"Release!"
As Alice silently recited that command in her heart, the invisible rule-based force field known as "Passerby Heroine" that had been enveloping her instantly receded like a tide.
The feeling was strange, like a ghost that had been floating in mid-air suddenly gaining gravity, its feet firmly planting back onto the ground.
At the same time, the World's perception of her returned to normal.
Immediately afterward, a wave of intense dizziness washed over her.
Alice swayed, forced to steady herself against a nearby coconut tree to keep from falling.
"Damn these aftereffects."
She pressed her throbbing temples, her face turning slightly pale.
The system's character card buff consumed mental energy.
This wasn't just some blue mana bar data from a game, but a real, tangible drain on her brainpower and willpower.
Although [Kato Megumi] was only a non-combat support card, skills involving causality and cognitive interference like this were overdrawing her fifteen-year-old body even when maintained for just a minute.
Since mental energy couldn't be quantified, Alice had developed her own set of survival rules.
Once the danger had passed, even for just a second, she had to immediately deactivate the character card.
On this deserted island where there wasn't even antibiotics, the sluggish reaction caused by mental exhaustion was often more lethal than the claws of a Beast.
After resting for a few minutes and letting the nausea subside, Alice straightened up and walked out to the edge of the jungle.
Although she had mentally prepared herself, when that hellish tableau was laid bare before her eyes, she couldn't help but hold her breath.
This was a crescent-shaped beach on the west side of the island; originally, the sand here would have been white as snow and the seawater blue as gems, beautiful enough to be a Photoshopped landscape wallpaper.
But now, the wallpaper had been torn to shreds and splashed with glaring red ink.
The rear fuselage of that massive Boeing airliner was currently half-submerged in the rocky area of the shallow sea. The jagged, twisted metal cross-section looked like a limb bitten off by a giant Beast, still billowing thick black smoke.
Strewn across the white sand was a mess of wreckage.
Broken suitcases, scattered clothing, hissing cables, and, corpses.
Some corpses were still strapped to their seats, having been thrown hundreds of meters away.
Others were dismembered, buried in the sand and gravel.
Waves washed up, turning the originally white foam a pale pink before receding, as if the ocean were trying to wash away this human tragedy.
But amidst this chaotic death and destruction, there were still figures moving.
It was a miracle of life.
Falling from thousands of meters in the air while wrapped in a crashing plane—nothing but the grace of God could explain why some passengers had survived.
"Help..."
"Someone help me... my leg..."
"Oh God, where is this? Where are we?"
"Amy, Amy, where are you? Don't scare Mommy!"
Cries for help, screams, and hysterical calls converged into a tragic wave of sound, assaulting Alice's eardrums.
Alice took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.
A man covered in blood stumbled past her.
He was wearing an expensive handmade suit, but now it was torn into rags, one sleeve empty, his arm hanging limply at his side.
His eyes were hollow and unfocused, as if his soul had been extracted, leaving only a shell moving mechanically.
"Sir?"
Alice hurriedly stepped forward, reaching out a small hand to help steady him.
"You're hurt, you need to sit down and stop the bleeding."
However, the man seemed possessed.
He ignored the young girl standing in front of him, his unfocused pupils not even shifting once.
He mumbled incoherently about "reports" and "meetings," like a walking corpse, bypassing Alice and wandering aimlessly toward the depths of the perilous primeval jungle.
"Hey, don't go that way! There are Beasts over there, it's dangerous."
Alice turned, wanting to grab him.
This was a classic acute stress reaction; the brain had shut down perception to protect itself—commonly known as being scared witless.
But just then, a more piercing and clear cry for help came from not far away.
"Someone! Anyone, give me a hand, he's not going to make it!"
Alice paused.
It was from beside a huge reef twenty meters to the left.
The suit-wearing man acting like a zombie was just having a mental breakdown and wasn't in immediate mortal danger, but the cries for help from over there sounded urgent.
This was the first rule of battlefield first aid: save those with the best chance of survival who are most severely injured first.
She gritted her teeth, gave up on chasing the crazed man, and turned to run toward the reef.
The one calling for help was a middle-aged man.
He was wearing a torn gray plaid shirt, had a full beard, and his curly hair was messy, covered in sand and dried blood.
He looked a bit chubby and honest, and was currently red-faced, trying to lift a huge metal plate pinning someone down in a low sandy pit.
It was a piece of the plane's wing wreckage.
Underneath the wing, the lower half of a young man's body was trapped.
The curly-haired man gritted his teeth, veins popping on his forehead; the strength he erupted with at that moment seemed far beyond a normal person's, and the heavy wing was actually shifted slightly by him.
Alice rushed over.
"I can help!"
Her crisp voice was exceptionally clear amidst the noisy sound of the waves.
The curly-haired man, who was on the verge of collapse, turned his head with difficulty upon hearing this.
When he saw that the person running over to help was actually a blonde girl who looked only fourteen or fifteen, so frail she seemed like a gust of wind could blow her over, he was completely stunned.
In that instant, a flash of astonishment, disappointment, and even absurdity crossed his eyes.
He felt that the girl in front of him was a bit strange.
In this hell full of wailing and despair, she was too calm—calm not like a plane crash victim, but like a reporter passing by.
Moreover, although she was dirty, she didn't have that disheveled look of someone who had just struggled back from the line of death.