UNMEI: Pantheon's Game - Chapter 54: Confusion

The MMORPG ’EVR’ was released unexpectedly one day, along with its advanced equipment that allowed players to fully immerse themselves in the game, even though prior VR technology wasn’t nearly as realistic. To prevent people from replacing their real lives with the game, the servers were shut down during the day and on weekends. I was the best at the game, but since I had no friends or family, I could only watch and bet on sports while waiting for the servers to reopen—until the day I died and regressed to a week before the game was released. I know everything that will happen in the game. I know the game is not just realistic; it’s real. And for some reason, I don’t need to log out!

“Any who don the title of 'king' or anything of the sort in my presence is nothing more than an ignorant fool. This is my land and I shall be reclaiming it soon. I am Cacophony, the Vampire Empress!”As those words left her lips, every cell in my body reacted. It was unreal—no, it was otherworldly. Her beauty, her power, and her overwhelming arrogance. It might've been then that I realized that my normal life had ended.How did it come to this?Ah, it was curiosity. Yes, a deathly curiosity brought me to that graveyard that day.It was there that I stumbled upon her coffin. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing then, and even now I have no idea what possessed me to touch it—that single moment changed the course of history for the entire world. I found myself delving into a completely unknown world.Should I regret it? Maybe. But the truth is, I don't.Exploring the world’s hidden secrets, forging unexpected bonds, and living alongside the revived empress—it’s exciting.“Even if it's wrong, I think I'm going to enjoy every moment of it.”

There were women approaching me, who had decided to die.

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.