The players had begun mobilizing.
One after another, the people standing at the very forefront of the player world—those already occupying positions of power and influence—began mobilizing at this very moment.
Some used powerful Obsession Items or blessings. They merely pushed open a random door or fiddled with some small object in their hands, and then vanished from where they stood, instantly arriving at their destination.
Of course, there were also players without those kinds of methods. They could only honestly buy plane tickets and set out the normal way. Those with spatial-type Obsession Items traveled empty-handed, while those without them had no choice but to head out carrying bags upon bags of supplies.
There was also a third type of player—those who lacked special means and, for various reasons, either couldn't use public transportation or didn't have time for it.
So their methods were far more primitive.
They walked there.
They ran there.
They swam there.
For ordinary people outside the players' world, there was naturally no way for them to know what exactly had happened. At most, someone might upload some bizarre video of a swimmer crossing an entire ocean or something equally absurd.
But for players all across the world—whether they were top-tier figures who had already reached the front lines, or merely those lingering in the middle and lower ranks—everyone could feel that some kind of invisible storm was beginning to gather.
"Did you hear? The entire Slacker Crew moved out. Someone went to check their camp, and there seriously wasn't a single person left behind."
"Doesn't that mean we could try sneaking in and stealing something? Maybe they left some treasure behind or—"
"Are you an idiot? Stealing from Red Moon-level players? Forget whether you could even pull it off—do you seriously think those superhumans wouldn't be able to find you afterward?"
"I was just joking, alright…"
Inside a small private forum operated by players, people chatted idly among themselves.
"The two Red Moon-level player groups in the northern region have both mobilized. Looks like they only left a few low-level players guarding their bases."
"I seriously can't understand it. What exactly happened to make all of them move at once…?"
"Apparently Miss Kumagai Mai was the one who issued the summons. Something major must have happened. Most likely some kind of anomaly inside a Red Moon-level Instance."
"Let's just hope it's something good. Please don't let this turn into a disaster."
Inside a snowy little town bar, several players discussed things in hushed voices.
"The upper ranks of the Texas-based player organization Freedom Covenant have all mobilized. The last time the entire group moved out was for the Campus Horror Story Instance, right? So what's it this time? Don't tell me it's that same Instance again?"
"Hard to say. According to internal sources, the Red Moon-level player Kumagai Mai—who was originally believed to have died inside the Instance—has now been confirmed alive, and she's issued a public summons. But according to our records, she should've died in that Instance three months ago. How could she possibly still be alive now?"
"Looks like something huge really is happening… Hmph. Keep tracking their movements carefully. We need to find out exactly what's going on."
Inside a skyscraper somewhere, groups of sharply dressed people exchanged information amid confusion and speculation.
And in the shadows, others silently watched it all unfold.
Some quietly prayed for things to get better.
Some eagerly hoped things would spiral into disaster just for the entertainment value.
Some were indifferent.
Some simply waited to watch the show.
And some people who had lost something were trying to figure out what exactly had happened to them.
No matter what, this incident had already attracted enormous attention.
As for the true culprit behind all this…
No, more accurately, the one who started it all—
At the moment, he was stuck in a completely idle state, having absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do.
The Shinomiya family had already fully mobilized, selecting an appropriate location to construct a stage that perfectly recreated the courthouse inside the Fujihana Middle School Instance. As for those case records long buried by history and forgotten by everyone, they too were now being dug back up one by one.
Most of the gathered players first went to greet Kogawa Shu, after which they immediately began discussing what exactly needed to be done.
Naturally, communication and coordination on this front had to be left to someone more professional like Kumagai Mai.
As a result, Takumi himself, Miko, and even "Gotō No. 1," who had arrived as external support, had all entered a completely useless idle state for the time being.
It was honestly a pretty strange feeling.
Just moments ago, he had still been desperately struggling for survival in a life-or-death situation.
And now, all of a sudden, he had become some completely free loafer who didn't need to do anything except sit around and wait for food and drinks.
Well… actually, there weren't any food or drinks.
Now that he thought about it, he really hadn't eaten anything for quite a while. He was honestly getting a little hungry.
But inside an Instance, eating random food really didn't feel safe.
After all, back in the psychiatric hospital, he'd blacked out for a short while after eating something there…
[Ah, don't you think that statement was a little too much of a humblebrag, Sensei? If ordinary people ate that stuff, then even if they didn't lose themselves on the spot, the subsequent brainwashing would succeed almost instantly. But after eating it, all you felt was a bit dizzy and uncomfortable. Is there actually anything in this world capable of breaking your will?]
A teasing voice sounded beside his ear.
Takumi's brows immediately furrowed.
That ghostly thing wandering around at his side was genuinely infuriating, and the worst part was that he had absolutely no way to get rid of it.
He had already tried before to use his own imagination against Alice, but it had accomplished absolutely nothing. The root of this thing seemed tied directly to his own subconscious. As a result, no matter what thoughts his conscious mind produced, none of them could affect this Alice at all.
Still, by now, he had more or less gotten used to it.
To put it bluntly, it was basically just some invisible thing standing beside him constantly yapping where nobody else could see it.
At worst, he could just think of her as the Joker from Arkham and ignore her completely.
[Can Sensei really ignore Alice? Deep down, Sensei's worried, aren't you? You can't actually calm down at all, right? Because even if, in the end, you can rely on the Black Watch's power to defeat Alice, the truth is that aside from gaining an advantage at the cost of dying at the end of every loop, Sensei has basically lost almost every direct confrontation against Alice, hasn't he? After failing so many times, can Sensei really ignore the Alice standing here now? Can you really keep waiting while telling yourself, She's just some harmless annoying thing that won't stop talking?]
The next moment, that face—already so beautiful it had surpassed the limits of what a human being should possess—moved so close that it was nearly pressed directly against Takumi's own.
[Playing the judge. Playing the prosecutors. Playing the audience. Reenacting everything that happened in the past in a completely inverted way. Can that really solve the problem? Sensei actually knows the answer, doesn't he? There are still countless mysteries hidden inside this Instance. Where did Hirano-kun's real teacher go? Will "Takamagahara" use some method to stop the ritual performance you're planning? And if they really do have such methods, how are you supposed to deal with them? And even if this Instance is truly destroyed, will Alice actually disappear from before Sensei's eyes?]
[Sensei doesn't have answers to any of those questions, do you? Deep down, Sensei knows very well that everything seen and heard inside Fujihana Middle School is only the tip of the iceberg. Little by little, Sensei is uncovering buried history, uncovering dark truths no one else even knows anymore… and at the same time, you're sinking deeper and deeper into it all, aren't you?]
[Forced onward by the Black Watch's power, unable to escape any of this—can Sensei really feel at ease now? Leaving everything else aside, Sensei's greatest advantage has always been that after a rewind, nobody remembers what happened, letting you slowly gain the upper hand through repeated retries, right? But now Sensei has already seen Alice. You've already encountered something capable of learning the truth about your rewinds through mental curses. So from now on, as the Black Watch keeps forcing Sensei to challenge increasingly difficult Instances, can you really guarantee you'll never encounter something capable of countering your abilities? Just that mysterious KP alone is already enough to worry Sensei, isn't it?]
As Alice spoke, the smile at the corner of her mouth gradually became more and more unrestrained.
Takumi took a deep breath, but his fists still clenched involuntarily.
This aberration was like some inner demon, brazenly dragging out every fear and concern buried deep inside him and voicing them aloud to pile more pressure onto him. It irritated him so much he wanted to split the thing in half on the spot.
The problem was that he couldn't touch it at all.
And so the frustration just kept piling up inside him.
"Takumi-san?"
At that moment, however, Takumi heard a girl's voice call out from beside him.
Turning his head, he saw Miko cautiously approaching him.
"Are you bored too? Want to sit with me for a while?"
Takumi asked casually.
"Mm… is that okay? I won't disturb you if I sit here, right?"
Miko clearly hadn't expected Takumi to invite her over himself. She hesitated slightly, only hurriedly sitting down after seeing him nod.
Subconsciously, she first sat a little farther away in a somewhat stiff and restrained manner, then awkwardly realized it and scooted closer. After that, she hesitated again and adjusted her position a few more times.
In the end, the girl settled down about half a meter away from Takumi, quietly sitting together with him on the courthouse steps.
Among the ruined buildings outside the hospital, there were actually large numbers of aberrations wandering around. However, these things displayed absolutely no inclination to attack anyone. They merely remained silent, almost withdrawn into themselves.
As long as Takumi's group didn't actively provoke them, the aberrations wouldn't reveal their vicious side at all. Honestly, inside a Red Moon-level Instance, creatures this harmless were practically adorable.
But precisely because of that, Takumi and Miko were able to get some rest. At the very least, they didn't have to deal with endless dangers while waiting for the scenario script and other preliminary preparations to be completed.
After enduring such a long and grueling battle, being able to rest peacefully for this long honestly felt pretty wonderful.
It would've been even better if that endlessly yapping Alice wasn't hanging around beside him.
Thinking that, Takumi glanced over at Miko. Seeing the faint confusion and gloom lingering on her face, he immediately understood roughly what she was thinking about.
"There's no need to worry too much. An Instance like this one is basically a top-level difficulty Instance that players almost never encounter. Even after entering the Instance world later on, you won't run into situations this terrifying anymore. Besides, don't forget my ability. As long as I'm here, there'll never be a true moment of failure."
Takumi spoke calmly to Miko.
As for what happened to ordinary people who accidentally entered an Instance and survived, Mai had already obtained an answer to that question from other Red Moon-level players.
One Red Moon-level player who had been deeply researching Instances once extracted an ordinary person's soul from their body, sealed it away, and brought it into a Red Moon-level Instance. He then successfully brought that person out alive.
(Before this successful attempt, the player had failed three times.)
As a result, once the ordinary person left the Instance, they immediately obtained player status—and started directly as a Red Moon-level player. In other words, unless they used a ticket to enter a random Instance, they would automatically enter Red Moon-level Instances by default.
Although Campus Horror Story was, in actual difficulty, no different from a Red Moon-level Instance, it had ultimately still been classified by the Sacrifice Game as a "Dark Night-level" Instance.
Therefore, after Miko left this Instance alive, she would skip the two Dusk-level evaluation games entirely and directly obtain qualification as a Dark Night-level player, being judged as a veteran player who had already cleared one Dark Night-level game.
It could only be said that this damned game truly had a remarkable talent for not treating people like human beings.
Though for Takumi, in a certain sense, this could actually be considered good news.
Because that meant Miko was now guaranteed to join his player team.
But for Miko herself, what awaited her after escaping from hell was an endless series of monthly descents into countless new hells with no visible end in sight.
That blow was simply too heavy.
What's more, even if she managed to leave this Instance alive, she probably wouldn't be able to continue attending her original school anymore.
After all, nearly her entire class had been wiped out. Other than her extremely well-endowed best friend, almost everyone else was dead.
Honestly, Takumi didn't even know how to comment on something like that.
But really, there was nothing he could've done about it.
Even if he were forced to retry everything from the very beginning right now, he still had absolutely no confidence he could save Miko's classmates.
Those were twenty-three completely ordinary girls with no supernatural powers whatsoever.
And even if he now knew that "asking the core obsession for help" could deal with those aberrations, the problem was that they specifically needed to seek help from the core obsession on the underground hospital stage. Reaching that stage while also ensuring those schoolgirls stayed alive was far from easy.
After all, during the fourth loop, those girls had died not long after the beginning.
If it had been Miko or Mai who died, Takumi would've rolled back without hesitation.
But those girls…
Even though girls like Yoshino Rika and Ogawa Kyoko had followed him and fought alongside him before, risking his life to save them—while still likely failing anyway, perhaps even after multiple rollbacks—wasn't a decision Takumi could make.
Honestly, he simply couldn't do it.
Just like back at the Shirakawa Apartments, although Green had contributed to the team, when Green was ultimately killed, Takumi had never even seriously considered whether he should roll back to save him.
His kindness, in the end, could never reach the level of great compassion possessed by people like Kyosei.
Maybe…
If the Black Watch's rewinds were truly unlimited, Takumi might've tried.
But the number of rewinds was limited.
And as for what would be waiting for him once those rewind chances were exhausted…
Takumi simply didn't have the courage to find out.
[Isn't that just hypocrisy? Sensei clearly acted like some righteous hero in front of Alice who hated evil with a passion, but in reality, you can't actually do it at all. You even made up an unrealistic hypothetical situation just to comfort yourself. Sensei really is adorable. From the very beginning, you never intended to risk yourself for ordinary people who weren't all that useful, did you?]
Hypocrisy?
Maybe it was.
I really can't do it.
But that doesn't conflict with wanting to kill Alice at all.
It's true that I'm not kind enough. But when facing something as vile as you, I won't hesitate in the slightest to act.
I know very clearly the kind of things that absolutely cannot be allowed to exist.
The kinds of things that only bring darkness into this world.
Things exactly like you.
[Hehe… is that so…]
Alice's figure flickered into existence and then vanished once again.
Clearly, even this fake Alice still hated people who punished evil just as much as the real Alice did.
So this time, after Takumi firmly resolved in his heart to kill her and cash in her "loot drop," Alice herself became disgusted enough to temporarily disappear and stop talking to him.
"Takumi-san really is amazing."
While Takumi and Alice were busy mutually disgusting each other on one side, Miko let out a quiet sigh before slowly speaking up on the other.
"Even after suffering through something like that, you were able to pull yourself together immediately after restarting. If it were me… I know for certain I could never do that. It was just too painful. Even something like earlier, when Takumi-san used that machine on me… even now, just remembering how it felt back then still makes me feel that pain all over again."
As she spoke, Miko's shoulders trembled involuntarily, and her voice began to shake slightly as well.
"I don't want to get used to things like this either… But since I've ended up with this ability, then at the very least, I have to do everything I can within my power. Even so… there are still many things that can't truly end perfectly." Takumi smiled at Miko as he spoke in an unconcerned tone.
"Mhm. Thank you, Takumi-san. Without you, I don't think I could possibly have made it out of here alive."
Miko smiled as well before thanking him with great sincerity.
"Without you, I wouldn't have been able to make it this far either. So there's no need to thank me. We only found a path to survival because we worked together. Besides… well, how should I put it… hearing you constantly call me 'Takumi-san' feels kind of strange. I'm only around twenty years old myself. I'm not that much older than you."
Having finally found a suitable opportunity, Takumi at last voiced his complaint about how Miko addressed him.
"Eh? Really? Then… Ta— mm… Takumi… uh…"
Caught completely off guard by the topic, Miko froze for a moment. After thinking for quite a while and still failing to come up with a suitable form of address, she simply asked directly: "Then… how would you like me to call you?"
"Well…"
Takumi fell into deep thought.
Should I just let her call me Takumi like Maki and Chika do?
No, no, no—that's the kind of thing only people who are really close use. That feels kind of inappropriate.
Come to think of it, I played Blue Archive a few times recently. Should I have her call me "Sensei"?
No, absolutely not. That sounds way too much like a flirting thing. Besides, I'm not actually a teacher at all. And more importantly, that would overlap with how Alice calls me. Right now, I seriously don't want to hear anyone calling me "Sensei."
"Come to think of it… would I count as your senior when it comes to surviving these horror games?"
After thinking for a while, Takumi turned toward Miko and asked.
"That's true. And if we end up going through other Instances and other horror games later on, I'd definitely join your team too. There's no way I'd go alone or join some stranger's group. Thinking about it that way… you really are my senior."
As Miko thought it over, she nodded along while speaking, a faint little curve rising at the corner of her lips.
She quietly took a small breath.
Then she raised her head, her golden eyes meeting Takumi's gaze directly.
Within those jewel-like golden pupils, Takumi could see traces of hesitation… along with the courage the girl slowly gathered afterward.
Her soft pink lips trembled slightly.
Slowly, she spoke a single word.
The hesitant girl's fair cheeks gradually flushed with embarrassed redness on both sides.
As for Takumi himself, that gentle call from her had already drifted into his ears, sinking deeply into the folds of his memory.
"Senpai~"
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