Chương 11: Existence

I sidestepped one swing, hopped over another, and ducked below one which took strands of my hair. I was already suffering from hair fall, and even more of my hair was getting sacrificed here. Thankfully, I was still able to dodge, but my stamina was already running low from so much romping. The spinning blade touched the edge of my foreman, tearing apart the shirt and a piece of skin with it.

"Mister," Pyiari screamed, her voice full of concern.

"Don't worry, it's just a scratch."

"Lania, stop this." Pyiari pleaded to her only friend. Lania's eyes were red with anger.

"Why?" she shouted at Pyiari.

"Why? Why are you taking his side?"

"I have spent some time with him. Mister might be a dork and a show off, but he is kind at heart. He came back from another world just to help me and see," She showed her teddy to Lania.

"See teddy's eye, he is the one who fixed it. Why would someone like him destroy your toy?"

"But he did," Lania growled, "he accepted it."

"He also said he has an explanation."

"If someone were to tear apart your teddy, would you listen to their reason for doing it?"

"I…I…"

"Then stop being a hypocrite and stay right where you are." The barrage of attacks did not stop; it even intensified, or maybe it was just me who was getting slower.

"I will," Pyiari finally said. It made me happy that Pyiari had come to trust me so much.

"What?"

"If it is the mister I have come to know these past few hours. I will listen to him."

"Only a few hours were enough for you to know what kind of adult he is? Don't you remember how the adults treat us? Most treat us badly, but there are a few who talk kindly, but they are the most evil of them all. They promised us so many things, but never delivered. They talk nicely, then pin syringes after syringes in us. Even when we cried in pain, they never stopped. They hide behind that kind mask of theirs, and this guy is the same as them, the worst kind."

"He is not."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't know, that's why we should listen to him. If you don't like it," she took a small break.

"If you don't like it, you can kill him." Those words did not sound good from Pyiari's mouth. I had thought that Lania must have brutally beaten the kid who had bullied her, but it looked like she had killed him in rage and vengeance. A kid this young already had blood on her hands. Why? Why wouldn't the staff here stop them? What could they possibly gain by seeing the infighting? Won't you like your test subjects to be healthy? So, why? Just why? I swung my sword with all my might.

It clashed with the spinning blade. I felt my muscles tear and bones fracture from the impact. The sound reverberated throughout the chamber, bringing Pyiari and Lania's attention back to me. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"The world I come from," I began speaking before Lania or Pyiari could protest, "was not a nice place, and it became worse when the rifts opened." Strange Toy swung again. I did not dodge. I parried it again. My wrist joints cracked.

"The people in my world don't think of those inside rifts as real persons. Why? Because the world itself tells them so. When a rift creature dies, they turn into blue dust and vanish, leaving behind a reward for the killer. It is the system itself that asks outsiders to kill those inside rifts and reward them for it. I was the same. I hunted your toy to get my reward." Both of its limbs came at me from opposite directions. I dodged one and punished the other.

"But my thinking changed when I met Pyiari. She was the first rift-person I had met in my two years of dungeoneering. I sought her for the exact same reason others did. To follow her script, which would let me out of the maze. However, something changed when I spoke to her; she refused to follow her script and helped me find something that would heal my leg. If she isn't real and only a cog in the system, how could she have refused to follow her script? If she wasn't real, then how did she save me from Orand?

She is real. She cries, laughs, gets scared. She feels everything a real human does. Yet the system makes us think that she… that you are not real."

"Ha, you really think I would believe that? That you are from another world? The world made you think that we are not real, that's why you did what you did? What bullshit!"

"Pyiari," I called for her. She was lost; she hadn't even accepted that I was an alien, but now I was telling her that the world makes others think that she isn't real, and exactly after that, I tell her that she is. She was hit by an existential crisis.

"Y-yes?" She stammered.

"Tell me, do you remember anything between the two instances where I went through the hatch and then came back looking for you?"

"I…I…I don't. I don't remember a thing. I only remember mindlessly moving in the maze, and before that," She squeezed her forehead, as if hit by an intense headache. She was remembering something, and the system didn't want her to. Lania's toy had stopped attacking me.

"What about you Lania? Do you remember doing anything else other than seeing your toy getting destroyed and you fixing it?"

"I…I…" She grabbed her head too.

"Mister, I can't remember. So, many of my memories are missing, and so many things feel foreign because of that."

"Don't worry. We will find those missing pieces together. Lania, will you join us?" She looked at me through squinted eyes, fighting her headache.

"How does that excuse anything? You are not taking any responsibility. You are blaming the world for it. Saying that the world made you believe that we aren't real. Rewarded you for killing us, and that's the reason you did what you did. Lania's toy moved again. Slowly moving towards me.

"I am not blaming anyone or anything." I tossed my sword away; the steel did not make a noise when it fell on the fake grass surface.

"I will take any punishment you deem fit, whatever it is. I will accept." Lania went silent from my actions, and her toy stopped moving.

"Mister, what if we really are not real? What if I were made just to guide people like you out of that maze? What if that is the reason for my whole existence?"

"As I said, you are real. You are more than just a guide."

"Why do you want to help us?" Pyari asked.

"Do I need a reason to help someone in need?" After that, the silence was long. Pyiari and Lania thought about my words, the proof I had given, which was them themselves. Lania broke the silence.

"Do you think your current actions exempt you from your earlier actions of destroying my toy?" Strange Toy started moving again.

"I do not, that's why I will not move. Do whatever you see fit." Pyiari did not protest this time. She just looked at me, then at Lania.

"I believe in mister," was all she had to say. She let the decision rest on Lania's shoulders because that's how it should be. Lania and I locked eyes. She stared into the deepest part of me, digging out everything. I let her. There was nothing that I was hiding. Lania came to a decision. She raised her hand, so did her toy. The blade on its limbs spun at great speed. I guess this is it for me.

I hope someone else comes and doesn't repeat the mistakes I made and saves not only Pyiari and Lania but every kid trapped here. The toy lunged at me. I did not blink, accepting my fate. It stopped, right before my eyes. My hair swayed from the gusts it produced. I stared at it. It retreated.

"I do not want to believe you," Lania said.

"But Pyiari is smarter than me. She must have seen something in you to believe you even after all that, and I really don't want to live in a place which doesn't treat me as a real person."

"Mister, I believe in you. So, please help us."

"Thank you, and I will take you out of here."