Darkness draped around the room like a living shroud, silent but seemingly all consuming. The hazy red light coming from outside his grimy window was all that gave him vision.
'Not again!' Jaune internally scread.
His heart thudded against his ribs, wild and wary, but not quite as panicked as last ti. There was a strange, grim familiarity to it now. A... thread of sanity seed to hold him more steady.
He twisted to the side, hand already reaching for where he rembered leaving the bat.
His fingers brushed cold tal and relief flickered through him—until he pulled it closer.
The steel bat, once solid and strong, now looked like it had been left to rot. Rust streaked across its surface like dried blood, and the once smooth handle was chipped and pitted. It felt heavier, not from weight but from age like it had endured sothing he hadn't.
Jaune frowned, his thumb grazing a rough edge, feeling the cold bite into his skin.
"This… isn't how I left you," he muttered under his breath.
A chill crept down his spine—not from the air, but from the way the bat seed to belong here now.
As if this...dream or perhaps nightmare had claid it.
He rose to his feet slowly, gripping the weapon tight as he glanced around.
His room was back, but wrong. Still stained in that sepia-sick color palette and half rotted, all dead yellows and crawling shadows. But sothing was… different.
He took a step and glanced around.
The wall was...whole.
The window that was shattered from that encounter was... intact, albeit still covered in gri and dark stains.
The claw marks across the decadent floorboards, the gouged plaster, all gone.
Jaune swallowed, uneasy.
"It's like it never happened," he murmured. "Or soone rewound the damage."
That thought was almost worse. Like the dream was aware of him now. Like it was resetting the stage for an encore.
Jaune tightened his grip on the rusted bat and turned a slow circle in the center of the room, breath held.
He stood still in the decaying silence, rusted bat resting against his leg, and let his thoughts drift.
'What affected it?'
Why had the bat aged like it had been buried for decades?
Was he caught in so sort of ti loop? Forced to relive the sa twisted dream again and again—only to change the outco if he played it right? He'd read stories about these scenarios but... Jaune wasn't certain if that held true here.
Perhaps if he waited, the creature, the beowolf, would crash through the front door of his house once more. He wondered if he would be as lucky as he was during the first encounter. Maybe if he moved first, he could strike it down before it even realized he was here.
But then again…
He turned, casting another look across the room.
Everything that the creature had broken before—the wall, the window... it was all intact.
Repaired.
Not to its original form, of course. It still all looked twisted and broken. A parody of normalcy, like an apocalypse from the future had affected everything in this world..
'Could it really be a ti-loop of so sort? If I were to die... will i even co back to life or will I die for real?'
Maybe... or maybe not. Jaune didn't know
But what he did know was that sohow...this world… fixed itself. Like a ga resetting the map between failed attempts of sorts.
His eyes drifted down to his clothes.
They were clean and whole. No blood tears or ash.
Jaune squinted.
That… was weird.
He hadn't noticed last ti. Too much panic clouding his thoughts. But now that it stood out, the contrast bit at him.
Why would the bat and room decay, but not his clothes, not what he was wearing?
Why did the room rot, and windows repair?
He tapped his chin with his free hand, frowning hard.
'Maybe it has sothing to do with what I'm touching?'
That would make so sense, right? Maybe whatever items he brought with him—physically or ntally—were preserved by his presence. Like he was anchoring them to reality.
But then…
He looked at his bed.
It was a corpse. Matted and stained, like sothing had died in it decades ago. Slumped in the corner with torn sheets and exposed springs. He'd slept in that bed before waking here, hadn't he? Hadn't he been in direct contact with it?
So then why hadn't it been preserved?
Jaune grimaced. The theory didn't hold up.
"Maybe it's not about contact…" he muttered aloud, voice echoing strangely in the silent room.
"Maybe it's about equipping."
He looked down at himself again. T-shirt and shorts. All clean.
The bat, in his hand...was it tied to the system's logic?
Like ga logic?
Maybe it was the things he was wearing or holding when he arrived that would stay mostly intact. But everything else, that was untouched would decay around him.
A half-ford theory, at best—but it was more than he had before.
Jaune sighed and shook his head. "Doesn't help now, though."
He had no way to prove it. Not unless he started experinting—dragging items in, checking their states. And the idea of coming back again, expecting to co back in, made his stomach twist.
Still…
He couldn't shake the feeling that there were hidden rules here. They were just buried under layers of weird dream-logic and nightmare rules. If he could find the patterns—if he could learn the system—maybe he could... what, survive?
Perhaps.
Speaking of the system and rules...
That instinctive switch was back in his mind—the one that let him call up the Nightmare System. It had once disappeared, in the waking world but now he could feel its pulse once again.
He didn't waste anyti flicking it.
Lo and behold a floating pane of red-light appeared before him.
.
.
.
===
[Jaune Arc]
[Rank: 0]
===
Aura: 0
Will: 0
Body: 0
===
Runes: 9
===
.
.
.
"It's different from before."
Jaune frowned for a mont before rembering that killing that beowolf had awarded him 10 runes.
Suddenly, he recalled what happened afterwards. The dream authority exit.
A bloom of hope suddenly sprouted in his chest.
.
.
.
[Dream Authority exit not granted]
[Requirent: Kill a nightmare creature]
[Cost to exit: 1 Rune]
.
.
.
He grimaced and stared at the ssage for a long second, the silence around him heavier than before.
"Figures," he muttered, voice barely above a whisper.
That flower bud of hope had just disappeared before it could even properly sprout.
Jaune exhaled slowly breaking the silence of his mind.
He rubbed his temples, trying to rember.
'There was a tutorial, wasn't there?'
There had been a tutorial, right? Back when he first arrived. It had walked him through the basics—barely.
"What did it say again?" he muttered.
It had ntioned that the attribute Aura fueled rune skills, Will affected rune skill structure and body... would enhance him generally, if he rembered correctly.
The tutorial, though short as it was, also ntioned that runes fragnts could be used to increase his stats.
He was guessing that the [Rune] count on his status ant rune fragnts. It was the only thing that made sense—it had been at 0 before.
His eyes narrowed, ntally willing his rune fragnts into the Body stat.
.
.
.
[Error. Insufficient Runes.]
[Body: 0>1]
[Cost to upgrade: 10]
.
.
.
"Of course. That makes perfect sense," Jaune said flatly, nodding with exaggerated wisdom.
Jaune had 9 fragnts. One short from potentially increasing his stats.
He felt the great urge to throw a tantrum.
He sighed instead and attempted to recall more of what the tutorial box had once told him.
It had told him to survive. That was the word.
Then it had also wished him good luck.
Its wording was cold and clinical. Like the whole thing wasn't even ant for him. Instead, designed for soone stronger, smarter, or maybe even more ruthless.
There had been no real help. Just a chanical run-down of the rules. If he wanted to understand what "Will" or "Aura" actually ant, he'd need to test it himself.
Jaune's grip on the bat tightened again.
"I should've written it down," he said bitterly. Not that he could have—there wasn't a pen or notepad in sight. "Do I really need to find another creature just to get another scrap of info?"
If so, that was a terrible design choice and he wanted to complain to whover designed this thing.
Still... so part of him—so analytical corner of his mind—was beginning to treat this like an actual ga. A ga that had invisible chanics, and half-built tutorials. But unlike the strategy gas he played before bed, failure here didn't an a restart.
It ant sothing far worse.
Death... probably.
He inhaled sharply, set his shoulders, and took a step toward the hallway door.
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