The bus came to a smooth stop, the doors opened with a hiss, and damp air mixed with the scent of soil and rotting wood poured in.
The students climbed off one by one, stretching their limbs as they surveyed what was supposedly the "joint camp location."
It was a two-story western-style building (like a villa) standing alone in a clearing in the middle of a forest, and it looked incredibly old. The paint on its walls was peeling, the wooden boards on several windows had already rotted, and the wild grass around it had grown to nearly the height of an adult. Rather than a vacation spot, it looked more like a filming location for a horror movie.
"Wow, what an amazing house!" Yui let out an innocent exclamation.
Hachiman's dead-fish eyes swept around the area, then he muttered quietly, "Amazing in the sense that it's cursed, you mean?"
Shizuka cleared her throat, trying to salvage the atmosphere: "Ahem, it may be a little old, but the inside has been cleaned up! Everyone, bring your things inside, and then we'll divide up the rooms!"
At that very moment, Darius stepped off the bus.
He stood in the doorway of the bus, not immediately setting foot on the ground. Instead, he pulled a Soviet gas mask from his backpack and put it on with movements so practiced they were unsettling. The large round filter canister made him look like a giant insect from a post-apocalyptic world.
"Darius-kun?" Yui looked confused.
Through the cloudy lenses, Darius's gaze swept across the western-style building and the forest ahead. His voice, having passed through the mask's filter, came out heavy and distorted.
"Analyzing air sample... Detected high-concentration organic decomposition microparticles, suspected spore concentration exceeding safety threshold. Yuigahama, until air purification equipment is installed, it is advised to use at minimum triple-layered medical masks for physical isolation."
He produced a vacuum-sealed bag from his pocket, containing a neatly stacked pile of blue masks, and extended it toward her.
The vein at Shizuka's temple began to throb again.
"Darius! Take that thing off! Do you want to terrify elementary school children?"
"Sensei, this is a matter of responsibility toward human life," Darius's voice was flat and expressionless. "Breathing the air here is like licking a corpse that has just begun to decompose. Every breath means shortening one's own lifespan."
Yukino quietly took two steps back, keeping her distance from Darius. She felt that if she drew even slightly closer, her own intelligence would be eroded by the air in this place.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Entering the building, a sharp musty odor greeted them. In the hall were several old sofas draped in white dust covers, looking like a row of silent corpses.
Shizuka clapped her hands and began assigning rooms: "Boys on the left side of the second floor, girls on the right! Two people to a room—find your own partners!"
Totsuka walked over to Darius shyly and asked quietly, "Darius-kun, can we share a room?"
"Affirmative, 'Nightmare.'" Darius nodded, responding in his distorted voice. "You are responsible for monitoring the left wing, I will take the front. Remember, don't trust anyone easily—including me."
Totsuka didn't quite understand, but nodded vigorously with an enthusiastic expression, feeling as though he had been entrusted with an important mission.
The two carried their things up to the second floor and found their room. It wasn't large—just two single beds, a wardrobe with peeling paint, and a window facing the forest.
The moment Totsuka set down his things, he saw that Darius had already entered work mode. Pulling white rubber gloves from his bag, he got down on the floor and carefully inspected the space beneath the beds.
"Pre-President, what are you looking for?"
"Checking for information left behind by previous occupants," Darius answered without looking up. "In desperate situations, humans will instinctively leave distress signals or final testaments. Under the bed, wall corners, ceilings—these are all common recording points."
Having finished inspecting under the bed, he stood and opened the wardrobe, which creaked loudly. It was empty, smelling only of mothballs.
Darius extended his hand, using the tips of his gloved fingers to slowly stroke the interior wall of the wardrobe. His movements were so gentle it was as though he were caressing a rare treasure.
Suddenly, his movements stopped.
"Found something."
Totsuka moved closer out of curiosity, following the direction of Darius's finger. They were nothing more than a few irregular scratches in the wood grain.
"This is..."
"Scratch marks." Darius's voice was extremely grave. "Judging by the depth and spacing, these were made by human fingernails. Based on the degree of wear, whoever this was struggled here for a very long time."
His gaze shifted to a small dark stain at the bottom of the wardrobe.
"This is dried blood. They may have been mutilated here."
The color instantly drained from Totsuka's face. He took a quick step back, bumped against the edge of the bed frame, and sat down. When he looked at the wardrobe again, his eyes were already filled with terror.
Darius closed the wardrobe and drew a large "X" on it with a red marker.
"This area has been contaminated, classified as a restricted zone," he announced, then turned toward the trembling Totsuka. "Tonight you sleep—I'll keep watch. Remember, whatever sound you hear, never open your eyes."
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
The night grew later.
Most of the students on the camp trip had already fallen asleep. The entire building was completely silent, with only the sound of unidentifiable insects drifting in from outside the window.
Totsuka had pulled his blanket over his head and didn't dare sleep at all. He felt as though at any moment a hand might reach out from behind the wardrobe marked with the X.
Darius, meanwhile, had brought a chair and was sitting in front of the room door, facing the corridor. He wasn't wearing the gas mask, but the tactical goggles remained on. In the darkness, the lenses reflected the moonlight, casting a faint green glow like two wisps of ghostly flame. He didn't move a single muscle, like a stone statue.
At that very moment, a door at the end of the corridor opened.
Hayato crept out, apparently wanting to use the bathroom on the first floor. He had only taken two steps when the corner of his eye caught two green points of light floating in the air. His heart stopped for an instant.
He froze on the spot, every hair on the back of his neck standing on end. What was that? A cat? Or... something else?
He steeled himself, narrowing his eyes to get a better look. In the moonlight, those two green points of light were coming from a pair of tactical goggles, and beneath those goggles was an expressionless human face.
Darius.
Hayato nearly screamed. Seeing Darius's posture, as though he had been sitting there for a century, a chill crept from the soles of his feet all the way to the crown of his head.
(This guy, not sleeping in the middle of the night, sitting in front of a door wearing glowing goggles—what on earth for?)
Darius seemed to notice his presence. He slowly turned his head, and the two green points of light locked precisely onto Hayato's position.
Hayato felt like he was being targeted by an apex predator. He didn't even dare move, and could only stand stiffly, staring back at those two ghostly flames. Several seconds later, Darius slowly raised his hand, making a "go ahead" gesture.
Feeling as though he had been granted a pardon, Hayato walked down the stairs stiffly—his arms and legs moving in the same-side pattern. He could feel the two green gazes on his back like two cold needles stabbing the back of his neck.
Darius withdrew his gaze and returned to watching the dark corridor. His mission was to monitor movement throughout this entire "morgue" and prevent any potential "corpse from rising."
Suddenly, he tilted his head slightly, gazing through the window at the far end of the corridor toward a small grove in the distance outside the building. There, a small solitary figure was sitting with knees hugged to her chest beneath a tree, blending into the surrounding darkness.
It was the little girl he had seen that afternoon—the one who had been ostracized by the other elementary school children.
The corner of Darius's mouth lifted into a barely perceptible curve. He turned toward Totsuka, who was still trembling under his blanket, and whispered in a tone as though he had just discovered a new continent:
"'Nightmare,' don't sleep."
"Look—I've found Patient Zero."
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