Gulp.
Yuuki swallowed instinctively. His head buzzed, and within a single second, his expression cycled through confusion, incomprehension, anger…
As that grating countdown echoed on, it felt as if someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart hard. Blood surged to his head, and his thoughts became both chaotic and startlingly clear.
Why now, of all times? Could Sakurajima Mai really be connected to something abnormal—could even thinking about her trigger unpredictable consequences?
Yuuki had already more or less convinced himself that the world was safe. He had been ready to begin a brand-new life. This sudden turn of events hit him like a blow to the head, and his first instinct was pure anger.
But a second later, reason returned.
"So what I saw back then wasn't a hallucination after all?!"
Who wrote it?
Why warn me?
Why now?
Yuuki's stunned state was a little different from an ordinary person's. It wasn't the philosophical Who am I? Where am I? sort of confusion, but rather a shivering sense of being swallowed by shadow.
His mind felt as blank as though it had been soaked clean in the water of life, leaving no trace of memory behind. With no way to untangle the question, Yuuki forcibly set it aside and then…
…felt a strange hint of relief.
Whatever the reason, hadn't he spent years preparing for exactly this moment?
All that restraint, all that training, all that obsessive searching through the fragments of his memories from his previous life—who knew how many childhood-friend routes he had already missed because of this day? If it had all turned out to be nothing but his imagination, wouldn't that have been an even bigger loss?
"How weird. I honestly can't tell whether I've won or lost here."
His heartbeat gradually steadied.
At the very least, this proved he hadn't spent all these years as some delusional paranoiac. Like a top student endlessly grinding practice exams, whether or not he could actually write the answers was secondary. When the real test came, at least he was mentally prepared.
[Please open the door, regroup with your teammates, and complete the beginner's guide.]
[Afterward, the player will unlock their personal status panel.]
[Countdown begins. Ten, nine, eight…]
That strange voice rang out again. Questions he had once imagined in countless hypothetical scenarios now flooded uncontrollably into his mind, and the brain that had been stiff a moment ago began spinning at full speed.
"Reincarnation Game? Player? Is this some kind of infinite-flow dungeon-traversal setup? But why is there no mission prompt?"
"Open the door and regroup with teammates? Is this some kind of rookie test? Does the real game only reveal itself after this stage? And if I don't open it, what happens?"
By the time the countdown reached four, Yuuki's head was already filled with questions.
None of them were answered.
Because the voice had already vanished, with absolutely no intention of responding.
He glanced at the endless, bizarre corridor—and without the slightest hesitation, twisted the handle and pushed inward.
General Rule #1: In a game, it's best to do what the system tells you.
Creak—
The wooden door let out a harsh groan as it opened, and Yuuki stepped straight through. The wall lamps' glow made him narrow his eyes slightly.
Beyond it was still a corridor.
Gray carpet. Greenish walls. Nearly identical to the one before. The difference was that now he could see other things in it.
There were no windows. Six wooden doors were lined up along the hallway. In the middle stood a staircase leading both up and down. When he turned back, the door he had come through remained open, and through its frame he could still see that same monotonous corridor from before.
A villa? A castle?
The corner of Yuuki's eye twitched slightly. Once the countdown was gone, a measure of relief rose in his chest.
He was certain he had made the right choice.
And yet the scene before him left his expression complicated.
"This isn't quite what I imagined."
Over the years, besides apocalyptic collapse and supernatural invasion, Yuuki had also pictured situations where he might be dragged into some kind of game. But after that bizarre minute just now, he realized there had been flaws in all his previous fantasies.
"There's no clear template. So it's probably not something like Terror Infinity… Could it be one of those rule-horror setups? If it is, there's no real way to prepare for that."
His head was still buzzing. Yuuki raised a foot unconsciously, and only when it sank into the carpet and he felt the soft give beneath him did he snap fully back to himself. His gaze hardened.
The moment he took this step, there would be no turning back.
No matter what kind of game this was, no matter whether all his years of preparation had been wasted, his goal had not changed in the slightest from the day he first transmigrated into this world—
I want to live.
The corridor itself showed no obvious supernatural traits. At least in terms of physical laws, it worked just like reality. Fully focused now, Yuuki crossed the soft carpet and quickly reached the staircase in the middle.
"So—up or down? There are at least five more corridors past the corners. That means this place is at least five floors tall. Probably some kind of castle or large building."
After making that judgment, he glanced once at the gloomy darkness below—
Then abruptly looked up.
Faintly, he could make out a crimson glow.
Against the corridor's dim wall lamps, that trace of scarlet stood out with startling clarity. The tension in Yuuki's face eased a little, and then the strange voice rang out again.
[Player, you have fifteen minutes remaining.]
"Hah. I thought I'd actually have to search floor by floor. So there are hints after all. But fifteen minutes? Does going upstairs really take that long?"
He lifted his foot—
Then stopped just as he stepped onto the wooden stairs.
Thud.
His leather shoe struck the wood with a muffled sound.
But what reached his ears were two thuds.
In the deathly silent corridor, it was unmistakable.
"There's someone else here?"
The muscles in his body tensed instinctively, but Yuuki wasn't particularly surprised. The earlier prompt had already told him to regroup with his teammates, which meant he definitely wasn't alone in this building.
Teammate?
Or some kind of dungeon monster?
After thinking for a moment, Yuuki slipped his right hand into the inner pocket of his coat, pressed his back tightly against the wall, and rose onto the balls of his feet as he crept upward step by step. Peering past the corner, he vaguely saw a dark figure climbing the stairs ahead.
The upper half of its body was hidden in the shadows beyond the light, but he could make out pale blue jeans and white sneakers. As if it had heard Yuuki coming up, those legs paused—and then the white sneakers turned around.
"Who's there!?"
It wasn't Japanese.
It sounded more like Spanish, or something similar, yet Yuuki understood the girl's voice perfectly without the slightest barrier.
That, at least, wasn't especially strange. If even time and space could be twisted so casually, then making everyone in the script understand one another was child's play.
Yuuki remained silent.
At the very least, right now, he couldn't trust any living thing.
"You were kidnapped too, weren't you? Thank God—I thought I was the only one here!"
When Yuuki didn't answer, the voice became even more urgent. There was even a hint of tears in it now. She started hurrying downstairs as she spoke, her voice trembling with lingering fear.
"Did you hear that weird voice earlier, the one talking about some bullshit game? Get me out of here, quick! If we make it out safely, I'll have my dad pay you!"
The girl rounded the corner and finally got a clear look at Yuuki standing there in full. But the moment she saw the black-haired boy retreating the way he had come, the near-tearful tone in her sweet voice turned irritable.
"Hey! Why are you backing away?!"
Yuuki really was backing away—and far faster than he had climbed up. In the blink of an eye, he was back in the corridor, head tilted up, swallowing hard.
"Miss," he asked, "when you heard that strange voice, what did you do?"
"What did I do? Obviously I turned around and ran! Then before I knew it I ended up here. Seriously, get over here already! Why are you standing so far away from me?"
The girl kept coming down toward him, and there was a trace of hysteria creeping into her voice now, something utterly at odds with its sweetness.
"I see. So you didn't follow the instructions."
Yuuki stood where he was. Under the wall lamp's glow, the figure at the corner of the stairs reflected in his crimson eyes.
Her body matched that pretty voice of hers—a lovely figure, her cartoon-print T-shirt and jeans outlining the full breasts and hips typical of a Western woman.
But once his gaze moved upward, the scene turned bloody and grotesque.
Her pale neck was like the base of a flowerpot.
Where her beautiful head should have been, everything had split apart completely, like a cartoon drawing torn to shreds by a cruel child. Skull and muscle had peeled outward like petals, and the mouth divided across three "petals" wriggled as it spoke, saliva dripping uncontrollably onto the floor.
From angles she herself could not see, that saliva had pooled into a spreading puddle, slowly creeping outward. It carried with it a thick stench of blood, and the reek hit him full in the face.
"Miss," Yuuki mouthed soundlessly, the corner of his lips twitching, "your head has bloomed open."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 126)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter134)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 87
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 79
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 73
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 49
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 45
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 45
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 31
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 27
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 26
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