At the Ruins of Sunset, players gathered beneath the World Tree's stone stele, watching helplessly as the name corresponding to [Taboo Scholar] on the Revelation Fragment Stele changed rapidly—from [Asakura Yuko] to [Vede Hais], before finally becoming blank.
The words [Taboo Scholar] gradually faded as though worn away by a file, and the seventeenth row among the twenty-two Identity Cards was now completely empty.
The onlooking players exchanged meaningful glances and immediately began discussing it among themselves.
"What's going on? Didn't they say that even if the holder died, someone else could pick up the Identity Card and bind it again? Why did it just disappear?"
"No idea. Could there be a limit to how many people can bind it within a single Instance? Once it changes holders, maybe it can't be bound to someone else again for a while?"
"Tsk. Looks like this [Taboo Scholar] card really is 'taboo.' Whoever binds it dies. If you don't deserve the position, you just become prey. What a tragedy."
"Haha, I used to envy those people with Identity Cards. Thinking about it now, we're better off watching from the sidelines and seeing them fight until their heads are bloody."
Under the long-term pressure of the Eerie Game, with their daily viewing filled with livestreams of death and terror, a small number of people had become utterly twisted. Whenever they saw one of their own die, they could always shift some of their stress into schadenfreude, discussing the abruptly ended fates of others with the fortunate relief of survivors.
Soon, another player joined the discussion. He belonged to the theory-minded faction and explained solemnly, "According to recent research by the Listen Wind Guild, after the Revelation Fragment Stele appeared, players who have already bound an Identity Card cannot hold another one—even if they