37 36. Loop—Loop

Harvey's eyes shot open, he couldn't see anything within the pitch-black room. Quickly his vision swapped to his infrared, granting him sight, he didn't know where he was, where any of the others were, or how exactly he got here, but he remembered one thing. "It was that bastard..." He held his head, sitting up. "He used his manifest, it knocked us all out instantly."

He stood up and began to walk around. It was a prison of sorts or rather an empty area that could be mistaken for one. He continued moving through the darkness, trying to reach Fiera. However, his mana was suppressed. "Hm."

Harvey looked behind him, it was bars and trash for all he could see. However, something was wrong, even though suppressed because of his complex feel for mana, he could still sense another presence alongside him. He ran.

Running for minutes until eventually he heard a thump and groan, he opened a door and within it was possibly the last person he wanted in this with him, Emirus.

"Hajun... what happened, where is everyone else?" Emirus muttered, struggling to light a small fire in his hand.

"Don't know, I woke up in here like you," Harvey replied grimly, his concern evident. As he observed Emirus's attempts to manipulate his mana, he couldn't help but remark, "Your control over mana seems unrefined."

"Tell me something I don't know," Emirus shrugged, still struggling to control his mana. "Look, let me just say this now. I'm only here because I can create portals; I have no ties to this group or this shitty world and if I die, so be it."

"We are polar opposites," Harvey noted, walking away. "Do as you please, I'll find a way out regardless of what you do."

"Tch," Emirus grumbled, trailing behind Harvey as they navigated through the darkness, relying on his eyes that had gotten used to the dark.

Hours passed without a word exchanged between them as they trudged onward, passing the same prison cells repeatedly, their mana still suppressed. "Is this a status amp manifest?" Emirus pondered aloud.

"What's that?" Harvey inquired, a hint of regret in his voice.

"Thought you knew it all, Oh-Mr. Greatest gamer," Emirus taunted.

"Forget I asked," Harvey replied curtly, continuing his stride.

"Oh no, I'll educate you. A status amp manifest directly imposes the player's technique onto a target, with a significantly extended range," Emirus explained.

"Don't all manifests have a three-minute time limit?" Harvey interjected.

"Yes, and?" Emirus prompted.

"We've been walking for hours," Harvey pointed out, not bothering to glance at Emirus, who felt a twinge of embarrassment.

Two more hours passed and Harvey stopped looking around, was he going the wrong way? Or rather. Was he not moving at all, he bent down, noticing a can on the floor. Quickly he ran forward, meeting Emirus next to the same can. "Fuck." Emirus muttered.

"It's a loop," Harvey stated, scanning their surroundings.

"How do we break out?" Emirus asked.

"We don't," Harvey replied, slumping to the ground and resting his head against the cold concrete walls.

"You're giving up? And you call me lazy," Emirus quipped.

"There's nothing we can do," Harvey lamented. "I could attempt to use my manifest, but I can't focus my mana. Which means—"

"We might be trapped in here indefinitely."

"Until they come to kill us," Harvey murmured.

"The Azure? Why go to all this trouble? Why not just finish us off after that pastor freak knocked us out?"

Harvey pondered Emirus's question. "Could it be because of the Unknown core I have?" Opening his system, he accessed his storage. The core was still there, but a message beneath it caught his eye: [Upon holder's death, the core would be destroyed. Transfer before demise].

"Perhaps they intend to sell it to the Faction," Emirus suggested.

Harvey nodded, the pieces slowly coming together. "But what do they even want the cores for?" Hive's theory resurfaced in his mind, offering a potential answer. "And how do you win the game?"

"What?" Emirus mumbled, irritated. "It's an MMO, there's no real ending. Though, I'd suppose the game ends when all the raid bosses and events have been cleared."

Raid bosses... Unknowns. Ever since they were transported into this world, the concept of events was thrown out the window, which meant... "This is how we leave the game..."

"What are you on about?"

He could be wrong, very wrong, and this could have been a dumb statement and assumption, but... "If we get all nine Unknown cores... we can complete the game."

"Umm... okay?"

"Remember what those two figures said in Falusha?"

"When we finish the game we can leave?" Emirus muttered before grasping what had left his mouth. "When the game is over... we can leave. Wait, how sure are you of this?"

"Not sure at all. But... it's a plausible hunch."

"We might know this but it doesn't matter now, we're trapped in here until they find someone who can come take the core without killing us, then they'll kill us."

"That's why we're being held," Harvey muttered, looking around. "We have to leave before that happens. I have the core. If they get it... things would only get worse for us."

"How do we leave though? You said it yourself. We're stuck in this loop."

The second question arose: why had they been brought to this room instead of being killed outside? It seemed like unnecessary trouble and even though their entrapment could be tied to the cores, why here? Why not where the Azure could see them? Or within a forest away from prying eyes. For them to pick this specific area, meant something.

"What if there's a way out?" Harvey pondered aloud, struggling to gather enough mana. Despite the difficulty, he managed to conjure a small fireball.

"Quite impressive," Emirus remarked. "But don't think for a moment that changes anything between us."

"Agreed," Harvey replied. "This technique likely creates a loop between two points within this vertical room. You were in the second point, I was in the first. The loop begins where my room starts and ends where yours does."

"So, it's essentially manipulating the distance between two fixed points?" Emirus clarified.

"Precisely," Harvey confirmed. "But the user must have selected those points, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to reach your room or interact with you. It might seem like a complicated technique, but it's still governed by mana which limits it."

Harvey laid a hand on Emirus's shoulder to illustrate his point. "The technique isn't unstoppable. Its weakness lies in the fact that the user has already selected fixed points. That means distance will continue to loop. There's a reason they chose this place instead of just dumping us in the forest."

"This location is special, likely the ideal spot for the technique due to its nature!" Emirus exclaimed and Harvey glanced at him, for the first time ever, they were on the same wavelength.

"Which means—"

"We need to create distance—"

"Distance we can perceive. We have to force the technique to account for the new space. When it tries to loop the new distance within the designated points set by its user, the technique will lag behind and—"

"We'll make our escape!"

With a silent agreement, they both darted in opposite directions. Emirus began punching through the walls of the room, while Harvey punched through the walls on the opposite side. As he broke through the concrete, he glimpsed himself through the hole, signaling that space had begun to loop.

The room was small, which further added light on the weakness of the technique, If there was a limit to how much distance could be looped as Harvey suspected, pushing it to its extreme would be straightforward.

They continued to punch through the walls, each blow causing space to loop around, revealing their arms behind them. It was a promising sign.

The technique was best described as spatial manipulation with elements of distance control. Despite the looping of distance, they appeared almost magically on the opposing side, indicating it wasn't being stretched indefinitely, or they would never reach their destination.

As they ran toward the second cell, they continued to demolish the walls, breaking and breaking until their hands no longer looped, revealing the outside of the room—a forest.

They won.

Unable to use their mana, it was clear that someone else was behind the technique, but that was unimportant now. They swiftly stepped through the hole in the wall, surveying the room from the outside. It was a weird, miniature space, evidently crafted or placed there deliberately.

This reinforced the idea that the technique was most effective within that confined space, and now that they were outside of it, its power was diminished. "Hmm," A man muttered, catching Harvey's attention.

"You can have the first swing," Harvey said, gesturing for Emirus to take the lead.

"Oh, how kind of you!" Emirus replied, landing a punch squarely on the man's jaw. However, his hand looped behind him, and as he turned, he saw it stop just shy of the man's face before almost teleporting behind him. "Are we going through this again?"

"How did you escape from my looped world!" The man bellowed, attempting to create another loop to keep them at bay.

"Your technique isn't as formidable as you think. You can only loop between two points. So we created forty!" Harvey declared, leaping down from above and thrusting a pair of blades into the man's chest—weapons he had acquired when he obtained gear for Erra.

It was regrettable that they had to resort to extreme violence, but if they didn't act now, they would continue to be threatened by this same technique in the future. "The suppression effect is still active," He noted. The skull next to his name gleamed, indicating another player kill.

"There are more of them lurking around," Emirus observed. "Should we retreat and regroup? We need to find the others."

"The magic suppressor must be nearby. It's not a manifest, it's his technique. There's a limited range for everything. The fact that it's still in operation means he's close," Harvey reasoned.

"Shouldn't we try to get out of its range then?"

"There's a risk we won't succeed. They'll undoubtedly know their teammates been killed and they're definitely on their way."

"So, what's the plan?" Emirus asked, his gaze shifting toward the nearby woods, sensing movement.

"We end them here," Harvey declared, assuming a defensive stance, blades at the ready as the sound of rustling foliage reached their ears.