They jumped out from the third-floor window of the outpatient building, landing in the greenery below.
Mai jumped down first. She landed completely soundlessly, rising lightly like a cat. Then she cautiously scanned the surroundings before signaling for the others to follow.
The second person to jump down was Takumi. Relying on the powerful bodily control granted by Hedda's blessing, he likewise landed without making a single sound. Immediately afterward, he turned around and spread open his arms. The next moment, the visibly nervous Miko jumped down from upstairs with her eyes shut tight, and Takumi steadily caught her before gently setting her back onto the ground.
"Haa..."
He could feel the girl's body slightly tensed up. It seemed that jumping down from the third floor was still a bit too stimulating for her. Of course, it was also possible that her perception abilities had become even further enhanced, allowing her to see even more things that should not be seen. But even if Takumi knew that was the case, there was nothing he could do to help her.
After all, he himself could not see those things.
Finally, there was Gotō Hitori... or rather, Gotō Unit One. Ah, what she chose was V's S-rank aerial taunt from Devil May Cry 5: spinning three and a half times in midair, landing on one knee, then spreading both hands outward to praise the sun.
It had to be said, this character Bocchi-chan had created based on herself really was quite interesting. But Takumi felt that if this kept going, Bocchi-chan herself probably wasn't far from complete social death. After all, this controllable character she had created was actually being operated by her, Maki, and Chika at the same time. In other words, every single socially fatal move made by this "Gotō Unit One" wearing her face would inevitably have two witnesses watching it, no matter when it happened. For a sensitive girl like Bocchi-chan, this could already be called an extremely terrifying situation.
{This hospital... if I didn't know this place was an Instance world, I'd probably think it was actually a perfectly normal place, wouldn't I?}
Maki's voice entered Takumi's mind. He looked around. The thick clouds in the sky had scattered a little by now, and sunlight fell across the hospital's tall buildings. The greenery planted with all kinds of flowers, grasses, shrubs, and small trees looked rather pleasant, and there was no garbage to be seen on any of the paths along the way. Hmm, how should he put it? If one did not know what kind of damned place this was, then at first glance, it really was somewhat deceptive.
Of course, that only applied to people who had not experienced it personally and were not actually standing inside this place.
As long as one was actually here, there was absolutely no way they would think that. After all, even though Takumi could not sense those terrifying things the same way Miko could, he could still strongly perceive the danger of the hospital itself. The "abnormality" hidden beneath its normal surface had not yet fully appeared, but it was already enough to stir up instinctive discomfort and fear. And as long as that feeling remained, Takumi could never misjudge the true nature of this place.
{I'll take point. Be careful not to step on any of the landscaping. It might trigger the orderly rules.}
After casually saying that through the mental link, Mai took the lead and walked forward.
By now, it was already past 4:30 in the afternoon. All the patients had been taken outside to the airing area. Because of that, the hospital buildings were empty, and there was nothing continuing to peer out from the windows and watch their movements.
Even so, the group still had to move as carefully as possible, because along the way, they had already seen quite a few people dressed as orderlies and doctors hurrying back and forth. In order to avoid being discovered, they often had no choice but to stop and hide. Sometimes, they even had to retreat back along the path they had come from to avoid running into them.
This process was even more dangerous than Takumi had imagined. Those seemingly normal orderlies and doctors appeared to be able to sense their presence to some extent. They could realize that something nearby was wrong. Often, while speaking or walking forward as if nothing were wrong, their footsteps would suddenly turn, and they would head straight toward the area around them. Sometimes, those orderlies and doctors would even display grotesque movements where they were clearly stepping forward, yet their bodies smoothly slid backward or diagonally backward. If not for the help of Mai's Obsession Item that could immobilize Aberrations, Takumi was certain that no matter how well he hid, those things would find him within three minutes at most.
{Is this because that "assigning work" rule is taking effect? These things are ridiculous too.}
After sneaking around with Miko for more than half an hour, Takumi finally crossed the greenery area around the hospital's male cafeteria and could not help sighing through the mental link.
{Looks like that kind of perception should have a range limit. As long as we're not too close, they can at most vaguely feel that someone is here. Thankfully, I can only say this level is still manageable. At the very least, with the right handling, there's a way through. It's not the kind of hide-and-seek where death is guaranteed.}
Mai seemed to have remembered certain past experiences, and there was a faint trace of reminiscence in her voice over the mental link.
{Oh? What's this guaranteed-death hide-and-seek situation? Tell us about it if you have time.}
Takumi secretly raised his head from behind a small clearing behind the shrubs while casually asking through the mental link. Miko was carefully hiding beside Takumi, sticking close to him like a little shadow and refusing to separate from him by even a single step. After hearing Takumi's words through the mental link, she also grew somewhat curious.
{It was something I encountered in a Dark Night-level Instance. That Instance took place in a mansion. The basement was full of works of art made from "dolls" created after people were skinned. We woke up inside the mansion according to the rules and were forced to play a game of hide-and-seek with the Aberration. But in reality, every room in that Instance had cameras hidden inside the lights. And after we had just woken up, something like a signal transmitter had been secretly stuffed somewhere on each of our bodies. So our movements had been known from the very beginning.}
{That Aberration seemed to have been some madman who enjoyed torturing victims while alive. Because those cameras and signal transmitters had almost never been found by the victims, unless the players had powerful perception abilities, some kind of support-type Obsession Item, a blessing, or something similar, even if their eyes had already seen the hidden cameras and transmitters, their minds would subconsciously ignore them. The result was that by the time one round of hide-and-seek was over, before we even understood what had happened, more than half our numbers were already gone.}
{Of course, the ones who died were basically players who spent all day hanging around Dusk-level Instances and only came to a Dark Night-level Instance because they had been pushed into a corner. Those people weren't strong enough, and they had been numbed for too long by the low difficulty of Dusk-level Instances. There was nothing to be done. I actually wanted to save a few of them back then, but those guys were even worse at listening than complete newcomers...}
Mai lowered her body and carefully crawled forward while casually sighing through the mental link.
Although she had only said a few sentences, Takumi was certain that this veteran's experience back then had probably been extremely dangerous. An Aberration capable of forcibly bypassing most players' perception abilities was already an absurdly unreasonable ability in itself, though it still did not reach the level of Alice directly manipulating illusions to deceive the perception of both humans and Aberrations.
'So this is the kind of thing Takumi-san and Kumagai-san go through once every month...'
Miko also sighed softly in her heart. Since she herself did not really understand what counted as stealth or infiltration, all she could do right now was imitate Takumi's movements as best as she could. Fortunately, because of certain experiences Takumi had gone through in his younger days, he was actually quite experienced when it came to infiltration and investigation. So bringing along a well-behaved complete newcomer like Miko had not caused any problems so far.
{Then how did Kumagai-neesan finally clear that Instance?}
Takumi peeked out again to observe the surroundings. Only after confirming there were no orderlies or doctors nearby did he cautiously continue forward while chatting with Mai through the mental link.
{Back then, my team got attacked twice. We managed to resolve both through Obsession Items. Meanwhile, two random players from a pickup group died. We thought it over for a while and realized we simply couldn't find any reasonable explanation for how we'd been discovered, so we directly assumed the Aberration could see our movements. Then we chose to go all in and charge straight into its damned lair. In the end, while trying to suppress that Aberration, we smashed a surveillance monitor. Only after seeing the fragments of that thing did the cognitive blocking finally break.}
Mai answered leisurely, sounding very much like someone with no interest in bragging about old exploits.
And at that very moment, from "Gotō Unit One," who was responsible for guarding the rear of the group, came Hitori's own timid voice through the mental link.
{Um... everyone... I think something's coming from behind us.}
Not a patient.
Not an orderly, nor a doctor.
What appeared on the small path cutting through the greenery was an Aberration dressed in a white uniform. Based on the rules Miko had previously found clipped inside the patient records, it should have been some sort of hospital administrator. It was rapidly approaching the group.
That thing had very clearly already locked onto Takumi and the others' position. It was advancing in a perfectly straight line without even turning at corners.
No... it was floating straight toward them.
Hitori was absolutely certain of this, because the thing's legs had not moved at all. Worse still, it passed directly through the shrubs and trees, as though it were merely a phantom without physical substance, continuing in a perfectly straight line toward them.
In that instant of icy coldness, Hitori froze slightly and discovered that blood-red marks had appeared on the walls of her room at some unknown point. She immediately realized that the Aberration's power had already begun extending into the real world.
Aoyama Nanami, who was staying beside Gotō Hitori, lightly tapped the table with her finger, and the Aberration's power extending from the Instance into reality was forcibly interrupted. The bloodstains on the wall vanished along with it.
But within the Instance itself, that thing had already crossed a considerable distance in the blink of an eye, almost reaching the point of face-to-face contact with Takumi's group.
{Run!}
Mai shouted through the mental link.
Takumi immediately accelerated with Miko and sprinted forward.
Meanwhile, Mai, who was behind them, activated the power of her blessing. A moment later, one of the hospital orderlies suddenly smashed through a window and fell from an upper floor into the grassy greenery area below. After getting back up, it immediately began trampling and destroying the landscaping.
The thing that had been chasing them in a straight line paused briefly at that moment. At the same time, more than ten orderlies and doctors suddenly emerged around the previously empty greenery area, all rushing toward the orderly destroying the landscaping.
After using up one of the personality fragments she had prepared in advance, Mai still did not lower her guard. She continued leading Takumi and the others quite a long distance away before finally slowing down slightly after confirming they had gotten far enough away from those things.
And behind them, while the orderly was being torn apart by the other Aberrations, one figure wearing an orderly uniform did not participate in that meaningless frenzy. It merely walked silently past the others, its gaze remaining fixed the entire time on the direction the players had escaped toward.
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