The silence before the door lasted for over half an hour.
Shinomiya Kaguya leaned against the doorway for a long time before finally standing up straight again, no longer pressing herself against the door to listen to the sounds outside.
"The footsteps went downstairs."
She said this in a low voice, then took a step forward, signaling Takumi and Shijō Maki to walk toward the deeper end of the corridor.
The layout of 208 was no different from 204, still the strange corridor structure that went straight to the end before turning, and turning at a right angle.
At the door leading into the living room there was likewise a wall clock. Takumi recalled the time he had seen on the wall clock in 204 earlier, added up the time that had passed since, and discovered that the time shown on this clock should have no difference from the one in 204.
Were the clocks in every room absolutely accurate?
Takumi suddenly recalled that particular rule.
If the rule was absolutely correct, then if I changed the hands of this wall clock, would the clock still be [accurate]?
Although such thoughts arose, Takumi did not take action. The priority right now was not to test the rule, but to know that just now there had already appeared an abnormal situation inconsistent with the rule. Clearly the current time was still daytime, yet the living guidelines stated that only after 9 p.m. was it unsafe outside the rooms, and yet that bizarre event had just occurred.
Perhaps the guidelines were not actually wrong, perhaps the outside was safe, and it was only a single non-lethal abnormal event that had taken place.
Or perhaps they had mistaken the time, and it was already night, and the light filtering in from outside was problematic, and one could not judge the time by the faint light shining through those sealed windows.
Or perhaps the guidelines themselves were wrong, that this so-called living guidelines could not serve as guidance, and the rules summarized upon them could no longer protect the survivors here.
Taking it all into consideration, Takumi felt the third possibility was the greatest.
After all, according to the author of these guidelines, their essence was [living guidelines], the emphasis being on [living] rather than [survival]. Takumi believed that someone who could compose such summarized guidelines could not be a word-blind illiterate. And since that person had the means to leave a set of guidelines in every room, then very likely, during a certain period, the survivors who appeared in this abandoned apartment building had formed a small circle, living hand in hand. These guidelines too had been summarized in that period.
But by the time Takumi and this group were dragged in by that idiot "sacrifice game," the rooms here already seemed extremely dilapidated, with no recent traces of habitation left. Even these guidelines bore a layer of dust, though less than those broken pieces of furniture.
So, the guidelines in their hands perhaps were already outdated, no longer accurate or effective.
This speculation greatly deepened the unease in Takumi's heart.
No, he could not jump to conclusions so arbitrarily.
The strange incident just now had not invaded the inside of the room; at least they had not seen any abnormality occur within. So the point that the room itself was relatively safe—the guidelines likely were not mistaken about that. Only, considering that Takumi and Shinomiya Kaguya were no longer in the room they had first begun in, from that perspective Takumi again felt that they still needed to be cautious.
[Creak—]
While he was thinking this, Shijō Maki at the front had already opened the living room door and walked in. Following after was Takumi, with Shinomiya Kaguya remaining at the rear.
The living room of 208 had no great difference from that of 204, only here there was a square tea table instead of a small round one, and a somewhat decrepit sofa with three or four small stools. The kitchen door also had not been dismantled, standing properly in place, only it was open.
Takumi did not see the printed paper placed in this room. Could it be that those former survivors had overlooked this place?
"No need to worry about this room's safety. This was the room where I awoke, I already searched through it in advance."
So saying, Shijō Maki leaned against the wall, slowly speaking toward Takumi and Kaguya, and casually set the copy of the rules in her hand down on the cabinet at one side of the living room.
Unlike the loser girl Takumi had seen in the original work, at this moment the aura Shijō Maki revealed was actually somewhat similar to Kaguya's, carrying with it a certain chill and pressure. Only, compared to Shinomiya Kaguya, Shijō Maki's gaze at most made people feel uncomfortable, but would not give the sensation of being stabbed by knives.
Ah, come to think of it, in the original work Shijō Maki was basically the loser version of Kaguya, or perhaps the sunshine version of Kaguya. Although because her loser qualities were too strong it was easy for people to look down on her, she was in fact a young lady of a top financial conglomerate. Her learning, vision, and abilities were all at the peak level among her peers. It could be said that if one removed the tsundere loser element, she was a softer version of Shinomiya Kaguya, a teammate of great value to Takumi who had to be treated seriously, with even greater value to win over than Shinomiya Kaguya. After all, due to family education and a twisted personality, even as a teammate Shinomiya Kaguya had to be handled cautiously, while Shijō Maki was a pure little angel—so long as he did not bring about his own ruin, there was no way she would ever betray him.
"Takumi-san, just what is it that you know?"
Shinomiya Kaguya clearly trusted Shijō Maki. Seeing the other say the room was safe, she directly turned to Takumi and opened her mouth to ask.
"When in the corridor, at the start you were only observing the surroundings."
"At that time you had already taken notice of that man who called himself Tanaka, your gaze rested on him many times. That attention was absolutely not merely because he seemed to carry prestige among the others, but due to some reason of your own."
"Then, upon seeing him make that abnormal move of entering and locking the door, you immediately decided to hide in some room, practically as if you were taking his behavior as a guide. And earlier, when reading the guidelines, you too seemed to harbor no doubt about their authenticity, as if you already knew, had already seen similar things, so that upon seeing them you could immediately understand. I hope you can give a clear explanation of these matters. If you can be frank, then I think we can temporarily form a cooperative alliance. I believe with your powers of observation, you should understand how much of a support it would be for you to have me and Maki's help."
Not waiting for Takumi to reply, not giving him more time to think, Shinomiya Kaguya spoke in a cold tone, her pace of speech unusually fast, finishing a string of words in one breath.
While Takumi had been observing the others, clearly Shinomiya Kaguya had not been idle.
She had placed her attention on Takumi, discovered many irregularities through him, and now laid them all out.
Takumi could feel that the two girls in the room were at this moment both highly vigilant. Shinomiya Kaguya herself had her knees slightly bent—Takumi did not doubt that if he revealed anything suspicious he would instantly receive a heavy strike. On the other side, Shijō Maki, with a barely perceptible motion, had retreated a little, her left hand at some unknown time having moved behind her back. Takumi could faintly see that in that hand she held some object, whether a dinner knife or a fork he could not tell, though it looked a bit rusted. He reckoned that if it stabbed in, it could immediately apply a tetanus enchantment.
Whether they were allies or enemies, it would depend on his attitude in the next moment.
Takumi raised both hands, making sure Shinomiya Kaguya and Shijō Maki could see them, thought briefly to prepare himself, and then was ready to speak.
Actually, I am a transmigrator. In the world I lived in before, I often browsed many rule-horror forums, and I also very much liked to read infinite-flow works, so I would suspect whether some person might be a hidden veteran player and pay attention to his actions.
He had considered directly saying it, or slightly concealing his identity as a transmigrator, and instead talking about rule-horror and infinite-flow.
But…
[Don't let anyone know where you came from]
He could not remember where he had seen this sentence.
Only, at this moment it suddenly came to mind, and he felt a strange chill creep over him.
He could not say it.
Not only could he not reveal his identity as a transmigrator.
He could not even mention rule-horror or infinite-flow, because this was the world he had transmigrated into, and those two concepts belonged to the world of his previous life. He had checked this before while browsing online, searching many keywords to confirm that many things familiar to him in his previous world did not exist in this one. Although his search at the time had not been thorough enough, so he was not sure whether rule-horror and infinite-flow were included among them, if by chance they were, he would be exposed.
Wait, exposed by whom?
This thought left a trace of confusion in Takumi's heart.
But this was a trivial matter, and he quickly stopped thinking about it.