Chapter 32: A Dead End, and More Than One Mermaid
"Kaguya was right," Haruto began, his tone uncharacteristically somber. "The blood-red words are a trap. I don't have hard evidence, just a gut feeling—a premonition."
'Actually, that's not entirely true,'he thought, a flicker of irritation crossing his mind.'There is a pattern. Every single instance I've been thrown into has had its difficulty cranked up far beyond the norm.'
He mentally ticked off the evidence. Forget the instance settings themselves; just look at the ghosts. Countless players had cleared countless games, but he seemed to be the only one who consistently ran into intelligent spirits. It had been like this since his very first run. This game was targeting him.
"So, what's our next move?" Yotsuya Miko asked, her voice steady. She didn't question his claim for a second. Her faith in him was absolute, the kind forged in the crucible of life-or-death struggles.
Haruto shook his head. "I'm not sure yet. We have too few clues. But one thing is certain: we can't just sit here and wait for four days like the hint suggests. We have to find another way out."
Miko's brow furrowed in thought for a moment before she spoke softly. "Actually… I have a theory, too. I'm not sure if it's correct, though."
Haruto and Kaguya both turned their gazes to her, their attention undivided.
"Go on," Haruto urged with a nod. "Solutions are built from a pile of guesses."
"Okay," Miko said, her expression serious. "I was wondering… did you two notice the mermaid's gloves last night?"
"Those human skin gloves?" Haruto frowned, the grotesque image resurfacing in his memory.
"Yes." Miko nodded, her analysis gaining momentum. "Think back to the first day. Someone died, but nobody heard a thing. Isn't that strange? I know the mermaid's hunt has some kind of anesthetic effect, but it should have at least made some noise moving through the corridor, just like it did last night."
The implication of her words struck Haruto and Kaguya at the same time. A sharp, knowing glint flashed in their eyes.
"You're saying it's evolving," Haruto finished for her. "On the first night, it could only move by wriggling its body, so it was silent. Last night, the hands sewn to its waist detached, and with those human skin gloves, it evolved from swimming to crawling."
Miko nodded again and pulled a pink phone from her pocket. She long-pressed the power button, and the screen flickered to life. Though there was no signal in the instance, the camera function was still operational.
"This is a photo of the blood-red words from the first day."
Haruto and Kaguya leaned in closer. The image on the screen was just as they remembered it: two stark characters.
[人鱼](Human-Fish)
'Wait, that's not right.'Haruto's eyes narrowed. He'd spotted the anomaly. A faint horizontal line was drawn between the character for'Human'(人) and'Fish' (鱼). If he had dismissed it as a smudge before, their new analysis made it impossible to ignore. It wasn't a coincidence.
"That line… it represents a process," Haruto murmured, the pieces clicking into place with horrifying clarity. "The hint isn't just 'mermaid.' It's showing us a twisted evolution—from human to fish, or maybe… from fish to human!"
Following that deduction, a bone-deep chill gradually crawled up their backs.
Four days.
It corresponded perfectly to four forms.
The first two days were wriggling and crawling.
If their analysis was correct, tonight the mermaid would learn to walk. And on the final day… it would be able to run.
This terrifying conclusion plunged the three of them into a heavy silence. The air in the room seemed to freeze, the only sound the intermittent cries of seagulls from beyond the window, a stark contrast to the chilling stillness within.
The mermaid from the second night could already smash through a door. They didn't need to imagine what a more advanced version could do. Even if it had to break down doors one by one to find them, a creature that could move quickly could likely search the entire guesthouse in a single night.
Everything seemed to confirm Haruto's initial guess. The blood-red hints were technically correct, but they couldn't be trusted. Believing them blindly was a one-way ticket to a dead end.
"Actually… this one has some rather grim news to add."
Though she felt the timing was less than ideal, Kaguya knew she had to speak.
"What is it?" Haruto's brow furrowed.
"Have you considered the possibility that there might be more than one mermaid?" Kaguya slowly voiced the deduction, a statement that sent a fresh shock through the other two. As she spoke, she produced a stack of black-and-white photographs from within her voluminous sleeve.
They were all group shots of mermaids posing with tourists. The photos were old and the images blurry, but one could still clearly discern that the mermaids in them were all different—tall, short, stout, thin, old, and young.
"We can't wait," Haruto stated, his expression grim. "We have to find another way out. Now."
The thought of a single mermaid evolving to the point where it could run already made survival seem as difficult as ascending to heaven. The possibility of multiple mermaids turned it into an absolute death sentence.
"That fairy tale book," he said, his mind racing. "Have you read it?"
They had scoured the entire guesthouse and the nearby beach. Haruto felt that the only real path to survival was likely hidden within that book.
"Not yet. It is still with that man. Does this one need to go and retrieve it?" Kaguya asked, rubbing her hands together, eager for a bit of action.
"No rush," Haruto countered, his strategic mind taking over. "Let's use him to verify our theory tonight. We need to see how the mermaid reacts to that book."
Since they only needed to prepare food for six people, King Chen and the others returned in just two hours. It was just past noon, leaving them with more than three hours before darkness fell.
After King Chen's group finished cooking, Haruto laid out all their deductions. The revelation successfully plunged the three newcomers into the same deathly silence that had gripped his own group earlier.
The only clue was a trap, the known path to survival was unusable, and there was more than one monster… The cascade of despairing information was overwhelming. They wanted to argue, to find a flaw in the logic, but they didn't know where to begin.
"Can we… can we still survive?" the Newcomer's voice trembled with raw fear.
Under the crushing weight of their new reality, the once-delicious seafood suddenly seemed utterly tasteless.
Of course, there were always exceptions. Haruto and Kaguya were tucking in with gusto. To them, few things were more sacred than a good meal.
"Everyone, don't worry too much," Liu Wensong said, trying to comfort the others as much as himself. "Since it's an instance, there has to be a way out."
The Newcomer tried his best to calm his racing heart.
King Chen remained silent. He just watched Haruto and Kaguya, who were eating heartily without a care in the world. A complex mix of emotions flickered in his tough, weary eyes—reminiscence, a strange fondness, and deep worry—but ultimately, they all hardened into a look of grim determination.
"Do we… need to bring food to that guy?" the Newcomer asked, timidly raising his hand.
"Why would we feed him?" Haruto shot back with an irritable eye-roll. "He's a dead man walking. You think this is a prison, and he gets a last meal before his execution?"
"Sorry…"
Seeing that the others didn't seem to be on the verge of a complete breakdown, the Newcomer felt a sliver of relief and began to eat in small, hesitant bites.
After they had eaten and drunk their fill, the group returned to the guest rooms. They first used a shovel to dig through the plaster walls, connecting the rooms on the left and right, then used heavy furniture to conceal the crude openings. This way, even if the mermaid did break through a door, they could escape to the adjacent rooms through the holes.
"Now, there's just one last thing," Haruto said, leading everyone to the room where Liu Cangzhen was being held. The man had already been beaten half to death by King Chen, and after being tied up for half a day, he was barely breathing.
"Are you doing it, or am I?" Kaguya asked, turning her head to Haruto.
"You do it." Haruto took half a step back.
Before the others could even begin to process what they were talking about, they saw Kaguya lift her foot and stomp down hard on Liu Cangzhen's left leg.
Crack!
A crisp, terrifying sound of fracturing bone echoed through the room.
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