It was truly quiet.
Hitori Goto lifted her head and looked at the forest path before her.
This was already the suburbs of Tokyo, a desolate area where people rarely appeared.
After walking forward a few steps, Hitori Goto saw an abandoned shrine. The torii gate had already collapsed, and the shrine itself was nothing more than a dilapidated ruin. Shaded by the bamboo forest, it appeared incredibly dim, even emitting a somewhat eerie aura.
The young girl with messy, long pink hair stopped in front of this shrine. She remained silent for a long time, and finally, she simply lowered her head and sighed softly, in a voice only she could hear.
Only a very small number of people knew that this place was once the origin of a Twilight-level instance.
That was the first mission Hitori Goto had participated in as a rookie. She didn't know whether to call it lucky or unlucky, but she had joined a brand-new instance that had just appeared and hadn't been investigated by other players yet. Furthermore, she had joined it together with one of the friends she had tried so hard to make.
The entire process of that mission was extremely perilous. Fortunately, a reliable veteran player led the team, and they successfully discovered the location of the instance's core obsession. In the end, they chose to fulfill the other party's regrets, liberating the anomaly lingering in the shrine, which also allowed all the obsessions trapped there to be freed.
The girl's first Blessing was obtained from here.
Together with her friend, she struggled arduously to survive until the end, won the victory, and returned to daily life.
Even though every month after that, they had to face all sorts of dangers within instances again.
But she always believed that they could definitely persevere, definitely overcome one difficulty after another, until the very end, when they would truly find a way to break away from the [Sacrificial Game] and escape this terrifying world.
And then, she was left all alone.
In the silence, the girl sat down on the remaining steps of the shrine ruins and took down the old guitar from her back, which even bore a few indistinct traces of blood.
She closed her eyes, reached out, and gently plucked the strings.
The sound of fluid music immediately rang out in the empty forest clearing.
Hearing the voice of the past once again, seeing the things that had happened once again.
Accompanying the sound of this guitar playing, Hitori Goto opened her eyes wide. She saw everything that had once vanished being displayed once more within her senses.
The feeling of drowning in fantasy didn't seem too bad.
Because the real world had always been this boring and painful.
Even that band, which had once brought her warmth and made her feel like she was beginning to change little by little—after she disappeared, they simply forgot her existence. If one day I die inside an instance, will they forget me too? After all, I am a Player, but they are not.
Ah, that is why I chose to leave that band.
After becoming a Player, actually, I should have made such a choice long ago. After all, the life of an ordinary person has long since drifted away from me.
It's just that the current me—this me who still hasn't accomplished anything—what exactly am I still expecting? What am I still waiting for?
Opening her eyes, she looked at the guitar in her hands.
The girl took a deep breath. She felt a slight urge to stop playing, an urge to try and play a wrong note.
She knew that as long as she did that, she would definitely be able to go back. Back to that place, back to that place where her past had thoroughly collapsed. But in the end, she simply brought her performance to a slow conclusion. Without the slightest error, she perfectly finished playing the song.
Alright, next, it's about time to go ba...
"You played pretty well."
The girl's inner world was interrupted at this moment by a man's voice suddenly cutting in.
Hitori Goto jerked her head up violently, and immediately saw Gao Hai standing beside the collapsed torii gate, looking right at her.
T-T-T-T-There's someone h-h-h-here—!!!
The pink-haired girl with severe social anxiety began to tremble almost immediately. Her gaze instantly started darting toward the stone slabs, seemingly looking for a crack to crawl into.
"It's me, Gao Hai. Do you remember me, Miss Goto?"
Gao Hai did not walk closer to Hitori Goto; he simply stood by the torii gate and continued speaking.
It wasn't that he didn't want to get close to her, but how to put it... the gloomy and cold aura radiating from the guitar in Hitori Goto's hands at this moment was truly impossible to ignore. Gao Hai, feeling extremely uneasy about this, thought it over and decided it was better to stand a bit further away.
What on earth is up with that guitar?
Even recalling all the Obsession Items he had seen so far, Gao Hai couldn't find a single one with an aura more terrifying than that guitar.
If he were forced to make a comparison, he could probably only compare it to the core obsession itself—that is, those terrifying, anomalous auras. But even so, the only anomaly Gao Hai could think of that was comparable to the guitar in Hitori Goto's hands was the red dress anomaly beneath the Great Rift.
In other words, is that Obsession Item at least a top-tier Dim Night-level core Obsession Item, or possibly even more? After all, this Obsession Item hasn't gone out of control yet; its truly terrifying side hasn't been displayed.
Realizing this, the expression with which Gao Hai looked at Hitori Goto couldn't help but carry a few degrees of caution.
No matter what kind of cute, autistic girl little Bocchi was in the original work, she was inevitably different from the Player Bocchi in this mixed anime world he was now in. Although this little Bocchi was equally cute, the strength she possessed was absolutely not to be underestimated. It was hard to imagine exactly what kind of power that strange guitar brought her.
"I am extremely sorry excuse me I apologize I am very sorry for disturbing you sorry for the disturbance—"
And after Gao Hai finished his greeting, before he could even think of how to continue the communication, the pink-haired girl carrying the guitar had already fled amidst a continuous stream of words, having absolutely no intention of having a proper chat with Gao Hai.
"She really runs fast..."
Gao Hai only had time to just reach out his hand; before he could shout out any words to make her stay, the other party had already slipped away a distance of several dozen meters.
Gao Hai, who had been attracted by the sound of the guitar while waiting for Kaguya and Chika to use the restroom, couldn't help but curl his lips. Feeling somewhat bored, he turned around to walk back the way he came, snapping a photo of the ruins of this shrine in passing.
Come to think of it, when little Bocchi left just now, he seemed to have seen a very small label on that guitar Obsession Item.
The writing on that label... he didn't remember it very clearly. It seemed to be 'Something-Something Middle School'? Is it possible for my memory and observational skills to be unclear? Or is this also an effect of that Obsession Item, allowing information about the holder and the Obsession Item itself to be ignored to a certain extent?
For a moment, Gao Hai couldn't figure out the specific effect of Hitori Goto's Obsession Item, but he couldn't exactly chase after her to ask about the specific effects and origins of such an important item regarding one's life and safety. Thus, he could only keep his doubts in the bottom of his heart and ignore the matter for the time being.
"Gao-kun, where did you go just now?"
"Didn't I say you aren't allowed to run far? Eh, eh? Ah Hai, what kind of place did you find here?"
Kaguya and Chika's voices rang out not far away. The two girls walked up and soon discovered the abandoned shrine nearby. Kaguya was somewhat taboo about this kind of place and wasn't very willing to go in, but Chika treated it completely as a great place for a grand adventure, even specifically dragging Gao Hai into the shrine to take a few photos.
"Speaking of which, why is there such a large shrine here, yet the people around here are completely unaware of it? This place actually looks like it's only been abandoned for about a few years, right? There are clearly quite a few things inside the shrine that don't look very damaged, yet we can't find any signs identifying which deity was enshrined here at all."
Full of a desire to explore, Chika remained curious about the situation of that shrine all the way back to the hotel.
What was regrettable was that the people they met along the way knew absolutely nothing about that shrine. Even the elderly who had lived here for decades actually didn't know about that shrine in the bamboo forest at all. Gao Hai and Kaguya, noticing this, simply exchanged a glance, understanding each other's thoughts.
That shrine, very likely just like Shirakawa Apartments and Red Nut Gray Hole, was once an instance, so it was forgotten, becoming a nameless ruin remembered by no one.
However, according to the consensus discovered by players through investigation, anomalous lands that become instances should disappear from the real world. The fact that Gao Hai and the others could see that shrine and enter it meant that the place had returned to the real world, and the anomaly originally existing within it had already been liberated.
Did a player resolve the obsession and obtain a Blessing in that instance, thereby destroying that instance?
It must have been a very strong player, right? Ordinary players couldn't possibly achieve this step.
"Ah Hai, let's go investigate together! Follow me, the Great Detective Chika Fujiwara, and unearth the truth of the past!"
Before Gao Hai could think of anything more, Chika Fujiwara, who had pulled out a red hat from who knows where, ran up. She grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the library in the nearby district.
"Hey, wait for me..."
Kaguya, who had originally wanted to create opportunities to spend more time alone with Gao Hai, shouted somewhat angrily from behind, forced to run along with these two.
Miss Kaguya was very unhappy right now.
In her view, this morning outing was quite unsuccessful.
Because Chika had been clinging to Gao Hai the entire time, giving her basically no chances to be alone with him. Even when she found an opportunity to say something, the other party would quickly lean in to join the topic. And now, she was even taking Gao Hai and running off.
Ah, that's enough already! What is wrong with this girl?!
The little person in her heart was constantly screaming, stomping her feet, and spinning in circles.
On the surface, Kaguya could only barely maintain a peaceful expression as she followed Gao Hai and Chika into the library, abruptly transforming from a tourist out for fun into an investigator.
While the three on this side were flipping through the library's collection amidst Chika Fujiwara's excitement, Maki, on the other side, had finally recovered a bit. Yawning, she sat up from Gao Hai's bed.
"Wu... it still hurts..."
The teary-eyed girl gritted her teeth slightly, looked down at her lower abdomen, and then turned her head to look at the secret weapon that had been thrown on the floor and was already scrapped. A blush gradually rose on her face.
So that secret weapon is used like that...
And why did it hurt so much at the very beginning? Don't tell me it's going to hurt every time in the future? Although it did get comfortable halfway through... Wait, actually, it didn't hurt that much this morning. That pain is leftover from last night. In other words, is it only like that the first time? Wuah, I didn't understand these things at all before. The etiquette teacher at home only said these things were to be taught by a future husband. It feels really complicated.
Come to think of it, Hai-kun... did he go out with Auntie Kaguya and Fujiwara?
That guy, he actually left me behind and ran out to play, and with Fujiwara at that. Could it be that those two are doing something bad?
Maki's little radar began to spin at high speed in this moment.
Without the slightest hesitation, she directly activated the mental communication that, for now, only she and Gao Hai could use.
{Maki Shijo: Hai-kun, what are you doing right now?}
{Gao Hai: Oh, Maki, you're awake. Is your body feeling better now? We should be back in a little while.}
{Maki Shijo: Who is "we"?}
{Gao Hai: Shinomiya and Chika, the two of them. The three of us are inside the library right now. So, how is your body? Can you walk?}
{Maki Shijo: M-My body is fine. Wait, the three of you are all at the library?}
If the three of them were together, it probably wasn't a big problem. Mainly because Auntie Kaguya currently appeared to have absolutely no romantic chemistry with Hai-kun, so Maki could more or less put her mind at ease.
Only, why the library? Clearly, those three said they were going to play over by the bamboo forest hill earlier, right?
{Gao Hai: How do I put this... consider it a whim of Chika's. We found a relic of a suspected destroyed instance. This guy insisted on running over to investigate, and she actually managed to find some things, although it's probably all meaningless now.}
{Maki Shijo: Found some things?}
{Gao Hai: Yeah. This old district once had a large family that managed a shrine. That shrine was named [Huangquan Shrine]. Every few years, this family seemed to hold a ritual. The content of the ritual was to put a demon mask with internal spikes on a [pure girl], piercing her eyes, then use ropes to pull the girl's four limbs, tearing them off alive. Then, waiting for the girl to die naturally, she would become a 'human nail' or something to suppress the 'Huangquan Eerie Road'. Thinking about it, this ritual really gives a sense of déjà vu...}
{Maki Shijo: No, what kind of weird and bizarre things are you guys investigating?!}
{Gao Hai: I don't know the answer to that question either.}
In short, judging from the results of her attempt to investigate Gao Hai's whereabouts, there shouldn't be any problems. That Fujiwara hadn't pulled any little tricks yet.
It was just that she really couldn't understand the point of investigating such ancient, barbaric customs. Maki felt like she had lost her appetite just listening to it.
Thinking sullenly in her heart, the girl climbed down from the bed, her smooth little feet stepping gently onto the floor.
"Wu... pain..."
For the next few days, we probably can't do that kind of thing again.
Hai-kun is a bit too scary. Is this the growth brought about by an S-class physical enhancement? I wonder what kind of changes will occur in him if this continues and Hai-kun receives a Dim Night-level enhancement.
Amidst her wandering thoughts, Maki picked up the clothes scattered on the floor. After putting them on, she walked out of the room.
On the other side, the three who had wasted a large amount of time in the library, only to confirm in the end that the descendants of that ancient family had all died out several years ago, had also embarked on the road back to the hotel.
"In the end, we looked up so many things, but didn't get any useful information."
Feeling that her life had been wasted, Kaguya Shinomiya appeared extremely resigned.
"Ehehe, that's how detectives are. There are times when grand mysteries are cracked, and times when efforts are futile. And even so, at least we confirmed that there was a problem with that place, didn't we? When we have time in the future, we can totally come back and check it out."
Chika Fujiwara, who didn't feel like time was wasted at all, just grinned and said to Kaguya.
"I refuse. Even if we know there's a problem, it's meaningless. That place is just ruins now..."
Of course, Kaguya herself didn't buy that.
As for Gao Hai, who was walking at the back of the group, he simply recalled the matter of Hitori Goto playing the guitar in the ruins that morning. Then, he realized that since that place was already a forgotten, desolate location, there was actually only one reason why Hitori Goto would know about it.
Was she the player who resolved the obsession and destroyed that instance?
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