The SSS-Rank Date

My lips were still on his when a mechanical voice shrieked inside my head. *[FATAL ERROR: SSS-RANK SURVIVAL BOSS DETECTED. PHYSICAL CONTACT PROHIBITED. PENALTY: INSTANT OBLITERATION.]* I stopped breathing. The fragile blood servant worth ten million dollars was the final Boss. I jerked back so quickly that my heel caught on the library carpet. Crimson eyes followed me, steady and unreadable. The silver-haired boy made no move to wipe his mouth or reach for my throat. He simply waited beside the shelves while my knees shook and the system offered no instructions for surviving its mistake. *Obliteration.* The word bounced around my empty head. The dating-sim script was all I had. “I hope that wasn’t too forward.” My smile felt crooked. “I get carried away sometimes.” He said nothing. Time to go. “I’ll let you think about it!” I backed out of the grand library, turned, and ran through the gilded corridor. I had almost reached the main hall when every candle along the walls flared blue, guttered, and went out at once. The last pool of light died at my feet. Someone screamed on the floor above. A wet tearing sound cut the scream short. Blood tainted the air. The ornate tapestries had looked romantic when I arrived, full of courtly hunts and pale ladies in jeweled gowns. In the last scraps of candlelight, those woven faces stretched into hungry grins. I kept close to the center of the hall so none of them could reach me from the walls. “You’re a new one, aren’t you?” I spun around with a hand clamped over my mouth. One of the other players stood a few feet away, holding the only steady candle in the hall. She had watched me arrive earlier without introducing herself. Now her dark eyes stayed on the staircase, counting each sound from above. “What’s happening?” “Night fell.” She gave me a quick, humorless smile. “Welcome to the real game. This castle is a slaughterhouse.” Something scraped behind the wall. I moved closer to her candle. The system spoke into every player’s mind. *[First Trial: The Crimson Moon Seal. One seal is hidden within the castle’s catacombs. Retrieve it before the moon reaches its zenith, or the hounds will be released. Only one player may enter the catacombs at a time.]* An ornate box appeared on the central table. Seven wooden lots waited inside. “We draw.” Her name was Serena. I remembered it as she drew first. The other players followed, pale fingers disappearing into the box and coming out around harmless brown lots. No one met my eyes when only one piece remained. I took the last piece of wood. Its carved edges pressed into my palm before I found the nerve to look. Black wood. One red skull. Serena pointed toward an iron-banded door I had missed in the dark. “Bad luck. The catacombs are that way. Try not to die.” I took her candle and opened the door. Cold air rolled up from below, damp with old earth and rot. The staircase crumbled under my shoes. Its darkness swallowed the small flame before it reached the walls, leaving me one bright circle of stone at a time. Far below, water dripped at an even pace. Every few steps, I stopped and listened for another set of feet. At the bottom, my shoe slid through grime. Cold seeped through the sole. The passage ahead divided around thick stone pillars, each one cut with names too worn to read. I steadied myself against the wall and heard something move overhead. Bone scraped across stone. I raised the candle. Wax spilled over my knuckles. The flame found a figure hanging upside down from the vaulted ceiling. Raw flesh had grown around white bones, joining limbs that bent in the wrong places. Below the ribs, there was nothing. Long claws held it to the stone while milky eyes fixed on me. Its mouth opened along a seam I had mistaken for a scar. Its head snapped toward the candle.