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

Ignoring what he had knocked to the ground, Qin Shou continued to spin around with the hammer and hit his second target.

This time, the target seemed more solid, not immediately knocked to the ground, but instead growled as if trying to resist the hammer in Qin Shou's hand. However, when Lin Sen blew the whistle of his obsession object again, Qin Shou felt that the creature's resistance was significantly weaker, so he immediately increased the force and knocked it to the ground, then delivered a final blow with another hammer.

boom! ! !

This time, the hammer exploded with sparks. Qin Shou swung it so hard that the tip of the hammer exploded, slamming the target into the ground.

It wasn't that Qin Shou himself tampered with the hammer; rather, this two-meter-long giant hammer itself possessed the magical power to explode and create sparks upon hitting a target, making it a veritable "explosive hammer."

As an object of obsession, this hammer is quite a bizarre anomaly. After all, a hammer that leaks oil and explodes when it hits a physical target seems more like something out of a video game. In fact, it is indeed the object of obsession of a deceased person who loved playing games in life and has become a ghost. Qin Shou vividly remembers that particular instance in the game, because that gamer enjoyed creating all sorts of character and weapon models, all life-size and incredibly expensive. After his death, he became part of the instance, and those models actually came to life, even hunting down the players as ghostly derivatives.

In terms of experience, that dungeon wasn't particularly dangerous, but it was incredibly stressful. After all, being chased by a bunch of weird creatures disguised as various anime and game characters was just too bizarre. But it was also in this dungeon that Qin Shou obtained this weapon that he couldn't put down, which was extremely easy to accidentally injure others, but whose effects were simple, brutal, and incredibly stress-relieving.

Boom! ! !

Players who have lost their sight cannot see the explosion effect.

But Qin Shou himself, wielding the hammer, could already imagine the way the hammer would explode in flames when it struck the monster.

I could sense something struggling.

All the monsters directly hit by the [Explosive Hammer] will have their mobility restricted and will temporarily lose their tracking ability. Combined with the power exerted by Yan Hui and Lin Sen, it can be said that all the monsters active in this area have been temporarily suppressed, and there is absolutely no need to worry about them getting back up in the short term.

Qin Shou's tactic of actively attracting the enemy and then launching a frenzied attack was clearly not the first time he had used it. After swinging the hammer, he didn't even break a sweat; he was only slightly mentally fatigued due to the backlash from the object of his obsession.

"found it."

While Qin Shou was drawing attention to the front lines, Lake, who had been operating silently, successfully located the valve switch in the room despite being blinded, and activated it, relying on his own senses and the guidance and help of his teammates.

buzz-

Soon after hearing a strange sound similar to a toilet flushing, the players present blinked and found that they had suddenly regained their sight. The monsters that Qin Shou had attacked and suppressed had vanished without a trace, as if they had never existed. This so-called [Industrial Zone 1] had become a dilapidated ruin, completely unrecognizable from what it had been before.

Once her vision was restored, Yan Hui immediately located the surveillance camera. Then she looked at the door behind the completely rusted and rotten chemical pool, which had appeared and opened at some unknown time, revealing a dark space behind it.

Is that the entrance to the next area?

"We haven't stumbled into some kind of level-based game, have we? Wait! Wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm going to... ugh..."

Qin Shou, who also noticed the door, grimaced and casually made a comment while carrying the explosive hammer. Then he saw Cui Qiushui come forward to examine him, which immediately triggered his misogynistic PTSD symptoms, and he began to feel nauseous and dry heave again.

[Sizzle…]

Once again, the players heard the broadcast. But unlike before, this time there was less background noise.

[Please receive the following information, Minghuijian Squad]

Please continue forward, but beware of lingering memories. This is not a dream; do not fall into a deep sleep.

Furthermore, the information presented this time seems to have a somewhat riddle-like tendency.

{Do I really have to say it like that? Won't it be unclear to others?}

In the monitoring room, the girl with short blue hair asked expressionlessly, her face showing no trace of the pain of having recently experienced another death.

Revealing some information in advance is actually detrimental. We can only observe the situation in the lower levels indirectly, and it wouldn't be good if we said something wrong. Therefore, giving them somewhat vague guidance is better for them. In fact, if we analyze it as a riddle, they should be able to figure it out.

And within the squirrel plush toy held in those arms, Gao Hai's calm voice rang out unhurriedly.

Chapter 40: From the Office Area to the Monitoring Room: Things and Secrets

For Yamada Ryo, ever since he was trapped in the Starry Night Livehouse on a rainy day, nothing good seems to have happened. All he can recall are the terror of being hunted down and the despair of experiencing death—it's been as terrible as it gets.

Even after enduring immense suffering and horrific torment she never wanted to recall, Ryo showed no intention of surrendering. Of course, in reality, surrender wasn't an option. After all, those terrifying creatures were impossible to communicate with, and even if she tried to surrender, she would only face even more horrific treatment. So, whether she wanted to or not, all she could do now was continue to resist and struggle.

That's what they say, but...

{My head is still attached to my body, isn't it?}

As Liang spoke in the mental link, he reached out and gently touched his neck, his expression still somewhat suspicious.

Of course, otherwise how could you be sitting here perfectly fine? Don't overthink it. If anything really happens, I can protect you. Just don't act recklessly next time. I don't have many resources at my disposal. If you keep courting death, I can't protect you either.

Gao Hai's voice sounded with a hint of helplessness, and Liang felt a little relieved after hearing it again, though her body was still tense.

Of course, this reaction was unavoidable for Ryo. After all, experiencing the feeling of having one's head severed from their body firsthand was extremely unpleasant, especially due to the influence of the supernatural power. Even though her head and body had separated, she couldn't die immediately, but retained consciousness for several minutes. The feeling of emptiness from not being able to perceive her own body and the pain at the broken neck still sent chills down Ryo's spine.

As for why she is now able to sit safely in the monitoring room helping the Minghui Squad after suffering such a thing, it's quite simple: Gao Hai used his power to revive her, and then she found a way to escape that area and arrive at this place.

This process was far from easy. After confirming that Gao Hai's powers couldn't open the smart lock, Ryo had to sneak into the office area. After searching for a while, she finally found a memo with the password, which allowed her to successfully open the smart lock in the conference room. During this time, the eye-ball-covered monster and the silent monster chased Ryo multiple times. Several times she thought she was going to be caught and killed, but she survived by the skin of her teeth.

In addition, during this process, Liang Dao also tried to move up and down through the elevator lobby, but found that all the elevators in the elevator lobby could not be started, and the stairwell doors could not be opened at all after multiple attempts. In the end, he had no choice but to choose the conference room side.

Presumably to prevent employees from escaping, Ryo discovered that even after successfully unlocking the smart lock and activating the only working elevator in the building, she could only use it to go to higher floors, not lower ones. At the time, Ryo didn't think too much of it, since her goal was to reach the boss's office. However, upon reaching the top floor, she found that the smart lock leading to the reception hall required a card, and the elevator that had brought her up couldn't go down, leaving her trapped on that floor.

Despite his superhuman physical abilities, he was completely unable to damage the walls and floors, which were clearly imbued with the power of the supernatural tales. He couldn't even destroy the elevator. It seemed that because he was close to the scene related to the core obsession, the attempt to "skip the level" by directly destroying the scene had become completely impossible. Of course, this only applied to Ryo, who lacked the strength. If Takami were willing to project more power, he could easily destroy the surrounding obstacles. Unfortunately, even though Miko and the others had completely broken the situation in the residential area, winning a turning point for humanity in this war, the fierce counterattack launched by the [Hospital] forced Takami to invest more power in various areas of Tokyo and the teams that were venturing into different instances. Therefore, he simply had no room to provide much help to Ryo. Even now, the fact that he could occasionally chat with Ryo was only possible because he was pushing himself to the point of near-schizophrenia.

In short, trapped in the top-floor area, Ryo, with no other option, finally chose to enter the only accessible monitoring room. She discovered that it was similar to the monitoring room in the Zhenyang Apartment, possessing a panoramic view of the entire company's surveillance system. Unlike the Zhenyang Apartment, where the number of cameras was limited and the viewing angles incomplete, Dansu Company's surveillance was extremely comprehensive. Ryo could easily observe all areas of the company and even speak using a microphone within the monitoring coverage area. She guessed that this system was initially set up to monitor employees and supervise their work, and it was precisely through this system that Ryo was able to discover the Meiki-kan team that had entered the underground area and provide them with guidance.

Although that's what she said, Ryo didn't actually say much; she just pointed out the way. And after the team arrived at [Industrial Zone 1], the entire team inexplicably fell into some kind of abnormal state. Ryo wanted to ask what was wrong, but found that the microphone suddenly stopped working, and there was no sound from the monitor. It wasn't until the team members did some inexplicable things and then everything suddenly returned to normal that Ryo realized the microphone had also worked.

This is the second time an anomaly has occurred.

Liang stared intently at the screen and whispered in the mental link.

When the anomaly occurred before, Ryo also discovered that her microphone had suddenly stopped working. However, the surveillance footage showed her voice still coming from the corridor; it turned out that some strange entity was impersonating her voice to lure the players. Fortunately, none of them fell for it, and they all ignored the sound and continued forward. Now, the microphone is malfunctioning again, and she can't even hear the team's voices anymore. This anomaly made Ryo increasingly uneasy, and her mood grew heavier.

So, have you noticed any commonalities among these anomalies?

Gao Hai's voice asked in the girl's heart.

{...A strange entity appeared. The first time the microphone malfunctioned, a strange entity emerged from behind the players and mimicked my voice. The second time the microphone malfunctioned, the monitoring audio disappeared, and the players did something very strange. Although I didn't see exactly what happened in the monitoring footage, such an anomaly could only be caused by the influence of a strange entity or some supernatural force. Mr. Gao Hai, you should be able to sense more information through the domain fragments they carry. Am I correct? Did they encounter a strange entity when the second anomaly occurred?}

Liang gently exhaled, trying her best to remain calm as she began to analyze the situation.

[You're right. During the second anomaly, they were affected by both the strange creatures and the power of the eerie tales. The presence of the strange creatures prevented your voice from reaching them, while the eerie tales of the area blocked their voices from reaching you. If they hadn't found a way to break the spell, they might all be submerged in the chemical pool by now. It's fair to say that the situation just now was extremely dangerous.]

Gao Hai's reply came quickly, and Liang felt somewhat relieved upon hearing it, but at the same time, new questions arose.

{What kind of strange creature did they encounter? I can't see any trace of it at all. How did they solve it?}

Liang was a little curious. She leaned back in the only office chair in the monitoring room, swayed her body and turned the chair around, asking Gao Hai in the mental link.

They heard "your" guidance, obtained clues from the "broadcast," and successfully found the correct path to crack the code.

Gao Hai had originally intended to say that, but after confirming the situation in the monitoring room again through the doll, he simply brushed it off with "veteran players have such strength" and didn't let Liang know the real reason.

[Sizzle... sizzle...]

Even though Liang wasn't using a microphone, the thing was still emitting a slight electrical hum.

But Gao Hai knew that this was actually because another hand was fiddling with the microphone.

Through the doll's perspective, Gao Hai surveyed the not-so-large room. Old display screens occupied one entire wall, showing the various rooms and corridors. The walls on either side were covered with all sorts of notices, describing meaningless, mostly contradictory, and even illogical rules. At first, Liang carefully examined these rules, thinking she had finally found a usable rulebook, only to discover that the content was completely fabricated and didn't apply to her situation at all, leaving her quite disappointed for a while.

However, things have changed somewhat now.

Gao Hai's gaze was fixed on the swaying shadow on the wall.

From the moment he entered this place, Gao Hai knew that there were strange things moving around in this monitoring room.

However, he didn't tell Ryo because he noticed that the creature wasn't particularly strong and hadn't shown much harm. He guessed it might be the obsession of a survivor who had once been here, so it wouldn't trigger any rules for Ryo, who was also an "intruder." Furthermore, he figured that he might be able to glean some clues from it after observing it for a while, which was why he deliberately didn't warn Ryo.

Just now, he did observe something, comparing the perspectives from both sides of the monitoring room and the dimly lit room.

The strange creature hidden in the monitoring room, unnoticed by Liang, had just given a hint to the Minghuijian team using Liang's voice. It's fair to say that without that crucial hint, it would have been virtually impossible for the Minghuijian team to find a solution while blinded; Gao Hai would have needed to use significantly more of his power to help them succeed. And clearly, if things had progressed to that point, given the remaining energy of the Crimson Domain fragments the team possessed, Gao Hai might have drained them completely, potentially causing the fragments to disappear.

The strange creatures are devoid of emotion, and even if there are exceptional cases, this individual in the monitoring room is definitely not one of them. But just now, this strange creature did indeed save the Minghuijian Squad. This made Gao Hai realize that the Minghuijian Squad's actions might have unintentionally repeated something that had happened in the past. And the clues given by the strange creature in the monitoring room were essentially a reenactment of that scenario.

A team, a group of victims caught up in the instance, successfully traversed streets filled with strange creatures to enter the Dansu Corporation building and investigate an underground area with severe spatial distortions.

At the same time this team mobilized, another team—perhaps several people? Or maybe just one? In any case, someone else appeared in the monitoring room and used the surveillance cameras to guide the other team. This must have happened; otherwise, it's impossible that just as the team encountered danger, this thing that had been hiding in the monitoring room would suddenly appear.

But it was precisely because of this that Gao Hai felt puzzled.

Since entering this office building, Liang hadn't been able to find any valuable clues. The rule tables that could be found in a normal Dark Night-level dungeon were nowhere to be found here, which Gao Hai found strange. Especially now that the traces of the former survivors had been confirmed, and it was discovered that these trapped individuals had indeed formed a team and investigated the place more than once or twice, his suspicions about leaving no records deepened.

Could it be that after becoming a copy, the company has something that periodically cleans up the traces left by the survivors?

While thinking, Gao Hai manipulated the doll's perspective to move it around, and then a place on the wall that was different from before caught his attention.

[Hey, tear this piece of paper off. The text on it is different from before.]

After the reminder, Liang, who was still guiding the players forward through the microphone, immediately turned around and looked in the direction Gao Hai indicated. He noticed that among the stacks of scrap paper on the wall, there was another document that looked different from the ones around it.

The document contained only a few paragraphs at the very beginning, which made Liang and Gao Hai realize a certain possibility.

[Test Report 078]

[27 people have been confirmed to have been sacrificed lambs in this instance.]

[Test Procedure: During normal working hours, the sewage outlet was secretly opened, allowing a highly hazardous gas to leak out. This test confirmed that all 27 employees in the factory were exposed to the hazardous gas and had developed symptoms such as blindness and mania.]

Test result: Good

The new offerings are ready to be presented.

Chapter 41: Test Report, Speculations about Kambara Mio, and New Anomalies

A sacrifice?

Gao Hai had heard this word countless times.

In the "Sacrifice Game" dungeons, "sacrifice" is often an unavoidable theme. Whether it's the perpetrators at the root of the dungeon sacrificing their victims, survivors who accidentally enter the dungeon sacrificing their companions, or players sacrificing other players in order to survive, the same thing keeps happening.

Now, he saw the word "sacrifice" once again and finally grasped the deeper secret hidden behind this instance.

[Test Report 078]

[Sacrifice Report: 27 lambs have been identified as "patients" in concept]

[Sacrifice Method: Twenty-seven lambs were brought into an empty chemical reaction tank (No. 1) under the guise of "treatment." The tank was then sealed, and a highly corrosive chemical liquid was injected. After ensuring that the lambs' flesh and skin had dissolved more than 30%, a neutralizing agent was injected to reduce the corrosiveness of the chemical liquid, and the reaction tank was started to stir and mix the lambs. It was crucial to ensure that the lambs remained alive during this stage to maximize their suffering. After the lambs' flesh and blood had been basically mixed, a hallucinogenic liquid was injected into the reaction tank to induce deep hallucinations. Finally, the highly corrosive chemical liquid was injected to kill the lambs, thus completing the entire sacrifice process.]

[Record of Abnormal Phenomena During the Sacrifice: An unexpected leak occurred during the operation of Chemical Reaction Pool No. 1, blinding all on-site personnel. However, subsequent investigation confirmed that no leak occurred in Chemical Reaction Pool No. 1. The cause of this phenomenon is currently unconfirmed.]

[Anomalies recorded after the sacrificial ritual: The blinded staff members all claimed to have heard strange, incomprehensible sounds. They believed an unknown entity was speaking to them, urging them to accept and adapt to their suffering. Careful communication confirmed that these staff members' cognition and personality had undergone significant changes, becoming drastically different from ordinary people. Furthermore, all the staff members died the day after the sacrificial ritual; the cause of death is still unknown. However, all the bodies had stiff smiles on their faces, some even making prayer gestures, and all were facing the same direction. Calculations showed they were all facing the direction of the No. 1 chemical reaction pool where the sacrificial ritual was performed.]

[Sacrifice Report Summary: Without a doubt, this sacrificial ritual has truly breached the boundaries of the real world. We have found the right path; only lambs who are desperate, tormented, and twisted enough can truly help us achieve our desires. In the following actions, we must, as far as possible, plunge our sacrifices into a prolonged and irreversible extreme mental state, while also ensuring they suffer from severe physical illness or become physically disabled. We must make the lambs "patients," "patients" in the eyes of normal people who need treatment and help, to truly achieve the optimal effect of the ritual.]

[Note: Although the sacrificial ceremony is progressing very smoothly, we should also begin to consider controlling the scale of the ceremony.]

While this ceremony achieved significant progress, dealing with the lost sheep and unexpected casualties has proven far more complicated than anticipated, especially the injuries and deaths of the on-site staff. These deaths and injuries necessitate a renewed search for trustworthy personnel, which will inevitably consume considerable time and effort and could potentially lead to further leaks. If we don't learn from these lessons and address the shortcomings in the ceremony, problems will likely arise sooner or later.

We must remember that we are not true believers; our goal is not to bring anything from beyond this world to us. What we seek is to transcend ourselves through the help of extraordinary beings. Therefore, we must strengthen our control over the rituals. We cannot allow more people to know what we are doing, nor can we allow the number of "patients" to expand too rapidly. Indiscriminately killing those who know is even more unacceptable; it will only create increasingly serious loopholes, and might ultimately lead us down the same path as those sacrifices.