A man wakes up in a room. Unsure of where he was. He rises from the bed and checks his surroundings and finds that he is in a modern looking room, just like a hotel. He decided to look around the room and when he looked at the mirror, he found that he was a man that had short dark brown hair and amber eyes. As he was looking at himself in the mirror, he found out that he was wearing a necklace of some sort.

The necklace had multiple gems that had some sort of markings on them. One had something that depicted a hand in flame and the rest had something that he couldn't make sense of. In total, the necklace had five gems hanging by a silvery thread.

Suddenly he heard someone talking outside the door. Reluctantly, he went and opened the door. Outside the door was a big open hall and other people. The man counted that there were about seventeen in that hall currently. Then other people came from their own rooms and the figure was raised to nineteen.

One of the people shouted "What is this? Where are we?" and others started to chatter things to each other, but none seemed to know what was going on. The man noticed that each person had a necklace that held some gems with markings on them. Surprisingly, the man noticed that none had as many gems as him. Most of them had two or three and one person had four.

Then a woman with silver hair came to talk to the man and asked "Hello. Do you know anything?" The man thought for a moment and said "No. Unfortunately I have zero clue what's going on." The woman said "As expected. None of the others seem to know either. All of us seem to have woken up in a room by ourselves and each had a necklace of gems with them."

The man asked "Do you know anything about the gems?" and the woman answered "Negative. No one seems to know what's going on. Let's gather people together and then…"

Then a female voice can be heard from the intercom. It said "Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Alitas Sporiatis! Each of you have been selected from the crowd to bring joy to our sponsor, Mr. Turpe! Now you might be thinking "What is happening?" and the answer is quite simple. You are in a survival game! Taddadaa! You may feel joy from this chance, as there have been plenty of people waiting for your arrival."

People mumble with each other, until one of the men shouts "Go screw yourselves! I don't want to risk my life for anyone's entertainment! Get me out of here this instant! I know you are listening!"

Other people start to shout similar opinions. Then the voice in the intercom says "My my. We have a rowdy bunch this time. Unfortunately…" Then the man that started shouting in the first place starts to burn after being pushed by a blue skinned woman that had a fancy suit, thin tail and pointy ears. Then the woman says "Even death will not grant you your freedom from our game." The voice sounded exactly like the sound on the intercom.

The screams of the burning man echoed throughout the hall and the odor of burned flesh and clothes forced its way to our noses. Little by little, the burning man's voice grew weaker and weaker. Many times he said "Save me! Save me!" but none dared to make a move.

When the burning man eventually became motionless, only then the people started to scream in terror for a while and try to forcibly find a way out, but then the blue woman shouted "Silence!" and everyone magically stopped screaming, but their hearts were still aflame.

Then the blue woman said "Now then. Now that that has been established, how about we get to the details of our game." The blue woman started to walk around as she talked "The rules are quite simple. There are two winning conditions. One is to be the last one alive and the other is to finish whatever objective you are given. Each time you achieve a winning condition, you'll be awarded with a token of power that our team decides to give you. The tokens that you have now are on the necklace each of you are holding and all you need to do is absorb it. When you do that, you'll receive power that defies logic. You may be able to teleport or shoot fire from your fingertips. There exists all kinds of tokens with each giving you some sort of advantage."

One of the female participants asked "How do we absorb the tokens?" The blue woman then says "If you don't know, then it's your loss. The first winning task was going to be "Be the first one to absorb your token" but someone already figured it out, so the price has already been given. When you have absorbed your first token, you'll be able to review your own status by opening the window with the words "Status open". I'll leave you all to sort yourselves first before we give you the first real winning conditions." Then the blue woman says with a smile and energetic voice "Do your best everyone!" And promptly disappears in a blink of an eye.

People start to try and figure out how to absorb the tokens and the man tries to do so also.

Surprisingly he figures it out pretty fast. But for some reason, he felt as if something left the body and something else was inserted right back in. The token he absorbed was the hand in flame.

Then the man said the words "Status open" and the status window opened in front of him. He read the first letters that he saw, and it was a name. The man then said "Jake." The name felt familiar to him somehow. He then got the weird feeling of feeling like the name "Jake" was always his, but until the moment he said it, the name had been empty. As if there was never a name for him before he read the name on his status window.

After sorting that out, Jake looked at other things in the status window. For some reason, Jake was expecting stats about strength, intelligence, agility and the sort to be shown, but instead there was nothing of the sort. Instead, there was only a list of "Tokens of power" and below it read "Flaming touch" and the description said "Once the user touches something with the intent of activating the token, the object will start to burn irregardless of whether it is burnable or not. The duration of the flame caused by the token will last as long as the user wills it or is within 100 meter range."

Jake then wonders "Is this a similar power that the blue woman used on that man?" Then Jake decided to not ponder any more than that and continue absorbing the tokens he had.

The second token Jake absorbed was named "Instant teleport" with the description "The user can teleport to a place that he can picture on their mind. The user can teleport anything that they touch alongside them. If the image is too unclear, the token will not be activated."

The third token Jake absorbed was named "Appraisal" with the description "The user may analyze anything in front of them and the system will grant available info about them. The availability of the information is given by the bureau."

The fourth token that Jake absorbed was named "Focus" that was described by the system "Gives the user unparalleled focus. The cost of using this token makes the user's head hurt and makes the body feel more hungry afterwards."

The fifth token Jake absorbed was "Master token" with the description being "Unknown."

Then the silver haired woman asked "So what's your name then? Mine's Tiara." Jake told her his name and then Tiara asked "What powers did you gain. Mine's telepathy, telekinesis and pyrokinesis." Jake then said "I'm not sure if it is safe for me to tell you, but since you already told three of yours, I'll tell three of mine. I have "Flaming touch", "Focus" and "Instant teleport".

Tiara said "The last one sounds pretty powerful. Wanna team up?"

Jake asks "Why are you asking me? Do I look trustworthy to you?" To which Tiara replied "You look okay in my books. I just… feel like I can trust you for some reason."

Jake then says "Sure, we can team up for now."

Then soon after the blue woman appears in front of the players and says "Now that most of you seem to have grasped the whole token thing, let me announce what the first second winning condition is." *Ahem* "Ladies and gentlemen! I, Charlotte of the announcement staff, welcome you to the first round of Alitas Sporiatis! The first optional objective is to reach "The fields of the Annikki"! The first one to reach that place will be awarded an additional token of power! And given that this is most of your first rounds, I'll give a piece of advice! Less competitors, the more likely you are to get both tokens of this round! And the more tokens you have, the more likely you are to get out of this place! Not that you want to leave of course, or else our staff will be pretty sad." Charlotte gives a gesture of crying.

Then Charlotte says "Nevertheless. No matter what our contestants choose to do, Mr. Turpe will surely enjoy watching the show unfold as you try your best! Once the door behind me opens, you are free to enter the next stage of this round! Get ready! And…" Charlotte raises both of her hands to mark the beginning. Then she shouts "GO!" and she lowers her hands down as if a race is about to start. The door that Charlotte spoke of seemed to be the whole wall behind her, which opened slowly. Charlotte disappears from view as soon as her hands hit the ground.

Then Tiara says "Great. Let's…" and then people started to kill each other. Some people shout "What are you doing?!" and some answer "If I'm the last one alive, then I'll get more tokens!"

Explosions started going off as people used the powers granted by their tokens. Jake said to Tiara "Let's go before we are hunted." Tiara nodded and both began to run.

The room they ended up in was a lava room that had little platforms you could hop on to. Tiara was about to suggest something, but then a monster came from the lava and shot some of the lava from its mouth.

Then Tiara said "Why don't you teleport us to where you see a safe place and look for an exit there." Jake answered "Let's do that", then he touched Tiara and teleported both of them to one of the save platforms. Then both began to look for an exit, but before they could make a decision, a lava monster appeared and tried to spit lava onto them. This time there wasn't any room to dodge it, so Jake quickly grabbed Tiara and teleported to as high as he could to give him some time to see where else he could teleport.

As he was falling, he saw a platform with a treasure chest on it and teleported there.

When they stood there for a second, Tiara said "You sure surprised me with that one. Good thinking." Jake said "No time to talk. Grab what you can from that chest and then move out." Tiara said "Roger" and scavenged the treasure chest. She found a dagger, a map and some potions. She said "Ready" and then Jake grabbed her and they teleported to another platform.

They continued to look for an exit, but ended up finding some treasure chest. They ignored most of them, as they didn't have enough space to carry more items.

Eventually they found an exit door and rushed towards it. Another lava monster tried to shoot some lava as a last resort, but ended up missing as something prevented its attack from reaching the other side of the door.

The other side of the door had a jungle in it with a crystal ceiling covering the top. Tiara said "This clearly isn't outside yet." Jake commented, "At least it looks more peaceful." Tiara said "Agreed, but let's not put our guard down. I'll look at what the map looks like and let's proceed from there. Cover me."

Jake stood on guard as Tiara was looking at the map. It took some time for her to figure out where they were and where the objective was in relation to them. Then Tiara said "We are on the right track I think. Let's move north-north-east from here and we should find a door that brings us to some sort of ice biome. We are currently located at the most south-western point of this biome. And since the terrain doesn't let us move as freely as the last one, we can't use your teleportation trick this time. Let me guide you as I have telepathy. While it is mainly used for communication, I think that I can use it to detect any monsters in the area."

Jake says "I'll follow your lead then" and so the two wentured through the jungle. Without teleportation, the travel took much more time this time while not even taking into consideration the whole difficulty to traverse a jungle in the first place.

During their journey through the jungle, they had to pause for a moment as their hunger was starting to get the better of them. The pair set up a camp of sorts and looked for food around the area.

Since they didn't have any other weapons other than the dagger Tiara was holding and the fire type tokens both of them had, hunting wasn't exactly an option. Instead, they looked for fruits and berries that looked at least somewhat edible. Tiara picked most of them as she was more confident of her luck.

Jake asked "We really have to take this gable? Why don't I try to hunt for something with that knife?" Tiara said "That is an option we have for sure, but trust me, we can eat what I gathered." Jake asked "Why are you so certain? I barely remember my name." Tiara then said "Me too, but it's just… A feeling I guess? I don't know how to explain it. But if you don't trust my ability, then here, go hunt some." Tiara handed the dagger to Jake and Jake was about to leave to hunt, but then a thought crossed his mind "Most of the creatures here are snake type as far as we have encountered. What if they aren't edible?"

Jake decided to go and hunt one anyways, but ended up having to fight a giant serpent type monster.

Through trial and error, Jake managed to teleport to just the right spot to be able to slice the snake's "throat" and kill the snake.

As he was butchering the giant serpent, Jake heard noises coming from the forest. He raised his guard and then suddenly an arrow almost hit his head. He touched the giant serpent and teleported near to the camp that he and Tiara built. The last moment he saw when he teleported was a snake with a humanoid upper half charging in with a spear on its hand to kill him.

When he teleported, he heard a voice in his head saying "So you encountered some problems I presume." It was Tiara's voice and Jake said "Yeah, some humanoid serpent people or something." Tiara didn't say anything for a while and then said "So you caught something?" Jake said "Yes. Some giant snake that could probably eat a human whole with ease." Tiara asked "Did you have any problems with it?" To which Jake answered "I guess I was lucky, so no."

Then Tiara said "You think it's edible?" After which Jake was silent. Tiara noticed Jake's uncertainty and said "If you aren't confident in something, you'll starve to death."

Jake then took some of the snake meat he had and teleported to the camp. Tiara seemed to already have made a campfire, so Jake could roast the snake meat immediately.

After both eat their fill, Tiara asked "Can you give me the knife?" Jake said "Sure" and he gave it to Tiara. Then both of them went further and eventually found the door to an ice biome.

Tiara said "I think we should rest now. I doubt that we'll be able to rest easily in that sort of place." Jake said "Agreed. Let's build another camp."

They both build some form of a campment with the resources they have. Can you take the first shift? I'm exhausted." Jake answered "Sure. I'll wake you up if there's trouble." Tiara said "Nice, here." She gave the knife back to Jake and said "Hopefully you don't need this, but better to be prepared. Good night." Jake responded "Good night."

Tiara was resting for a while, until she said "Hey. Do you remember anything at all before you woke up from your room?" Jake answered "Not able to rest? No, I don't. I barely can accept the fact that my name is Jake."

Tiara says "Me too. The status window just says that my name is Tiara, but somehow it feels a bit off. As if it's a name I would pick for a player character or something." Jake says "Yeah. I kind of get the same feeling. But what is a player character?" Tiara is about to say something, but falls silent. Then she says "I don't know. What is a player character?" Both of them stay silent, until Tiara falls asleep.

Eventually Jake feels that he has guarded long enough and wakes up Tiara. Tiara is a bit groggy as she wakes up, but Jake gives her a slight slap on the face, which wakes her up promptly. Tiara didn't even get annoyed at the slap and just opened her hand and said "Knife" and Jake gave it to her and then Tiara went to lean on a tree as Jake went to sleep.

When Jake woke up, he didn't see Tiara anywhere, but the stuff was still there, so he concluded that she shouldn't have gone far.

Some time later, Tiara appeared from the woods and said "Hello. You hungry?" while carrying fruits. This time, Jake didn't feel like there was a need to go hunt another giant snake, so he accepted Tiara's offer to eat. After all, "They are the same kind of fruit she ate before and she seems alright."

Both eat and then Jake notices that there are some fur coats around and asks "Did you make these?" To which Tiara said "Yeah. While you slept, I checked the surrounding area and found two tiger type monsters. It took some effort, but I managed to kill them and cut their hide to a nice coat."

Jake says "You sure are talented. Why didn't you bring the meat of the tigers for us to eat?" Tiara said "I sensed that something big was about to come after they smelled the blood, so I didn't take my chances and left with the hide I had."

Jake says "I see. Well, we are lucky that we didn't run into whatever you sensed. Now then, let's wear them and go to the next biome." Tiara says "Right. I already looked at the map and figured out where we needed to go. After the frost biome, there is a giant hallway waiting for us and after reaching the end, we should be able to enter the designated area."

Both entered the ice biome and the cold atmosphere was felt immediately. Jake says "We are lucky that you got these coats for us. Otherwise we would be freezing to death." Tiara said "I know right! Now let's use your teleportation to travel as the ceiling is quite high and the terrain is open. Let's head east from here and we should end up near the door."

Jake grabs Tiara and teleports high up to the distance. He keeps teleporting high up and a long distance as they fall down. Luckily, the instant teleportation cancels any momentum the teleported objects have, so falling isn't an issue.

As they travel, they see giants walking around and mammoth-like monsters roaming around the snowy terrain. Both Jaka and Tiara seem to be in agreement that they might be hard opponents to fight, even with Jake's instant teleportation.

Neither of them know how powerful their fire type tokens are, so they won't take any risks. They both agree that they should try their power on something they know they can beat even without them. Though Jake is thinking "If my token's fire can last as long as I stay nearby, then wouldn't it be super powerful?"

Eventually they reach the door that leads to the giant hallway. The hallway is warm, so both take their coats off. Then Tiara says "Final stretch. I think it would be a long walk since this is its own "biome" so do you want to use teleport?" Jake says "I think that'd be easiest." So Jake grabs Tiara and teleports both of them as far as he can see. With few teleports, they reach the last door. Then Jake asks "Who should enter first?" Tiara says "I think you are the MVP between the two of us, so you should enter." Jake considers this for a moment and then asks "Are you sure?" Tiara says "I insist." Then Jake says "Alright. If you say so. Here it goes."

Jake then takes a step to "the fields of the Annikki" and he sees a notification that says "You have finished the optional task and reached "The fields of the Annikki". Then Tiara asks "Did you get your token?" To which Jake says "No. Should I get one?"

Tiara ponders for a bit "If you didn't get it, then someone must have beat you to it." Jake then says "Could it just be that they will be handed after the round has ended?" Tiara then says "Ah yes. That is a possibility. But could it be that simple?"

Then a pillar of light shines somewhere in the distance and Tiara notices this. She says "Look, we might find something there. Let's go."

Tiara then enters the fields and grabs Jake's hand. Jake proceeds to teleport to them with a few tries and finds out that there is a man sitting on a chair, looking at some strange sheep-like animals on the other side of the river that is flowing near. He doesn't look like any of the people who were in that room where all the people gathered, so both Tiara and Jake are wary.

Then the man speaks with his back turned against Jake and Tiara "Do you know the reason why humanity is destined to fall?" Jake asks "No. Why?" The man then says "A pity. I expected more from you, Lex Abrem." These words resonate inside Jake for some reason and his head starts to hurt. Then the man says "So tell me again, my dear Lex, do you know the reason why humanity is destined to fall?"

Jake's head is hurting even more, but for some reason he says without thinking "Their arrogance, sire." Jake is confused as to why he said those words. It's as if he was forced to say something from mind that is not entirely his.

The man then says "Good answer. Yet it's not enough." Jake then uses his "Focus" but the pain gets even greater. One word comes to his mind. "Gamemaster." Then a familiar voice comes to his head. "Jake. Jake. Jake." Ever so mumbled, but still there.

Then Tiara starts to shake Jake and say "What's wrong? You started to talk to yourself without answering." Jake answers "I was talking to that man." Tiara asked "What man?"

Then the man in the chair rises and starts walking towards Jake. The man's face is covered by a mask that has a face that depicts both arrogance and indifference. The man then says "Don't trust anyone here. Arrogance is what will lead you towards the fall if you let it consume you." Then the man looks up to the sky for a moment, then down and starts to walk away as he is disappearing like smoke.

Tiara asks "I don't know what you are seeing, but I know for sure there isn't anyone here besides us. Well, at least within a 100 meter radius or so. Get up, let's investigate the area and see what that light was about."

Tiara helps Jake back up and both began to look around the area. Neither of them find anything other than a post that says "Ye who pass the river, abandon all hope." Tiara says "Why would it say so, the sheep on the other side seem to be fine." Jake says "I don't know, but we shouldn't cross the river." Tiara says "You are probably right. Let's not take any unnecessary risks."

There is a moment of silence before Tiara asks "So what do we do now that we reached these fields?" Jake says "I don't know. Maybe we should look for food and see if we find any others here."

Tiara says "I'm okay with looking for food, but I don't follow the logic of trying to find other people. Didn't you see what the others started doing when the round began?" Jake says "But I'm sure that there are good people out there. Like you." Tiara says "You trust me too much."

Then both began to look for food and a place to camp for a while. The river should be able to take care of the water problem, so setting a camp near the river was the plan. Couple of days go by like this without any issue.

Then a voice can be heard everywhere in the fields "Ping pong! It's your girl Charlotte here! Now that everyone that is still alive is on the fields of Annikki, we will give you the honor to meet the man himself, Mr. Turpe! Just gather towards the pillar of light and you shall meet the man himself face to face! Good luck to you all!"

After the announcement, a pillar of light appears in the distance, so Jake and Tiara head there just in case there is a penalty of not going.

Once they reach the area, they see three other people standing there with their guard up. Jake and Tiara are doing the same.

Then suddenly a thunder came down on a hill and from the point where it landed appeared a short man with a hoodie, two horns and a mask. The mask is in the form of two hands hiding the face beneath and the horns are rising up from the man's forehead and are as long as the man's head.

The aura that the man emanated towards the people present was suffocating. As if there were millions of people looking down on them with pure desire to make the people in front of them suffer. As if the weight of the world was placed on them, the people couldn't stand fully upright and had to bow down a little to support themselves. Breathing felt like the air was as cold as the coldest cold where no particle could move. It was pure agony that was merely the cause of being near that man's presence.

Even still, the man says in a cheery voice "Welcome my dear contestants! You are the last six people of this round that we have devices! I must say though, good job not killing each other completely. If you would have done so, you wouldn't have had the honor to meet the little old me."

All of the contestants couldn't stay conscious and fell down. The few remaining conscious were barely holding on, and the man noticed this. He said "It would appear that my mere presence is causing you woe. No matter, tis but a little effort on my part to soothe your pain."

Suddenly, the pain and anguish was gone and the people who fell unconscious woke up soon after.

Then the man says "Tis is a shame that you can't stand my mere presence, but no matter, no matter, it all comes to the final stretch in the end. So… as a mark of gratitude, I shall put down the mask and show you the real me."

The man takes the mask off, but something in Jake screams "DON'T LOOK!" and Jake follows that advice by closing his eyes. Then the man says "Good. Now that three of you will be deleted, the remaining three shall give us observers a grand finale."

One of the male contestants says "What are you…" but then the man stops speaking as his head flies off of his body and eventually rolls onto Jake's left knee. Jake doesn't fully know what hit his knee, but he had a very good guess.

Then the other two who saw the man's face attempt to attack the man who showed his face, but the female contestant bursts open as vines scatter around from her body in bloody mess. The other male contestant managed to shoot a thunderbolt against the man who showed his face, but it was of no use.

Then the man says "For attempting to harm me, I'll make your end a little more painful. After all…" Suddenly the male contestant's top part of the index finger is ripped off and the contestant screams in pain. The man continues, "Fleeing would've been the better option."

Then one by one, the man who showed his face removed parts of the male contestant's fingers. When one finger was done, the other finger followed the process.

Repeat this ten times and the contestant is on the brink of losing consciousness, the man who showed his face says "Feeling like blacking out? Don't worry, I've got a little spell that will keep you awake just fine." The man snaps his fingers and the contestant feels more awake than ever.

Then the man says "Now that we are out of fingers, let's chop some parts of your hands next." And so the screaming continued as each slice cut the contestant's once trusted hands. Jake could only keep his eyes closed and listen to the screams.

Eventually the man ran out of the contestant's hands to cut, so the contestant felt a little relieved. But then the man said "Oh bother. We ran out of upper limbs. Let's move to the lower parts." Then the parts of the contestant's toes were being sliced apart one by one. The man screamed "How am I still alive?!" And the man responded "The tokens you took enhance your vitality a great deal. It gives the user some regenerative functions as well, but we won't run into it here as I have disabled that function as a show of mercy. Once your vitality hits zero, you will officially die in this game. But since one of your tokens specifically enhances the user's vitality by a great margin, we aren't even halfway finished."

And so the slicing and screaming continued.

Then the man ran out of leg parts to cut, so he said "Now then, dear contestant of mine, would you tell the audience what I will do next?" The contestant barely could say words at this moment, but managed to utter the words "kill… me". Then the man rises up, opens his hands and says "You hear that, viewers?! He thinks that I'm going to kill him now that I ran out of limbs to cut! But fear not dear viewers, as there are more things we can remove from our dear contestant before he succumbs to his injuries!"

The contestant cries uncontrollably and mutters "please… someone… kill… me". And the man grabs the contestant's head that is covered in tears and says "You can't say that the entertainment is over already, dear contestant? If you fail to hold out your sanity in this round, what hope do you have the following round? Areth thou considering lamenting in despair in your room the following? Thou aren't as auspicious as we had hopeth." The man breathes deeply and then continues "Alas, the game must continue." and then the man started to cut the contestant's lower torso little by little. The contestant was still screaming, but it was fading away ever so slightly with each cut.

Some time passed and the man had cut the body to the point where the lungs and a little bit of the heart were showing. The contestant was barely alive at this point, his extreme vitality holding him hostage.

Then the man says "Cometh to thee, the sweet child of God, the sweet embrace of death." And as he said it, he snapped his fingers and what remained of that contestant burned without a single scream of pain. The man who had shown his face said "But as thou aren't yet to taste the embrace of God, you shall play this game the next round Lucas. Child of Adam."

Then the man summoned his mask back to his face and said "Now then, dear remaining contestants, feel free to look, if you still can." Jake and Tiara open their eyes and see the grotesque view.

A head that rolled to Jake's knee had its eyes still open. The eyes stare back at Jake and as if they were still alive, contemplating "why" of all things. There were two burned places that indicate the two burned victims, the latter still having some of its parts remaining as they were cut off in a fleshy pile.

There is a tree that has taken root on some parts of what remained of one of the contestants with their skin growing slowly as a replacement of the bark. It dripped blood from the blood red fruits it had made and it emanated a same but stronger smell that the person had before it from flowers on its branches of flesh and bone.

The man then says "How do you like it so far here? The events are fun for the viewers and give something for the players to work towards." Jake asks "What do you mean work towards? The game has ended now that your moves have been made. Or am I missing something?"

The man says "You think this will end when most of you die? Listen, I heard much from you, but you disappoint me some at the moment. The ROUND ends once the staff decides it is prone to. The GAME ends when… Well, you'll know when it ends. But for you, there is still a little treat. Am I right Tiara?"

Jake asks "What?" Turns around and tries to ask "What is he…" but then Tiara places the dagger she had onto Jake's heart. Jake realizes what happened and sits down as he is now fatally wounded. He says "So you had something going on with the organizers."

Tiara is silent, but the man says "Let me fill in some details. Tiara is, what we call in this business, a wayfarer. That means she has been in previous games and made a choice to move onto a different game. As a privilege for winning the last game she was in, she still has some parts of her memories intact, whilst others were taken as per the rules made by the gamemaster. She can tell all about it in the next round if she chooses, but in this round, she placed third."

Tiara is surprised by this and asks "Third? What do you…" and then Tiara's head is cut off. Soon after the man says "It is alright little Shiro. As my privilege as the sponsor, I name you the winner of this game." Then a white haired and white eyed woman of eastern origin appears like smoke. She has a katana on her left hand and a bow on her back. As his consciousness is fading, the man says "Oh yeah, before you go Jake, I have a little treat for you." Then the man takes off his mask and Jake is in shock to see it. It is because…

The man says "My name is Turpe Faciem, and I'm the current sponsor of this game."

…Outside demonic markings on his face, the face looks like…

Turpe says to Shiro "You know, this guy was…"

… The same face Jake saw in the mirror when he woke up.

Round 1 has ended.

Preparing for Round 2