Coming to his senses, Librom found himself back in the dark arena, lying on the ground with his face to the ceiling.
Confusion flashed across his face before a burning pain shot through multiple parts of his body, demanding his attention.
Sitting up and sweating heavily, he touched himself all around, trying to check his wounds, but...
Nothing.
He wasn't injured anywhere.
Even the pain he had felt earlier was fading away, as if it had never been there.
Librom stayed sitting in silence and confusion, oblivious to the rest of the world.
My wounds....He clawed at his chest.
Where were the wounds?
The teeth?
The blood?.. how come I am fine?
he thought.
Then, remembering something, he began to frantically look around.
Are Mike and the others okay? Did those beasts hurt them too?
But after searching for a while, loss and sorrow filled his chest; he didn't see anyone he was looking for.
Refusing to believe his increasingly ominous feeling, he stood up and searched even harder.
He scanned the crowd with his eyes and even looked up into the stands overlooking the arena, but it was all in vain.
There was no trace to be found of Mike, nor of Radley, Corey, Dara, or Dalilah.
They were... gone.
His eyes grew misty at the thought of what their absence meant.
They had only met the day before, and the time they had spent together didn't amount to much, but knowing he would probably never see them again made Geoffrey's heart ache.
"Didn't you say we would get out of here?"
he murmured bleakly to himself.
Still looking around, hoping for a miracle, he finally noticed something strange aside from his own well-being and the absence of his friends.
Not only were his companions missing, but he couldn't recognize a single soul in the arena with him.
Though he couldn't say he had committed every captive's face to memory, he should have remembered seeing at least some of them upon looking around.
That was what began to truly worry him.
He couldn't recognize anyone there.
Not even one.
Losing his team was enough of a blow, but now he found himself without a single familiar face in this dreadful arena.
As his confusion grew into a fear that threatened to overwhelm him, one of the people near him looked at him in panic, seemingly trying to say something.
".....!"
He couldn't make out what the other person was saying at first.
"....il!"
Then, a little bit more.
His condition seemed to make the other party worry, as the person advanced, shook him by the shoulder, and shouted,
"Gil!"
Gil ?
Thought Librom in puzzlement. It seems to be a mistake. My name is...
"Hng..." He grunted, closing his eyes and clutching his head in pain as memories resurfaced in his mind.
—Clang!
The sound of a chain reverberated in his ears. He saw a golden chain tied to his wrist, and it began to burn him, emanating a red smoke.
Following that phenomenon, he felt something stir restlessly inside him before bursting out, casting a pale red shadow out.
Ooooohmmmm.
Gil opened his eyes.
They glowed bright, and around him, the transparent sphere from before made a reappearance—this time more vividly, as if guarding him.
"Haa... haa... haa..."
Gil breathed heavily, cold sweat pouring down his face.
What had happened?
Gil was confused, but mostly frightened out of his wits.
It was a different kind of fear than he had ever felt before.
Piecing his thoughts together, he remembered that after the earlier contact with that red flash, he had found himself reliving another person's life, albeit in fragments.
That person was called Librom.
The experience was peculiar, to say the least.
Though heavily fractured, Gil could still access those bits of memories as if they were his own.
Among Librom's life fragments, there were joys and sorrows alike.
Then, just like Gil, that person had been caught by people wearing the same garb as those in the stands.
Then, Gil remembered the part with Mike and his crew.
Their goal of leaving that place... how Librom had thought they were lunatics but had still joined them in the end.
The night of strategizing, and Mike's lessons on boxing.
Then the bits and pieces of the following day, the pain felt by Librom, the despair-inducing bloody maw... and finally, the darkness.
Gil remembered it all as if he had lived through it himself, his expression shifting with every memory. But the reason for his fear wasn't those memories.
Though frightening, they shed a much-needed light on what those cloaked figures had in store for him and the other captives.
No, what scared him was what happened right after.
Did I—no, I thought I was Librom just now.
Recalling the recent experience, his heart clenched with unease. Indeed, upon exiting those memories—whether it was due to the confusion of living briefly as him or something else—it didn't change the fact that he had truly believed he was someone else. Hell, he had almost cried when he couldn't find Mike and the others around.
It was true that he sympathized with Librom's fate, as the same could happen to him very soon, but it didn't change the fact that he didn't like what had just happened to his mind.
Not at all.
His fear turning to anger, he looked at the culprit behind the phenomenon.
Looking at it now, the red, blurry thing from earlier had become a pale red shadow of human size, but without any discernible features aside from standing upright on two limbs.
It stood there unmoving, its head hanging low. It didn't seem to care about Gil's anger, or even be fully aware at all.
His anger lingered for a few seconds before slowly fading.
Whatever that thing was, it didn't seem aware of him.
What is there to be angry about with a dead soul ?
Before he could decide what to do with the shadowy figure, he noticed that it was becoming increasingly transparent.
Then, it collapsed into a cluster of red motes of light in front of a frozen Gil.
Standing there and staring into the void, he cleared his mind.
Forget it,
he thought, his expression weary.
He turned to Greg, who was becoming more frantic and confused by the second, and said sincerely,
"Thank you, Greg. I owe you one."
"Uhm, you're welcome... but Gil?" Greg looked nervous and puzzled as he asked,
"What are those chains around our hands?"
Gil grew still for a moment, then sighed again, feeling more and more exhausted.
After a short silence, he asked despite knowing the answer:
"You can see them?"
Greg nodded uneasily.
Gil continued, "Since when?"
"Huh... since I shook you just now, I think?" he responded, unsure of the exact moment.
"I see." Gil sighed once more, resigned.
Well, it wasn't as if it were his choice to hide it anyway.
Thinking so, he said,
"I don't know much about them either. Let's just say they're part of the reason I got those people's attention. I'll explain later," he added, gesturing toward Hector.
"Oh. I see. Are you okay now, then?" Greg asked with concern.
"Don't worry, I won't die so easily," Gil said, flashing a smile and pushing everything else out of his mind for now.
"Oof, that's good. The Test is beginning, and I didn't know what to do if you were still in that state," Greg said, looking a bit relieved.
Gil's smile froze, and he asked, his voice strained, "What did you say?"
Understanding his shock, Greg swallowed nervously.
"The Test is beginning."
As if to lend weight to his words, a loud sound echoed through the area.
Klong, klong, klong, klong, klong.
Following the grinding sound of gears, openings appeared in the arena wall beyond, where something seemed to stir.
And down in the sea of blood, a pair of eyes settled on Gil.