Creak—
The door opened slightly, then quietly closed again. After a short while, it opened once more.
A female orderly passing by in the corridor—originally holding a small box of medicine—suddenly froze mid-step, her entire body going rigid as she stood there motionless. Moments later, two hands reached out from a nearby room, grabbed her shoulders, and dragged her inside. After a short while, Takumi, Mai, and Miko—now all dressed in orderly uniforms—walked out calmly, leaving behind an immobilized aberration in patient clothing lying stiffly inside the room.
After working together multiple times, Takumi and Mai had become extremely proficient at the process of stripping and swapping clothes. Mai even praised Takumi, saying he had the feel of a seasoned player. According to her, if one wanted to become a mature and powerful veteran player, mastering the ability to quickly strip all kinds of clothing off others and put them on oneself was a top-tier essential skill.
This left Miko with quite a mental shock. The perfect image she had built of Takumi from past memories cracked slightly. And since she herself was now an accomplice—wearing clothes taken from someone else—for some reason, the girl felt a strange sense that she was beginning to fit into this little team.
As for Takumi… well, he was actually quite proud of the praise. It felt like all the "practice" he'd done with Chika and Maki had finally paid off. And… for some reason, he suddenly missed his girlfriends a bit.
If they were here, the first three loops definitely wouldn't have been this difficult. And mentally, things would have been much easier too.
Ah… he really did miss them. For them, he had only been gone for a couple of hours, but for him, he had already suffered through several loops.
Still, that was probably what people meant by gains coming with a price.
After briefly reflecting, Takumi suppressed those scattered thoughts and refocused on the situation at hand.
"So what's next? Should we try heading to the director's office first?"
After finding a small, empty room that didn't look like anyone would enter, and thoroughly checking it to make sure there was nothing hidden inside, Takumi placed the map they had taken from the corridor on the floor in the center of the room. He then sat down cross-legged and pointed at the standalone building marked on the map.
"That place really does look like the kind of spot where major clues would be, but I checked the floor layout earlier—this hospital has a monitoring room. Even though the areas we went through before didn't have any surveillance cameras, that special director's office definitely will. And there's bound to be some kind of alert system in place. Going there rashly isn't a good idea. If we want to use this as a breakthrough point, we first need to figure out what kind of 'identity' is allowed to enter. I'm guessing ordinary orderlies won't cut it."
Mai sat on the ground at an angle, casually holding an unlit cigarette in her mouth, speaking in a laid-back tone as she analyzed the situation.
"Yeah, that makes sense. The document Miko brought out doesn't mention anything about it either. If we're going to investigate 'identity,' how about checking the staff cafeteria? Around the time hospital staff finish eating and head back to their posts, we should be able to observe who's actually qualified to enter the director's office."
Takumi lowered his head in thought for a moment, then quickly put forward an idea.
"Mm, that's a viable approach. But if we go into the cafeteria and attract attention, we might end up getting assigned work or something. And I suspect the clues in that building might not necessarily point to the core obsession. From what we've seen so far, a lot of things in this Instance feel disconnected from it—especially after hearing the information you gathered earlier. How should I put it… I get the feeling that this Instance could function normally even without that core obsession. It's very likely that the core obsession forcefully took over the central position after going through some particular experience. So if we want to find something that truly belongs to the core obsession itself, we might need to approach it from another angle. My idea… is to temporarily leave the hospital and investigate the ruins outside, like the remains of Fujihana Middle School."
Mai had clearly already organized her thoughts along the way. Now that there was time to discuss strategy, she immediately laid out her plan.
"That does make sense. But if we only choose one direction to investigate, I'm not sure we'll have enough time. Based on what the orderlies here said, 'Alice' will arrive at this hospital tomorrow to begin her performance. I'm not sure how it'll show up after all its Obsession Items have been sealed, but once it actually reaches tomorrow, the situation will probably become extremely dangerous—maybe even a guaranteed death scenario. Hmm… Miko, what do you think?"
Takumi nodded seriously, his brows slightly furrowed as his gaze shifted back and forth between the director's office and the ruins of Fujihana Middle School on the map.
Unable to decide for the moment, he simply turned his head toward Miko—the girl who had been quietly kneeling off to the side this whole time, saying nothing, acting like a background mascot.
"Huh? Me?"
Miko hadn't expected the topic to suddenly be thrown her way, and she froze for a moment.
"Right now we're basically in the dark about everything. In a situation like this, it's hard to settle on a direction, so hearing more perspectives helps. So, what about you, kid? Are you leaning more toward leaving the hospital to investigate outside, or focusing on investigating the hospital itself first?"
Mai let out a yawn and spoke casually. Even though she had proposed a direction earlier, she clearly didn't feel strongly about it.
Me?
The girl felt a little nervous. In her eyes, both Takumi and Kumagai Mai were so strong that she couldn't possibly compare. She had never considered that there would be a moment where she needed to propose a direction herself. Normally, this kind of decision should be discussed and decided by the two of them, while she simply followed along obediently.
But… since they wanted her opinion.
Outside… or inside?
Miko lowered her head, looking at the hospital map, then lifted her gaze toward the window—toward the abandoned ruins of Fujihana Middle School.
"Even though I don't really have any good ideas… I just feel like… if we leave here, it might not be easy to come back."
After hesitating for a long time, the girl finally spoke, cautiously voicing her thought.
"Alright, then it's settled—we'll investigate the hospital first. But like we said earlier, with our current identities as orderlies, we shouldn't move around too freely. Let's wait until people start heading to the staff cafeteria before we go take a look."
The very next second, Takumi clapped his hands lightly and made the decision decisively.
"In that case, I'll use my personality fragments to scout things out during this time. As for us, we'll stay here for now."
Mai nodded as she spoke, without the slightest hesitation.
Huh? Just like that, it's decided?
Miko had only tentatively offered her opinion, and she hadn't expected the two of them to decide so quickly. For a moment, she stood there blankly, unsure how to react.
"Come to think of it, based on the work schedule for patients I saw earlier, these orderlies spend all day either dragging patients around from place to place or patrolling the corridors. Even during breaks, they have to keep a close eye on the patients and make sure they don't talk to each other. At night, they still have to patrol… It's basically the kind of job that works you to death. Let's just hope that when we head to the cafeteria later, we don't run into some supervisor who suddenly gives us orders and forces us to do something."
Takumi had already shifted his attention elsewhere as he spoke.
"Exactly. Just like my boss back when I wasn't a player yet—always pumping me full of motivational nonsense and demanding overtime every day, while he himself drove around in a sports car picking up foreign chicks. Damn it. And he even made me design those revealing, suggestive, jiggly character models. When they got reported and censored, he actually said it was my fault and docked my pay. Seriously, what the hell."
Mai nodded in full agreement, letting out a long sigh as she showed the demeanor of a seasoned member of society.
"Yeah, same here. Back when I was writing, whenever I focused on serious main plotlines, people would complain it was too heavy and exhausting. When I wrote slice-of-life, they'd say it was boring and tell me to get back to the main plot. When I went back to the main plot, they'd ask why the slice-of-life wasn't continuing. When I returned to slice-of-life, they'd tell me to hurry up and push the main plot again. When I wrote a harem and added a few female characters, they'd say not to add too many. When I introduced female side characters and left it unclear whether they'd join the harem, they'd tell me to hurry up and add more. Honestly, there's never a moment of peace."
Takumi sighed as well, his "working adult" aura no less convincing than Kumagai Mai's.
Um… shouldn't we be discussing the next course of action right now?
Miko, who was still just a high school student and had never truly entered society, felt a bit restless. Even though she didn't fully understand what Takumi and Mai were complaining about, she could still tell that the conversation had gone off track.
Still… she could also sense that Takumi seemed much more relaxed than before.
During the previous two loops, she had always felt that he was constantly tense—always exhausted, always worn out, never able to relax, always under extreme pressure.
But now, his mental state seemed much better.
Thinking this, a faint smile unconsciously appeared on Miko's lips.
Meanwhile, Takumi only glanced at the girl briefly out of the corner of his eye, while his thoughts were already focused on something else.
Miko has retained her memories through the loops—that much I've already confirmed.
After undergoing that flesh-and-consciousness fusion through the biological device, she now seemed able, just like him, to retain her memories after death.
Was she recognized as the same "person" by the black watch because of that fusion? If that's the case… then as long as I can find an effective method to fuse flesh and consciousness with others, I could bring more people into the rewind. I wouldn't need to rely on that previous wish, and I could strengthen our side without consuming additional rewind attempts.
Realizing this, even as he continued chatting casually, Takumi couldn't help but begin thinking about possible methods and strategies.
"The orderly I planted a personality fragment in has been taken back into the hospital."
Suddenly, Mai, who had been joking around just moments ago, grew serious and spoke.
She had planted a personality fragment into the last orderly whose clothes they had stripped, using it for remote observation. Just now, through that former orderly's perspective, she saw that the person had been subdued by other orderlies, treated as a patient, and taken back into the hospital area.
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