Everyone watched as Hershey unfurled the scroll to use it. Of course, Raive was also quietly observing, ready to act at any given moment.
After all, in his case, using the scroll made his vessel nearly full.
He wasn’t sure if all skills were the same, so he decided to give the candy to Shymine instead. And now, if Hershey suffered from a full vessel too...
’Then, I could only restart the loop again.’
Thinking that he had to die for that to happen, he really wasn’t willing. But losing their healer here would weaken their party greatly. Thus, he prayed that it was only his skill that was weird, and that others wouldn’t reach full capacity just from a single skill upgrade.
"H-Huh...?"
A few moments later, Hershey’s cute voice escaped as a gasp.
She looked confused, but resolute at the same time. There was not a hint of pain in her expression, making Raive relax.
"It seems... I can now heal a lot of people at once. A new skill... Area heal?" She whispered, as if unsure about it herself.
Raive then knelt before her, patting her shoulders, while staring her straight in the eye.
"Do you feel fine? Was there no notification about your vessel reaching over capacity or anything?"
Hershey blushed a little from such proximity, but still quickly responded. "N-No... Nothing."
"Then that’s good..." Raive smiled, patting her head gently.
Thankfully, the worst case Raive imagined didn’t come to be. Thus, the need for suicide never arrived.
Raive stood up, glancing at everyone’s faces, then smiled.
"Alright, let’s first share each other’s contact details." He said. "As soon as we get out of here, we might get split up. Having each other’s contacts would speed up our reunion. After all, it’s better to move with people you can trust."
The word "trust" might be too much, though, since Raive himself doesn’t truly trust the other four just yet. But for the others, they should have enough trust in him to believe what he says. That should be good enough for now.
After that, they all exchanged phone numbers and addresses. Though Hershey didn’t have her own phone yet, they could only get her address and home phone.
With that out of the way, their preparations were over.
"Then... Let’s head out."
With Raive’s words, everyone started heading for the exit.
None of them even paid a glance to the dead ones embedded all over the walls; they just walked straight without blinking, one step at a time.
The exit was the same as the door from the five thrones. A glowing portal releasing bright, white light. Of course, knowing about the trapped door from before, Raive hesitated at first.
"..."
But after he gathered enough courage, he took the plunge.
He jumped through the white door, and after a bright flash that completely blocked his vision...
"Hmm..."
When he regained his eyesight, he was already standing by a sidewalk.
He could recall that it was where he was just before getting pulled into that strange space for the first trial.
The sky was downcast, but it didn’t look like it would be raining soon. More like an ominous darkness. The winds blew, carrying bitter coldness and a nauseating stench of iron.
After looking around, he found that almost everyone nearby was chopped into pieces and piled up into a single mound where they stood. A pool of red liquid formed below them.
Right.
Raive was standing in the middle of dozens of dead bodies.
His lips curled down in disgust, but he still looked around. After all, from what he heard from the others, they should be located close to each other before getting pulled into the trial space.
"M-Mister...!"
And soon enough, someone found him.
"Oh, Hershey!" Raive smiled, feeling a little relieved. "You’ve come!"
Thankfully, she was close enough to reach him by herself.
Although teary-eyed and filled with disgust, she kept her gaze straight at him, avoiding looking at the disparate state of the dead bodies around them. She was doing her best, holding back the tears threatening to stain her cheeks even now.
"Good job." Raive patted her head upon arrival, reassuring her. "Now, let’s just wait for the others to arrive, then let’s go find your parents."
The world did change.
And although they don’t know yet, of the 10 billion people in the world, only a billion were left after just the first trial. The world’s population was cut to a tenth of what it should’ve been.
Meaning, the chances of Hershey’s parents surviving together were less than 1%.
Still, she was the youngest in their group.
Thus, everyone agreed to let her see her parents first. No matter whether they were still alive or failed to clear their first trial.
Everyone else was old enough to accept reality much better than a child, after all.
And of course, none of them were too hopeful.
"So you were here. Are you ready?"
"Ah, Hershey! Here, here, don’t cry."
"Sorry for the delay. I had been picking up useful things off the ground, so..."
In under five minutes, the other three regrouped too. Using Raive’s position, a pretty well-known landmark for those living in the same city, was what sped things up.
Khamish, though, was delayed even more since he was picking things off the ground.
Things like jewelry, cash, and anything valuable from the corpses littered all over the place.
"Alright, that’s everyone." Raive nodded, then stared at the sky once more.
Weirdly, when he looked above, a single string of words would echo in his mind endlessly. Something that felt even more ominous than the dark clouds in the sky.
[Second trial will start in 71:54:33.28]
A countdown.
"We have three days before the next trial starts," Raive said while looking at everyone’s expressions. "So until then, let’s make sure that we have no regrets left."
The first trial already killed 90% of the world’s population.
There’s no telling how brutal the second trial would be.
But one thing’s for sure.
"As long as you guys follow me, I’ll make sure you survive all other trials that follow."
Raive said with conviction.
His voice rang with confidence, and a warmth that extended a helping hand to others.
"So please lend me your strength. So we could all survive together!"
A world plunged into a death game for the gods. And the prize, a single seat of a god.
What kind of future awaits them?