Chapter 112: Sadako? Midnight Terror?
"What in the world does this mean?" Yellow Hair's eyes widened as he stared at the wall. "The hint is this short this time? Damn riddler."
Yotsuya Miko stepped closer, her expression analytical. "'Survive'is easy enough to understand; it's a survival mission. But'Stop Her'… that suggests there's a key female character in this instance, and our objective is to prevent her from doing something."
"Then what about 'Untrustworthy'?" Yellow Hair pressed.
Miko hesitated for a moment, her brow furrowed in thought. "It could mean the NPCs can't be trusted, or perhaps…" She paused, her voice dropping slightly. "…the blood words themselves?"
The moment she voiced the possibility, the atmosphere in the cramped cabin grew stiff. If even the game's initial warnings couldn't be trusted, they were flying completely blind.
Bodyguard Number Six, standing at attention beside Tao Shou, turned his gaze to Haruto. "What do you think?"
Haruto merely glanced at the crimson script before spreading his hands, a gesture that clearly broadcasted his intention to do nothing but slack off.
Before he could offer a lazy excuse, Tao Shou spoke up, his tone filled with a deep, if misplaced, understanding. "Don't bother the big shot. He doesn't want us to just coast through on his power. He wants us to gain some real experience and will only step in when there's truly no other way."
As he finished, Number Six and the others in his group cast looks of sincere gratitude toward Haruto.
Haruto, for his part, remained perfectly still, offering no explanation. He was content to let their misunderstanding build, effortlessly maintaining his mystique as a reclusive expert.
A muscle in Yotsuya Miko's eyelid twitched almost imperceptibly. If this had been one of their first two instances together, she might have believed that noble sentiment. Now, however, she was fairly certain it was just Haruto being Haruto—he simply found the whole thing too troublesome to bother with.
"I think there might be a sequence to it," Miko mused aloud, redirecting the conversation. "First, we survive. Then, we find and stop this 'her'. As for 'Untrustworthy'…"
The perpetually silent Kaguya suddenly spoke, a faint, knowing smile playing on her lips. "Besides NPCs or the blood words, there's another possibility: us."
Her statement hung in the air, stunning everyone into silence.
Kaguya didn't elaborate, but she didn't need to. The implication was clear—the players themselves might not be trustworthy. In the best-case scenario, it hinted at simple backstabbing and intrigue. In the worst-case scenario, it meant one of them might have already been replaced by a ghost or some other entity.
No one dared to voice that terrifying thought. The game had only just begun; it was enough to hold that suspicion in their hearts. There was no need to drag it into the open and shatter their fragile alliance.
At that moment, Kaguya pointed back to the wall. "Haven't any of you noticed? The positioning of the words is quite interesting."
Everyone leaned in for a closer look. She was right. 'Survive'was written highest on the wall.'Stop Her'was slightly lower, and'Untrustworthy' was scrawled so low it was almost touching the floorboards.
"What's that supposed to prove?" Yellow Hair asked, thoroughly confused.
It was Number Six who answered, his voice a low rumble. "It means the words might have been written by different people, or by the same person in different states."
"Doesn't that just mean a ghost could have added something to the wall?" Tao Shou declared. "Simple. We'll know if we try to wipe it." He crouched down and began scrubbing at the bloody letters with his sleeve.
The others watched with a flicker of hope. It was common knowledge that the blood-word clues provided by the game were immutable, a single, unalterable source of guidance for the players.
Their hopes, however, were quickly dashed.
No matter how hard Tao Shou wiped, even scraping away a layer of plaster from the wooden wall, the three lines of text remained as vivid as before, completely undamaged.
Having exhausted their analysis, the group finally decided to search the cabin's interior. The layout was spartan: a single wooden table, a few mismatched chairs, a cold fireplace, and some generic landscape paintings hanging on the walls. It looked painfully ordinary.
The house wasn't large, and with so many people, a quick sweep was all it took to cover every corner.
"It seems… there's nothing special here?" Yellow Hair scratched his head in puzzlement.
A young man in a brown jacket gave up his search, slumping onto a dusty sofa with a relieved sigh. "Maybe we just got lucky and drew a bonus stage."
No one else shared his optimism. Instead, their gazes instinctively fell upon Haruto and Kaguya once more.
Kaguya simply spread her hands. "You can keep flipping things over if you like. All I can tell you is that there is definitely a secret passage here, and it leads underground."
Haruto gave a slight nod in agreement.
Hearing this, Number Six's brow furrowed in concentration. He walked over to a heavy wooden cabinet, dug his heels in, and with a grunt of exertion, put his back into moving it. The old wood groaned in protest as he slid the heavy piece of furniture aside.
Beneath it, set into the floorboards, was a square wooden trapdoor.
"There's a secret door here!"
He crouched, hooked his fingers under the edge, and pulled. The board lifted away, revealing a set of crude stairs descending into darkness.
"A basement!" Tao Shou exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. "Number Six, you've done a great job!"
One by one, the group descended the steps. The air grew cold and musty.
The basement was small and cramped, containing only an old-fashioned television set with a few unlabeled videotapes stacked neatly beside it. But what drew everyone's eye was the object next to the TV: a bright red, old-fashioned rotary phone.
Just as they took in the scene, the phone began to ring.
Ring… Ring… Ring…
The piercing, shrill sound exploded in the silent basement, making everyone jump.
The youth in the brown jacket, who happened to be closest, subconsciously reached out to answer it.
"Don't touch it!" Number Six shouted, but it was too late.
In that critical instant, the nearby Yellow Hair lashed out with a powerful kick, sending the youth sprawling to the dusty floor with a hard thud.
"Don't you dare touch things randomly!" Yellow Hair roared, his face a mask of fury. "This thing is obviously a trap! Any normal person would know not to touch it, right?"
Seeing the crisis averted, the others let out a collective sigh of relief. They hadn't expected the loud-mouthed Yellow Hair to be so reliable when it counted.
Then, Yellow Hair pointed an indignant finger at the dazed youth on the ground and turned to Haruto. "Big shot, I suspect this guy is the traitor! The 'Untrustworthy' in the blood words has to be him! He almost got me killed right here!"
The youth in the brown jacket was about to curse back, but when he saw the suspicious gazes of the others land on him, he immediately panicked, waving his hands frantically. "I'm not a traitor! I just… I just thought we should be brave and explore the instance, not be so cowardly…"
Hearing this, Haruto's eyes filled with an expression of utter speechlessness. Being brave was one thing, but this was just a mindless rush toward death. That phone was practically screaming 'I am a problem'.
Yotsuya Miko stared at the phone, the golden light in her eyes flickering. She leaned closer to Haruto and murmured, "...That is indeed a ghost."
Despite having already guessed, the confirmation sent a fresh chill through the group.
"The phone is really a ghost?" Yellow Hair shrank back, his earlier bravado vanishing.
"Big shot, what do we do now?" Tao Shou asked, looking to Haruto.
All eyes turned to him, waiting for his decision.
Haruto and Kaguya exchanged a brief look. A hint of hesitation flashed in Kaguya's eyes, and just as she seemed about to step forward, Haruto beat her to it. He casually walked over and picked up the receiver.
"Hello? Moshi moshi~"
His movements were so swift and nonchalant that the group had no time to react. What happened to acting with caution? Was he really this decisive? This brave?
There was no human voice on the other end of the line, only the harsh, crackling sizzle of static.
The next moment, the television screen lit up on its own. A blizzard of snow flickered across the display, through which the faint, ghostly image of a withered well began to form.
Everyone held their breath, frozen in place.
A moment later, the TV screen went black, and the static from the phone died. Everything seemed to have returned to normal.
But instead of relaxing, the group swallowed in unison, a shared, dreadful realization dawning on them. This combination was far, far too familiar.
A phone call, a television, a videotape, and a withered well…
Isn't this the plot of The Ring? Isn't this damn Sadako?!
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