I opened my eyes to a space made up entirely of pure white.
"Where am I? My head hurts so much..."
Monarch: "Consider yourself lucky to be still alive."
"What? What are you doing here?"
Monarch: "The question you should be asking is 'what am I doing here?'"
"Me? Really, where am I?"
Monarch: "In your mind, which is where I reside. Because your consciousness is closed off, I am able to speak with you now."
"In my mind? I thought it would be more crowded here, but it seems quite comfortable. Don't you ever get bored?"
Monarch: "There's no issue since I can access anything I imagine here."
Suddenly, a chair appeared beneath me, a table in front of me, and food and drinks on it.
"So why do I see you like a talking mannequin?"
Monarch: "Because this is your mind, everything here is limited by your thoughts. I will appear as whatever you imagine me to be."
"Really? Then you... will be a man with the upper body of a shark, massive muscular arms, the lower body of a horse, a massive mustache, and a heart tattoo on his chest!"
Monarch: "... DO YOU REALLY THINK THIS IS OUR PROBLEM RIGHT NOW?"
"Ah sorry, there was a huge explosion last time, right? I truly thought I was going to die."
Monarch: "You were talking pretty cool, what did you say? 'We will die together you bad guy' Hahahaha."
"If you don't want me to imagine you as a beautiful woman and project my dirty mind onto you, you better quickly get to the point."
Monarch: "Alright, alright, the moment you lost consciousness due to the explosion, I took control of your body. Half of your body was torn apart, but luckily, I quickly engaged a regeneration ability. As soon as I took over your consciousness, I realized I could use my class, so using my abilities wasn't a problem, and then we were teleported to another room with a big flash. We probably moved on to the third phase."
"So everything is alright, isn't it? I don't see the problem."
Monarch: "Everything is fine, for you..."
"For me?"
Monarch: "I used all my life energy to save you, even speaking with you now is extremely exhausting for me. Since I took over your body and used my class, I can't access my abilities anymore. Those situations that caused you to lose control and the emergence of the black aura, I think I've figured it out. Having another person with a special class inside your mind must be overloading your body, which then releases this energy suddenly, emitting a high purity mana."
"Let's not talk about that now, what will happen to you?"
Monarch: "Don't interrupt and listen, I don't have much time left. Technically, I'm already dead so I can't die again, but using my life energy to save you has almost depleted it, so we won't be able to talk for a long time. Meanwhile, I will continue to gather my energy in your mind. The only reason I can't access my class and abilities now is because..."
"That class is now mine, isn't it?"
Monarch: "Yes, the moment I took over your body and used your class, my abilities and classes were taken from me. Still, you won't be able to access all my abilities and power. Since my class has been reactivated in your body, you will have to start everything from scratch. Also, the black aura will start to appear more frequently and cause you to lose control because now you own two special classes."
"So, what am I supposed to do?"
Monarch: "The malicious red aura you have probably originated from my [Avenger] class from the very beginning. If you can't dominate the Avenger class, it will consume you from the inside and you might end up losing control like I did, so don't make the mistakes I did and try to stay awake."
"Stay awake? What does that mean?"
Monarch: "You will understand soon, also, while the black aura comes from the weight of having two special classes, most of that weight must be coming from the class you own. Otherwise, we would continue to see the red aura instead of the black, meaning the power you have might be more than we thought. You need to work harder and become stronger. If you enter that state of madness and lose yourself again, you might not be able to return and..."
"And in the end, I could die or even harm those I love, right?"
Monarch: "Your power is an ocean, Daichi, and you need to be a vessel that can contain it."
The white sky suddenly started to crack.
"What's happening? I think I'm regaining my consciousness!"
Monarch: "Grow stronger, Daichi! Live a life where you can smile!"
...
When I opened my eyes, I realized I had returned to the world, or more accurately, to that hellish pit.
Lisa: "Daichi, are you okay? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, just keep your stinky breath a bit away from me."
As my vision cleared, I saw Lisa was crying.
"Are you crying? You didn't fall in love with me, did you?"
And then I got a punch in the stomach, a feeling I've missed.
Lisa: "I thought you were dead, jerk. Since you can joke, you must be fine."
"I'm fine, by the way, has the third stage started?"
Lisa: "Yes, it has. We were directly transferred to the third stage after the last battle. I don't know why, but the second stage seemed to end earlier than it should have."
"I guess I'm the reason."
I was giving Lisa a smug smile.
Lisa: "Ahh, I was afraid you were going to say that. What happened there?"
"Well, I think I killed a god or something and did some damage to the game created by the system, then I lost consciousness and talked to a man who lived centuries ago, or millennia, I don't remember exactly, then he told me-"
Lisa: "Okay okay... Just tell me this, are you going to go crazy like that again?"
"I guess not, for now."
Lisa: "I'm really going to lose my mind... Anyway, you were unconscious so you didn't receive the system notifications, did you?"
"System notifications?"
Lisa: "They gave us 1 day to prepare."
"Prepare? For what?"
I took another punch to the stomach.
Lisa: "Will you stop interrupting me? They gave us 1 day to prepare, they said there will be a mass battle. With everyone who has moved on to the third stage."
"So, we have no choice but to be ready."
Lisa: "Also, they said they will only give us one thousandth of the gold we earned."
"ONE THOUSANDTH? THAT'S LITERAL THEFT!"
Lisa: "Why do I think you care more about the money than a fight to the death?"
"Anyway, how much gold do we have?"
Lisa: "Since we won the last match... we have exactly 1 billion gold now!"
"A billion? So if we divide that by a thousandth, we only get 1 million gold left for us..."
Lisa: "Hey, that's still a good amount, the last time in the labyrinth I didn't even know gold coins existed and couldn't buy anything from that merchant. If you think we're going to split the 1 million gold and each get five hundred thousand, I can buy that magic wand I wanted!"
"Yeah yeah whatever, how many hours do we have left?"
[Remaining time, 8 hours]
"8 hours? I thought we had a day."
Lisa: "We did, but you've been unconscious all this time."
"So you let me sleep on your legs all this time? Are you sure you're not in love with me?"
Lisa punched me in the stomach again but this time I dodged.
"Hehehe, you need to be faster-"
And this conversation ended with a fireball hitting my head...
Lisa: "What are we going to do? I can fight people of average strength but if we come across people as strong as the ones in the last match, I won't be able to do anything. My abilities are not suited for fighting."
"No, what happened in the last match was my fault. Because I was able to defeat my opponents with little effort until now, I didn't anticipate we would face such strong opponents. Let me ask you something, your probability ability asks questions about the possibilities of what you're thinking, right?"
Lisa: "Yes? But like I said, it won't be of any use in this fight."
"We'll see about that, now I'm going to throw a solid punch at you. I want you to use your probability ability thinking about where my punch will come from and try to predict the direction."
Lisa: "What? Is that even possible?"
"Here I come!"
Lisa: "S-Stop!"
I quickly swung my punch towards Lisa, my fist barely missed her. She didn't dodge it completely but...
Lisa: "I-I saw it, I saw where your punch was coming from! The probability of your punch coming from the right was 99%!"
Just as I expected, if she's careful enough, she can use her ability like a foresight. This gives her a huge advantage.
"Alright, now let's try something else. Think about whether I'm going to attack you or not."
Okay, I'm going to attack her.
Lisa: "The probability of you attacking is 100%, you're not really going to attack me, are you?"
"No, actually I was going to."
I lightly tapped Lisa's forehead with my finger.
Lisa: "Ah!"
"Okay, now ask this. Will I attack within 10 seconds?"
Okay, I will attack her after 15 seconds. If she can get this answer...
Lisa: "When I think about whether you'll attack in 10 seconds, the probability shows zero percent, I'm glad you won't hit me anymore..."
After 15 seconds passed, I tapped her forehead again.
Lisa: "IF YOU HIT ME ONE MORE TIME I WILL KILL YOU!"
"Yes yes, you understand why I made you do this, right?"
Lisa: "Why? So you could hit me?"
This woman really... I wish Lilith was here right now, she would have understood what I was trying to do right away.
"If you ask these questions during a fight about your opponent, whether they're going to attack or not, if they have mana or not, or from which direction they will attack, you can find an opening and finish them off."
Lisa: "So, I'll be able to see the future?"
"Exactly!"
[7 hours until the start of the third stage.]
"Did the notification explicitly say we would be fighting each other?"
Lisa: "What it actually said was, 'Those who survive the third stage will face each other.'"
"Survivors facing each other, huh?"
Lisa: "Doesn't that mean we'll be fighting them?"
"Maybe, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, we have 7 hours, right? Then let's spend these seven hours helping you master this new ability."
Lisa: "And how are you going to do that?"
"By beating you up a lot, of course."
Lisa: "Maybe I should have killed you while you were still unconscious..."