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

rustling—rustling—

The paper money underfoot sent a chill through me as I ran.

Hongxia could clearly sense that these yellow paper money contained some kind of strong resentment and curse, which would bring great harm if touched.

But she didn't need to do anything; Gao Hai's power blocked all of these things, and not a trace of evil energy could penetrate Hong Xia's body through these paper money.

So that's how it is. Did Mr. Gao Hai first confirm the rules and mechanisms for these paper money to work, and confirm that they could be used as a deterrent, before letting me pass through here?

While lost in thought, Hongxia kept running past the doors of rooms 109, 110, and 111.

The chill behind them had dissipated. Unlike Hongxia, who had Gao Hai to protect her, the pursuing monsters, with their supernatural powers clashing, were unable to easily pass through the road covered with paper money. Their pursuit inevitably slowed down.

However, the crisis was not over.

Hongxia could clearly see that the door to room 112 was open at the corner of the corridor ahead. In the darkness, a woman holding a red umbrella stood inside, silently watching her. Judging from the coldness emanating from her, she had probably been targeted, and anyone who approached would be attacked.

[Don't stop, rush straight into the lobby!]

Gao Hai's command came again, and in the blink of an eye, Hong Xia saw that the woman was already standing in front of her in the corridor, staring straight at her.

The intense cold numbed her body, making it almost impossible for the girl to maintain her balance for a moment.

However, Mr. Gao Hai's instructions will not be wrong.

Therefore, we cannot stop, we absolutely cannot stop.

No matter how scared you are, no matter how much fear you feel, you can't stop now!

“Waaaaaaaaaaaa——”

Out of fear, the little girl lowered her head and transformed into a yellow rhinoceros, shouting as she charged forward.

Boom!

With a muffled thud, she slammed the obstacle into the ground, then stepped on the fallen red paper umbrella, puncturing it and creating a hole. Terrified, she continued running forward, rounding the corner of the corridor and crashing into the door of the lobby on the first floor. After breaking through the door, she fell to the ground.

Good job, you're safe for now, but you can only rest for a maximum of 5 minutes.

Gao Hai's voice echoed in the girl's mind, but Hong Xia was sitting on the ground panting and didn't have much energy left to pay attention to Gao Hai's words.

Although she had only run through a corridor that was about fifty or sixty meters long, Hongxia felt as if she had run a marathon, so tired that she barely had the strength to stand up.

But why is it safe once we enter the lobby?

We encountered danger here before, so this place should still be quite dangerous, right? But now I really can't feel the chill behind me anymore, which means those strange creatures really aren't chasing us anymore. Why is that?

As she pondered, Hongxia looked up and her gaze met that of a surveillance camera in the corner of the hall, pointing directly at her.

The girl paused, rubbed her eyes, and looked again. The surveillance camera was still pointed at her, showing no sign of moving away.

I didn't see any surveillance cameras here before.

The apartment's security cameras should only be visible after 10:30 PM; they're invisible outside of curfew. I had you hide here because these cameras are somehow interfering with those strange creatures. So here you can temporarily escape their pursuit and safely rest for a while.

However, this surveillance is actually another way to lock onto strange objects, so you can't stay here too long. If you stay too long, something else will appear, and you must leave before that happens. Therefore, your rest time cannot exceed 5 minutes, and you have 4 minutes left.

Gao Hai quickly explained the situation to Hong Xia, allowing her to understand the current circumstances.

{So what about the person with the umbrella earlier? She seemed really scary, and she didn't seem like someone from the apartment area.}

Hongxia breathed a sigh of relief and asked through the mental link with some doubt.

That's definitely not the monster from this instance.

Gao Hai immediately gave an answer.

{Not this copy?}

[In room 112, there should be a painting by that artist, Koz. He depicted a scene from a Dark Night-level dungeon, forming a passage between dungeons. The things you just saw, whether it was the paper money or the red paper umbrella, should have entered this dungeon through that painting. They were probably just wandering around here; because there are rule conflicts between dungeons, they should return to their own world soon, so there's no need to worry.]

Then, through Gao Hai's explanation, Hong Xia finally realized what was going on.

That painter, what's his name, K. Koz? Isn't he a bit too talented? To be able to achieve this level through painting is truly unbelievable… wait, what's this feeling…?

Turned.

Sensing something, Hongxia turned her gaze to the door of the apartment on the first floor.

crunch--

The door was slowly opening.

Then, with her eyes wide open, Hongxia saw a pink head squeeze in from outside the door, followed by a second, a third, a fourth... Ah, no, the fourth one was a balding, middle-aged man with glasses.

"Hey, are those...are those people alive?"

A pink-haired girl holding a bloodstained, ominous-looking kitchen knife; Fujiwara Moeha, the third sister of the Fujiwara family; her eldest sister Fujiwara Toyomi and mother Fujiwara Manho supporting her as they walk; and their father Fujiwara Daichi, who appears to be injured and listless, being supported by the two of them.

Aside from Chika, the Fujiwara family of four suddenly burst into the apartment building, staring wide-eyed at Nijika, who was sitting on the lobby floor. It seemed both sides were quite surprised at that moment.

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Fujiwara Girls and the New Registration Room

In the hall, the girls, each with a different expression, remained silent.

At this moment, Ichiji Nijika was completely dumbfounded, her brain almost completely shut down.

Despite having experienced numerous crises since entering this eerie world and having grown to a certain extent, it was still quite unexpected that living people could enter the apartment building from the streets outside, especially so many people at once, especially now that it was the time after curfew and lights out when all the ghosts roamed.

No, there are already four people here. How did they get all the way here from outside?

Even though it's already curfew time, how come they can suddenly send a huge wave of people out of the door like they're on a family vacation?

Could it be that curfew hours aren't actually that dangerous? Even without a powerful figure like Mr. Gao Hai protecting you, it's still safe to move around on the streets during curfew?

The unexpected situation made Hongxia think of many things, and her mind became a mess.

Opposite her, Fujiwara Moeha, the third sister of the Fujiwara family, who was panting heavily, was only 14 years old and 149cm tall. She was a second-year student at the private Shuchiin Academy junior high school. She was also extremely nervous and couldn't calm down.

A few hours earlier, while she and her family were at home, they first experienced a torrential downpour. Then, various strange phenomena began to occur in the city, and some inexplicable phenomena also appeared in the villa area. Then, Chika, who was not at home and could not be contacted, suddenly called home and said a series of strange things such as "Do not leave the house at this time" and "All doors and windows connected to the outside must be checked repeatedly to make sure they are closed" before the call was suddenly cut off. What was scary was that after the call was cut off, the family found that they could not find Chika's call record, as if the call was just a hallucination.

But then, strange people started easily bypassing the villa area's security to knock on the door, and all sorts of inexplicable and bizarre events began to occur in the house. Finally, the whole family was chased by a dismembered monster that appeared out of nowhere, and they had to escape into the bathroom. The father, Fujiwara Daichi, was seriously injured while protecting his wife and two daughters. Under this series of inexplicable and continuous intense pressure that gave them no time to breathe, the group didn't know how they had managed to find themselves in a strange neighborhood that seemed to exist outside of reality, as if they had simply closed their eyes and opened them again.

To be honest, all of this was far too stimulating for a junior high school girl who was not even 16 years old. It was so stimulating that Mengye was on the verge of a mental breakdown. When she was chased by those terrifying monsters and forced to run into this apartment building, and saw Hongxia sitting in the lobby, she even subconsciously raised the kitchen knife in her hand, wanting to chop it directly at the bewildered Hongxia.

Fortunately, an unknown force quickly calmed the girl's overly tense emotions, allowing her to regain her senses and realize that the girl in front of her was human, not one of those monsters.

The next moment, Fujiwara Toyomi and Fujiwara Maho helped the dazed Fujiwara Daichi into the house. Fujiwara Toyomi, the eldest of the three Fujiwara sisters, closed the apartment door, and the eerie atmosphere outside disappeared without a trace. The people inside the house stared at each other, seemingly unsure of what to say.

[Did the whole family arrive here safely? Is it simply good luck, or did the actions taken to sow mental seeds of doubt in all the relatives actually bring some benefits?]

However, someone eventually spoke first, breaking the silence.

And the person speaking… wait a minute, wasn't that a man's voice? But I don't see any other men here besides my father. Could it be this blonde girl making that sound? No way, how could she make that kind of sound? Wait, it's not the girl speaking, it's the rag doll she's wearing talking! That thing is even crossing its arms and smiling at me!?

A talking squirrel plush toy?

Fujiwara Moeha's petite body swayed slightly; with her sharp eyes, she was the only one in the Fujiwara family to have found the source of the sound. The reappearance of what appeared to be a supernatural phenomenon startled her again, almost causing her to fall to the ground. Her twin ponytails swayed, and for a moment, her gaze was fixed blankly on the doll on Nijika's body.

"You...you're from outside too? How did you manage to get into this place when it's so dangerous outside?"

Hongxia finally caught her breath and her thinking ability returned. As she stood up, she asked with some confusion.

"We relied on this—I'm not talking about the cell phone, but the red light it emits. As long as this red light is there, those monsters can't get close to us, which is why we were able to arrive at this place safely."

Supporting the middle-aged man whose expression was indescribably grim, Fujiwara Toyomi, the eldest of the three Fujiwara sisters, spoke calmly. She took out a high-end-looking mobile phone with her free hand, but the screen was now completely covered in blood red light, obscuring everything else.

Is it Mr. Gao Hai's blood-red domain?

If such a protective force existed, reaching this point smoothly wouldn't be unimaginable. However, the red light emanating from this phone seems quite weak now. With this level of power, it probably can't sustain itself for many more uses.

"You recognize this thing? You've received similar protection before, right? Can you tell us what's going on?"

Although Nijika's expression didn't change much, the perceptive Fujiwara Toyomi immediately noticed and asked, exchanging a glance with her mother. While they still didn't quite understand what was going on in this place, the blonde girl was clearly alive, so she was the only one they could ask about the situation.

Of course, Toyoshi hadn't missed the strange, unknown voice, but she couldn't pinpoint its source immediately. Unsure of the situation, she decided to be cautious and avoid bringing it up, instead observing whether Hongxia could communicate normally. The reason for this was that Toyoshi keenly noticed Hongxia didn't show much surprise at the strange man's voice, leading her to conclude that the stranger and the girl were together, and that he was likely using some kind of scientific method to observe the area. Therefore, it was best to proceed with the most amicable approach possible…

You have about two minutes left. If you don't leave this hall within two minutes, something will come looking for you.

Gao Hai's voice interrupted the thoughts of this girl who was only about twenty years old.

This time, Hongxia showed a somewhat surprised expression. She looked to her side and found that the squirrel doll had disappeared without a trace. Then, when Hongxia looked up again, she saw Gao Hai himself standing in the middle of the room, dressed in black, his golden-red pupils looking around.

Mr. Gao... he came directly here?

The unexpected situation caused Hongxia's mind to freeze for a moment, but she quickly realized through her gradually awakening senses that Gao Hai, who was standing here, was at most a phantom, a bubble that would burst with the slightest touch.

At first, I thought there might be casualties here, but since your whole family arrived safely, and time is of the essence, I'll speed things up a bit.

【Hongxia, immediately take the four of them to register their names and get the keys, then leave this evil place and find a room to hide in.】

If you don't leave now, it won't be so easy to leave once the surveillance footage arrives.

Gao Hai's voice resounded directly in everyone's minds, including the mind of Fujiwara Daichi, who was seriously injured and unconscious.

Although the hospital's unexpected intervention prevented the successful evacuation of all family members, Gao Hai had still managed to deliver a fragment of mental energy to each of the families of the girls with whom he had close relationships. Therefore, leveraging the power and connection provided by these fragments, Gao Hai could now ensure that everyone present could hear him with minimal effort. Furthermore, Gao Hai also possessed a more direct and efficient method of communication, perfectly suited to this situation.

hum-

Fujiwara Toyomi, Fujiwara Moeha, and Fujiwara Maho, the mother and daughter, were slightly dazed, and unknowingly gained a memory.

That was information about the Tokyo anomaly, about the [Sacrifice Game], which Gao Hai had recently summarized after repeatedly communicating with different survivors in various parts of Tokyo. It was a collection of memory fragments that could be directly imparted to quickly enhance the survivors' cognitive abilities and help them understand the current situation.

Since Hongxia had already received one-on-one tutoring from Gao Hai, she naturally didn't need to come again. However, this didn't mean she could just idly watch. Knowing that time was running out, the girl leaped up from the ground, hurriedly ran to the window, picked up the registration book, flipped to the last page, and then took out a pen.

Thankfully, the pen nib wasn't stolen this time. It seems that Kusashi Satoshi didn't dare to steal another pen so close to curfew. However, even though Nijika clearly heard Takami recite the names of the Fujiwara family in her mind, she found that she couldn't write anything on the register, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't write down the names of the four people behind her.

Why can't I write? This is clearly a pen belonging to the apartment!

[You can't write it down; they have to. Only one of the four people who came in this batch can write down their names. They've been classified as a group by the apartment rules, so only one of them needs to register. Quickly, get someone up here!]

Gao Hai's voice quickly echoed in Hong Xia's mind.

"Come over here and register your names! If you don't, this apartment building will kill you!"

In a moment of panic, Hongxia turned around and shouted, but the people behind her who had just received the newbie memory gift pack were still a little slow to react, and none of them could react and take action in less than a minute.

[Tsk...]

As a result, Fujiwara Moeha, who was closest to her, was pulled directly to Nijika's side by an invisible force, and almost hit her head on the glass because the force of the pull was so strong.

The girl's hand holding the kitchen knife was held down by an invisible force. Hongxia quickly handed the pen to Mengye, and the girl, who had just returned to reality from a jumble of information in her mind, looked down and saw several names in the autograph book, as well as the pen in her hand.

Huh? Signature? Sign and register here? Wait, what's going on?!