Chapter 38: Escape! The Real Escape Point!
Smack!
The sound of the branch striking flesh was surprisingly light, almost trivial.
Yet, the moment it made contact, the mermaid's gnarled hand abruptly lost its grip on the well's edge. With a guttural roar of pure, unadulterated fury, it plunged back into the darkness. A distant splash echoed up from the depths, and then… silence.
Kaguya puffed out her chest, a smug grin plastered on her face as she flicked the curious branch over her shoulder. Her gaze, fixed on Haruto, practically screamed, Well? Aren't I amazing?
Haruto simply rolled his eyes and turned away, utterly unimpressed.
Kaguya's triumphant expression immediately soured. She bristled, clearly affronted, but she couldn't very well march over and demand, "Why aren't you praising me?" All she could do was purse her lips in a pout and redirect her attention to Yotsuya Miko.
Fortunately, Miko was far more supportive. Her eyes sparkled as she rushed forward, her voice filled with genuine excitement.
"Sister Kaguya, that was incredible! We have to thank you. If you hadn't acted, that thing would have climbed all the way out. What is that branch? Is it some kind of treasure?"
Her words broke the spell of stunned silence, and the other survivors quickly chimed in with their own chorus of praise and thanks.
With the mermaid seemingly sealed away, the immediate danger had passed. The crushing tension that had suffocated them for three long days finally began to dissipate, replaced by a wave of exhausted relief. All they had to do now was wait for the fourth day to end.
Still, just in case, they weren't taking any chances.
Several of the heavy wooden tabletops, once used for banquets, were heaved over to cover the well opening. They even organized a rotating watch, ensuring someone was always standing guard.
With their fortress secured, the group gathered in the first-floor dining area to decompress. Outside the large windows, the sky was slowly bleeding from orange to a deep, bruised purple.
That night, no mermaids came. It seemed that as long as they could safely ride out the clock until the fourth day was officially over, they would clear the instance.
After politely answering a few more of Kaguya's self-congratulatory questions, Miko's gaze drifted toward Haruto. She watched him for a moment, her fingers twisting in her lap, before finally gathering her courage and asking in a small, tentative voice, "...Brother Bai Liu, did you… forget to add me?"
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she spoke, a knot of anxiety tightening in her stomach. She was terrified that he hadn't forgotten at all—that he simply didn't want to.
"Ah, that," Haruto said, looking up. "Didn't I mention it? You and I aren't from the same world. The chat software might have the same name, but it's a closed network. I can't find your profile at all."
A wave of relief washed over Miko, so potent it almost made her dizzy. But it was immediately followed by a pang of deep disappointment that clouded her eyes.
If he had simply not wanted to add her, she could have been shameless and pestered him again later. But if their worlds were fundamentally different, then there was truly nothing to be done.
"Don't make that face," Haruto said, his voice softening at her dejected expression. "I left a Gap on you, remember? If I ever want to find you, I can open a path to you anytime. And you can use it to call for me, too."
Hearing this, Miko's face lit up with pure, unadulterated joy. A moment later, however, a new thought seemed to strike her. A fierce blush crept up her neck, heating her entire face. The tips of her ears turned a tell-tale shade of pink, betraying the sudden turn her thoughts had taken.
Just then, a thick, unnatural fog surged through the main entrance.
Haruto's brow furrowed. With a flick of his wrist, he sliced open a Gap, peering outside.
He saw that the fog, which had previously been confined to the distant sea, had crept inland at an alarming rate. It now completely enveloped the Mermaid Pension in a hazy, white shroud, reducing visibility to less than ten meters. A faint, ethereal whirring sound hung in the air—a ghostly hum utterly different from the sounds of the past three days.
If his sixth sense hadn't remained stubbornly silent, Haruto would have suspected a new type of ghost had appeared.
'As I thought,'he mused grimly.'There was no way they'd let us just sit here for four days.'
Leaving aside the question of whether they could outrun the mermaids, the sheer number of them, combined with this mysterious fog, meant that their situation on this final day was bound to be dire.
After confirming the mist was just a natural—if unsettling—phenomenon, Haruto closed the Gap and shot the nervous crowd a reassuring look. But in the very next instant, a primal chill shot up his spine.
'No… something is very, very wrong!'
His instincts as a Boundary Youkai, honed over a lifetime, were screaming at him—a frantic, blaring alarm that drowned out all other thoughts.
Haruto shot to his feet. "The well!" he yelled, already sprinting toward the Water Room without a shred of hesitation.
Though the others were confused, the sudden, terrifying shift in his expression told them everything they needed to know. Something had gone horribly wrong. They scrambled after him.
Haruto was the first to burst through the door, and the sight that greeted him made his pupils shrink to pinpricks.
The heavy wooden tabletops they had placed over the well had been shoved aside.
Liu Wensong was being dragged across the floor, half his body already dangling over the dark opening. His face was a mask of pure terror, but no sound escaped his lips. A thick, powerful tail covered in grayish-green scales was wrapped around his waist like a giant python, squeezing the air from his lungs.
Haruto's reaction was instantaneous. He flung two talisman cards forward, simultaneously activating a Boundary of Motion and Stillness to freeze the creature.
But it was too late.
Splash—
The fish tail gave one last powerful flex, dragging Liu Wensong down into the murky water.
Immediately, a chorus of hair-raising sounds erupted from below—the wet, tearing noises of countless mouths chewing and ripping, punctuated by several satisfied hisses, like a school of starving piranhas dividing their prey.
The other survivors, arriving a second too late, witnessed the horrifying finale. They froze in the doorway, their faces draining of all color.
"Go! Everyone out! Block the door with anything heavy you can find!" Haruto roared, already turning and shoving them back into the hall.
His command snapped them out of their horrified trance. They scrambled to move tables, chairs, and even decorative cabinets, frantically piling them against the entrance to the Water Room until it was completely sealed.
Haruto glanced at the time—4:30 AM.
If he remembered correctly, dawn was at five.
He frowned, his mind racing. They had gathered all the clues. Where had they gone wrong?
At this point, however, dwelling on it was useless. Perhaps it was simply a built-in mechanic of the instance; this final, desperate struggle was always meant to happen. The fact that they had delayed it until the last possible moment was already the best they could have hoped for.
Everyone moved with desperate speed. Within a minute, the entrance to the Water Room and the adjoining hallway were barricaded.
"Brother Bai Liu, what about the main door?" Miko asked, her voice trembling.
"Don't worry about the main door," Haruto said, his tone firm. "The mermaids are all in the well. That well isn't connected to the sea—at least, not right now. We just need to stall for another half hour. As long as we can hold out until dawn, we win."
"Okay."
Miko's trust in him was absolute. While the others didn't understand his reasoning, they followed his lead without question, their faith in him overriding their fear.
While using his Gaps to transport the heaviest furniture to reinforce the barricade, Haruto's mind worked furiously, trying to pinpoint the true escape route.
'Every instance has an escape point,'he thought.'The Candy House had its main door. Once you stepped outside, the ghosts couldn't touch you. Stepping onto the road meant you had cleared it. So what is it here?'The well? The fairy tale book had called it a portal to freedom.'Impossible. Jumping in there with all those mermaids waiting? That's not an escape, it's suicide. It's too ridiculous.'
The pension's main door? Unlikely.
The beach where they first arrived? No…
'It's the sea!' The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.
The Mermaid Prince gained a "new life" by jumping from his prison into the "free sea." This meant the well was an escape route only for mermaids. Jumping in might grant a new life, but it would be as one of them—a "new life" as understood by the Prince.
As players, as humans, they weren't meant to take that path. They had to go directly to the sea and leave as themselves!
His thoughts clarified, Haruto checked the time again—4:50 AM.
A cacophony of dense, wet sounds echoed from behind the barricade: dragging, crawling, the slap of webbed feet… It was clear that mermaids of all shapes and sizes were climbing out of the well. For now, the makeshift wall was holding.
Looking at the tightly blocked hallway, Haruto allowed himself a small sigh of relief. At this rate, holding out for another ten minutes shouldn't be a problem.
Splat—
The sound was distinct, different from the others. It was the viscous, heavy slap of a powerful fish tail hitting the floorboards—a sound he knew all too well.
Haruto's pupils shrank. That was the sound of the one true mermaid, the creature that had been hunting them from the very first day.
"Run!" he screamed.
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