'I-I'm coming too!' the newbie said quickly.
'No.'
'But you can't leave me alone again!' he exclaimed. 'That thing will come after me –'
'I don't give a fuck,' Aron growled. 'You know how to survive it. Walk around the building. Go outside. Go die for all I care. If I see even a hair on your head, I'm killing you.'
'Wu…'
His pitiful eyes landed on me, and he opened his mouth to beg again.
'No,' I repeated.
In my opinion, he'd already proven himself to be more trouble than he was worth.
…
…
John was near the student dorms.
Had it been daytime, with sufficient lighting, we might've spotted him on our way back.
His body was lying sprawled on the ground by a water fountain.
His head was a little farther away.
It had been twisted off.
'He failed the being-alone rule…' I muttered. 'But… why?'
I'd already confirmed all the conditions relating to that creature.
John had known all about it.
How the fuck did he end up dying from it?
Something was wrong with this…
Sheila tried to lower herself to the ground by the body.
Aron and I hurried to help her before she could fall over.
Carefully, she sat down, and just silently looked at the corpse in front of her.
John was the last of the three companions she had entered this instance with.
Like Mason, he was probably someone she knew from the real world.
I tore my gaze away from the odd, empty expression on her face, and looked at the body again.
'Oh… Oh shit.'
I suddenly noticed that one of John's hands was still clenched tightly by his side.
There was a length of broken string attached to something he was holding.
Feeling slightly sick, I knelt to the ground and gently pried his fingers open.
He was holding an oddly-shaped whistle.
My stomach sank.
'Is this meant to sound like birdcall?' I asked Sheila.
She looked at John's hand, then nodded dully.
'Shit…' I repeated.
'What's the matter?' Aron asked.
'I heard it. I heard him blow it.'
Aron frowned.
'When?'
I shut my eyes and told them about the distant, faint sound I'd heard while in the Director's office.
It had only been audible because I'd been standing right next to the window. No one else had heard it.
Even if John had called for help, no one besides a player would've answered him in the dead of the night.
But we'd all been too far away.
Blowing on the whistle must've been his last-ditch attempt at attracting our attention.
What I'd heard was probably the last sound he ever made.
'I'm sorry,' I whispered. 'I should've said something.'
Sheila shook her head.
'You couldn't have known,' she said in a hollow voice. 'Our group knew about the whistle. You and Aron didn't.'
'Besides,' she sighed softly. 'John died while still holding it. Even if you had said something, we probably wouldn't have made it to him in time.'
'But…' I frowned. 'There's something wrong about all this. It just doesn't make any sense.'
Her expression hadn't changed, but there was a cold, hard glint in Sheila's eyes.
She ignored my words. After a moment, she looked up at Aron and said, 'I want you to leave me here.'
He frowned. 'Sheila…'
'Leave me here with John, and go back to the dorms.'
'That's suicide!' I exclaimed. 'With your leg like that, you won't be able to get away from that thing –'
'I have an item, Neil,' she interjected. 'I will not die here. I cannot die here. I just… want to spend some time with him. Go.'
Her voice was firm.
I glanced up at Aron, who was clenching his jaw.
After a moment, he nodded at her and turned to me.
'Let's go, Neil.'
I frowned, but didn't argue.
I wasn't stupid enough to overstep with someone I'd only known for a day.
As we climbed up the stairway, I repeated, 'This doesn't make any sense.'
'Mm.'
'There's no way John just lay there and waited to die. If he could blow on that whistle, he could also run.'
'Mm-hmm.'
I paused, then frowned at Aron.
'There's something else you aren't telling me.'
He smiled.
'There is.'
'…'
In the distance, I could hear the newbie whimpering as he walked up and down some corridor with brisk steps.
Aron's smile disappeared at the sound.
'Just remember one thing,' he said to me. 'Don't go soft on that fucker. Don't make the same mistakes Mason did.'
…
…
The next morning, I got dressed and went to class early.
Aron had said he'd come a bit later with Sheila.
Good enough.
I preferred working alone.
I sank behind my desk, then sighed loudly.
The kid sitting in front of me jolted.
I sighed again, then whispered, 'Yes… please… Eli, please…'
He whipped around to look at me with wide eyes.
'Eli?' he asked hoarsely.
At the sound of that name, a couple of the other guys nearby turned to look our way.
I pretended to be startled, then shook my head and said, 'Shut up. He spoke to me. Not you. Not you!'
'He spoke to you?'
A hand slammed down hard on the desk in front of me, and I looked up to see another NPC student looking down at me with crazy, wide eyes.
'Ah…' I trembled slightly, then said, 'I-I had a dream last night. I thought it was a dream, but Eli told me something…'
'What!?'
'He told me two more guys were killed last night. And when I woke up, it was true! It was true! I swear'
The NPC students glanced at one another. One of them nodded and muttered, 'They did. I heard that those two idiots, Mason and John, tried to make a run for it last night.'
'Fucking crazy…' another NPC muttered. 'Even if they made it to the gates, they'd only get killed the moment they stepped outside. What were they thinking?'
'They weren't thinking.'
'Fucking idiots.'
All the avoidance and reticence from the previous day was forgotten.
I'd figured the best way to get them talking would be to pretend I might know more than they did.
Ha!
I'd succeeded! They were yapping away!
But I needed more...
'N-no,' I shook my head vehemently. 'They didn't want to! Eli told me they didn't want to! They were forced to!'
'That fucker forced them to leave their rooms!?' the NPC sitting in front of me yelled. 'Ha! Will he only be happy once the rest of us die like he did!? I wasn't even involved!'
'But it wasn't him!' I exclaimed. 'In my dream, Eli said it wasn't him! He said those guys are getting themselves killed because they're being driven mad one-by-one. They're being forced! Just like he was! Just like –'
I didn't complete my sentence.
I saw the eyes of the NPC who'd slammed my desk widen.
'Holy shit...' he whispered. 'Holy shit!'
He turned to the others and ran a hand through his hair.
'We... never considered that Eli wasn't the one doing all this.'
'B-but, it must be him! It can't have been Mark! He was the first casualty of the curse, remember?'
Oh?
So Mark, the director's grandson, had been killed in a manner similar to one of the death conditions.
But, of course, the Director had only summoned the curses after he'd died.
Interesting...