An embrace.
Without the slightest hesitation, Fujiwara Chika went straight up, opened her arms, and hugged Takumi.
Such a close embrace, filled with the fresh scent of a girl and a soft, gentle touch.
As a result, that guy who showed up every cycle—the one with a hole opened in the back of his head—actually did not come forward to strike up a conversation this time. He only glanced at Takumi and Fujiwara Chika from afar, then muttered, "A couple, huh. I won't be a third wheel," and proactively left.
That said, these kinds of bizarre beings that "play at being human" are really something else. That security guard was the same—when facing a group of players in security uniforms who were blocking him and claiming they had accidentally remembered the shift-change time wrong and arrived early, even the tone of his speech made Takumi feel a faint, barely perceptible sense of grievance. He had no idea whether Maki and Kaguya over at the research base could make use of this point to do something, to establish a greater advantage right at the opening, so that their actions would not always be so constrained.
In any case, no matter what, next it would be time to bring things to an end.
For this damned cave, Takumi had already died twice. The first time, being squeezed like toothpaste by that young lady was barely acceptable—at least it was a quick death. The second time was far too torturous; it truly made Takumi feel the extreme torment of developing claustrophobia. No matter what, he absolutely did not want to experience that again.
And before that—
"Can I just call you Takumi? And you can just call me Chika, Takumi-kun."
The girl, her complexion flushed, did not dare lift her head to meet Takumi's gaze. Instead, she tightly gripped Takumi's collar, her whole body almost completely leaning into his arms.
Very clearly, after leaving the instance, Fujiwara Chika had learned the full functions of Takumi's watch from Kaguya and Maki. Therefore, she knew very well why she was now able to retain her memories, and that it was not merely because she had feelings for Takumi.
At the beginning, amid the joy of reunion, Chika had not paid too much attention to these details. But now, after calming down, her face almost immediately flushed red, her small face nearly turning into a red apple—looking pink and tender, extremely cute, making one unable to resist wanting to take a bite.
"Takumi? No problem. Then I'll change how I address you too—Chika?"
Takumi nodded very naturally. He felt completely fine with her not using honorifics—or rather, as long as she didn't start calling him something like "Puddin'" or anything along those lines, he was fine with just about anything.
"Hehehe~ Takumi~. It actually feels pretty smooth to say. So then, next we're still heading to the Heart, right? After all, that's something that must be done as an Explorer."
After a brief bout of playful banter, Fujiwara Chika took a light breath, and her expression quickly turned serious.
At this moment, although the girl still looked like a newbie who had just entered the game, in reality she was already a new player who had gained a full extra month of experience—learning about the Sacrifice Game through various channels, and possessing especially deep memories of the Red Nut Grey Cave instance.
Now that everything was starting over from the beginning, it was only natural to do things to the very best, leaving absolutely no regrets. On this point, Fujiwara Chika was extremely resolute. On the line was her pride as a gamer—this time, she would absolutely not let Takumi disappear from her sight again.
"Mm, that is indeed the first thing we need to do. But before that, I need to confirm something. Chika, you should have investigated quite a lot, right? Is there any information I don't know yet? I really need it right now."
"Of course. During that one month, I followed Kaguya and Shijō-san to look for a lot of players, and we asked many people to help us. And fortunately, this is a Dark Night-level instance at the maximum difficulty, so everyone avoids this instance like the plague. Relatively speaking, that made collecting information much easier."
As he said this, Takumi was the first to move, heading toward one side of the cavern, while Fujiwara Chika followed beside him and quickly began to explain the situation.
Of course, while communicating here, Takumi did not forget to use the connection between himself and Maki to communicate with her, dumping all the various pieces of information he had mentioned during the second cycle over to her in one go. And also—well—Takumi did not tell her about how Fujiwara Chika had saved him. Although he had already prepared himself for a "take everything" approach, at the moment he still had not found a suitable opportunity. For now, it was better not to bring this up yet.
Perhaps this was what people called a guilty conscience—though Takumi knew he would not regret it.
The first thing Fujiwara Chika told Takumi was that she had confirmed that the place known as the Red Nut Grey Cave did exist in the real world. Even though, after flying to that location, the three girls discovered that the cave that had once been there had already disappeared, after searching through various records from the last century, they did indeed find records of the Red Nut Grey Cave, confirming that this place had truly existed. In addition, Kaguya also incidentally confirmed the existence of a place called the Shirakawa Apartments, and discovered that it, too, had really existed.
During the investigation, Kaguya discovered that the Shinomiya Group had actually invested in this scenic area, donating a batch of equipment and then putting in a large sum of money. As for why this donation could not be seen being used anywhere within the instance at all—well, cough cough—that was probably something to ask Anthony Tovan Bush and his group about.
Howard Smith, Susan, Patrick Reed, Wilbur… the three girls managed to dig up records on all of these people and confirm their existence. Although many records could no longer be found, what could be confirmed was that Patrick Reed himself should have gone missing during the period when the flood submerged the Red Nut Grey Cave. That Anthony Tovan, the mayor he had promoted, and many journalists also disappeared around the same time. It was very likely that something happened to all of them during the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
As for Wilbur, records of his life could still be found for at least two years after the flood incident. At first, he hid in Europe, then went over to Russia, but after nearly two years in hiding, he returned to the Red Nut Grey Cave and then vanished without a trace. Howard, on the other hand, was issued a death certificate during the flood. Even though there was nothing at all in his grave, Takumi could be certain that after that point Howard had been detained by people from the research base, and his final outcome was probably not a good one.
As for Susan, this player had not been able to leave the instance. Kaguya and the others spent a great deal of time searching for her, but in the end only found some traces of her existence. Worth mentioning was that, according to Kaguya and the others' investigation, Susan herself was actually already an elderly woman in her sixties or seventies. Yet what Takumi and Chika had seen inside the instance was a nimble young woman. This discrepancy was truly jarring, and it inevitably made Takumi wonder whether she might in fact be the "Curtain Call Actor."
Finally, there was the investigation into the two names Professor Vernon and General Gallagher, which yielded no results at all.
Kaguya had only just begun attempting to investigate these two when she directly received a warning from her family. Maki likewise failed to make any effective progress. However, relying on her connections from a political family, Fujiwara Chika managed to inquire into some things. These two individuals appeared to be involved in certain top-secret plans of the United States from that year, and even now, information about them remained under an extremely high level of classification. Professor Vernon, in particular, had even reached the highest secrecy level. According to Chika's speculation, this might mean that the professor was actually still alive—because matters concerning the dead do not require such a high level of secrecy.
Further details about the Red Nut Grey Cave were not so easy to investigate. After this place became an instance, the entire Red Nut Grey Cave seemed to have detached itself from the real world, and everything related to it subsequently took on an effect similar to that of an anti-meme. Unless a player actively investigated it, other people would, at most, spend a few hours looking into it before forgetting what they were doing. Even if they took out their previous investigation records, they would only stare at them blankly. And aside from those few names, other information often appeared in an extremely scattered state, which greatly increased the difficulty of investigation—especially investigations during the research-base phase, which were even more fraught with obstacles.
However, when normal channels did not work, there was still the option of directly asking other players who had survived. Because of this, the three girls still obtained a great deal of intelligence.
"We have many hypotheses, but there are still a lot of things that need to be verified. Takumi, Kaguya and Shijō-san on their side might need some Obsession Items to act more effectively. Have you thought about how to allocate them?"
After briefly explaining the situation, Chika looked at Takumi and asked seriously.
"Mm, let me think. We need to first determine Maki and the others' needs. But for now, let's wait a bit—there are other Explorers coming over."
Takumi had just opened his mouth, intending to say something, when he frowned and looked ahead, then instinctively stepped in front of Chika.
Ahead in the dark cavern, as headlamps flickered, two people appeared before Takumi—a man and a woman. They were precisely the two players whose minds had been affected by Kawano's Obsession Item in the previous two cycles, and who therefore had never been able to communicate normally with Takumi.
"Hello. Looks like, aside from us, there are other unlucky folks trapped in this fixing hellhole. Maybe that's what you call luck, right?"
As she spoke, the woman approached Takumi and Chika with clear caution. The two sides stopped at a distance of about ten meters, and both Takumi and the woman standing opposite had their hands resting on the guns at their waists.
"Whether it's good luck or bad depends on whether we return loaded with gains or leave empty-handed."
Facing the woman's slightly teasing words, Takumi replied calmly, his voice utterly without ripples.
"Hah, is that so? I'm an Explorer—Zero Shelby."
The woman nodded, her tone settling into neutrality as she spoke.
"Ed Young, Explorer—uh, part-time doctor. Hello."
The male player following behind that woman gave a somewhat shy smile as well, and also greeted Takumi and Chika.
It was obvious that after leaving that Kawano behind, the two of them seemed much more normal.
Speaking of which, in the first game there had already been a case where that Black guy was tricked away by Tanaka, and now it happened again in this one. Are these kinds of players who like to screw over other players a fixed trope that appears in every instance?
"Explorer Takumi, and this is Explorer Chika. As you can see, a couple Explorer duo—of course, also a player duo."
Reaching out, he gave a light pat to Chika's smooth little head. Then, under her somewhat displeased gaze, Takumi remained expressionless and spoke crisply and decisively to the two people in front of him. That manner even carried a hint of practiced familiarity.
At the same time, on the other side, Kawano—
"W-why?! Where did my Obsession Item go?! Damn it, how am I supposed to find cannon fodder like this?!"
Grinding his teeth, Kawano spun around in circles on the spot. Meanwhile, Dennis, holding up his phone and constantly taking selfies, was already whistling as he walked into the area Kawano was in.
Seeing Kawano's face filled with rage, Dennis immediately started recording and pointed the camera at him, then spoke up.
"Hey, buddy, what's going on with you? Don't forget that rationality is the most precious asset we humans have. Oh, and by the way, what's this place about? Is this some kind of prank reality show?"
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