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

But those people who bullied her before... I want to go home, I want to leave this school...

[Is she really the witch of the evil god? Isn't that just something she made up? How could it be true... how could it be...]

The children's voices trembled, and even though Gao Hai could only vaguely hear them, he could clearly feel the emotions contained within them.

How could this be?! She...she actually managed to hide it from us?!

Besides the children's voices, adult voices also rang out. Unlike the bewildered children, these voices were filled with more confusion, more fear, and more despair.

The escape passage was sealed off; that's impossible. Nobody could know about this.

[It's "The Butcher," I get it, I get it, you bastard... We thought that idiot couldn't understand, so we discussed these things in front of him. He must have leaked them!]

[Even so, this shouldn't be happening! How could a little girl who hasn't even grown up yet possibly shut down all the measures we've prepared over the years?! Where's Commander Sato? Why hasn't he responded after so many attempts to contact him? Where did he go? Wait, who's knocking on the door? No, no way! This safe house is so well hidden! No! No! Ahhhhhhh—]

The final, piercing screams of the dying seemed exceptionally melodious at that moment.

Gao Hai saw the girl swing her rusty blade, slashing down, and slashing down again.

Her strength is far beyond what a child of her age should possess; otherwise, she wouldn't be able to wield such a blade so easily, cutting through people's bodies like tofu.

Something invisible was wrapped around her, and faint, rustling sounds could be heard.

In the girl's eyes, Gao Hai could only see overflowing cruelty and madness, with not a trace of humanity remaining.

This is her end, her final destination.

There may have been even more events in the Zao Li Elementary School instance later on.

But for Chiyo Hachiya, the moment she destroyed the school marked the moment when her self and her personality were frozen in time, an ending from which there was no going back.

But how did she do it?

Although Gao Hai's perception was extremely powerful, in this fleeting moment, since he was not personally contacting the core obsession but only touching the past illusions, it was still difficult for him to see anything deeper or further.

However, in this moment when he was doing his best to open up his senses and resist the intense mental erosion while trying to go as deep as possible, Gao Hai finally saw something.

That was in the school corridor before anything unusual had happened.

That was the moment when the girl, her hair cut off and her body covered in wounds, sat alone in the stairwell under the night sky, lost in thought.

No students would stay at school at this time, because everyone knew the story of the "Dark One" and knew that danger might occur at this time. Teachers wouldn't stay either. After all, in the final year of the experiment at Hayate Elementary School, some strange phenomena had already come true. Even if setting the "teacher's" identity as a safe identity beforehand could drive away the "Dark One," the mutations of the "Dark One" itself had become increasingly severe due to word-of-mouth from the students who were the source of it. Now, the teachers' identities were no longer safe, so no one dared to stay.

But Chiyo Hachiya didn't encounter that kind of monster.

She first heard footsteps.

Then she saw the flashlight swaying.

The smelly figure, wearing a dirty apron, slowly walked out.

This intellectually disabled man was brought into the school in its very first year. Through gradual manipulation and the students' distorted perceptions, he has become a bloodthirsty monster and a butcher. He still remembers being recruited to the school as a "security guard" and his father's earnest words to him when he brought him there: "You must fulfill your responsibilities." So even though he has been twisted to the point of being almost unrecognizable, he still patrols the buildings one by one at night.

However, he used to find children while patrolling and would pull them out of the school building with a silly smile, but now, after being twisted, he would take the children he found into the kennel.

Tonight, he could vaguely sense that he had found a new prey, a new disobedient bad dog, a little dog that no one would blame or care if he ate it.

【hello】

Then, the girl appeared in front of him, waved at him, and said...

-

Before he could see anything more clearly, Gao Hai had already broken free from the illusion of the past and returned to the inner area of ​​the Zao Li Elementary School instance.

It's a bit of a shame that we weren't able to get more information, but what we know now is enough to connect many clues.

However, he himself was so overwhelmed by all this information that he felt dizzy and even overwhelmed. Why was Hayasaka Ai, an ordinary person who hadn't undergone any willpower enhancement, reacting almost exactly the same way as him? Did she have some hidden sanity-locking setting?

Looking at Hayasaka Ai, who seemed perfectly normal and showed no signs of entering a temporary state of madness, Takami's confusion intensified.

Chapter 46: The Moment to Advance Towards the Outer Area and Stealth Skills Instruction

squeak-

With a piercing screech, a slightly dilapidated door was slowly opened, and Gao Hai peeked in, carefully observing the scene.

This place looks like an auditorium, but it is much more dilapidated than the auditorium in the surface area of ​​Hayatei Elementary School. There are black stains all over the walls and floors, and there is an unsettling smell of rust.

Of course, in the dungeon world of a sacrifice game, such eerie scenes are normal. If you suddenly encounter a place that looks sunny, beautiful, and happy, it will actually make players extremely uneasy and on high alert.

"No problem for now, come in."

After carefully investigating, Gao Hai stepped into the room first and then spoke to Hayasaka behind him.

Wearing a wet T-shirt and barefoot, Hayasaka followed in, instinctively going to Takami's side, almost sticking to him like a little follower. Although the two had only worked together for a maximum of a dozen hours since Takami officially rescued Hayasaka, Hayasaka was now able to naturally follow Takami's side, understanding and executing any instructions he gave immediately.

Putting aside other aspects, this girl is quite good at being obedient.

Thinking this, Gao Hai reached out and touched the scratches on his arm, then pressed them on his neck.

Regarding the scratches on his body, Gao Hai clearly remembered that they were inflicted when he forcibly kissed Kaguya. Although she had become a monster, her mechanics allowed her to "believe she was still alive," causing her to exhibit a human-like behavior. As a result, Kaguya reacted as if she had been sexually assaulted, immediately pulling away from his grasp and disappearing.

However, when they first met, Hayasaka told Takami that he had a hickey on his neck. This was a little strange, as he didn't recall Kaguya trying to kiss him. After all, given Kaguya's personality, it was unlikely she would do something like that.

Gao Hai was very puzzled by this. He considered and analyzed various possibilities, but still couldn't figure out why there was a hickey on his neck.

However, regardless of the circumstances, this hickey appeared after I kissed Kaguya, meaning that the act of kissing caused this change. Wait a minute, speaking of which, I've acquired a hidden role in every instance so far, whether it's the "corpse" in Shirakawa Apartments, the "general" in Red Nut Gray Hole, or the "teacher" in Fujihana Middle School. Although these roles are hidden, they still produce corresponding effects based on my actions.

Could it be that because I kissed Kaguya, it had some special effect?

Wait, if we're going to deduce this from the perspective of identity, could it be that the "teacher" kissed the "student"? After all, Maki and the others did manage to get me a fake teacher position, and Kaguya's identity is definitely that of a "student." If this interaction of identities can correspond to the history of Hayate Elementary School...

No way?

Gao Hai paused for a moment, realizing a certain possibility, and suddenly felt that it was better to just let it die... no, no, it's better not to torture this thing, it's better to just let it die.

Oh well, let's keep investigating and exploring. We should be able to figure out the general situation.

The task for this playthrough is very clear: gather as many clues as possible, and ideally, understand everything related to the core obsession in one go. This way, when the game rewinds, I can minimize all uncertainties and solve the problem while ensuring the safest possible outcome.

Of course, this is just the best estimate; only time will tell what the actual result will be.

As for now, Gao Hai's plan is simple: since he can reach the inner area by crossing the edge of the outer space of the dungeon, where will he go if he finds the edge of the inner space and falls into the deeper area?

Gao Hai suspected that if there were more hidden and deeper areas in this instance, it might be located there.

If the chaotic space on the surface is a distorted place pieced together from the fragments of Hayate Elementary School and the memories of the dead who strayed into this place, and the chaotic world that froze and disrupted the moment Hayate Elementary School fell into destruction is regarded as the inner space of this instance, then the third area whose existence is uncertain, that deeper world, Gao Hai believes that it is very likely to represent all the hidden truths of this instance, to represent the so-called "truth".

So what we need to do now is to search for and determine whether this possibility is true or false.

"Squat down and don't make a sound."

Gao Hai spoke softly to Hayasaka, and the girl nodded hurriedly and immediately squatted down.

The oversized T-shirt covered everything that shouldn't be exposed when the girl was standing, but after bending over and squatting down, Takami only needed to tilt her head slightly to clearly see the outline of Hayasaka's thighs. Although Hayasaka would consciously reach out and press the T-shirt down to avoid exposing herself after squatting down, this half-covered, half-revealed feeling seemed to be more interesting than being fully exposed in some ways.

Unfortunately, now was not the time to appreciate such things, so Gao Hai didn't even look at the girl beside him, but focused all his attention on the things in front of him.

Those were headless soldiers, staggering as they walked while clutching their guns.

Compared to the headless figures in the school who were relatively clean overall, these soldiers looked far more terrifying. Their bodies were covered in numerous knife wounds, blood dripping from them as they walked, their entire bodies trembling incessantly.

The wounds that nearly dismembered these headless bodies seemed to contain some kind of cursed power. Even just by looking at the wounds with his naked eyes, Gao Hai could feel an intense chill. And these monsters seemed to be constantly tormented by these wounds. Even after they died, even after they had become inhuman monsters, these wounds could not heal and continued to bring intense pain.

But no matter how much pain they were in, these soldiers were unable to express it.

Those decapitated cannot cry, cannot scream, cannot express themselves through words, sounds, or expressions. Is this some kind of punishment? Or a consequence of some heinous act? To subject them to endless pain while forbidding them from expressing their suffering is as if… the perpetrator intended to make them fully experience what they had once experienced, using this method as a form of revenge?

Recalling what he had seen during his fall, Gao Hai couldn't help but connect the dots and begin to analyze the motives of the individual named "Chiyo Hachiya" in these actions.

Tread - Tread -

The stumbling steps have gradually faded into the distance.

Gao Hai carefully observed the surroundings for a while, and after confirming that there was nothing there, he led Hayasaka forward cautiously. They passed through the room, then through a very old corridor, opened the door, and outside was a rather large military camp.

By this time, the sky had darkened, and night had fallen. The military camp was pitch black, almost completely silent, with only the flickering lights at the distant camp gate, where some headless figures seemed to be patrolling.

There was a small room on one side of the camp, which looked like a shower room and laundry room. Gao Hai noticed that there was a women's shower room, so he sneaked in and actually found some women's clothes hanging up to dry, so Hayasaka no longer had to run around in just a wet shirt while following him.

That said, why would a military camp full of high-ranking officials have a special place for women to bathe?

Feeling quite puzzled, Takahashi noticed that the corridor outside the women's bathrooms connected to another building, and that the entrance to this building had a sign that read "Comfort Camp." This building was merely an outer shell; its internal structure wasn't shown in the Hayate Elementary School dungeon, perhaps because no one was inside at the time of the incident. Even so, it was enough for Takahashi to figure out what this place was used for.

"Even places like this exist, which means that the Japanese soldiers back then really didn't even spare their own people."

Not knowing what to say, Gao Hai could only sigh like this in the end.

"Madness begets destruction, and that's the inevitable outcome. Although that history doesn't feel real to me, I feel that such things deserve to be destroyed."

Hayasaka, who for some reason was unwilling to take off Takami's T-shirt, but instead found a pair of pants that fit better, walked over. After seeing what Takami was looking at, she hesitated for a moment, but still expressed her opinion in a low voice.

"Yes, but the place we're in now is, in a sense, created by those inhuman lunatics back then. So, hazardous waste should be completely destroyed; what's the point of leaving behind a bunch of scourges? Alright, let's not waste any more time here; the road ahead won't be easy."

As Gao Hai spoke, he turned his gaze toward the exit of the military camp.

Previously, in the surface space, Gao Hai jumped out of the small bedroom window at the beginning and fell into the inner space. That small room itself was a manifestation of the memories of a victim, and this victim was at least in the early 21st century. In other words, the closer to the outer area of ​​the instance, the more the memory scenes seem to be based on the memories of newly arrived victims. If we apply this to the inner space, then the military camp area that was finally swallowed up by the instance is very likely to be the outer area of ​​this instance, or at least very close to it.

From here, we might be able to find a passage to that potentially deeper place.

The two figures, one tall and one short, continued to move cautiously, using the various corners and paths of the military camp to conduct reconnaissance.

Gao Hai didn't rashly enter the tents. He could sense a strong malice emanating from these quiet tents, and he noticed that each tent contained several, even more than a dozen, headless soldiers. They remained silent and motionless, as if they were asleep. But if he approached them thinking they posed no threat, the outcome would be dire.

"call……"

Hayasaka's breathing became somewhat unsteady.

Unlike Gao Hai, she couldn't sense the silent, eerie presence in the military camp, but the intense malice and resentment gathering there was already making her extremely uncomfortable. She felt as if every breath she took inhaled a large amount of blood; the sweet, metallic smell filled her throat, almost making her vomit. Moreover, despite not sensing any gazes, Hayasaka felt something constantly searching for her, observing her surroundings, a chilling sensation as if it wanted to see into every pore of her being.

Takami certainly felt all of these feelings as well, and even more clearly and intensely than Hayasaka.

But compared to the girl who was already gritting her teeth and struggling, Gao Hai himself didn't experience any discomfort at all. After all, this level of discomfort seemed far too easy to him; it didn't even qualify as post-meal exercise.

【■■■……■……】

Faintly, a sound seemed to be heard not far ahead.

After passing two tents and makeshift houses, Takami and Hayasaka both noticed lights coming on from a building ahead.

【■■……】

【■■■……】