One-way traffic

Himeno Mikoto opened her eyes and immediately looked around as if she had just woken up.

The sound of the train shaking made her realize it was real.

The carriage was dimly lit, and outside the windows was a completely dark world, without even a glimmer of light.

The lights inside the carriage flickered intermittently, and the color of the lights was also of a very gloomy type.

The interior space was filled with a distorted, eerie atmosphere, and even the smell inside the carriage was strange, an indescribable, somewhat putrid odor.

The girl stood alone in the carriage, feeling the bone-chilling cold.

"Where...am I?"

Am I dreaming? Am I...am I dreaming?!

I can't believe what kind of dream this is, and... why would I dream about something like this...?

Ding--

"The tram has departed; please prepare your ingredients and proceed to the next station."

The announcement came directly from inside the carriage.

Eh…?

What's the radio saying?

Before she could even understand what was being broadcast, Mikoto Himeno already felt herself taking action.

It was almost like uncontrolled behavior.

"Where...are we going?"

He walked through the front door and headed straight for the line ahead.

Then, upon seeing the scene before her, the girl was stunned and stood frozen in place.

In front.

Several men and women with grim expressions stood there.

'What...what on earth is going on? This dream...it's so creepy!'

Even though she knew it was a dream and couldn't be reality, she still felt disgusted from the bottom of her heart.

Moreover, for some reason, his body seemed completely unable to move.

"Next up is a live-cut platter~ It's a live-cut platter."

Live...cut?

Before I could even understand the meaning of that sentence, the man standing at the very front walked to the front.

—Himeno Mikoto saw it clearly.

On either side of the carriage, there were two strange figures holding knives.

That thing looked just like a monkey.

They were dressed in tattered clothes, obscuring their facial expressions, but it was certain that their short stature and hairy bodies meant they were not human.

The man walked to the area between the two creatures.

Then, something she never dared to imagine happened.

*Pfft—Pfft*

Puff puff puff puff puff————

The blade sliced ​​through the man's body, making countless cuts.

ah…?!

The scene was so shocking and impactful that Mikoto's expression froze, and all she could see was a large amount of blood gushing out.

The man kept letting out deafening screams.

Despite this, he made no attempt to resist, allowing his body to be ruthlessly cut and severed by the two short humanoid figures, even his internal organs and flesh were cut off.

Looking at it this way, it looks just like sashimi, raw sashimi.

This is the essence of life.

"You're kidding... right..."

"The next thing is to dig it out~ it's to dig it out."

It was the woman's turn after the man's.

A woman who looked to be middle-aged showed no fear whatsoever; no, her face was expressionless.

Without any emotional fluctuation, she arrived at the area between the two dwarves as if she were a machine.

Those guys took out something that looked like a scoop.

—They gouged out the woman's eyes.

*Pfft...* In an instant, fresh blood once again soaked the walls of the entire carriage.

The woman's screams continued, but eventually, due to excessive blood loss, she seemed to have no strength left to scream and collapsed to the side, where she was carried away by the other dwarves.

Mikoto Himeno no longer dared to even think about it.

For a teenage girl, the impact of such a scene is simply unimaginable.

"Next up is minced meat~ minced meat."

At that moment, Mikoto Himeno realized that her feet had started moving involuntarily.

After that woman, it was actually her turn.

'How...how could this be! Stop it, stop it!!'

No matter how much the mind issues commands, the body can never stop.

By the time I realized it, I was already standing in the middle of those people.

The two dwarfs, on the other hand, turned the tools they had prepared beforehand onto themselves.

—A huge mechanical gear used for grinding meat.

Just touching the front is enough to turn Mikoto's body into a puddle of minced meat.

Alas--!!

'This...is a dream!!'

The overwhelming sense of realism and terror caused Mikoto Himeno to forget how to breathe.

However, it was ultimately just a nightmare.

'Wake up! Wake up! Hurry... wake up!'

'Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up—!!!!'

Bang.

The sound, like an impact, plunged her into darkness.

"Ah ah--!!!"

Once she regained her senses, she sat up directly from the bed.

"W-What's wrong, Misaka?!"

Yuka Kamishiro, who was standing next to her, was so frightened that she also screamed and jumped up, and both of them were covered in sweat.

It was...a dream.

Realizing this, Mikoto quickly touched her chest... her heart was pounding incredibly fast.

That was truly... a disgusting dream.

"Did you have...a nightmare?"

"…Um."

Grabbing Yuka's hand with some fear, Himeno Mikoto couldn't help but gasp for breath as she spoke.

“I dreamt that I was taken into a train and was almost turned into mincemeat by a monster that looked like a monkey.”

"In my dream, I couldn't do anything, and... and so many people were killed by those monkeys!! I, I—"

"It's alright...it was just a nightmare, Mikoto."

With comfort from her friend, the girl finally felt somewhat calmer.

But even so.

The scenes I saw in my dream were far too real.

"It's okay, go to sleep. You have class tomorrow, don't you?"

"Um... thank you, Yuka."

Mikoto Himeno forced a smile, went outside to get a drink of water, washed her face, and finally calmed down completely.

So the two girls went back to their beds.

For Mikoto Himeno

She too drifted back to sleep.

——————————————————————————————————————————

It was a little after 11 p.m.

Accelerator didn't fall asleep immediately; instead, he went to another room to find Hatsune Miku.

'Ah…you, in the dead of night, suddenly coming to find me?'

In that instant, the girl's expression froze completely.

When she saw Accelerator close the door, her heart raced even faster.

'Huh?! This, this can't be—wait, no…no way?'

"Hatsune."

"Ahhh—! I'm here!!"

"...What's there?"

From Accelerator's perspective, Hatsune Miku's behavior certainly appears very strange.

He pursed his lips and crossed his arms, ignoring him.

"What happened to that world before, the one where there were spirits everywhere, the world where Itsuka Shido and Itsuka Kotori lived?"

“…Huh?”

"Weren't we on a mission in that world before? Then, because of that devil bastard's tricks, I was blown away to another place. You should have completed your mission there too, right? How's it going? Has the system given you any new power boosts?"

"Um, well, that kind of thing."

I don't know if it's just my imagination, but the idol girl in front of me seems a little... disappointed?

"Mr. Advisari then brought me back to this world, so I'm not entirely sure what the system's mission is like..."

"Tsk..."

Just as expected.

However, Accelerator also recalled that it seemed that after returning from that world filled with Honkai, the Soul System did not give them any new power boosts.

However, in contrast, Accelerator obtained the "Doomsday Destroyer" time generator mode in the collapsed world, and completely mastered the vectors of time and space.

While Hatsune Miku did not gain any new powers, her combat experience and mental strength were both enhanced to an unprecedented degree.

…that's how it is.

What the soul system originally said should have been something like, "The purpose of the soul system is to allow the system user to develop their own inner, most suitable true abilities."

If.

If the system user's own power has reached a bottleneck...

hum-