That was exactly what he did. Koya grabbed the heavy helmet, pulled it down over his head until it clicked securely around his jaw, and closed his eyes.

For a brief, terrifying second, nothing happened. It was just absolute suffocating silence… the kind that made his ears ring and his chest tighten with the urge to rip the helmet back off.

The darkness behind his eyelids felt oppressive and endless like he'd been buried alive in some digital tomb and his breathing sounded too loud in his own head with each exhale echoing against the interior of the helmet.

However, a moment later, Koya opened his eyes, and the heavy weight of the helmet, the claustrophobic walls of the pod, and everything else had completely disappeared.

He was no longer standing up in the synchronization pod.

Instead, he was lying flat on a firm metallic bed. The surface was cold against his back, looking perfectly smooth and sterile like polished steel. He sat up slowly, his body feeling strange and unfamiliar… he felt lighter somehow and then he looked around, trying to get his bearings.

The room looked incredibly high-tech, filled with blinking consoles that pulsed with soft blue and green lights in rhythmic patterns, exposed wiring ran across the ceiling like veins, bundled together with industrial zip ties and occasionally sparking with tiny flashes of electricity.

Sleek utilitarian furniture… a desk bolted to the floor with a built-in terminal, storage compartments built seamlessly into the walls with biometric locks gave the space a functional military feel. Everything was designed for efficiency over comfort.

There was a massive, reinforced glass viewport that looked perfectly cut out of the wall seamlessly, the edges were so clean they looked laser-cut.

The glass itself was probably several inches thick, designed to withstand the vacuum of space and outside of it was...

Koya blinked in profound surprise, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and walking up to the glass on unsteady feet.

His balance felt slightly off.

'Outer space?' Koya thought, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.

An infinite expanse of black void stretched out before him, dotted with brilliant, distant stars that burned like frozen fire against the darkness. Some were white, others tinged with blue or red.

A massive red planet hung in the distance, it was Mars… its surface covered in swirling rust-colored storms and deep canyons that looked like scars carved by ancient rivers. The planet's atmosphere was thin and barely visible though it had a small haze around its curved edge.

He pressed his hand against the cold glass, feeling the chill seep into his palm through the material. His breath didn't fog the viewport which meant the climate control in this room was incredibly precise.

Also... he felt incredibly strange.

He felt vastly weaker than he had just moments ago… not physically diminished exactly, but like some essential part of himself had been stripped away. He closed his eyes and instinctively tried to gather his ambient mana, to circulate it through his magical circuits the way he'd done thousands of times before but it didn't work.

There was absolutely nothing there. The familiar comforting warmth of mana flowing through his body was entirely absent, leaving him feeling hollow and exposed like a house with all its windows smashed out.

No energy responded to his mental commands and no circuits activated as well. It was like trying to flex a muscle that had been surgically removed.

'What the hell?' Koya thought with panic spiking in his chest for a brief moment before he forced it down.

He looked down at his hands, turning them over and flexing his fingers experimentally. He looked exactly the same as his usual self with the same skin tone and the same build but his physiology was completely mundane now, devoid of any supernatural enhancements.

No mana reinforcement making his bones denser and his muscles stronger and no circuit pathways allowing him to channel elemental magic. There was also no magical sense to let him perceive the flow of energy around him.

It was a deeply scary, vulnerable feeling, like being stripped naked and thrown into freezing water but he took a deep breath to steady his racing heart regardless, forcing himself to think logically.

'It's just a simulation,' Koya reminded himself firmly. 'Not real. Just... really convincing. Incredibly convincing but still fake.'

He looked down at his attire, examining what he was wearing in this virtual space. He was no longer wearing his academy uniform.

Instead, he was dressed in a sleek, padded white full-body uniform that looked somewhat like a lightweight spacesuit from old sci-fi movies.

The material was smooth and flexible, with reinforced panels across the chest and joints. There were subtle seams running along the sides and limbs. It didn't slow down his movements at all… actually felt lighter than his normal clothes.

Suddenly, a glowing holographic screen materialized directly in front of his face with a sharp electronic chime that made him flinch backward instinctively. It wasn't his usual system interface at all which made him surprised.

[You are an Impostor!]

'...What?'

Before Koya could even try to confirm what that ominous message meant or check if there were additional details, the chunky high-tech watch strapped to his left wrist beeped loudly with an insistent electronic tone.

A detailed, glowing 3D map formed directly above it, projecting a holographic layout of what looked like a massive space station with multiple connected rooms and corridors arranged in a roughly circular pattern around a central hub.

"Attention all personnel…" Tech Tube's voice echoed from hidden speakers within the room though it was slightly distorted by the metallic acoustics. "Report to the Control Room that's located directly in the center of the facility. The rest of the people participating in this specific game session are already waiting there for you."

Koya didn't hesitate. Whatever this exam was, standing around confused wasn't going to help. He moved toward the heavy metal door, which automatically hissed and slid open as he approached with a hydraulic whoosh.

He jogged swiftly across the metallic hallways making his footsteps echo with hollow clangs against the grated floor.

A glowing blue line projected by his watch map guided him through the maze-like station. He took a few turns, passing by strange futuristic machinery… massive cylindrical tanks filled with glowing liquid, banks of blinking servers, sealed airlocks with warning symbols.

The place looked like something out of an old sci-fi movie.

He finally reached a massive circular meeting room located precisely at the center of the station layout according to his map.

There were multiple doorways leading into this hub from different directions, providing plenty of entry points and standing around a large circular console table in the middle were nine other people.

Yoru... Ichinose... Shion... Reito... Hiroto...

Koya scanned the faces as he stepped through the automatic doors. There were a lot of people he recognized here… They all looked up at him in sheer surprise once he arrived.

Everyone was wearing differently colored space uniforms… red, blue, green, yellow, purple while his own was white.

"Koya-kun, you're here in this block too?" Yoru asked, her dark eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity. She was wearing a black uniform that somehow made her look even more intimidating despite being shorter.

Koya simply nodded, walking up to join the circle around the console table.

Immediately, the bright fluorescent lights of the meeting room dimmed down to a dramatic low level, plunging them into an atmosphere that felt more like a thriller movie than an exam.

The center of the massive meeting table lit up with a brilliant blue glow as a highly detailed hologram stepped up out of the projector. It was the avatar of Tech Tube with his usual smug face rendered in perfect glowing detail.

The AI man adjusted his virtual tie and sat down comfortably on the edge of the table right in front of them, crossing one leg over the other.

"Well, well! Do you guys like what I did with the place?" Tech Tube asked, gesturing grandly to the metal walls and the starry view visible through the viewports. "Apparently, the ancient humans from long before the Apocalypse used to call this endless void 'space.' Though that massive, cursed World Tree prevents us from actually breaking into our own atmosphere and learning if this place is truly real, I did my best to simulate the old world data! I honestly think that this red planet called Mars is in desperate need o—"

"Uh..." Yoru interrupted smoothly, crossing her arms and fixing the AI with an unamused glare. "Our exam time has already officially started, and you haven't even told us what it is yet. We don't really have the time or the patience to be listening to you rambling about 'space' or dead 'planets.'"

Tech Tube stopped mid-sentence and laughed then his expression settled into a deeply unsettling smile.

"Alright, straight to business, then," Tech Tube said with his voice turning more serious. "Initially, this was supposed to be your standard, a brutal Physical Assessment Exam that was a full on battle royale between all of the classes to decide which one was the strongest."

He paused for effect.

"However, the Principal had an entirely different, brilliant idea…" Tech Tube continued, pressing his virtual fingers together like a scheming villain. "He decided to change it up completely since you all did so many different kinds of physical fighting yesterday during the unexpected tournament. Your bodies are probably still recovering from that mess."

The AI stood up from his perch on the table, his glowing eyes scanning the ten students gathered around.

"So, I'd like to change the pace," Tech Tube announced. "This is a Psychological Assessment Exam instead, designed to test your wit, your deceit, and your ability to read others under pressure. I'm the one personally supervising this block, and while I'm sure you would normally love for me to continue rambling about astrophysics… as Yoru Kurogami so astutely pointed out, we barely have any time to waste."

Tech Tube cleared his throat dramatically, raising both his hands as the lighting in the room shifted to a menacing crimson that bathed everyone in a bloody glow.

"I welcome you all..." Tech Tube said slowly, savoring each word. "...to Impostors Among Us. Trust no one and survive if you can."

There was an eerie silence all around as nobody moved or spoke.

The hologram's eye twitched.

"You're not going to react to that?" Tech Tube asked, sounding genuinely disappointed. "No gasps? No dramatic music cues in your heads?"

"We don't even know what that means," Hiroto said… the annoying representative of Class 4 who was always running his mouth said. "How are we supposed to react to something you haven't explained?"

For the first time in history, everyone seemed to agree with Hiroto with heads nodded around the table. Tech Tube sighed, pinching the bridge of his holographic nose.

"Fine," Tech Tube said. "I'll explain everything about the game to you."

He cleared his throat again.

"So... Rules. Pay attention because I'm only going through this once, and if you mess something up because you weren't listening, that is genuinely not my problem," Tech Tube said firmly. "No do-overs or no clarifications. It's just one explanation, that's it."

He held up a finger.

"You've each been assigned a role. Check your personal screen right now," Tech Tube instructed. "Only you can see it. That information stays with you and you alone. If you verbally confirm or reveal any Impostor's identity to another participant inside the game, your class loses ten Class Points immediately with no appeals or exceptions. So maybe don't do that unless you really hate your classmates."

Koya blinked. There was a small tab at the bottom corner of his vision, barely noticeable until he focused on it. When he did, it popped up in a red holographic window that only he could see.

[Role: Impostor – You can kill Crewmates and other Impostors as well. To see others that have the Impostor Role like you, they have a red beacon atop their heads.]

'I'm an Impostor?' Koya thought.

He looked around the room carefully, trying not to make it obvious. Out of everyone here, there were only two people that had faint red beacons floating above their heads… looking like barely visible halos of crimson light that glowed softly.

The two other Impostors were Yoru and Ryouma.

'Yoru and Ryouma... interesting.' Koya thought however a second notification appeared below the first:

[Class: Shapeshifter – You can copy any player's appearance for a limited window.]

'Shapeshifter, huh?' Koya thought, his tactical mind already working. 'That means I can turn into another player. Frame someone else for kills huh?'

That would be excellent for framing people and sowing chaos. Tech Tube continued his explanation, pacing back and forth on the holographic table.

"There are two sides in this game," Tech Tube said. "Crewmates and Impostors. Let's go through them both so nobody can complain later that they didn't understand."

He gestured to the air, and holographic icons appeared… simple stick figures in different colors arranged in two groups.

"Crewmates, your job is straightforward," Tech Tube explained, pointing to the larger group. "Complete all your assigned tasks scattered around the map before the twenty-four hour window closes. Tasks are things like fixing wiring, downloading data, emptying garbage chutes, calibrating engines… basic maintenance work to keep the station functional. Each completed task brings your team closer to victory."

He pulled up another holographic display showing a meeting room identical to the one they were standing in.

"You can also win by identifying and eliminating every Impostor through the voting system," Tech Tube continued. "This is your primary defense mechanism against being murdered in the hallways."

He pulled up another holographic display showing the voting interface.

"How does voting work? Simple," Tech Tube said, ticking off points on his fingers. "Someone calls an emergency meeting using the big red button in this room… you each get one button to call meetings whenever you want, use it wisely because it's your only one. Everyone gets teleported back here automatically, you discuss what you know and what you've seen, you present your evidence or suspicions, you vote on who to eliminate, and the majority decision kicks one player permanently out of the game."

Tech Tube's smile turned even wider.

"If you vote wrong and eliminate a Crewmate, that's on you," Tech Tube said with obvious enjoyment. "So try not to panic and make stupid decisions based on paranoia alone. A meeting can also be called when someone reports a dead body… just walk up to the corpse and hit the report button on your watch. That triggers an automatic emergency meeting so everyone can discuss who might have done it."

He paused, letting that sink in while the students exchanged nervous glances.

"Not every Crewmate is just a regular Crewmate doing busywork…" Tech Tube continued, his tone becoming more conspiratorial. "Some of you have been assigned specialized roles with unique abilities, and you can see exactly what they do in your personal tab. But I'll make a few things clear right now so you understand the playing field."

The hologram pointed down at the floor, where a ventilation grate was visible between the metal floor panels.

"Engineers can move through vents as well as Impostors," Tech Tube said. "So if you see someone pop out of a vent, that doesn't automatically make them an Impostor… it could just be an Engineer taking a shortcut. There are also secret compartments in the vents that you can hide in to watch an Impostor go by without being seen. Very useful for gathering intelligence if you're clever about it."

His grin widened, showing holographic teeth.

"But personally, my favorite Crewmate skill is Sheriff…" Tech Tube said, clearly enjoying himself. "The Sheriff is the only Crewmate role capable of killing other players besides voting them out. You get a gun… well, a laser pistol technically, but same principle. However, as a Sheriff, you only have one shot initially. If you shoot a Crewmate by mistake, you die instantly from the guilt and shame but if you shoot an Impostor, you survive and get an additional shot to use. So be very, very careful about who you aim at. Don't just start blasting people because you're paranoid."

Tech Tube cleared his throat.

"Now. Impostors..." Tech Tube said, his voice dropping lower and taking on a more sinister edge. "Your objective is to eliminate Crewmates until only one remains alive, or survive the full twenty-four hours without being identified and voted out by the group."

He counted on his holographic fingers, listing their advantages.

"You have vent access for silent movement across the map…" Tech Tube said. "You can pop in one room and pop out in another without being seen in the hallways. You can seal rooms… cutting off routes, trapping people inside, and creating isolated situations perfect for kills without witnesses. Use that carefully though, because a sealed room with a dead body inside is a very obvious red flag that screams an Impostor was here.'"

Tech Tube's hologram flickered slightly.

"Impostors also have specialized roles too, which I will not explain because that would ruin the fun…" Tech Tube said smugly. "Figure it out yourselves."

He stood up straight on the holographic table with his hands in his pockets.

"Cameras are active across the map…" Tech Tube said, ticking off points. "Anyone can access the security room to watch them. Vents connect specific rooms, your map will show you which ones you have access to. Bodies trigger automatic emergency meetings when reported, as I mentioned. The twenty-four hour clock starts the moment I exit this room for all of you."

His expression turned grim.

"If the game reaches zero with no resolution… no Impostor victory or no Crewmate victory, every class involved loses two Class Points," Tech Tube said flatly. "So inaction costs you, sitting around doing nothing hurts everyone."

He raised a finger.

"Crewmate victory is worth five Class Points for your class," Tech Tube said. "Impostor victory is worth ten Class Points for theirs so Impostors have higher stakes and higher rewards which is fair since a lot of people are ganging up on them, Oh and remember, there are 3 Impostors out of all ten of you."

The hologram's body began dissolving into particles bit by bit, flickering into the air and dispersing like digital snow.

"Now I'm serious this time..." Tech Tube said, his voice echoing as he faded. "Welcome—"

His body flickered out of existence completely, and the lighting returned to normal.

"... to Impostors Among Us."