What the hell is going on? How did you all die again?!
At that moment, Takumi couldn't find any words besides swearing to describe how he felt.
Through the rescue team member's vision, he could clearly confirm that aside from Miko, every single student was here. Every one of them had their heads split open. Every one of them was smiling—that same split, grotesque grin. They were calmly following behind the rescue team member, unmistakably all under the control of aberrant power.
He had clearly moved these students to a safe place—so how had they all ended up dead again in less than an hour…?
Only then did Takumi realize that, up to this point in his third loop, not even a full hour had passed. Inside the Dormitory Building, only a single day-night cycle had occurred. Even including the time spent in the Teaching Building, it amounted to at most forty to fifty minutes.
If that was the case… was it possible that his third loop would end even faster than the first and second?
Just as that thought crossed his mind, a chilling sensation suddenly surged through him—a deeply ominous feeling, like something was watching him.
Thump—
His heartbeat became irregular.
Cold sweat seeped out of his skin.
His limbs stiffened involuntarily, and even the aberration clinging to his back, gnawing at his flesh, seemed to slow its movements.
He was being watched.
Watched by something at the level of a core Obsession.
An ordinary player might not notice anything unusual—but Takumi, who had already come into close contact with core Obsessions multiple times, would never mistake this feeling.
That kind of deep, frigid presence.
That kind of intense malice and hatred.
And… this aura—yes. This wasn't the core Obsession of Fujihana Middle School.
It was from another school.
Were Red Moon-level core Obsessions really this unrestrained? They could even cross between Instances? And this thing clearly wasn't that Bronze Eye from Kumagai Mai… so where exactly did it come from? Did Red Moon-level aberrations just… visit each other's territories?
[Hello…]
A familiar voice—one he had heard not long ago—suddenly whispered by Takumi's ear.
He turned his head.
There, behind the door, stood Kita Ikuyo, the red-haired girl in tattered clothing. She was speaking to him through the glass window on the door, smiling at him.
[This is… my… place…]
At that moment, Alice actually forced herself awake for a brief instant and spoke in a low voice toward Kita Ikuyo.
Then she fell into an even deeper shutdown, collapsing to the ground unconscious on the spot.
The sight was almost comical—but Takumi had no energy to pay attention to that, because Kita Ikuyo behind the door had already begun to move.
[Please… don't… open the door for me…]
The girl muttered in a slurred, unclear voice.
Click—
The door, which should have been completely locked, suddenly opened.
The staggering girl stepped into the hall.
The rescue team member was rushing forward from behind. Perhaps because it was itself an aberration, it didn't trigger the students' killing rules. But this unknown aberration—from who knows where—had used the rescue team member to directly track down Takumi, its summoner. That ability was honestly hard for him to even process.
[Please… don't come near me…]
Kita Ikuyo continued murmuring softly as she walked toward Takumi.
Without hesitation, Takumi took a step back.
Then, the moment he realized something was wrong, Takumi instantly activated his Blessing. His eyes turned blood-red as he violently accelerated backward.
Whoosh—
A spray of blood suddenly blossomed across Takumi's face.
Just a moment ago, there had still been a considerable distance between them—yet in the next instant, Kita Ikuyo had already appeared right in front of him…
No—she hadn't moved there. She had directly teleported in front of him. After speaking, she vanished from her original position and reappeared right before him.
In the midst of that realization, Takumi had already retreated several meters. Even so, a shallow wound remained on his face—roughly at the level of the dermis being sliced open.
Part of it was because he had immediately pulled back the moment he sensed something was off, but the power of the Blessing had also offset part of the damage. Otherwise, even if he had managed to evade, his face would have been split open just now.
[Please… don't… come close… to me…]
The girl continued speaking in a low voice. It was impossible to tell whether she was talking to Takumi or merely muttering to herself.
She vanished again—and instantly appeared in front of him once more.
Even with prior vigilance, Takumi's evasion was extremely strained. The speed of her appearance was simply too fast. Even with his concentration pushed to the limit, he could only barely avoid her.
"Kita-san, snap out of it! Um—do you remember Bocchi?!"
Seeing that she was about to act again, Takumi hurriedly shouted, while glancing toward the doorway from the corner of his eye—toward the rescue team member that had already reached the door.
In the next instant, Kita appeared in front of him yet again. His dodging was just a fraction slower this time, and the wound on his face deepened further—like an invisible blade was slowly cutting into his flesh, trying to split his face clean in half.
The current Kita Ikuyo seemed to be completely under the control of aberrant power.
However, it seemed that before every action, she would first speak, and then perform an action opposite to what she said. And if he failed to respond to her words in time, he would immediately be subjected to some kind of invisible attack.
The aberration controlling Kita Ikuyo was not here.
Takumi could sense it—the thing was using Kita Ikuyo herself as a medium, projecting its power directly into this place.
Was it the core Obsession of Yoruyama Middle School?
To be able to use a human body as a medium to act in another area, and even suppress Alice within her own domain… the disparity was honestly absurd.
Come to think of it, where the hell was Fujihana Middle School's own core Obsession? An intrusion like this and there's no response at all? Don't tell me it's another one of those types like Andres that just sits there doing nothing?!
While thinking, Takumi had already sped up toward the rescue team member.
But before he could successfully meet up with it, Yoshino Rika—her head split open—had already overtaken the running rescue team member and was rapidly moving toward him.
[Don't come over, please, don't come over!]
That split-open head was still letting out the cries Yoshino Rika had made at the moment of her death.
[Run… don't… come near me…]
Kita Ikuyo had already appeared behind Takumi once more.
With no other option, surrounded from both front and back, Takumi could only move rapidly to the side. More and more students with split-open heads flooded into the hall, each one shouting things like "Don't come over" and "Stay away." Some ran straight toward Takumi, while others, like Kita Ikuyo, appeared directly in front of him in an instant—forcing him into a frantic retreat, leaving him with no way to rendezvous with the rescue team member.
The situation spiraled completely out of control—like demons dancing in chaos. Takumi couldn't even stop moving. He could only run at full speed with his Blessing active, fleeing for his life under the relentless pursuit and interception of these aberrations.
In this state, it was impossible for him to regroup with the rescue team member—he couldn't even spare a glance to locate it.
Crack—
He heard the sound of the walls and floor fracturing.
Something was destroying the walls and floor of the hall—writhing through the cracks Takumi had created earlier when he smashed into them, trying to break through and force its way inside.
The aberrations from Floor 0 were becoming active.
When he had taken those heavy hits while dodging the wolf shadow earlier, the Floor 0 aberrations had likely already been trying to enter. It was only because Alice had done something to interfere that they hadn't succeeded. Now that Alice had entered a shutdown state, they were becoming active again.
If the Floor 0 aberrations broke in… he would truly be finished.
Takumi could already feel his body gradually hollowing out. He realized that he was about to reach his limit—very soon, he would no longer be able to sustain the Blessing's power, and would be caught and killed on the spot by those aberrations.
At that exact moment, a very bad signal came from the rescue team member's side.
Although Takumi had no time to look over there, he could vaguely sense that something had gone wrong with Alice's Obsession Items. Most likely, as the barrier between Floor 0 and the hall was being broken, the Obsession Items that were simultaneously approaching four different "Alices" had begun to grow increasingly unstable.
He couldn't give up.
Not until the very last moment—he absolutely could not give up.
Takumi accelerated again.
Then, just as he passed by the fallen Miko—or rather, Alice—he acted.
In less than a single second, he reached out and grabbed the girl who only had one arm left, then summoned a writhing mass of flesh from his watch.
The surgical knife, the Faceless Head-Eater, and multiple other Obsession Items were released—then, as they went out of control, Takumi forcibly stuffed them into the mass of flesh.
He crammed in far more Obsession Items than this flesh-type Obsession Item could suppress, instantly pushing it into a berserk state.
The lump of flesh suddenly swelled violently, clearly showing signs of reverting into that flesh monster from the Teaching Building.
He threw the mass of flesh out.
It expanded mid-air, slammed onto the ground, and then violently wrapped around several students, devouring them whole.
At that moment, the aberrations chasing Takumi hesitated briefly. It seemed that the puppets being controlled were still somewhat affected when their numbers were reduced.
Seizing that opportunity, Takumi pulled out from his watch-space the device that had once taken his life in the second loop—the machine capable of fusing flesh and spirit.
He knew full well that what he was about to do was definitely not a good idea.
But he also knew that he no longer had time to hesitate.
No matter what—once everything reset, all of this pain would disappear.
There was no need to care anymore.
So—
Takumi grabbed the spiked tube on one side of the device and stabbed it into his own body.
As pain surged through his nerves, he inserted the tube on the other end into the unconscious girl's body as well.
Takumi intended to activate the device—to directly merge Miko, and Alice who was possessing her, entirely into his own body. He would forcibly fuse the three of them into one, using Alice's inherent aberrant aura to transform his identity from a living person into a dead one, thereby forcibly evading the siege of Kita Ikuyo and the man-eating flower girl swarm.
I hope you can't perceive the real world right now, Miko… otherwise, this is going to hurt like hell.
He pulled away once more.
He was caught up again, escaped again, surrounded again.
Watching those grotesque aberrations closing in, Takumi retreated rapidly—then, after a brief moment of hesitation, he pressed the button on the device resting on his shoulder.
At that instant—
Everything faded from Takumi's vision.
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