‘Things weren’t supposed to turn out like this…’
Clara muttered under her breath, her gaze locked onto the conductor at the center of the stage. His baton sliced through the air in sharp, fluid arcs, guiding the melody with each one of his movements.
Her grip on the walkie-talkie tightened. The earbuds in her ears dulled the sound but couldn’t silence the music.
Somehow, someway, it found its way into her mind.
Click!
“Resist… Resist… Resist…”
Her mouth opened and closed on repeat, the same words tumbling out over and over. What once used to be something she said to remind her squad members was now something she said in order to keep her own sanity. She feared the music would consume her entirely if she stopped, even for a second.
If she faltered for even a moment…
Clara bit her lip.
‘How did things turn out this way?’
The first sign that something had turned awry had been the Jester. Its presence alone should have been a red flag. Anomalies like that didn’t just appear—they were warnings, omens of something within the Gate changing.
But as the captain of a ranked squad, Clara thought she wouldn’t struggle with a ranked Anomalous-Type Gate.
Even if Anomalous-Type Gates tended to have the lowest survival rates, she shouldn’t have struggled like this. She had made enough preparations to succeed.
From the noise-cancelling devices to reduce the impact of the music, to the numerous dampening devices that they had brought in advance.
None of it.
None of it worked.
“Aghhhh—!”
A scream—raw, wet, and broken—tore through the symphony.
Bang!
Clara flinched.
‘N-no, stop… This needs to stop…’
Her hands trembled as she forced herself to look ahead. The conductor’s lips, grotesquely sewn shut with blackened wire, stretched into a sickening grin.
He was enjoying this.
And Clara, for the first time in her life, felt something deeper than fear.
Helplessness.
Her entire squad was made up of ten elite members, all trained to deal with such situations. But this… this was different.
Even as an Anomalous-Type Gate, which was considered to have the lowest survival rate amongst all types of Gates, things shouldn’t have been this difficult.
Something had gone wrong.
Horribly so.
This was no ranked gate… It was ranked or higher.
The music pulsed through the air, every note forcing her mind to grow numb, slowly inching towards her mind, sucking her into this strange state that made her fingers twitch.
‘Think, think, think.’
Clara’s mind churned, all sorts of possibilities running through her mind.
She still had time.
She needed to think of a way to help herself, alongside the squad, out of this predicament. In spite of the music slowly draining away her mental capability, she was still able to remain rational enough to think.
—C..Captain. I can’t resist much… longer.
—Ca-ptain! Should we just attack? We might not be able to… defeat it. But at least, it might be able to stop it!
Defeat it?
Clara raised her head and looked at the conductor.
She hurriedly shook her head. That was impossible. She could feel it with every bone in her body. This was not a creature they could defeat.
The only way to defeat him was through the rules.
—H-help. I’m about to…!
Think, think!
Overhearing her squad members’ cries and pleas, Clara bit her lips. Her eyes darted all over the hall, trying to find a way to solve this predicament, and yet, regardless of how hard she tried, she couldn’t find a way out.
This… situation.
‘It’s helpless. It’s…’
It was amidst her helplessness and despair that a certain voice whispered from the walkie-talkie.
—If you want to live, do as I say.
‘What…?’
It was a voice she couldn’t recognize, and most importantly, it carried an extreme calmness that seemed unfitting for the situation.
A chill ran down Clara’s spine. Slowly, she turned.
The Jester.
He too… was holding onto a walkie-talkie.
‘How…?’
