He heard the sound of someone knocking at something.
Takumi's crawling forward paused slightly for a moment, and then he continued moving forward.
Clearer and clearer, it was the sound of someone knocking, of someone pounding on a wall.
It was unbelievably dull, as if it were a sound coming from within his own body.
Faintly, it seemed there was also the sound of someone quietly sobbing, moving together with it—like it was buried in some place very, very deep, and also like it was right next to him, only impossible to see.
Takumi's breathing grew slightly heavier.
The oppressive feeling brought on by the cramped cave was stimulating his nerves every moment.
Rock scraped against his body; even with the protection of the protective suit, it still brought pain.
Takumi could be certain that the length of this tunnel was definitely over a hundred meters. Crawling through a cave like this really was not an easy thing. With the knowledge inherited from Kyosei's memories and his strong physique, even crawling here for a while would make him feel tired; it was truly hard to imagine what it would feel like for an ordinary person trapped here.
However, as an Explorer, this kind of danger was inevitable to begin with. From the moment you choose this path, you have to be prepared.
After all, I'm an Explorer.
"..."
Takumi stopped once again.
The same strange feeling as before spread through his heart.
He could not say what exactly was wrong; he just suddenly felt as if something had gone wrong with him.
Is there a problem?
Do my thoughts, my thinking—can any of it really be said to have a problem?
I'm an Explorer. I came here to explore. There shouldn't be any problem with that...
No—he should not be thinking like this. He needed to remember, to remember when a similar situation had happened before.
Takumi slowly crawled forward. Now he could no longer see Fujiwara Chika ahead. Without realizing it, this cramped cave had once again been left with only him.
Calm down, and think seriously.
That's right—this kind of mental abnormality, he had experienced it before at the Shirakawa Apartments.
After he put on the rescue team's badge—after wearing that rescue team badge, this Obsession Item, for a long time—he gradually began to forget who he was. He began to believe deep down that he belonged to the rescue team, and he truly acknowledged from the bottom of his heart that he was a rescue worker.
Just like now: he likewise firmly believed that he was an Explorer, without the slightest doubt about this identity, acknowledging it completely.
So he was not an Explorer.
Takumi found it hard to describe how he felt.
It was as if two completely split lines of thought were presenting themselves within him at the same time—like one Takumi had become two Takumi, two people crammed together inside one body, just like how he was being squeezed inside this tiny tunnel right now.
One Takumi had been an Explorer since birth. He had explored caves big and small, accumulated a great deal of experience, and was a cheerful, optimistic young man. He had come to the Red Nut Grey Cave, come to this cave that had no exploration difficulty at all—very simple, a place only beginners would come to explore—bringing a few exploration enthusiasts along to have fun here, while also offering some guidance to these young people who shared the same hobby as him.
And the other Takumi—he was a player. He was trapped in this place. He wanted to escape this cave. He... he was a somewhat frivolous man, with his own bottom line, not much of a sense of morality but not none either, and also a bit of a pervert... he—yes, he needed to find Maki and Kaguya. He needed to clear this instance that had undergone a massive mutation, and walk out of this hellhole alive. He was not an Explorer at all. He was a player. He was Takumi. He was nothing more than Takumi.
"Hoo..."
Along with a somewhat tired exhale, Takumi felt as if he had woken up from sleep; his whole mind became somewhat muddled and dazed.
At this moment, he finally realized that the identity he was playing, and the set of clothes he was wearing, while giving him the Explorer identity that allowed him to move within the instance, were also transforming his mind and body, assimilating him little by little toward the Explorer identity.
The memories and identity assimilating him—were they from some Explorer who had died in this cave?
No matter what, he had to take these clothes off.
And he could not let Chika keep wearing these clothes either.
If even he—whose willpower and mental power had been greatly strengthened by a blessing—had almost failed to react to this assimilation phenomenon, then Fujiwara Chika, who was clearly not as strong-willed as Takumi, probably would not notice the transformation happening to her at all, and without realizing it, she would become part of this deadly cave.
However, taking off the clothes would probably draw other dangers.
Takumi knew very well that the reason those things—already dead—wandering in the cave did not attack him and Chika was precisely because of the Explorer identity they were playing.
Once that layer of identity could no longer be played, what happened next would definitely not be good.
He had to switch to a different identity.
Takumi thought of the Tourist clothes scattered on the ground.
Put on Tourist clothes? No—not right. Up to now, the strange things he had seen were basically all dressed as Tourists. The Tourist identity, in the Red Nut Grey Cave, seemed to have already been equated with the existence of strange things, so he absolutely could not switch to a Tourist identity.
What about changing into another Explorer's clothes—replacing the Explorer outfit he had on? No. That initial cave had already disappeared, and the fork that had originally existed in the Artery was now nowhere to be found. Without being able to return to the maze-like area within that fork, there was no way to find a new Explorer outfit. And changing Explorer outfits was not safe either; after all, the abnormal phenomenon right now was caused by playing an Explorer, and the crux of the problem might not necessarily be the clothes he was wearing.
In that case, there were only two identities he could try.
Takumi's gaze swept over his black wristwatch, and the backpack in his hand.
The rescue team badge... a security guard uniform...
Even though there were still many unknown danger factors, for the moment, there were only these two choices.
The exit of the cave ahead was already gradually drawing near.
It seemed he could again hear some chaotic sounds echoing in the cave.
Shrill sounds, like a drill boring into a rock wall, and the sound of something being dragged.
The suppressed sound of crying also never stopped.
[■Stur■■... ■e■■... you■ co■e... ■■]
Takumi had no way to clearly tell how far away that voice was coming from.
He only crawled out of the cave with difficulty, staggered and collapsed onto the ground, then reached out and pulled down the zipper of his clothes, trying to take off this Explorer outfit.
"Ugh!"
The next moment, Takumi let out a cry of pain.
The Explorer outfit that was torn off his body was stuck to the hair on his skin, and under the forceful yanking it gave him a rather violent depilation, even tearing off a layer of skin along with it.
He lowered his head to look at this Explorer outfit, and found that his inner lining had basically fused to the Explorer outfit. Forcibly taking it off directly tore the clothes open, and several bloody scratches had been pulled open on his arm. In the places that had not been fully taken off, he could see sections where the skin had been sucked up and connected to the Explorer outfit.
"Disgusting enough. Can't you switch to a more normal method?"
Muttering this, Takumi took a deep breath and forcibly tore both of his hands free from where they were stuck to the Explorer outfit, immediately leaving them bloody.
The temperature inside the cave seemed to be dropping rapidly.
Compared to when he had arrived here just now, the temperature had become lower—so low that as Takumi breathed, he could already see a faint white mist.
The Explorer pants were also pulled down by Takumi.
For some reason, the shoes and helmet were not stuck to his body. It seemed only the clothes would have this kind of situation. But Takumi had no time to worry about that now, because he turned his head and saw Fujiwara Chika crawling out of the cave—a pink-haired girl who had clearly been walking in front of him at the start, but had now fallen behind him.
The blessing's judgment... human, but it seemed to have already differed from a normal human to some extent?
There was still hope. He had to act immediately!
Reaching out, Takumi grabbed Chika by the shoulder and pulled her whole body out of the cave.
"Ugh. Takumi-kun, why did you run ahead? Wait—why did you take off the Explorer clothes? We're Explorers. How can we take off the Explorer outfit? An Explorer without an Explorer outfit—how can that count as an Explorer?"
The girl who had just crawled out of the cave still seemed a bit dazed. Seeing that Takumi was only wearing a thin T-shirt and boxer briefs, she subconsciously spoke up.
Then Takumi acted before she could react.
"Excuse me."
Immediately after, Takumi's hand grabbed the zipper on her Explorer outfit.
[Rip—]
"Huh? Huh, huh, huh?"
The girl, eyes wide, almost immediately began to struggle, then was easily subdued as Takumi kept her from moving in a way that would worsen her injuries.
"Uwah, Takumi-kun, y-you-you—what are you doing? Don't, don't, ugh, ugh—!"
Frightened to the point that tears came out, Chika struggled desperately as she was about to cry out—only for Takumi, already prepared, to stop her before it could worsen the situation. Right after that, he began to pull the protective suit away from her body with urgency.
After a small part of the clothes was torn off her body, Chika's fearful whimpering turned into a pained low moan.
Dark red blood seeped out.
Unlike Takumi, the fusion phenomenon between the Explorer outfit and her skin was even more obvious. Under Takumi's forceful tearing, a small portion of flesh was even torn off along with it.
Takumi immediately realized that even if he could take this Explorer outfit off Chika, she would suffer extremely severe injuries—equivalent to having a layer of flesh torn off her body—making it basically impossible for her to survive.
So he took the rescue team badge out of his watch and pressed it against the girl.
Along with a faint warmth, Takumi saw that the injuries on Fujiwara Chika's body immediately began to heal, while the Explorer outfit she was wearing also started to change rapidly, visibly transforming into a rescue team uniform.
Was it because two Obsession Items that both possessed an "assimilation" function were acting at the same time, causing the transformation speed—in other words, the Obsession Item's loss-of-control speed—to accelerate?
Takumi did not let Chika wear the rescue team badge for too long. When he saw that her wounds had mostly healed, he tore it off, then forcefully stripped off the piece of clothing on her body that was imbued with eerie power.
Perhaps because of the combined effect of the two forces, the assimilation between this Explorer outfit—which had already undergone a certain degree of change—and Fujiwara Chika's flesh slowed considerably. Afterward, it only tore away a small bit of surface skin, leaving nothing more than a few scratch marks on the girl's body.
"Th-this… why did this outfit…"
After the Explorer outfit was removed, Chika came to her senses and struggled to get up from the ground, fear difficult to conceal in her eyes.
But immediately afterward, she noticed that she was now wearing only thin inner clothing. Embarrassment surging up, she instinctively turned away, her posture tightening in embarrassment.
Although she knew that this man had no malicious intent in stripping off her Explorer outfit—on the contrary, he was saving her—the feeling of being firmly pinned down, unable to move, with no room to react, and having the Explorer outfit removed under those circumstances was really…
"Put this security uniform on. Hurry."
On the other side, Takumi paid absolutely no attention to the fact that Fujiwara Chika was left scarcely covered—or, at least, he made no effort to dwell on the image his mind had already registered. Instead, he directly put on the rescue team badge himself, causing a rescue team uniform to materialize on his body.
After Kyosei's repose, this Obsession Item seemed to have undergone a certain degree of mutation. When worn by Takumi himself, its contaminating effect could be reduced to an extremely minimal level. Basically, after putting this thing on, as long as he was not fighting anomalies, Takumi could wear it for a full day and night without any problem. Considering that any injuries Takumi sustained would rapidly heal while wearing it, and his physical abilities would be enhanced to a level far beyond that of a normal human, he felt that this thing would not be out of place even if it were taken out and used as a superhero transformation device.
But right now, what he needed was simply the layer of identity of a "rescue team member."
"O-okay, I understand!"
Taking the security uniform that Takumi threw over, Chika—already noticing that some kind of strange movement was starting to appear around the cave—did not have time to care about the stench on the clothing and quickly pulled it on.
Then the girl lifted her head in a slight daze and realized that she was sitting inside a guard booth, seated at a desk. Under the light, she saw that outside the window directly in front of her was a gloomy cave. Three people wearing yellow-striped clothing were not far away. The figure at the very front looked somewhat familiar, but at that distance she could not see clearly.
...
[Confirmation of the 'guard booth' has been completed. It is not suitable to enter now. c1, take your team back to the entrance.]
"Yes, I will immediately lead the squad back."
Shinomiya Kaguya turned around and, together with the other two team members, began to head back.
...
And it was at this moment that Chika heard the sound of a door opening at her side. She turned her head and saw a figure in a security uniform slowly walk in.
...
[Splash—]
Under the torrential rain, Takumi wiped the water off his face and looked at the rescue team members and firefighters around him, each with a solemn expression.
"Right now, the situation inside Red Nut Grey Cave is completely unknown. Under the premise of ensuring our own safety, we must rescue as many people as possible. Everyone gets one set of rules and instructions. Finish reading in three minutes, memorize it, then move out!"
A bearded white man in a firefighter uniform shouted loudly at Takumi, and then packets of rules sealed in waterproof bags were handed into his hands.
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