Chapter 24: The Water Room and the Foul Slime
Yotsuya Miko stood by awkwardly, listening to the earnest promises Kaguya was making to someone over the phone.
Kaguya's eyes widened even further. She never imagined that Haruto, this sly fox, had actually kept a recording as a backup.
"Why did I even say that back then? And don't you know? When I asked if you were following some overpowered protagonist script, you didn't deny it!"
"But I didn't admit it, either," Haruto replied with infuriating calm.
"You... you...!"
A tremor ran through Kaguya's frame, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. It was as if a groundhog was screaming its lungs out inside her chest.
Enough was enough! She was done holding back!
With a sudden leap, she pounced on Haruto, knocking him clean off his feet and onto the floor. She straddled his chest and threw two flailing punches. Thump, thump.
After the initial shock, Haruto retaliated, not to be outdone. He twisted, flipping their positions and pinning Kaguya underneath him in a move that vaguely resembled a clumsy 'monkey scooping the moon'. The two of them wrestled across the corridor, their scuffle growing fiercer by the second, even managing to knock several portraits crooked on the wall.
"Stop fighting! Please, stop fighting!" Yotsuya Miko hovered at the edge of the brawl, her hands fluttering uselessly, completely unable to stop them.
The ruckus they were making, accompanied by a stream of creative curses, echoed through the old guesthouse. The building's soundproofing was practically nonexistent, and the noise easily traveled up to the two teams searching the floor above.
"Should I go down and mediate? I could lend a hand, since the third floor isn't that large anyway," King Chen suggested with a frown, but a teammate quickly pulled him back.
"Don't go. They... they probably know their limits. If you get involved, not only might you get hurt, but you could make the whole situation even messier."
Hearing this, King Chen could only abandon the idea. It wasn't that he feared getting hurt himself, but he was worried that his presence might indeed escalate things.
If even a veteran like King Chen wasn't going down, the others certainly weren't about to. They all pretended to be deaf and dumb, acting as if they heard nothing while continuing to search their own designated areas. After all, no one was eager to get knocked out with a blunt object for trying to play peacemaker.
Five minutes later, a truce was called.
Haruto and Kaguya sat on the floor facing each other, disheveled but having finally reached a consensus. Miko would proceed with the original plan of searching the guest rooms, while the two of them would split up to search the left and right wings of the main area.
Just in case, Haruto handed the Cursed Doll to Yotsuya Miko and briefly explained its function.
When she heard that the doll's curse had been modified to be completely controllable, Miko, who was already aware of Haruto's formidable background, was still visibly startled. The sheer absurdity of it was simply too much.
"What about my share?" Kaguya held out her hand, her demand feeling entirely natural.
Seeing her 'monkey-reaching-for-a-peach' posture, the corner of Haruto's eye twitched almost imperceptibly. He wasn't feeling stingy, however, and tossed her the toy knife.
"It's yours. No need to thank me."
"You're suddenly being so generous?" Kaguya eyed him with suspicion. "This thing doesn't have some kind of trap, does it? Like some outrageous negative side effect after using it?"
"Take it or leave it," Haruto shot her an annoyed glance. "You're unhappy if I don't give you anything, and you're unhappy when I do? Fine, then. I'm taking it back."
He made a motion to reclaim it. Kaguya immediately scrambled back, vigilant, and quickly stuffed the knife into her sleeve pocket, where it joined a half-straightened tree branch.
"I never said I wouldn't take it. If you're offering something, I might as well accept." She examined the small blade. "So, what exactly does this knife do?"
"It can only inflict harm when you intend to cause harm. At all other times, it's just a toy knife."
"Isn't that just a fancy way of saying it's a toy knife? Are you sure this is an SS+ reward and not something you bought for 9.99 from Kourindou?"
"Believe it or not. This really is an SS+ reward. Besides its unique property of intent, it also has the ability to deprive a target of their sight."
Hearing about this secondary function, Kaguya reluctantly dismissed her doubts. "What's its name?"
"Shark B."
Three massive, invisible question marks seemed to pop into existence above Kaguya's head.
Haruto pointed at her again and repeated slowly, enunciating each syllable with crystal clarity. "I said, Sha... Bi."
[Translator Note: The name of the knife, 'Shark B'(鲨B - Shā B), is a pun on the extremely common and vulgar Chinese insult'Sha Bi'(傻逼 - shǎ bī), which means'stupid cnt'or'idiot'. Haruto is deliberately trolling Kaguya.]
Kaguya looked down at the small, shark-shaped knife in her hand, then looked up at Haruto, whose face was plastered with an incredibly punchable smile.
"You are definitely insulting this concubine! You definitely are!" Her eyes blazed with indignation.
The first time he said it, he might have just been stating the name. But repeating it a second time like that was, without a doubt, a deliberate insult!
However, having accepted a gift, one's hands were tied. Since she had already taken the item, Kaguya decided to magnanimously forgive him this one time.
The dining area, the utility room, the fitness area... Kaguya and Haruto each took a side and quickly began their search. Midway through, Yotsuya Miko finished exploring her own assigned rooms and came over to help them.
Everything was normal; the three of them found no anomalies whatsoever. It was so peaceful that Haruto even began to wonder if there were actually any ghosts in this instance at all.
"Haruto! Kaguya!"
Yotsuya Miko's shout suddenly echoed from the end of the hall.
Haruto and Kaguya immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed over.
"I'm in the Water Room on the left!"
Her voice came from the left wing.
The moment the two of them stepped into the Water Room, they both frowned in unison as a powerful, fishy stench assaulted their senses. The smell was like a fish left on a cutting board for far too long, its flesh slowly rotting and turning pungent in the heat.
The source of this nauseating odor was a layer of slimy liquid covering the entire floor. Stepping on it felt like wading through spoiled custard that had been stewing in a backpack for a week; it was both foul-smelling and utterly disgusting.
"Did you find anything?" Haruto asked, walking over to Miko's side.
She was standing before a large well, her nose twitching slightly as if she were trying to parse the scent. After a moment, she spoke.
"This is seawater. This well leads directly to the ocean outside. Things from the sea can enter the guesthouse through here."
She crouched down again, carefully observing the viscous liquid on the ground.
"This is fish mucus. It's all over the floor of the Water Room. It seems that 'thing' really is a mermaid... Haruto, I think we should find a way to seal this place up."
"Sure thing," Haruto replied, his tone carrying a hint of genuine surprise. "Miko, you've made great progress. You're already much more capable than a certain someone who's just slacking off."
Hearing this, Yotsuya Miko's face, which had been tense with concentration during her calm analysis, instantly flushed a deep red. She shook her head repeatedly.
"I-I was just lucky to be the first one to enter the Water Room. If Kaguya had investigated, she would have definitely deduced all of this even faster."
"Exactly, exactly. Some people just love to sow discord; they really deserve a d— a lesson," Kaguya said, catching herself just before a certain word slipped out. To maintain her refined image in front of Miko, she forced herself to change her wording. She glanced at the mucus on the floor.
"These traces are very fresh, looking like they were left just yesterday, or at most a few days ago. This concubine refuses to believe the instance would be so kind as to give us a full day of safety."
Her analysis stopped there, but her meaning was already perfectly clear.
Haruto's playful demeanor vanished, replaced by a focused stillness. He stared into the dark well, his mind racing. Either the ghost had already started making its move from the very first day, or it was setting an elaborate trap, just like the Longevity Ghost in the Candy House instance.
But... were they really that unlucky?
Many of the players in this round were veterans who had cleared two or three instances. The ghosts they had encountered so far were all subject to certain restrictions and possessed low intelligence—one could even say no intelligence at all, acting only on the obsessions they held in life.
It wasn't just Haruto; even Yotsuya Miko was beginning to question their circumstances.
Haruto felt they couldn't possibly be that unlucky and leaned towards the former possibility: the ghost had already begun to act.
However, they hadn't lost a single team member.
Wait...
Haruto suddenly froze, a thought striking him like a bolt of lightning. At the exact same moment, Kaguya and Yotsuya Miko snapped their heads toward the doorway.
Someone was already dead.
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