Even wrapped in a thick fur blanket made of a deadly lizard, I shivered. 

The moment I saw red peeking though the rag entrance, I came out to see what was happening. A bright red circle was rising from far, far over the edge. 

But the ominous red light was not what gave it away. The entirety of strange noises had stopped. The above and below had gone silent.

The moment I jumped back inside the cave, all hell broke lose!

Outside the rag, I could hear thousands of sounds. Howls. Screeches. Hisses. Legs kicking dust. Teeth  sinking into flesh. Knives tearing through meat.

"I-it is a miracle I found a shelter... curses."

I hugged myself, praying for the terrible noises to go away.

But they didn't. In fact, with the sound pouring out, I could imagine thousands of those lizard like abominations scattering across the floor.

It was utterly dark inside the cavern. The crystal lantern I had was buried under monster flesh. How long had I been sitting like this for? By now, all perception of time was lost; I couldn't see anything.

At some point, I could only remember the tiny cave that I was stuck in and the danger that wrapped around the entrance.

Got outside, die. Create light, die. Make noise, die.

If the monsters to charged into this cavern, it would be over!

What else was there for me to do?

I nervously chewed my lips and pinched myself to keep my senses. As I steeled my nerves, I pondered about how I ended up here, and where I even was. I had seemingly forgot what this place even was.

The only thing I remember was that leaving the door would be certain death. I was hungry and thirsty, trapped in this isolated dark cave surrounded by abominations.

Then, in front me, in the small cave, I saw Ayaka.

Her beautiful black hair fell to her slender shoulders over her familiar aqua shirt. In her hand, a familiar clear cup of icy water was being held to me.

Ayaka smiled.

"Here," she said. "It's not body fluids, I promise. Just water."

Her smile, her existence. She was still alive. Just her presence sent warmth tingling in my body.

I almost cried out. Desperate, I snatched for the cup.

-Which ended up to be air. Ayaka wasn't there at all. It was just darkness!

"Ayaka... she... died."

My heart sunk. My lips quivered as I buried my face into the fur blanket. My body suddenly felt cold.

Bitterly cold. Lost. Lonely.

The unsettling feeling felt dangerously familiar.

“ーNobody's here, is there? I'm all alone in this cold world.”

My hands shook.

“Kazane. Rei, Ayaka. I wonder where you guys went. I thought I was smart enough save you all, but I overestimated myself again. In the end, I was just a stupid, wishful bastard.”

Lost. Lonely. Bitter. Cold. Lost. Lonely. Bitter. Cold.

Lost. Lonely. Bitter. Cold.

Why did the world turn out like this?

The bastard that regained his spark was now trapped in a cave depressed after being reminded he was still just a wishful bastard!

I closed my eyes, squeezing in the pain.

Alone again.

Though alone throughout mundane life, a wave of somberness in my chest that I couldn't reach.

Searching for eternal friendship of those that tread life alongside, not realizing that relationships were just as fantastical as power.

"It's... enough," I whispered. 

My hands shook in front of me, clasping the sharp bone towards me. Its edge pressed against my neck. A  stream of blood dripped down and into my collar.

A futile move! [Unending Death] wasn't a time traveling device. Its power had limit!

And yet, I wanted the world to be rewritten! I wanted the thread of life that clung stubbornly to depression to be reweaved anew! Free of destruction, free of breaking, free of suffering!

The bone suddenly hit the ground.

In front of me, my hands shook violently.

I stared at the ground and silently laughed. Everyone died, and I was still too scared.

What a pathetic Savior.

Suddenly, I felt a slap across my cheeks.

"Scaryato, what do you think you are doing?"

Kazane stood in front of me with a stern look. Her arms were crossed over her seafoam tunic. Her eyebrows furrowed as she gazed at me with a hard expression.

"What am I doing...?" I muttered.

My back pressed against the wall as I stared the bone at the ground.

Why am I here? What was my purpose?

I turned my back on Rei, abandoned Kazane. I ending outside the safe zone and fell into a desolate void. I traveled through peril and found myself in the cave.

What was it for?

In the end, the image of the person who held the glass cup appeared in my mind. Her slightly embarrassed expression materialized in my mind as she desperately promised it wasn't some sort of body fluid.

Why had I desperately traversed hell to do something?

Memories, emotions, nostalgia flooded my chest.

["You really wanted something that badly?" "Don't mind, it was actually only twenty yen." "T-twenty yen!? It costed 200!"]

["Where did you grow up?" "Somewhere far, far away. Covered in glass and crystals. Unnaturally bright. Streets on bridges high in the air, and a tall building with Complexity on a sign."]

["Sheesh, you sure do wake up violently."]

As the memories flowed back, I swallowed.

["No, I'm really not. I hope you weren't bluffing about having a plan, because that really was the only option."  "Huh? N-no, it's not a buff. It's alright." "Then I'll leave it up to you."]

["I think you're amazing. You've been doing a lot with your ability, like saving me, Kazane, and Rei many times."]

["Ayaka? Did that vial instantly heal my broken bones?" "Nope." "What do you mean nope? Then why doesn't it hurt to stand? This isn't a painkiller is it?"]

...

I let out a slow breath.

I see. I had forgotten the memories to keep myself sane.

[I alone will reach this World's Ending].

Why did I end up here? What purpose did I have?

The answer was simple.

In the end, I just wanted to save someone.

"I wanted to save someone," I echoed. "That's all that I could do."

Seeing my response, Kazane smiled. Then as she reached out to pat my head, her image suddenly vanished.

I smiled as I rested against the rock.

"Damn, I'm hallucinating so much. I'm losing my mind. At this rate, I'm going to get reduced to nothing."

Biting back a groan, I hugged the blanket tighter. I tried to send a message through the communication chip, but it was still dead cold.

I shuddered.

"What really did happened to Ayaka? She didn't die, did she?"

A crushing feeling settled in my chest as I thought about Ayaka, Rei, and Kazane.

Relationships sure were fantasy, dontcha think? How were they any different than believing godlike powers would be bestowed to me? Indeed, the real nature of relationships in a fantasy is that they were just as fragile -if not more than real ones.

People die, after all.

"It's over," I silently groaned. "Everyone's dead, I'm silently losing my mind in this shitty cave. Might as well rename it to my grave and put a tombstone on the rag."

Now that I think about it, I thought this feeling of isolation has happened in the past before, hasn't it?

Where did it happen? What was the result?

My memory was too hazy. Instead, I just rubbed my temples and recalled a rather familiar sounding voice.

"Don't storm chase like a suicidal bastard at the first sound of danger."

What even was Ayaka doing if she was still alive? She was surely better fit than me to survive. She likely had a lot more knowledge than I did if she came from down here. She had stronger combat skills than me as well as the ability to produce water constantly. 

If she was alive, I could imagine her huddled in a cave similar to this one, after slaying a monster and taking its fur and meat.

I almost laughed.

The sight of Ayaka living like a poor nomad like me was hilarious. No, she probably had some secret storage like Rei and could summon a bunch of food and clothing. She probably had a lot more equipment than me.

"I'm the only hobo here... Well, I did promise her I would storm chase like a suicidal bastard. I'm a man of my word!"

I laughed bitterly to myself and huddled in the corner.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the rustling outside stopped. The glaring red that was peeking through the rag had been entirely replaced by a black wall of darkness.

The world had come to peace again.

Slowly, I pushed myself up against the cold wall of the cave. Inching closer to the rag, I placed my ear against the entrance.

Outside, all the noises had stopped. The world was a still, silence place. I took a breath before I pushed outside of the cave.

Stepping out, I was met again with the cold air and desert sand. The dunes contorted to my shoe with my steps as dust flied up and wrapped my ankles in icy mist.

As I looked up, I heard the same, familiar noises up above in the pitch darkness. 

Could it be that once those creatures could see lit up enemies, they swiped down and instantly killed everything in sight?

I shuddered, before going back inside the cave.

Inside, I reached the bags of monster flesh. As I felt around the flesh for the crystal, I noticed that it was really hot. Indeed, when I touched the crystal, my hand instantly recoiled.

"What the hell? How is it so hot?"

I stared solemnly at my blistered hands.

"Curses..."

I rubbed my hand against the cold sand, desperately trying to relief the pain. With my other hand, I used the bone and dug out the crystal.

When the crystal fell onto the ground, it's supernova light dimmed.

"So it needed to be surrounded by flesh for max brightness..."

I examined the flesh that had surrounded the crystal. It's bright light and heat had cooked the insides of the flesh. What used to be red was now brown. 

Even the outside of the flesh was brown, as if the entire meat lump was cooked throughout. 

"That's interesting... I was just trying to hide the light."

Grinning, I tore a piece of the flesh off and lifted it towards my mouth. It's texture was now more akin to a medium cooked steak.

What was the internal temperature of this thing?

They say meat needs to be 165F to be safe. But who the hell has a thermometer? And who is running by mundane rules in this new world?

"I better not get some terrible parasite and become a brain controlled zombie," I grumbled.

The first thought when I closed my mouth on the monster flesh was that I had ate a chewable rubber band.

Immediately, I spat out the meat. 

"What is this? This is not edible at all!"

A steak with no seasoning tasted terrible. However, it was -at its core- still be edible.

Curses. 

I tore another chunk of the meat and forced myself to swallow it. Then, another. Then another. 

Very soon, I felt my hunger nourished and flopped down.

"What a terrible and disgusting meal. To think I would end up like this must be some form of curse."

I spat onto the ground outside before crawling back and leaning against the wall, huddled in the fur blanket.

There were some big problems with treading down.

The first one was of course, water. I could turn and walk down to the stream, but I couldn't keep traveling forward if I had to return all the way back every time I was thirsty. I had no water storage after all. 

That meant I had to pray that there would be water further down the path.

The second one was running into a monster. I was weak, an encounter with any form of monster would likely turn me into a fresh dinner. I had to be extremely careful when treading down the path, and for sure carry those blue mushrooms.

The third one was the terrorizing crimson light that had emerged. Beasts from the sky and possible the ground emerged, massacring and eating everything that wasn't hidden away. I had to always be searching for inhabitable caverns that emerged on the side, staying relatively close to one. Just in case it came up again. 

The fourth and most concerning was food. The reason why food was the most dangerous was because it was why I was forced to tread down the path. If I returned to the first cavern with the river along with the monster flesh, the food supply would only last a few weeks at most. Then, I would have to pray that another weak monster would end up getting killed so that I could collect its flesh.

What had higher odds? Finding water or another dead beast near the first cavern? For all I know, the chances of finding another dead monster would be almost zero.

"What great chances of survival," I thought bitterly.

I tore off the rag in the front and gathered the meat into it. I wrapped the fur blanket around my body. After I placed the sharp bone stick back into the bag, I picked up the six blue mushroom and left the cave. 

The slimmer light of the crystal lit up just enough ground for me to walk.

"That monster dropped quite a useful accessory," I muttered. "What else can I do with it, besides lighting and cooking?"

The world responded to my answer with silence. Well, it wasn't fully silent. I could still hear scuttling noises from above and below.

I steeled my nerves as I walked among the ravine. What was at the end of this trail? I had no idea. I couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of me.

I kept my eyes opened to find openings in the wall. I had no clue when the red light was going to emerge again, but it seemed I was lucky. There were good amounts of holes large enough to cram tightly into. Delay between critter noise stopping and the red sun rising was enough for me to set up a shelter.

Which left two short term concerns left, running into a monster and a source of water. Well, three if I entered an area that didn't have the cavern locations.

I patted my fur jacket. Though it did an awful job at feeling like a cozy blanket, it did a good job keeping me warm. My body felt normal, and I hadn't shivered in a bit.

Eventually, I came across a dead carcass.

A giant millipede laid on the ground. It was the size of a human being laying on the ground. Thousands of motionless legs portrayed from its sides. Its back was coated in a steel looking exoskeleton. However, that was not the strangest part.

When I got around it, I saw its underside and its head.

-Or at least, what used to be its underside and head.

Its body was ruptured and torn apart. Flesh, organs, tissue had been ripped out from the inside of the millipede. It's head was half gone from the bottom, leaving a pair of idle, dim blue eyes with no mouth or jaws.

The worst part was the rotting smell and hundreds of fist-sized black beetles crawling inside it. They were tearing apart its flesh, eating at whatever remained of the creature.

I shuddered. Huddling my bags, I walked past the dead creature, making sure not to step on any black beetles. Strangely, as soon as my foot stepped near the beetles, they all turned and scattered away. They seemed to hate sound and noise, and preferred to not interact with any large, living creature.

In the end, I found myself thinking about the millipede.

The millipede had looked to be a formidable creature with how large it was. Its legs were sharp, as if to cut things. However, in the end, it was slain and became a pool of food for the black beetles. 

What had killed it?

The only thought on my mind was the the same flying beast that had eradicated the glowing abomination earlier. While those black beetles looked formidable, they couldn't have possibly made such a clean and violent tear on the millipedes head.

But how did the flying beast end up over here? It already got to eat the abomination's head. Why would it be hunting giant creatures to eat?

There was a simple explanation!

There were thousands and thousands of those flying beast circling above, waiting for a bright light to shine to scourge food in a flash.

A shiver ran down my spine.

Is that what are the strange noises above were? How did this millipede even end up here? What if I ran into more of these millipedes? Why wasn't there more carcasses?

I swallowed and pushed the thoughts out of my mind, focusing on the trail.

Step. Step. Step. One foot after the other. 

As I walked, I summoned a shard of darkness in my hand. I rubbed my chin in curiosity as I felt the familiar weightless, touchless sharp plane.

Was there more functionality to this than just a weapon? Could I summon things of different shape?

I closed my eyes and imagined a large canteen. As I summoned the shard, I tried to imagine how to make a canteen. Alas, I had no idea how a water bottle was made. 

A weird looking block of darkness fell on the ground.

Too hard!

I sighed and focused again. This time, as the dark shard was forming in the air, I stretched the shard widely and pulled the edges up.

A few seconds later, a strange looking bowl fell into my hand. 

"So it can summon things of different shapes," I whispered. As I rocked the bowl, I could feel that it had a similar texture to the dark shard. It didn't weight anything, nor felt like anything.

Curious, I scooped some sand from the ground and put it into the bowl. The bowl suddenly changed weight.

Really heavy! It felt as heavy as the sand! I dropped the bowl. It hit the ground before disappearing into dust.

"That's unfortunate. I thought this would be some cheat zero-weight bag," I muttered with a sigh.

Oh well, I had the abilities to summon tools now. If the shadow shards can hold together for a long time, I can even use these as a bag.

I summoned a dark box and placed the bag of meat, fur, and bones into it. I glanced at the ravine wall, examining for any caves. I sighed.

"Great, now I don't have to hold this disgusting corpse remains."

Holding the bag and whistling quietly, I happily trudged down the trail.

Unfortunately, my hopes were shattered when 20 minutes later when the box dissolved and my treasures spilled onto the floor.

"Curses."

I groaned, my feet feeling heavy as I lugged the bag of goodies. After it fell on the ground, I had the terrible experience of gathering dead monster flesh.

My ability was rather useless for utility. Everything I summoned more or less vanished within 30 minutes.

Why!? I don't want to be only good at combat!

Perhaps this is why equipment in this world was so useful. Ah, speaking about equipment. I gently tapped the side of my head. The device was cold, without so much of a trace of signal.

I sighed and looked to the wall. "Yeah, I know, it's not just going to magically work."

As I walked, I caressed my neck.

Thirsty now? What a shame, you left the river cave a bit ago! Well, there's nothing to do now except for to die of thirst!

As I walked, the sound of water suddenly entered my ears.

Water! It really isn't a scarce resource here!

I listened for a moment. The water wasn't flowing. No, it sounded like something was swimming! Which was a rather terrible omen!

I bit my lip and glanced at the wall. 

Another medium-sized cave entrance was in front of me. It led into darkness, making it difficult to see what was inside.

I frowned and bent down. I held the light shard inside the cave.

Six black beetles were drinking water from the stream. They were huge, each one almost the size of my hand. They looked ferocious as well!

Suddenly, I recognized them. They were the things eating from the dead millipede! In other words, they love dead creatures!

Slowly, I reached inside my fur pocket and pulled out a blue mushroom.

Was this a good idea? I knew it could scare monsters, but what if those beetles attacked me? I was weak, I could get killed by even a mere bear!

Unfortunately, I was dying of thirst. So there was only one real option. A perhaps stupid one. 

I threw the blue mushrooms towards the beetles.

The beetles jaws inched before they backed off. Then they shrieked and started rushing forward!

"I'm sorry!" I yelled and jumped out of the cave.

To my surprise, those beetles didn't follow me and instead scattered across the ground. After pouring out of the cave, they all dashed in different directions.

These things, they really hated the blue mushrooms!

"Thank god that I brought these mushrooms." I closed my eyes and silently gave the sky a prayer. 

As I adjusted my items, I listened for the sound of the creatures above and below. There was no sound.

The red terror was going to start again. 

I dashed inside the cave and laid the mushrooms outside the door. I threw the rag to cover the entrance.

Then, I took an exhilarated sigh and plopped down near the water.

I didn't bother to cover the light shard this time, since the cave was so big. Instead, I fiddled with it, interested if I could get it attached to the bone.

"I really want a spear or javelin... Maybe I should give it a name. Light shard? Well, its not exactly always lit."

I shook my head and stared at the water.

In the reflection, the face of a tired, beaten up boy looked back at me. His hair was a disheveled mess. His lips had stains of blood.

That was funny. The last time in the city I saw my reflection, my face was shockingly new and fresh! And yet, the reflection of the boy that was beaten up was in its own way, more beautiful.

"I'm not scared shitless this time after all. Lets make it even better and clean myself!" I nodded enthusiastically. And yet, I couldn't move.

Why?

I found myself staring at the water while my mind wandered off.

Because I was scared.

Where was the others? Was Kazane safe? Was Ayaka alive? What about Rei?

My mind hurt from thinking about it. It felt as if I was going crazy.

What was at the end of this trail? A monster? People?

Well, I didn't want random people. I wanted to see a familiar face. The crushing feeling of being alone with no escape was too much.

But instead of being crushed from the pressure, I smiled.

Because why did that matter? Why did it matter if the people I wanted to save were alive or not? Why does it matter if only I was alive in the end?

When was I a noble hero? I was no savior. I was just a mere boy given the ability to never die.

A wishful bastard, a spiteful bastard. All that mattered was to witness his own true demise!