Chapter 240: The Ghost Can Grow Stronger
[For every person caught, the ghost's speed increases by 10%.]
Haruto stared at the crimson text hovering in his vision, his brow furrowing slightly. He tapped his chin, calculating the variables. The core issue was the ghost's base movement speed—a complete unknown. If the entity was naturally sluggish, lumbering around like a typical zombie, a ten percent bonus per kill wouldn't amount to much of a threat.
Given his and Kaguya's current monstrous stamina reserves, they could easily sprint from the opening bell right up until the game's final buzzer without breaking a sweat. As for their squishier teammates, Miko and Rin Setsu... well, he and the Hourai immortal could just tuck one girl under each arm and dash. It really wouldn't be a problem.
Of course, that entirely optimistic scenario depended on one crucial premise: that there was only a single ghost roaming the grounds.
While Haruto was busy pondering the optimal distribution of the four newly acquired Ghost-Catching Nets, a blur of motion interrupted his thoughts. The girl with the twin ponytails lunged forward, her hands snatching up two of the woven traps with a greedy, 'finders keepers' glint in her eyes.
She puffed out her chest, looking around at the group with an air of absolute self-righteousness. "Babe and I will take these two," she declared, gesturing to her tall boyfriend. "The rest of you nine can figure out how to split the remaining two yourselves."
A heavy, stunned silence fell over the corridor. The other players stared at her, utterly dumbfounded by her sheer audacity.
Do you even have the guts to catch a ghost? The collective thought practically echoed in the air.
Haruto and Kaguya exchanged a brief, highly expressive glance. Neither of them uttered a single word. Instead, in perfect synchronization, the two overpowered beings silently took a large step backward, fading toward the edge of the group. Catching the ghost meant getting close to it, and quite frankly, neither of them had any desire to do extra work.
The rest of the players, however, weren't about to let the blatant theft slide.
"Hey! Are you deaf? Didn't you hear the rules?" a man barked, stepping forward with clenched fists. "These things are specifically meant for catching the ghost in the final ten minutes!"
"Why the hell are you grabbing them?" another player chimed in, glaring daggers at the girl. "You're fighting over survival gear? Where's your basic sense of fairness?"
"Exactly! What use are they in your hands anyway?" a third scoffed, crossing his arms. "We won't say anything about your boyfriend's capabilities for now, but what exactly are you going to do with a net?"
Faced with the barrage of hostile accusations, the twin-tailed girl's face drained of color, then rapidly flushed with defensive anger. She pointed a trembling finger at the crowd, her voice pitching up into a shrill shout.
"Why shouldn't I take them?! The rules clearly stated that the mission time is strictly from twelve to six! We just need to hide and survive through that period, don't we?!"
"Wrong."
A calm, steady voice cut through the shouting. Miko shook her head, her golden eyes fixed on the panicked girl.
Haruto and Kaguya both stiffened. Their eyes widened in unison, screaming internally, 'Don't start trouble, Miko! Just let them be bait!'
Ignoring her protectors' silent pleas, Miko continued her logical analysis. "The blood words only specified that the game's active time frame is between twelve and six. It never explicitly stated that surviving that window was the actual condition for clearing the instance."
The twin-tailed girl's expression wavered, shifting between red and pale white. Suddenly, a spark of desperate realization lit up her eyes, and she raised her chin defiantly.
"But the blood words didn't say the mission wasn't just surviving from twelve to six either!"
She looked around, clearly expecting the others to nod along with her flawless logic. Instead, she was met with a wall of deeply unimpressed, utterly speechless stares.
Miko let out a long, exhausted sigh, rubbing her temples. "When you played Hide-and-Seek with your friends as a kid... did you only play a single round and then immediately stop forever?"
The question hung in the air. The twin-tailed girl's mouth opened and closed like a stranded fish, completely stumped.
Andre, a muscular player who had been observing quietly, finally stepped in. "The schoolgirl is right. If we could secure a win simply by cowering in a closet for six hours, the existence of the Ghost-Catching Nets and the ghost's speed-boosting mechanic would be entirely pointless. Unless the system is feeding us fake clues, there is absolutely no reason for the instance to provide these specific items."
"Exactly," another veteran player agreed, nodding firmly. "Those nets won't do a damn thing in the hands of cowards."
He turned his gaze toward Haruto and Kaguya, who were still trying their best to blend into the wallpaper. "Anyway, these two experts have been carrying us. They definitely need one net each. I'll only feel at ease if the heavy hitters are armed."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the surviving players.
Though the twin-tailed girl still clutched the nets with bitter reluctance, a stern whisper from her boyfriend finally broke her stubbornness. Scowling, she shoved one of the nets forward.
Andre took it, retrieved the second spare net from the pile, and walked over to Haruto and Kaguya, offering them the gear.
The Boundary Youkai and the Moon Princess stared down at the wooden frames. The nets were pitifully small, barely wider than a human head. Their expressions darkened simultaneously, radiating deep disgust at the prospect of manual labor, but they reluctantly accepted the items.
"Have you all finished searching your assigned areas?" Miko asked, her voice tight with unease, as if the current argument had triggered a rather unpleasant memory.
"The Playground and the Laboratory Building are completely clear," one team reported.
"We finished sweeping the two East Dormitory Buildings," another pair added. "We're not sure about the third dorm; that wasn't in our sector."
Hearing the reports, Miko shifted her piercing golden gaze toward the tall boy and his twin-tailed girlfriend.
Under the intense scrutiny, the tall boy shifted his weight nervously. "My girlfriend and I searched the remaining building. I took responsibility for the bottom four floors, and she went up to search the top two."
The twin-tailed girl shot him a venomous glare for throwing her under the bus. She crossed her arms, jutting her chin out at the group. "What? Are you doubting that we actually searched?"
Miko didn't offer a verbal response. She simply maintained eye contact, her golden eyes quiet, calculating, and entirely unconvinced.
Just as the oppressive stalemate threatened to boil over into another shouting match, Andre clapped his hands together.
"Alright, enough. It's getting late, and we only have two hours left before the game begins. Everyone needs to scatter and find a secure place to hide."
Grumbling under her breath, the twin-tailed girl grabbed her boyfriend's sleeve and dragged him away down the corridor. The rest of the players quickly dispersed, their footsteps echoing as they scattered to secure their survival spots.
Once the area was clear, Miko turned to Haruto and Kaguya. "Brother Haruto, Rin Setsu and I plan to head back and double-check that dormitory building. I highly suspect that girl didn't search her floors thoroughly... or maybe she didn't even bother going up there at all."
Haruto gave a slow, approving nod.
Miko and Rin Setsu turned on their heels, marching toward the exit. After a few paces, they realized the sound of footsteps behind them was entirely too heavy. They glanced back, blinking in confusion at the sight of Haruto and Kaguya trailing right behind them.
"Brother Haruto?" Miko asked, tilting her head. "Are you two coming along as well?"
"We're here to protect you, obviously," Haruto stated smoothly, his face a mask of absolute sincerity, without a single blush or a spike in his heart rate to betray his underlying laziness.
Miko's eyelids twitched violently at the blatant excuse to avoid finding their own hiding spot. Rin Setsu, however, clasped her hands together, her eyes shining with sudden emotion.
Is this what it feels like to have a top-tier big shot personally covering for you? she thought, deeply moved.
The group of four handled the winding paths of the campus, arriving at the looming structure of the third dormitory building. Above them, the sky had already bled into a heavy, oppressive darkness.
The building was an antiquated, brutalist structure. Fortunately, they managed to pry open the dorm supervisor's office on the ground floor, securing a heavy ring of master keys.
With a little over an hour left on the clock, time was of the essence. To maximize their efficiency, the group decided to split up and sweep the remaining floors.
Andre, having apparently followed their logic, arrived at the dormitory midway through their sweep and silently joined the search effort.
It didn't take long for Miko's suspicions to be entirely validated.
While the first through fourth floors showed clear signs of being hastily rummaged through, the fifth and sixth floors were pristine. Untouched. Aside from the very first room near the staircase—which had been aggressively ransacked to create the illusion of a search—every single dormitory door remained firmly locked.
The group stood in the fifth-floor hallway, their expressions darkening collectively. The twin-tailed girl had completely lied.
"Good thing we trusted our gut," Andre muttered, his jaw tight with irritation.
Driven by a shared sense of urgency, the five of them tore through the remaining two floors. Their speed was phenomenal. In less than thirty minutes, they had systematically unlocked, swept, and cleared every single room.
Regrouping in the center of the sixth-floor corridor, they piled their scavenged findings on the dusty floorboards.
The haul was incredibly rich.
They had uncovered two additional Ghost-Catching Nets, a thick bundle of crimson string, two torn diary fragments, and three fresh messages written in dried blood.
[The mission lasts for three days.]
[It can end early if killed.]
[For every person it kills, it unlocks one more ability.]
Staring down at the blood-red text, a heavy frown settled onto Haruto's face. The first two points aligned perfectly with their expectations for a standard survival instance. The third point, however, was a nasty curveball. An evolving ghost was a massive problem.
They carefully smoothed out the crumpled diary pages, holding them up to the dim light.
April 3rd, Night.
We discovered something terrifying.
Hiding is useless. It cheats.
He doesn't need to actually search the rooms. No matter where we hide, he can slowly approach, as if... as if he can smell our exact location...
April 5th, Rainy Night.
In the old, rusted cabinet in the physics lab, we found these red strings.
The faded label attached to them read 'Omi-musubi'—a God-Warding Knot. It was a protective charm given to the graduating class by a local shrine many years ago.
Ono was trembling when he told us the rules. He said to tie it tightly around your wrist. As soon as the 'Hider' enters within a hundred meters of your position, the string will begin to generate heat.
Each of us took one...
April 6th, Early Morning.
It's true.
At two in the morning, my wrist suddenly erupted in pain, feeling as if it were burning from the inside out.
The red string grew so blisteringly hot it felt like it would sear straight through my skin.
I desperately scrambled out the window and ran toward the back door of the building.
The very second I rushed out of the classroom, a slow, wet dripping sound echoed from the front door.
The Hider had been standing right outside the door the entire time.
The red string saved my life...
April 8th, Midnight.
It... where is it? Who is it?
Aren't there supposed to be only one ghost?
We have no hope left. We must find it. We must find it...
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