Five minutes later...
On the fourth floor, in the living room of one of the suites, the Uber Eats rider looked at Fumiya Jin with some confusion.
In the past five minutes, Fumiya Jin had led them to the fourth floor, found this suite with an open door, and began rummaging through everything for materials.
After some searching, he found a bottle of Florida water, a roll of toilet paper, a roll of tape, and some discarded cardboard boxes.
Then, he came to the living room, asked the Uber Eats rider for the matches he had told him to hold onto earlier, and began to set up a strange mechanism, even having Kei Shirogane assist him. He even used a mobile phone during the process.
Fumiya Jin didn't ask the two riders for help, so the Uber Eats rider and his brother just watched quietly from the side. But after watching for a long time, he still didn't quite understand what Fumiya Jin was doing.
"Boss... what are you doing?" he couldn't help but ask.
Fumiya Jin was in the middle of the final steps and didn't answer him—after all, he didn't have the time right now to turn around and check if it was the rider himself who was speaking.
He placed a long, thin box with a row of matches taped to it into a pre-designed position. Then he set a vibrating alarm on the phone and placed it at the edge of a small, slightly tilted platform he had constructed, adjusting it so that it would slide off with the slightest vibration.
...
"Done!" Fumiya Jin clapped his hands and pulled Kei Shirogane up to her feet.
"Will... will this be enough?" Kei Shirogane looked at Fumiya Jin curiously.
"Yeah, it's basically just a timed ignition device. It's a bit crude, but as long as it triggers, it'll work. Even if we're unlucky and it fails to trigger, we can just come back up later and set it up again," Fumiya Jin said.
The Uber Eats rider walked over and asked, puzzled, "Boss, you went to all this trouble just to light a fire? Wouldn't it be faster to just strike a match and light the curtains?"
It was worth noting that in the past five minutes, the voice trying to lure them into responding had sounded more than once.
Although everyone was very cautious and didn't fall for it, the atmosphere was still quite tense.
"The key is the timing," Fumiya Jin said. "I set the alarm for five minutes from now. So, we should head to the second floor."
"To the second floor?" The Uber Eats rider was still completely baffled. "For what?"
"Don't ask, just follow me." Fumiya Jin took Kei Shirogane's hand and was the first to rush out of the suite.
...
Arriving on the second floor, Fumiya Jin found a suite with an open door, relatively far from the stairwell, and went inside.
Inside the room were the bodies of a husband and wife, but they could only mourn them for a few seconds before moving on.
Fumiya Jin led the group into the bedroom, pointed at the wardrobe, and said to the two riders, "Just in case, you should both grab some more clothes and down jackets and wrap yourselves in them. We might have to endure it for a little while."
The two riders still didn't fully understand what he meant.
But out of respect for the pro, they opened the wardrobe and began to search.
As for Fumiya Jin, he rolled up a quilt from the bed, took Kei Shirogane to a corner of the room, and sat down with her, both of them leaning against the corner. Then he wrapped the quilt around them, the inside facing inwards.
Kei Shirogane thought this was a crucial step to clearing the instance, so she obediently followed Fumiya Jin's instructions.
But it wasn't until she was tightly wrapped in the quilt, their bodies pressed together in the enclosed space, that she suddenly realized this was perhaps a tiny bit... inappropriate.
"Fumiya-san..." Kei Shirogane's cheeks flushed slightly as she whispered, "Isn't this wrapped... a little too tight?"
"Tighter is better, for warmth," Fumiya Jin said with a perfectly straight face. "This place might turn into a frozen wasteland in a moment. I'm not kidding."
"But this is... a little cramped, isn't it?" Kei Shirogane scratched her cheek, finding it difficult to even lift her hand to do so.
"Hmm, sitting side-by-side like this does make it a bit tight..." Fumiya Jin admitted.
"Then..."
"Alright, then... let's do this." Fumiya Jin nodded, as if having made some sort of decision.
Then he turned slightly, opened his arms, and gathered Kei Shirogane's slender, soft body into his embrace, holding her tightly.
Now that they were snugly fit together, the space inside the quilt suddenly became much more ample.
"Eh? Eh, eh, eh??"
Kei Shirogane was stunned.
Her little face turned completely red.
This seemed to be the first time Fumiya-san had held her so intimately, aside from when they first met.
It was worth mentioning that when they first met, although he had carried her princess-style, her mind had gone completely blank from the terror of nearly dying. She hadn't felt anything at all, and by the time she came to her senses, she was already on the ground.
So, strictly speaking, this was Kei Shirogane's first true experience of being held tightly by Fumiya Jin...
A solid feeling pressed against her.
A searing heat seemed to envelop her entire being.
Normally, a girl's body temperature should be higher than a boy's...
But for some reason, the moment she fell into Fumiya Jin's arms, she felt as if she was about to burst into flames.
The heart in her chest, as if injected with adrenaline, began to beat wildly. Thump, thump, thump, thump, it was incessantly noisy.
"Is this... right?" she became lost.
"Yes, yes, it is," Fumiya Jin said gently. "At a time of life and death, we don't need to worry about such trivial details."
"I see..." The girl seemed to have found an explanation that could convince herself.
But her heart was still beating so fast, and her breathing grew ragged, so she couldn't even speak. She could only bury her face in his chest, panting heavily.
Fumiya Jin, however, felt completely at ease. Cradling the girl's soft body, feeling the smooth, jade-like texture that was as tender and bouncy as jelly, his mood improved considerably.
Meanwhile, the two riders rummaging through the wardrobe noticed the situation in the corner. They were both slightly taken aback, feeling a bit sour inside—Boss, could you be a little more considerate? The two of us bachelors are still watching. And besides, this is a dangerous Samsara Game. Is it really appropriate for you two to be so lovey-dovey?
But they knew their place and didn't dare complain much, quickly searching through a few cabinets. They didn't find a second quilt, only a few down jackets and cotton coats, so they had to pile them on and wrap themselves up.
Five minutes passed in the blink of an eye...
Being two floors down, it was impossible for them to hear whether the vibrating alarm on the fourth floor had gone off or if the mechanism had triggered.
But...
Suddenly!
A chill washed over them.
It was a severe cold that defied logic and the laws of physics, ignoring any principles of heat transfer, and filled the entire room in an instant.
Fumiya Jin and the others instantly felt a stiff, stinging pain on their faces and quickly ducked their heads.
"Hss—so cold..." Kei Shirogane whimpered softly, snuggling even deeper into Fumiya Jin's embrace...
_____
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