Takumi-san… he seems to have been tense this whole time?
While descending to the second floor from the stairs, Miko had been secretly observing Takumi's reactions the entire way.
At first, there didn't seem to be anything particularly unusual. He was alert to his surroundings, of course, but overall still relatively normal. But after the Aberration student controlled by Kumagai Mai appeared, Takumi-san suddenly became tense for some reason—as if he had discovered something bad, yet didn't dare to speak of it for fear of being noticed.
[…Did you see it? Did you see it did you see it?]
Miko suddenly heard a voice.
It came from the dorm rooms lining both sides of the corridor.
From those Aberrations—
No, it wasn't that. At this moment, something that had once happened here in the past was being replayed. What she was hearing were echoes from a moment long ago.
[Did you see it? They're students from the 3rd and 9th floors. Looks like it's just these three this time.]
[I saw it, I saw it! Finally someone's going to be unlucky—this is great.]
[The teacher has had the faucet running for a long time, just waiting for someone to come over. Once these three students die, the teacher should calm down for a while, right?]
[Huh? Is that a student? He's dressed almost like a teacher though.]
[No, he's fake. A fake teacher. Someone saw it—he's fake! He's a student too, not a teacher at all!]
These were things that had happened many times in this corridor before.
There was a teacher—a teacher who took pleasure in tormenting students—who would come to the Dormitory Building every so often, deliberately turn on the faucet, and wait nearby for some student to come shut it off. Then, using the excuse that they had violated the "Student Rules," the teacher would torment them.
Even though the teacher could torment anyone at will, for some reason they fixated on this faucet trick. Because of that, the dormitory students gradually figured out the pattern. Whenever they went to the restroom, they would first send one person in while the others waited outside and called out. If they didn't get a response, or the response felt off, they would immediately run away.
Naturally, the teacher noticed these attempts to survive. With interest, they joined in the game—forcing the students they caught to deceive those waiting outside. As a result, the student group and the teacher engaged in several rounds of wits, countering each other back and forth—though in the end, the ones who lost were always the students.
Eventually, the students came up with a relatively reliable method.
They would send in someone whose gender was opposite to the restroom—for example, a girl to check the men's restroom, or a boy to check the women's. Then the people outside would ask whether it was the men's or women's restroom. If the person inside gave the wrong answer, it meant there was a problem inside. If they gave the correct answer, then the restroom was safe to enter.
As for why this method worked—why the teacher didn't counter it—Miko didn't see anything related to that. But she could vaguely guess the reason.
Because the method the students developed had become a kind of "rule," the teacher's personal will had to yield before some greater principle. Or perhaps… the teacher had been committing these cruel acts precisely for the sake of that greater principle?
In less than a single second, in the instant her gaze met the eyes peering through the crack of a slightly opened dorm room door—
Miko "saw" all of those past events.
And at that very moment, as Takumi sent the rescue team member to investigate the restroom, Miko lifted her head—and in a daze, she simultaneously saw a girl and that rescue worker overlapping as they stepped into the restroom together.
"…Takumi-san."
So next, the girl reached out and gently tugged at his sleeve, raising her head to meet his eyes as she spoke seriously.
"To resolve this situation, a female has to enter the restroom. Then, when the man outside asks, she must answer, 'This is the men's restroom.' Only then will things return to normal."
She took a bit of time to explain what she had seen to Takumi.
Seeing Miko's outrageous perception ability for the first time, Mai was visibly shaken. But Takumi merely frowned and thought for a moment—he was already used to the girl's abilities.
"Are you sure that'll work? Should I try giving you a 'cannot be harmed' command using my identity as a teacher first?"
Takumi proposed his idea.
"It won't work. That won't work. Those students… in their eyes, your identity is still a 'student.' I don't know why, but they seem to think you're a fake teacher. So your commands won't have any effect."
Miko shook her head slightly, then stepped forward.
She couldn't quite explain why she was taking the initiative like this.
She was clearly terrified. She didn't want to approach those monsters at all. She would much rather stay under Takumi-san's protection.
And yet…
Somewhere deep in her heart, there was a faint sense of guilt.
As if she had already seen, several times, Takumi-san covered in wounds, utterly exhausted—seen him on the verge of death, yet still struggling with everything he had.
Gather your courage!
Miko encouraged herself inwardly.
Gather your courage—show some resolve, take some responsibility!
Even if I don't have the ability to fight, I'll do everything I can in the things I can do. I'll do my best to share Takumi-san's burden!
She had seen the correct method.
So there wouldn't be a problem. As long as she didn't make a mistake, everything would be fine.
At this moment, the girl's steps grew more and more resolute. As she continued to encourage herself, she walked straight into the pitch-black restroom.
And then she saw it—
A thing standing there, one foot pressing down on the flushing pedal, its head pierced through the eye by a pipe, the pipe running straight across its skull—its entire body riddled with pipes that had stabbed through it.
Miko's cheeks puffed up in an instant.
She didn't scream.
She held it in.
Even though the moment that grotesque thing's remaining bulging eyeball locked onto her, she had almost screamed, the girl forcibly swallowed the fear surging up her throat, turned away as if she hadn't seen anything.
In the corridor, Takumi—who had been stopped by Mai and hadn't intervened—frowned tightly. Seeing Miko had already entered, he immediately called out: "Is it the men's restroom or the women's restroom inside?"
At the moment his voice reached her, that blood-soaked aberration had already pressed itself right up against Miko's back, letting out a garbled, indistinct sound.
"It's the men's restroom."
Doing her best to stay calm, Miko answered Takumi from outside the restroom.
The darkness receded in an instant. That aberration vanished without a trace, and the sound of flushing stopped along with it.
The girl let out a breath of relief. Her wildly pounding heart eased somewhat, and then a faint surge of excitement filled her with joy.
So she turned her head—
And saw Alice standing on the ceiling, her long blonde hair hanging down, staring at her without even blinking.
[You're very brave. Well done~]
Amid that smiling voice, the girl clapped and cheered for Miko.
"You…"
In that instant, fragmented images flashed through her mind.
She saw a filthy, chaotic camp. She saw sallow, emaciated people being forced into labor, collapsing and dying.
She saw dense swarms of lice crawling over human bodies. She saw corpses beaten into bloody pulp with clubs.
She saw a small blonde girl hugging a doll. She saw her strapped to an iron-frame bed. She saw a sharp needle aimed toward her eyeball—
"Miko!"
Takumi had already stepped between Miko and Alice.
At that same moment, the aberrant student under Mai's control stood before Alice, lifting its head to meet her gaze.
A certain extremely grim and eerie aberrant power descended at that instant, causing the smiling Alice's entire body to stiffen in place like a statue, completely unable to move.
[I hit the limit on my activity time ahead of schedule. I've already withdrawn to the seventh floor. Next, I'll do everything I can to come down and regroup with you. Also, Yotsuya-san, sorry for using you as bait. Once I get down there, I'll apologize to you properly.]
As Mai said this, the personality template implanted into that aberrant student shattered ahead of time from the use of aberrant power.
Takumi chopped down with a single swing, severing the student's head and torso with his machete, then quickly retreated from the area with Miko.
When Miko had volunteered to take the risk just now, Takumi had originally planned to stop her. But Mai had offered a different opinion. After personally witnessing Miko's unusual nature, and learning that she was very likely the target Alice had been actively seeking, the veteran player proposed the idea of fishing the enemy out. She was certain that once Alice saw Miko left alone, she would not be able to resist showing herself—especially when Miko was doing something as conspicuous as actively taking a risk. So she held Takumi back, then launched a surprise attack at the critical moment, successfully pinning Alice in place in a single strike.
As for whether this might have been some kind of illusion effect or the like, there was absolutely no need to worry about that. That was because the Obsession Item Mai used to remotely activate her ability—the Bronze Eye—was a Red Moon-level Obsession Item on the same tier as Fujihana Middle School, and it also possessed the power to dispel illusions. Alice had no way of hiding herself once that eyeball activated its ability.
It was just that, although they had successfully immobilized her, it could only be maintained for three minutes.
"Good work."
Takumi patted Miko on the shoulder, suppressing the faint throbbing pain in his head.
At that moment just now, he had used the watch's special ability to share part of the mental corruption and shock Miko suffered from directly facing Alice.
It feels awful. Because her perception is too strong, the pressure she endures when she runs into mental corruption is probably far beyond normal. Judging from what just happened, if she and I were to face something with mental-corruption traits at the same time, and I would take 100 points of damage, then she would take at least 1,200—more than ten times as much. A trait like this means the more dangerous and terrifying the thing she encounters is, the less she'll be able to withstand the blow. What a dangerously troublesome talent.
And on top of that, he had already more or less realized something.
As Takumi hurried down the corridor with Miko, he reached up, removed the hood that was practically growing onto his face by now, and stored it inside the watch.
"Huh? Takumi-san, why did you take off the hood again?"
Not understanding what Takumi was doing, Miko asked in confusion.
"Again? So you did see me take it off once? This damn thing really is pulling trick after trick."
Takumi laughed softly and shook his head with a hint of helplessness, now possessing a deeper understanding of the rules of this place called Fujihana Middle School.
He had already realized what the Alice following him and Miko had done.
When he entered the dormitory to protect Miko, she had cast an illusion—an illusion of Takumi taking off the hood and then putting it back on.
Naturally, Takumi himself would never casually remove the hood. But to Miko, and to the aberrations that had been inside the dormitory at the time, she and they had all "seen" Takumi remove it.
As a result, none of the aberrations in the entire Dormitory Building recognized Takumi's teacher identity anymore. In their eyes, Takumi had become a fake teacher, and with that, his authority to command students vanished on the spot.
Fujihana Middle School was a Horror Story zone deliberately created by human hands.
So in a place like this, changing a person's identity did not necessarily require some perfect, flawless item.
A simple little trick of confusion like this had actually rendered the Sheep-Head Hood in Takumi's possession useless.
But why hadn't the Alice in the Teaching Building done the same thing earlier? Was it because the Alice in the Dormitory Building was stronger? Or… ah, could it be because the Alice in the Teaching Building had never seen my face when I appeared wearing the hood, but the Alice in the Dormitory Building had?
Wouldn't that mean this thing had already been following me since the very start of the game?
At that moment, Takumi could not help recalling those strange sensations he had felt at the start of the dormitory section. At the time, he had not understood what they were, and had assumed it was some sort of opening CG or something. But now it seemed… at the beginning, that Alice had been sleeping on top of him, and the moment he woke up, that creepy thing slipped away?!
He had thought the thing would go after Miko instead, but it had actually targeted him. Was it because he had taken out the doll, making him more eye-catching than Miko in this loop?
This damn thing even takes advantage of people now? His chest was for Maki and Chika to lie on. Since when did it belong to some at-least-seventy-or-eighty-years-expired old hag like you?
Loudly ranting in his heart, Takumi ran all the way with Miko and arrived at another staircase on the second floor, preparing to head down to the first.
And it was precisely at that moment that the beam of a flashlight lit up at the stairwell, and a figure wearing a bull-head hood slowly appeared in the corridor.
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