In the dark corridor, only the footsteps of the three echoed at this moment as they slowly advanced downward.
Takumi held a red candle in his hand, occasionally turning his head to check the situation behind him, keeping constant watch over Miko, who followed at his side.
The team maintained a quiet atmosphere.
But in reality, two of them were continuously conversing.
[Are you sure that thing has been following us this whole time?]
Having used similar mental communication before, Takumi didn't take long to adapt to the psychic transmission Mai was sending him, and he quickly began exchanging information with her.
[That's right. I could mistake anyone's presence, but there's no way I'd misidentify that thing's aura. It's probably locked onto either you or that little girl right now. "Alice" will actively pick targets it's interested in after the game starts and follow them. One of you is definitely already its target.]
Mai, a cigarette hanging from her lips and an indifferent expression on her face, spoke just as quickly through the mental channel.
[Sounds pretty terrible. Though I'm not surprised at all. Its target is Yotsuya Miko—the girl beside me. I have a blessing that can share the burden of mental contamination and cognitive distortion to protect her. We absolutely cannot let her get possessed. If she does, this thing will become extremely troublesome. By the way, what hairstyle did the last girl I sent away in the Teaching Building have again?]
Takumi masked the new ability granted by his watch as a "blessing," spoke seriously to Mai, and carefully observed her reaction.
[Twin tails. So you already know its target? It can even possess the living… no wonder it's so hard to deal with. So the reason you insisted on bringing her along is to prevent her from getting possessed somewhere out of our sight, right? By the way, what was the maximum rendezvous time I told you before we entered the Dormitory Building?]
Mai reacted immediately and at the same time observed Takumi himself.
[Fifteen minutes. You said if you couldn't make it to the first floor within fifteen minutes, we'd temporarily split up.]
Takumi answered without hesitation.
Good. No problem. That confirms the current conversation is strictly between the two of them—nothing has interfered midway. They could relax and continue.
Even though it didn't seem like Alice currently had the ability to tamper with their mental communication, both Takumi and Mai had clearly been traumatized by it. So even when exchanging information, they still needed to verify things with each other before continuing.
[Anyway, Alice can possess and control living people. It also seems capable of possessing corpses to act. But from what I've observed, ordinary people are actually difficult for it to possess. However, Yotsuya Miko has a very special visual ability. With that ability, she was even able to extract the school rules of Fujihana Middle School from decades ago directly from an illusion—and memorize every single line perfectly. That's probably why, when facing Alice, she can easily see things she shouldn't see, then lose her mental stability due to insufficient willpower, and end up being possessed.]
[…So that means she's basically a ticking time bomb? And the kind you can't discard—you have to keep her with you? Seriously, how did you even survive over in the Teaching Building while dragging this girl along? I don't even know whether to admire you or pity you.]
[No matter what, if there's only one Alice following us, I still have a chance to trap it. No… actually, that's hard to say. I don't know the rules governing that thing's behavior inside the Dormitory Building yet. Anyway, Kumagai-san, if you run into a situation you absolutely can't escape from, you could try swearing you'll kill it. Alice seems to hate righteous, justice-driven people. If you do that, maybe it won't treat you as a "friend."]
[I see. That's an idea. But we'll see. For now, I've temporarily fooled those two things. The Alices don't seem to share memories with each other—at least not across different areas. The one in the Dormitory Building doesn't seem to know how the one in the Teaching Building caught me, so I can still keep maneuvering for now. Be careful on your end. I'll regroup with you as soon as possible. By the way, have you taken off that hood?]
[Not yet. I have an Obsession Item that can remove the assimilation effect of this hood, so I can keep wearing it until I hit the limit.]
[That's good. Don't take it off under any circumstances. If you remove it, its authority won't work on the Aberrations here anymore. The active Aberrations inside this place seem able to recognize people who've taken off the hood—they'll ignore your authority and attack you directly.]
There's something like that too?
Takumi was a bit surprised, but he didn't pay it too much mind. After all, ever since waking up in the dormitory and putting on the Sheep-Head Hood, he had never taken it off. The game tips recorded by players about Fujihana Middle School clearly included the rule: "Once you put on the mask, you must not remove it lightly." With that alone, there was no way Takumi would risk taking it off to test things. Even when rescuing Miko, he had kept it on the entire time.
That said… during the second run, Miko was still a bit afraid of my hood. So why is she much calmer this time?
And those students—their reactions toward me are completely off. They don't look anything like how "students" should behave toward a "teacher." What's going on there?
While thinking, Takumi had already reached the second-floor corridor.
Looking ahead along the dirty, damp floor, in the dim corridor ahead, he could faintly hear the sound of rushing water.
The Aberration student being controlled by Mai had fallen behind Takumi and Miko. Since she couldn't control it for long, she placed it behind them as a mobile alert device.
Splash—!
As they continued forward, the sound of flushing gradually became clearer.
Takumi glanced at the doorplate beside him.
Room 212.
When coming down the stairs to the second floor, he had already seen a rough layout of the floor. It wasn't much different from the third floor—just one fewer room and an additional passage connecting to the Teaching Building. If they continued forward from their current position, they would reach the restroom entrance directly.
They had reached the point where a decision had to be made.
A tall figure—a member of the rescue team—appeared beside Takumi.
Taking a step forward, the rescue team member quickly walked to the restroom entrance and turned to look inside.
On each floor of the Dormitory Building, the washroom and restroom were in the same area. The wall had a wide opening with no door, allowing direct access. To the right of the entrance was the wash area, and to the left was the restroom. At this moment, the sound of flushing came from the left side, echoing loudly in the pitch darkness.
If we go straight through the corridor, the distance between us and the source of the flushing might shrink to within ten meters. That could trigger the rules here. I'm probably fine thanks to the hood, but Miko might receive a warning penalty.
Should I try breaking through the dorm walls, or just destroy the floor to move forward? But that would create a "garbage within ten meters" situation. Though that might not be a big issue—there's garbage everywhere along our path anyway. In the darkness, the Dormitory Building is basically an abandoned place. If that rule were strictly enforced, Miko would've already become a "Bad Student."
After hesitating for a moment, Takumi ultimately chose not to do that.
He couldn't explain it clearly, but when he accidentally entered that extremely strange "-1st floor" earlier while coming down, it left a heavy psychological pressure on him. He suspected that while the Dormitory Building didn't display the same overtly twisted structure as the Teaching Building, beneath its seemingly normal layout, it likely hid a distorted and chaotic layer. Any action that broke conventional rules might drag players into that twisted space.
In that case… better try following the rules first.
Anyway, if something goes wrong, it's Tanaka who dies.
[I am a rescue worker. Are there any survivors inside? Please respond!]
After Takumi made his decision, the rescue team member stood at the restroom entrance and shouted inside.
[…]
Faintly, there seemed to be some kind of sound from within the restroom.
It sounded like someone pacing back and forth in the darkness.
Or like someone replying to the rescue worker—yet the voice was so blurred and indistinct that it was almost completely drowned out by the sound of flushing.
[I am a rescue worker. Is the survivor inside male or female? I will proceed with the rescue based on that information!]
So Takumi had the rescue team member ask once more.
[■■...■...]
The sound inside the restroom seemed to grow a little louder, but with the flushing noise masking it, it was still impossible to make out clearly—there was no way to determine the other party's gender.
And according to the rules of Alice's puzzle game, the player could only enter after confirming the gender of the person inside the restroom. So without hesitation, Takumi immediately had the rescue team member shout inside for the third time.
[I am rescue personnel. Are you a gentleman or a lady?]
He had briefly considered having the rescue team member say something like "gg" or "mm" to lighten the mood, but after thinking about it, that didn't seem appropriate. Besides, this rescue team member would only obey commands related to rescue operations—Takumi had no way to make it do something like that.
[I am ■...■■... asking... ■ gentleman or...]
This time, through his shared senses with the rescue team member, Takumi finally managed to barely make out the voice coming from inside the restroom.
It sounded like a male voice.
Deep and resonant, full of breath—just like the voice of this rescue worker.
No… that voice in the darkness—
It was exactly the same as the rescue team member's voice. Completely identical!
At the moment Takumi realized this, a male voice devoid of any emotional fluctuation echoed from within the restroom.
[I am rescue personnel. Are you a gentleman or a lady?]
A perfect repetition of the third question, spoken in the exact same voice as the rescue worker. It was as if the words had been recorded and then played back verbatim.
In the next instant, Takumi lost his connection to that rescue team member.
The tall figure that had been standing at the restroom entrance vanished without a trace. It was as though some invisible force had silently dragged it inside, and the moment it entered the restroom, the rescue team member was instantly destroyed, returning to Takumi's watch to await recovery.
Splash—!
The sound of water continued to echo from within the restroom.
And as if someone had just witnessed something highly amusing, a faint, suppressed chuckle quietly rang out from behind Takumi and Miko.
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