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

Gao Hai could hear the thing's voice, hear it speaking leisurely inside his body.

The harm and death are undeniable facts, and no amount of justification can change the fundamental nature of the evil act.

An evil deed is an evil deed, and no matter who commits it, it does not change the harm it causes to others.

You are guilty.

Gao Hai had difficulty distinguishing whether the voices were those of the players or something else mixed in.

He could only sense that more and more voices were mingling together, and more and more people were speaking together, refuting the arguments of the monster sealed inside his body.

Alice knows nothing!

But that thing just kept talking in a playful tone.

Alice doesn't make mistakes; she just wants to make friends.

As everyone knows, Alice has never done anything wrong; all of this has nothing to do with Alice.

Therefore, Alice is of course innocent!

The girl's voice, and the responses that followed, did not seem to be entirely the same as the court proceedings in sight.

In a daze, Gao Hai realized that his gathering and imprisonment of Alice, and the players' actions of opening the court, essentially brought together the forces from two different locations within the Fujika Middle School instance. In a sense, the voices of the players he heard were actually those of the victims, the voices of the tragically deceased students and Hirano Sosuke. And Alice's voice represented Alice herself, as well as her assistants and creators—those beings who caused one tragedy after another.

Alice is guilty.

The researchers who created Alice and completely lost their humanity are guilty, and those who assisted Alice in committing heinous acts are guilty.

You are all guilty, and you must all pay the price for your actions!

Alice is innocent!

We haven't done anything wrong. Everyone likes us, and no one blames us. Everyone is like that. It's just that you few insist on being different. That's what you've done wrong.

We are all innocent, and it is you slanderers who have made mistakes and deserve punishment.

The sounds were intertwined.

Gao Hai felt as if his eardrums were about to be torn apart. He could hear the sounds on both sides becoming increasingly harsh and shrill, like an earthquake or tsunami that was constantly assaulting his nerves and thoughts.

The voices of the players and the victims are gradually fading.

The victims have mostly remained silent.

Nowadays, the voices are mostly from the players, who are ultimately not in the instance area. They appear through projection, and their strength is not comparable to Alice here, nor to the strange creatures that have broken into the court and are making a ruckus.

Guilty...Yes...No...Not guilty...

Things are gradually turning around, returning to their original historical course.

Alice, imprisoned within Gao Hai's body, is gradually breaking free of her restraints, using this court trial ceremony to escape the "cage" that Gao Hai has placed upon her.

Are we really going to lose just because our voices aren't loud enough?

Unexpectedly, the ritual went awry at this point. Gao Hai's eyes widened as he struggled against Alice's will, opening his mouth as if to shout and join the players' side in their fight against Alice.

But before that, Gao Hai had already sensed the manifestation of another force.

[What a joke! This is absolutely disgusting!]

Are all fans who like this kind of idol mentally unstable? They should all be shot.

[There's no way this could be an acquittal, is there? Even comparing it to the Ayase case wouldn't work, would it? The person recorded in this case was already an adult. What kind of judge would do something like this!?]

The players' voices are growing louder, and their momentum is becoming increasingly strong.

what happened?

The number of those players did not increase.

I didn't sense any particularly powerful force being used.

What is this...

[Haijun, we've revised the supernatural elements of the Alice case from Fujika Middle School and released relevant information about the case. The exposure is increasing, and we'll soon reach a consensus widely accepted by the majority. How are things on your end? Hang in there a little longer!]

At this moment, Maki's voice rang out through the mental link.

Meanwhile, the power of the players, who had been gradually suppressed, began to expand little by little. More voices began to emerge, gradually overshadowing the voices on the other side and completely suppressing the so-called "mainstream" voices that had appeared in court decades ago.

guilty!

More and more people are responding and expressing their inclinations.

guilty!!

More and more cognitions began to converge. Under the players' control, and with the help of manipulating the online platform and the influence of their obsessions, a huge cognitive force was formed, gradually crushing the voices that lingered in this place.

guilty!!!

Finally, Alice's voice could no longer be heard. All the clamor and noise, the voices defending Alice, and the voices defending themselves, were completely drowned out, and not a sound could be heard.

What was originally a somewhat structured trial seemed to have degenerated into a game of arguing and seeing who could shout the loudest. Yet, this simple and crude method actually proved effective. Perhaps it was because the trial itself was essentially like that: Alice's supporters drowned out the victims with their louder voices, leaving the victims with only silence.

I disagree with the verdict; I do not accept it.

A faint sound was mixed in with the players' voices.

As Alice's movements were suppressed, Gao Hai, who was gradually easing up, turned his head and saw the phantom images of the victims. Among those silent figures, he saw the mouth of one figure moving slightly.

Mr. Hirano is not a sinner, he is a hero, he is a true hero...

Then a new voice joined in, and Gao Hai saw another previously silent voice begin to speak.

Alice killed my daughter. Whatever her motive, murder is murder. She is guilty and has no reason to escape punishment.

The truly guilty ones are you, you bastards who indulged Alice!

[Nonsense! The evidence is right in front of you! You are the criminals who deserve to go to hell!!!]

More and more voices are rising.

All the silent figures raised their heads at this moment, made a sound, and created a deafening tremor that shook the entire court and caused a violent upheaval in this broken and distorted world.

I can still sense Alice's movements.

She should still be saying something, whether it's an explanation or something else, she should still be saying something.

But Gao Hai could no longer hear the thing's voice.

The voices of her supporters, and the voices of all the monsters who were on the side of the perpetrators, were completely inaudible at this moment.

The positions were completely reversed at this moment.

These evil things, at this moment, became the silent ones.

The conditions have been met.

Gao Hai knew that change was about to occur.

click-

At that moment, a tiny crack appeared in the ground.

Click——click——

Numerous cracks began to spread in various places.

Crack—Crack—Boom!

Everything was covered in cracks at this moment, until nothing could remain intact, until nothing could stand alone.

Shattering engulfed the entire world in that instant, destroying everything with a terrifying roar.

Chapter 89: The Judgment That the Dark and Twisted Things Will Finally Face

A piercing howl rang in my ears.

In that seemingly endless fall, Gao Hai could feel the monster still imprisoned within him emitting an extremely shrill howl.

"Oh dear, this is a major breach!"

He couldn't help but sigh softly.

[Impossible... impossible, impossible... Alice is not wrong. Alice just wanted to make friends. Alice just wanted friends. Alice is not wrong. Alice is not wrong, not wrong, not wrong, not wrong—]

Amidst the noise, Gao Hai felt like his eardrums were about to burst, but how to put it? His only feeling right now was joy, extreme joy, so much so that the expression on his face was completely distorted, turning into the exaggerated facial expressions that only people in anime would have.

Everything around us is becoming increasingly broken.

Just like the final scene replica in the Red Nut Gray Hole, the originally intact dungeon scene is undergoing a violent collapse, gradually heading towards destruction.

The reason why the Red Nut Gray Hole collapsed was because Andres, one of the core obsessions, fulfilled his last wish and found peace. However, the reason why this place has changed seems to be due to the changes in those victims.

Gao Hai could see the gradually disappearing victims, those who could not rest in peace and were hurt by Alice, as well as the students of Fujika Middle School. These figures lost their original constraints as the court, controlled by the player, made its judgment, and began to break free from this instance and obtain true peace.

"No way...no way...Alice did nothing wrong...Alice did nothing wrong..."

The voice screamed and wailed inside Gao Hai's body.

Such a posture is truly ugly and unbearable.

However, rather than saying that this thing is throwing a tantrum after failure, it's more accurate to say that it's having its long-held beliefs shattered.

As for Alice, she genuinely believes that her acts of torture and killing are ways of making friends, and that they are right, beautiful, and justified. Even though there have always been voices of opposition and rebuttal, because there have always been supporters and people who tell her that what she is doing is right, her belief has never changed and has continued to grow stronger and more stubborn.

But now, all its understanding has been shattered.

This was the first time for it that it had experienced such utter and complete destruction. No… actually, it was the second time. The first time, only one person had inflicted such a sense of defeat on it. But this time, it found that the entire world was against it. Countless voices drowned it out, turning it and its supporters into a minority, and utterly shattering everything it had built. This kind of thing, this kind of failure, was something it had never experienced before, and it was something it could not accept under any circumstances.

Alice...she's such a good girl...

Alice has always been very well-behaved... Alice always listens to her teacher...

Alice has always done what everyone expects... Why was Alice wrong...?

The fall has stopped.

Gao Hai stood up from the shattered ruins, from the stench-filled ruins made up of building fragments and human corpses, with Alice's pitiful voice still lingering in his ears.

"Shut up, what's the point of all that nonsense?"

Gao Hai, who had just taken a step forward after uttering a harsh rebuke, suddenly collapsed to the ground.

The ruins were still trembling violently.