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"They actually caught it!"
Seeing the cat trapped inside the shadow, the players were not only pleasantly surprised but also felt a very subtle emotion.
Using shadows to create a trap and confine a shadow monster... it felt like it exceeded the imagination of ordinary people.
"Don't just stand there, quickly reinforce the cardboard box, lest the Shadow Cat escapes."
The Hedgehog-head Boy quickly stepped forward, squatted down, and began reinforcing the cardboard box.
Having finally trapped the cat, they naturally couldn't let it escape.
Amamiya Natsuki did not step forward.
Looking at the Hedgehog-head Boy squatting on the ground, he silently pulled out a baseball bat... This item was a Blind Box item, a common tool, unable to cause damage to beings like evil spirits, ghosts, or vengeful spirits, but it felt better for playing baseball.
Of course, it was also quite effective for hitting people.
"Admiral, what are you doing?"
Seeing Amamiya Natsuki's actions, Shikimori's eyes widened in confusion.
It was one thing not to help, but why suddenly pull out a bat?
What was the use of that thing?
Amamiya Natsuki said seriously:
"I'm being prepared for anything."
"Prepared for what?"
Pansy's delicate brows furrowed, her imagination running wild.
Was he preparing for their teammates?
In treasure hunt movies, after the team members endure countless hardships and finally find the treasure, they often end up in a fight to the death, ultimately perishing together.
But the problem was, there was only a shadow monster here, no treasure, right?
The next moment, an anomaly suddenly occurred.
On the dazzlingly white wall, another Shadow Cat, thick as ink, suddenly appeared. It was larger than the Shadow Cat they had just captured and silently pounced, instantly tackling the Hedgehog-head Boy to the ground.
Bang!
Caught off guard, the Hedgehog-head Boy was directly affected by his own shadow's feedback, falling to the ground, his entire body seemingly dragged into the darkness by an unseen force.
"Ahhh! Save me!"
The Hedgehog-head Boy immediately panicked, screams and cries for help erupting simultaneously, and the scene instantly descended into chaos.
"There's a second Shadow Cat!"
"That's right, the mission notes said, 'The cats are already famished and thirsty.' It was never just one Shadow Cat!"
The two girls immediately understood what Amamiya Natsuki was guarding against.
"Hold on!"
Shikimori's pretty face hardened. She gripped her bamboo sword and rushed forward, wanting to help.
With a low shout, the bamboo sword in her hand slashed down fiercely.
And then... nothing happened.
The bamboo sword didn't touch anything; it was just an empty swing, and she even felt a faint ache in her arms from the exertion.
"...Oh no, this is bad!"
Shikimori quickly reacted.
The cat on the wall was a shadow, and Yamazaki, who was attacked, was also a shadow. No matter how much she swung her bamboo sword, she couldn't harm the shadow in the slightest.
"What should we do?"
Pansy bit her lower lip anxiously, unable to help but look at Amamiya Natsuki. For some reason, she felt that the boy in front of her would have a solution.
"Eh?"
Pansy widened her eyes, surprised to see Amamiya Natsuki standing to the front right of the flashlight, his body turned sideways, holding a baseball bat with both hands, striking a standard batting pose, and swinging forcefully at the empty air.
On the wall,
the shadow of the black bat swept across, precisely hitting the Shadow Cat.
The Shadow Cat on the wall suddenly leaped up and quickly darted into the darkness.
"Home run."
Amamiya Natsuki nodded with satisfaction.
When he swung the bat just now, he clearly felt a subtle resistance from the front of the bat, indicating he had hit something invisible.
But the effect was minimal—if a regular cat took a baseball bat to the head, people from the cat protection association would immediately show up with death threats.
The Shadow Cat, however, seemed completely unaffected.
Perhaps it was injured, but humans couldn't observe it at all.
"That's right, only shadows can touch shadows."
Pansy's eyes widened as she realized.
Although she had already analyzed this information, under the constraint of habitual thinking, she still couldn't make the correct response immediately.
"Get up quickly."
Shikimori breathed a sigh of relief, quickly pulling up the Hedgehog-head Boy and moving him out of the flashlight's range.
"I almost died just now."
The Hedgehog-head Boy's face was pale, his breathing rapid, clearly severely frightened, and faint blood was seeping from the bandage on his right hand.
Shadow Cats could harm human shadows and, through an incomprehensible mechanism, transfer the damage taken by the shadow to the player's body.
"What now?"
Shikimori frowned, her expression grave. The joy of catching one cat with a trap had completely vanished.
If they didn't catch the second Shadow Cat, all their previous efforts would be meaningless.
"Should we set another cardboard box trap?" Pansy suggested. "No cat can refuse a cardboard box, right?"
Shinomiya Kaguya nodded gently:
"We can try."
"But we only have one flashlight." Shikimori frowned slightly. "There might be other flashlights hidden in the warehouse, but right now..."
"No," Pansy quickly said, "there's a second one, the one I took at the very beginning."
As Pansy spoke, she turned to look at Amamiya Natsuki, recalling what happened upstairs.
Did he ask to 'borrow' a flashlight earlier just for this moment?
Did this boy already figure out how to clear the game?
"Once bitten, twice shy. If the Shadow Cat has intelligence, I don't think that 'cat wife' will fall for it," Amamiya Natsuki said. "But it's still worth a try."
"Let's go now."
Shikimori was full of initiative, comparable to Marin.
"Wait," Amamiya Natsuki said, holding out a hand to stop them. "Let's reinforce the cardboard box first, so the cat we caught doesn't escape."
Hearing this, the group hesitated.
With the previous lesson in mind, no one dared to easily step into the light now.
"I..."
Shikimori took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and wanted to step forward.
"I'll do it."
At the critical moment, Shinomiya Kaguya stepped forward without hesitation.
"Eh?"
Shikimori looked at Kaguya in surprise. Seeing Kaguya's calm expression, and then looking at Amamiya Natsuki, who was holding the baseball bat, she quickly understood.
It wasn't that she wasn't afraid of being attacked, but that she trusted the boy beside her to protect her...
"Shikimori."
Amamiya Natsuki looked at the pink-haired girl and called out.
"What is it?"
The pink-haired girl looked up.
"You guard the left side, I'll take care of the right side." Amamiya Natsuki reached out and pulled the pink-haired girl to a position in front of the flashlight. "Remember, stand here and don't move. Now, swing your bamboo sword and get a feel for the shadow's attack method and trajectory."
"I understand."
Shikimori took a deep breath, her expression serious. She held the bamboo sword with both hands and began practicing against the wall.
Only after mastering the shadow's attack range did she nod gently: "I'm ready."
Amamiya Natsuki looked at Kaguya and pulled out a few bricks from his game backpack:
"The task of reinforcing the cardboard box is up to you."
"Hey, why do you have bricks in your backpack?" the Hedgehog-head Boy couldn't help but complain. "Any normal person would just throw something like that away if they got it!"
Amamiya Natsuki sighed, handing the bricks to Kaguya: "That relates to my previous game."
"What?"
"In a certain country where a comedian became president, they insisted on joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, plus the soaring international fuel prices, the economic crisis sweeping the globe, food crises appearing in many countries, and then a super volcanic eruption in a South Pacific island nation, causing a year without summer, international conflicts rapidly worsening, ultimately leading to a nuclear apocalypse..."
The Hedgehog-head Boy narrowed his eyes: "Why does this sound more and more familiar?"
Amamiya Natsuki's expression didn't change as he continued:
"A hundred years after the nuclear apocalypse, I, and a dog named Pes, picked up trash in the wasteland, just the two of us."
"That's a very famous game, isn't it?" Pansy couldn't help but interject.
"In short, I developed excellent habits of frugality in the wasteland." Amamiya Natsuki interlaced his fingers. "Even a single brick can be used to hit people."
"..."
Preparations were quickly complete.
Shinomiya Kaguya stepped forward to reinforce the trap.
Amamiya Natsuki guarded Shinomiya Kaguya's sides, one on the left, one on the right.
The other Shadow Cat indeed appeared, attacking Shinomiya Kaguya, but with their preparations, every attack was fruitless.
"Can we use this method to get through the hallway?"
Pansy suddenly proposed a conjecture.
"It's very dangerous," Shinomiya Kaguya shook her head. "There's more than one light in the hallway."
"...That's right."
If there was more than one light, then there would be more than one shadow of the player, and the difficulty of defending against attacks would increase exponentially.
Shikimori quickly said:
"Let's go set up the second trap."
The abandoned warehouse was very large.
To avoid the two flashlights interfering with each other, the players chose another corner to set up the trap. Before long, a similar trap was successfully set.
But it was useless.
The Shadow Cat, noticeably larger, disdained the trap. Even when Shinomiya Kaguya stood under the light, using her body as bait, it didn't attack.
"Two possibilities," Shinomiya Kaguya frowned slightly. "Either that Shadow Cat is scared, or that cat is intelligent and has chosen to weigh the pros and cons, lurking in the shadows."
Upon hearing this news, all the players frowned deeply.
Given the limitations, they couldn't set better traps, and the other Shadow Cat had clearly learned to be smart. How could they capture and confine the cat?
"I've thought of a way."
Amamiya Natsuki suddenly spoke, breaking the silence.
"What way?"
Everyone looked over.
"Since that Shadow Cat is a creature with a certain degree of intelligence, then it must have another weakness..." Amamiya Natsuki said unhurriedly. "Let's go back."
The players returned to the previous flashlight.
The trap reinforced with bricks had an incredibly thick shadow, and the cat inside clearly couldn't escape.
"Stray cats and dogs in the city all take care of their young," Amamiya Natsuki said, extending a finger and speaking eloquently. "To put it simply... it can be called doting affection, or maternal love."
"You're going to...?"
Shinomiya Kaguya's eyes widened slightly, already guessing Amamiya Natsuki's idea.
"It's simple." Amamiya Natsuki extended his baseball bat, the bat's shadow resting perfectly on the cardboard box trap. He looked at the large Shadow Cat, faintly visible at the edge of the light, and took a deep breath:
"...Wife, you don't want your daughter to get hurt, do you?"
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