Under the ghastly pale lights, the dilapidated Teaching Building had returned to a clean and tidy appearance. All traces of damage and all filth and stains had vanished completely, yet for some unknown reason, it gave people a feeling even more gloomy and terrifying than the school had in its state of darkness.
[From the pale red and increasingly gloomy clouds]
[Sleet and snow fell down drenched and dripping]
The sound of students reciting in unison rang out once again.
There was not the slightest variation in their voices, as if every person's voice had been completely fused together, no longer distinguishable from one another, and so they recited together like that.
In a school like this, where Aberrations ran rampant, listening to those aberrations that were no longer human reading their books was, in Takumi's view, actually quite an interesting thing. But for Miko and the others, who had seen with their own eyes what those students looked like, it was completely not the same matter at all.
Bang—
Takumi very roughly kicked open the door to the art classroom and took the lead in stepping into this rather large art classroom, which was almost already equivalent to a small exhibition hall.
And immediately, he smelled an extremely pungent bloody stench, so thick it was nauseating.
The scene before his eyes made one frown involuntarily.
Even for Takumi, who had already personally witnessed all kinds of scum worse than beasts, he had to admit that the scene before him possessed a considerable visual impact.
But considering that they had now entered the [daytime] phase, and the intense chill he had felt while in the corridor from being watched by something, he still walked into this classroom without hesitation and signaled for the several girls behind him to hurry up and follow him.
"Ugh..."
Miko, who came in right after from behind, abruptly widened her eyes after seeing the situation inside the room clearly, then immediately raised a hand to cover her mouth, not allowing her scream to leak out from her mouth.
Rika, who came in after her, was frightened pale after seeing the situation inside the room clearly, and Ai even let out a scream and almost collapsed to the floor. But immediately, Rika forced herself to calm down, grabbed Ai, and entered the room, while Miko also turned back and pulled Kyoko, who had frozen in place from fright, bringing her into the room as well.
In the corridor, it seemed possible to vaguely see a figure, not very tall, seeming to be a student.
Miko did not dare look too much. Grabbing the doorknob, she shut the classroom door, and only then turned back tremblingly to look at the room before her.
"Do not panic. You are under the "command" issued by "me as a teacher". They have no authority to attack you. Stay calm."
Takumi, who had shown only a trace of displeasure at the very beginning, had now already calmed down, and at the same time spoke to these girls.
Before entering the classroom, he had already issued a [command] to the four girls, stating that they did not need to study and that they were not to be disturbed by any students. From the look of things now, that command was still very effective.
"Th-these... these... these really... are..." Miko felt that her worldview was about to be completely torn apart by this school.
"Mm, yes. This should be something that happened in real life, now reproduced by this place." Takumi at her side nodded lightly in reply. The sheep-head hood very miraculously made a pout-like expression, clearly showing that after being worn for such a long time, the hood had gradually become attached to Takumi's face, to the point that it could even move with his nerves and muscles to produce certain reactions.
"Bleurgh..." Ai finally could not hold it in any longer and started vomiting.
Regrettably, this beautiful girl could not vomit a rainbow the way people do in anime. And with her vomiting, the expressions of Kyoko and Rika also became extremely ugly, as if they might throw up at any moment. Miko's reaction counted as the mildest, but she moved even closer to Takumi. At this moment, in the eyes of this girl with spiritual sight, only Takumi's presence could give her even a trace of security, could make her feel that she would not be swallowed up by this twisted and terrifying place.
The clear body warmth and soft touch of the girl beside him truly were very comfortable, but Takumi really had no mind to enjoy them right now, because the things appearing before his eyes had already reached a degree that was hard for him to describe with words.
He raised his head and looked at the banner hanging above the art classroom.
[Welcome to the "Old Human Artworks" Exhibition Hall]
On a desk to one side, beautiful and elegant handwriting clearly described the following passage.
[This world shall belong to the new humans]
[Everything from the old world is material for our artistic creation]
[Now is the time to display the splendor of the new world. No morality or law of the old era may restrict our passion for creation]
The handwriting was truly beautiful. It was obvious that it was the result of serious calligraphy practice.
But neither the content written above nor anything in this exhibition hall allowed Takumi to look upon all this with normal eyes.
He stepped forward.
At his front-left side stood the first exhibit in the art classroom.
The name of this exhibit was [A Mother Feeding on Her Child's Marrow].
Takumi only took one glance and then did not look at this exhibit again.
Although the sound of the millstone slowly grinding flesh and bone was far too clear, and the sound of the viscous liquid slowly flowing down and clogging in the throat was also impossible to ignore, what Takumi could do right now was only to not look at this thing.
He passed by the second exhibit in the classroom.
This exhibit seemed to come with some kind of sensing device. As Takumi walked by, the sound of two little girls giggling rang out, along with their delighted cries of "nii-san, nii-san." And as that sound rang out, the thing inside the transparent glass display case also twitched slightly, and one could see traces of those chunks of flesh wriggling, as well as the way the tongue hanging in midair trembled lightly.
The third piece... the fourth piece...
Takumi raised a hand and lightly patted his own head. He felt slightly dizzy. After seeing at least twenty or thirty exhibits placed in the art classroom, even though his mind was firm and would not be too greatly affected, these awful things were still too distressing.
But even so, Takumi still moved forward slowly, walking through the entire art classroom, reading all the names of these exhibits as well as the names of the students who had made them, and in a corner of the art classroom, he picked up a white eraser and tucked it into his pocket.
He also tried opening the door to the art classroom's supply room. As expected, the inside looked just like a slaughterhouse, and this supply room had even deliberately left behind a warning slogan stating that if students wished to use discarded items that had been used in the chemistry classroom, they had to conduct inspections in advance. In response, Takumi could only do his best not to think about what exactly those discarded items referred to, or what kind of inspections they were.
After looking around the classroom once, Takumi returned to the entrance of the art classroom.
The four girls had almost woodenly followed him on this round. Other than Miko, the other three had nearly lost their ability to think. And even Miko's condition was quite bad. It was obvious that the sights in this place were probably still far too stimulating for a group of seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girls... No, it should be said that as long as one possessed normal thinking ability and normal human emotions, it was impossible to remain unmoved after seeing such things.
Even though Takumi had tried using thoughts like [I'm a transmigrator; these are NPCs] to enlighten himself, he still had no way to truly calm himself. In the end, personally seeing such a bloody and anti-human scene, without any two-dimensional filter and not through indirect contact like photographs or videos, but instead witnessing such things in person, was already enough to shatter a normal person's understanding of the world.
There were thirty-four exhibits in total.
Of them, the materials of twenty-four exhibits were [Bad Students] and the family members of those students.
The other ten were [Outstanding Students] who had made those twenty-four exhibits. Those students seemed to have been required by some kind of [selection mechanism] to kill one another. The dead were turned into exhibits, and after completing the exhibit, the final student died from wounds that were too severe. Therefore, that student was the only corpse among the thirty-four exhibits present whose outward appearance was still normal.
Takumi had a deep impression of that corpse, not only because among the pile of ghostly things present, it was the only one that at least looked relatively normal, but also because the engraving left on that corpse's display case was [Failed Product].
The twelve [Outstanding Students] of Class 1, Second Year had slaughtered one another until not a single one survived.
In the phantom remnants seen on the first floor, the Bad Students had once united and killed all the [Outstanding Students] once.
In the memory of [Teacher Turtle] seen by Miko, there had been a class of [Outstanding Students] numbering eleven people who slaughtered one another until none remained alive.
And in this art classroom, there appeared a class of ten [Outstanding Students] who killed one another, and in the end likewise left no survivors.
[Outstanding Students], the students who enjoyed the highest treatment under the student rank rules, an identity that only the top ten in the entire grade or students who had received three personal commendations could possess—students of this level should, logically speaking, have been the safest. But judging from the information obtained so far, it seemed that in every cohort, in every grade, the [Outstanding Students] would in the end all meet a fate of death.
What exactly was this school trying to produce?
If the research base in the Red Nut Grey Cave at least visibly appeared to be conducting research, then everything this [Fujihana Middle School] was doing had already, in Takumi's view, started to resemble some kind of cult ritual. It had already become something he could not understand.
All he could see in this school was ultimate madness and death, the complete twisting and destruction of human nature and personality, using that to shape an endless abyss, a hell on earth.
Could something really be produced through such a method?
And the thing produced through such a method—was it really something humans could control?
He did not understand.
He completely could not understand.
What exactly was the meaning of doing this? Could it be that the ultimate goal was simply to produce a madman who possessed aberrant power? If that were the case, then would [Alice] be her? Would this aberration be the final product?
Takumi remembered what he had seen in the illusion. This [Alice] had left the school. She seemed to have become a star, and had received the frenzied worship of countless people.
Thinking back carefully, in that moment within the illusion, the stage had felt very much like something from the eighties or nineties of the last century. All kinds of equipment still looked very well put together; it should not have been something from the forties or fifties.
Then, could [Alice] be the only living person who had graduated from this school?
Takumi's gaze swept across the classroom once more, looking at these disgusting "exhibits" that had now already become aberrations. Because of his identity as a teacher and the commands given to Miko and the others, these exhibits, which maintained a certain kind of "activity" from beginning to end, were still honestly staying inside their display cases, only occasionally making sounds or wriggling a little, making one feel thoroughly disgusted.
Then Takumi lowered his head and looked at Miko at his side, only to discover that the girl's attention seemed already to have shifted away, and she was looking somewhat confusedly in the direction of the classroom door.
"What did you sense?" Takumi patted Miko on the shoulder and asked.
"Eh? Ah, n-no... nothing..." Startled by his movement, the girl revealed a somewhat bewildered expression, then shook her head and spoke in a low voice.
"Answer me. What did you sense?"
Immediately realizing that Miko had already begun to be affected by something, Takumi asked again, while at the same time activating the power of Hedda's blessing, fiercely stimulating Miko with an intense aberrant aura, causing the girl, whose mind had become somewhat dazed, to sober up in an instant.
"There's... someone outside knocking on the door... She says she's looking for her friend who got lost..."
Under the intense dizziness, Miko could only barely maintain consciousness as she spoke.
Was it [Alice]?
Hearing those words, Takumi immediately turned his head toward the art classroom door, and then saw the doorknob tremble lightly once, after which an extremely pleasant girl's low laugh sounded from outside.
A cold aura was spreading.
At this moment, Takumi clearly felt that he was being watched by the gaze of some kind of thing.
That's right—it was it. [Alice] had come.
This time, that thing's bewildering influence on Miko was clearly not as hidden as it had been in the first loop. It seemed that without taking out the black umbrella, and while continuously keeping watch over Miko, he was able to cut off the infection process of [Alice] upon Miko. It was just that if he did so, the other party's attention would immediately shift over to him.
If one regarded [Alice]'s process of bewildering another person's mind and gradually completing possession as a spider's silk wrapping around them layer by layer, then perhaps it could be understood that the severed silk had stuck to his own body, causing him to establish a connection with this thing.
[Teacher, do you know where Alice's friend has gone?]
It was as though he could hear the other party lightly laughing as she spoke to him.
[And also, Teacher, why is there the aura of Alice's things on your body? Could Teacher be a thief? That's very bad behavior, you know]
Accompanying that light laugh was a powerful sensation that his body was being interfered with by some sort of thing.
"Laugh all you want—your mom's a fucking joke!" In the next moment, Takumi directly cursed out loud.
The laughter really did stop for a moment, then an eerie voice speaking sounded again.
[Teacher is so cruel. How can you speak like that? Alice will be very sad]
[Alice has never seen her own mother since childhood. Alice only has Daddy. Daddy said that after giving birth to Alice, Mommy went far away on a journey. But Alice actually knows that Mommy has already died. It's just because Alice didn't want Daddy to be sad that Alice pretended Mommy was still here]
[Alice actually really wants to see Mommy. Alice has always missed Mommy very much. For Teacher to say such things to Alice... Alice is really, really sad]
Amid those leisurely sounding words, the doorknob was gradually pressed down, and the door was slowly opening.
There was no way to determine whether he was in an illusion right now. Vision and hearing were the easiest things to deceive, so he could only rely on his own perception.
Takumi closed his eyes.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, he summoned two rescue team members from the badge, ordered them to guard the door, and through the mental link between himself and the rescue team members, confirmed the current situation.
Then Takumi felt the frigid sensation, like being in the polar regions, become even more intense in an instant.
[I hate this kind of thing...]
Alice's voice sounded from behind him.
This was the first time Takumi had felt an incomparably intense emotion from that voice.
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---