Around… Takumi-san?
Hearing Takumi's question, Miko froze for a moment. Then she realized that although she had said nothing earlier in the living room, Takumi had already sensed something was wrong from her line of sight at that time.
He had realized there was a problem, yet had not spoken up, instead waiting until now to ask?
Miko's gaze moved around Takumi, over his body.
It was already gone.
That grotesque thing with the shattered body had silently disappeared while the two of them had been going up and down the stairs earlier.
Now, whether on Takumi's body or around him, there was no abnormality whatsoever—completely, utterly normal.
Where had that thing gone? Had it left on its own?
She couldn't understand it. Why had it suddenly appeared, and then suddenly vanished?
But at least for now, she truly did not see any further abnormalities.
After observing carefully for a while, Miko gave Takumi a slight shake of her head. Takumi relaxed a little, then turned to look at the staircase before him.
There was not much time left.
After stepping into a place he should not have entered, it was impossible to say how time flowed here. For all he knew, the remaining dozen minutes could vanish in the blink of an eye. So he had to figure out a way to leave—right now.
Takumi glanced to the side. At this point, he had already reached the end of the corridor. Aside from the staircase leading downward, he could see no other path.
This was blatant sensory concealment.
How was he supposed to break it?
In a situation like this, what exactly could he do to break it?
Wait…
Takumi recalled the corridor earlier that had been filled with twisted flesh and gore.
In that corridor, because the ground had been covered everywhere with mutilated corpses and chunks of flesh, neither he nor Miko had been able to move properly. They had walked unevenly, one step high, one step low.
In truth, if he had been able to distinguish it carefully at that time, he might have realized that he had actually been going downstairs. But the overwhelming visual impact, combined with the need to guard against whether those corpses were Aberrations, had prevented him from noticing it. Now that he thought back on it, the sense of incongruity had always been there—it had merely been masked by the more concrete and striking visual imagery.
So this Aberration power could deceive his vision. It could make him smell the stench of corpses, make him feel as though he were stumbling through a pile of bodies. But his perception that he was going downstairs had not been completely blocked—it had only been obscured by more obvious, false sensations.
So now, what he needed to do was to find his true perception—to find the perception that was truly his.
"From now on, don't speak. Stay quiet. I need to concentrate."
Takumi said seriously to Miko, then stepped forward, making a motion as if to go downstairs.
But his foot did not actually land on the downward staircase. It hovered briefly in the air, then quickly withdrew.
He turned and walked over to the wall beside the staircase.
Takumi kicked lightly at the wall with the side of his foot, let it fall, then took a step back.
He moved slowly along the corridor, occasionally turning suddenly, then retreating, kicking the wall beside him, or abruptly stopping and standing completely still.
This strange behavior was completely incomprehensible to Miko, but she still obediently stayed by Takumi's side, moving forward and backward step by step along with him. After all, her hand had been clasped with Takumi's the entire time; since he himself never let go, she could only move whenever he moved. For a moment, in the dim corridor, the two of them looked like they were performing a ridiculous mimicry pantomime—when you move, I move. The only difference was that Takumi himself was acting with extreme seriousness, while the Miko beside him was merely nervously imitating him at random.
What exactly is Takumi-san trying to do?
As they continued like this, Miko grew more and more confused, completely losing track of what she was even doing. Even the fear in her heart had been somewhat diluted.
And just at that moment, Takumi's footsteps suddenly stopped. Then he turned his head and looked toward his side.
In the next instant, he stepped forward, placing one foot into thin air.
Huh?
The surreal scene made Miko freeze slightly, but she still remembered Takumi's instruction and continued to keep silent without saying a word.
So next, she was pulled forward by Takumi and followed him in stepping into the air.
Then, in shock, she discovered that she had actually stepped on something—she truly managed to steady herself in midair.
"Damn it, a transparent soul bridge, is it?"
At that moment, Miko heard Takumi mutter in a low voice.
At this time, half of Takumi's body had already merged with the wall, while his head had completely sunk into the ceiling.
He looked as if he were stuck in the wall. From Miko's perspective, he indeed appeared to be motionless, wedged there. Yet the hand tightly holding hers was still exerting force forward, dragging Miko upward.
Could it be that all of this was just an illusion?
The girl closed her eyes, gathered her courage, and stepped forward following that pulling force.
Step—step—
Amid the clear sound of footsteps, she could feel herself stumbling up more than a dozen steps of stairs, while her own line of sight passed through the wall and entered a completely dark world where nothing could be seen.
This place… what exactly is…
A shrill noise suddenly rang out from ahead.
Miko suddenly realized that she could see Takumi.
She saw Takumi, whose entire body was tattered and ruined, whose internal organs had already spilled out from his chest cavity, and who was still turning back to smile at her.
The road ahead was densely packed with sharp spikes, stained everywhere with blood, looking incomparably terrifying.
Flames were burning, rapidly spreading in from the surroundings; even from a distance, one could feel the scorching heat waves.
Miko closed her eyes.
She continued to let Takumi pull her, continuing to move forward.
Piercing wails rang out around her.
Breath brushed against the back of her neck.
She even heard her mother calling her name, as well as the voice of her father who had passed away many years ago, and the voice of Hana.
Chaotic footsteps closed in from all directions.
Viscous liquid dripped onto her body.
A sudden pulling force seized her other hand, grabbed her hair and her ankles, trying to drag her in another direction.
But the girl simply kept walking forward.
She only continued to follow the hand that had held hers from the very beginning, following the other party all the way ahead.
Click—
She heard the sound of a door opening.
In that instant, it drowned out all the twisted and frenzied noises.
Even with her eyes closed, she could still feel the warmth of sunlight shining on her body.
Miko could not help but open her eyes, and then discovered that she was being pulled by Takumi, standing in the backyard she had seen before.
Only, the last time she saw it, it had been a false illusion; this time, it seemed to be real.
Takumi's steps did not stop.
He simply remained silent, pulling Miko forward, walking straight across the backyard until they arrived at the courtyard wall.
In the next moment, he exerted a bit of force, directly pulling Miko into his arms. Holding her with one hand, he leapt up abruptly, jumped over the courtyard wall in a single bound, and landed on the street outside.
Only at this point did Miko realize that Takumi had actually been keeping his eyes closed.
And just like that, with his eyes closed, he continued pulling Miko forward, leading her along the way. Even though he could see nothing with his eyes shut, he still moved without the slightest obstruction, walking step by step along the sidewalk, using the tactile paving to judge his position, and only stopped after covering the distance of two full blocks in one breath.
"Right now, in your line of sight, where are we?"
Takumi, still with his eyes closed, turned his head toward Miko and asked.
"Ah, r-right now we've already left the house and come out onto the street."
Caught off guard by the sudden question, Miko froze for a moment before hurriedly answering.
In the next instant, Takumi opened his eyes and turned to look behind him—toward his own house beneath the crimson moon's glow.
The fire department had already gathered at the entrance. It seemed the bomb's power had not been small. However, those firefighters should be fine. After all, judging from the current situation, the target of this Aberration's power was [friends], so those who had come to put out the fire would not be attacked.
Even now, Miko was still tightly gripping Takumi's hand. It was clear the girl was truly nervous. But since they had already made it this far, Takumi no longer had anything to worry about. He let out a long breath and lowered his head to look at the somewhat timid girl.
"For the next period of time, you'd better not go to school—at least until no one at school is talking about that stupid Alice game anymore. Ahem, my wording might be a bit crude, but it can't be helped. In any case, be extra careful yourself from now on. I should be leaving as well."
Takumi was certain that he had indeed left the affected area of the anomalous Instance that had invaded the real world, because when he tried to mobilize Andres's teleportation blessing, he discovered that this blessing, which had originally been unusable, had now been unlocked again.
Without hesitation, he directly activated the blessing's power and instantly vanished from in front of Miko, arriving several kilometers away inside a small house where Maki, Chika, and Kaguya were at that moment, completely distancing himself from the area where the Aberration had descended.
Takumi's sudden disappearance clearly startled Miko, but because she had already witnessed something far more shocking earlier, the girl only flinched before quickly calming down.
Takumi-san really isn't an ordinary person… He was actually able to find the correct path with his eyes closed just now. That kind of thing is truly hard to imagine.
The girl sighed inwardly, then frowned.
He… has really left, right?
If he has already left, then why…
Realizing something, Miko's pupils suddenly contracted at that moment.
Slowly, she lowered her head.
A drop of cold sweat slid down from her forehead.
At the same time, after Takumi's teleportation ended and he saw Maki and Chika rise to their feet with worried expressions, he finally felt a sense of relief and let out a long breath.
It had truly been exhausting.
Relying on his fairly good spatial perception, he had recalled the structural layout of his house from memory, ignored all kinds of chaotic and bizarre disturbances, and finally found the correct way out, successfully leaving the house through the backyard.
The entire process had been extremely troublesome and dangerous. Although closing his eyes could block out a considerable portion of the Aberration's interference, the psychological pressure and discomfort it brought were equally immense. Especially given the uncertainty of whether other Aberrations existed and whether closing his eyes might result in being attacked by something else, it had been even harder to remain calm. Even under such conditions, Takumi had still needed to remain cautious, because as he walked he would suddenly realize he was moving backward, going upstairs or downstairs; this confusion and distortion of perception was extremely dangerous. He had to keep his nerves taut at every moment to correctly judge what he was doing and to ensure that he would not be misled.
"Takumi-kun, did you use teleportation? Is your body all right?"
"That's great, Takumi…"
"Takumi-kun, you made it out successfully. That's great. You should get some rest."
The three girls' voices overlapped one another, and Takumi, finally relaxed, dropped onto the ground. He only managed to wave his hand; for the moment, he was unable to say anything.
Then, he sensed something off.
What is going on?
His left hand…
The left hand that had been holding Miko's, the one she had tightly gripped all along. Even now, Takumi could still feel that a hand was firmly clutching him—just like before, when after he noticed something was wrong, Miko had proactively grabbed his hand and held it tightly without letting go.
So he lowered his head and looked at his left hand.
Looked at the pale severed hand lying on the ground, the one that was gripping him.
Only upon noticing it at this moment did he feel the intense chill emanating from that hand.
Takumi also finally came to understand the extremely fatal oversight that he and Maki had failed to notice from the very beginning.
Ring—
Ring—
The class bell rang.
The blood-red full moon in the distance had already begun to fade, gradually disappearing.
That Aberrant moon, which ordinary people could not perceive, returned—under the players' gaze—to its original world, to the Instance world of Horror Story.
And Takumi, who could only sit collapsed on the ground with a bitter smile, watched the panic on Maki and Chika's faces. Powerless, he waved at them, and then was seized by one pale finger after another reaching out from behind him, dragged into the floor out of thin air, and disappeared.
Darkness engulfed everything at that moment.
And that low, hoarse, sinister laughter was already sounding beside Takumi's ear.
The voice was saying:
[Welcome to Alice's school～]
[Come on, come play games with Alice, and become Alice's good friend～～～]
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