In the end, despite their best efforts, the security guards couldn't catch up to Gao Hai. He shook them off with ease, leaving them to stare, dumbfounded, as he leaped three meters high, landed outside the school, and quickly vanished into the residential area.
With agility and reflexes that already surpassed human limits, escaping the guards' pursuit was a trivial matter unless he was completely surrounded.
In fact, compared to evading the anomalies in the Shirakawa Apartments, Gao Hai even felt a slight sense of leisure during his escape. Of course, he remembered to wear his mask and hat to disguise himself, had used sunglasses as cover while searching for Maki, and had avoided the vast majority of surveillance cameras.
Nevertheless, while escaping Shuchiin and using the residential area to shake the guards, Gao Hai noticed someone trailing him. The person's physical abilities were formidable, far beyond what an ordinary person could possess; they felt like a 2D anime character or a player who had received a boon after clearing a game. But even so, their speed was no match for Gao Hai, who had just crossed into superhuman territory, and he lost them after a short while.
"Phew. Well, cuddle mission complete. Time to go home."
Muttering to himself, Gao Hai avoided the surveillance cameras at every intersection on his way home, changed his clothes, then promptly lay down on his bed, closed his eyes, and slept soundly until dusk.
Sitting up in bed, feeling the accumulated stress from the Shirakawa Apartments completely dissipate, Gao Hai let out a long, comfortable sigh and looked at his watch.
The watch's dial was now steadily pointing to the number 2.
Ten chances left to restart.
After dismantling the horror core of the Shirakawa Apartments and causing the entire building to collapse and vanish, his watch had absorbed all the derivative beings that had lost the support of the core, turning them into nourishment for the watch and restoring one charge.
In other words, to restore his rewind charges, Gao Hai had to destroy an instance's horror core and resolve its key obsession. Only then could he use the watch's power to absorb the derivatives and increase his number of rewinds.
It certainly didn't sound easy.
But at this point, he could only take it one step at a time.
Gao Hai couldn't help but think back to when the watch had activated this ability. At that moment, he felt as if he had been influenced by something. His emotions and the words he spoke felt less like his own and more like something else had accomplished all of it through him.
"...Are you actually self-aware?"
Gao Hai couldn't resist asking the black watch on his left wrist.
There was no reply.
Naturally, he received no answer.
But Gao Hai grew increasingly suspicious that a consciousness resided within this mysterious watch.
He had longed to start over, so he was granted the power to rewind.
He wanted to utterly destroy those two veteran players and didn't want the people he cared about to forget him, so he gained the ability to retrieve Obsession Items and bring people with him through a rewind.
Then, at the critical moment of exiting the instance, his watch gained the ability to absorb the horror's derivative beings.
Perfectly timed.
Everything was just so perfectly timed.
But why?
Gao Hai didn't believe this was all just a simple case of deus ex machina.
He knew from the moment the watch activated that he would eventually have to pay a price for this power. When the counter returned to zero, after his twelve chances were exhausted, he would have to pay the price and remain forever in that city of death. Although he still didn't know what would happen upon entering that city, Gao Hai had a feeling it wouldn't be anything good.
What are you, really?
As he pondered this, Gao Hai couldn't help but think of the box he had picked up in the small house.
When he woke up, the box was gone.
Also gone was the note left on the box.
[Don't let anyone know where you came from]
He could still remember the words on the note with a clarity that sent a chill down his spine.
Ah, I have a feeling I'm caught in the middle of some grand conspiracy.
Gao Hai scratched his head.
And this Sacrificial Game didn't come with any kind of beginner's guide. To this day, he still didn't know the specific characteristics of the three difficulty levels—Twilight, Dim Night, and Red Moon—or if there were any basic rules for the game summarized by other players. Of the three players with prior experience he met in the instance, Lao Guo and the female spy were complete morons, the kind of idiots you couldn't communicate with and just had to kill. As for Green... well, judging by his reactions, Gao Hai suspected he had only passed by luckily clinging to a super-powerful player, which was why he was completely clueless about any information regarding the Sacrificial Game.
There must be a gathering place for players to communicate.
There has to be a way to find other players and interact with them.
Both Lao Guo and the female spy had specifically come for the Shirakawa Apartments, which meant they had some prior knowledge of it, likely obtained from somewhere. Moreover, the system notification mentioned that instance entry tickets could be traded, suggesting that there might be a trading market or something similar among players.
Speaking of which, why didn't I get an entry ticket for clearing the game? Could it be because I completely broke the instance?
All sorts of thoughts swirled in his mind.
Deciding to get out of bed and search for clues on his computer, Gao Hai picked up the phone he had found in the house, which presumably belonged to the former 'Gao Hai'. The moment he lit up the screen, he saw several missed calls.
Hmm? Whose number is this?
Unable to recall at first, Gao Hai dialed the number back. The call connected almost instantly, and the next moment, a girl's voice, thick with suppressed anger, came through the phone.
"Hai-kun, do you have any idea how agonizing it's been for me to wait until now?"
Even without seeing her face, Gao Hai could feel the girl's seething fury.
"Ah, Maki?"
It was only then that Gao Hai suddenly remembered. Back at Shuchiin, when he had hugged her, he had whispered his phone number—the number of the phone he found at home—into her ear before letting go and making his escape.
But when he got home, he hadn't received a call right away, and since he was genuinely exhausted, he just went to sleep.
He hadn't expected to miss her call while he slept. And this phone was on silent, I didn't even notice. Wait, I thought phones in Japan couldn't be silenced? Or is mine a special edition?
"I'm very sorry. I was exhausted when I got back, so I took a nap."
The thoughts flashed through his mind, but Gao Hai began apologizing without a hint of hesitation, his tone and attitude utterly sincere.
"And you think I wasn't exhausted? After struggling to escape that hellhole, I still had to attend a full day of classes! And do you have any idea what the rumors about me at school are now? 'An innocent girl deceived by a delinquent from off-campus'—all because of that one hug. In broad daylight, a strange man tightly embracing a girl whose clothes are covered in dirt and tears... you idiot, do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused me—"
The girl's voice grew louder, like a roaring lioness, bellowing through the phone.
Gao Hai was already considering whether he should take a picture of himself prostrating on the ground and send it as an apology, but after her roar, she quickly returned to her normal tone.
"In any case, don't break into the school again. And if you have to come, at least wear some decent clothes and clean yourself up a bit. Don't do what you did today, sneaking in and stealing a teacher's clothes. We're in the real world now, so try to pay a little attention to your appearance."
"I have the Obsession Items you gave me with me. They still work in the real world, and I'm worried they might go out of control, so we need to meet tomorrow. You need to take them and contain them with that black watch of yours. I've also contacted my great-aunt. She has some helpers who can search for traces of other players, so don't go looking around recklessly, you might get tracked yourself."
"Lao Guo and that woman pretending to be Miwa Maeda gave me a very bad feeling. The player community might not be united at all; it could even be in a predatory, survival-of-the-fittest state. As new players, even though we seem to have gotten some good upgrades, it would be terrible if we were being targeted from the shadows."
"Also, I've noticed my body has gotten much stronger. My strength, speed, and coordination are completely different from before. That strange voice that talked about the Sacrificial Game said I got an A-rank evaluation. Then I heard a little girl's voice saying goodbye to me, and now I find I can sense the goodwill and malice of people around me. If someone just stands in front of me, I can instinctively tell if they mean me well or not. The judgment is a bit vague, but I think it must be a blessing from that child."
"You got this kind of power too, right? Be careful. It takes some time to control our enhanced strength. I accidentally pulled the classroom doorknob off this afternoon. Hey, are you listening? Why haven't you said anything?"
It was obvious that Maki truly had a lot to tell Gao Hai, so much so that she chattered on for quite a while before noticing the silence on his end and began to grumble with dissatisfaction.
"I'm listening. We're meeting tomorrow, right? When, morning or afternoon? Around what time?"
Gao Hai responded quickly, his voice full of focus and enthusiasm.
"Out of all that, the only thing you heard was 'meet tomorrow,' is that it?! Ugh, I've had enough. I really don't know what to say to you. Because of you, I became the center of attention for the entire school today. My father even called to ask if I was dating some strange guy. This is all your fault."
The girl's voice was tinged with resentment at this point.
"You can answer your father. Tell him I'm not a strange guy."
Gao Hai thought for a moment before speaking tentatively.
"Do you think using such a roundabout way will make me admit I'm dating you? You idiot, who starts dating after knowing someone for just four days? Something like that... sh-should be handled with more caution. You-you shouldn't always be in such a rush. Can't you just... just give me some time to think? My mind is still a mess right now. I can't think about things like that yet..."
The transition from annoyance to flustered anger, then to shy hesitation, took less than ten seconds.
Gao Hai didn't know if she was doing it on purpose or if it was just her nature, but he had to admit that anime girls were astonishingly powerful when it came to being cute.
"I know. I'm sorry, I guess I was being a bit too eager. In any case, we both survived. That's something worth celebrating. I'm really, really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, Maki."
A smile spread even wider across his lips, and the joy in his voice was completely undisguised.
"Ugh... what nonsense are you spouting now? Anyway, don't you dare show up all prim and proper tomorrow!"
Beep—
In the end, it was the girl who hung up first, abruptly ending the call.
Gao Hai put the phone down and sat in the chair by the bedroom desk. After a long moment, he clenched both fists, shook them, and whispered, "Alright!"
No matter what happened next, Gao Hai felt he was ready to face it. Screw all these damn supernatural horror rules-based horror story scenarios. He was going to cater to his otaku heart, he was going to fall in love. Ah, of course, gathering intelligence and understanding his situation was also important, but it was best if he could do both without one getting in the way of the other.
As he was thinking this, Gao Hai turned his head to look out the window, then glanced down at his phone.
Then he paused and turned his gaze back to the window.
And for a moment, his eyes met the pale face of a woman pressed against the glass from outside.
Gao Hai: ???
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