The female yoga instructor, Kurosawa Eiko, did not actually fully trust Lin Ye and Haruno either.
Of course, compared to that earlier, obviously monster-like being, she felt that the likelihood of Lin Ye and Haruno being human was the greatest.
In this strange and dangerous world, she needed others of her own kind—this was a need that arose from her very instincts.
And now the appearance of Lin Ye and Haruno fit that need perfectly.
Especially now, the combination of one man and one woman set her even more at ease.
Haruno being female reassured her that she shouldn't suffer any abuse on account of her gender, while Lin Ye being male could deal with possible dangers. In dangerous situations, a tall and sturdy man was always more reassuring, and the calm air Lin Ye displayed put her even more at ease.
"Shall we go in and take a look?"
Kurosawa Eiko spoke up.
About this buffet restaurant, which was clearly different from the other shops, she had indeed had the thought of going inside to investigate when she first arrived, but in the end she had chosen to give up.
She was afraid.
If it was already this terrifying outside, then inside would be even more frightening.
But now, with Lin Ye and Haruno present, she felt that perhaps she could go inside and investigate. Of course, if Lin Ye or Haruno could go in alone, she would be even happier.
But now, she also knew she couldn't stay completely out of it; once she behaved that way, she would likely be struck off the list of companions by the two of them.
"Let's finish walking the rest of the third floor first, then head up to the fourth floor."
Lin Ye decided to finish the third floor first, in case there were any other shops glowing with that orange-yellow light on the third floor.
"Okay,"
Haruno naturally didn't object, and the female yoga instructor had even less reason to.
The three of them traveled together, the female yoga instructor and Haruno walking side by side, while Lin Ye walked in front, keeping about a meter's distance from the two of them.
'Tap-ta-tap…'
The footsteps were very faint, but on the third floor they were extremely obvious.
Haruno walked with great caution, her attention drifting from time to time onto the female yoga instructor beside her.
Just as the female yoga instructor didn't completely trust Haruno and Lin Ye, Haruno didn't place complete trust in this yoga instructor either,
because Lin Ye had given no warning at all—he had only indicated that the likelihood of this female yoga instructor being Strange was relatively small.
By this point,
the three of them had already covered two-thirds of the distance.
A little farther, and the three of them would have walked a full loop around the third floor and could formally head to the fourth floor.
'Thud, thud, thud…'
Footsteps sounded.
These were footsteps coming from behind.
It was only after a moment that Haruno sensed something was wrong.
'Oof…'
In her daze, she discovered she had bumped into Lin Ye, who was in front.
Lin Ye had, at some unknown moment, already stopped walking.
The female yoga instructor instinctively sensed danger, her heart leaping to her throat, and she felt an extremely high degree of dread and fear toward the direction Lin Ye and Haruno were watching warily.
A monster—was it a monster?
The female yoga instructor stood frozen in place, carefully turning her head a small distance and then turning it back again, terrified of encountering some frightening, dreadful monster.
Lin Ye had noticed those unusual footsteps—a monster was following them.
It hadn't been very long; he recalled, and guessed it had followed them from the position over by the stairwell they had passed.
Lin Ye turned to look, and at a glance he saw a figure a dozen-odd meters away.
And it seemed that figure had also noticed Lin Ye's gaze; it stiffly turned and met his eyes.
'Crack, crack…'
The faint sound was nonetheless grating to the ear.
Haruno took two steps to come behind Lin Ye and also looked over.
The female yoga instructor did the same.
The gazes of all three concentrated upon that figure.
"…"
Indistinct words were sounding, but it was impossible to make out what was being said.
'Ding-dong…'
A crisp sound rang out.
The figure began to move, its speed noticeably quickening.
"It's that monster I saw earlier."
The female yoga instructor finally made out that figure thanks to a bit of light.
"Run,"
Lin Ye immediately grabbed Haruno and ran.
It wasn't that he hadn't considered trying to deal with it, but considering the situation with the first-floor Ghost, Lin Ye figured that the Ghosts on different floors of the same instance wouldn't differ much in strength,
and relying on physical damage alone, there was no way to handle them.
Rather than wasting time and energy, as well as his limited skills, he chose to leave first and head to the fourth floor to gather more intelligence;
through the situation on the fourth floor, he could confirm the conjecture in his heart.
'Tap-ta-tap…'
The footsteps of a rapid sprint kept sounding.
Haruno followed closely, gritting her teeth as she ran quickly, and the female yoga instructor didn't dare slow down at all. Watching Lin Ye and Haruno running ahead of her—especially Lin Ye pulling along only Haruno—she felt a surge of envy and displeasure in her heart.
Why didn't this man pull her along too?
How miserable.
"The stairs are just ahead."
The entrance to the escalator was right before their eyes—that was the hope of survival.
Right at that moment,
an 'Ah!' shriek rang out.
'Thud…'—with a crash, the female yoga instructor, who had fallen a few steps behind, toppled to the ground.
She had been seized by that figure in tattered clothing.
"Help…"
"Help me…"
She cried out in a panic, kicking and flailing her legs wildly, trying to kick that dangerous monster away from herself.
But—
it was as if she were kicking at empty air, hitting nothing at all,
even though by what she observed with her eyes, she was certain she had already kicked it.
Why, why was it like this?
She was utterly bewildered.
"Ah!"
She suddenly discovered that her shoes were already gone.
How had her shoes suddenly vanished?
"Aoh, aoh…"
A faint, hoarse sound—the figure spread open both its hands.
It frightened the female yoga instructor to the core, and her cries for help grew even more pronounced.
As she struggled and crawled, her pleading gaze turned toward the direction Lin Ye and Haruno were fleeing.
At this moment,
she was certain that the only one who could save her was Lin Ye.
If Lin Ye didn't save her, she would surely die without a doubt.
She didn't want to die yet; as long as she could live, she was willing to give up anything!
"Save me, save me!
I don't want to die here.
I'm begging you…"
Having cried out, she found that Lin Ye had already come to her side, and with one hand he had grabbed a trash can and hurled it at the figure in tattered clothing.
'Bang…' A loud crashing sound.
The figure staggered back several steps.
The next moment,
Lin Ye clapped the trash can down over the figure from top to bottom, then immediately delivered a kick to the trash can.
This figure stumbled back several steps, slammed into the wall, and toppled over, staggering.
Lin Ye pulled the female yoga instructor to her feet.
"Go,"
There was no need for Lin Ye to remind her—the female yoga instructor had already started moving quickly.
It was only then that she realized both of her shoes were gone, the hair tie binding her hair was gone too, and her long hair had come loose and fallen about her.
But she had no spare energy to care about that; she simply endured the pain in the soles of her feet and kept running quickly, until she finally reached the fourth floor.
"Huff, huff, huff…"
The female yoga instructor panted heavily.
Both hands braced on her knees, she gulped down air.
Just now she had been only a hair's breadth from death, yet she had been saved and survived.
It was really wonderful—she was still alive.
"Th-thank you…"
Only now did the female yoga instructor come back to herself and voice her thanks.
If Lin Ye hadn't stepped in, she really would have died; the moment she thought of being eaten alive and torn apart by that Ghost, her heart trembled without end.
The female yoga instructor looked up to see Lin Ye's expression calm; to her thanks, he merely nodded to acknowledge that he understood.
Inexplicably, she felt a little hurt.
Having been beautiful since childhood, when had she ever endured such cold treatment from a man—not even one pleasant expression? It was far too out of step with a normal male reaction.
She silently categorized Lin Ye into that special category.
Haruno steadied her breathing and reached up to wipe the sweat from her forehead. Without minding whether Lin Ye had any sweat on his brow, she took out the tissues she carried and wiped Lin Ye's forehead.
This caring gesture made the female yoga instructor grind her teeth as she watched.
Despicable.
But also very effective.
In her heart she only felt that she had fallen one step behind.
Of course, she also guessed that Lin Ye and Haruno knew each other in reality as well; otherwise, there would be no reason for them to be so intimate.
"Lin-kun, the monster hasn't caught up."
Up to now, there had been no sight of the monster following, but the sound of the trash can being torn off and tossed aside had been heard clearly.
And Lin Ye even directly used perspective to confirm that the monster had already broken free.
But it seemed to have lost its target, wandering about the third floor.
Beyond a certain distance, Lin Ye could no longer see—it was as if the gray environment had the effect of blocking one's line of sight.
"Miss Kurosawa, you can be certain this is the monster you first encountered, right?"
"Yes, I can be certain. Those tattered clothes—I'm sure I haven't mistaken it,"
The female yoga instructor nodded vigorously.
Recalling it again and again, she was certain her memory had no problem whatsoever.
This was definitely the monster.
Haruno watched Lin Ye's pensive expression and so asked, "Lin-kun, have you thought of something?"
Could it be he had discovered some common point with the other two monsters?
"Mm, a bit. Let's look at the fourth floor's situation first."
However, Lin Ye was in no hurry to act; Haruno and the yoga instructor were both still breathing somewhat rapidly and needed time to recover.
For now, not yet feeling any pressure from time, Lin Ye hoped the two women's condition could recover a little better.
The fourth floor—Lin Ye judged that there was basically still one Ghost.
Every floor had one Ghost.
A few minutes later,
Haruno and the female yoga instructor had recovered a fair amount.
"Um, I'd like to find a pair of shoes,"
The female yoga instructor now had no shoes, which made moving around very inconvenient. If there were any bits of broken stone or glass on the ground, one step on them would surely leave her bleeding and in stabbing pain.
"The second floor is a clothing store; there'll be shoes there,"
Go to the second floor?
The female yoga instructor looked toward Lin Ye and Haruno, her gaze finally settling on Lin Ye.
"What size,"
The female yoga instructor immediately reported a number.
"Miss Haruno, Miss Kurosawa, wait here for me a moment; I'll be back soon,"
"Lin-kun, I…"
Haruno of course didn't want to stay behind, while the female yoga instructor actually wanted to follow, but going barefoot was also very inconvenient for moving, which left her no choice but to obey Lin Ye's arrangement.
With Haruno's company, her heart was at least somewhat at ease.
She just hoped the fourth floor's Ghost would appear a little later.
In her view, since the first, second, and third floors all had Ghosts, there was no reason the fourth floor wouldn't have one.
This fourth floor had a Ghost too.
The female yoga instructor looked out; her vision went onto a gray, hazy expanse, unable to make out the scenery in the distance.
Haruno kept watch to one side, gazing warily at their surroundings.
The two occasionally exchanged a few words to ease the tense and anxious atmosphere of the moment.
Suddenly,
crisp footsteps rang out.
Haruno's first reaction was that Lin Ye had returned, but she quickly realized the direction of the footsteps was wrong—it came from the direction of the fourth-floor corridor.
In that instant,
Haruno felt the female yoga instructor beside her press close, body contact, warmth transferring, easing part of her tension and chill.
But, as the crisp footsteps drew ever closer,
the hearts of both women began to rise to their peak.
They hoped the footsteps could move away, but their hope was directly shattered—the sound only grew nearer and nearer, with not the slightest sign of receding.
Haruno and the yoga instructor exchanged a glance,
and the two made their decision.
They prepared to run down to the second floor.
Lin Ye was on the second floor; as long as Lin Ye was beside them, they would have enough of a sense of security—especially since Haruno knew Lin Ye's strength. Following Lin Ye, she would be absolutely safe.
Why hadn't she just followed Lin Ye down earlier?!
Haruno sighed inwardly.
'Tap-ta…'
The footsteps drew nearer.
The two held their breath and looked toward the direction of the sound.
It was a dim, humanoid figure.
And all the monsters that had appeared up to now had also been humanoid monsters.
The two of them felt not the slightest reassurance from it being of the same kind.
Run.
Without the slightest hesitation, the two immediately sprinted desperately down along the escalator.
And the black shadow seemed to have noticed something and immediately followed,
those 'tap-ta-tap' footsteps chasing close behind frightened Haruno into a change of expression.
Generally speaking, didn't Ghosts not go to other floors?
How was it that this Ghost was following along?
And, and…
"Don't run,"
Why could it even speak human words?
Too terrifying.
Now even the Ghost could call out to make them stop in their tracks.
Haruno pulled the female yoga instructor and hurried down the stairs, reaching the third floor, and without pausing in the slightest she immediately turned and ran toward that escalator entrance leading down to the second floor.
Only Lin Ye could protect them.
Now she missed Lin Ye more and more; even though Lin Ye had been gone for not long and the distance wasn't far, why did it feel as distant as a world apart in life and death?
Appear quickly! Lin-kun.
After a few steps,
Haruno saw a figure appear ahead.
Could it be the Ghost from the third floor?
In an instant, Haruno's heart suddenly clenched.
It was over!
Wolves ahead and tigers behind—they were finished.
"It's me,"
"Eh, Lin-kun,"
The familiar voice made Haruno surge with excitement,
and when the female yoga instructor heard this familiar voice, she even forgot the pain coming from the soles of her feet.
Lin Ye was now the savior of them both.
"There's a fourth-floor Ghost chasing us behind—it followed us down."
Haruno immediately warned.
By this point the two women had already hidden behind Lin Ye,
while Lin Ye unhurriedly gazed ahead.
That figure quickly appeared.
...
...
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