Two bad news and one good news...
The good news was that I wasn’t actually blind, despite my cosplay suddenly becoming something far more surreal than I had ever imagined.
The bad news was, first, that I could no longer remember the address of my home in my original world.
Second, there was a chance that some sort of entity was manipulating my memories and trying to keep me in this world.
’Well... it’s keeping me alive, at the very least.’
During times like these, it was best not to give in to despair and hopelessness. I just had to keep reminding myself that I was capable enough to find a way out of this hellish situation.
’Hm... I should probably meet some new people soon.’
Since I couldn’t return to my original world because my memories were being tampered with, wouldn’t it be better to find something that could counteract memory manipulation in the first place?
Hmm...
I knew of a few things that could do that, but they were extremely difficult to obtain.
Worse, most of the items I knew of that could counteract memory manipulation were located somewhere within A.E.G.I.S. headquarters.
’Oh well.’
I’d worry about that later.
For now, I should look for an address that had nothing to do with A.E.G.I.S. or any of their headquarters.
Ugh... should I have asked the Response Unit for a random address before they left?
No...
I’m pretty sure they’d already reported everything about me, including everything I’d told them and everything they’d learned about me, to their superiors by now.
There was nothing I could do about that.
I’d just have to find someone else within this staircase who could give me an address instead.
Since I already knew that the staircase treated me as an anomaly, and I knew that I was one myself, there was a good chance I’d encounter other people as I continued walking through it.
With that in mind, I continued making my way through the steps beneath me.
As soon as I came to that conclusion, it didn’t even take ten minutes before I encountered another person.
He was a short man who looked to be in his twenties.
The moment he saw me, he froze.
His eyes widened as he stared at me, seemingly unsure whether I was actually standing in front of him or if his mind was playing another trick on him.
He rubbed his eyes several times, as though trying to make sure that he wasn’t hallucinating.
My strange appearance, particularly the scar around my right eye, seemed to frighten him.
Yet, despite his fear, he eventually gathered enough courage to ask,
"Are you... real?"
I simply nodded.
"And you are?"
The moment he heard my voice, the man fell silent.
It took awhile for him to respond as he simply stared at me.
He grabbed onto my shoe with both hands and began sobbing, as though he needed to make sure that I was actually real.
I stood there, completely confused. But after a moment, I understood.
The Response Unit hadn’t reacted like this because they’d only been trapped here for a few hours.
This man... God knows how long he’d been here.
I waited in silence as he continued crying.
It took several minutes before he finally managed to calm himself down.
That was when I learned his name.
Harley Mitchell.
"I’m... I’m sorry."
He wiped away his tears and looked up at me.
"Moon, was it?"
I nodded and he hesitated for a moment before asking,
"How long have you been here...?"
"For quite a bit..." I answered.
"I learned a few things about this place while I was here. For example, that clock over there indicates how many days someone has spent here."
Harley followed my gaze toward the clock and nodded.
"Yes... I came across writing that explained that too."
His expression slowly became distant.
"I’ve been here for 764 days."
’764 days...’
The number itself didn’t sound particularly impressive, but that was already more than two years of isolation in a place that did nothing but repeat itself.
More than two years of walking through the same endless staircase, and more than two years of seeing the same things over and over again.
And judging by his reaction, it was clear that those two years had taken their toll on him.
As he spoke, his hand still hadn’t left my suit.
He had initially tried to hold the my hand, but that was way too awkward for me, so I subtly moved it away.
Even then, he refused to let go of my suit. Almost as if he was afraid that I would suddenly disappear.
"Speaking of which, were you originally with someone when you first entered this place?"
Harley lowered his head.
"Yes... I was with my girlfriend and her best friend when I first entered this place, but they got into an argument during our first week here. My girlfriend chased after her, and I tried to follow them, but they suddenly disappeared..."
His hands trembled as he continued gripping my suit.
"Ever since then, I’ve been stuck in this godforsaken place... Just what is this place? Why won’t I die? Why won’t I starve? Why won’t this place release me...?"
Yet even as he cried, his hand remained tightly wrapped around my suit, as though letting go would mean losing the only person he had encountered in who knows how long.
"Lord, if this is divine punishment, then I have learned my lesson... Please, I beg you, let me go home."
He prayed with genuine desperation, though there was a hint of resentment beneath his words, as if he couldn’t understand what he had done to deserve such a fate.
’Hm... let’s see.’
I studied him from head to toe.
’Short black hair, relatively smooth skin, and a face that probably looked much livelier before he ended up in this place...’
He seemed like the cheerful type, but after spending so much time trapped here, his personality had gradually become more timid.
As I examined him like a character in a book, I activated my [Augury] ability and looked at the light hovering above his forehead.
It was a mixture of orange and gray, with a faint shade of purple mixed in.
Gray represented stagnation, while purple indicated supernatural influence.
’Hm. That’s not good... Well, for him, anyway. Not for me.’
Ah, crap. Hold on. I’d almost forgotten that I was supposed to act like a Supernatural Entity.
...Would it even matter? He didn’t have a Supernatural Energy Detector, did he?
Besides, I seriously didn’t want to go through that cringey introduction again.
I looked down at Harley, who was still clutching my suit, and decided to get straight to the point.
"Do you want to go home, Harley?"
The moment those words left my mouth, Harley flinched.
He stared up at me in disbelief, as though I had just offered him something he had long since given up hoping for.
Then, almost immediately, he scrambled to his feet and bowed his head toward me.
"Y-Yes! Please... if you can really send me home, then I beg you to do so! I don’t want to stay in this place any longer. I’ll do whatever you ask of me, just... please, let me go home!"
His tone had changed completely.
The desperation was still there, but now it was mixed with a newfound sense of fear and respect, as though he had suddenly realized that I wasn’t an ordinary person and might actually possess the means to get him out of this place.
Truly, humans were intelligent creatures.
Give them even the slightest hope of getting what they wanted, and they’d quickly figure out how to behave.
I didn’t particularly mind his sudden change in attitude, though I couldn’t help feeling a little flustered by how desperately he was treating me.
"Alright, then. Give me an address. Where would you like me to drop you off?"
"D-Drop me off...? Ah! Right, my address!"
Harley hurriedly straightened up, wiping his face with his sleeve as he tried to compose himself.
"It’s 42 Rue des Asters, Geneva, Switzerland! That’s where I live!"
I froze.
Geneva...?
That was practically right next to A.E.G.I.S. headquarters, wasn’t it?
’...You’ve got to be kidding me.’
I stared at Harley for a moment before letting out a quiet sigh.