"All right, buddy, do you still remember Killer?"
Killer rummaged through her clothes with her free hand and soon pulled out a small ring glowing with golden light.
"...This item can dispel darkness. It's a defensive item I bought in a vampire dimension. Let's see how well it works."
The little ring began swinging back and forth like a pendulum in Killer's hand, seemingly spilling light.
One second.
Two seconds.
After an unknown amount of time, the pink glow in Murder's eyes slowly began to fade.
His gaze looked a little clearer, as though he had regained some of his senses.
...Or rather, he seemed to have caught sight of the world around him again through the fog.
That terrifying pink slowly receded. Was Murder about to wake from the illusion...?
Killer glanced around, then pinched Murder's cheek while he was still dazed.
"...Killer?"
Murder's eyes returned to pure white, and he seemed to have emerged from his earlier haze and returned to normal.
Rubbing his head gently, Murder began piecing together what had just happened.
It felt like I'd been fighting the human for a little while... Now it looks like I was facing an illusion created by that pink-haired kid.
I was actually fighting Killer.
A simple illusion would not have done this to him.
The surroundings had perfectly recreated the atmosphere of the corridor. Even the human's stats, data, and that eerie sense of pressure had been reproduced almost exactly.
Most importantly, his mind had seemed to lock up during that time, as though some darkness had deliberately concealed what was happening to him.
Although a strange light later seemed to have dispersed that darkness and set his mind straight, he still found it hard to come to terms with everything that had just happened.