Quietly, Takumi stood motionless beside the desk, listening as that heavy breathing passed by his side.
The sound of footsteps moved slowly past him, each step extraordinarily heavy, each one stamping forcefully against the floor.
The sound of a sigh rose by his ear, followed by the sound of a fist smashing hard into the desk.
It was as if someone were pacing back and forth inside this room, muttering something under their breath, saying something indistinct, venting a displeasure that anyone could sense.
"…"
Takumi simply continued to maintain his silence.
After a while, the footsteps reached the doorway. With a creak, the office door was opened, and then—bang—the door was slammed shut with force. Everything fell into stillness, silent and soundless.
"…"
Yet Takumi still did not make a sound, nor did he make any movement. He remained standing there in the same posture, completely motionless like a statue, even his breathing almost entirely stopped.
After a few more minutes passed, Takumi heard the sound of the door opening for a second time, followed by footsteps leaving the room, and then the soft sound of the door being gently closed.
Only then did Takumi turn his head to look around.
The floor was covered in bloodstains.
Blood-colored footprints circled around him several times. Dark crimson handprints covered the walls everywhere, along with blood marks that looked as though they had been gouged out by fingernails. At the office entrance, it was as if a bucket of red paint had been overturned—the entire section of wall was almost completely soaked in that grotesque blood-red color.
Takumi silently stepped back a few paces, then bent down in front of the desk. After trying a few times, he quickly opened the only drawer that was not locked.
Inside the drawer was a key. Attached beside it was a brief document stating that this key belonged to the area where the Red Nut Grey Cave's electrical relay system was located. Using this key, one could open the door to the relay zone, thereby turning the internal power supply of the Red Nut Grey Cave on or off.
Did this kind of key have some special use?
Takumi picked up the unremarkable little key, spun it around his fingers twice, then tucked it into his pocket and zipped it up to avoid some bizarre scenario like "accidentally dropping an important item."
After that, Takumi searched the room once more, but this time he did not find anything of value.
Was that really all there was?
The office that had been specifically emphasized in the rules ended up containing nothing more than two documents related to the truth of that year's incident, along with a key whose purpose was, for the time being, still unclear—and nothing else?
It really did not feel like it should be that simple.
Standing there, Takumi revealed a contemplative expression.
Speaking of which, Wilbur was the safety supervisor. He had been responsible for the entire infrastructure construction of the Red Nut Grey Cave. In a sense, that meant this guy was a technical worker, didn't it? If so, could he have left some kind of mechanism behind in this room?
Thinking this way, Takumi walked over to the desk and tried lifting it up, but found nothing unusual, so he set it back down.
After some thought, he went to the large bookcase that held the files and tried to move it. This process took a bit of effort, since the thing was clearly not something one or two people could move easily. But in the end, relying on his reinforced physical condition, Takumi forcibly shifted the solid wooden bookshelf—two meters tall, roughly one and a half meters wide, and packed full with six entire layers of files and books—away from its original position, then looked behind it.
Mm, it was just a wall. It did not appear that there was anything hidden there.
Feeling somewhat disappointed, Takumi still refused to give up completely. He stepped inside and tapped on the wall behind it, but could only regretfully confirm that there really was nothing hidden here—no secret door or anything of the sort.
There should have been a place like this.
Although there was no concrete evidence, Takumi still instinctively felt that something else was hidden here.
He tried opening the window in the room, only to find that outside it was not the ground-level park area of the Red Nut Grey Cave, but a place that looked like some kind of storage room. Although this spot appeared to be somewhere one could go, Takumi felt that it was likely a scene formed from the residual echoes of some other Obsession—something strange—and not a place where an exit actually existed.
In the end, the only thing left untouched was a small cabinet by the wall. Originally, because the cabinet was too small and did not look like something that could be used as a hidden passage, Takumi had not considered it. But now that he had tried everywhere else, he could only come back and try this spot as well. As expected, the result did not surprise him: behind the small cabinet there was nothing at all—just a solid, hard wall.
"Did I get something wrong?"
With his brows tightly furrowed, Takumi raised his head and looked toward the large chandelier hanging in the very center of the ceiling.
Above?
At that moment, Takumi suddenly recalled the corpses he had seen earlier in the cave, lying along the ceiling overhead.
Climbing up onto the desk, Takumi examined the chandelier from the side, and then noticed some strange marks along its edge that were not very obvious.
Next, Takumi put on the Explorer's cut-resistant gloves. He then leapt upward sharply, grabbing the chandelier with one hand while gripping the sharp surgical-knife Obsession Item in the other and slashing downward in one decisive motion. In the next instant, Takumi landed silently on the ground, holding the chandelier in his hands.
Immediately after, Takumi jumped once more. This time, he removed a circular wooden board that had been painted to serve as camouflage.
Looking up again, there was a pitch-black void above. By the light of the flashlight mounted on his helmet, Takumi could see that it was an extremely narrow rock tunnel—so narrow that, given Takumi's build, only a single person could pass through at a time. The tunnel quickly curved, shifting from a vertical downward drop into a passage that seemed to extend off in a certain direction. As for where it actually led, that was not something Takumi could easily verify at the moment.
Could this be it—the entrance to the next area? One of the regions that the Explorer had to pass through in order to escape the Red Nut Grey Cave, and also the narrowest place within the entire cave system? Excluding areas like massive fissures that humans could never pass through, this was a zone that would exert immense pressure and fear on Explorers alike: the dark place known as the Blood Vessel. Could this be its entrance?
As he thought, Takumi was already preparing to leap up and climb into the tunnel from here.
But very quickly, he turned his head to look at the office door, which had already become a mass of blood-red, as well as the storage room connected to the open window on the other side.
Fujiwara Chika was very likely still trapped somewhere within this land of lingering obsession.
If he left right now, then that child would probably truly end up trapped to death here. In any case, she was Kaguya's good friend. If the difficulty was not high, it was still something he could help with.
"This is such a headache. I clearly said earlier that I'd abandon her if she held me back, but it looks like I'm the type with a compulsive need for happy endings."
Takumi shook his head lightly as he remarked, then climbed through the window and entered the storage room across from the office.
The temperature here had dropped much further compared to the office earlier, and it had dropped directly below zero, to the point that every time Takumi breathed, white mist came out.
Many frozen meat cuts and animal body parts were placed on the storage racks. Takumi could recognize pork, pig legs, beef, lamb legs, whole chickens, and other things. There were also some kinds of meat he could not really identify.
This storage room was large—very large—larger even than the footprint of an entire floor of Takumi's house. Takumi circled around the place before he finally found the exit. In less than a few minutes, a layer of white frost had formed on his body, and he was shivering from the cold.
Was this the storage room of some food factory?
Thinking this, Takumi tried to open the storage room door, only to find that it was already locked. Without a key, it could not be opened.
So Takumi took out the blood key, inserted it into the lock, gave it a gentle twist, and successfully opened the door.
Then a ghostly thing, its entire body a bloody mess and dressed in a waiter's uniform, poked its head in and stared into this icy storage room.
Nothing was there.
After a while, the thing finally retracted. Then the heavy door slowly began to close, but before it could shut completely, a scalpel became lodged in the crack. At some point unknown, Takumi, who had leapt up and braced his feet against the wall to force himself onto the ceiling, dropped down, gently pulling the door back open.
Outside the door was a corridor laid with expensive carpets. The walls were decorated with various framed paintings, and faint music could be heard in the distance. Under the warm-colored lighting, the corridor overflowed with an air of aristocratic elegance.
Takumi knew that saying this sounded rather strange, but when he saw this corridor, he truly felt a sense of this is the luxurious villa of some elegant noble. It was as if the architectural space itself was revealing that kind of temperament.
When he had just used that Blood Key, what Takumi had in mind was to go somewhere near Fujiwara Chika. In other words, did that girl happen to be somewhere here?
He stepped out of the storage room.
Takumi began to move forward along the corridor with extreme caution.
The paintings hanging on both sides of the walls depicted figures dressed in formal attire, men and women alike. Every single one wore a smiling expression, as if displaying their own elegance to visiting guests.
But for Takumi, who was currently walking alone through this empty corridor, he only felt as though the people in the paintings were alive—each one seeming to turn its head after he passed, gazing at him with an indifferent stare.
Takumi was gradually drawing closer to the source of the melodious music.
Gently pushing open a wooden door, Takumi—having tucked away the tools he had taken from the office—briefly examined the door before stepping inside.
After passing through a somewhat dim area, he gradually began to hear the sound of people talking, the noise of footsteps moving about, and what seemed like the clinking of wine glasses.
Warm candlelight spread outward in all directions.
Tables were filled with luxurious dishes, giving off tempting aromas.
Hiding behind a pillar, Takumi saw one figure after another seated at the tables. They were speaking in low voices, cutting their steaks with elegant movements, drinking red wine, and appreciating the piano performance on the raised platform not far away.
No—there was no one sitting in the seats.
They were nothing but rows of empty chairs, yet from time to time, sounds still came from those seats.
The entire restaurant was almost completely devoid of people. There were no diners at all. Aside from the girl silently playing a piano piece on the raised platform, everything was submerged in a deathlike stillness.
The girl was still alive.
Although her condition was terrible—one could clearly feel her mental state deteriorating more and more, to the point that her whole body was beginning to sway and she could only desperately force herself to continue playing—at least for now, she was still in a state that could be saved. She had not yet reached the point of completely losing her own existence.
A swollen thing, like an overinflated balloon, slowly walked out and appeared at one side of the platform. It held a microphone in its hand, as if it wanted to say something.
Meanwhile, taking advantage of the fact that the venue was lit only by candlelight and contained many shadowed areas, Takumi had already slipped into this space, slowly drawing closer to the area where the platform was located.
The phantoms around the dining tables were merely remnants of the past. They had no way of discovering Takumi's presence.
But that massive, rotting figure was clearly different. It was the master of this memory, a bizarre thing that radiated intense malice.
Takumi did not dare to act rashly and only hid cautiously at one side of the platform.
And at that moment, he heard the indistinct voice coming from that thing, mixed with the sound of flowing water.
[Thank… you all for com… coming to this ban… banquet. In a mo… ment, I will lead everyone to the Red Nut Grey Cave to take part in the… ritual…]
Within the blurred, unclear voice, the thing slowly raised its bloated arm, which was covered in slashing wounds. Dark yellow pus and bloody fluid seeped out and dripped onto the ground.
From the completely empty dining tables, the sound of applause rang out.
The carpeted floor began to change at that very moment. Little by little, it started to transform toward the appearance of a cave.
Takumi noticed some clothing that looked like it belonged to Tourists, faintly appearing and disappearing among the emerging rocks.
This place was becoming dangerous.
Therefore, Takumi did not hesitate. He rushed forward at full speed and leapt in a single bound to Fujiwara Chika's side.
The girl, who was clearly on the verge of despair, froze slightly the instant she saw Takumi appear, and her movements at the piano slowed as a result.
That deformed thing immediately turned around, and the entire restaurant became even colder at that moment.
Then, Takumi and Fujiwara Chika fell into the doorway together.
The door that Takumi had, on the way in, taken off and used the Blood Key to open—opening up a passage leading to Wilbur's office—was now lying beside the piano, in an open state.
Ashes swirled up and scattered, landing on that thing and slowing its movements for a brief instant. And Takumi used that instant of time to successfully pull Fujiwara Chika into his arms. Then, following the momentum, he fell into the doorway. At the moment he dropped into the office, he hooked the doorknob with his foot and slammed it shut, successfully completing the rescue operation.
"Whew—this was pretty difficult."
With that remark, Takumi braced one hand against the floor, wanting to stand up and check on Chika's condition in his arms.
He couldn't stand up right away.
Because the girl in his arms reached out with both hands and hugged Takumi tightly, clinging to him with almost all her strength. Takumi, not daring to use too much force, was unable to move.
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