"Did Miss Makima know we were missing?"
"Miss Makima gave the order herself, so she definitely knows," Tsurugi answered Himeno's question.
"To be honest, Tsurugi, you came at the perfect time. We just killed the Eternity Devil and escaped." Himeno chuckled, as if she had a ton of stories pent up inside her that she was dying to share.
"The Eternity Devil!!" Tenten, the girl with twin buns, exclaimed. "No wonder you guys were missing for four days. But once someone is trapped in the Eternity Devil's domain, almost no one makes it out alive. How did you guys escape?"
"We have him on our team, so we don't have to fear any devil."
Himeno affectionately wrapped her arms around Arata's arm, her face radiating confidence. The two looked as intimate as a couple.
Seeing that the man standing before them could make Himeno so proud, the entire Special Division 3 squad focused their gazes on this stranger, Arata.
"What devil did you contract?" Tsurugi asked.
"Before you ask me that, you should introduce yourselves first," Arata said leisurely.
He didn't actually need to ask, because Himeno knew the details of everyone in Special Division 3.
But out of courtesy, Tsurugi spoke up first. "I'm Tsurugi. I contracted the Sword Devil."
"Her name is Tenten. She contracted the Explosion Devil."
"Hello," Tenten nodded politely.
Denji's eyes were instantly drawn to Tenten. His gaze involuntarily landed on her most prominent feature.
He then turned to look at Himeno, comparing the two.
Himeno was a mature woman, so being well-endowed made perfect sense.
But Tenten looked cute and was likely under twenty years old. To rival Himeno at such a young age meant she had a limitless future ahead of her.
As for Kobeni, who was around the same age, she didn't pique Denji's interest in the slightest.
No one noticed Denji's stares. Tsurugi continued introducing his team.
"Peter. He used to be the Spider Devil, but now he's a special member of our Special Division 3."
"Hello. Although I am a Fiend, I'm actually quite friendly."
"Peter? That name sounds familiar. You wouldn't happen to know a guy named Parker, would you?"
"No," Peter shook his head.
"What about you?" Tsurugi asked, his curiosity about Arata intensely piqued.
"The Dream Devil. If any of you have trouble sleeping, I can help."
"The Dream Devil?" Tenten placed a finger on her lip and looked up thoughtfully. "Actually, I've been having insomnia lately. Can you help me cure it?" She immediately showed interest.
"No problem. If you can't sleep tonight, give me a call. I'm a very responsible man."
"Since there's nothing else going on, let's head down," Aki Hayakawa said, not wanting to listen to their idle chatter any longer.
"Wait. Have you seen any of the other people in the hotel?" Tsurugi suddenly asked. "We didn't just come up here to find you guys. We're also supposed to rescue the other survivors. There are about twenty of them."
"We didn't see anyone. After we came in, we were trapped on the 8th floor the whole time. We only saw things left behind by the guests, but no actual people."
"They might have been eaten by the Eternity Devil. I saw a lot of human limbs and heads on the Eternity Devil's body," Denji chimed in, making sure to report his findings in hopes of catching Tenten's attention. When Tenten looked over, Denji immediately locked eyes with her.
"Maybe. Peter, scout the area," Tsurugi turned to Peter.
Peter crouched down and placed his palms flat against the floor. His six eyes closed simultaneously.
"What is he doing?" Arata asked.
"Peter has spider sense. He can sense anything within a certain radius. As long as he's here, any devil or human nearby has nowhere to hide."
As they were talking, Peter's six closed eyes snapped open. His expression indicated he had found something highly abnormal.
"I found something on the 7th floor, Room 705..."
"What did you find?"
"Twenty corpses! And there are three extremely dangerous objects inside the room," Peter slowly stood up.
"Twenty people all dead in one room?"
"Let's go up and check it out."
Everyone agreed and headed toward Room 705 together.
Before opening the door, Tsurugi asked, "Are there any devils inside?"
"No, but I can feel three very terrifying things." Peter shivered.
Besides sensing living creatures within a certain radius, Peter's spider sense could also perceive the danger level of a person or object.
The more dangerous the object, the stronger the spider sense reacted. The fact that Peter shivered was enough to prove just how high the danger level of the objects inside was.
The group positioned themselves on either side of the door. Tsurugi slowly placed his hand on the handle, preparing to push it open and rush in.
But suddenly, a foot violently kicked the door wide open.
"Stop dawdling. The great me doesn't have time to wait for you."
Saying that, Power was the first to charge in.
The scene before them didn't scare Power.
But the group behind her stood completely frozen.
Inside the room, twenty people stood in place, entirely reduced to bare skeletons.
Right in the center of the room sat three bright red apples.
"This again!!" Aki Hayakawa was shocked.
He thought the apple cases were over. But he never expected it to reappear, and so close at that.
The corpses were in Room 705.
Meanwhile, they had been trapped hiding in Room 805.
Twenty corpses had been separated from them by nothing but a single layer of concrete.
"Master, it's that devil that eats the body but leaves the head again."
"I can see that. But this time, they aren't hung upside down from the ceiling. They're just standing here. And there are more apples on the floor."
"It's probably because the ceilings in hotel rooms aren't good for hanging bodies, so they're all standing instead," Himeno analyzed. "But how can these skeletons stand on the ground without any support?"
Himeno gently poked one of the skeletons.
The skeleton's center of gravity gave way, and it tilted backward.
The next second, it crashed into another skeleton.
This triggered a chain reaction among the remaining skeletons, and like dominos, they all collapsed to the floor in an instant.
Clatter clatter clatter!!
"I... I didn't mean to do that." Himeno rubbed the back of her head, looking incredibly apologetic.
"It's fine. Someone will come collect the bodies later anyway."
"A lot of people died this time, and there are more apples left behind than before," Aki Hayakawa noted, ignoring Himeno's blunder.
The group went back and forth, laying out all their theories and analyses.
However, Power's expression was clearly somewhat strange.
Ever since she walked in, she had been staring blankly at the apples on the floor.
"Power, what's wrong with you?" Denji waved his hand in front of her face.
"I... I want the apples."
With a sudden burst of speed.
Power, who had been completely still, lunged forward and reached for the apples.
But her body was suddenly bound from behind by spider webs. "Don't go near them! I can feel that those apples are very dangerous."
"What could be dangerous about an apple? Untie the great me right now!"
"If we keep collecting these apples, maybe that devil will show itself on its own."
Arata stepped forward and picked up the three apples from the floor.
"Don't touch the great me's apples! I found them first!"
"Calm down, Power. If it comes down to it, we'll just have Aki buy you some apples when we get back," Himeno urged.
"Other apples don't taste good! I only want to eat the three in Arata's hands."
"Power, if you keep being unreasonable, I'm telling Miss Makima."
Himeno tried to use Makima to suppress Power.
But this time, Power didn't show the slightest hint of fear.
Instead, she looked completely resolute, as if she wouldn't rest until she ate those apples.
"Do whatever you want. No one can stop the great me from eating those apples."
Power bit her lip, and a blood blade dropped out.
The blood blade fell, slicing perfectly through the spider webs binding her.
Power caught the blade and charged straight at Arata.
Clang!!
The blood blade clashed against Arata's bladed claws.
"Power, what are you doing!!" The group behind them was shocked. Just moments ago they were comrades sharing life and death, and now they were crossing blades.
"Give the great me the apples, or I'll kill you!" Power screamed, relentlessly attacking Arata with her blood blade.
Holding the three apples in one arm, Arata parried her attacks with his other hand.
"Power, if you don't stop, don't blame me for fighting back."
"If you don't give the great me the apples, I won't stop either."
Understanding Power's intentions, Arata spun and delivered a roundhouse kick, sending Power flying back toward the doorway.
Peter's spider webs quickly followed, binding Power completely.
"What's wrong with Power?" Kobeni, standing by the door, hurriedly backed away several steps.
From the very beginning, she had been hiding outside the door, watching everything unfold inside. Even though she had grown a bit braver, the gruesome scene inside kept her from stepping a single foot into the room.
"I don't know, it's like she's possessed." Even Arai, a grown man, chose to stand behind Kobeni.
"Arata, what happened to Power?" Himeno asked Arata. Whenever there was a problem she didn't understand, Arata was the first person she thought of.
Arata already had his own answer. "Power ate one of these apples before. After eating it, her appetite increased massively. Now that she's seeing these apples again, she's suddenly craving them desperately. So, anyone who eats these apples will likely experience a huge surge in appetite. And the more they eat, the hungrier they get, and the more dependent on the apples they become."
"Listening to you explain it, it sounds a lot like the banned narcotics from decades ago. Once someone took even a little bit, they'd completely lose themselves, even destroying their own families just to get more. Before the government managed to control it, a devil called the Poppy Devil was born."