"What the hell is with this place? Is everyone a damn extrovert, wanting to team up at a moment's notice...?"
It wasn't until they had put a good distance between themselves and those things, reaching a spot about a meter high and wide enough for two people to rest, that Gao Hai and Chika Fujiwara finally stopped. They sat down to rest for a moment in the narrow cavern where the safety rope hung.
Cold sweat had beaded on Gao Hai's forehead. He muttered a few curses under his breath before he calmed down.
As for Chika Fujiwara, she was already on the ground, panting for a good while. Her pretty little face was deathly pale, and she trembled for some time before she recovered.
"Th-they didn't follow us, did they?"
Even though they had been away from those things for a while, Chika's voice still trembled as she spoke.
"They shouldn't have. As long as you properly refuse and end the conversation, those things won't follow. Wasn't that the case with the ones we met before? So next time we run into them, you absolutely must stay calm. Tell them we are 'Explorers,' then refuse their request to join them. Don't answer any other questions. It's fine to be rude and harsh; you saw me curse them out, and nothing happened."
Gao Hai let out a long breath and gave Chika a proper lesson.
Honestly, the reason those things had latched onto them was that Chika hadn't been able to hide her expression well, causing them to sense that something was off.
But then again, asking a girl from a peaceful era to remain calm in front of four blood-drenched ghouls pestering her with questions was probably asking too much. He could only hope this girl wouldn't let it happen again; Gao Hai didn't think he could smooth things over every single time.
"I'm sorry. I-I'll do my best to stay calm next time... Ugh, but having a calm conversation seems a little difficult. The most I could probably do is not talk at all..."
Chika rubbed her cheeks, looking troubled, and sighed.
The man and woman from before were manageable, and although Dennis, who came out later, was also terrifying, at least he was at a distance.
But that purplish-blue boy had come right up to Chika's face. From Gao Hai's perspective, the boy was just looking up and staring at her. But from Chika's point of view, the thing's head had stretched continuously upward until it almost touched her face before stopping, and then it incessantly spoke to her, asking all sorts of questions.
The horrifying visage of death by asphyxiation, the foul stench that assaulted her nose, the hoarse and bizarre voice, plus the mental erosion inherent to the anomaly itself. At that moment, the girl could only instinctively do her utmost to remain still and composed. Replying with even a single word might have caused her to have a mental breakdown on the spot.
If Gao Hai hadn't pulled her into his arms, letting her rest her face against his chest so she didn't have to face those things anymore, Chika suspected she likely wouldn't have left that place alive.
But speaking of which, the identity he used as an excuse back then... girlfriendx000D
Although she understood it was a reason Gao Hai came up with on the spot in an emergency, it still felt a little strange. And this was probably the first time she had been held by a member of the opposite sex other than her father, right?
Besides, isn't he Maki's boyfriend? His actions and tone when he held her felt so natural.
Perhaps because she was finally away from danger and could relax for a moment, Chika Fujiwara couldn't control her train of thought and subconsciously let her mind wander.
"Are you rested?"
Gao Hai, beside her, asked at that moment.
"Mm... more or less."
The girl let out a soft breath, pushed all the unnecessary thoughts away, and nodded seriously at Gao Hai, giving him a thumbs-up.
"If you're okay, it's time to move on. The place we're heading for is the 'Heart,' though I don't know what it will be like. But as 'Explorers,' we have to go there no matter what, right?"
Gao Hai smiled at Chika, signaling that they could set off.
"Mm-hm, Explorer Team Chika, moving out."
The girl nodded seriously again, smiled at Gao Hai, and then took the lead, crawling forward into the cavern.
Incidentally, after Gao Hai and Chika Fujiwara entered this passage, they encountered no more forks in the road.
The chaotic, twisted cavern from before seemed to no longer exist. The arduous experience of exploring it felt like nothing more than a hallucination.
But the explorer suit the girl was wearing couldn't be fake.
Gao Hai couldn't help but think to himself: just as Xusheng in the Shirakawa Apartments fought against the anomaly's mechanics to leave behind rules and supply boxes for survivors, perhaps in this sunless, dark cavern, someone else had also held out until the very end. Even after becoming part of this horror story, they were still helping those who came after them in their own way.
Although the power of the rules-based horror stories easily destroyed countless lives, had the stalwarts never truly been extinguished?
Let's hope so...
Lost in thought, Gao Hai watched Chika crawling ahead. He didn't dwell on it any further and continued crawling forward himself.
The cavern had begun to narrow again.
Following the frayed safety rope, they advanced toward the pitch-black darkness ahead.
The destination remained unknown.
At this moment, the only thing they could do was press onward.
Maki, how are you doing right now?
The worry in Gao Hai's heart could not be easily set aside.
...
"Gao Hai..."
With a soft sigh, Maki turned her head and looked down the corridor ahead.
The girl was wearing a somewhat ill-fitting white lab coat, holding a stack of files filled with completely indecipherable gibberish, walking slowly down a white corridor under stark white lights.
Dark red blood droplets seemed to be splattered on the walls, but when she looked closely, she found there was nothing there at all.
In the quiet corridor, only the sound of the girl's own breathing and footsteps could be heard. But as she walked, she could faintly hear something following behind her.
Maki's gaze swept over the white wall beside her.
A simple map labeled 'Cavern Research Base' hung on the wall, roughly indicating the function of each room in the small laboratory.
This was not the entrance to the Red Nut Gray Hole where she was supposed to be.
In all the player intel she had obtained in the past, the existence of this base was completely unheard of.
However, this place was indeed closely related to the Red Nut Gray Hole.
After getting the rule sheet from the bed in the dormitory where she woke up, and after deciphering a few of the legible experiment files, Maki Shijo could confirm that this strange research base was built directly on top of the Red Nut Gray Hole. The area around the entire cavern entrance had been filled in, leaving only one entrance that was completely enclosed within this building—a tightly controlled entrance located in a 'Quarantine Zone.'
"No! This is all wrong! Where the hell am I? Did that bastard sell me fake intel?!"
A desperate roar sounded from one of the rooms.
A more intense, ear-piercing noise quickly drowned out the person's voice.
Maki could only hear a faint scream before all sound vanished, and everything returned to silence once more.
That's the third one...
Maki silently counted in her head.
From the time she left the second-floor dormitory to arriving here, she had already discovered three veteran players who had used instance entry tickets. They had reacted poorly to the drastic change in scenery, revealing a side of themselves that 'should not be shown.'
Without exception, none of them survived.
Some power, something, was watching everyone here.
Any player who failed to correctly role-play their 'identity' would be swiftly identified and then eliminated in a way that defied common sense.
Creeak—
Maki pushed open a rusty main door.
The white lights flickered.
In the command room, figures stood or sat, all staring expressionlessly at the front of the control console, at the three people in pale yellow striped clothes waiting in the quarantine zone on the other side of the heavy protective glass.
Maki walked past dilapidated, empty, abandoned rooms, across a worn and cracked floor.
She came to the side of the pristine command room, placed the files in her hand on a table, and subtly glanced at the people beside her.
Everyone was as still as a statue.
In the dead silence, only Maki's footsteps, clad in her lab coat, echoed in the empty room.
She was the only living person in this room.
"Preparing to commence 16th exploration experiment, codename 'Cavern-16'. Exploration personnel C1, C2, and C3, please prepare. Quarantine door will now open."
A hoarse voice came over the broadcast, mixed with what sounded like someone's suppressed screams.
And through the thick glass, Maki could already see the layered blast doors inside the quarantine zone leading to the Red Nut Gray Hole slowly opening, and the lights turning on one by one.
This place was replaying something that had happened in the past.
It seemed that players who entered this place had replaced some of the 'people' or had joined as superfluous, false identities.
Before reaching the command room, Maki had seen a total of five players. Three of them were gone due to poor role-playing, while the other two were managing to maintain their roles without any major slip-ups.
The girl wondered if Gao Hai and Kaguya were also in this place, and what roles they might be playing.
But she never expected that the first companion she found would be participating in this game in such a role.
"Preparing to depart. Commencing exploration of the cavern."
Inside the quarantine room, Kaguya, dressed in the yellow striped uniform of an experiment technician, spoke in a low voice. Without looking at the two 'teammates' behind her, she walked forward step by step into the inspection room just before the entrance to the Red Nut Gray Hole. She slowly put on the real-time recording equipment and various sensors, piece by piece.
She wasn't fast; her movements were clearly unpracticed. Beside her, another technician geared up very quickly, with standard, rigid motions, like a corpse that had repeated this process countless times. Or rather... yes, that thing could indeed be considered a corpse.
The other technician was also a player, but judging from his trembling movements, he was likely another person who didn't fully grasp the current situation.
Vmmm—
Ahead of the inspection room, the final great door to the Red Nut Gray Hole had begun to open slowly.
And Kaguya, after taking a deep breath to compose herself, turned on her searchlight and faced the pitch-black cavern entrance before her.
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