Chapter 241: Instant Movement
The remaining contents of the diary detailed the precise method for using the red string, alongside a harrowing account of the original owner's final experiences.
The handwriting sprawled across the yellowed pages in a chaotic, jagged scrawl. It was a stark contrast to the neat script from earlier entries, vividly betraying the sheer, unadulterated panic that had gripped the writer in their last moments.
Fortunately, there were plenty of red strings tucked inside the cover—eight in total. Even if their group of five took one each, they would still have spares. Haruto casually tossed one to each person and stuffed the remaining three deep into his pocket.
"What about the other players?" Andre's brow furrowed in concern as he tied the string around his wrist. "Shouldn't we go find them and share this clue?"
"We aren't going anywhere."
Haruto cast a sidelong glance at the burly man. "We only have a little over an hour left before midnight. Even if we completely ignore the time it takes to run back and forth, we'd still have to actually locate them in the dark. Do you have any idea where they're hiding?"
He pulled the three spare strings back out, dangling them from his fingertips. "If you're feeling heroic, I can give you these three. You're welcome to go look for them yourself."
Yotsuya Miko, standing nearby, immediately stepped in to dissuade him. "The risk of wandering the halls right now is far too high. Besides, it's only the first night. Unless they actively court death, they should be fine."
"I know." Andre hesitated for a long moment, his jaw tight, before finally nodding in agreement.
Haruto stuffed the strings away, turned his back to the group, and leaned casually against the rusty iron railing of the stairwell, peering down into the encroaching darkness. "Hurry up and make your choices. Either find a spot to hide really well, or get ready to compete with that thing in a marathon."
No one wasted another breath. The group immediately scattered into the shadows to secure their hiding spots.
Miko and Rin Setsu slipped into a cramped storage room on the first floor. It was a tactical choice; there was a window directly opposite the door that led outside. Andre opted to hide alone, wedging his large frame into the dark corner beneath the sixth-floor staircase. Both locations offered immediate escape routes if things went south.
As for Haruto and Kaguya?
The two of them casually strolled into an empty dormitory room directly across from Andre's stairwell. Spotting a massive, ancient wooden wardrobe in the corner, they simply opened the doors and crawled right inside, shutting themselves in the pitch-black space.
Time ticked away, finally reaching the half-hour mark.
"Haruto, Haruto, where are the Gaps?" Kaguya whispered, poking him in the ribs.
"Don't rush me, aren't I setting them up right now?"
Haruto swiped his fingertips through the dark, musty air. Instantly, several spatial tears opened up, resembling glowing virtual surveillance monitors. The Gaps displayed live feeds of Miko and Rin's storage room, Andre's stairwell, the main corridor entrance, and the murky lakeside.
With their security system in place, Haruto reached into his jacket, pulled out a deck of cards, and the two immortals began playing poker in the dark.
Time bled away, second by second.
Dong... dong... dong...
The crisp, heavy toll of a distant bell echoed through the silent campus. Midnight.
Seizing the distraction, Kaguya immediately dumped her terrible hand of cards onto the floor and began aggressively shuffling the deck.
"Are you completely shameless?!" Haruto pointed an accusing finger at her. "I was definitely going to win this round!"
Kaguya blinked, the very picture of innocent concern. "The main business is more important, obviously. Quick, check where the ghost is."
Haruto pouted, grumbling under his breath, but quickly swiped his hand to expand the Gaps. The spatial tear monitoring the lake suddenly showed movement.
The bloated, waterlogged corpse from earlier that afternoon was slowly dragging itself out of the dark water.
Haruto raised an eyebrow. Watching the direction the entity was shambling, both of their expressions darkened simultaneously. Were they really this unlucky lately?
Under the cover of the pitch-black night, the corpse walked almost like a normal person, though its footsteps were heavy and slightly uncoordinated. It slowly vanished from the lakeside Gap's field of view, heading straight for the dormitories.
About ten minutes later, the red strings tied around their wrists began to heat up, the temperature steadily rising against their skin. According to the diary's rules, this meant the ghost had crossed the hundred-meter threshold.
Haruto shifted the primary view to Miko's location on the first floor.
The two girls were crouched low behind a stack of rotting wooden boxes. The window behind them was wide open, the cool night breeze rustling their hair as they prepared to vault outside at a moment's notice.
Drip...
The sickening sound of stagnant water hitting the linoleum floor echoed through the dead silence of the building.
Drip... drip...
The wet, heavy footsteps were getting closer. Miko and Rin tensed, their shoulders hunched, muscles coiled like springs.
Fortunately, the footsteps merely passed by their door without breaking rhythm. The entity dragged itself up to the second floor, wandered aimlessly down the corridor for a few minutes, and then proceeded to the third floor... continuing its slow, methodical ascent.
Haruto and Kaguya watched the monitors with genuine confusion.
Before long, the wet footsteps reached the sixth floor.
Then, they stopped.
The ghost halted right at the entrance of the stairwell where Andre was hiding. In the shadows beneath the steps, Andre pressed his spine flat against the concrete, his breath hitching in his throat as terror paralyzed him.
Inside the wardrobe, Haruto's fingers had already slipped a glowing talisman card from his sleeve, silently debating whether he needed to intervene and save the burly man.
But a moment later, the entity shifted its weight and lumbered away.
Seeing this, Haruto casually tucked the talisman back into the Gap. However, his relaxed demeanor faded when he realized the ghost was heading straight toward his and Kaguya's room. Its path was entirely too specific.
Could it somehow detect them watching through the spatial tears?
How is that even possible? Haruto thought, rolling his eyes. Does this rotting corpse think it has the Byakugan?
He immediately dismissed the absurd theory. It had to be a blind coincidence.
And yet, the heavy footsteps stopped directly in front of their dormitory door.
Inside the wardrobe, Haruto and Kaguya exchanged looks of utter disbelief, their expressions silently questioning the fabric of reality. Through the Gap, they watched the soaking wet corpse slowly reach into its pocket and pull out... a key?
Massive, invisible question marks popped up over both their heads.
Where the hell did this thing get a key?!
Did it not actually sense them at all? Were they just astronomically unlucky enough to pick the exact dormitory room this student had lived in before dying?
Click.
The door groaned open. The ghost dragged its bloated, damp body inside, foul water continuously dripping onto the floorboards. It shuffled across the room and finally slumped into the wooden chair positioned right next to their wardrobe.
Haruto and Kaguya stared at each other in the suffocating darkness, their eyes violently communicating blame for choosing this specific room.
They sat in absolute silence for about five minutes. Finally, the corpse stood up, slowly walked back out, and clicked the door shut behind it.
This time, it didn't linger in the hallway. It staggered away from the dormitory building entirely, its wet footsteps fading in the direction of the teaching area.
Both of them let out a long, synchronized sigh of relief, though neither made a move to exit the wardrobe.
The most dangerous place was often the safest. They were willing to bet real money that this creature would absolutely not return to its own room again tonight.
With that comforting logic established, they pulled their playing cards back out. Haruto even opened a small audio Gap near Miko, whispering to ask if she and Rin wanted to sneak up and join them for a quick game of Mahjong.
Miko, having long since grown immune to Haruto's brand of insanity, simply sighed and declined. Rin Setsu, however, looked utterly bewildered, staring at the empty air as if she were losing her mind.
Playing Mahjong? Inside a horror instance?! While they were actively being hunted by a vengeful ghost? Wasn't that taking a leisurely attitude a bit too far?
After being rejected, Haruto shrugged, pulled out a massive bundle of leftover barbecue skewers from a Gap, and happily continued eating with Kaguya in the dark.
However, barely an hour had passed when the atmosphere shattered.
Drip... drip... drip...
The distinct sound of water hitting the floor suddenly echoed from the corridor right outside their door. A split second later, the red strings on their wrists flared with intense, searing heat.
The sudden spike in temperature startled them both, and they whipped their heads toward the surveillance Gap.
The ghost was standing perfectly still at their doorway. It had appeared completely out of thin air, without making a single sound on the stairs.
Teleportation?!
They instantly recalled the bloody rules written in the diary—the ghost gained a new ability for every person it killed. Clearly, after leaving the dorms, it had successfully hunted down one of the other players hiding in the teaching area.
But unlocking teleportation after just one kill is a bit too outrageous, isn't it?! Haruto complained internally, chewing on a piece of grilled meat.
Outside the door, the ghost once again produced the key, slid it into the lock, and pushed the door open.
Haruto and Kaguya silently swallowed, frantically tossing their half-eaten skewers back into the spatial tear.
It... probably doesn't have a functioning sense of smell, right?
What were they even afraid of? But just as that thought crossed their minds, the entity reacted. The foot it was about to lift suddenly froze. It slowly retracted its step, and its bloated neck twisted toward them, emitting a sickening crunch that sounded like grinding glass.
Finally, those hollow, rotting eyes locked dead onto the wardrobe.
Bang!
The wardrobe doors were violently kicked open from the inside.
Before the ghost could even twitch, a blinding Magic Cannon blast erupted from Haruto's palm, slamming squarely into its chest and sending it rocketing backward into the hallway wall.
Whether the corpse was absurdly durable, or Haruto had intentionally held back the Magic Cannon's output to avoid collapsing the building, the entity immediately tried to scramble back to its feet the moment it hit the ground.
But in the very next second, a deep, suffocating pressure descended upon the room. Kaguya's eyes flashed as she invoked her power, enveloping the creature in an absolute Eternity and Moment, freezing its movements in a localized suspension of time.
"Watch the blast radius!"
Haruto fired a second, concentrated Magic Cannon directly into its face, blasting it further down the hall, before grabbing Kaguya's wrist and bolting out the door.
The massive, thundering explosions naturally alerted everyone in the building.
Andre, still hiding on the same floor, used the reflection of a cracked mirror in the stairwell to peek down the hall. His jaw dropped as he caught a fleeting glimpse of the two 'newbies' casually blasting the terrifying ghost through a wall before fleeing the scene.
Suddenly, he understood exactly why these two were allowed to lead a team into an A-Rank instance, and why they completely lacked the suffocating fear of death that plagued normal players.
Down in the first-floor storage room, Rin Setsu gripped her weapon, her face pale. "What should we do? It sounds like Senior Brother and Sister are in serious trouble up there. Should we go help them?!"
"No need."
Miko shook her head, her expression completely placid. There wasn't a single trace of worry in her eyes. "Brother Haruto and Sister Kaguya won't be in any danger. Even if there were ten ghosts up there, they definitely wouldn't be the ones getting hurt."
Although Rin was still vibrating with anxiety, Miko's absolute confidence forced her to suppress her panic.
Just then—
Knock, knock.
Someone tapped lightly on the storage room door, immediately followed by Haruto's casual, lowered voice filtering through the wood.
"Open the door. We brought snacks."
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