Is this the transcendent?
Is this the Reincarnation Game?
Yuuki’s heart was also pounding.
Even though he often stayed in the dissection room and forced himself to watch all horror and gore films, when the images on screen became reality, he couldn’t help but feel like retching.
For a moment, he felt the deep malice of this game and quickly pinched the soft flesh on his waist, using the pain to calm his brain.
‘Judging from her words just now, this should be a player like me.
So if I had acted on my own initiative just now, I would have ended up like this?’
‘What kind of newbie guide is this?
No wonder it was fifteen minutes instead of fifteen seconds; so that’s where the problem was.’
This game was indeed quite different from the usual tropes he had seen.
Rather than a newbie guide, it was more like an early elimination.
Even though information was still scarce, Yuuki had already drawn his first conclusion:
The difficulty of this game should be very high, and it’s full of malice.
“What prompt? Oh, are you saying I should open the door? I’m not listening to such inexplicable words.” The girl didn’t know the young man in front of her was brainstorming.
She went down the stairs, her head, with its flailing limbs, was enough to scare any normal person to death on the spot.
Yuuki instinctively lifted his foot, but put it back down in place.
He had calmed down, noticing that the irritability and madness in the girl’s voice were diminishing.
‘Self-perception determines friend or foe?’
He felt something unusual.
If it were an Ordinary Person, they would either be scared stiff and stay put, and judging by the development of this ‘blooming head’ girl just now, the outcome would likely not be pleasant.
Or they would turn and run.
If they were lucky enough and fast enough, they could escape, even if it meant circling around to the area upstairs emitting red light to pass the level.
Fifteen minutes was enough for hide-and-seek.
Of course, one could also be reckless, or rush upstairs without saying anything.
Does this game have different solutions?
“Why aren’t you saying anything? Am I that scary?” The girl continued down the stairs, barely two or three meters from Yuuki.
Yes, very scary.
Most people would have been scared stiff by now, but fortunately, I won’t be.
Yuuki responded in his mind, hesitated for a moment, then approached her instead, his eyes twitching at the head fragments swaying on the ‘petals’.
This thing looked disgusting, but if his guess wasn’t wrong, he could get more information from her.
Thinking this, Yuuki forced a gentlemanly smile, trying to keep his gaze on her full chest.
The cleavage was deep, and there was a mole on it, which was perfect for concentrating his attention.
“Do you see those red lights? Maybe they’re coming from outside.”
“Red lights? Where are the red lights?” The girl was very confused, her eight split eyes all turned upwards, swaying back and forth as if moving eyeballs.
She’s out of the game, so she can’t see them?
Yuuki quickly gained some insight.
He continued to gaze into the deep cleavage, his expression unchanged: “Hmm? Maybe I saw wrong. How about we go downstairs?”
“Downstairs? There’s no way down there.”
Still can’t see it?
Yuuki’s expression subtly changed.
He gradually formed an idea, quickly turned around, and walked back the way he came.
“Come with me.”
“Hey, wait for me!” The girl quickly followed, her voice much steadier, as if she had found someone to rely on.
“My name is Linda, I’m from Mexico. What’s your name?”
“Sorajima Yuuki.”
“A Neon person?”
“I guess so.”
“How could that be?
Mexico and Neon are so far apart.
Could it be some international crime syndicate?” Linda innocently shook her head, weakly saying: “Oh, I don’t know what’s going on, I just feel so dizzy, like my head has gotten dumber.”
Not just dumber, your brain is like the pistil wrapped in the center of the ‘petals’.
Yuuki glanced at the bloodshot white object, suppressing his nausea, and grasped her slender wrist: “I don’t know, but relax, I’ll get you out of here. Whatever you do, don’t be nervous.”
“Really?”
“You can only trust me now.” Yuuki adopted the tone of an overbearing CEO.
From the information he had just gathered, he had to keep her emotions stable.
Seeing those ‘petals’ gently contract, like the girl’s shyness, a strange thought suddenly arose in him.
How did I suddenly find it not so disgusting?
Tsk, I hope I haven’t been corrupted into having a heavy taste.
As they spoke, the two had returned to where Yuuki had entered.
He deliberately lagged half a step behind, staring intently at the girl’s swaying hips and the open doorway.
What would happen if she walked in?
With a belly full of curiosity, his footsteps were so light as to be almost imperceptible, but soon, he heard a dull thud.
“Ouch.” The girl fell onto her bottom, her head splitting and spreading wildly, like a convulsing earthworm, revealing the central brain.
At the same time, the girl’s voice, which had just stabilized, became irritable again.
“It’s this invisible wall again, just like a nightmare. There’s clearly nothing there, but I just keep getting bumped back.”
She couldn’t see it, couldn’t enter it, and would be harmed if she touched it.
Yuuki watched from behind.
The scene’s implications were already very clear, and this doorway was a sanctuary for new players provided by the game.
He had wondered how an Ordinary Person could directly confront this head-blossoming monster.
This game indeed had multiple solutions, but would it kill them to give a hint?
Yuuki was a bit speechless.
It was like pioneering, all clues had to be found by oneself.
But he didn’t take the opportunity to slip through the doorway, quietly summarizing the information gathered after interacting with the girl.
First, she was an eliminated player, becoming the game’s ‘newbie guide’.
Cognitive confusion would lead to severe consequences, but when her emotions were stable, she was no different from a normal person.
Second, because she was a non-player, she couldn’t see the mission path I saw, couldn’t enter it, and would be harmed by touching it.
Third, the normal process for the newbie guide should be to hide, or simply not respond and rush upstairs.
But if I use the first two points…
Thinking this, he walked over and helped the girl, who had fallen to the ground, up.
Looking at the fragments of her head sweeping back and forth before his eyes, his facial pores dilated, and he could feel the ‘petals’ brushing against his cheek.
Hard as a sharp instrument, it could undoubtedly cut through a human body.
“Huh, you didn’t hit the invisible wall?” Linda was a bit confused, but her tone gradually calmed.
“I did.
In my hometown, we call this a ‘ghost wall’.
It seems we’ve come to a rather extraordinary place.” Yuuki tried to maintain a gentle tone, choosing to skip this topic: “But there must be a way out.
At worst, we’ll take another path.
We’ll escape eventually if we spend some time.”
In a strange place, with only Yuuki as a companion, the girl didn’t have many other choices.
“Mm-hmm, I’ll trust you for now.”
That ‘for now’ was used very cleverly.
Was it a reminder that once her patience ran out, she would fall into cognitive frenzy again?
Yuuki noted another piece of information, and the countdown in his mind also made him a bit irritable.
He quickly took a deep breath and led the girl to the other side of the corridor.
“This way.”
He seemed not to hear the countdown, occasionally jogging to test the monster’s running speed, and occasionally slowing down to observe the brain within the petals.
Time passed minute by minute, and he did discover some interesting phenomena.
Her running speed was similar to that of an adult human female; she didn’t show any extraordinary physical capabilities.
The brain was very important to her; a thrown cigarette pack was shredded before contact, and she herself didn’t notice, only feeling a slight itch on her scalp.
And what had just shredded the cigarette pack was part of her skull.
When the countdown was almost at the last two minutes, Yuuki finally stepped onto the wooden stairs going up, rounded the stairwell corner, and saw that the red light was coming from the left.
He had spent twelve minutes gathering information; it was time to advance.
This thing was becoming more and more frantic, and harder to soothe.
The girl behind him hadn’t spoken for a minute and twenty seconds.
Not finding a way out made her uneasy, and the amplitude of her head’s swaying was also increasing.
‘Both she and I are nearing our limits.’
Yuuki stepped onto the last stair, looking left.
It was still the same windowless corridor as downstairs, but at the end was a pair of double wooden doors, identical to the one he had opened earlier, and the red light was seeping through the gaps in the door.
“Go that way. Maybe we can leave by going through the door.” Yuuki raised his hand to point, feeling the girl move closer to him.
“Where’s the door? That corridor has no end!”
She really couldn’t see it.
Yuuki relaxed a bit, beginning to adjust his original plan, but a moment later, his muscles tensed.
He felt a soft, damp sensation on the back of his neck, like a tongue gently licking him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lick you. Huh, what happened to my head?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuki saw the girl tremble as she raised her hand to touch her head, her split cheeks becoming increasingly distorted.
She, of course, couldn’t touch her own face, but she persisted, as if trying to gather scattered sand.
“My head, my head, no!!”
Her voice went from confusion to fear, then from fear to irritability, finally ending in a high-pitched scream that made one’s eardrums ache.
Now!
Yuuki didn’t hesitate, nor did he think of gently telling her the truth.
He just turned sharply, pulling out his left hand, which he had kept in his embrace, holding a shining scalpel.
Clang!
The blade cut into the petals, and a bright spark erupted.
Those flower stems, which looked only finger-thick, were as hard as reinforced bones.
His wrist was numb from the impact.
Yuuki, who had just turned his head, saw that Linda was no longer speaking, but had fully opened all her petals, sweeping them towards him like a circular saw.
The speed was incredibly fast.
Yuuki instinctively ducked, hearing a muffled ‘hissing’ sound as a dozen deep marks were scraped into the wall, and fine wall dust scattered out.
Twenty meters from the main door.
Was this sudden rampage accidental or deliberate?
Yuuki desperately maintained his composure, displaying all the preparations he had made over the past ten years, retreating rapidly with both hands and feet.
Puff, puff.
The carpet was cut into rags, leaving deep marks from his shoe soles.
Yuuki retreated several meters in a row, seeing the girl leaning forward, her split head cutting everything around her like tentacles.
The speed wasn’t fast, but the splitting continued.
Those ‘flower stems’ had already spread to her towering chest, and the petals splitting off were, of course, becoming more and more numerous.
Yuuki nimbly scrambled up, turning and running wildly while throwing the scalpel backward.
Ding.
The sound of the blade being deflected reached his ears.
The door emitting red light was ahead.
His instincts were screaming, driving his body to react:
Run forward as fast as you can, open the door, and quickly hide inside!
Yuuki felt the frenzy behind him.
He slightly tilted his head, seeing a large mass of swaying ‘vines’ dancing wildly, looking like a rolling ball of yarn.
Even if her running speed wasn’t fast, it was a transcendent power that he, in his current state, absolutely couldn’t contend with.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
Three meters.
The monster was getting closer, seemingly enraged to the extreme and running at full speed.
Yuuki lunged forward, his hand grasping the golden doorknob first, and then—
He straightened his body, his entire back pressed against the wall.
Thud!
The sharp object cut several scratches into his jacket’s chest, and the ball of yarn slammed hard against the door.
In Yuuki’s constricted pupils, those petals, sharp enough to cut flesh, failed to leave any marks on the door.
Instead, upon impact, they disintegrated like scattered flowers.
This was not the force of impact, but the rules inflicting damage on the eliminated, greater than the damage from hitting the door ten minutes prior.
Hiss—
Accompanied by an agonizing, sharp shriek, Yuuki suddenly moved forward, as if stepping into a thorny flower patch.
Ignoring the stinging pain in his body, he looked at the milky-white’stamen’ at the center of the scattered petals and, without a word, fiercely plunged his scalpel into it.
General Principle Two: High risk, high reward!