Shijō Maki was very angry.
For the first time ever, she felt incomparably furious—so angry that she felt as though she was about to explode.
Over the course of twelve hours, she and Kaguya had carefully explored the third floor's entertainment area together, and had managed to obtain a set of soldier uniforms, which they hid in the second-floor dormitory area. Then, after getting through the first night, Kaguya put on a researcher's uniform and was responsible for mixing into the command room, while Maki put on that soldier outfit and came to the personnel rest room to take Takumi and Fujiwara Chika out, bring them to undergo basic examinations, and then take responsibility for escorting them to the Quarantine Zone.
Throughout the entire process, both Maki and Kaguya were extremely cautious. In this place, where strange presences were everywhere, a single wrong step could lead to total annihilation.
In the second-floor dormitory, they saw figures lying on the beds—some whose entire bodies were dehydrated to the point of being nearly mummified, with large amounts of sand and dust covering them; some whose bodies were grotesquely swollen, already rotted and bloated beyond recognition; and some whose entire bodies looked as if they had been crushed flat, presenting a horrific scene of mangled flesh, blood, and fragments scattered apart.
Yet even so, the two girls could not smell any stench coming from these corpses, nor could they detect the slightest trace of blood. On the contrary, they could even hear these things letting out snoring sounds, or chatting casually with one another, as if they were still alive.
When they reached the third-floor lounge, the situation appeared even more severe. Blood splatter was everywhere, and shattered corpses lay all around—yet all of them were wearing researchers' uniforms or soldiers' uniforms, drinking alcohol like living people and playing with various entertainment facilities in a scene of apparent merriment. Some even invited Maki and Kaguya to join them in playing.
What seemed to be sustaining these things' vitality was the set of clothes they were wearing.
As long as they wore clothing that represented a certain identity, no matter how severe the damage they suffered, nothing would happen to them. It was as if they had already broken free from birth, aging, sickness, and death, no longer bound by the laws of nature, able to live on like this forever and ever.
Maki and Kaguya did not rashly attempt any of the games in the third-floor entertainment area. The two of them carefully searched through the rooms one by one, and in the end, in a small room tucked away in a corner, at the instant when two mangled corpses were flirting with each other, they took the clothing from one of them.
To be honest, the sight of two human-shaped masses of flesh—looking as though they had been run over by a truck—clinging to each other in intimacy was more than enough to leave a lasting psychological shadow. At the very least, Maki, who witnessed this scene firsthand, was severely shaken at the time and nearly lost control and vomited on the spot. As an aside, once the clothing that represented their identity was removed, those two things quickly began to emit a foul stench, and chunks of flesh gradually started falling off their bodies, with bloody fluid splattering out as well. This rather neatly explained why the third floor was covered in bloodstains everywhere.
For Maki, putting on that set of clothes was a tremendous ordeal, because the inside of the clothing was thoroughly soaked with blood, and even still contained fragments of bone and bits of flesh.
But in order to confirm Takumi's safety as quickly as possible, and to be able to see with her own eyes that he was unharmed, Maki ultimately overcame both psychological and physical discomfort and reluctantly put on that soldier's uniform.
Strangely enough, although that soldier's uniform was clearly several sizes too large for Maki, once she put it on, it fit her perfectly—just right, as if it had been tailor-made for her, making it extremely suitable and comfortable to wear.
Having gained a deeper understanding of the matter of "playing an identity," Maki immediately went to the personnel rest room, coming in her identity as a soldier to take Takumi and the other Explorers away.
Then she saw Takumi holding Fujiwara Chika tightly in his arms and refusing to let go.
"The second exploration operation is about to begin. Please take action as soon as possible."
Maki said coldly, her face expressionless, even faintly carrying a hint of killing intent. Upon seeing her, Takumi immediately loosened his grip. Chika, who finally regained her freedom, hurriedly climbed down from Takumi, gasping for breath as she stood to the side with a flushed face.
It was too intense.
Chika, pressing a hand to her chest, felt as though her heart was about to stop beating.
She had not slept for very long the night before, and after being unable to fall back asleep, she suddenly sensed some movement beside her. Before she could even understand what was happening, Takumi rolled over to face her, then reached out and hugged her, pulling her entire body into his arms.
There was nearly a thirty-centimeter height difference between Takumi and Chika, which resulted in Chika being almost kneaded into Takumi's chest, forced to press tightly against him.
Coupled with the absolute difference in strength, even when Chika exhausted herself trying to struggle, it had no effect at all. On the contrary, it instead triggered a bit of Takumi's instinctive reaction, causing him to hold her even tighter.
Unable to break free, the girl eventually became tired from struggling. In addition, after confirming that Takumi was truly already asleep and not deliberately taking advantage of her, she could only helplessly choose to give up. Just like that, she curled up in Takumi's embrace, treating his body as a bed and closing her eyes to sleep.
This experience was very intense.
At least for Fujiwara Chika, who had never been in a relationship before and had hardly ever had close contact with the opposite sex, it was truly extremely intense.
Especially the next morning, when Takumi's body produced a natural morning reaction, that intensity became even stronger—so strong that Chika thought she was about to stop breathing on the spot and faint right then and there.
Fortunately, the soldier who appeared to resolve the situation prevented certain extremely bad developments.
Thinking this way, Chika raised her head to take a look, then discovered in utter shock that this soldier was actually Shijō Maki. She immediately opened her mouth wide, unable to say a word.
"Please put on your exclusive uniforms and follow me to undergo a medical examination."
Maki merely continued speaking expressionlessly. At this moment, her presence was cold to the extreme, to the point that Takumi almost felt as though she might have already been completely assimilated by some eerie force and turned into something inhuman. Fortunately, because of the existence of the blessing, Takumi was still able to confirm that this girl wearing the soldier's uniform was indeed one of their own. It was just that her emotions now carried a trace of not-so-obvious malice—nothing that could be called genuine hatred toward Takumi, merely a level of hostility best described as being particularly displeased with him.
As for the source of this malice, Takumi was naturally very clear about it.
Awkward.
At this moment, Takumi's heart was filled with a sense of awkwardness.
Just moments ago it had still been that kind of terrifying, hardcore rules-based Horror Story game—how had it suddenly turned into a shura-field now? There had to be something wrong with this kind of development, right?
Not knowing what to say, Takumi could only quickly straighten the yellow explorer uniform with white stripes he was wearing, then gesture for Chika to follow him. He himself followed behind Maki as she turned and left, going with her to undergo that so-called medical examination.
After that, over the course of more than ten minutes—having merely passed through a few instruments for some scans—he and Chika were informed that they needed to head to the Quarantine Zone as soon as possible to begin the next round of the exploration operation.
"Be careful."
Although the look in Maki's eyes toward Takumi still carried a trace of resentment, she ultimately still seriously explained to him the various pieces of information she and Kaguya had obtained. This included topics discussed by the research personnel on the third floor—such as "the base still hasn't found a stable production method this year," "the number of Explorers brought in from the prison has started to be insufficient again," and "yesterday a unlucky soldier failed to follow the rules and disappeared"—as well as materials gathered from various other aspects, all of which she conveyed to Takumi.
She even gave Takumi a roughly sketched map of the first and second floors of the base that she had drawn herself. As for the third-floor entertainment area, because she and Kaguya had not fully explored that place, there was currently no accurate map available.
Takumi also did not hesitate. Taking advantage of this period of time, he handed over the information that he and Chika had collected as well. This surprised Maki—she had never expected that the different identities of "Explorer," "Rescue Team," and "Security Guard" would actually result in being directly transported to different time nodes, and that deep within the Red Nut Grey Cave there were even various kinds of eerie phenomena hidden. As a result, she fell into deep thought, becoming somewhat troubled as she searched for a reasonable direction of action for how to integrate this information.
Aside from the clothes that Maki and Kaguya were already wearing, there was at this time also a set of Maki's researcher uniform, as well as the clothing belonging to the other soldier—the one she had stolen from the pair that had been clinging to each other—available for changing into. According to her and Kaguya's original idea, they would take advantage of this moment when they could make contact with Takumi and Chika to change their clothes, letting them break away from the exploration operations that would likely force them to face all kinds of unknown dangers. But after thinking it over, Takumi chose to refuse. He decided to enter the Red Nut Grey Cave at this time node once, and properly confirm the specific situation inside.
As for Fujiwara Chika, although Maki had already developed a great deal of dissatisfaction toward this curvy girl, she was not to the point of disregarding the other party's life and death just because of a bit of emotion in her heart. Therefore, after Takumi firmly decided not to change clothes, she signaled for this girl to change clothes and alter her identity.
Unexpectedly, this time she was refused again.
"In the previous investigation operations, Takumi-kun saved me several times. I've also cooperated with him many times, so this time I still want to act together with him. That way, if we run into any unexpected situation, I believe I can coordinate and act with Takumi-kun."
As Fujiwara Chika said this, although the flush on her face had not yet faded, her attitude was still extremely firm, with no intention of changing it in the slightest.
As a result, Maki's fist clenched a little tighter.
Oh, really—these two had already become so close that they could trust each other and act together.
While she had been painstakingly investigating this research base, what exactly had the two of them been doing?
And she was even calling Takumi "Takumi-kun" and the like—their attitude was quite intimate.
Shijō Maki looked at Takumi as if a ball of fire were burning in her eyes. She endured it again and again, and in the end still swallowed it back, not letting her emotions affect the current operation. Finally, she merely gave Takumi's leg a light, unforceful kick, then stormed off in a huff.
To be honest, seeing her behave like this, Takumi felt rather guilty.
But the problem was that, thinking back carefully, he really hadn't done anything with Fujiwara Chika, had he? Whether it was pulling off her clothes, bathing together, or sleeping on the same bed and holding each other at night… all right, although the starting points for most of these things were accompanied by various kinds of helplessness, they did indeed have more or less some questionable aspects.
But as things stood now—ah, forget it. Better not think about that kind of thing for the moment. First, he should think about how to survive.
Forcing himself not to pay attention to Maki's gaze—as she deliberately chose a position far away from him in the corridor leading to the Quarantine Zone—Takumi moved forward like this. After passing through the door, he entered the extremely spacious Quarantine Zone hall, a place known as the "Preparation Room."
Just by looking, he could see more than ten machine guns and automatic cannons aimed at him, and in the shadows he could sense more than one twisted hostility.
However, judging by the directions these heavy weapons were facing, they did not seem to be prepared for Takumi, who had just entered, but rather for something that would emerge from the direction of the cave.
Not far away stood a glass wall. When he entered this place, Takumi could see his own incongruous appearance reflected on that glass, dressed in yellow-and-white striped clothing. At this very moment, behind that glass wall, Kaguya was standing inside the room, watching a group of researchers in front of her as they observed various sets of data.
[Exploration personnel are in position. Headcount: three… headcount: two? Headcount… two. Total: two exploration personnel. Please notify the command room to begin the operation.]
Within that cold, gloomy voice, a researcher whose entire face had already been shattered into a mangled mass turned his head and issued the order to Kaguya.
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