Crack crack crack.
The bone execution chairs suddenly collapsed, scattering across the ground in pieces.
Natsuki and the others were caught completely off guard and all tumbled to the floor at once.
"Oh my."
"That hurt so badly—"
Chika and Rokka's pained groans reached his ears.
Pretty Sheep Yukino was still perched on Natsuki's lap. When the execution chair shattered, Natsuki instinctively pulled the little lamb close.
At the same time.
As the tiny girl emerged from Miss Spiderling's back, the entire room began to shake.
"Esteemed guests, please leave this room as quickly as possible."
Mr. Billy, who had remained silent throughout, suddenly spoke up in warning.
It was obvious enough. Miss Spiderling, whose disguise had been exposed, wasn't simply going to disappear—she was about to lose her temper.
In game terms: a battle phase was about to begin.
Natsuki leapt to his feet. With Pretty Sheep Yukino cradled in his arms, he reached out and pulled the ice queen up:
"We need to get out of here now."
Amid chaos and collapsing surroundings, Natsuki led the girls sprinting for the exit.
They had barely taken a few steps when Natsuki suddenly felt his arms grow heavier. He looked down—Pretty Sheep Yukino had already transformed back into the black-haired girl.
The transformation lasted less than a minute? Even Ultraman held out longer than that!
Having suddenly reverted from sheep to human, Yukino evidently suffered some mild aftereffects. Her vision swam slightly, and on instinct she wrapped both arms around Natsuki's neck.
The situation was too urgent. Natsuki had no time to set her down—he simply kept running toward the door with her in his arms.
Fortunately, Miko's relentless stepping sessions had given him a noticeable boost to his physical conditioning over the past while. Suddenly having an extra girl in his arms didn't slow him down.
After Yukino regained her senses, she instinctively squirmed once—then, having assessed the situation, quickly calmed herself. She steadied her body as best she could, trying not to be a burden.
About ten seconds later, the group finally burst out of the room.
"We escaped."
Chika pressed a hand to her chest and let out a long, relieved breath. "I thought I was going to burst just now."
That's fat, not a balloon or a water balloon—how could it possibly burst?
"Glare—"
A gaze landed on Natsuki. It seemed... displeased.
"Amamiya-kun, how long are you planning to keep holding her?"
Kaguya folded both arms across her chest, looking at him with a perfectly expressionless face.
Natsuki blinked. Only then did he remember he was still holding the black-haired girl.
"My apologies."
He set Yukino down.
"The one who should be apologizing is me." Yukino took two quiet steps back, coming to stand beside Rokka. She raised her right hand, slender fingers tucking a strand of hair that had fallen across her chest behind her ear. With perfect composure she said: "I caused you all trouble."
"Not at all." Rokka shook her head stubbornly. "If it weren't for Yukino just now, we wouldn't have been able to escape."
"I simply happened to be sitting next to Fujiwara-san, that's all."
Yukino shook her head. Her gaze met Natsuki's for a fraction of a second—then immediately slid away.
"Yukino-chan." Rokka's eyes widened with curiosity. "Why is your face red?"
Yukino turned her face aside: "...I'm not blushing."
"You clearly are."
"..."
Natsuki had a pretty good idea why the black-haired girl was blushing.
In the heat of the moment, the way he'd been holding her had been... slightly off. All things considered... the sensation of softness still lingered faintly in his palms.
"It seems like Amamiya-kun is quite reluctant to let go."
Kaguya folded both arms across her chest, tilting her pretty face upward ever so slightly. A smile played across her lips as she looked at him.
A cold smile.
An extremely obvious one at that.
You must be saying the opposite of what you mean!
"That Miss Spiderling from just now—she should be a monster from one of the Goosebumps stories." Chika planted her right hand on her hip, wiping her forehead with the back of her left hand. "I read it as a kid. I can't remember the exact details, but bottom line—after we exposed her true identity, she got angry."
"Oh, right." The pink-haired girl's eyes went wide. She leaned forward slightly, peering at Mr. Billy, still held firmly in Natsuki's hand. She murmured to herself: "Mr. Butler looks just like the puppet from Goosebumps... and then there was the Headless Horseman earlier, and the ghost maid. Everything feels oddly familiar."
"I read Goosebumps too." Yukino folded her right arm across her chest. It had to be said—this black-haired girl with hair falling past her waist was genuinely beautiful. She held up just as well as the ice queen, if not better. It was simply that her eyes and tone were so frigid they made people feel impossible to approach. "Could they actually be characters from the books themselves?"
Chika shook her head: "How would characters from books end up inside the game?"
Kaguya's voice was cool and measured:
"The fireplace. Earlier."
"The fireplace..." Chika's eyes flew wide in an instant. "Do you mean... the books we burned before?"
The pink-haired girl bit her lower lip with guilt: "If I'd known, I would have stopped everyone from burning them in the first place."
"We didn't know the truth at the time. The conclusion about the fireplace is still just speculation." Natsuki spoke with calm clarity. "And besides—it was so cold back then. No one could have refused to light a fire."
When people are desperate, they'll do anything—except math.
There was an ancient idiom for exactly this: drinking poison to quench one's thirst. Knowing full well it was deadly venom, some people would still choose to swallow it down.
Burning the books for warmth had been exactly the same. Natsuki's warming effect had been a drop in the bucket—nowhere near enough to keep everyone comfortable. Under the relentless assault of the cold, someone was inevitably going to snap and choose to burn the books anyway.
"Wait." Natsuki suddenly frowned, turning his serious gaze on the pink-haired girl. He'd noticed a detail that had been overlooked entirely.
"Amamiya-kun, what's wrong?" Chika blinked, her expression confused.
Natsuki looked at her with intent focus:
"You just said you were sweating?"
"Did I say that...?" Chika tilted her head and thought for a moment. "It was so dangerous just now—that chair kept getting tighter and tighter. I could barely breathe. So I broke out in a cold sweat from fright."
Natsuki drew in a deep breath: "Are you all cold right now?"
"Eh?"
Chika was stunned for a beat. She hesitated: "Hmm... actually... I don't think I'm cold anymore?"
Kotoriyū Rokka raised her hand: "I think I'm not cold either."
Yukino Yukinoshita pinched her brows together slightly, lost in thought.
Kaguya spoke in a calm, measured tone:
"That's true. Ever since we left the hall, it seems like we've gradually... stopped feeling cold."
"Something is off." Chika rested her right hand against her chin, striking Detective Conan's signature pose. "We've been away from the fireplace for so long now. We should be shivering uncontrollably by this point... there has to be something wrong."
"..."
Natsuki turned his head and looked out the window.
Outside the castle, the sky remained murky and overcast—and the massive blizzard that obscured all visibility showed absolutely no sign of letting up.
The storm was going to rage on until the very end of the world. Before that point, it would never cease.
"Esteemed guests, time is running short." Mr. Billy spoke with a meaningful tone. "Please attend the dinner banquet as soon as possible. If you miss it, I'm certain you will come to regret it."
Natsuki glanced down at the butler in his hand. A prompt appeared before his eyes.
[You furrow your brow and realize the dinner banquet is quite important. You decide to attend]
Natsuki quickly said:
"Let's go to the dinner banquet."
"A wise choice." Mr. Billy's tone carried a note of approval. "The banquet is being held just past the back of the hall on the first floor. Please, go ahead."
"Let's go. Together."
Chika walked up to Natsuki's side.
The pink-haired girl trusted Natsuki implicitly—of course she would move in lockstep with him.
Kaguya felt the same way.
Only Yukino cast a dissenting vote—though in the end she chose to go along with the group as well.
"..."
The group made their way downstairs. When they reached the second floor, they suddenly ran headlong into a girl who was stumbling around in a blind panic.
The girl's face was deathly pale, her breathing rapid and ragged. The moment she spotted Natsuki and the others, it was as though she had found a lifeline. She seized Natsuki's wrist in a white-knuckled grip:
"S-someone... someone died."