In the long, narrow hallway, besides Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya who had just left their room, five people were already present. There were four men and one woman. Aside from Maki Shijo, only a young black man looked relatively young, probably around twenty, while the other three were middle-aged men who appeared to be at least in their thirties.
The pot-bellied executive and the young black man both had expressions of obvious nervousness and confusion. If they weren't putting on an act, they were likely first-timers in this death game, just like Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya.
In contrast, the tall white man also seemed nervous, but he carried a trace of vigilance towards the others, along with an unconcealable fear. Gao Hai couldn't yet determine the reason for this emotional response. However, his instincts told him that this person was probably not a rookie player, or perhaps he had seen something terrifying that the others hadn't, which would explain his unusually pronounced behavior.
As for the man with the backpack, he seemed very calm, giving off the reliable air of a veteran gamer. The others had gathered around him, with the exception of the white man and Maki Shijo. It seemed that while Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya were dawdling in their room, this man had already managed to earn a degree of trust among the group of players.
But for that very reason, Gao Hai found the man highly suspicious. After all, this was likely a death game orchestrated by supernatural forces, and who knew how low the moral compass of the people struggling to survive here would drop.
To sum it up: two looked like minor cannon fodder, one seemed like a supporting character with his own side story, and one was potentially a human antagonist or a mysterious 'big brother' figure with many secrets. As for Maki, she was a 2D beautiful girl who perfectly fit Gao Hai's type, so she was exempt from his cynical analysis.
While Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya were sizing up the people before them, the gazes of those who had arrived in the hallway earlier fell upon the two of them at the same time.
Among those gazes were confusion, disappointment, indifference, and some whose emotions were hard to read.
The temperature in the hallway was low, so low it felt as if an eerie wind was blowing silently.
Under the pale, casting light, Gao Hai could see that the couplets and the 'Fu' character poster stuck on the door of Room 203 were all faded and stained with dust, leaving only a few barely legible characters.
The floor was scattered with peeling wall paint and shards of glass from something that had been smashed long ago. Stepping on them carelessly would produce a distinct crunching sound.
He couldn't immediately locate the staircases. After a closer look, he determined they were likely at the ends of the narrow corridor. However, due to the distance, he could only vaguely make out what looked like stairs at either end and couldn't see any specific details.
Room 204 was located slightly to the right of the building's central area. If they encountered something unbeatable in the hallway and needed to escape, the staircase on the right should be closer. Yet, he felt something was slightly odd; from a distance, the structure of that staircase didn't look quite normal. 'I hope I'm just overthinking it,' he thought.
His observation and thoughts took a total of a few seconds.
Naturally, these few seconds were also enough for the people in the hallway to finish observing Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya as they emerged.
"Two students? Oh, that's just great. Two more dead weights..."
The tall white man muttered under his breath, a look of displeasure on his face.
This man seemed quite averse to working with others. After whispering his complaint, he turned around, went straight back into his room, and locked the door from the inside. Gao Hai noted that the room he entered was 209.
"Hello, you can call me Lao Guo. We all woke up in one of the rooms here. Did you find a printed piece of paper with something written on it in the room where you woke up?"
The middle-aged man with the backpack took two steps forward, taking the initiative to introduce himself to Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya. His tone was very calm, and he wore a smile, giving off an impression of being quite trustworthy.
Maki Shijo didn't come forward to greet them. She just stood silently a short distance away, sizing up Kaguya Shinomiya.
"You mean the Shirakawa Apartments Resident Handbook? So there's one copy per room, then."
Gao Hai didn't try to evade Lao Guo's question. He had already noticed upon coming out that the young black man and the other middle-aged man were each holding an identical printed sheet. Although he couldn't read the content from a distance, a quick glance at the bold, red title was enough to tell that the papers were all the same.
So, did the person named 'Xusheng' mentioned on the paper make many copies and slip one into every room?
"So everyone got one? It seems we're lucky this time. This should be a low-difficulty Twilight-level game."
The man calling himself Lao Guo said with a smile, his expression relaxing a bit.
A low-difficulty Twilight-level game, huh?
For some reason, seeing Lao Guo with his 'I'm an experienced player' expression, Gao Hai suddenly imagined himself as one of Cao Cao's defeated soldiers, fleeing alongside this man. Then, upon reaching a valley, Lao Guo would suddenly stop, laugh heartily, and recite, "I laugh at Zhuge Liang's lack of strategy and Zhou Yu's meager intellect! If I were commanding the army..."
"We can talk more later. Trust me, everyone will be fine. The difficulty of Twilight-level games usually isn't too high."
Lao Guo was, of course, oblivious to Gao Hai's internal monologue. He exchanged a few words with Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya before turning his attention back to the room from which the scream had originated.
"Still going on about that... what game, what nonsense..."
The somewhat portly middle-aged man, who looked like a corporate executive, frowned upon hearing Lao Guo's words, his expression growing more distressed.
He seemed to be in a very bad mood; he was the one who had shot a disappointed look at Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya when they first came out. But after a moment's hesitation, the man cautiously approached Gao Hai, forcing a reasonably friendly smile.
"Hello, are you also Chinese? I'm Sun Dajun, an executive at XX Group. Um, do you know what's going on here? Is this some kind of reality show?"
He probably figured out I'm from the same country because of the Chinese characters printed on my shirt, Gao Hai thought. Although, he felt a more important clue was the dried red-and-white stain on his clothes, which he still suspected might be his own brain matter.
As for this Sun Dajun, although his voice was trying its best to remain calm, the faint tremble in his tone suggested that the man more or less understood that this situation was no 'reality show.' He was just unwilling to believe it, trying to deceive himself.
"I don't know, but I certainly wish it were a reality show. Did you all just suddenly wake up in a room? By the way, I heard a scream just now. Does anyone know what that was about?"
Gao Hai shook his head slightly, trying his best to appear ordinary, his tone deliberately a bit timid.
So far, no incomprehensible creature had burst out to start a massacre.
Barring extreme scenarios—like some severe sanity-draining entity having already driven them all mad from the start, rendering them unable to see the danger—Gao Hai tentatively concluded that they were still in a safe period.
It was just like the beginning of a horror game or movie, where the main characters have just been introduced and are happily on their way to some vacation spot. Everything seems normal until the protagonist or some cannon fodder character foolishly opens a door that shouldn't be opened or does something they shouldn't do, causing the situation to spiral out of control. This initial period, by convention, is the safe time for the audience to gradually get immersed.
After all, according to that handbook, this place called Shirakawa Apartments should be generally safe between 8 AM and 9 PM, as long as one doesn't actively court death.
So for now, it was best to make himself look as weak as possible, to marginalize himself. This might allow him to better gather intelligence and understand the situation, while also avoiding becoming the cannon fodder character who triggers a flag and gets the first 'GG'.
With this in mind, Gao Hai behaved like a timid young man with little experience of the world. And behind him, Kaguya Shinomiya, who had been as cold as ice at first, showed subtle changes in her expression and body language, giving off the impression of a little girl who was equally frightened and resistant to interacting with others. Her acting was even better than Gao Hai's.
She didn't even need to speak to pull off such a performance; Gao Hai felt it was a waste that she wasn't an actress. Thanks to their act, Sun Dajun, realizing the two were not very reliable, just offered a few half-hearted words of encouragement like "We should all be fine," before turning his attention back to Room 205.
And it was at that moment that everyone in the hallway heard the sound of stumbling footsteps from within that room.
Bang!
The door to 205 was violently pushed open.
A young woman with dyed blonde hair, wearing a tank top and shorts, and a heart tattoo on her arm ran out of the room. She fell to the ground, her eyes wide with terror, screaming incoherently, "Dead... someone's dead! Someone's dead!"
Her sharp scream was extremely high-pitched. It had been loud enough for the whole floor to hear when she was inside the room; now that she was in the hallway, Gao Hai had no doubt her screams could be heard throughout the entire building.
Hmm, a quick appraisal of her appearance: on a scale of one to a hundred, she's a 60 at most, not a point more. For the record, Kaguya Shinomiya scores a 95, and Maki Shijo over there gets a 96, probably because the latter seems more approachable and thus easier on the eyes.
In any case, she doesn't look like a character from any anime, manga, or movie. Probably an original cannon fodder character, right?
Typically, don't these cannon fodder characters who make a huge ruckus become the primary cause of a team wipe? This feels a bit dangerous. Maybe I should just go back to my room?
Just as Gao Hai was entertaining the thought of bailing, Sun Dajun and the young black man with the buzz cut, who were standing closer, had already gone forward to help the woman up. She was trembling uncontrollably, clearly terrified by something she had seen.
"Hey, hey, are you alright? You said there's a body in the room?"
Holding the woman, Sun Dajun broke out in a cold sweat, glancing timidly at the open door of Room 205.
There's a corpse hidden in that room? Dammit, why was I brought to a hellhole like this? What the hell is this place?!
Sun Dajun's agitation was plain on his face. Meanwhile, Gao Hai, who had already taken a step back and was ready to retreat to his room at any moment, noticed Kaguya Shinomiya, standing not far from him, slightly turn her head, her ear angled toward the right side of the hallway, as if she had heard something.
At the same time, the silent Maki Shijo a short distance away, and the friendly-looking middle-aged man with the backpack, both showed subtle reactions. The former tilted her head slightly just like Kaguya, having clearly heard something, while the man's movement was much more covert, merely a slight shift of his pupils. If Gao Hai hadn't been thinking in a particular way—pegging the man as a veteran player from an infinite-flow novel from the very beginning—he would never have noticed such a subtle action.
The right staircase. Is someone coming from upstairs or downstairs?
Lacking any superhuman hearing, Gao Hai could only guess at the possibilities based on the others' reactions.
The air seemed to have grown a little colder.
For some reason, a faint, sharp pain pricked his left hand.
Looking down, Gao Hai glanced at his left hand, at the very strange black watch that he hadn't taken off in his haste to investigate his current situation.
Just now, it felt as if a needle inside the watch had pricked him, causing a slight, barely noticeable pain.
What's going on?
The blonde woman, now being supported, was still mumbling things like, "There's a dead person in the room, under the bed." Because she was wearing a tank top, her arms were exposed to the air, and you could see a layer of goosebumps had formed.
At this point, Maki Shijo, who was standing closer to the right staircase, hesitated for a moment before taking a step towards Kaguya Shinomiya.
The kind-looking middle-aged man with the backpack had now turned his gaze completely towards the right staircase, openly adopting a guarded stance.
"Oh, god, what's up with this lady? Why does she stink so much? It's like my ex-girlfriend's dreadlocks after not washing them for half a year—throw 'em in a pond and you could hatch a whole nest of xenomorphs. What the hell is this place?"
The young black man muttered at that moment. The way he spoke was odd; he seemed to be mixing Chinese and American English. Thus, even though this strange place granted everyone the ability to understand all languages and read any text (or at least any recognizable text), his bizarre speech pattern still made everyone feel slightly uncomfortable.
"Let's take her to my room. My room, 210, is bigger and not as damaged. She can rest there for a bit. Is anyone willing to come with me to check the room this lady ran out of? We're all trapped here now, we need to figure out what's going on."
Lao Guo turned and walked a few steps, opening the door to his room.
Up until this point, the situation in the hallway didn't actually seem all that strange.
But Gao Hai could already see through it. Lao Guo was verbally suggesting that others bring the panicked woman to his room, but in reality, he was just using that as an excuse to get to his own doorway. Gao Hai saw that Lao Guo's room was 210, the one closest to the right staircase and closest to the footsteps that were approaching this floor.
Did he go there to be the first to confirm what those footsteps are?
As he thought this, Gao Hai saw Lao Guo pause at his doorway, facing the staircase with one hand in his pocket. Then, without any more hesitation, he opened the door, walked in, and immediately shut it behind him.
"Hey, what are you doing? You tell us to bring her in and then you shut the door? What's your problem?"
"What?"
Sun Dajun, who was supporting the woman, yelled out in frustration, and the young black man also showed a confused expression.
Seeing this scene, Gao Hai only felt the surrounding chill intensify.
He still couldn't hear the footsteps from the staircase; he was only able to deduce that someone was approaching the stairwell by observing the reactions of the only three people who had noticed.
Who that person was, male or female, what they looked like, what *it* was...
He knew nothing about any of it.
But at that moment, upon witnessing the decisive reaction of the suspected veteran player, Lao Guo, a thought of 'this is bad' instantly formed in his mind. He immediately knew what he had to do right now: get back into a room.
The closest rooms for Gao Hai and Kaguya Shinomiya were Room 204, the one with the broken lock that couldn't be secured, and across the hall, Room 209, which the seemingly difficult white man had locked himself inside.
Room 204 could no longer be locked, only pushed shut. If whatever was coming to this floor was dangerous, there was a risk it could just barge right in. Room 209 was already locked from the inside, and the tall man in there looked like a maximum-security prison inmate—not someone you'd want to deal with. Knocking for help now was not a good idea.
Next to Room 204 was 205, from which a terrified, incoherent woman had just fled.
That left only the rooms in the other direction, 203 and 208, which were also close by.
Gao Hai spun around abruptly, his eyes scanning Rooms 203 and 208, and quickly locked onto 208. It was relatively close, its door was ajar, unlike 203 which was tightly shut.
In his past life, he was often told he was overly paranoid. He liked to observe and let his imagination run wild based on what he saw. Because of this, he was treated as an outcast and weirdo during his school days. Back then, however, he knew he was just fantasizing, so he eventually chose to write novels and create stories, using his talent in that way.
Back then, he knew his paranoia was just paranoia, not reality.
But now, he couldn't be sure if he was just being paranoid or if he had truly observed the signs of imminent danger.
However, there was one thing he could be sure of: he didn't have a second life to gamble on whether this paranoia was real.
"You..."
Kaguya Shinomiya, who had heard the strange sound, didn't understand the situation and didn't have a mind that worked like Gao Hai's, so she hadn't yet made a move.
The moment she saw Gao Hai bolt for Room 208 without hesitation, Kaguya was initially surprised, not understanding his reason.
But in the very next instant, thinking of Lao Guo's equally strange behavior, the pupils of this exceptionally intelligent girl contracted slightly as she realized some terrible possibility. Without a second thought, she looked up at Maki Shijo nearby, giving her a meaningful glance with her eyes, then turned and immediately ran towards Room 208. She was even faster than Gao Hai, reaching the door so quickly it left him momentarily stunned.
"Get in."
Kaguya, grabbing the handle and pushing the door open, didn't enter immediately. Instead, she said this to Gao Hai. On the other side, Maki Shijo was already running towards them at high speed. It was clear Kaguya intended to wait for her to come inside with them.
This meant that even if he ran inside, Kaguya clearly wouldn't close the door right away.
He had to admit, although he'd always considered himself an otaku who loved otaku-pandering works and 2D beautiful girls, for a moment, Gao Hai considered whether he should push Kaguya aside, hide inside alone, and lock the door.
But that thought lasted for less than a tenth of a second. Without any hesitation, Gao Hai strode past Kaguya and entered the room without doing anything.
Okay, first, she's faster than me. She could have easily pulled that evil protagonist move on me first, but she didn't, she even cleared the way for me. It would be incredibly uncool for me to do it then, and not because I'd probably lose the fight. Second, she's a beautiful girl who seems calm and rational, not your traditional damsel-in-distress from a horror movie. Having her help would absolutely increase our survival rate, and not because I'd probably lose the fight. Third, my dream has always been to be the protagonist of an otaku-pandering harem story, not some grimdark anti-hero. Whoever wants that role can have it, I'm not interested, and not because I'd probably lose the fight.
Alright, fine, it was really because he realized that if he actually tried something like that, he would be instantly subdued with a combo. In a 2D world where muscle and weight class aren't as important, the fighting prowess of this Ice Kaguya Princess, while not as absurd as her maid's, was already far beyond what a real-world otaku like him could challenge. He was inferior in reaction time, strength, and speed. Only a complete idiot would pick a fight with her.
Running inside, he saw that the layout was similar to 204—a corridor to the left and a bathroom to the right—only it seemed a bit larger.
Kaguya stood at the doorway, her brow furrowed. Maki Shijo had already arrived, running at an incredible speed, so fast that Sun Dajun and the black man supporting the blonde woman looked on in shock. Not understanding what was happening, they were still yelling towards Kaguya, and Sun Dajun had already let go of the blonde woman and started walking their way.
"It's here..."
Kaguya said in a low voice. She could hear the footsteps now, landing on the second-floor hallway.
Maki Shijo, moving at a sprint, reached the doorway and rushed inside without stopping, nearly bumping into Gao Hai who was waiting in the corridor.
The instant Maki was inside, Kaguya slammed the door shut without any hesitation.
Click!
With the crisp sound of the lock, the three inside were sealed off from the hallway.
"What did you see?"
Gao Hai had been watching Kaguya's face. He saw the change in her expression in the final moment before the door closed, so he asked without hesitation.
"..."
Standing by the door, Kaguya Shinomiya didn't answer.
She simply made a hushing gesture at Gao Hai, then lowered her head and pressed one ear against the door, listening quietly to the sounds outside.
So Gao Hai also fell silent, standing motionless against the wall. As his nerves inevitably tightened, he even quieted the rhythm of his breathing. Maki Shijo beside him did the same, though the expression on her face seemed a little calmer.
One thousand and one, one thousand and two...
Gao Hai began to count the seconds silently in his head.
One thousand fifty-one, one thousand fifty-two...
Everything around them was so quiet, so quiet that the only sounds were the nearly inaudible, deliberately suppressed breaths of the three of them.
One thousand five hundred ninety-nine, one thousand six hundred... Ten minutes had passed.
Gao Hai had counted 600 seconds in his head, and during that time he had heard nothing.
Hearing nothing meant that the voices of the people in the hallway, which were audible when they closed the door, were now completely gone. Through an iron door that wasn't particularly thick, all sound from the hallway had vanished. And for a full ten minutes, no one came to knock or ask a single question.
Outside the door, it had just fallen silent.
Gao Hai remained silent.
He could see that Kaguya's body was still tense, not relaxed in the slightest.
So he wouldn't impatiently start asking questions just because of a few moments of quiet. He continued to wait in silence.
But he couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with the door to this room. Was it because the door was closed that he couldn't hear the sounds outside?
Could it be that they had chosen the wrong room? That they shouldn't have picked this lockable room, that this room was the trap, the place they weren't supposed to enter?
Once such thoughts appeared, they were hard to suppress. Gao Hai was already someone prone to paranoid fantasies, and now, under this agonizing silence, his imagination ran even wilder.
Until he heard a very clear sound of a door opening.
It came from outside, from the hallway. Based on the direction of the sound, he was certain it was the sound of a door opening from the direction of Room 204.
Gao Hai turned his head slightly to look at Maki Shijo standing beside him.
From the slight tilt of her head, she must have heard the sound of the door opening as well.
So, there was no soundproofing. They could actually hear the sounds from the hallway clearly.
The outside had simply... fallen silent.
Just then, Kaguya Shinomiya pulled out an old-fashioned mobile phone from her pocket. She had initially said her clothes had no pockets, so he had no idea where she produced this dated-looking phone from. She pressed a few keys, then turned the screen towards Gao Hai and Maki Shijo.
On it was a text message being composed. The content was brief.
[I saw nothing.]
Just that simple message.
And both Gao Hai and Maki Shijo beside him understood what Kaguya Shinomiya meant.
Before closing the door, in that last moment, Kaguya had looked towards the stairwell. She had heard the sound of footsteps arriving on their floor, but she had not seen anything emerge from the stairwell.
Whoa, whoa...
Gao Hai felt his heart begin to race.
From waking up in this place to hiding in this room, about half an hour had passed in total.
Up to this point, he had not personally witnessed anything that could be described as bizarre or abnormal.
But at this moment, Gao Hai felt an indescribable sense of oppression, and a fear of those unseen, unknown footsteps.
Director, what happened to the safe time? Who starts things off like this right from the get-go...
Of course, even so, his habit of making snide remarks in his head hadn't changed one bit.
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