lpffa Chapter 285 285: The Return
Chapter 285 285: The Return
The white light dissolved.
Sora's boots struck solid, familiar flooring. She snapped her eyes open.
The classroom. Her desk. The weathered blackboard. Everything was exactly where
it should be. The fluorescent lights hummed with a low-frequency drone, and the
clock on the wall indicated 8:23 PM.
Sora felt a sense of profound vertigo. She looked down at her hands—they were
clean, intact, and stripped of the grime and blood of the "Instance." Her school
uniform had replaced the pink dress. Only the lingering sensation of power in
her limbs and the steady rhythm of her heart told her that the nightmare hadn't
been a hallucination.
"Sora!"
A voice shattered her stupor.
Master Vahn surged from behind the lectern, closing the distance in three
frantic strides. His eyes were a map of broken capillaries, his jaw stubbled
with dark growth. It was clear he hadn't left his post since the summons began.
"Which Instance were you assigned to?!"
Vahn seized Sora by the shoulders, his words tumbling out with a velocity that
sprayed her face.
"The Abandoned Plant? The Mirror-Reflection? The Midnight Ward?" "What were the
core protocols?!" "How did you achieve extraction?!" "Did you localize a
consistent survival logic?!" "Speak! This data is critical! The next bracket of
students is scheduled for transit within the hour!"
Faced with the barrage of tactical queries, Sora's jaw worked, but no sound
escaped. Her brain was currently a corrupted file. The Anomaly's distorted face.
The piles of consumed remains. The infinite loop of stairs. The sensation of
oxygen leaving her lungs.
The memories flashed through her mind like high-speed slides, triggering a
violent tremor in her frame.
"Sora?"
Vahn's analytical mind caught the shift. He saw her lips quivering, her fingers
twisting the fabric of her skirt in a rhythmic, frantic pattern. The desperation
in his expression froze, replaced by a flicker of professional regret.
He released her shoulders and took a step back, lowering his center of gravity
to meet her eye level.
"My apologies," he murmured, his voice softening into something human. "The
instructor's urgency was a logic error."
"You are in the Safe-Zone. This is the Real World."
"The Anomalies cannot reach you here. It is over."
Sora looked at the man—at the exhaustion etched into his features, at the
bloodshot eyes that were trying so hard to project concern despite his own
fatigue. Her psychological defensive perimeter finally collapsed.
"Master..."
Her voice was a shredded whisper, thick with the weight of her trauma. "I... I
projected that I would never achieve extraction..."
The tears finally broke through. Realizing she could no longer maintain her
"hyper-lucidity," Sora collapsed into a crouch, burying her face in her knees as
she wailed. Every ounce of suppressed terror, despair, and agony from the
"Lullaby" erupted in a single, cathartic purge.
Vahn said nothing. He simply stood there, a silent sentinel, allowing her to
process the feedback. He had witnessed this cycle too many times. No student
returned from a High-Tier Instance without their psyche being a ruin. In the
Game, they were forced to be machines of pure logic; the moment they hit the
Safe-Zone, the biological "Error" of emotion always reclaimed them. He
remembered his own first extraction. It had been no different.
He walked to the lectern, retrieved a pack of tissues, and held them out to her.
"Let it out." "The purge is part of the recovery protocol." "You achieved
survival. That is the only statistic that matters tonight."
Sora took the tissues, frantically wiping at her eyes, but the leak wouldn't
stop. She wept until her throat was raw, until her eyes were swollen into slits,
until her internal well of grief ran dry.
Finally, the sobbing subsided into a series of jagged hiccups. Sora lifted her
head, her voice raspy and hollow.
"Master Vahn." "The Instance was 'Mama's Lullaby'." "Survival
probability: 0.7%."
Vahn's pupils contracted with a sharp, clinical shock.
Zero point seven? He knew the metrics of that particular hellscape. A thousand
participants enter; statistically, only seven walk out. For a novice like Sora
to clear it on her first summoning was a structural anomaly.
"Then how did you—"
Vahn's inquiry died in his throat.
He saw it.
Floating several paces behind Sora, a palm-sized blue slime was exploring the
classroom with the curiosity of a primary-grade student.
The creature looked entirely harmless—round, springy, and gelatinous. It used
two tiny tentacles to poke at the legs of a desk, its black-bean eyes scanning
the environment with intense interest. It hopped onto a chair, rubbing its body
against the chalk dust on the surface, before bouncing to the window-ledge to
press itself against the glass, peering out at the night sky.
Finally, it leaped onto the lectern, tilting its head at the chalk-script on the
board as if trying to decipher a complex formula.
Vahn froze. What is this variable?
An Anomaly?
No. The Protocols of the Game were absolute. No Anomaly could achieve physical
manifestation in the Real World. Therefore, if it wasn't an Anomaly...
Cold sweat broke out across Vahn's back. An entity that exists outside the
Rules.
"His designation is Bochi," Sora said, her voice anchoring Vahn's drifting
thoughts. She stood up, wiping the last of the moisture from her face as she
watched the slime at the board.
"He provided the extraction." "If not for him... I would have been processed."
Vahn stood paralyzed, unable to formulate a response. The individual words were
familiar, but the logic connecting them was beyond his current processing power.
Bochi apparently finished its audit of the classroom. It hopped down from the
board and bounced over to Sora's feet.
"Hey, human."
Bochi tilted its head, its black eyes fixing on Sora. "Is this your primary
coordinate? Your world?"
"The variables here are peculiar. And the Mana in the atmosphere is so thin it's
practically a vacuum. No wonder your species is so statistically weak."
Sora knelt, her hand hovering over Bochi. She hesitated. This was the creature
that had dismantled a Tier 4 horror like a discarded toy. Would a "Logic Error"
on her part—a clumsy touch—cause it to consume her in a fit of pique?
Bochi sensed the dissonance. It hopped onto her hand, its squishy body rubbing
against her palm.
"Initiate tactile contact if you wish." "The Master stated that physical touch
assists in the stabilization of trust-parameters. Though the logic of that
escapes me."
Sora paused, then gently stroked the slime's surface. The texture was
fascinating—exactly like high-purity jelly, cool and yielding.
Bochi squinted its eyes in a look of profound satisfaction. "Mmm. Your technique
is acceptable."
Sora let out a sudden, involuntary puff of laughter.
Master Vahn watched the exchange, his brain still trying to calculate the nature
of the entity. But his logic eventually plateaued. Whatever the answer, the
result is clear.
He drew a long breath, stepped forward, and knelt beside Sora. He looked at the
blue blob with the respect one would show a high-ranking General.
"Greetings," Vahn said solemnly. "I am Vahn. Thank you for ensuring the survival
of my student."
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