This was the second time Yotsuya Miko had been possessed by [Alice].
But unlike the first possession, through Hedda's sensory blessing, Takumi could tell that Miko's own consciousness had not completely disappeared this time. Instead, she was in a muddled, half-aware state, something like sleepwalking.
Even so, the situation is still far from good. This child has actually been possessed by [Alice] again. Is it because her sensory perception is too strong? Her innate perceptive ability surpasses what most players can achieve, yet her mental defenses and willpower have not exceeded human limits. As a result, when facing excessively strong contamination, she becomes extremely easy to compromise.
But that would also mean that for [Alice] to take over someone's body, it must be based on that person's will collapsing, right? In the first run, she was affected by the contamination of the black umbrella and Class 1. In the second run, her sense of self was crushed by the contamination of this mountain of flesh. Only after that could [Alice] possess Miko. And across both runs, aside from Miko, no one else has ever been possessed by [Alice]. This, to a certain extent, confirms that this possession comes with strict conditions.
And as it turns out, because of Miko's own particular nature, she just happens to perfectly match the mechanism behind [Alice].
While a trace of complicated emotion arose in his heart, Takumi's actions did not slow in the slightest.
With one kick to Miko's abdomen, he sent the girl he had protected all this way flying without hesitation, kicking her straight to one side of the Analysis Workroom.
Immediately after, Takumi suddenly accelerated, sprinting toward one side of the room.
At this point, there was no way to confirm his exact position anymore. With [Alice] already present, everything within his field of vision could be false.
However, the power of the blessing was still there.
As long as he abandoned his vision, ignored his own sensory perception, and relied solely on the blessing's detection to determine the positions of that mass of flesh and [Alice]—then ran in the opposite direction away from both—that would be enough!
As for Kobayashi Chiharu and Yoshino Rika, he had already warned them to run. Whether they lived or died now depended entirely on themselves.
Boom!
Amid a deafening crash, Takumi felt as though he had smashed through a wall.
He continued sprinting forward, and before long, he felt himself collide with another wall, smashing through it once again.
Then he felt the pull of gravity—the sensation of falling.
From afar, he seemed to hear [Alice]'s light laughter.
He had crashed through the outer wall of the Teaching Building.
At this very moment, he had already left the confines of Fujihana Middle School's Teaching Building and entered the area outside.
He had violated the rules of [Alice's Grand Adventure Game].
That aberration knew he could use the blessing's power to determine both his own position and the location of the flesh aberration that had entered the Analysis Workroom. So it deliberately manipulated its positioning, causing Takumi to run toward the outer wall as he fled.
The method he had finally found to counter the enemy's ability had instead been used against him?
So this thing's intelligence—wasn't it a bit too high…?
At the same moment Takumi was thinking this, a sharp pain spread through one of his arms.
Something had grabbed him.
No—judging from the sensation, his arm had been bitten. Something had bitten him midair, clamping onto him, holding him suspended.
Even when he opened his eyes, all he could see was that he was still standing inside the Analysis Workroom. There was no way to confirm the true state of his surroundings. But the blessing that sensed human and non-human entities still responded under such close physical contact, allowing him to vaguely perceive that what had bitten his arm was something wearing a giraffe head.
The Inspector Giraffe mentioned in the game rules—had it always been outside the Teaching Building?
[Even teachers must follow the game rules, you know]
[Now that teacher has broken the rules, Alice is very, very angry]
[A teacher who doesn't follow the rules… Alice can't be friends with you anymore]
From afar, he heard [Alice]'s voice.
A powerful sense of crisis spread.
Takumi knew that at this moment, he was very likely going to die here.
But even though he had long prepared himself for the possibility that he wouldn't make it out of Fujihana Middle School alive, until the very last moment—until all hope was gone and there was no possibility of turning things around—he would never surrender, never choose to give up.
"Ha—"
With death looming right before him, Takumi's mind instead grew calm.
He still couldn't see the true state of his surroundings, still remained under sensory deception.
But that didn't stop him from taking out a filthy stuffed animal from his watch—something he was certain [Alice] could never ignore.
In an instant, Takumi felt his body being locked onto by something's gaze.
Not just one…
There were a total of twelve gazes fixed on him. Three came from directly behind him—from the Teaching Building he had just left.
The other nine were divided into three groups, coming from three different directions.
In other words, across the four areas of [Fujihana Middle School], each area had three [Alice] instances. That meant that among the first-, second-, and third-year students in each area, there was one successful case each?
No… not right.
There were not just twelve. There were two more gazes.
More concealed, harder to detect, and completely different from the twelve [Alice] gazes.
Takumi remembered that in this Instance, the [Athletic Field] and [Swimming Pool] areas had already been sealed, because the key Obsession Items maintaining those areas had been taken by a Red Moon-level player who had previously explored this Instance. Thinking about it now, those so-called key Obsession Items were likely related to [Alice]. The remaining two gazes he sensed were probably the key Obsession Items of the [Teaching Building] and the [Residential Wing]—in other words, the hidden core [Alice].
Then, if he could take away the key Obsession Item of the Teaching Building, could he seal the Teaching Building's Alice game?
All of these thoughts occurred in the blink of an eye.
In the next instant, Takumi threw the stuffed doll in his hand with all his strength.
"Go!"
With that shout, he hurled the doll outward.
A sharp scream rang out in the distance.
Takumi could sense all twelve gazes shifting away from him at once, focusing on the direction where the doll had fallen.
At that moment, his vision returned to normal. He clearly saw the giraffe head biting his arm—and the impossibly long neck extending behind it, stretching out of sight.
Takumi summoned a machete in his hand and slashed fiercely at its head, cutting deep into it.
Tsk—this position makes it hard to put strength into it. Didn't cut it off in one go.
The rotten giraffe head suddenly jerked violently. The next instant, Takumi's back slammed into the outer wall of the Teaching Building, crashing through it with a thunderous boom and tumbling into a pile of desks, chairs, and aberrant students.
In the next moment, he was flung again, smashing through four walls in succession, passing through three classrooms, and rolling into a corridor—only to be bitten by the thing again, this time by the leg, as it tried to drag him back toward the window.
He seemed to see something.
A man born with an abnormally long neck—so long that he could peer into classrooms through the upper window panels above the doors.
He was the head of the school's inspection team, equivalent to a dean of discipline. He held authority even higher than teachers, and he took great pleasure in using that authority to torment students. He would secretly observe them, searching for prey, enjoying the suffering he inflicted.
Because of his grotesquely long neck, the students who feared and hated him secretly called him a giraffe.
Being thrown into classrooms—this seemed to be part of his killing process. He would first display the torture to other students before killing his victim. That had been his greatest pleasure in life, and even after becoming an aberration, his behavior followed the same pattern. This damned school really was full of all kinds of twisted monsters.
His enhanced body could still endure such attacks. Takumi had already sprung back up, gripping his machete and launching another attack.
Crack—
With the sound of bone breaking, this strike landed on the other half of the thing's face—yet still failed to sever its head.
Boom!
Next, Takumi's body slammed violently into the ceiling, crashing through to the floor above, then being hurled back down, smashing a crater into the ground.
He seemed to hear a maniacal laugh, and to see the terrified expressions of the surrounding students.
Spitting out a mouthful of foul blood, Takumi activated the blessing. His eyes turned blood-red, and he rose once more.
A white chrysanthemum appeared in his hand, which he forcefully stabbed into the creature's eye.
The aberration's rapid movements suddenly slowed, momentarily delayed by the suppressive effect of the chrysanthemum. Seizing the opportunity, Takumi swung his blade down. But at the moment of impact, the creature recovered and exerted force again. The next instant, amid a spray of blood as the giraffe's head flew into the air, Takumi was sent flying down half the corridor, hitting the ground, carving a shallow trench, bouncing up, flying dozens of meters further, and finally slamming into an elevator door at the end of the corridor—denting the metal inward.
"Cough… cough…"
The repeated impacts had taken a heavy toll on Takumi's body. His arms and legs bore deep wounds that nearly severed them. Even with the recovery effect of the Rescue Team Badge, he couldn't immediately get up. He could only remain prone, barely propping himself up with one hand.
What a miserable state… but at least he survived. At least he was still alive.
Right now, all the [Alice] instances had gone after the doll. With the sheep headgear in effect, as long as he didn't encounter [Principal Elephant] or that pink smiling corpse mountain, he should be safe.
Next, as long as nothing unexpected happened, maybe he could—
Ding—
Before his thoughts could finish, the elevator door behind him suddenly emitted a crisp sound.
He turned his head and saw the dented elevator doors struggle open—and then Miko stepped out, her golden eyes staring straight at him.
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