As soon as the second game officially ended, the forest floor began moving again.

Mechanical seams opened beneath the artificial ground with smooth precision, and one after another, transport pods rose from below like capsules emerging from hidden machinery. Their metallic surfaces reflected the fading artificial daylight while soft lights blinked along their edges, signaling each remaining participant to board.

No one resisted.

After everything that had happened, even the survivors had become quiet.

The bodies of the eliminated were already gone. The clearing that had witnessed accusations, betrayals, and deaths now looked almost untouched, as though the game had never happened there at all.

The remaining twenty-eight participants stepped into their assigned pods one by one.

Tyler entered his without speaking.

The door sealed behind him, cutting off the forest instantly.

Inside, the chamber remained simple—an oval seat, smooth white walls, and faint lighting that felt almost too calm after the violence outside.

The pod began moving upward.

Then a new voice filled the interior.

Soft.

Female.

Unlike the mechanical system voice used inside the games.

"Congratulations. Twenty-eight chosen have survived."

At the same moment, a screen unfolded from the wall in front of Tyler.

The display brightened.

A woman appeared.

The moment Tyler saw her, his eyes narrowed.

Then widened.

Her skin was silver. Not pale —silver, with a metallic sheen similar to polished alloy under light. Her long hair carried the same silver tone, falling smoothly around shoulders that looked almost unreal in their perfection. Even her eyes reflected light strangely, as though the silver extended beyond skin into something deeper. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Tyler immediately recognized her.

Because he had seen her before.

Not in person but in an Old footage.

The same hidden laboratory recordings connected to the broken world portal. The woman who had escaped from the portal. The one who crossed from the other world into Libria.

And Tyler was not the only one who recognized her.

Inside another moving pod, Tansy also stared at the screen in shock, because she had seen the same footage before.

The memory came back clearly— it was the same woman that escaped the lab. At that time the woman was not silver skinned though.

Now that same woman smiled directly through the screen as though she belonged here completely.

"The next game will begin in twenty-six hours," she said.

Her voice carried unnatural calm, almost playful despite what the survivors had just endured.

"Before then, all participants must complete medical examination, eat properly, and make sure to sleep well."

She lifted one hand lightly, then gave a small wink.

But just before the transmission ended, she leaned slightly closer and lowered her voice into something softer.

"This time, participants are allowed to visit other participants’ rooms..."

A pause.

"...but only if the room owner allows entry."

The message ended there.

The screen vanished.

Tyler leaned back slowly, still thinking.

The silver woman appearing here meant she probably able to enter the Captial easily. Someone from the alternate world was now openly involved inside the Capital itself. Which meant she probably did something for the Captial that’s why she was allowed to become a citizen of captial.

The pod continued moving until it finally slowed.

The doors opened.

The survivors had returned to the same residential building used before, but this time the atmosphere had changed immediately.

And for the first time since arriving in the Capital, the survivors were actually allowed to move freely through the corridor.

People stepped out cautiously, testing whether the freedom was real.

It was.

Tyler had barely entered his room when the door opened again.

Tansy and Rose walked in without hesitation.

Tyler was just about to close the door when he noticed Victor still standing in the corridor a short distance away.

Victor had clearly stopped walking the moment he saw Tansy and Rose enter Tyler’s room without hesitation. His mouth remained slightly open, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and confusion, as though he had just witnessed something far more shocking than surviving two death games.

Tyler looked at him for a second. Then simply winked. And closed the door.

The sound of the lock settling made the room quiet again.

The room itself had already been prepared again by Capital servants —fresh sheets, clean lighting, fruit trays placed neatly on the table, and even warm drinks waiting untouched near the window.

Tansy and Rose wasted no time.

By the time Tyler turned back, both sisters were already sitting near the table eating fruits as though they had done this many times before. Rose had taken two kinds immediately, while Tansy ate more slowly, though still clearly hungrier than she pretended.

Tyler walked over, sat beside them, picked up one of the fruits, and bit into it.

The sweetness felt almost unnatural after days of game food and survival supplies.

"We still don’t know what the next game is," Tyler said after swallowing. "But I’m sure of one thing—it’ll be bloodier than the last one."

Neither sister interrupted.

"At least half of the remaining people will probably die."

That made Rose stop chewing briefly.

Tansy stayed calm, but her fingers tightened slightly around the fruit she held.

"To survive the next game," Tansy said after a moment, "we can only pray to God. That’s all people like us can really do."

Rose immediately shook her head. "We should escape instead."

She swallowed and looked between them.

"We already have the silver injection. We can cure Father. Why stay?"

That made Tansy pause too.

Because Rose was not wrong.

The original reason for enduring the game had already partly changed. They had obtained something worth risking everything for.

Tyler leaned back slightly.

He also thought about it seriously.

He had entered the Capital Games because the Orion Cube pushed him toward this path.

But technically, he had already entered, already survived two games, already reached whatever threshold the Cube seemed to demand.

If he wanted, perhaps he really could leave.

The thought remained for several seconds before another one surfaced.

It was about The silver woman.

Tyler looked toward Tansy. "That woman on the pod screen..."

Tansy immediately understood who he meant.

"That was definitely her."

Her answer came fast.

"The old security footage from the lab was clear enough. Same face."

Then she added:

"She was holding something when she escaped too. I remember that clearly."

Tyler nodded slowly.

He remembered it too.

A figure leaving through chaos, carrying something unknown while alarms filled the old footage.

Now that same person stood openly inside the Capital system announcing games.

"Well," Tyler said, "even if we wanted answers, I doubt she’d explain anything willingly."

Rose, who had been listening while chewing, suddenly looked up.

Her mouth was still half full of fruit when she asked:

"You two went on a date without me?"

Both Tyler and Tansy answered instantly.

"Not a date."

The synchronized reply made Rose blink.

Then she leaned back dramatically and narrowed her eyes.

"Oh..."

She pointed one finger at Tyler.

"Then Tyler, go on a date with me."

She even added a wink, though the fruit still in her mouth ruined any serious attempt at charm. Instead of seductive, she looked like a child trying too hard to imitate adults.

Tyler looked at her once and smirked.

"Grow up first. Then ask again."

Rose immediately pouted.

Then turned toward her sister and declared with complete seriousness:

"Then Sister, keep him properly until then. I’ll take him when I grow up."

Tansy stared at her for one second. Then laughed despite herself and lightly bonked Rose on the head.

"What exactly is happening inside that brain of yours?"

Rose rubbed her head dramatically, still pouting, while Tyler quietly reached for another fruit, already knowing the room felt lighter than anything outside it had a right to be.

Then Tyler suddenly said, "Since this might be the last proper meal before the next game, how about both of you remove your dresses? Tonight neither of you is sleeping."

For one full second, the room became completely still.

Then both Tansy and Rose blushed at the same time.

The next second, fruits flew straight at Tyler’s face.

One struck his forehead, another hit his shoulder, and a third bounced off his chest before falling to the floor.

"Hey—hey, that’s not what I meant!"

Tyler raised both hands quickly while half laughing and half shielding himself from another incoming fruit.

Before either of them threw more, he moved his arm slightly.

The white costume he wore suddenly loosened at the sleeve, then dissolved into countless tiny metallic particles. The fabric peeled away like liquid silver, spreading across his forearm before gathering again into a shield blocking the fruit.

The movement instantly changed the atmosphere.

"I want both of you to wear nanobot suits tonight," Tyler said, letting the particles reform across his arm, "and train without sleeping until the morning.."

He looked at them seriously now.

"You need to learn control properly —shape change, response speed, and thought synchronization. If the next game becomes chaotic, hesitation will kill faster than weapons."

Tansy and Rose stared at the nanobots moving like living metal.

Their earlier embarrassment faded into amazement almost immediately.

Then, almost at the same time, both let out a breath in Relief.

And something else Tyler noticed too easily.

A trace of disappointment flashed across the faces of the sisters.

That only made him smirk.