Gulp.
Yuuki subconsciously swallowed, his head buzzing, his expression changing constantly within a second.
Confusion, incomprehension, anger…
As the noisy countdown sounded, it was as if someone had violently squeezed his heart.
After blood pumped to his brain, his thoughts became chaotic and clear.
Why now, of all times?
Is Sakurajima Mai really problematic, to the point that even imagining her could lead to unpredictable consequences?
Yuuki, who had largely confirmed the world was safe and was preparing to embark on a new life, felt as if he had been struck by a heavy blow.
He instinctively felt angry, but a second later, reason returned.
“What I saw back then wasn’t a hallucination after all?!”
Who wrote it?
Why warn me?
Why now?
Yuuki’s confusion was different from an Ordinary Person’s; it wasn’t the philosophical ‘Who am I, where am I’ questions, but a chilling sense of being enveloped by a shadow.
His brain felt as if it had been soaked in the Water of Life, devoid of memory.
Yuuki had no choice but to forcefully forget this question, and then…
A sense of relief actually emerged.
Whatever the reason, hadn’t he been preparing for this moment for years?
All that endurance, all that training, and the constant searching of his past life memories—for this day, who knows how many childhood friends he might have missed?
If it was all just my imagination, wouldn’t that be an even greater loss?
“It’s strange, I don’t even know if I’ve lost or gained.”
His heartbeat gradually stabilized, at least proving that he hadn’t suffered from ‘persecutory delusions’ all these years.
Like a top student who constantly practices and simulates, whether he can write the answer is secondary; at least he’s mentally prepared when the actual test comes.
“Please open the door, meet up with your teammates, and complete the novice guide.”
“Afterward, players will activate their personal panel.”
“Countdown begins: ten, nine, eight…”
The strange voice sounded again.
The questions he had previously encountered now surged uncontrollably into his mind.
His previously stiff brain began to churn rapidly.
“Reincarnation Game? Players? Is it a dungeon-crossing game similar to the infinite flow genre? But why are there no mission prompts?”
“Open the door, meet up with teammates? Is this a new player test? Does the real game only appear after crossing this stage? What happens if I don’t open it?”
Just as the countdown reached ‘4,’ many questions had already surfaced in Yuuki’s mind, but none of them could be answered, because the voice had disappeared, with no intention of responding.
He glanced at the endless, strange corridor, then unhesitatingly twisted the doorknob and pushed inward.
General Principle One: It’s best to obey the system in a game.
Creak—
The wooden door’s leaf made a harsh sound.
Yuuki walked straight in, the light from the wall lamps making him squint slightly.
Before him was still a corridor, with a gray carpet and green walls, much like before.
The difference was that he could see other things in the corridor.
There were no windows.
Six wooden doors were arranged in a row along the corridor.
In the middle section, a wooden staircase led both upstairs and downstairs.
Turning around, the door he came through was open, revealing the same monotonous corridor from before.
A villa?
A castle?
Yuuki’s eye twitched slightly, his heart easing after the countdown stopped.
He was sure he had made the right choice, but the scene before him made his expression complicated again.
“It’s not quite what I imagined before.”
Besides the end of the world and strange invasions, Yuuki had also simulated being thrown into some kind of game over the years.
Reflecting on the strange minute-long encounter just now, he felt that his previous fantasies had some issues.
“There’s no blueprint, at least it’s not something like ‘Infinite Horror.’ Could it be a rule-based anomaly? There’s no way to prepare for that.”
His head was still buzzing.
Yuuki subconsciously lifted his leg, and only when it touched the carpet, feeling the soft texture, did he regain his senses, his gaze becoming resolute.
Having taken this step, there was no turning back.
Whatever type of game it was, whether the preparations he made over the years were in vain, his goal remained unchanged from when he first transmigrated—
I want to live!
The corridor didn’t exhibit any supernatural characteristics; at least, its physical rules were the same as reality.
Yuuki, now fully in the zone, trod on the soft carpet and quickly reached the central staircase.
“So, upstairs or downstairs? There are at least five turns, and the building has more than five floors. This should be a castle or a large building of some kind.”
Having made his assessment, he glanced at the dark downstairs, then suddenly looked up, vaguely seeing a crimson light.
Amidst the dim wall lamps, this hint of crimson was exceptionally striking.
Yuuki’s tense face finally relaxed a little.
Besides the light, the strange voice sounded again.
“Player, you have fifteen minutes left.”
“Phew, I thought I’d actually have to search slowly. So there are hints, after all. But fifteen minutes? Does it take that long to go up a floor?”
He lifted his foot, but then suddenly stopped as he was about to step onto the wooden stairs.
Thud.
His leather shoe made a dull sound against the wooden stair, but what reached his ears were two ‘thuds,’ very noticeable in the dead silence of the corridor.
“Someone else?”
Yuuki’s muscles tensed instinctively, but he wasn’t too surprised, as the previous prompt had mentioned meeting up with teammates, so he wouldn’t be the only one in this building.
Teammate?
Or some dungeon monster?
Yuuki pondered for a moment, his right hand slipping into his jacket’s inner pocket.
He pressed his back against the wall, tiptoed up the stairs one step at a time, rounded a corner, and vaguely saw a black silhouette climbing the stairs ahead.
Its upper body was hidden in the shadow of the light, but light blue jeans and white sneakers were visible.
As if hearing Yuuki’s footsteps, the legs paused, and the white sneakers turned around.
“Who’s there!?”
The language used wasn’t Japanese, but more like Spanish, yet Yuuki understood the girl’s voice without any difficulty.
This wasn’t strange; if even time and space could be freely altered, making the people in the script understand was too simple.
Yuuki remained silent; at least for now, he couldn’t trust any living creature.
“Are you also kidnapped? That’s great, I thought I was the only one here.” Hearing Yuuki’s silence, her voice became more urgent, with a hint of a sob.
She ran down the stairs, saying with lingering fear:
“Did you hear a strange voice just now talking about some damn game? Hurry and get me out of here! If we escape, I’ll have my dad pay you a reward!”
The girl running downstairs turned the corner, seeing Yuuki’s full body.
Upon seeing the black-haired young man retreating the way he came, her tearful voice turned irritable.
“Hey, what are you backing away for?!”
Yuuki was indeed backing away, several times faster than when he went up the stairs.
In the blink of an eye, he retreated back into the corridor, head held high, swallowing hard.
“Miss, when you heard that strange voice, what did you do?”
“What did I do? Of course, I turned and ran! I kept running until I got here. By the way, come over here, why are you so far away from me?”
The girl pursued him, her voice tinged with a madness that was completely at odds with her sweet tone.
“So that’s it, you didn’t follow the prompt.” Yuuki stood still, and in the light of the wall lamp, the figure at the stairwell corner was reflected in his red pupils.
Similar to her pleasant voice, the other party had a beautiful figure.
A cartoon-patterned T-shirt and jeans outlined the prominent chest and hips characteristic of people of European descent.
However, as his gaze moved upwards, the subsequent scene appeared bloody and bizarre.
Her fair neck was like a flowerpot; where a beautiful head should have been, it was completely disintegrated, like a cartoon drawing torn apart by a naughty child.
The skull and muscles spread out like petals, and a mouth, split across three ‘petals,’ was wriggling, saliva uncontrollably dripping onto the floor.
From an angle she couldn’t notice, these drops of saliva had pooled into puddles, slowly spreading outwards, mixed with a strong smell of blood, and a foul odor assailed him.
“Miss, your head has blossomed.”
Yuuki’s lips moved, saying silently.