They had barely sprinted to the cave entrance Shiina Hiyori had pointed out — still ten-odd steps from the opening — when the dark mass of clouds overhead began to slowly drift apart.
A fine, scattered drizzle still hung in the air, but with sunlight breaking through once more, those last few raindrops lost their momentum. They felt like they were on the verge of stopping altogether.
Shiina Hiyori jogged to the mouth of the cave and tilted her head back, watching the storm clouds migrate toward the distant horizon. Her cheeks puffed out in mild frustration.
"Ahh, the clouds already blew away…"
What terrible timing. Why couldn't the rain have waited until they weren't around? Instead it had caught them right in the middle of the path and soaked them through.
"That's just how summer squalls work," Chris said, shaking water droplets from his hair with a casual flick.
"We're on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean. Fast-changing weather under monsoon influence is completely normal."
"Stay here for now. I'll go check around and see if I can find some dry firewood — we should get a fire going and dry your clothes out."
Shiina Hiyori pinched at her rain-soaked uniform shirt where it clung damp and cold against her skin, trying to peel it away from her body. At Chris's words, she seemed to remember something, and she looked up with a sudden question:
"Um, Chris. The Black Sphere's controller — that's a high-cost piece of equipment worth 40 S-Points, right?"
"Aside from the invisibility and the radar, does it have any other functions?"
She went on to explain: "I mean, even the free X-GUN and Y-GUN come with a radar built in… something that expensive can't just do invisibility, can it?"
Chris didn't break stride, already heading for the cave exit, and tossed back a breezy reply over his shoulder:
"No, it doesn't. I checked when I first got it — just invisibility and radar."
"The radar is significantly stronger than the free gear, though. You can tap on any red dot on the screen and pull up the monster's data and kill-score directly — unlike the wristwatch, which only populates its field guide after you've actually encountered the creature in person."
Shiina Hiyori nodded slowly, turning that over in her mind.
Information really was priceless on an uninhabited island exam… but 40 S-Points was still a steep price to pay.
She'd seen the item photos that Student Council President Horikita Manabu had shared, so she had a solid sense of just how much S-Points were worth. Compared to things like the Sianweistan — which let you enter bullet time — or the Black Cauldron Armor that could be layered over a Combat Suit to stack double buffs, the controller was more expensive by a considerable margin. It did feel a little hard to justify.
After all, it was just optical invisibility, not full intangibility. Against any monster with keen hearing or a sharp sense of smell, that invisibility would be about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
That said, Shiina Hiyori might not be much of a social butterfly, but she was a perceptive girl with excellent emotional intelligence. The kind of thought that subtly disparaged someone else's purchasing judgment? She kept it strictly internal. Not a word of it would ever leave her lips.
Besides, now that she thought about it — she really should have gone out with Chris to gather firewood.
Getting something for nothing was never a good habit, whatever the circumstances.
The problem was that Chris was maintaining optical invisibility the entire time for scouting purposes. If she followed him, she wouldn't be able to see him, and risked wandering off and getting lost — which would only force him to split his attention searching for her. That would just be creating unnecessary trouble for him.
After a moment's thought, Shiina Hiyori didn't step out of the cave. Instead, she turned and ventured into the interior of the rocky hollow, which wasn't particularly deep.
In this danger-riddled Black Sphere exam zone, building a shelter from scratch with bare hands was virtually impossible. But now that they'd found this cave, using it as a short-term refuge seemed like a pretty good idea.
Finding a clean underground water source at the back of the cave would be even better.
The one thing to be wary of was whether the cave's depths connected to any extensive underground cavern network — if it linked to a monster's lair, they could be raided by whatever was lurking around inside.
While Shiina Hiyori poked her head carefully around, picking her way through the dim interior and examining the patterns of the rock walls —
A faint, incongruous glow appeared at the edge of her dim vision.
Recalling what the Black Sphere had said about supplies hidden throughout the island, Shiina Hiyori's mouth fell slightly open, and she quickened her steps toward it.
"Could this be…"
"Could what be?"
A male voice materialized without warning from directly behind her.
"Hyah!"
Her brain registered it as Chris in the same instant — but that didn't stop her body from flinching hard. She spun around like a startled fawn:
"Chris, you're back… you really scared me."
Chris's form rippled into visibility from thin air:
"Came back and didn't see you, so I opened up the controller for a look — spotted you heading deeper into the cave and got curious."
Shiina Hiyori pressed a hand to her chest and let out a long, slow breath. It took her a good moment to recover.
She pointed excitedly at the glow not far away:
"I think — I think I found the supplies the Black Sphere mentioned!"
Chris looked in the direction she was pointing. "Let's check it out, then. Go ahead — no danger signals anywhere nearby."
Shiina Hiyori nodded and walked over.
Nestled in the rock crevice she'd spotted was a small capsule emitting a faint phosphorescent glow. And scattered in a pile of rubble not far away were a few more capsules of similar shape, each a different color.
Chris and Shiina Hiyori exchanged a glance, then stepped forward and picked them up one by one.
The moment their fingers made contact with the capsules, item names automatically materialized on their wristwatches.
Shiina Hiyori read the text aloud, eyes wide:
"[Mapo Tofu (Light Meal)], [Field Tent (Two-Person)], [Gantz Suits (Combat Suit)]… Does that mean just using one of these capsules instantly produces the corresponding item?"
Chris weighed the capsules in his hand.
"Only one way to find out."
As he said it, he casually smashed two of the capsules against the ground like a kid throwing snap-pops.
Bang! Bang!
The capsules flared with a burst of white light on impact. Then, as the white smoke cleared, two items materialized out of thin air on the ground: a brand-new Black Sphere-issue Y-GUN — and a paper bowl of stinky tofu, steaming with an intensely pungent smell.
"Ugh…" Shiina Hiyori pinched her nose shut, but couldn't suppress her amazement. "These capsules are incredible — they're like something straight out of an anime. I just wonder… will the Combat Suit from the other capsule actually fit me?"
Chris picked up the Y-GUN from the ground and held it out toward her:
"Try it. Your uniform's soaked through from the rain, isn't it? Wearing wet clothes will get you sick — go ahead and change into this first."
"I'll go get the fire going. And this capture gun — I already have an enhanced weapon — so you keep this one for self-defense. Just in case something happens when I'm not right beside you."
Shiina Hiyori accepted the hefty Y-GUN and looked down at the Combat Suit capsule in her other hand — her second lease on life.
She lowered her head, her voice barely above a whisper:
"Mm… thank you, Chris. I'll be as quick as I can."
—
Unlike Chris and Shiina Hiyori, who still had the luxury of leisurely drying clothes by a cave fire, the situation for everyone else scattered across the uninhabited island was anything but relaxed.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, Ichinose Honami, Ryuuen Kakeru, and the others — whose landing zones had been specifically selected by Chris — were not having an easy time of it.
Chris had seeded the island with equipment and supplies in the form of Omni-Capsules to make things more interesting. But between the island's dense and complex jungle terrain and the fact that the vast majority of students were currently too rattled to move freely, very few people in the opening phase had managed to find any Omni-Capsules to arm themselves with.
What was far more common was this:
Students with poor composure — the ones who panicked and frantically rushed around looking for familiar faces to hide behind — successfully drew the attention of Pure Titans wandering through the forest, or Parasytes disguised as humans.
"Help me! Don't eat me! AHHHH——"
Screams rang out. Blood and viscera flew. Blue revival light strobed through the trees.
If Chris hadn't been feeling generous — quietly adjusting their respawn points to temporary safe zones a little further out after they'd burned through their first extra life — the opening slaughter alone would have wiped out nearly half the roster.
Of course, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka — who had ample Black Sphere exam experience and nerves of steel — was not among those caught off guard.
"Hah…"
Somewhere in the jungle.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka calmly withdrew his palm, the faint shimmer of golden Ripple energy fading from his hand.
The moment he'd landed, he'd been ambushed by a Wraith that had lunged from his blind spot.
No Combat Suit. No Black Sphere weapons.
Ayanokoji had only his Ripple Breathing — still newly learned, still rough around the edges — to fight back with.
He glanced down at his wristwatch. The display read: S-Points +1. Below it, the Wraith's field guide entry had populated.
"Immune to physical attacks, but vulnerable to life energy, huh…"
Ayanokoji didn't move to leave right away. Instead he crouched low, eyes sweeping the surrounding environment with quiet vigilance.
He knew Black Sphere's teleportation was broadly random — but charging into the unknown without a Combat Suit for protection would be outright stupid.
First priority: assess his immediate surroundings and available resources. That was the sensible move.
And as it turned out, methodical exploration had its rewards.
Almost immediately, he spotted two faint pinpricks of light in a pile of dead leaves nearby.
He pushed the rotting foliage aside. Two Omni-Capsules lay quietly waiting there.
He picked them up.
His gaze moved between the two items displayed on his wristwatch: [Parasyte Fusion Card] and [X-GUN].
"So this is what that mysterious merchant was selling… and it's just lying here on the ground."
No hesitation.
He tucked the [Parasyte Fusion Card] capsule into his inner pocket, then dropped the [X-GUN] capsule on the ground.
Bang!
He picked up the X-GUN that appeared, and with practiced ease, flipped open the radar screen built into the stock.
He needed it to gauge how dangerous his surroundings actually were.
Fortunately, the Black Sphere hadn't stripped the radar function from the free equipment for this exam.
He studied the screen — a scattering of green dots and red dots.
Given the unpredictable variety of monsters, Ayanokoji wasn't about to let his guard down. But seeing several green dots on the radar gradually converging toward his position, he thought it over for a moment and decided to go meet them proactively.
Going lone wolf in a situation like this was unquestionably the dumbest play.
Whether it was having backup when things went sideways, or expanding the search efficiency for equipment capsules — numbers were an absolute advantage.
—
Meanwhile, for the Black Sphere's regular veteran participants who had Combat Suits — Ryuuen Kakeru, Ichinose Honami, and the like — the situation was considerably more forgiving.
With the Combat Suit's amplification, even if they ran into Pure Titans, Wraiths, or Parasytes right off the bat, they could fight back or drive them off without any real risk to their lives.
After quickly securing their immediate perimeters, they linked up with classmates who'd landed nearby, then used their numerical advantage to conduct systematic sweeps and managed to get their respective groups minimally armed.
Among them, Sakayanagi Arisu's faction held by far the strongest position.
Despite only having Kamuro Masumi at her side, both of them were each equipped with a Combat Suit.
And in Sakayanagi Arisu's hands was an enhanced sniper rifle with a range of one kilometer.
At that moment, Sakayanagi was perched high on a thick branch of a towering tree. Concealed beneath the canopy, she had her sniper rifle propped up and was scanning through the scope's long-range optics, combined with the radar, providing covering fire for Kamuro Masumi below as she searched for capsules.
This allowed Kamuro Masumi to move through the jungle with total confidence.
Bang!
Another silent gravity-wave round — a Parasyte that had been creeping toward Kamuro was reduced to a cloud of red mist.
But through the sniper rifle's radar, Sakayanagi kept watching — red dots across the map converging on green dots, and then those green dots blinking out one after another.
Sakayanagi Arisu's eyes narrowed slightly.
If people keep getting picked off like headless flies, the exam's participant count will hit 60 before long — and trigger a forced termination.
Is the reason the Black Sphere dropped Kamuro and me into this zone to have us rally the stragglers and lead a coordinated push?
It seemed the Black Sphere's so-called randomness wasn't entirely without rhyme or reason after all.
With that thought, Sakayanagi confirmed there were no more red dots approaching, then simply stepped off the branch — a clean drop from over ten meters up.
The Combat Suit absorbed the impact. She landed lightly on her feet.
"Kamuro, how many capsules did you find?" she called over to the girl who was bent over rummaging through a thicket not far away.
Kamuro Masumi straightened up, turned around, and held up a fistful of multicolored capsules with a grumble:
"It's broad daylight, the capsules are tiny, and the glow they put off is barely visible — I nearly went cross-eyed searching, and this is all I've got…"
"Most of them are survival supplies like [Yuzu Fruit] and [Golden Apple]. The only things that actually count as equipment are one Y-GUN and one regular X-GUN."
Sakayanagi Arisu gave a small nod, unbothered by the meager haul:
"That's enough for now. If they're hard to spot in daylight, we'll come back out to collect more after dark."
"Our priority right now is finding the survivors in the surrounding area. At this elimination rate, we could end up as a two-woman operation for quite a while."
Kamuro Masumi quickly stuffed the capsules into her pocket and fell in step with Sakayanagi:
"Once we've gathered enough people — do we still follow the original plan and head for the dormant volcanic crater at the center of the island?"
Sakayanagi Arisu gazed at the distant silhouette of the volcano rising above the treeline. The corner of her mouth curved upward.
"Of course."
"Not just for the high ground and the view it provides."
"More importantly — as the most prominent landmark on this uninhabited island, every faction will intuitively converge there. It's the natural choice for consolidating forces. Everyone already knows it, even without saying so."
—
Through the virtual surveillance feed that only he could see, Chris watched all the various factions' movements unfold and couldn't help but murmur inwardly.
By now, both Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and Amase Kazuna — the two White Room alumni — had obtained the Parasyte Fusion Cards.
The Parasytes contained within the fusion cards were all of the mild, relatively docile variety — similar to Migi — with an instinctive aversion to Black Sphere weaponry hardwired in.
With a bit of coaxing, completing the fusion wouldn't be difficult at all.
But Chris was still curious: would those two geniuses from the White Room actually have the nerve to go through with fusing a Parasyte?
On Sakayanagi Arisu and Ichinose Honami's ends, both had already leveraged their leadership to gather sizeable groups around them, establishing preliminary defensive lines. No need to worry about their safety for now.
The only ones who gave him pause were Ryuuen Kakeru — who had no room for error — along with a handful of girls who'd landed in the island's more remote outer zones: Amikura Mako, Morishita Ai, and a few others. Their situations were comparatively precarious.
That said, Chris had quietly made some adjustments before the game began.
He'd placed Ryuuen Kakeru not far from Ayanokoji's forming group; Amikura Mako and the other girls, he'd dropped in an area close to Karuizawa Kei.
Small mercies — one of the few soft touches this God Sphere Administrator allowed himself.
While Chris was spacing out in front of the surveillance feed —
A faint rustle of fabric drifted from deeper in the cave.
That was fast.
Shiina Hiyori emerged from the back of the cave, dressed in a form-fitting all-black Combat Suit, clutching her half-damp uniform against her chest. She looked just a little flustered.
Hearing the movement, Chris closed his virtual display panel, reached over, and began feeding a few sticks of dry firewood one by one into the crackling fire in front of him.
"Shiina, you're done."
"Mm…"
Shiina Hiyori answered softly and came to crouch by the fire.
She spread her uniform open and held it close to the flames.
Steam began rising from the fabric. Whether it was from being too close to the fire, or from the Combat Suit's figure-hugging design leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination, she felt a strange warmth spreading through her body — and her heart was thumping, loud and insistent.
Chris glanced sideways at her: knees pressed together, both hands clutched to her chest, the picture of fidgety, self-conscious awkwardness.
He pointed at a flat rock behind her:
"Move back from the fire a bit. The Combat Suit doesn't breathe at all."
"You'll overheat and pass out before your uniform even dries."
Shiina Hiyori obediently nodded, shuffled back two steps, and sat down on the flat stone.
The cold surface of the rock seeped through the thin material of the Combat Suit and registered against her skin, clearing her head a little — and making her even more acutely aware of just how awkward her current situation was.
Reason told her that in a situation this dangerous, she shouldn't be letting her thoughts spiral over trivial embarrassments like this.
But for some reason, whenever she was around Chris, she felt something like a sense of safety settle over her.
The moment her nerves relaxed, her mind started wandering on its own, thoughts drifting somewhere she hadn't intended.
A faint blush crept across the girl's cheeks. A small, involuntary sound escaped from her throat.
Fortunately, she managed to collect herself shortly after.
Shiina Hiyori looked down at the still-steaming uniform in her hands, grasping for a topic — anything to break this warm and ambiguous silence:
"Um, Chris… you have the controller radar with you. Did you check on the surrounding situation just now?"
"Are there any other students nearby who might be in danger?"
Chris tossed another branch onto the fire and answered with a straight face:
"Took a quick look earlier. There aren't many people who landed in our zone."
"And what few green dots there are — they've been moving away from the volcano at the center of the island. Drifting further and further out toward the edges."
He looked at her, his tone earnest: "I was thinking — once you finished changing and came out — I'd ask for your take on it… whether we should go and help them."
Shiina Hiyori's grip tightened slightly on the uniform in her arms.
She lifted her head, those soft violet eyes meeting his gaze directly.
"Honestly, my opinion isn't worth much as a reference."
Her voice was quiet, but every word came out clearly:
"I did end up in a Combat Suit by a twist of fate… but if I set morality aside — my selfish preference would obviously be to prioritize the two of us above everything else."
"But — you and the others have been the ones fighting those monsters all along. As the person who's contributed the least and been protected the most, it's not my place — and I have no right — to weigh in on your decisions."
Chris listened to all of that, then let out a long sigh.
"Didn't expect you to say something like that…"
He got to his feet, looking down at her where she sat on the rock:
"So then — what if I said I've decided to go and help them?"
"Would you come with me?"
Shiina Hiyori tilted her head back to look up at him. The firelight danced and flickered in her eyes.
The girl didn't hesitate for even a moment:
"Mm. Of course I'm coming."
"After all — right now, I'm basically a parasite clinging to you, Chris. If I got separated from you…" She paused. "There's absolutely no way I'd survive on this island alone."
Chris: "You really didn't need to put it that way."
Besides — the parasite position was already taken.
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Samsara Game: Starting in The Long Dark with My Waifus
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