[Alice's Great Adventure Game!]
[Welcome to Alice's school. This is the place where Alice studies. We're going to play games here, and we're going to become good friends here!]
[Alice loves making friends the most. Alice wants to be friends with everyone, so let's all play games together. After playing the games, everyone will be Alice's friend—friends for life!]
[The goal of the game is very simple. You just need to find the thing Alice hid in the teaching building. It's a very, very easy and very, very relaxing game, so everyone should come and play with Alice!]
[But you must follow the game rules when playing, so be sure to remember the rules next, and absolutely do not forget them!]
[Rule 1: Everyone must protect the candle on their desk. You must, must not let the candle go out. If the candle goes out, a very, very bad Big Gray Wolf will come looking for you, calling out "gao—woo, gao—woo," as it comes to cause you trouble!]
[Rule 2: When you're in the corridor, you must—must—must not run around, okay? Otherwise Mama Sheep will get angry. She hates people who make noise the most, so you have to walk slowly, slowly move forward, all right!]
[Rule 3: Bad children especially love playing pranks. They always quietly follow you and, when you're not paying attention, blow out your candle. But don't be afraid—so long as you shine the candle light directly on their faces, they'll immediately run away. Bad children are most afraid of fire!]
[Rule 4: Teacher Turtle at the stairway always walks very, very slowly when going to class. If you run into the teacher, you must help him, okay? A child who helps the teacher is a good child; a child who helps the teacher is a good child!]
[Rule 5: Teacher Duck has always slept very poorly and is easily awakened, so please be sure not to make loud noises. We have to behave and play quietly, quietly, and must not cause trouble for others, okay~]
[Rule 6: Uncle Statue always likes to run around, and he's especially, especially enthusiastic. Whenever he sees someone, he wants to give them a hug. If possible, please persuade him to return to the biology classroom, all right? If Teacher Turtle can't find him when class starts, that would be bad~]
[Rule 7: Sister Flashlight patrols every night. She really dislikes children who stay in the Teaching Building at night, so if you see her, you must hurry and run away. If you get caught by Sister Flashlight, you'll be scolded~]
[Rule 8: During class, you must properly stay inside the classroom and read. You're not allowed to remain in the corridor, and you're also not allowed to skip morning reading. Mama Sheep's hearing is very, very good—if you don't read seriously, she'll definitely hear you!]
[Rule 9: You may only turn on the lights after the morning bell rings. When the evening bell rings, you must turn off the lights. Everyone has to save electricity and must not cause trouble for Principal Elephant and Inspector Giraffe—this is a very good virtue, and good children must obey it!]
[Rule 10: You must find Alice's item before you're allowed to leave the Teaching Building, okay? The game must be played properly all the way to the end—you absolutely must not leave early~]
[Rule 11: Cheating and spoiling are absolutely forbidden behaviors. You must not let good children who haven't played the game yet know in advance how to play it. If you do, Alice will get angry, and an angry Alice won't become friends with you!]
[Those are all the rules! Everyone, keep it up, keep it up, keep it up—let's play together with Alice~]
[As long as you've played the game, everyone will be good friends!]
…
Takumi's fingers slid continuously, and it didn't take very long for him to finish reading through the entire set of rules.
According to accounts from players who successfully survived Fujihana Middle School, this is a rules sheet that all players who enter the Teaching Building of Fujihana Middle School inevitably receive at the very beginning. Once a player finishes reading the contents of this rules sheet, the Teaching Building will undergo changes and enter the state of [Game Start].
However, as for how exactly this game is meant to be played, what specific situations these rules correspond to, and how one should respond to them, the post did not explain any of that. Based on what people said in the replies below, it seemed that once anything related to this was written down and published for others to see—if it was seen by people who had not yet entered Fujihana Middle School to play Alice's game—it would immediately trigger some kind of rule of Fujihana Middle School. This would result in the player who wrote down those "cannot be disclosed" pieces of information being immediately pulled back into Fujihana Middle School, while the next mission of those players who saw the information would be forcibly locked as "Campus Uncanny", with the starting point guaranteed to be Fujihana Middle School.
When he saw this part, to be honest, Takumi was stunned for quite a long time. After that, he carefully reread the information in those reply threads, and even specifically went to the forum to look up some posts introducing Red Moon-level Instances. Only then did he finally understand this point.
Game Instances that had reached the "Red Moon-level" possessed rules that could take effect directly in the real world. Even if you were not within the Instance's range, as long as you satisfied the rules of the Instance itself, the supernatural forces existing within such Instances could still directly kill you, or drag you into an extremely dangerous predicament.
"Damn, is this for real…"
Although he knew that the "Red Moon-level" as a tier definitely had its own unique qualities, Takumi truly had not expected that Instances of this level would possess power to the extent of directly interfering with reality.
The only good news was that, so far, the activation conditions of Red Moon-level Instance rules that had appeared in the Sacrifice Game were basically all predicated on "knowing of their existence". Therefore, ordinary people and players in the real world, even if they happened to do something that met the conditions, would still remain safe and sound because they did not know that the matter was connected to a certain Instance.
Just like the game rules of Fujihana Middle School: if Takumi had absolutely no knowledge of the "Campus Uncanny" Instance, then even if someone spoiled the entire game process for him, only the other party would suffer the consequences. Takumi himself would not encounter any problems at all—until he obtained a certain amount of information through some channel and realized that what the person who spoke to him earlier had told him was actually intelligence about the "Campus Uncanny" Instance. Only at that point would he be locked onto by the rule-based power of this Instance.
And this was precisely one of the differences that existed between Red Moon-level Instances and Instances of the other two levels.
In addition, there is a second difference between Instances of this level and ordinary Instances: Instances of this level will occasionally experience a phenomenon known as "Descent". There was no particularly detailed introduction of this phenomenon in the post, supposedly because the manifestations of "Descent" differ for each Red Moon-level Instance. Even so, there is a single common point—near the Descent location, a red moon visible only to players will appear. Moreover, once this phenomenon occurs, players in the surrounding area, regardless of whether they personally see that red moon or not, will all develop a strong urge to flee the area. As a result, aside from those who deliberately seek death, basically no players will be harmed by a "Descending" Instance.
The precursor to a Descent phenomenon generally lasts around half an hour to one hour, which is enough to affect players within the area and allow them to escape. After the Descent actually occurs, it usually lasts for less than one minute, after which everything comes to an end. Under normal circumstances, dozens to hundreds of people near the Descent location will vanish, taken away by the power of the Descent. Where these people go and what kind of fate awaits them can be said to be already predetermined. However, this is not considered much of an issue, because it is caused by aberrant power; as such, no one will notice these people's disappearance, and their family members and friends will, after forgetting the missing individuals, continue on with their ordinary and mundane lives.
'Really makes people uncomfortable…'
After reading all of this, Takumi could not help but offer this evaluation in his mind.
Although "Campus Uncanny" has now been downgraded by the Sacrifice Game to a Dark Night-level Instance, it still retains the abilities of "rules taking effect outside the Instance" and "irregular Descent". According to the forum, a total of three Descents of "Campus Uncanny" have been recorded, each occurring within a middle school or a university. After each Descent ended, an entire class of students would invariably disappear. To date, the recorded number of disappearances stands at 85 people.
He continued flipping through the recorded intelligence about this Instance, and soon arrived at the twelve opening game prompts of Fujihana Middle School.
Based on his experiences in the Shirakawa Apartments and Red Nut Grey Cave games, Takumi had already come to understand that opening prompts often involve the core obsession within an Instance and touch upon certain key and concealed information. For Takumi, who had to achieve a perfect clear, this information was extremely important.
However, before Takumi could seriously read through these prompt messages, a text message popped up. He opened it and discovered that it was a message sent to him by Kaguya.
It seemed that the other party had finally found the time to reply to what he had previously told her—regarding the invitation to a face-to-face meeting from her older brother.
After Ai left, Takumi immediately informed Kaguya of the matter via text message. Of course, he did not expose Ai's existence herself—he merely said that an unfamiliar man had approached him and extended an invitation. Now, the message Kaguya sent in reply was extremely concise, directly asking whether he was free to take a phone call.
It seemed that this matter had made Kaguya somewhat anxious.
Thus, Takumi temporarily closed the forum page, pulled up his contacts, and directly called Kaguya.
Less than a second after the call connected, Kaguya immediately answered.
"Hey. I've already told you about the situation. Whatever thoughts you have—say them now."
Takumi spoke directly, holding the phone to his ear.
"...Tonight, I'll go with you."
After a brief silence, that was the response Kaguya gave.
And after hearing the faintly complex emotions revealed in the girl's reply, Takumi merely raised an eyebrow. He simply answered with a "Okay" and did not say anything further.
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