Shijō Maki always felt that something was a bit off.
Although right at the start she had obtained a large amount of information from Takumi through the mental link between the two of them, learning many things and gaining quite a few advantages for the opening, for some reason the girl instinctively felt that when Takumi spoke with her, his attitude carried a sense of concealment—as if he were trying to cover up or hide something.
Mm… although this was only a feeling and there was no concrete evidence, once this thought arose, the doubts in Maki's heart could not help but begin to intensify.
That idiot—he isn't forcing himself, is he?
Maki could not help but feel a bit worried.
After all, according to what Takumi had said, this was already the second rollback, which meant that the present run was the third attempt at this instance. What kind of torment Takumi had gone through before this, and in what ways he had met death twice—these were things Maki was completely unaware of. Although she had asked about it, Takumi had brushed it off. Maki understood that matters like these were also a heavy burden for him, so she did not press further. Instead, she focused more on what she needed to do at the moment, deciding to handle her own side of things properly.
And then there was… Fujiwara Chika?
Maki did not have a deep impression of this person. She only knew that the other party came from a political family, and that at school, Maki and Chika had basically had no interaction. She had, however, heard that that girl had a very good relationship with Kaguya—the two of them had already been friends since middle school.
With Takumi protecting her, as long as that person did not act recklessly, safety was basically guaranteed. Still… hmm, a girl she completely did not understand hovering around Takumi—somehow that made her feel uneasy. She did not know what kind of person she was.
At this moment, Shijō Maki felt a subtle sense of crisis arise.
{All in all, we need more decisive action now. Up to this point, the investigation work inside the research base has been far too passive. We have to find a way to break through.}
{Next, I will head to the [Land of Regret] area. Through the power of blessings, I should be able to gather various kinds of information there. Chi—Fujiwara-san will go over to your side and bring along several Obsession Items I've given her.}
{In short, as long as you ensure your own safety, make a big commotion.}
Not long after the communication with Takumi's side ended, Shinomiya Kaguya—who was playing the role of an exploration personnel—had just set off, when Fujiwara Chika abruptly replaced the exploration personnel who had been played by a weird entity.
Maki could tell that the relationship between Kaguya and Chika was indeed very good. After meeting, the two of them cooperated with great tacit understanding. However, although Fujiwara Chika should clearly have been a newcomer, Maki felt that the other party seemed even more familiar with this place than she and Kaguya were—there was a kind of effortless, practiced naturalness to her actions. This point was truly puzzling.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Takumi had already successfully passed through the [Artery], smoothly completed the route of reaching the [Heart], then proceeding to the [Large Space] and onward to [Stone Pillar Plaza]. Incidentally, compared to the time it had taken to complete this route during the second run, Takumi's clear time this time was improved by a full three minutes or so. It could be said that he had added a brand-new record to the speedrun route of the Red Nut Grey Cave.
"You really are quite an impressive veteran."
Along the way, Shelby spoke with a sense of awe as she followed Takumi. She and Ed had actually participated in several missions before as well, but because they had been stuck for a long time hovering around Dusk-level tasks and lacked the ability to clear Dark Night-level tasks, the two of them had been under considerable psychological pressure. Yet Takumi led them the entire way, effortlessly avoiding those mangled [Explorers]. He could even chat calmly with those terrifying things without changing expression, while teaching them to check their exploration suits at all times—presenting himself unmistakably as a seasoned veteran among veterans.
Even upon reaching the Land of Regret—that extremely bizarre fire station entrance that appeared underground—Takumi continued explaining things to these players, telling them that this place was a gathering formed from the consciousness of the dead within the cave, and then informing them of the existence of a safe house: the guard post in the area where the Rescue Team was stationed.
At first, Shelby had harbored some doubts about whether Takumi's eloquent manner was merely for show. But after truly experiencing danger and seeing Takumi's own relaxed and composed way of dealing with it, she had no choice but to admit that this guy was genuinely strong. Ed beside her shared the same thought, and even felt a faint sense of admiration toward Takumi.
"You… seem to know this place extremely well?"
This time, even while escorting two players, Takumi arrived at Stone Pillar Plaza earlier than Rex and Susan. As a result, after waiting and resting there for a short while, Takumi finally saw the two of them walk over together. Then, upon learning that it was Takumi who had led these two players safely to this point, the veteran player named Rex immediately showed a surprised expression, looked toward Takumi, and walked over to ask curiously.
"I wouldn't say I know it that well. It's just that I have experience with other Dark Night-level instances—Shirakawa Apartments, for example, whose actual difficulty is close to the upper limit of Dark Night-level—so I have some experience with these things. But you're impressive too, being able to bring a newcomer all the way here."
Takumi said this to Rex with a smile, his tone filled with respect.
"No, I wouldn't say that. Miss Susan is a very capable person, and the fact that we made it here was actually a matter of luck."
Rex smiled as well, the expression on his face carrying a hint of embarrassment.
Thus, Takumi and Rex stood facing each other, smiling.
The smiles on their faces looked so natural, so ordinary—just like elderly neighbors meeting while going out to buy groceries, exchanging greetings and sharing a brief smile.
However, in Takumi's heart, he had already raised his vigilance toward Rex to the maximum.
More than ten minutes earlier, before Fujiwara Chika put on the yellow-and-white striped uniform of an exploration personnel and left, one of the many pieces of information she had told him concerned Rex.
"Among the returning players, there is no Rex."
Fujiwara Chika was very certain about this piece of information.
Added to that were Susan's own disappearance, Rex's astonishing level of trust toward Susan during the second run, and his decisive action of yielding the guard post to Takumi and Fujiwara Chika—all of this inevitably made Takumi consider whether something was hidden beneath the surface.
Perhaps, those two had both died within the instance world.
But it was also possible… that there was something wrong with those two themselves.
Especially when Fujiwara Chika was investigating another matter—namely [Black Blood Bullets]—she discovered that this artificially manufacturable anomalous item was unlike the [Ashes] and [Purple Talismans] on the Japan side, which at least had a production process that players more or less understood, albeit one that was overly complex and beyond what ordinary players could shoulder. Instead, it was extremely secretive, to the point that its origin was completely unknown. Only a small number of United States players knew the source of supply, and it was they who distributed this type of product into the player market.
"The source of [Black Blood Bullets] seems to be linked in some way to the upper echelons of the United States. Although the resistance I ran into during the investigation was very strong, my dad still revealed a bit of information to me. It seems that the original source of these special bullets is connected to the Bush family. Beyond that, I couldn't find out any more."
As the descendant of a politician, Fujiwara Chika's greatest advantage over Maki and Kaguya was her ability to gain tremendous leverage when investigating various kinds of overseas intelligence. After all, she could directly ask her father, her mother, or her grandparents. Even if Kaguya or Maki wanted to ask, they might not necessarily be able to obtain answers.
Incidentally, the reason Chika had been able to appear in Takumi's area during the second run and blow Takumi up to help him break a death lock was also because she had used her father's network of connections to get in touch with some veteran players who were not easy to meet. From one of those players, she had obtained a special Obsession Item. Through that Obsession Item, Fujiwara Chika could use items that had a connection with Takumi—such as that chest-binding cloth—to eliminate the spatial gap between herself and Takumi. It was precisely because of this that, after entering the fork within the [Blood Vessel], Chika was able to meet Takumi. Otherwise, just as Takumi had previously anticipated, she would have been isolated in another similar space.
This Obsession Item was essentially a one-time-use item. Therefore, after being used once, it would directly summon a weird entity inside the instance and have it hunt down the person who used the Obsession Item. Because of this, the range of situations in which this Obsession Item could be applied was actually not very broad. Even so, Fujiwara Chika still paid a considerable price to obtain that item.
"I heard from the person who possessed the Obsession Item that it was obtained from a Dark Night-level instance that hasn't been fixed yet. It was a very strange Dark Night-level instance—the instance itself was an uninhabited village, and in that village you could find Obsession Items in almost every room. It's just that these Obsession Items often have many defects, just like this Obsession Item that has a teleportation function. That person was probably hesitating about whether to bring a few more people back into that instance to take another look, so they wanted to use this Obsession Item as proof to persuade others. But in the end, I still managed to convince them. Hehe—so, what do you think, isn't that impressive?"
When Fujiwara Chika was telling Takumi about this back then, she could be said to be extremely smug, her nose almost sticking up into the air.
"So how exactly did you persuade them?"
Takumi, feeling surprised by this, asked curiously.
"Kaguya offered that person a price of three billion yen, and also promised some other conditions. Then I convinced them."
Fujiwara Chika continued to answer with complete confidence.
"So was it really you who persuaded them, or was it Shinomiya-san who did it…?"
Takumi immediately complained. Then, as he continued thinking and recalled that Shinomiya Kaguya's daily life was actually under very strict control, he realized that in that future which had already been rewound, erased, and no longer existed, Kaguya had likely already fallen out completely with her family and directly taken over the entire family conglomerate.
Who knew whether she had used thunderous methods to threaten her family, or had simply carried out a ruthless purge in the name of righteousness.
In any case, Takumi had now quietly raised his guard against Rex. Even if this person currently looked quite normal—one could even say that, by players' moral standards, he counted as a great benefactor—Takumi would not lower his vigilance toward him.
"Alright then. Those who have the ability and the willingness to continue acting should follow me into the area ahead. If you're not very confident, you can change into the Rescue Team's uniform right now and then find a way to reach the guard post. That's a place where you can rest and take shelter."
As he said this, Takumi took the lead and walked toward the fire station doors at the far end of the cave ahead, while his actual attention remained focused on who, among those behind him, would follow along.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Kaguya and Chika advanced together through the pitch-black cave. Inside the command room, Maki stared unblinking at the screen, as the three of them continued operations on this front.
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