“Run-time error in Battleground Sanctuary… Unable to contact Game Master Lux… Unable to contact Game Master Umbra… Activating emergency shutdown sequence! Warning, all Players and Player-Companions will be returned to their previous positions in three seconds! Error, System crash imminent! Unable to-to-to-to-to…” A loud and monotonous female voice, announced some rather shocking information.

Michael shouted “Shitballs, put those away, now!” as he quickly sucked the golden treasure-chest filled with candy, into his inventory. After their experiences together over those six nightmarish days, both Jasmine and Elina were swift to react to his instructions.

As for Sarah and Talia, they stopped fighting and swiftly fell down next to everyone else. Even if they didn’t understand what was happening, they knew that it probably wasn’t a good thing. The pure-white walls floor and ceiling vanished and there was only an endless void spread out in every direction.

“So scary~ nyah~! My brainbox is all tingly~!” The little cat-girl’s golden irises had suddenly turned bright red and a terrifying Chaotic aura spread from her body, encompassing all seven of them instantly.
A pitch-black wisp was floating in a pure-white and completely empty space. It floated in that emptiness for a while, before it transformed into a familiar humanoid shape. Michael’s facial features and overall body size was the same as it normally was, though his flesh and even his eyes were completely obsidian: It was as if he were a three-dimensional shadow.

Suddenly, an indistinct, crystalline woman appeared before him. Before he could say anything, she asked “Why did you bring fifty-thousand souls into the Battleground Sanctuary?”

A few moments passed and he finally said “Umm~… was I not supposed to do that?”

Arcana scowled at him, “All of those souls… You destroyed the Battleground Sanctuary and Chaos was just barely able to save you and your Companions from being deleted. Michael, you are only immortal as long as I decide to keep you in this universe. Fortunately, none of those souls held much importance. However, did you believe that I would not punish you for your actions? I shall give you a choice… Would you like for you and your Companions to keep their memories of the past six days, or the Spells and Passives they-”

“Definitely the skills, fuck the memories! I mean, there are a few things that I would rather forget anyway… I’m sure that they would feel the same way as well!” He didn’t even hesitate for an instant over his decision.

The mysterious woman suddenly started giggling softly, “Hmm, I imagined that you would have at least taken a moment to decide… Regardless of what you would choose, ‘some’ memories are already lost. From now on, after you finish a Battleground, please do not stay too long in the Sanctuary afterwards. Those souls certainly escalated the malfunction, but it is a glitch that has been plaguing me for eons… I could have fixed the problem by erasing the space and recreating it, but there was always the small probability that there would be a catastrophic ‘System’ failure. Under those circumstances, I would need to ‘reboot’ the universe and that would likely evict all current Players.”

“Yeah… please don’t evict me… This world is awesome, and I’ve grown pretty fucking attached to all of my Companions: especially the ones I’ve been having sex with. Abusing game mechanics to train faster definitely isn’t worth the risk… Actually, why the hell didn’t you tell me there was that kinda risk in the first place?!” Michael was only reckless when he knew that there weren’t any consequences to his actions; he was ‘normally’ an overly cautious hypochondriac, who was deathly afraid of getting sick or injured, because he couldn’t afford to go to the hospital or doctor’s office.

Arcana smiled wryly and muttered “Maybe if you had ‘played’ with me more often, I would have had the opportunity to explain such crucial information to you…”

Michael asked “Wait, you say that my memories are damaged, but aside from having sex, beating the shit outta each-other, and a bit of pseudo-cannibalism… what else did we do?”

She chuckled loudly, whispering “Very little…” and disappearing from that pure-white, endless expanse. Suddenly, the Nephilim opened his eyes and swiftly stood up off of a dusty and filthy stone floor.

He gazed around and noticed that the rest of his Companions were regaining consciousness as well. Inari shrunk down to her smallest and cutest, puppy-like form, as she barked and jumped around the room.

“Nyah~! Hiss~! Mraw~!” The tiny naked cat-girl’s bright-blue eyes were glowing, while she scampered around in the darkness. Elina yawned lazily, as she stretched her naked body along the wall, and Alice roared, before elbowing a giant hole in the ground, without even using her equipment or magic.

Talia groaned, then whimpered quietly, and curling up in a ball near the center of the floor. Sarah screamed “You fucking piece of shit! I’m gonna shove my tentacle so far up your ass, it comes out your eye-holes!” Her last memories were of Michael tearing all of her limbs off, and everything after that was completely blank.

The Nephilim quickly caught the naked, obsidian-skinned girl in his arms and hugged her tightly. He whispered “I love you too~…” but she pulled out her daggers and tried to stab him in the groin.

It wasn’t until the ‘Friendly-Fire’ message popped up, that she realized they weren’t in the Battleground Sanctuary anymore. Michael kept her in his tight embrace for about a minute, until everyone else had woken up.

Then he announced “Okay, this is pretty important! Everyone check your statuses and Spellbooks; make sure that you aren’t missing anything from your bags! Also, how much does everyone remember from the last six days?”

All seven of them were sitting around in a circle, in that mysterious basement, and the only light was coming from Elina’s naked body. Sarah was the first to speak: “I stole the lizard-bitch’s virginity… You guys took forever to buy shit for the stupid-ass cat-cunts… That’s about it.”

Alice snickered, revealing “I remember eating a bunch of corpses… When we weren’t fighting, we spent most of the time fucking. Ummm, there wasn’t much else, was there?”

Jasmine had managed to switch back into her ‘normal’ golden-eyed mode, so she was able to coherently say “Nyah~, I grew a Pee-Pee, and-and-and~… we played lots of games~! Meow~, teddy died though…”

Inari barked half a dozen times and Talia’s face became bright-red, she immediately retorted “I most certainly did not! My ‘Innocence’ title is perfectly intact! Don’t spread such vulgar lies!”

Michael frowned, asking “Does anyone remembering Blondie doing embarrassing things? If so, we need to know!”

The Huntress glared at him, screaming “You, you! Rah! Puto! Filthy disgusting bastardo! I refuse to be judged by a beast like you!”

He complained “Oi, calm your tits, and you’re naked by the way… we all are. I tried equipping my gear, but it’s all broken. It’s still there though, so it’s all good. Hmmm, I wonder what I did that’s got you so pissed off?”

Alice laughed hysterically, before explaining “Well, there was this one time that the two of you were wrestling, and yeah… I wasn’t really paying attention to the whole thing, but I’m pretty sure that you tore her uterus out and ate it in front of her.”

Hearing that, Talia’s expression changed from extreme anger, to pure terror. She shouted “Why don’t I remember something like that?! I was speaking of the time that we… No, it’s better if we simply try to forget our experiences in that horrible place!”

Elina giggled, whispering into Michael’s left ear “I’m pretty sure that she’s remembering when you gave her a full-body massage… or when she made out with me.”

Inari barked at Talia a few more times, and the Huntress shouted “Stop it! I did no such thing! Why does this little demon remember so much of what happened?!”

The ground suddenly began rumbling violently, and then the wooden ceiling started caving in. However, Michael simply lifted up his left hand and telekinetically prevented it from falling on them.

Then he heard screams, shouting and loud explosions coming from beyond those cracks. The staircase on the northern side of the room had been rattled to pieces, but it probably wouldn’t have been able to support his weight anyway.

Yet, even under that situation, all seven of them didn’t even seem to be slightly surprised or bothered. Elina complained “Why do disasters always seem to follow us around?”

A message popped up in front of all of their faces: “Event Quest: Patterson Castle is under siege. Please choose which side of this Battleground you would like to join. The average level of your team is too high to participate as a third-party. If you do not choose between Patterson Castle and Mami’s Sellswords within one minute, you will be removed from the combat-zone.”