At the very moment Erik laid Natalie's ashes to rest, within a separate supernatural instance, a female NPC stood in a kitchen preparing a meal. Suddenly, her body froze. Her eyes filled with torment and confusion before the haze lifted—her memories came flooding back.
She remembered everything.
She was not some mindless NPC. She had a name. A true identity.
"Natalie... my name is Natalie…" she whispered, tears streaming down her face as she collapsed to the ground, weeping uncontrollably.
She recalled how she died—how her soul was trapped within this instance and reduced to nothing more than a hollow character.
"Thank you... thank you!" Natalie sobbed, her body gradually becoming translucent until she vanished entirely from the room.
She had no idea who had freed her—but she was grateful. She would rather vanish into nothingness than forget her name, her past, and be rewritten like some recycled code, forced into a crude and senseless script.
That wasn't life. That was an eternal torment.
Her words were elusive and vague, but Erik understood. The man could not say more—he was not allowed to.
"Thank you," Erik said softly, turning back and stepping off the bus once again.
She returned to Natalie's grave, placing a few items as offerings.
"The NPC said it was a blessing for you. I can't be sure," Erik murmured, her gaze fixed on the photo. Her eyes stung—she turned her head and blinked rapidly to suppress the surge of emotion. It took her a long while before she spoke again. "I can't take your ashes with me. They're the key to clearing this instance… so I hope what he said is true—that you've truly found peace here. If not… you have every right to hate me. I'm sorry."
Elsewhere in the cemetery, Alice wiped her tears and said a final goodbye to the one laid to rest.
A scream pierced the night air nearby. She gripped her cane and stood upright, listening intently.
After a moment of silence, she dared not linger and hobbled cautiously down the hill.
Just meters away, at plot D267, another player buried an urn. As the stone slab fell into place, a photograph and name appeared on the headstone. The name was unfamiliar—but the face he recognized.
This was the man who'd died in the chaos, a shard of stone piercing his temple. The player had taken advantage of the confusion to hide the body and burn it.
"Rest easy, brother. At least now you have a place to lie," the player muttered, turning to leave.
But as he looked back, he saw a dark silhouette standing behind him—also seemingly in mourning.
"Ah!" he shrieked in terror.
Under the cemetery's pale lights, he recognized the figure—it was the same player he had just buried.
The ghost nodded at him, blood streaming from the hole in his temple. "Thank you."
"N-no need to thank me…" the player stammered. Guilt constricted his throat. He hadn't done it out of compassion—it was purely for his own survival. That gratitude, he did not deserve.
The ghost turned and drifted away, while the player, cold sweat trickling down his spine, made his way in another direction.
But then—another shadow approached.
At first, he thought it was the same ghost and raised a nervous smile. But this one lunged suddenly, clamping a hand around his throat.
The grip was vice-like. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't break free. The shadow leaned in, face-to-face, and in a chilling voice laced with death, whispered:
"You left me here. Now you stay—with me."
Tears streamed from the player's eyes as his tongue lolled out. In his final moment, he recognized the ghost.
This was the player he had beaten to death during a scramble for ashes—whose body he'd thrown into the incinerator without a second thought.
Terror. Regret.
He had assumed vengeance would come in the next instance—he only needed to survive this one.
But the moment he saw the first ghost at plot D267, he should have known.
In this instance, the dead returned.
So why would those he'd killed be the exception?
Across the cemetery, similar scenes of vengeance unfolded.
After her tribute to Natalie, Erik returned to the bus. Along the way, she heard blood-curdling screams and caught glimpses of drifting shadows—too indistinct to identify. But as she boarded, she spotted a familiar ghost ascending just before her—and in that instant, she knew it was one of the murdered players.
She had witnessed their death with her own eyes.
Erik felt little fear. She was certain—she had never killed another player in this instance. But for many, the return of ghostly victims to the bus spelled dread and judgment.
More and more spirits appeared at the cemetery gates—some were even reuniting with the corpses still stacked at the rear of the bus.
As the ghost players approached, those bound at the back turned pale, shouting at Erik and the neutral players to release them.
They were sitting right next to corpses!
Panic spread. Some began to question themselves—*Had I killed anyone?* Their faces turned a deathly shade of white.
"Let them go," Julia urged. "Give them a chance to run."
Erik said nothing, her gaze fixed on the approaching spirits. She'd seen players turn into ghosts after death before—but only when killed by the *instance* itself. Like during the haunted parade, where ghostly players pursued others for tokens—there was no personal vendetta.
But this time?
These were victims of player-on-player violence.
They had come back—for revenge.
The ghost players boarded just as Julia finished untying the last of the prisoners. Freed, the players bolted from the bus, fleeing into the darkness beyond the headlights.
Midway down the aisle, a spirit turned and stepped off the bus—disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Erik's heart clenched.
Could the runners escape in time?
A second later, screams echoed from the shadows.
Julia gripped her hands together, trembling.
Minutes later, the ghosts returned—soaked in blood—and boarded the bus.
The living passengers sat frozen in fear, averting their eyes.
The ghosts lifted their own corpses and seated them beside them. Not long after, more ghosts emerged from the night and entered through the front door.
Among the neutral players were some complete newcomers. One of them finally cracked.
"Ahhh!"
"Shh!"
Another player clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream.
Erik held her breath as ghostly figures passed her, silently taking their seats at the back.
These were the players who had just been slain.
They now glared hatefully at the ones who had killed them. Their eyes brimmed with rage, barely restrained by some unknown force. It was as though they were forbidden from exacting immediate vengeance—yet that desire burned visibly in their stare.
Earlier, the bus had felt like a powder keg. Now, it was a freezer.
Erik suspected the chill from the morgue had followed them here—freezing every limb, every breath.
Then, the silence shattered.
Jax and the others returned.
After brief exchanges, the players discovered they'd all shared a similar experience: each urn they buried had belonged to someone they had once known.
The moment Axel boarded, a ghost lunged at him. But he was prepared—he brandished a talisman.
Steam hissed as the ghost's hands sizzled from the contact, recoiling from the holy beads in Axel's grip.
**\[Item: Consecrated Prayer Beads]**
"I killed you because you tried to kill me," Axel said evenly. "You can't hurt me now. And I can't kill you again. Let's leave it at that."
The spirit glared but backed away.
Axel could protect himself. Most others could not.
And now Erik finally understood the true peril of the crematorium: not the act of burning bodies, but the conflict it provoked between players.
That was only the beginning.
The real killing came after.
Tensions escalated. Words failed. Blades were drawn. People died.
And now… now was the time for the dead to return—and to exact vengeance.
Ghosts and players alike flooded the bus. Scenes of pursuit and murder played out again and again.
Erik watched the swirling darkness outside as if trying to see the very core of the game.
*Is this what you want?*
*Does this entertain you?*
She closed her eyes, swallowing her fury and contempt.
Unlike the chaos among the living, the ghosts acted with terrifying speed.
Before long, it was over.
*Clang!*
The bus doors slammed shut. The engine roared to life.
The bus remained overcrowded—half living, half dead… and a handful of corpses.
Erik sat straight, staring forward, utterly exhausted. She prayed the next stop would be the final one.
That this endless night might finally end.
After ten minutes, a platform came into view—nearly identical to the one from the beginning.
The bus pulled over. The doors opened.
NPCs stepped off first. The players followed.
The moment her feet touched solid ground, Erik raced toward the station. From the bus, she had seen it—a glowing ring on the platform!
Voices called out behind her. Erik turned.
Julia had followed her—but couldn't get off.
Though the doors were wide open, some invisible force held her back.
"I can't get off! I want to get off too! Let me out!"
"What's going on? Let me try!"
"I can't either!!"
Not every player had joined the brutal scramble for urns. Some, like Julia, had passed through the incense shop and chosen to ignore every stop since. Many had taken the same path.
They had doubted themselves—especially at the hospital stop. But they couldn't bring themselves to fight. So they had clung to their passive strategy, hoping to survive to the end.
When they saw the light on the platform, joy overwhelmed them.
But now—they couldn't leave the bus.
"Why can't I get off?!"
"What do we do?! Can we break a window?"
"They won't open!!"
Desperate cries echoed into the night.