Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

"Mr. Gao, the students in this classroom, everyone..."

Miko, who had carefully held the candle in her arms, nervously looked at the students in the room who were reacting in different ways. After discovering that they were all her classmates, the girl's mood obviously worsened.

"Most of the people here are practically dead. From now on, follow my instructions. As long as you don't hold me back and can help me, I'll try to get you out of this hellhole. Now, don't make any rash moves and protect your candle."

As Gao Hai spoke, he picked up a candle from his table.

While Gao Hai was observing coldly, suddenly, a voice came from the loudspeaker hanging on the ceiling in the corner of the wall next to the blackboard.

[Jingle ring—~]

The first thing that started was a pleasant melody.

Alice's game is about to begin!

Next, a young girl's voice rang out. Her voice was very childish, as if she were still in middle school. Lively and cute, as if she were really playing a game, her tone was very happy and cheerful, but it only made Gao Hai feel uncomfortable.

Is this Alice's voice?

"Who wants to play games with you! Let us out of here right now!"

A somewhat agitated girl with dyed blonde hair started shouting loudly.

But Alice's voice completely ignored this, continuing to speak excitedly as she explained the general rules.

Everyone, please protect your candles and hurry up and find what Alice hid!

Alice is really looking forward to becoming good friends with you all!

So now the game countdown begins: 5, 4, 3—

"I already told you I don't want to play any of those stupid games with you, you jerk!!!"

Even as the countdown was still on the radio, the blond-haired girl, enraged, raised the candle on her table high and smashed it to the ground.

Then, she stomped down hard, extinguishing the flickering flame on the red candle.

Gao Hai did not see anything unusual.

But the girl sitting next to him tensed up almost immediately.

The next moment, everyone except Jianzi and Gao Hai screamed in terror amidst the splattering blood.

Meanwhile, the girl's smiling voice continued unhurriedly amidst the students' screams.

【3,2,1～】

Alice's game has begun!

Chapter Two: Sometimes, having more people doesn't guarantee things will go smoothly.

Screaming, crying, collapsing to the ground, running around frantically, standing frozen in place...

In the instant that blonde girl's head exploded, the girls displayed a variety of postures, rich and vividly highlighting their vulnerable and fragile side.

Of course, they were just ordinary people who had never been exposed to the "Sacrifice Game" before, and they were dragged into a heavyweight dungeon like "Campus Ghost Stories" right from the start. Blaming and mocking their fragility and powerlessness would just be empty talk. Gao Hai didn't have the time to care about such things. He just stared intently at the blonde girl, watching her go from life to death in that fleeting moment.

Less than three seconds elapsed between the candle going out and her head shattering.

Gao Hai didn't see anything.

After the girl stomped out the candle, in the instant her head seemed to be crushed and shattered by something, he himself did not see anything unusual.

No.

Not quite.

Looking down, Gao Hai gazed at the extinguished red candle lying on the ground.

Just a moment ago, in the instant when the candlelight was about to go out completely, something seemed to emerge from the darkness, only to disappear along with the candle flame.

shadow?

Is the source of the attack something like a shadow? It doesn't appear when you're holding a candle, so it's invisible. When the candle goes out, it kills people without candles, and because it loses its light source, its attack is completely hidden in the darkness, making it impossible to find its trace.

As Takahashi was thinking this, he turned his head slightly and saw Yotsuya Miko standing there, frozen in place.

There was a little blood on her face.

In the instant that girl's head exploded, practically half the class was covered in blood, including Gao Hai. However, he was completely indifferent to the fact that his clothes were stained with blood. In contrast, Jianzi's reaction was more noteworthy.

She seemed to have seen something. Before the girl died, the child's reaction was strange. In her eyes, the girl's death might have been different from what others saw.

bang——

With another loud bang, another girl fell to the ground, her head splattered everywhere like a smashed watermelon.

After the blond-haired girl's head exploded, the girl screamed and ran away immediately, without even glancing at the candles and papers on her desk. As the class panicked and scattered, one of the girls, in a moment of panic, knocked over her desk, causing the candles to roll and extinguish. The girl, who had already run some distance, suddenly stiffened and died instantly, meeting the same fate as the blond-haired girl.

Gao Hai saw that thing this time.

That was indeed a shadow, a huge, four-legged shadow, like a wolf.

Because the girl had fled to a distant place, the light from the other candles illuminated her shadow, as well as the shadow of the thing that had followed her. Gao Hai clearly saw the thing bite into the head of the girl's shadow, and then her head was bitten open, shattered like a watermelon being squeezed open.

"Whatever you do, don't knock over the candles!"

Finally, Miko snapped out of her daze and shouted loudly, anxiously trying to stop her classmates.

But after more than twenty people were thrown into chaos, her voice was too weak to be heard. In an instant, two or three more tables were knocked to the ground, and as the candle rolled on the ground and went out, more blood bloomed in the classroom.

And this happened in less than ten seconds after the first reckless girl died.

"All quiet."

Gao Hai slowly began to speak.

A blood-red light flashed in his eyes.

Hidal's blessing, filled with the meaning of killing and destruction, had an extremely powerful deterrent effect. Even the most terrified and panicked girl, who had completely gone mad, was stunned by the intense coldness at this moment. She stood stiffly in place, unable to move, as if her breathing and the movement of every muscle in her body had been stopped.

A total of four students died.

Four headless corpses lay on the ground, their bodies occasionally twitching, and they looked quite fresh.

The power of the blessing, which had been activated and deactivated in an instant, was now back to normal. Gao Hai glanced at the four corpses and then shook his head slightly, feeling a sense of helpless sorrow for the girls.

Red Moon level dungeon.

Even among players with extraordinary abilities, this is an extremely difficult dungeon that only top-tier teams of players are capable of challenging.

A dungeon that requires a group of players with superhuman abilities, such as supersonic running and superhuman leaps like the Hulk, along with powerful defensive, reconnaissance, and spatial displacement abilities, and who cooperate and trust each other, is a challenge with a high failure rate. Now, they've thrown in a dozen or so ordinary high school girls with no superhuman powers.

Besides feeling sorry for them, Gao Hai couldn't think of any other words to describe these students.

crunch--

With a slight creaking sound from the chair, Gao Hai stood up.

“I have no obligation to protect you people, because in this place, even I can barely protect myself. So I will only say this once, and after that, you can do whatever you want. First, protect your candles. Once the flame of this red candle goes out, something will attack and kill people. You saw the four people who just died. So now, obediently go back to the seats where you first woke up and take your candles.”

"Secondly, when each of you wakes up, there will be a rule sheet on the table. Read the rule sheet carefully, memorize it, and remember it well. Following the rules on this sheet may not guarantee your survival, but if you act without referring to the records on it, you will definitely die a terrible death. Well, that's all I have to say. Now, good luck to you."

The moment Gao Hai finished speaking, he had already taken the candle and walked to the blonde woman who had died at the beginning.

He didn't look at these girls who had grown up in a peaceful era and had never experienced any bloodshed or cruelty before today. Although he noticed that several girls were carefully holding their candles, proving that there were still some thoughtful newcomers who knew how to protect themselves, he still didn't pay them any attention.

To be honest, even in a Dark Night-level dungeon, he would probably still try to protect these newbies. Just like Wang Gui in the second dungeon, that old man who knew about explosives was sent directly to the guard post by Gao Hai in the third playthrough, and he stayed safely until the end of the dungeon before being rescued. It can be said that he won the whole time without lifting a finger.

After all, even in a Dark Night-level dungeon, you can still find safe zones and places to hide. But in a Red Moon-level dungeon, whether it's the extremely peculiar and bizarre perception blessing that invaded the real world before, or the malicious text hidden in the rule sheet and game objective description, Gao Hai felt that finding a safe zone in this dungeon would be very difficult, or even impossible.

Therefore, even if a newcomer is talented and capable, Gao Hai won't pay much attention to them unless they are like Jian Zi, who possesses extraordinary perception. He knows that the only possible outcome for this class is total annihilation. Even Gao Hai himself can't say for sure how many times he might die in this place, or whether he will be able to survive and leave this place.

However, in Gao Hai's view, having intimidated these bewildered students and told them what they should do now was already a great act of kindness from a stranger. But the girls didn't seem to think so; several of them looked at Gao Hai with strange expressions.

"You did this, didn't you?"

A girl stepped forward and said to Gao Hai excitedly.

"These people are actors you hired, right? What kind of reality show are you putting on? I'm warning you, my dad knows some senators, so let me go right now!"

The girl became more and more agitated as she spoke, her gaze towards Gao Hai filled with anger, as if she had already convinced him that he was the one who was manipulating everything.

"No, that's right. We're all in the same class, except you. You're the one who did it, aren't you? What exactly did you do to Xiaoli and the others? Are they...are they really dead, or did you use some kind of trick?!"

After the first girl made her point, a second girl stepped forward and also began to doubt and accuse Gao Hai.

"What are you trying to do? I don't want to be a reality TV actor!"

"That's right, hurry up and unlock the door, we need to get out of here!"

"I'm going to call the police! Damn it, there's no signal! Once I get out of here, I'm going to call the police and have them arrest you and put you in jail, you kidnapper!"

More and more girls began to criticize Gao Hai, and some even verbally abused him on the spot.

However, no one dared to step forward.

After Gao Hai used the power of his blessing to intimidate the girls, no matter how fiercely they cursed, they didn't dare to come forward and fight with Gao Hai.

"No, Mr. Gao was implicated because of me; he's a victim too!"

Seeing that Zi couldn't stand what these classmates were saying, she stood up to defend Gao Hai and tried to explain the situation.

She tried to explain things related to the Alice Game to the students, letting them know that the game itself had the ability to communicate with spirits, which led them to be brought to this place, and that Takami was implicated by Miko and brought here by the "making friends" feature of the Alice Game.

However, for those who had already accepted the "facts," or knew something was wrong, but were deceiving themselves by refusing to believe in the existence of the strange, and who defined Gao Hai, the only outlier among the students, as a "sinner," they simply couldn't listen to the facts that Miko was saying.

"Nonsense, I think you're on his side, aren't you?"

"Speaking of which, Yotsuya-kun has had really dark circles under her eyes lately. It's obvious she hasn't been sleeping well. Has she already slept with this guy...?"

"Ugh, how disgusting. They're still high school students doing that kind of thing. Are they doing some kind of social activity...?"

Although her relationship with these students was usually just average, and she only had Yurikawa Hana as a friend in the entire class, Miko had to admit that she never expected her classmates, with whom she spent every day, to say such things to her.

At this point, some students tried to mediate. For example, the vice class monitor, Ichino Rika, stood up and explained that Yotsuya Miko would never do anything shameful, and that the situation needed to be discussed properly. Others suggested that Miko quickly move away from Takami, who was squatting on the ground studying the corpse. It seemed that even the students who were relatively more willing to believe Miko were equally unable to trust Takami, the only male student present, and were full of vigilance towards him.

"You, you..."

Having never dealt with such a situation before, Miko pursed her lips and clenched her fists, unsure of what else to say.

"Why waste so much breath? What good will it do you to explain it to them?"

As for Gao Hai, who completely ignored what the students were saying, he didn't listen to a word they were saying. He simply picked up the extinguished candle that had fallen to the ground, took out a lighter from his pocket, and tried to light it.

chap——