This incredibly violent explosion collapsed the floors and ceilings of at least five or six stories.
As Gao Hai helped Maki to her feet from a pile of rubble, he saw, amidst the burning flames, layers upon layers of twisted architectural structures stretching upward, seemingly without end. He couldn't see the apex of this chaotic building, nor could he discern where it terminated.
"An explosion of this magnitude... high explosives?"
Maki murmured, her face pale, and quickly noticed the strangeness of their surroundings.
However, since her mobility was impaired, it was Gao Hai who acted first. He grabbed Maki's shoulders, held her like a large rag doll, and quickly turned to flee, running away from the blast zone.
The surrounding sounds were growing cacophonous.
From within the countless disordered doorways amidst the ruins, more and more things, stirred by the immense commotion, began to move.
He couldn't let these things catch them.
With no wall clock to turn back time, getting caught here would mean it was truly all over.
"Where on earth is this place? It feels like no matter which direction you go, it's the same chaotic structure. Is this really the same apartment we were in before?"
Maki whispered, unable to help herself, as she nervously scanned their surroundings.
She had thought she had seen more than enough things that defied common sense today, but this damned place always managed to exceed her imagination. The scene before her—a seemingly infinite stack of fractured buildings, like a dreamlike nightmare—resembled a scene of destruction from a disaster movie, yet it was imbued with an added sense of surreal strangeness.
Could they really find a way out of here, or find a wall clock in this place?
Doubt began to creep into the young woman's heart.
"This should be the '3rd floor'."
Gao Hai answered Maki, his tone calm.
"The 3rd floor? How could it be? A place like this…"
Maki was stunned for a moment, not quite understanding what he meant.
"Whatever Shirakawa Apartments used to be, it has now become an irrational, supernatural world. The 2nd floor, where we were before, probably seemed relatively normal on the surface because it was far from Room 304—the most dangerous part of Shirakawa Apartments—and also not on the 1st floor, which is close to the exit. Conversely, the 1st floor is now hidden, and there's no way to leave through normal means. The anomaly of the 3rd floor has expanded from Room 304 to encompass the entire level. This whole cluster of shattered buildings is the 3rd floor now: a stretch of ruins extending infinitely. Well, that's just my theory, but I doubt it's far from reality."
Gao Hai continued to run forward with Maki on his back, speaking in a calm tone.
"Room 304… If I remember correctly, when I looked down through that hole earlier…"
Maki's expression shifted slightly. Although she hadn't gotten a clear look at the time, she remembered that the very bottom level of the ruined structure revealed by the explosion was a blood-red floor. A door stood there—a door that, even without seeing it clearly, had sent a wave of palpitations through her heart.
"Yeah, that's it. I think the real rooms of the 3rd floor are probably hidden in various areas within these ruins. Just like the place we were in before, and that hidden area blown open by the explosion."
As he replied, Gao Hai couldn't help but think of Lao Guo, clearly a veteran player with numerous tricks up his sleeve.
Accelerating the clock—what benefit did that bring the guy, that he would risk plunging the apartment into nighttime?
Was it because there was something that could only be explored at night, or was some other vested interest that made him take the risk? Or was there another reason entirely?
Whatever the reason, he was as dead as could be now. No telling if he ever regretted his actions.
And speaking of which, based on what we've seen, he possessed at least one item with supernatural powers—something for hypnosis or controlling others, perhaps the kind of thing Green called an Obsession Item. On top of that, the guy had a gun, was a decent shot, and had good combat skills and durability. Although the fake Kaguya was the weakest of the horror entities Gao Hai had encountered so far—practically the only one you could fight back against and escape from—judging by how Maki and Lao Guo tangled with her up close, she was at least on Captain America's level, and a version with locked health at that. The fact that Lao Guo could take a beating from her for several minutes without being killed shows he was no slouch.
He even had high explosives in his gear. If he had used them on the second floor earlier... hmm... seems like it would've done nothing but wipe out all the players, right? After all, these horror story entities don't seem to be afraid of that level of physical attack.
I wonder what would happen if a player brought a nuke into one of these rules-based horror stories and set it off.
Just a brief moment without danger, and Gao Hai's mind couldn't help but start filling up with all sorts of thoughts again.
Ahead of them, the chaotic paths and assorted furniture stretched on: beds upside down on the ceiling, cabinets slanted on the walls, staircases extending halfway up to nowhere, all sorts of haphazardly opened or closed doors, and piles of scattered trash bags and rubble.
Thump—
As he moved, Gao Hai kicked a trash bag, and a crisp clattering sound came from within.
He looked down at the torn-open bag and the empty beer cans that had spilled out of it.
It was the cheapest, lowest-quality beer, the kind sold at street stalls. Though the packaging looked similar to regular beer, anyone who drank could tell by the smell that it was trash produced by some unlicensed microbrewery. Only someone desperately poor would consider using this stuff to numb themselves.
"What is it?"
Maki, on his back, noticed Gao Hai had slowed down.
"These trash bags seem to be full of empty beer cans."
Gao Hai replied, continuing to move through the disordered building.
"Did you think of something?"
Maki frowned and thought for a moment but couldn't come up with anything useful. For a princess living in a mansion, cheap, low-quality beer was a distant concept; she couldn't make any valuable associations based on it.
"All sorts of guesses. It's the cheapest kind of beer, and there's so much of it. Maybe it was for a party? Or maybe just one person drank it all? In any case, these trash heaps full of beer containers keep showing up. I think it might be a true reflection of a household that once lived in Shirakawa Apartments, leaving its mark here in this way. Hmm... but that's just a guess. Don't worry too much about it."
Gao Hai frowned and thought for a good while before offering some of his ideas.
"Is that so? I don't think my aunt or I would ever think of something like that. The differences in our environments and perspectives are quite large. But you know so much about this... have you been drinking before? Are you one of those writers who starts creating after downing a few drinks?"
Shaking her head, still unable to quite imagine it, Maki spoke and then noticed something else.
"...No, I can't write anything after drinking. It's just that... well, whether it's family gatherings, school parties, or get-togethers with friends, there's always alcohol involved. I guess my senses of taste and smell are pretty sensitive, so I can pick up on these things. But personally, I'm the type who really dislikes drinking. It disrupts my normal train of thought."
As Gao Hai spoke, he suddenly stopped and fixed his gaze on a particular spot.
"Is that so? I've never had a drink, but the adults in my family have already made wine tasting a required course for me, which they plan to teach me after I come of age. Hm? What's wrong? Why did you suddenly stop?"
After replying reflexively, Maki noticed Gao Hai's stillness. She asked the question while following his line of sight.
It was a window.
A seemingly inconspicuous window, located amidst the twisted and chaotic architecture.
However, unlike the windows on the second floor, and unlike the window in the room where they had been trapped, this one wasn't boarded up. It remained in a normal state.
In fact, at this very moment, the window was open, offering a direct view of the silent, starry sky and a hazy crescent moon.
"Outside the window... that's…"
Wrong.
There was no moon, no stars.
The instant she realized it, Maki squeezed her eyes shut, while Gao Hai swiftly turned and ran in the opposite direction, away from the window.
Outside the window...
Those things outside the window...
The image tore repeatedly through the young woman's mind, seeming impossible to forget after just one glance.
Floating...
No, that's not right. They were falling...
Falling upwards... like stars...
"Stop thinking about it. We didn't see any window."
Gao Hai's sudden words snapped Maki's consciousness back to clarity.
"How do you snap out of it so quickly every time... Tsk, that thing was just like hypnosis…"
Shaking her head, Maki didn't let herself sink back into that strange line of thought, but she was puzzled by Gao Hai's unusual resilience in this regard.
"Maybe it's a natural talent I never knew I had. Tsk, something's catching up."
Gao Hai, who had been joking, abruptly noticed a strange sound beside them.
Maki spotted it a split second before Gao Hai. She quickly tugged on his arm, signaling which way to dodge. Gao Hai lunged to the side, and an instant later, the wall beside them exploded inward. A chilling figure burst out from behind it, raised its head, and locked its eyes on Maki, who was on Gao Hai's back.
"Holy shit, Fridge Bro?!"
Gao Hai, who was also watching, immediately recognized the male corpse from the refrigerator on the 2nd floor, the one that had been completely motionless before.
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