Martial Online.

"I am going off for now." Moriarty mentioned as he put down his pen and closed his notebook.

He finished writing up things he had discovered so far about the facility, such as the number of floors and the number of rooms.

He planned to search for any clues starting tomorrow.

"See you." Ambrose nodded and bid farewell.

"I'll go check the other qualified teams." Moriarty said, and he pulled out his interface. "It must be revealed already."

"Sounds good."

After Moriarty disappeared into thin air, Ambrose stood up and left the arcade while Leo and Cleo were checking out different gaming machines.

While walking down the bottom floor of the facility, he noticed a group of players had formed around different floors and rooms.

They seemed to be discussing something of great importance.

'Joining hands with other contestants isn't the worst idea.' Ambrose thought as he headed over to the second floor.

'There're ten thousand different teams, and having a small group of ten teams work together could increase their chances of success.'

After mindlessly walking around the facility, checking out the different training rooms and equipment, Ambrose finally settled on a room that was at the corner of the second floor.

It was a small library, filled with books of all genres and subjects. Ambrose was immediately drawn to the shelves, his eyes scanning the titles.

However, he then heard sounds of movement and voices coming from the adjacent room.

As he moved two books from the shelf, he saw a couple flirting with each other in the corner of the library.

They were laughing and whispering sweet nothings to each other.

Ambrose rolled his eyes and moved the books to block the view of the couple. He then saw some other players scattered around the library, searching for any clues.

They had the same thought process as Ambrose, as he also thought that the library might be a place to start as there might be some books in there that could provide valuable information.

'It would be a far too obvious place, but maybe finding the clues isn't supposed to be too hard.'

Ambrose thought and searched throughout the library in search of any interesting-looking books.

However, after hours of searching, he still hadn't found anything useful.

It was already getting late, and the distant voices of players had also become distant as they had either logged out or retreated to their rooms with their new-found friends.

There were still hundreds of players moving on different floors as they wanted to find the clues before others and perhaps sell the information.

They imagined being able to make a huge bank from the information.

'I don't think there is anything useful in here.' Ambrose sighed, and left the library with a sense of disappointment.

As he walked down the second floor of the mall with his hand in his pocket, he saw a group of players walking on the bottom floor while laughing and chatting.

Ambrose leaned on the railing and watched as they left the facility, returning back to their rooms.

At that moment, a few droplets of crimson blood fell from Ambrose's nose, staining the pristine white floor.

"…" Ambrose used the back of his hand to wipe away the blood, his expression morphing into one of concern.

'Bella talked about his father trying to cure her mother by using a VR headset to heal her body, but eventually, it failed, and she melted into a puddle of flesh and bone.

'Perhaps that's what is happening to me?

'Am I… dying?'

…

"No!" Jonna threw her chair across the room and fell down to her knees.

She held her head with a grieving expression on her face, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I am sorry… I am sorry… I am sorry!"

Slam!

The door slammed open, and her worried-looking subordinate rushed in with a shocked expression on her face.

"B-boss?" The round-headed woman, Zoey, looked at her with confusion, wondering what could have happened.

"I am sorry…" Jonna whispered as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Zoey approached the desk, saw a screen that showed a certain person's body's information, and realized something horrible.

Jesse's holographic body was on the screen, and it showed all of his vital signs. However, now it was fully red like blood, and everything was beeping in alarm.

"D-did he die?" Zoey asked and looked up at one of the large screens.

It showed a scene from inside the facility, which she had access to, and she saw him standing casually on the screen as if nothing wrong had happened.

"H-he is alive, so why?" Zoey looked at her boss and held her shoulder. "W-what's wrong?"

"W-why is this happening?" Jonna whispered in a shaky voice, her eyes welling up with tears. "E-everything looked good, b-

but then yesterday it suddenly turned all red with error messages!

"I thought the system had a bug, but now it happened again, and when it happened, this happened!"

Jonna used her trembling finger to rewind the screen, and then it showed a scene of the purple-eyed person standing casually, but then his nose started bleeding.

Zoey's expression fell apart as she noticed that the blood was crimson in color!

"W-why did it happen so suddenly?" Jonna asked herself with a despairing voice. "Everything was fine, so why…"

"You can fix it, right, boss?" Zoey asked hopefully, her voice trembling.

"I don't know how…" Jonna grabbed her hair and tugged at it. "This couldn't have happened so suddenly, but it must've been a long process for his body to turn messed up like this."

"You said something about him having Humanoid Imperfecta." Zoey raised her finger and said, "Maybe that somehow influenced it?"

"…" Jonna gritted her teeth and tried to think.

"Wait, I have gotten some warning signals from his brain scans before." Jonna's expression became more concerned.

"From what I remember, Graham's wife was completely fine for a day until she became sick, and from what I heard, she was very emotional. She changed from anger to overwhelming happiness in a matter of minutes.

"Maybe that's what was happening with Jesse, but at a much slower pace!" She returned to the computer and brought out her journal to document her observations and thoughts.

"I just found that there was a glitch in the system all this time, and it might be something he had noticed!" Jonna shouted.

"His detoration started from having overwhelmed emotions, but then suddenly his body started dying at insane speed. It is like his body is now collapsing at a much faster speed!"

"It's like his body is now trying to catch up." Zoey said in a shocked voice. "The overwhelmed emotions slowed down how his body worked, but now it's balancing itself out.

"That's why he is suddenly dying at an accelerated rate!"

"Fuck!" Jonna grabbed her head. "I-I did this. It was my fault."

"Y-you can fix him, right?" Zoey said hopefully.

"…" Jonna looked at her with teary eyes and smiled painfully. "I'm afraid there is nothing I can do. I only managed to create it with the help of Graham's blueprints, and I thought I managed to fix any problems, but it seems I was wrong.

"I was arrogant and idiotic."

Zoey's eyes shook, and she turned to the screen with a saddened gaze.

"He'll die?"

"Inside a month, yes." Jonna lowered her head painfully.

"Maybe we should tell Graham?" Zoey asked. "He could help. This was his creation in the first place!"

Jonna's eyes opened shakily, and she grabbed her chest, feeling a sharp pain shoot through her body.

"B-boss?"

"I don't know if he can either." Jonna closed her eyes painfully. "He already failed to save his wife; what makes you think he can save him?"

"Are you afraid of what he will do to you?" Zoey asked and clenched her fists. "Does it matter? This is a matter of life and death!"

"Shit…" Jonna grabbed her head and whispered weakly. "A-all right, I will."