The afternoon slipped by in an eerie, unnatural calm.
In an effort to verify their theories and uncover any additional clues, Shido Makoto led Shirogane Kei and the Artist on a thorough sweep of every room on the first floor — every room, that is, except the locked storage room.
They deliberately avoided every mirror they came across, and took care to move as a group of at least two at all times.
Yet the entire afternoon yielded nothing.
The mansion seemed almost deliberately designed that way — as though it had been scripted from the start, and nothing existed within its walls beyond what the script had written for them.
Seven o’clock arrived quickly.
The clock struck seven.
Dinnertime.
The four of them made their way toward the dining room once more, hearts heavy with unease.
Last night’s dinner was still vivid in their minds — yet when they pushed open the dining room doors, every one of them froze.
The room was empty.
The dining table stood bare; the puppet figures that had packed every seat the night before were gone without a trace.
The only presence in the entire dining room was Lina, the maid dressed in her black-and-white uniform, standing quietly beside the table.
What was this?
Had the puppets all gone on strike?
The four of them exchanged glances, none daring to step forward.
Lina looked up at them and said, with perfect composure: “Dinner has been prepared.
Please, take your time.”
With that, she gave a small bow, turned, and left the dining room.
Only the four players remained — and a table set with what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary dinner.
A crisp white tablecloth had been spread across the table.
Four place settings had been laid out, each with a steaming steak before it, accompanied by a side of vegetable salad and a glass of red wine.
Without those unsettling puppets, it looked just like any other unremarkable evening meal.
“This… what’s going on?” the Artist whispered.
“Could it be… the difficulty’s been lowered?” The Programmer’s eyes lit up.
He was the first to step forward, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
He stared at the fragrant steak in front of him and swallowed.
“I knew it!” he said, picking up his knife and fork with a self-satisfied air.
“The Student broke the shared-damage rule last night, so the people running this game must’ve decided it wasn’t fun anymore and just scrapped it altogether!”
“All we have to do is make it through tonight, and we can leave tomorrow at six in the afternoon!”
“Surviving isn’t so hard after all!”
As he spoke, he cut off a piece of steak and stuffed it into his mouth without a moment’s hesitation.
“Mm!
Not bad at all!” he mumbled, chewing contentedly.
The Artist, seeing that nothing had happened to him, wavered for a moment before sitting down as well.
Only Shido Makoto and Shirogane Kei remained standing where they were, motionless.
Their eyes met.
In each other’s gaze, they saw the same gravity.
Would the Cycle Game really be so generous?
Something this strange was bound to be hiding something.
This kind of sudden, unexpected kindness was almost always the final stillness before a far deeper horror came crashing down.
Shido Makoto pulled out a chair and sat.
Shirogane Kei followed, settling into the seat beside him.
The meal passed in an oppressive silence.
The Programmer held court throughout, rambling from analyses of the game’s mechanics to boastful recollections of his own past bravery, all delivered with great enthusiasm and flying spittle.
The Artist kept her head down, eating in small careful bites, not daring to venture an opinion.
Shido Makoto and Shirogane Kei barely touched their cutlery, as though waiting for something.
And yet — nothing unusual happened.
Dinner ended at eight without incident.
The Programmer leaned back with a satisfied belch, dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, and stood.
“Right then — fed and full.
Looks like tonight we can actually get some decent sleep.
See you all tomorrow!”
He shot Shido Makoto a smug sideways glance, as if to announce that his judgment had been vindicated, then sauntered out of the dining room with a little tune on his lips, the first one to leave.
The Artist hurried to her feet as well, murmured a quick “I’ll head back first” to the other two, and slipped away as though she couldn’t escape fast enough.
“Senpai… don’t you find this strange?” Shirogane Kei looked out at the empty room and spoke softly.
“Too quiet,” Shido Makoto said.
“Unnaturally so.”
It was always quietest just before the storm broke.
Every last puppet vanishing at once, allowing them to eat an undisturbed meal — that was no act of goodwill.
The only explanation was that tonight’s main course simply wasn’t being served in the dining room.
“Stay careful once tonight begins.” Shido Makoto looked at Shirogane Kei as he said it.
“No matter what you hear or see in your room — do not leave it.”
“Stay in your room until dawn.”
“Understood.” Shirogane Kei gave a nod.
They left the dining room one after the other, parting ways at their respective doors.
“May we both… make it to tomorrow.” Shirogane Kei said it softly, just before she closed her door.
“Mm.”
The door clicked shut.
The corridor fell back into dead silence.
…
Ten o’clock at night.
In Room 101, the Programmer lay stretched out on the bed, his mind at ease.
Dinner had gone off without a hitch, and that smooth, uneventful meal had cemented his conviction — the greatest danger this instance had to offer was behind them.
He even found himself feeling a flicker of gratitude toward that kid called the Student.
If it hadn’t been for him breaking the puppets’ shared-damage rule last night, tonight might well have gone very badly for the rest of them.
After all, nobody was going to risk their neck for him the way the Student had for that little girl.
But now — crisis averted.
He had Viktor’s backstory in hand.
All he needed to do was keep his head down, avoid doing anything stupid, and lie low until six o’clock tomorrow afternoon.
That shouldn’t be a problem.
Once he was out of this godforsaken place and back to normal life, he’d write this whole experience off as a nightmare and be done with it.
The more he thought about it, the more settled he felt.
The exhaustion and fear that had accumulated over the past few days dissolved now into a thick, heavy drowsiness.
He’d need to conserve his energy.
There was no telling what tomorrow would bring.
He rolled over, pulled the covers up to his chin, and drifted gradually into that hazy place between sleep and waking.
“Hff… hff…”
A faint, rhythmic breathing sound rose in the room.
The Programmer frowned in a half-conscious stupor, assuming it was himself snoring.
He was known to snore in his sleep, after all.
But this breathing… something was off about it.
The rhythm was strange — one breath coming almost immediately on the heels of the last, the pattern all wrong.
The first “hff” had barely ended before the second “hff” began, seamlessly overlapping.
Wait.
The Programmer jolted awake, every last trace of sleep blasted from his mind in an instant.
His own breathing could never come that fast.
And besides — that sound… it wasn’t coming from his own nose.
It was coming from somewhere else.
It was coming from…
Under the bed.
The thought hit him like ice water poured over his skull, draining the warmth from his blood in an instant.
He went rigid, pinned to the mattress, not daring to move a muscle.
Even his breathing stopped — held without thought.
He told himself frantically: it was a hallucination.
He was too on edge.
He’d misheard.
He lay there, straining his ears, and the whole world went silent — until all he could hear was his own heart hammering against his ribs in a frantic, desperate rhythm.
“Hff… hff…”
This time, he heard it with perfect, horrifying clarity.
That was not his own breath.
It was coming from under the bed.
There was something beneath him.
The Programmer’s mind went blank, a roar of white noise filling his skull.
How?
Weren’t the rooms supposed to be completely safe?
Why — why was there something crawling under his bed?!
“What do I do — what do I do?!” he screamed inside his own head, his face drained of all color, cold sweat soaking through his pajamas in an instant.
He didn’t dare make a sound.
Didn’t dare move.
He was terrified of alerting whatever was down there.
All he could do was lie there, stiff as a corpse, and pray that the thing hadn’t yet realized he was awake.
The seconds stretched into minutes.
The thing beneath the bed made no move beyond that steady, rhythmic breathing.
It didn’t crawl out.
It didn’t make any other sound.
The Programmer’s taut nerves, ground down by that interminable torment, began — just barely — to slacken.
He was starting to think that as long as he stayed still, the thing wouldn’t hurt him.
Maybe… maybe it was just sleeping under the bed?
The absurd thought surfaced, and he immediately shot it down himself.
It was then that something else struck him as wrong.
What was it?
Too quiet…
No — it was the breathing.
The breathing itself.
Had that damned breathing stopped?!
The Programmer snapped to attention with a lurch of his gut — he realized he hadn’t heard that “hff hff” sound for a while now.
Could it mean… it was gone?
An impossible hope surfaced.
His throat had gone so dry it ached, and he couldn’t stop himself from swallowing.
But he couldn’t be certain.
Not without seeing for himself.
If he didn’t confirm it, he knew he wouldn’t be closing his eyes again tonight.
He steeled himself and made an agonizing decision.
He was going to look.
Just once.
He forced his head to turn — so slowly it was almost imperceptible, terrified that even the faintest sound might give him away.
He turned.
His gaze crossed the pillow.
Slowly… slowly… it drifted downward toward the edge of the bed.
And then he saw it.
Between the bed frame and the floor, something was easing itself out.
Half a head.
A skull, its skin shriveled and bunched like flesh that had been scalded in boiling water — a rotting, decomposed head — was sliding out from under the bed.
And on that half-emerged head, a pair of crimson eyes locked directly onto his.
Those eyes were filled with boundless, festering hatred.
“AAAAAH——”
…
…
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Oshi No Ko: