The situation was bad.
The situation was extremely bad.
Behind them were two human models chasing after them and that Sister Flashlight with a lamp attached to her head; in front were at least more than ten headless students.
Takumi had originally thought that Aberrations wearing school uniforms would only appear in classrooms. He had not expected that these things could actually spawn in the corridor, and in a situation where they directly blocked the path at that. Originally, he had only planned to rush to the archives room to investigate the situation, but judging from how things looked now, if he truly entered the archives room, it would be equivalent to having his route sealed off by a large group of Aberrations. Moreover, the human model chasing behind had already had its killing rule discovered by Miko. Before figuring out a way to break that killing rule, Takumi truly did not dare let that human model block his path.
What should he do?
While thinking, Takumi had already dragged Miko along in a mad dash, charging straight toward those students.
The two human models behind them had already quickly caught up.
The sound of that Sister Flashlight's high heels striking the floor was exceptionally clear, and she was already close at hand.
Takumi merely made a rough estimate of the difference in running speed between himself and the things chasing behind him, and he was certain that there was no way he could reach the Archive Room before being caught.
There was no other choice. He could only first choose to break away from the current environment.
A blood-red gleam flashed through his eyes.
Takumi held Miko in his arms and, in the next instant, sprang straight up from where he stood, smashing directly through the ceiling and landing on the floor of the sixth level above, which was likewise shrouded in complete darkness.
Although the interior of this Teaching Building contained spatial distortions that made its layout extremely chaotic and bizarre, it still retained certain original properties of a building. Therefore, unless one was on the top floor or the bottom level, the floor above or below would certainly be another floor. One would not break through a ceiling or floor and find oneself outside the Teaching Building.
At this moment, Takumi realized that the corridor he was in had glass on both sides. Through the glass, he could see the pitch-black school grounds, as well as students hanging outside the windows, each one staring straight at him. Every single one had a bluish-purple face, and each one held a candle—a candle that was burning rapidly.
Damn it, just how many of these things are in this place?!
Cursing inwardly, Takumi hurried forward at a run. Miko had already been clamped around the waist with one arm and tucked at his side as he sprinted, carrying her along at full speed. The girl grew dizzy from the motion, feeling as though she might be shaken unconscious.
So frightening…
Miko could hear even more sounds now.
Those rustling sounds, those low murmurs of conversation.
Voices that followed along, accompanied by suppressed laughter.
Creak—creak—
It sounded like the two anatomical models. No—only one anatomical model. At the beginning, two anatomical models had chased after them. Why was there now only the sound of a single anatomical model?
And the footsteps of this anatomical model felt somehow…
Crack!
A fissure appeared in the window glass along one side of the corridor.
It was a student suspended in midair crashing against the window.
Crack—crack crack—
More impacts followed immediately after.
The male and female students hanging in midair struck the windows one after another in succession.
Miko could see their eyes.
Ghastly pale eyes, so pale that the pupils were almost indistinguishable, yet giving the constant impression that they were staring at her—eyes that locked firmly onto her gaze.
Her mind seemed to grow faint and hazy in that moment.
She heard the footsteps of the thing wearing high heels, whose head was a searchlight.
Extremely hurried footsteps, running on the floor below, closely following Takumi's pace without falling even a single step behind. The speed was astonishing.
The footsteps of the anatomical model were still sounding as well, its movements equally swift. It was certain that, at this very moment, that thing was on the floor below, tightly pursuing Takumi's steps, making it impossible to shake it off.
And moreover… those footsteps—there was no mistake about it, those footsteps…
"Takumi-san!"
Having suddenly discerned the anomaly within the footsteps, Miko lifted her head to look at Takumi and spoke as loudly as she could.
"The footsteps—the anatomical model—it's imitating your footsteps! Every step it takes is exactly the same as yours!"
Amid the girl's words, Takumi had already run through that stretch of corridor and arrived in a larger space.
The sound of shattering glass continued to ring out behind them.
Those students with bluish-purple faces—their candles had already burned out within these mere few seconds. As a result, more than twenty Aberrations were fully activated at once. They smashed through the windows and drifted into the corridor just like that, floating toward Takumi's direction with expressionless faces.
And at this very moment, Takumi's own footsteps came to a halt.
The anatomical model downstairs… is imitating my footsteps?
The instant he realized this, Takumi felt his thinking begin to slow.
His body was becoming stiff.
Without him even noticing, some kind of force had already invaded his body, yet he had sensed nothing abnormal at all.
Without the slightest hesitation, Takumi took out the Rescue Team Badge stored in his watch and put it on.
And just as he did so, half of his face detached and fell off; the strip of fallen skin turned into plastic.
But immediately afterward, as Takumi put on the badge, his body—already beginning to take on a plastic texture—started to recover. The half of his face that had been stripped of skin suddenly burst with blood. Just like that, he lost the skin from one side of his face out of thin air. His eyeball and teeth were completely exposed, and the blood-soaked flesh trembled with his breathing, horrifying like Two-Face in a Batman film.
"T-Takumi-san?!"
Because she had been keeping her head raised to look at him, Miko was instantly splattered across the face with the blood spraying from Takumi's face. But at this moment she had no mind to be afraid; she simply stared at him in shock, utterly unable to imagine that he would end up in such a state.
"It seems your classmate actually had a chance to be saved just now."
The pain of his face being torn open only made Takumi frown.
Relying on his powerful will, he activated the badge's power to rapidly repair the wound on his face, while not stopping his steps, accelerating forward as he continued.
The badge had not gone out of control. It seemed that this Obsession Item could still be used within this Instance. Tch—looks like next I'll have to find some time to test the Obsession Items I'm carrying one by one, to confirm which of them can still be used.
The killing rule of that anatomical model that tracks living people had now been successfully broken. It follows living people's movements and imitates their steps. The one being imitated will be cursed and gradually transformed into another anatomical model. As for the method of breaking it, one would probably have to stare at this thing while moving backward; in that case, the anatomical model would be in a state of being observed and would be unable to imitate movements. However, this method could basically only be used in team operations. For a single person, since one must deal with other Aberrations, it would be impossible to keep walking backward the entire time. It could be said that once one is entangled by this Aberration, one's life would be in grave danger.
"I hate games without safe periods…"
With that thought, Takumi's body had already manifested the Rescue Team uniform, and he summoned Tanaka, having this Rescue Team member charge straight toward the hanged students behind them.
Then, in less than a second, Takumi lost his connection to that Rescue Team member. When Miko slightly turned her head to look back, she saw a Rescue Team member hanging from the ceiling being surrounded by the students. After only a short moment, the students dispersed—and the Rescue Team member was gone.
"That just now was…?"
Completely unable to understand what that Rescue Team member who had suddenly appeared and then swiftly met a violent end was, Miko could not help but ask.
"A reusable piece of cannon fodder. But I'll probably have to wait nearly a full day before I can summon it again. The cooldown revival time after this thing gets killed is a bit long."
Takumi explained casually. By now, he had already turned through several corridor corners and arrived at a hallway with rows of student classrooms on one side and windows on the other.
This classroom had no one inside—it was an empty classroom. On the classroom door was written the name: [Activity Classroom].
Because a group of students was still chasing behind him, Takumi did not intend to stop. But at that very moment, a loud ringing sound suddenly echoed through the corridor. Immediately afterward, the corridor and classrooms were abruptly flooded with light, and the students following behind Takumi vanished the instant the lights came on.
Ding-ling-ling—
Amid the piercing ringing, both Takumi and Miko, standing in the corridor, felt an extremely ominous sensation of being watched by something.
They had entered the [Daytime] phase!
Without hesitation, Takumi quickly pushed open the door of the empty classroom beside him and went inside. He set Miko down, and the two of them found seats and sat.
The desks, which had looked completely empty when they first entered, now had a textbook on them after they sat down.
Having already experienced a scene like this once before, neither of them hesitated. They immediately picked up the textbook. Takumi casually flipped open to a lesson and began reading fluently. Although Miko had not yet fully calmed her emotions, she still followed along, stumbling slightly as she read, but without making any mistakes at this moment.
Are we finally a little safe for now?
Miko's heartbeat was still racing intensely.
That desperate flight just now had been far too harrowing. For a girl whose courage was not particularly great and who relied entirely on willpower to endure, it had already gone far beyond ordinary torment.
Especially since Takumi only needed to run, while she, in addition to enduring the constant jolting along the way, also had to keep listening to the students chasing behind them calling out her name, listening to the shrill and terrifying cries they emitted.
Among those hanged students… one of them was her classmate. The clothes were different, and because that one had only recently died, it was visibly different from the other Aberrations. That student chased after them the entire way, continuously calling out Miko's name, calling so persistently that Miko felt as though her whole body were going numb.
Now that they had finally stabilized for the moment—although having to keep reading without pause was also painful—at least she no longer had to face those dreadful things. Thus, Miko continued reading while quietly sobbing, looking pitiful to the extreme.
Takumi, however, had no time to adjust his emotions. While reading, he was simultaneously thinking about everything that had happened along the way just now. After putting on the Rescue Team Badge, he had deliberately paid attention to the sounds downstairs. He could be certain that although Sister Flashlight was still downstairs following him, the footsteps of the anatomical model had not sounded again.
After putting on the Rescue Team Badge, he had acquired a certain degree of Aberration characteristics—so was he therefore no longer able to be imitated by that anatomical model's footsteps?
And as for this girl Miko, she had been held in one of his arms the entire time, her feet never touching the ground. So that thing also could not imitate Miko's footsteps?
If that were the case, then if there were some way to allow players to walk on the ceiling or walls—or simply keep players in a floating state—would that completely avoid triggering the anatomical model's power?
However, if this thing's killing rule was to imitate footsteps, then what exactly did the "embrace" mentioned in the rule mean?
At this moment, Takumi had no way of seeing the anatomical model downstairs in the corridor, standing there motionless.
The anatomical model was currently making an embracing gesture, holding Ogawa Kyoko—who had already turned into an anatomical model—in its arms. The two anatomical models were fusing together little by little, as though this anatomical model were absorbing Kyoko.
On Kyoko's face, already turned into stiff plastic, within the pair of rigid pupils that should have been lifeless, fear and despair were vividly displayed.
Creak—creak—
Little by little, the embraced girl-model disappeared into the anatomical model's body just like that.
As though she had never existed, the anatomical model of Kyoko—the one who at the beginning had even tried to chase after Takumi and Miko—could no longer be found anywhere.
At the same time, inside the Activity Classroom, the two of them—finally able to catch a slight breath—continued reading for a while, only to notice the Aberration that had appeared outside the window, with a rotting sheep's head stitched onto its neck.
That thing opened the classroom door but did not step inside. It simply stood there at the doorway, motionless.
Takumi could sense the malice emanating from it and knew that this thing was certainly not here for a casual visit, so he immediately raised his guard.
But it did not move.
After opening the classroom door, it merely stood there without making any further motion.
What is going on?
Takumi could not quite grasp its intention.
But beside him, Miko's eyes had already widened. She saw, emerging from behind the sheep-headed Aberration, the shattered corpse that had once appeared in Takumi's house.
That thing's fragmented head grinned at Miko, then raised a finger to its lips, making a silencing gesture.
"Shh—"
Miko truly heard such a sound whispering by her ear.
Then she saw that thing stretch out its hand and directly reach into the classroom, pressing the indoor light switch beside the door.
Click!
A crisp sound fell.
The well-lit Activity Classroom was plunged into darkness in an instant.
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