"Something's off about that room."
Natsuki and Kaguya exchanged glances, understanding each other perfectly.
Everyone else was staying in couple's suites, but this one was in a single room all alone. What was the deal with this single dog that had snuck in?
It clearly spelled trouble.
"Let's continue." Kaguya extended a slender finger and wrote characters in the air to communicate. "We should try to find the specific medical record card."
Natsuki nodded slightly. "Understood."
"..."
Since they didn't know the specific patient information for that last room, Natsuki and Kaguya had to use the most tedious method—searching through records one by one, using process of elimination to rule out the known roommates.
Moments later.
"Found it."
Natsuki's eyes lit up slightly as he pulled a paper medical record card from the files.
"This is it." He signaled to Kaguya with his eyes. "Let's retreat."
The two of them took the medical card and quietly left the station.
The nurse who wanted to quit her job was still magnificently slacking off.
"You're finally back." Chika let out a breath of relief. "Wouldn't it have been easier to just capture the nurse?"
Capturing her wouldn't be a problem—call her Zhang San, and whether she was Zhang San or not, she'd become Zhang San.
The issue was that while other spirits couldn't leave their rooms, the nurse had no such restriction. If she chased them directly into a ward from the corridor, who knew what might happen.
"Fujiwara-san, please get stronger soon." Natsuki's tone was hopeful. "Once you've changed everyone in the world's name to Zhang San, our team will be invincible."
"Impossible—give it up!" Chika couldn't help but exclaim. "That's obviously never going to happen!"
"If a person has no dreams, how are they different from a salted fish?"
"That's not a dream, it's a delusion."
"The corridor is about to go dark again." Kaguya, arms crossed beneath her chest, interrupted the two of them. "Let's return to the ward first."
"..."
Feeling somewhat guilty about how harshly they'd exploited the cow earlier, Natsuki led the girls back to his own ward instead.
At some point, Miss Sadako had crawled out again. She stood alone in the corner of the room, head hanging low, in complete silence. The sight was quite terrifying.
The girls, including Kaguya, all stopped in their tracks.
Only Natsuki remained completely unfazed. He even had the leisure to wave in greeting.
"Miss Sadako, we're back."
"..."
Upon seeing Natsuki—the "root of all evil"—Miss Sadako's black hair trembled slightly. Without a word, she turned and tried to crawl back into the television.
The result was as expected. Due to her excessively large assets, she got stuck in the TV again. It was quite anxiety-inducing to watch.
"Natsuki, aren't you ever scared?" Chika asked curiously.
Natsuki answered honestly. "Of course I'm scared."
"Liar. You were clearly smiling just now."
That was because none of them had seen Miss Sadako's true face. Next time he'd part her hair down the middle and show them—then they wouldn't be scared anymore.
A delicate, submissive married-woman face.
With a tear-mole at the corner of her eye.
Aside from her excessively pale skin, she perfectly matched the ideal married-woman standard in every other way.
As long as she was cute, even a vengeful spirit was acceptable. The folk hero Xu Xuan and the undead knight Ning Caichen were both shining examples.
Unfortunately, Miss Sadako was still quite shy. She crawled back into the television and retreated to her well.
The group sat down on the hospital beds.
Natsuki took out the medical record card and passed it around for the girls to examine.
"Sakurai..." Chika Fujiwara's eyes widened. "I can make out that name, but what's the rest of this stuff?"
A very ordinary name.
Precisely because it was ordinary, it seemed out of place in this world of vengeful spirits.
"It's the devil's whisper." The ahoge atop Rikka Takanashi's head trembled as she pressed her right hand against her eyepatch. "When my dad was hospitalized before, the doctor wrote things on his medical card that looked exactly like this. I couldn't read a single character."
The writing on doctors' medical cards was all in alien script. Unless you were in the profession, outsiders genuinely couldn't decipher it.
"Kaguya-chan, can you read it?"
Chika turned her head toward the team's intellectual powerhouse—the super-genius girl.
"..."
Kaguya Shinomiya remained silent.
Sorry.
Completely illegible.
Even though she knew eight languages and could write in ten different scripts, she still couldn't read what was written on the medical card.
"It's normal for non-professionals not to understand," Natsuki said. "Once the corridor lights up again, we'll look for other players and see if anyone can decipher the text on this card."
"Um..." Asuka Kujo raised her right hand and spoke quietly. "I can read some of it."
Everyone turned to look at her.
"Ahem, I'm not making this up." Asuka hurried to explain. "My dad runs a small clinic. I've seen his medical cards before—the handwriting is pretty much like this, so I can read some of it."
"Why do doctors always write so messily?" Chika was puzzled.
"Well, I asked my dad about that when I was little," Asuka said quietly. "He said medical cards are actually written for doctors and nurses to read. Most patients can't even understand the instructions on medication labels."
"We're counting on you." Kaguya handed over the medical card.
Asuka quickly accepted it. "I can only understand a little. There are parts I can't make out either."
"No need to be nervous. This is already a pleasant surprise," Natsuki said. "Just tell us what you can understand."
"I'll try my best."
Asuka took a deep breath and began translating the alien script on the medical card.
A girl of unknown background named Sakurai suffered from some kind of severe congenital disease that apparently affected her mobility. She could only stay in the hospital twenty-four hours a day for conservative treatment, yet her condition continued to slowly deteriorate...
"I don't recognize the specific name of the disease," Asuka said quietly. "There are also medication records after this, but I can't read those either."
"That's enough." Kaguya lightly pressed her fingertips to her brow and made a decision. "We can fill in the rest ourselves."
Chika suddenly spoke up.
"Come to think of it, isn't the darkness lasting longer and longer?"
"Indeed it is." Natsuki nodded slightly. "I just don't know what that signifies."
"..."
Light returned once more.
Natsuki and the girls left the room and entered the corridor, heading straight for the ward where the single girl was located.
"No good, it won't open." Natsuki tried pushing the door but soon shook his head. "It's locked."
"Where could the key be..." Chika propped her chin with her right hand, then suddenly her eyes lit up. "I've got it! Could it be the fragment we got from the cow lady?"
"It's a common trope in games—fragments eventually combine to form a key."
"Worth a try." Natsuki nodded in agreement. "Taking action is better than sitting around doing nothing."
"You're up, Natsuki." Chika pointed at him, her voice bright. "Let's start conquering Ward 401."
Natsuki thought back briefly and quickly recalled the vengeful spirit in Ward 401.
The succubus.
Pushing open the door with curiosity, Natsuki looked up to see a teary-eyed player girl cowering in a corner. Across from her stood a dark-skinned succubus with wings and a tail.
"It's actually a man?!"
Upon seeing Natsuki, the dark-skinned succubus's eyes immediately lit up.
"Hurry up and replenish my mana!"