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

【(9) All three doors leading out of the teaching building at night will be locked from the outside, but the windows of Classes 1, 3, and 5 in Grade 1 will be left open. The keys will be hidden in the flower pots in the corridors of these three classes. If you successfully reach the first floor, this will be your escape route.】

(10) The courtyard does not exist at night.

【(11) If you are certain that you cannot safely reach the first floor or use any escape methods, go to the rooftop. The key to the rooftop is hidden in a flowerpot outside the teachers' office on the top floor. Only there is your chance of survival. Remember to lock the door once you reach the rooftop.】

The entire set of rules is divided into two parts, totaling 17 rules. The rules regarding open hours are quite short, but Gao Hai has clearly violated one of the rules. It's unclear whether the Nightfall Mountain Middle School instance will operate on a "get on board first, pay later" basis. As for the rules regarding closed hours, which correspond to those staying in the teaching building late at night, there seem to be quite a few noteworthy points that give a bad impression.

Gao Hai's gaze lingered for a long time on the words "Don't try to find us" at the beginning of the rule sheet.

"Let's go."

Without uttering a single word, Gao Hai gestured for the three people beside him to follow, then stepped directly into the stairwell and began to ascend.

Chapter Ten: The Silent Floor and the Search Under Cognitive Isolation

You can hear people laughing and joking with each other.

Scattered footsteps echoed in the corridor. Lively girls ran around laughing and carrying water bottles, while boys discussed the strength of characters in comics with great enthusiasm, arguing with others about which character was stronger.

All the students now have completely clear facial features; no one's appearance is blurred anymore.

After being able to clearly identify the students' appearances, it quickly became clear that the people on Kaguya Shinomiya's side, Kumami's side, and Takami's side all noticed that many of these students' appearances, voices, and figures matched the classmates they remembered, and some were even exactly the same.

Xiong Mi was utterly shocked. Having spent many years navigating the complexities of society, she had long forgotten what her high school classmates looked like. This instance, however, perfectly replicated their appearances and voices, causing a significant shock. If her teammate Jian Bing hadn't intervened quickly, suppressing her mental activity with a mental artifact, and if Gao Hai hadn't placed three mental fragments in her possession, Xiong Mi might have further distorted her perception of her school due to cognitive dissonance.

Of course, even without this shock, the players' perceptions were constantly being distorted. From the moment they entered Nightfall Mountain Middle School, an unknown force had been at work in everyone's minds, causing them to continuously develop the distorted perception that "I am a student of Nightfall Mountain Middle School." Although so far everyone was able to resist this distortion and their thinking wasn't actually twisted, if this resistance continued for a long time, it would certainly be a tremendous test of everyone's willpower.

Given the already serious cognitive distortion, would you further distort the perception by using the appearance and voice of the player's classmates from their memories?

As an instance with no time limit, Gao Hai is increasingly able to sense the profound malice brewing beneath the surface of calm.

However, so far, he hasn't seen any of his classmates from his memories. It seems that although this strange instance can replicate a player's memories and create familiar figures to exert influence, the power of the black watch is still stronger. Therefore, his memories are relatively well hidden, but he still needs to be careful to avoid being probed and finding out anything.

step-step-

Under the stark white light, Gao Hai walked up the stairs, step by step.

He looked up at the fluorescent light on the ceiling and the fine spider webs in the corner.

Along the way, Gao Hai noticed that every classroom was actually very clean, and there was no dirt or stains on the corridor floors and walls. The stairwells were also spotless. However, the ceilings were covered with cobwebs, making it look like they hadn't been cleaned for a very long time.

Did the student in charge of cleaning forget to clean the ceiling?

Or……

While I was thinking, I had already stepped onto the stairs to the third floor and passed through the area where the senior year students were located.

Continuing upwards, the fourth floor mainly consists of activity rooms and some special large classrooms. These classrooms are rarely used during regular classes. Students from the clubs that belong to the corresponding activity rooms usually come here only after the last class at 5:30 pm.

Therefore, what Gao Hai and the others felt when they arrived on the 4th floor was complete silence.

The quiet corridor, devoid of any human presence, and the tightly closed classroom doors, under the white lights, somehow evoked a sense of tension.

If it weren't for the noise of students coming from downstairs, Gao Hai would have wondered if he had wandered into an abandoned school building.

Then, when the group went up another floor and arrived at the fifth floor of the teaching building, which is the top floor of the building, the lifeless silence suddenly became stronger and more distinct.

"If you continue upwards, you'll reach the rooftop area."

Gao Hai looked up at the top of the stairs and spoke in a calm tone.

"This place feels so deserted."

Fujiwara Chika peered out into the corridor from the stairwell wall, looking left and right before muttering something under her breath.

"There was no dust on the ground, but there were no obvious footprints either. At least for today, we should be the first people to arrive at this place."

Hayasaka Ai squatted down and carefully observed the subtle marks left on the floor that were difficult for others to notice, then stood up and reported earnestly to Takami.

"It's really quiet here; I can't even hear the students downstairs."

Miko Yotsuya turned her head to look down at the stairwell with some confusion. She felt that the surroundings were too quiet. Although they were indeed a bit far from the floors where students were active, it shouldn't be that they couldn't hear anything after coming up. It was as if there were no students left in the entire school building.

Perhaps, when they reached this floor, all the students who were originally in the building had indeed disappeared?

This conjecture made Miko involuntarily tense.

"Don't scare yourself, it's time to go."

Noticing that Miko was probably daydreaming again, Takami reached out and patted the girl on the head. After she let out a "whoa" sound, he gave her a serious warning before continuing to walk into the corridor on the fifth floor.

Gao Hai's brows were furrowed tightly.

Although he acted as if he didn't care, he actually felt that it was indeed a bit too quiet here.

Will we encounter it?

He couldn't help but have this thought in his mind.

Will those mysterious creatures that have not yet truly appeared and whose whereabouts are unknown show up here?

"Hmm, this isn't the classroom. This is the Literature Club. The club's name is clearly marked, just like the class name."

Fujiwara Chika walked beside Takami as she approached the nearest classroom and quickly assessed its condition.

"If this place isn't playing any tricks like 'switching room numbers,' then this classroom probably isn't the right one. Let's move on to the next place. We need to make sure we investigate all the clubrooms in the main teaching building within this half hour. Whether we have any time left to investigate the annex building after that is another matter."

As Gao Hai spoke, he gestured for the four people present to stay as close together as possible to avoid anyone falling behind and getting into trouble, before continuing forward.

tread--

The crisp sound of footsteps fell on the ground, spreading through the empty and silent corridor.

On the fourth floor, you could still barely hear the students making noise, but now it had completely disappeared.

The lamplight cast long shadows of the four people walking along the corridor, which swayed and trembled slightly.

They walked through each door, checking each classroom, but still couldn't find the so-called "Life Club".

"call……"

Without realizing it, the sound of my breathing seemed to have become a little heavier.

Gao Hai subconsciously looked up at the clock hanging on one side of the corridor and confirmed that the time was 9:47.

It took them 7 minutes to walk around the entire fifth floor from the moment they went upstairs. This was after they had carefully checked the interior of each classroom through the windows along the corridor and confirmed the club that each activity room belonged to.

However, none of the activity rooms belong to the "Life Club".

They couldn't find any connection between the classrooms on the fifth floor of the main teaching building and the [Life Club], nor could they identify any suspicious club. Of course, since the doors to these classrooms were all locked, Gao Hai and his group didn't attempt to enter to investigate, so there might be other possibilities. For safety reasons, breaking down doors was definitely not an option during this preliminary investigation.

"Did you find anything?"

Standing at the entrance to the fifth floor, Gao Hai recalled the investigation he had conducted along the way and asked the others questions.

All three girls shook their heads. Even Hayasaka, who had the best observation skills, and Miko, who had extraordinary perception, were unable to find any valuable clues this time.

"Tsk... Oh well, let's go."

Gao Hai was somewhat helpless, but he was prepared to make a wasted trip, so he didn't say much and decided to take the others to the fourth floor to investigate further.

However, as he was thinking this, as Gao Hai stepped into the stairwell, Jianzi beside him suddenly uttered a soft "Huh," and then he noticed a dirty-looking poster lying on the ground.

What is this?

Gao Hai quickly turned around to observe Chika and Hayasaka, noticing that neither of them seemed to have noticed the poster lying on the ground. He winked at Miko, signaling her not to make any rash moves, then strode forward, knelt down in front of the poster to tie his shoelaces, and then casually picked up the poster.

Judging from Chika and Hayasaka's subsequent reactions, they probably couldn't see the poster and couldn't have noticed Takami picking it up. Otherwise, even if Chika didn't notice, given Hayasaka's cautious nature, she couldn't possibly have missed what Takami was doing. Even if she couldn't see the poster, she would definitely have realized that Takami was deliberately obscuring it.

The cognitive blocking mechanism of this instance reminded Gao Hai of the strange shielding characteristics that ordinary people face in the real world.

However, he didn't have time to pay attention to such details now. Although he couldn't be sure of the danger, he opened the poster without hesitation and looked at the text on it.

[The Ghost Stories Club is hiring! Welcome to join us!]

Chapter Eleven: The Recruitment Announcement of the [Strange Tales Society] and the Still Unseen Item

[Club Recruitment Notice:]

[The Ghost Stories Club is hiring! Welcome to join us!]

Do you believe in the existence of another world?

Do you believe that there are things in this world that are invisible to ordinary people?

Are you looking for things that are unusual?

Do you yearn to witness extraordinary things that ordinary people can't see?

If this is what you're looking for, then join the Ghost Stories Club!

Everyone here, just like you, is tired of the monotonous daily routine and has decided to live a different life!

Join us and explore realms beyond reality to discover existences rarely seen by others!

[How to join: Between 1:00 AM and 4:00 AM, climb into the main teaching building through the window of Class 9, 11, or 13 in Grade 11, and enter the central courtyard area. We will unlock the windows of these three classes in advance, and we will hide the key to the courtyard door somewhere in the teaching building. Find the key before 4:00 AM, open the courtyard door and come in, and you will be one of us.]

……

In terms of design, this announcement is undoubtedly a failure.

On the completely blackened paper, a grinning face was drawn crookedly. The drawing was even uglier than the dark drawings made by the elementary school students in Zaoli Elementary School. Next to the face was written something even more crooked and ugly, so much so that Gao Hai, with his linguistics cheat code, could hardly recognize what it said.

As for the contents of this...

Sneaking into the teaching building through a window at 1 a.m., and then searching the entire building for a hidden key?

If this rule comes from the "Strange Tales Club" that actually existed in Yeluoshan Middle School in history, then Gao Hai can only say that these high school students are really awesome. He could never have done such a suicidal thing when he was in high school.

Please turn to page 55...

The teacher on the podium was still explaining the text with intonation and rhythm.

It was already the start of the third period, and Gao Hai and the others had all returned to the classroom and were sitting in their seats for the 40-minute class.

The exploration of the main teaching building and the search for the "Life Club" ultimately yielded nothing. After searching the fourth and fifth floors, Gao Hai and his companions were completely unable to find any trace of this student club. Furthermore, the "Strange Tales Club," for which Gao Hai had found the poster, was also nowhere to be found; it seemed that neither of these clubs existed within the main teaching building.

Apart from Gao Hai's group, the investigations by the other groups also failed to yield any effective results.

Neither Eriko Asamoto nor Koji Morihara, the core figures of Yoruyama Middle School, appeared in their respective classes. Players attempted to speak with the strange students in these classes, only to be told that "there is no student with that name in the class," leading some players to be mistaken for mentally unstable by the students.