A red door.
A door completely blood-red, just like Room 304 of the Shirakawa Apartments.
However, according to Explorer Rule No. 2, the man called Wilbur was inside this room. He seemed, like Kyosei, to retain a certain degree of self-awareness. Those rules were very likely placed by this man through some means; otherwise, it would be hard to explain why players were always able to quickly obtain the relevant new rules whenever their roles changed.
That said, the research base itself should have little to do with Wilbur. The situation at that base was somewhat abnormal, and even now Takumi did not dare to draw any rash conclusions.
In any case, according to the contents of the rule sheet, he should be able to find the man called Wilbur behind this red door.
With that thought in mind, Takumi took a step toward the blood-red door—then stopped.
Next, he turned around and, without the slightest hesitation, moved quickly in the direction away from that door.
A powerful malice was spreading.
Almost at the very instant Takumi turned around, he heard the sound of the door opening behind him.
Drip—
A drop of water fell onto the floor.
Rapid footsteps came chasing after him from behind.
At that moment, Takumi erupted with all of his potential, sprinting with full force. In a single second, he directly covered a distance of fifteen meters, racing down the corridor at a speed that surpassed world records.
Fragmented sounds began to spread.
Like people raising glasses in celebration, laughing together.
Like people arguing fiercely, smashing various things onto the ground.
Like people speaking coldly, then walking off in different directions, parting ways, never to find even a trace of warmth again.
The thing behind him was closing in at an extremely fast pace.
Without S-rank physical augmentation, Takumi had no doubt he would have been caught immediately. But even with a physique that surpassed human limits, the distance between them was still steadily shrinking. There was simply no way to shake that thing off.
Use an Obsession Item? No—there was no time at all to turn around. He would likely be caught before he could even throw it.
The corridor was almost at its end. From this position, he could already see that there was no path ahead. Could he only try to jump out through a window?
Takumi's gaze rapidly swept over the doors lining both sides of the corridor. Relying on his similarly enhanced dynamic vision to observe them, he discovered that the nameplates on those doors were all just as blurred—clearly inaccessible, merely decorative.
No—there was one door whose nameplate was clear!
Bang!
Takumi's footsteps halted abruptly. His body slammed toward one side of the corridor, crashing open a large door. Then, before his body had even landed in midair, he hooked his foot around the door handle and, with a twisting burst of force, slammed the door shut.
The thing that had been chasing him stopped at the doorway and did not come in.
At the very last moment before the door closed, Takumi saw what that thing looked like. It had already lost its human form, like a mass of minced flesh that had been chopped and ground up, then piled back together into something that barely maintained a humanoid structure. Dark crimson blood continuously flowed from its body, dripping onto the corridor floor.
Drip—
It was as if such a sound had been made. From some unknown distance, from a place both far away and right before his eyes, that sound rang out, vague yet distinct.
Click!
The door had already closed, sealing that thing outside.
Takumi could hear its heavy breathing, hear the sound of its footsteps pacing back and forth, and finally hear the sound of it slowly leaving.
He climbed up from the floor and turned around to examine the room.
This was not a large office. Along one wall stood a large bookcase filled with various data files and reference books on different professional subjects. They all appeared to be books about how to construct tourist attraction infrastructure and carry out safety and security work.
On the desk in the middle of the room sat a miniature model of the Red Nut Grey Cave scenic area, along with a safety certificate and two documents. On the other side was a large open cabinet containing tools such as wire cutters and screwdrivers. These tools looked as though they had been used for quite some time, and thus appeared rather old.
Takumi knew what place this was.
This was the office of Wilbur himself, the head of the Safety Department of the Red Nut Grey Cave Tourism Development Company.
During the process of running into this place just now, he had clearly seen the words [Safety Department Head's Office] on the nameplate on the door, as well as the name [Wilbur] posted beneath it. That meant this was Wilbur's office within the company, back when he served as the safety supervisor.
[If you can't find the entrance to the Blood Vessel, then go to my office. I'm behind the red door. That door has always been kept for me. I'll leave a key inside…]
Takumi recalled the contents of that rule sheet and suddenly realized that this thing had actually set a trap for him.
If one could not find the entrance to the Blood Vessel, one could go to Wilbur's office to look for clues.
But Wilbur's office did not necessarily mean the "red door." These two things were in fact completely different, yet they were mixed together in the final passage, creating a misleading impression. If Takumi himself had not been relatively cautious and had not dared to approach that blood-red door identical to Room 304, then chances were that by now he would already have started his third run.
"The second category of rules is meant for players who have learned more information, so the content is more precise and involves more things. But at the same time, has this type of rule itself already been contaminated to a certain degree, with traps and malice embedded in its content?"
Realizing this, Takumi let out a long breath and felt a trace of indescribable exhaustion.
This chaotic instance, twisted into different times and spaces, was already tiring enough. If it were like the Shirakawa Apartments, where the problem was merely that information exchange itself was toxic, that would be one thing. But if the information itself also contained all kinds of traps, then things would likely only become more and more difficult from here on out.
He did not know where Fujiwara Chika was now.
If these scenes were all residual echoes of the memories left behind by those who had died in the cave, then she should also be somewhere within a scene formed from a certain memory. It was just unclear exactly where that would be, or how far apart she was from him now.
He could not help but think of the previous run, of the moment when Chika, who had been acting together with him, died.
At that time, Takumi had not dared to turn around to look at her, but he knew very clearly that the reason Chika died was because of him. Even though it had not been his intention, that fact still made Takumi extremely uncomfortable. And now that girl had gone missing halfway through; he had no idea whether he would be able to find her again later. Well, what he meant was finding her alive.
Forget it. There was no point dwelling on problems that could not be solved right now. He should first see what kind of informational clues were hidden here.
After steadying his emotions, Takumi first carefully observed the office again. Only after confirming that nothing ghostly was lurking did he cautiously walk over to the bookcase and begin pulling out the documents inside, examining them one by one.
These documents… were all detailed records concerning facility replacements and maintenance at the Red Nut Grey Cave. Every single one of them actually contained detailed, specific content. Under normal circumstances, most documents within memory echoes were blurry and indistinct. Only things involving key memories were supposed to remain clear, weren't they?
After realizing something, Takumi put the document in his hand back, then picked up a maintenance reference book of at least three or four hundred pages and flipped through it. He discovered that although the content in it was somewhat blurry, quite a lot of it was still legible.
It was as if he could see such a scene.
The man diligently led his subordinates through the cave again and again, day after day checking the safety of all kinds of equipment and facilities, and never once set aside his study of knowledge—spending each day with that same serious, conscientious attitude.
He put the book back into the bookcase.
After confirming that there was probably nothing hidden on the shelf, Takumi turned around, walked over to the desk, and reached out to pick up the two documents placed on it.
The former was a letter. It looked as if it had just been written and had not yet had time to be sent out.
[To Howard:]
[It's me, Wilbur]
[You may not have much of an impression of me. After all, you are the rising star of the city fire department, while I am merely a marginalized little nobody.]
[But now you and I are both trapped in the same storm, with no way to escape any of this. After that tragedy with Andres, what happened in the Red Nut Grey Cave is something you have the most right to speak on. You went in three times and came out three times. Yet many of your teammates stayed in there forever. And next, there will certainly be more people who die in that damned cave—so long as it is still operating, none of this will change.]
[I never imagined that one day I would come to this point—turning against my once best friend, and even ruining his future. But there have already been too many meaningless sacrifices, too many innocent people dead. I can't watch all of this continue. I must find a way to shut down that damned tourist attraction.]
[You are the only person I can still turn to. We must expose all of this, and bring this disaster, these tragedies, to an end once and for all.]
[This can't go on. If you receive my letter, please reply as soon as possible. I have already found the reporter responsible for the exposure. As long as you are willing to speak out, we will definitely be able to generate enough public pressure to shut down the scenic area.]
[—Wilbur]
The content of the letter was simple, and also seemed quite messy. It looked as though when Wilbur wrote this letter, his mental state was probably not very good.
Howard—this name had not appeared before. But Wilbur called him a rising star of the fire department, so in that cave world under the torrential rain, the one where the Rescue Team existed, perhaps clues related to him could be found. It might even be that the memory echo he had just seen in the warehouse belonged to this person named Howard. If that were the case, then it would be possible to sort out this instance's timeline more clearly.
Thinking along those lines, Takumi then picked up the second document.
It was also a letter.
However, unlike the handwritten letter from before, this one was printed by a machine, and its formatting was not very rigorous. It felt as though it, too, had been written in haste.
[The letter you sent to Mr. Smith has already been intercepted. The reason you are not dead right now is because I pleaded on your behalf with Mr. Anthony Tovan]
[What do you think you're doing? Do you really think that taking some vague, half-baked information and running off to expose it, shouting about it everywhere, can change anything?]
[Do you think that as long as everyone knows there is danger inside the Red Nut Grey Cave, people can then happily sit down, shut down the scenic area, and work together to figure out how to solve the problems inside?]
[I don't remember you being this stupid, Wilbur. I've known you for so many years, and I've never thought you were this much of an idiot.]
[This matter is no longer something you and I can decide. Don't you understand that yet? The Red Nut Grey Cave was selected this year to become a new national-level scenic area, and this year also happens to be the final year of our city mayor's term. What that means—do you really not understand?]
[Do you think Mr. Anthony Tovan, a dignified senator, comes to show concern for our scenic area for no reason at all? Why is it that our scenic area, clearly very rudimentary, was nevertheless given seven or eight full pages of front-page coverage in an international tourism magazine? Why have so many experts and celebrities come to visit our scenic area over the past two years? Why has our park suddenly been able to win so many awards? The mayor is his grandson-in-law. With the mayor's term about to end, the Red Nut Grey Cave personally promoted by the mayor is the face of people like them.]
[And you—you want to destroy all of this directly? Oh, you think that by finding some third-rate trash program and going on it to shout a few lines about dozens of people having gone missing in this scenic area, and that therefore this dangerous scenic spot must be shut down, things will then develop in a good direction?]
[For something this important, do you really think no one knows about the little moves you've been making? The reason you can still sit here reading the document I wrote to you, instead of lying dead in some little river out in the wilderness, is because I've been fucking doing everything I can to plead on your behalf.]
[Stop those irrational actions of yours. Don't keep spreading your misplaced compassion everywhere. If you really have that much compassion, then go help the slums instead—stop fixating on this place.]
[You are my most important friend, Wilbur.]
[Don't throw your life away over something like this, alright?]
[I will find a way to shut down the Red Nut Grey Cave, but that can only happen after the mayor's term ends. Even if this place has countless problems right now, it still has to be kept running. Please—consider it my plea, Wilbur—don't force yourself into a dead end. You're already a billionaire now, aren't you? We've made so much money and gained such high prestige from this scenic area. Why throw your life away over something that neither you nor I have the power to change?]
[Don't forget that you still have your mother to support. Do you want her to see the news of your death?]
[—Patrick Reed]
At the end of the lines of cold, printed text was a single handwritten phrase, vicious beyond measure: [fuxkyou].
It was clear that the contents of Patrick Reed's letter to Wilbur struck straight at the heart. Takumi could almost imagine what Wilbur's expression must have been like when he read it.
No—there seemed to be no need to imagine it.
Because Takumi could already hear, rising beside him, an incomparably heavy sound of breathing, along with that faint, nauseating stench of blood seeping into his nostrils.
[Huff…]
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