Chapter 113 - ‘Collab’ means ‘Collaboration’, you know?

  The sun hung high in the sky, its golden rays casting long shadows across the road as Adam, Drake, and Angela continued their trek away from Celestia Sanctum. An hour had passed since they had left the city’s grand gates behind, yet the three had not spent a single moment in silence. Their conversation had been relentless, an endless stream of questions, explanations, and exchanges that none of them seemed particularly eager to interrupt.

  The plan had been simple—after two hours of walking, their teams would regroup, ensuring that the others could exit the city unnoticed and rejoin them without arousing suspicion. This waiting period was a precaution, a way to avoid unnecessary attention from the ever-watchful paladins of the city.

  Had they wanted to, the three of them could have covered an immense distance at that time but, for once, neither speed nor efficiency was their priority.

  Instead, they talked.

  For Adam and Drake, the two hours felt far too short. Every second, every step forward, was an opportunity—a chance to squeeze more information from a true veteran of this system. And to their relief, Angela was more than willing to indulge them. Unlike her initial composed, almost wary demeanor, she now carried herself with an unexpected lightheartedness, seemingly enjoying the act of explaining things to them.

  At one point, she had casually admitted something that made both of them pause.

  "Out of all of us, I’m the most experienced. The others are still relatively new."

  She said, walking with her hands clasped behind her head, her blue eyes glinting in the sunlight. Adam had almost tripped over his own feet.

  "Really?"

  Angela chuckled at his reaction, flashing an amused grin.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. Hard to believe, huh? Most of them have only been here a few months, but they’ve at least cleared seven scenarios each. Well, except for one."

  She tilted her head slightly, glancing toward the horizon as though recalling something.

  "We’ve got one complete newbie—barely in his second scenario."

  Adam absorbed that information carefully, filing it away in his mind. Seven scenarios each… and yet…

  "Then why is your team’s average potential rating so—"

  Before he could finish, Drake’s open palm smacked the back of his head. Adam grunted, more surprised than actually hurt. He turned to glare at the blond, who just gave him a deadpan look.

  "Have some tact, will you?"

  Drake muttered, shaking his head. Angela, however, didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. In fact, she laughed.

  "Don’t worry about it, I know what you’re trying to ask."

  She said, waving a hand dismissively. Her expression turned slightly amused, as if she had been expecting that exact question.

  "You’re talking about our potential ranks, right?"

  Adam nodded, a bit more hesitant now. Angela smirked.

  "Yeah, I figured. I guess you’re misunderstanding what Potential actually means."

  That caught his attention. Adam’s brow furrowed slightly, but before he could ask for clarification, Angela beat him to it.

  "The Potential stat doesn’t measure power, time or experience, it measures growth."

  Drake’s posture straightened slightly, his interest piqued.

  "Can you elaborate, please?."

  Angela’s grin widened.

  "Gladly. ‘Potential’ is exactly what it sounds like—it’s the system’s evaluation of how much a user can still improve. It doesn’t matter if you’re strong, weak, or somewhere in between—your Potential isn’t based on your current power level. It’s based on how much room you have to get stronger and survive."

  Adam narrowed his eyes slightly.

  "So you’re saying it fluctuates?"

  Angela nodded.

  "Exactly. It can go up, and it can go down. The system adjusts it based on your performance, decisions, and growth patterns. Someone who consistently pushes their limits, who finds ways to adapt and survive against impossible odds, will see their Potential rise. But someone who stagnates? Someone who plays it safe, who avoids challenges, who doesn’t take risks? Then their Potential stagnates as well"

  She shrugged. Adam’s mind clicked into place. That explained so much.

  "Wait, if Potential is just an estimate of growth, what’s the incentive for raising it?"

  Drake interrupted, his tone thoughtful. Angela’s smile turned mischievous.

  "Oh, that’s the fun part, the system likes high-potential users. The stronger your Potential, the more benefits you get."

  She said, her voice carrying a teasing lilt. Adam’s stomach tightened. That made sense… Angela continued, clearly enjoying their reactions.

  "Your skills? They evolve better with higher Potential. You get access to abilities beyond normal level caps. Some skills have restrictions—certain skills above level 10, for example, won’t even be available unless your Potential is high enough. And that’s just the start. If an entire team’s average Potential reaches a certain threshold, they unlock new features in the lobby and the system shop."

  That last part hit Adam hard.

  "You’re saying that higher Potential gives you access to better things."

  Angela nodded.

  "Bingo. The system rewards those who push themselves. But there’s a catch."

  She let that word linger, giving them a moment to anticipate what was coming.

  "Raising Potential is brutally difficult."

  Adam and Drake exchanged a glance, both of them feeling the weight behind those words. Angela smirked, clearly enjoying herself.

  "Think about it. If the system raises your Potential based on how much you grow, then how do you think you increase it?"

  Adam’s eyes widened slightly as the realization dawned.

  "You have to put yourself in danger."

  He muttered. Angela snapped her fingers.

  "Exactly. Constantly. The more you take actual risks, the more you push beyond what should be possible, the faster your Potential increases. But think about that for a second—who in their right mind would keep putting themselves in life-or-death situations on purpose?"

  She let out a short laugh.

  "Only a complete idiot would do that, right?"

  Adam swallowed hard and Drake’s expression darkened slightly. The boy’s thoughts raced back through every scenario they had been through so far, every single reckless decision, every life-threatening encounter, every moment they should have died but somehow didn’t. It was like reliving a highlight reel of disasters, each memory a stark reminder of just how much danger they had constantly thrown themselves into.

  Even since their first scenario, it had never gotten any easier. Every scenario that followed had been just as brutal, just as lethal, throwing them into battles against forces far beyond their abilities. They had fought enemies who outclassed them completely, gotten tangled up in conflicts that should have crushed them, pushed themselves to limits they had no business reaching.

  Every time, they had been one step away from death. And now, as Adam replayed all of it in his mind, he realized just how insane their growth actually was.

  But then—wasn’t that normal? He frowned, trying to process it. That was just how scenarios worked, wasn’t it? It was impossible to complete them without risk. The entire nature of this system was built on survival through struggle. So if near-death experiences were necessary to clear scenarios…

  "Then how exactly does someone complete a scenario safely?"

  Adam said, his voice cutting through the silence. Angela glanced at him, her expression knowing. She had been waiting for that question.

  "It’s not that hard."

  She replied, her tone lighthearted as she gestured with her hands.

  "The system doesn’t throw you into random scenarios. It assigns you worlds based on your highest Potential-ranked teammate. Meaning, if your highest-ranking member is a C-rank Potential, then your scenario will be roughly C-rank difficulty—or in the worst case, one rank above that."

  She smiled slightly, tilting her head.

  "That’s how it’s supposed to work."

  Adam’s brows furrowed.

  "So we should have started with something manageable?"

  Angela shrugged, smirking.

  "Yeah. Which means, either you guys were extremely unlucky, or—"

  Drake, who had been listening carefully, suddenly cut in, his voice casual but dangerously effective in timing.

  "We started in a Punishment-Class scenario."

  Angela froze mid-step. For a second, she didn’t react. Then, in the next breath, she inhaled sharply—and immediately choked. She coughed violently, doubling over for a moment as if she had physically been hit with the force of what she had just heard. She gasped, swallowing between coughs.

  "A… A Punishment-class scenario!?"

  Adam and Drake exchanged a glance. They had some idea of what that meant—Li had mentioned it before, had given them the broad strokes—but this was the first time they were seeing someone react to it in real-time. Angela wasn’t just shocked, she looked like she had just been told they had walked through hell and come back alive.

  "Your first scenario was a Punishment-Class? You’re joking."

  Angela struggled to find the words, exhaling as she ran a hand through her hair, still trying to process it. Adam sighed.

  "Not joking, and before you ask—yes, we know it’s bad. But clearly, you know exactly what makes it that bad, so why don’t you go ahead and explain it, please?"

  Angela still looked like she was trying to reboot her brain, but after a few seconds, she finally exhaled slowly, rubbing her temples.

  "Alright, let’s get something straight. Punishment-class scenarios aren’t normal. They aren’t part of the system’s difficulty balancing. They exist specifically to kill players."

  She said, her tone more serious now. Adam and Drake both stiffened slightly, but Angela continued before they could interrupt.

  "They’re designed to be completely unwinnable. The system doesn’t just match them to your rank—it throws you into a world that’s completely above your capabilities. It’s basically a death sentence. And you’re telling me you started there?"

  Adam nodded. Angela let out a low whistle, shaking her head.

  "That’s beyond bad luck. That’s—you weren’t supposed to make it out. At all."

  Drake crossed his arms.

  "And yet, we did."

  Angela narrowed her eyes slightly.

  "How?"

  Adam exhaled, his expression turning distant for a moment.

  "A veteran was with us. Teo. He had a bunch of Plot Devices and helped us survive just long enough to make it through. But we still would have died if it weren’t for…"

  He paused, his mind flashing back to that moment… To the Empress, the ghostly ruler that had torn their group apart, that had crushed them effortlessly, that had killed Teo without even trying.

  To the last gamble Teo had taken, throwing his final Plot Device that ended in Adam’s hands after his body was consumed. To the feeling of the Empress’s existence being pulled into him, the cold weight of her power twisting through his veins, her essence forever bound to his soul.

  "…In the end, I absorbed something I shouldn’t have."

  Adam finally muttered after narrating everything that happened to them in that ghostly world.

  "And that was enough to clear the scenario and obtain a D-rank Potential."

  Angela stared at him for a long moment, studying him carefully. Then, she let out a slow breath.

  "So you started with a D-rank Potential because of that, huh? That explains a lot."

  She murmured, tilting her head. Adam glanced at her.

  "What do you mean?"

  Angela’s smirk widened, but there was something calculating in her gaze now, something sharp, something knowing.

  "The reason why your team has been constantly thrown into scenarios way beyond your capabilities is because of that D-rank Potential you started with."

  She said, her voice carrying the weight of certainty. Adam felt his muscles stiffen slightly at the words.

  Angela continued, clearly enjoying the chance to explain something that had probably been obvious to her from the start.

  "You got a D-rank Potential without being ready for it. Normally, a user with that ranking has already cleared multiple scenarios, and has experience, skills, and equipment that helped them reach that point. But you? You had none of that. You were just a rookie who had gotten thrown into something way beyond your control. And worse…"

  She added, her golden eyes flickering with amusement.

  "You dragged your entire team up with you."

  Drake let out a low sigh, running a hand through his hair.

  "That explains a lot."

  He muttered. Adam exhaled slowly, trying to process just how much of their suffering had been directly caused by a ranking he hadn’t even earned properly. He had always assumed the difficulty of their scenarios was just how the system worked—that they were simply thrown into increasingly harder situations as part of normal progression. But if what Angela was saying was true, then from the very start, their baseline difficulty had been artificially inflated because the system had already placed him in a category he had no right to be in, maybe not easy per se, but definitely not the absurd ones like the Steampunk and Murim worlds.

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  Still, something didn’t sit right. Angela seemed to pick up on his hesitation, because her smirk didn’t fade. In fact, it widened slightly, as though she were waiting for him to reach the next logical conclusion on his own. And she was right. Because after a moment, Adam’s thoughts clicked onto something far more concerning.

  "Wait, you sound like you know exactly why we ended up in a Punishment-Class scenario instead of a normal one."

  He said slowly, glancing at her. Angela’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

  "I do have a theory, but let me ask you something first—do you know what the Potential Rank of that veteran was? The guy in your first scenario—the one with all those Plot Devices?"

  Drake frowned, shaking his head.

  "I don’t think we ever knew."

  But Adam did. There had always been something off about Teo’s stats, something he had noticed back then but never really had the chance to question properly. At first, Teo’s Potential had been F, which had already seemed low considering how experienced he was. But after he used his last Plot Device, right before he died…

  "It dropped, he went from F to F- at the very end."

  Adam muttered. Angela’s entire face lit up with realization.

  "Ah-ha!"

  She said, snapping her fingers as if she had just solved a puzzle that had been bothering her. Adam and Drake stared at her, waiting for an explanation, so Angela didn’t leave them waiting long.

  "Punishment-Class scenarios aren’t random in that regard either."

  She began, her voice carrying an almost teacher-like rhythm to it now.

  "They happen when a team has one or more users with dangerously low Potential for too long. But in extreme cases—like yours—it happens when someone in your team is on the verge of hitting Negative Potential."

  Adam’s mind immediately reeled back, thinking about the F- ranking he had seen on Teo just before he died. Drake folded his arms, his brows furrowing.

  "That doesn’t make sense, Teo was strong. There’s no way the system saw him as worthless."

  The blond said. Angela clicked her tongue, wagging a finger at him like a teacher scolding a student.

  "Tsk, tsk, tsk. You’re still misunderstanding Potential."

  She said playfully.

  "As I said before, it’s not a strength stat. It has nothing to do with raw power. The easiest way to lose Potential is by relying too much on Plot Devices."

  Adam stiffened at that, and Drake’s expression darkened. Angela grinned.

  "Ah, I see that got your attention."

  She leaned slightly forward, walking backward so she could keep her eyes on them as they continued moving.

  "Plot Devices make everything easier. They let you bypass difficulty, let you cheat the system’s natural progression. And if you rely on them too much—if you get used to solving your problems that way—then the system recognizes it as a crutch. You’re no longer someone who’s actually learning how to survive—you’re just someone who presses a button and hopes for the best. And the system punishes that. Hard."

  Adam swallowed, his thoughts racing.

  "So the more you use Plot Devices…"

  "The lower your Potential gets, yes."

  Angela finished, her voice unwavering.

  "The closer you come to being labeled as a lost cause. And when that happens—when you reach something like F-, the system makes its judgment."

  Upon hearing this, Adam’s jaw tightened, his fingers clenching at his sides as the full gravity of her words bore down on him. It all made sense now. Teo’s demise hadn’t been the result of bad luck. It hadn’t been some random misfortune, a cruel roll of fate’s dice. No—Teo had been doomed from the start.

  The system had already made its decision and had already determined that he wasn’t worth keeping. His prolonged reliance on Plot Devices, the way he had circumvented natural growth, had sealed his fate long before that final fight. And in the end, the system had done what it always did to those it deemed irredeemable—it had executed him.

  A slow, creeping sense of unease settled into Adam’s chest, a cold realization wrapping around his thoughts like a vice. This wasn’t just about Teo anymore. There was something else, something far more disturbing about all of this. And the moment the pieces clicked into place, the memory rushed back like a flood, dredging up something he had seen before, something he had overlooked… Lord Varek.

  Adam felt his breath hitch for a split second, his entire body tensing as his mind replayed that moment from the past. He had seen it before. The unmistakable F- ranking attached to Lord Varek. Back then, he had assumed it had been a mistake, a system glitch, something that had been corrupted along with everything else in that scenario.

  He had barely even questioned it. It had seemed so impossible at the time, how could something as powerful as Lord Varek, as overwhelming as that monstrous entity, be ranked as an absolute failure by the system?

  But now, standing here, listening to Angela spell out the reality of what that ranking truly meant, he finally understood. It wasn’t an error. The system hadn’t glitched, at least not in that regard. The Murim overlord had been abusing the system functions without a real penalty because he wasn’t an actual user, but his Potential did drop in response.

  A slow chill crawled down Adam’s spine, a deep-rooted understanding settling into his bones. This system—whatever it was, whoever had built it—did not tolerate stagnation. It did not care for morality, fairness, or the struggles of those caught in its grip. It had only one rule, one absolute condition that determined whether or not you were allowed to exist within its framework.

  If you weren’t growing, if you weren’t constantly pushing forward, evolving, becoming something greater than before—then you were obsolete. And once the system marked you as obsolete… you were erased. The system had already decided who was worth keeping and who wasn’t, most probably at the whims of those so-called Patrons.

  Angela kept talking, her tone still lighthearted but carrying a hint of curiosity, as if every new piece of information only deepened the puzzle she was trying to solve.

  "So from what I understand, your team has been through a ridiculous number of life-threatening situations, which is why your Potential Rank is so high. That much makes sense. But there’s still a problem—your actual power level doesn’t match it. No offense, but with just three scenarios under your belt, there’s no way you should have racked up enough points to justify where you’re at. Even with bonuses, we’re talking about a couple hundred points at best."

  She said, glancing between the two boys. Adam didn’t hesitate to shake his head.

  "Points were never a problem, we had more than enough thanks to all the Hidden Subplots we completed."

  Angela choked—violently. She coughed hard, doubling over slightly, before snapping her head up so fast it was a miracle her neck didn’t break.

  "You what!?"

  Her voice practically shook with disbelief.

  "You completed Hidden Subplots?"

  Adam blinked, caught off guard by the intensity of her reaction.

  "Yeah. Quite some of them."

  Angela wasn’t listening anymore. She grabbed his wrist, staring at him as if he had just confessed to being an actual god.

  "Hold on—how? You’re novices! How in the hell did you even find them, let alone clear them?!"

  Drake let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his head.

  "We kinda figured they were hard to find, yeah, but we only realized how much after the fact. We’ve completed three total—two in our last scenario alone."

  He admitted. Angela looked like she was about to pass out. She took a deep breath, then exhaled sharply, pressing two fingers against her temple like she was trying to fight off a headache.

  "Okay… I’m not going to be surprised by anything you say anymore. You guys are basically the main characters of some broken novel at this point."

  She muttered, shaking her head in pure disbelief. Adam, however, didn’t laugh. His expression darkened slightly, and his voice was serious when he spoke again.

  "It’s not as great as it sounds, we’ve lost people too."

  Angela’s teasing demeanor immediately vanished. Her eyes focused on him, and for the first time since they had started walking, her expression held something akin to understanding.

  "We lost someone in our last scenario, he sacrificed himself so the rest of us could make it out."

  Adam said. A moment of silence passed between them, a brief but heavy acknowledgment of the cost that came with progressing too fast, pushing too hard, risking too much. Angela exhaled slowly.

  "I’m sorry, I mean it. That kind of loss… it never really leaves you."

  She said, and it wasn’t just words. There was weight behind them—genuine, unfiltered respect for the dead. Adam nodded. He wasn’t the type to dwell on what couldn’t be changed, but hearing someone else who understood say it out loud made the ache in his chest feel a little less suffocating.

  Angela let the silence linger for a few more moments before speaking again, this time with a thoughtful edge.

  "You know, you guys aren’t the first anomalies I’ve met."

  That caught Adam and Drake’s attention. Angela glanced at them, then sighed, as if pulling a memory from far too long ago.

  "Before you guys, there was another. Someone whose track record was just as ridiculous, no, way more. Someone I actually used to call a friend."

  Drake was the first to jump in.

  "Who?"

  His tone was casual, but there was a distinct sharpness beneath it. Angela hesitated for a second, as if debating whether to tell them everything. Then, she let out a small chuckle, though it lacked any humor.

  "Jeongu Kim, the lead… no, former leader of Team Abyss, it seems."

  Adam’s stomach tightened slightly, but he kept his face neutral. Drake, however, wasted no time.

  "So you and Team Abyss were close?"

  Angela snorted, though the sound carried an air of nostalgia.

  "Close? Yeah. You could say that. Jeongu Kim was… powerful. Insanely powerful. But more than that, he was smart. He had allies who were just as strong, people who could have wiped out entire teams if they wanted to. But instead of treating us as enemies, we… became something else. Allies."

  She exhaled slowly, her voice turning softer—almost melancholic. She trailed off for a moment, her gaze distant, as if caught between past and present.

  "We weren’t supposed to get along, but some things happened, and instead of killing each other, we started working together. That was three years ago."

  Adam’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  "Three years?"

  Angela nodded.

  "Back then, part of Team Abyss used to meet with us before every scenario. One of Jeongu’s allies had a skill that let them transfer most of their team to us before deployment. They used it to filter out their strongest members—the ones who would go into each scenario. That way, they could control their difficulty curve, make sure only the best of them fought while the others stayed behind."

  She let out a small laugh, but it lacked warmth.

  "They had it figured out, you know? They played the system better than anyone."

  Adam’s mind processed this information carefully. If Team Abyss had a way to control who entered each scenario, then that explained why they had a reputation for being so dangerous. Only their strongest members ever entered combat, which meant that anyone who survived kept getting exponentially stronger.

  But if that was the case—if Team Abyss had figured out a way to control their progression so effectively, if they had maneuvered through the system with that much foresight and precision—then why had they disappeared? Adam’s thoughts churned through the possibilities like grinding gears, piecing together fragments of logic that refused to align properly.

  If that Jeongu Kim guy and his team had been able to select their strongest members before every scenario, if they had been systematically ensuring their own survival while continuously growing in power, then it didn’t make sense for them to suddenly vanish. Their method should have guaranteed long-term success and should have cemented their dominance over others. There was no logical reason why a group that well-prepared, that strategically sound, that powerful would simply cease to exist. Unless, of course, something had happened. Something that no amount of preparation could have prevented. The realization settled into his chest like lead.

  "Then why did you lose contact? If they had everything under control, then what happened?"

  Adam asked, his voice steady, but probing. Angela’s expression darkened slightly, her confident, casual demeanor faltering for the first time since they had started talking. Her gaze flickered to the side, not out of avoidance, but as if she was pulling distant memories from the recesses of her mind, trying to find an answer she herself had been grappling with for years.

  When she finally spoke, her voice carried the weight of genuine uncertainty.

  "I don’t know, three years ago… they just stopped showing up. No messages. No signals. No warnings. One day they were there, and the next… nothing."

  Drake folded his arms, his brows knitting together.

  "And you haven’t heard from anyone since then?"

  Angela shook her head slowly.

  "Not a word."

  She murmured. The silence that followed was thick, stretching between them like an invisible noose, tightening with each second that passed. Adam could see it in her eyes—this wasn’t just some distant memory, some casual recollection of a group she had once been allied with. No, this had haunted her, gnawed at the back of her mind for years. It wasn’t just curiosity that made her wonder what had happened to Jeongu Kim and his team. It was something deeper. A feeling that something about their disappearance wasn’t just unexpected—it was wrong.

  For a brief moment, Angela’s gaze flickered toward Adam, her expression unreadable.

  "That’s why the blondie on your team caught me off guard, the fact that she doesn’t know who Jeongu Kim is means that something happened. Either their entire team was wiped out, or… maybe…"

  She hesitated, inhaling as if she wasn’t sure whether she should say what was on her mind. Then, exhaling sharply, she let the words fall.

  "Maybe… he actually did it."

  Adam frowned, immediately catching the significance in her tone.

  "Did what?"

  Angela’s voice dropped lower, almost as if speaking the thought aloud might somehow make it real.

  "Maybe… he found a way out."

  The atmosphere shifted drastically, an almost tangible tension settling between them. Angela’s words had struck something deep—something neither Adam nor Drake had ever truly considered before. Escape.

  Adam’s expression darkened as his grip tightened slightly at his side. His thoughts churned like a storm, his voice coming out far sharper than he intended.

  "How is that even possible?"

  He demanded, his golden eyes locking onto Angela with an intensity that made even her blink in mild surprise.

  "How do you just leave? No one has ever found a way out before—what the hell did he figure out that no one else did?"

  Angela sighed, shifting her weight slightly before shaking her head.

  "I don’t know, I wasn’t there when it happened. All I know is what Kim used to say."

  She admitted, her voice softer, her frustration evident. Drake frowned slightly, his arms crossed as he listened.

  "And what exactly did he say?"

  Angela’s blue eyes flickered with something unreadable—not just memory, but emotion. She took a slow breath before speaking, her voice carrying a trace of something deeply personal.

  "He always talked about it, that he would never stop. That no matter how long it took, no matter what he had to do, he would find a way to break free. He was obsessed with it, but not for himself."

  She murmured, almost as if recalling something distant, something precious. Adam’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  "Then for who?"

  Angela hesitated only for a second before answering.

  "His sister."

  Both Adam and Drake stiffened slightly. Angela exhaled, glancing upward as if trying to pull the right words from the air itself.

  "She was the only family he had, the only thing that mattered to him. He never talked about her much, but whenever he did… you could see it in his eyes."

  She said quietly. Her lips pressed together for a moment before she continued.

  "She was waiting for him back in his world. That was all that mattered. It didn’t matter how many scenarios he had to clear, how many years he had to spend here—as long as there was even the slightest chance of seeing her again, he would take it."

  Adam remained silent, his mind working through every detail. There was no hesitation in Angela’s voice. No doubt. She truly believed in him. That much was clear. But what stood out the most—what unsettled Adam even more than the idea of escape itself—was the way she spoke about him.

  There was something in her voice, something undeniably warm, something that didn’t match the usual rough, confident edge she carried when talking about other things. Her posture had softened slightly, her expression taking on an almost dreamlike quality. And then, just barely, a soft blush crept onto her cheeks.

  Adam didn’t miss it, and neither did Drake. Angela quickly cleared her throat, looking away as if to shake off whatever she had just let slip.

  "Anyway, I like to think he made it. That something happened on the way out, something that stopped him from saying goodbye. Because if he was still here… there’s no way he’d just disappear like that."

  She muttered, clearly trying to move past it. Adam didn’t respond immediately. There were too many pieces and too many gaps in the story that still didn’t make sense. He could feel the unspoken question burning at the back of his mind—if Kim had truly gotten out, then why was there no trace? No proof? No other signs that escape was even possible? And yet, looking at Angela—seeing the quiet, unwavering certainty in her expression—he realized something else, something that he almost missed.

  He had almost overlooked it, but now, the pieces were aligned in a way that sent a quiet, burning determination coursing through him. Katya had mentioned something similar before—how, among the members of Team Abyss, there had been whispers of someone managing to break free from the system. At the time, she said it had seemed like nothing more than a hopeful rumor, something that had circulated within their team as nothing more than speculation. But now? Now it wasn’t just a story. It was real.

  Angela’s words, Katya’s story—they matched. The idea that escape was possible wasn’t just blind hope anymore; there was evidence, fragmented as it was. It meant there was a way out, a method, a condition that could be fulfilled to break free from this endless cycle of survival and death. And for the first time since stepping into this world, Adam felt something stir deep in his chest—something powerful, something more than just survival instinct… Hope.

  The idea of seeing his parents again, of returning to his old world, to the life that had been stolen from him, felt closer than ever. The weight of everything—the brutal fights, the constant struggle, the inescapable feeling that he and his team were nothing more than pawns in a twisted game—it all suddenly felt just a little lighter. If Jeongu Kim had done it, if even one person had managed to escape, then that meant it wasn’t impossible.

  He almost let himself get swept away in the feeling, almost allowing a single tear to escape before a firm grip landed on his shoulder, pulling him back to reality.

  "Hey, we’re here."

  Drake’s voice came, steady and calm, cutting through the whirlwind of emotions in Adam’s chest. The boy blinked, snapping his attention forward, realizing that he had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed their surroundings changing. He lifted his head, his golden eyes scanning the horizon, and there—waiting at a distance—was the rest of their teams.

  They stood just ahead, gathered loosely, speaking with one another, no visible tension, no hostility—just conversation. The sight was almost surreal after everything they had been through. To see two teams that had started as rivals now standing side by side, talking as if they had known each other for years… it was something Adam hadn’t expected.

  For all the violence, all the unpredictability of this system, seeing people cooperating instead of killing each other was a rare sight. And it was a welcome one.

  Angela seemed to notice it too, her golden eyes softening slightly before she turned her gaze back to Adam and Drake.

  "I have to admit, I’m really glad we ran into a team we could actually talk to. But…"

  She crossed her arms, her expression shifting into something more cautionary.

  "Don’t take this as the norm. You got lucky with us. Most teams aren’t like this."

  Adam glanced at her, catching the meaning behind her words immediately. But it was Drake who spoke first.

  "Yeah, we figured."

  He said casually. Angela’s expression didn’t shift.

  "I’m serious. What if we weren’t friendly? What if this was all a trick? What if, right now, my team was back there slaughtering yours while we kept you distracted?"

  Adam didn’t respond right away. She wasn’t wrong. They had taken a risk trusting another team, had allowed themselves a moment of vulnerability that, under different circumstances, could have ended in disaster. He understood that well enough. But even so… Drake let out a small chuckle, shaking his head slightly.

  "Then we wouldn’t have anything to worry about."

  Angela’s brows furrowed slightly, genuine confusion flashing across her face.

  "What?"

  Adam smirked, a rare show of amusement crossing his features.

  "You don’t have the full picture, it might seem like we’re the strongest in our group, but… that’s not exactly true."

  Angela narrowed her eyes slightly.

  "What do you mean?"

  Drake simply laughed, nodding toward the group in the distance.

  "Let’s just say there’s someone over there who might not look like much, but if things went south, they’d be able to take all of us down at the same time."

  Angela’s entire demeanor shifted. She straightened slightly, her eyes flicking back toward the distant group, her expression one of clear skepticism. And with that, they continued forward, the distance between them and the rest of their teams growing smaller with each step.