In the Travel Club's parking lot, two slightly beat-up seven-seater vans were waiting side by side.
"Alright, everyone! Let's split up between the vans!"
Club president Nagayama clapped his hands, still wearing that same bright, sunny smile.
He assigned the groups as if it were completely random.. In the end, Natsume, Yui, and a shy looking new male member were all put into the first van, the one Nagayama would be driving himself.
Utaha, Eiko, Yashiro, and another new girl were placed in the second van, driven by another "upperclassman."
The doors shut, the engines turned over, and the two vans pulled out of the university one after the other, heading toward the increasingly deserted outskirts of town.
At first, the atmosphere inside the car felt a little stiff.
Yui clutched the hem of her shirt nervously. From time to time she sneaked a glance at Natsume, who was sitting beside her with his eyes closed as if resting. It was like just seeing his profile could give her a little bit of peace of mind.
"Haha, no need to be so tense, you know!"
Nagayama looked at them through the rearview mirror, laughing loudly.
"Our Travel Club actually has another nickname. People call us the 'Suicide Club'."
"Eh?"
Yui jumped at the sudden topic.
"Relax, relax, it is just a scary story passed down in the club," Nagayama said, lowering his voice theatrically.
"Legend says that a long time ago, some of our seniors went exploring in an abandoned building. But after they came back, it was like they were possessed. That very same night, every one of them used the exact same method to commit suicide together."
He kept talking while driving, painting the scene in vivid detail, trying hard to create a spooky mood.
"They say that ever since then, every new member who joins us will, during their first welcome event, get invited by those seniors' 'spirits' to go back to that building and relive what happened that night.
If they cannot escape before sunrise, they become one of them."
With the scenery outside the window gradually turning desolate, Nagayama's story was so descriptive that even the air inside the van seemed to grow colder.
Yui's face went pale. She shrank closer to Natsume without even realizing it, almost pressing against his arm.
But the reaction she expected, the screaming and panic, never came.
The boy beside her did not even lift an eyelid. His breathing stayed calm and steady, like he had already fallen fast asleep.
From the rearview mirror, Nagayama caught that completely unconcerned expression and his smile stiffened for a second.
This isn't how this is supposed to go.
Based on his past experience, at this point the newbies should be panicking. Even if they did not start shrieking, they should at least look properly scared and uneasy. Yet this absurdly handsome boy was acting like none of this had anything to do with him. What was his deal?
Was his story really that boring?
What Nagayama did not know was that while he rambled on, Natsume's Six Eyes had already seen through everyone in both vans, down to the last detail.
Aside from Yui, Utaha, Eiko, Yashiro, and the two new students, all the others, including the "Nagayama" who was driving right now, were made from the exact same cursed energy. Every one of the remaining six was a cursed corpse.
Natsume calmly sorted through the information in his mind.
No souls, no independent will, just puppets being controlled from far away.
So the enemy's technique can mass produce cursed corpses, and even give them highly realistic behavior patterns.
To his eyes, this kind of trick felt no more impressive than a child's game.
After about an hour of driving, the vans finally came to a stop in front of a single abandoned building standing alone in the middle of a wasteland.
The concrete was stained and peeling. Many of the window panes were shattered, and the black, empty frames looked like hollow eye sockets staring down at them, exuding a heavy, ominous presence.
"Alright, everyone, this is the place!"
Nagayama and the other "upperclassman" cheerfully urged everyone to get out of the vans.
The moment Yui and the others set foot on the ground, a wave of invisible cursed energy rippled out from inside the building, washing over them like a silent tide.
It was not a powerful offensive technique, but a barrier that quietly affected the mind. It amplified the fatigue and drowsiness in one's heart, slowly pulling its prey into sleep without them even noticing.
"Ah… why am I… so sleepy all of a sudden…"
A crushing drowsiness rushed into Yui's head. Her eyelids grew unbearably heavy, her vision blurred, and within seconds her consciousness slipped away. Her body went limp and toppled sideways.
Utaha, Eiko, and the others could not withstand the spell either. One after another, they all collapsed into a deep sleep.
Yet the same cursed wave that shut down any ordinary person in an instant shattered like a wave on rock when it reached Natsume.
The Limitless technique.
Because of the principle of infinity, anything that tries to reach him slows down more and more, approaching but never really touching. That naturally included any kind of cursed attack.
The hypnotic energy unraveled one inch in front of him, stretched out and diluted into nothing.
Natsume stood there without so much as a hair out of place. He calmly caught Yui as she fell against his shoulder, supporting her gently. Then he let his eyes drift closed, going along with the act and pretending to have succumbed as well.
"Heh… what a bunch of idiots."
Seeing that every "new member" was out cold, Nagayama's sunny smile vanished. His face became a blank mask, like a puppet whose strings had gone slack.
The other five "upperclassmen" began to change as well. Their skin turned stiff and porcelain like, and round ball joints appeared at their elbows and knees, the unmistakable structure of puppets.
There was no need for disguises anymore. The cursed corpses revealed their true forms.
"Drag them all inside. Mother has been waiting for tonight's feast."
"Nagayama" gave the order in a flat, robotic voice.
Two cursed corpses stepped forward, reaching out to grab the "unconscious" Natsume and Yui, ready to drag them toward the yawning dark of the building, like a beast swallowing down its prey.
At that exact moment, a deafening boom exploded from behind them.
The roof of the second van shot upward, ripped open from the inside by a massive force.
Metal and glass shards rained down as a small figure burst out of the wreckage in a shower of sparks, landing lightly on the ground.
Yashiro.
In her hands she gripped that absurdly oversized, steel cold "Sacred Sword of Physics", the crowbar. Her strange twin pupils blazed with icy fury.
"You trash puppets…"
Her childish voice was cold enough to freeze bone.
"…what do you think you are about to do to my friends?"
Every cursed corpse on the scene froze mid-movement.