for that cursed, cursed translucent lift door. The layout of the PC room is the same, the jingle of the bells on the glass doors is the same, the snow covering the streets outside is the same. And these things—they’re all real.

“Dejun?”

And Renjun?

Renjun with his brown coat, slight frame, and half-rimmed glasses, standing with a hand laid lightly the cold handle of the door—he’s real too. Renjun is real, but standing in the doorway of the PC room, Dejun swears he sees the streetlamp across the road behind Renjun glow a soft green.

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING - LAVAN

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY?

WELL PLAYED, DJ808.