Chapter 159: Things Only Room 217 Does

Haru’s entire body broke out in goosebumps.

It wasn’t an ordinary shiver. The sensation traveled across his skin, muscles, and bones, as though his body were a metal container subjected to a deep vibration. For a few moments, he remained seated on the bed, motionless, while a strangely pleasant sensation spread through him.

It felt good.

Too good.

The sensation didn’t seem to come from his body, but from somewhere much deeper. Something he couldn’t identify, even though he was certain it belonged to him.

His soul.

Haru didn’t get the chance to finish the thought.

Suddenly, the sensation changed.

An invisible force seized him, pulling him out of himself. It was as though someone had shoved a hand down his throat and was ripping his soul out through his mouth, without the slightest regard for the fact that he was still alive.

The intensity was absurd.

Haru tried to resist.

He couldn’t.

In the blink of an eye, his consciousness shut down.

His body remained seated for another moment, its eyes open and fixed on some random spot in the room. Then it lost its support and toppled backward onto the bed.

His eyes didn’t close.

He didn’t move.

He simply lay there, staring blankly, like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.

The door opened.

"Hey, you slacker! We need to talk."

Golden entered the room and closed the door behind him.

He received no response.

That wasn’t particularly surprising. Haru had the annoying habit of ignoring people whenever he felt like it, and Golden had grown used to it. Besides, after what had happened the previous day, there were a few things he needed to clear up with that idiot.

He began taking off his jacket.

"You know, I’ve been thinking about that shit you told me..."

He tossed his jacket onto a chair and unbuttoned his shirt.

"You have secrets. So do I."

He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, placed one between his lips, and lit it.

The lighter’s flame briefly illuminated his face. Its orange glow traced his features, highlighting his blond hair and muscular physique before disappearing, leaving only the glowing tip of his cigarette shining in the dimness.

Golden inhaled slowly.

"I know you’re a Gamer, you slacker."

Silence.

He exhaled the smoke.

"And honestly, I’m not exactly thrilled about that discovery."

He continued staring at Haru, waiting for a reaction. An insult, an excuse, some kind of lie. He would’ve even accepted one of those stupid expressions the idiot always made whenever he was caught red-handed.

But Haru did nothing.

Golden frowned.

He took another drag from his cigarette.

"Hey."

Nothing.

"Slacker?"

The lack of response began to bother him.

Not because it was unusual for his roommate to ignore him, but because there was something wrong with that stillness. Haru could be lazy, irresponsible, and irritatingly unpredictable, but he never stayed like this.

Golden approached the bed.

That’s when he realized it.

He couldn’t explain exactly what he was feeling. There were no visible signs to justify his unease. Haru’s body was still intact, with no apparent injuries, and his chest still seemed to have the shape of someone who had simply lain down to rest.

And yet, when he looked at him, he felt something impossible to ignore.

Haru wasn’t there.

His body was present.

His friend wasn’t.

"...What the fuck?"

Golden let the cigarette fall to the floor.

He hurried over and grabbed Haru by the shoulders.

"Hey! Wake up!"

He shook him once.

Then again.

"Haru!"

Nothing.

Haru’s head moved with the motion, without any voluntary resistance. His eyes remained open, but they didn’t follow Golden. There was no recognition, irritation, or even the slightest sign of consciousness.

Golden slowly let go of him.

He touched his face.

It was cold.

Not very cold. Not yet.

But when he touched it again a few seconds later, he had the impression that its temperature had dropped.

His stomach tightened.

"What the fuck..."

He took a step back, running his hands through his hair.

Let’s think.

First, he’d discovered that the idiot he shared a room with was a Gamer. One of those creatures the world classified as hostile, dangerous beings capable of turning an ordinary life into a nightmare without even needing a particularly good reason.

Then, before he’d even had time to process that information, he’d walked into the room and found the same idiot unconscious, his eyes open and his body growing colder.

What the hell was he supposed to do in a situation like this?

Call a healer?

A teacher?

The Academy guards?

And what would he tell them? That his roommate, a Gamer who was supposedly supposed to be treated as a threat, was dying without a single visible injury?

Golden gritted his teeth.

Maybe it was a Gamer thing.

Maybe their race had some kind of strange mechanism, an ability, a technique, or a side effect that explained this.

But Gamers were still living beings.

And living beings grew cold when they were dying.

"Fuck!"

Golden returned to the bedside.

He brought his hands together and rubbed them against each other. Small bolts of lightning began jumping between his palms, crackling through the air like electrical wires snapping.

He didn’t know if it would work.

In fact, he didn’t even know if he was doing the right thing.

But standing there, watching Haru’s body grow colder, seemed like an even worse idea.

"Don’t you dare die, you hear me?"

He placed his hands on Haru’s chest.

Electricity surged through his arms.

And at that very moment, far away, Haru’s consciousness continued to rise.

---

There was no wind, no sound.

There wasn’t even any certainty that there was still anything he could call a body.

Haru was simply ascending.

Higher and higher.

Earth drifted away from him, growing progressively smaller. The continents lost their outlines, the oceans merged into a bluish surface, and the clouds became white smudges, until the entire planet seemed small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

Then came the Moon.

Haru crossed space at a speed he couldn’t comprehend. Celestial bodies rushed past him like indistinct blurs, too fast to recognize, while the distance between him and everything he knew continued to grow.

He couldn’t feel the movement.

He couldn’t feel the cold.

He couldn’t feel fear.

Perhaps because he had no time to feel anything at all. Or perhaps because he no longer possessed a body capable of experiencing those sensations.

The ascent continued.

Until, finally, he stopped.

Before him stretched a place Haru couldn’t describe... At first glance, it resembled that neon void he’d visited before, but there was one fundamental difference.

This place had boundaries.

It was like a fragment of land suspended in a space that didn’t belong to it. The smooth, reflective ground resembled a black mirror illuminated by colors that existed nowhere in the known world. Above it, the sky opened into a star-filled expanse, crossed by hues that blended together without obeying any logic.

And at the center of it all stood a tree.

Haru stared at it.

Its trunk was luminous, threaded with filaments of light that ran through the wood like veins. Its branches stretched in every direction, supporting an immense canopy whose leaves glowed in different colors. Some were golden, others blue, while still others displayed shades Haru couldn’t find a name for.

The tree didn’t seem to be growing.

It seemed to simply exist.

As though it needed no space, no time, or anything else to justify its own presence. But the tree wasn’t what first caught his attention.

It was the beings surrounding it.

Haru looked around.

"What are these beings...?"

The exclamation never made it out of his mouth.

He wasn’t even sure he had one.

They were human.

Or, at least, they had human bodies.

Men and women, all naked, scattered across the reflective ground. Some stood motionless, while others seemed to have just arrived, but they all shared the same posture: they were facing the tree.

Haru tried to make out their faces.

He could see them.

Their eyes, noses, mouths, and facial contours. Everything seemed to be in its proper place.

And yet, he couldn’t recognize anyone.

It wasn’t a matter of memory. These weren’t unfamiliar faces he might have seen somewhere before.

It was different.

The identities of those beings seemed inaccessible to him, as though something allowed him to observe their physical features but deliberately refused to reveal who they were.

It was like looking at a person whose name had been erased not only from memory, but from reality itself.

Haru tried to move.

Nothing happened.

He tried to raise an arm.

He couldn’t.

His sense of helplessness grew when he realized he couldn’t even freely turn his gaze away. Something about this place compelled him to look in a particular direction, forcing his attention in a way he couldn’t resist.

Then he noticed the light.

It hovered above the tree, suspended in the space between its canopy and the sky.

It wasn’t exactly a sphere, a star, or anything else he recognized. It was simply a concentration of light, so intense that its contours seemed to change whenever Haru tried to focus on them.

He looked at it.

And lost control.

His entire being became fixated on that point. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t think about anything else. His very will seemed to have been reduced to a single, simple act: to observe.

The light began displaying characters.

Codes.

Symbols.

Lines of information that appeared and disappeared before Haru could understand them.

’What is this?’

He tried to focus on the characters.

’Is it talking to me?!’