"Still talking about games... all this game nonsense..."
The overweight executive, who introduced himself as Hiroshi, wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked at the open crack of the door to Room 205, then back at Tanaka, his expression sullen.
He seemed to be in a very bad mood. Earlier, when he saw the group of high school students, he had looked at them with disappointment. Yet now, facing the darkness of Room 205, his fear pushed him to seek reassurance. He forced a smile that looked painful.
"Hello, Tanaka-san. You're Japanese too, right? I'm an executive at the XX Group. So, do you really know what's going on? Is this some kind of reality show? A prank?"
Although Hiroshi tried to sound steady, the tremor in his voice gave him away. He already knew this wasn't a show. He just wasn't willing to admit it yet, trying to fool himself to keep from collapsing.
"I don't know," Y/N muttered, stepping back from the door slightly, playing the role of the scared student. "But I really hope it's a show. Did you all just wake up in a room too?"
Y/N gave a slight shake of his head, trying to appear as ordinary as possible.
So far, no monsters had jumped out to slaughter everyone.
Barring some extreme situation—like a mental hazard that killed them instantly—Y/N judged that they should still be within a "Safe Period."
It was like in a horror movie: the main cast appears, the setting is established, and everything looks normal until some extra courts death by opening a door that shouldn't be opened. Before that, by convention, there is a grace period to draw the audience in.
According to the rule sheet, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., the Shirakawa Apartments were supposed to be largely safe—as long as you didn't break the rules.
So now, the best approach was to look weak. To push himself to the margins. Maybe that way he could gather information while avoiding being the background character who triggers a death flag.
Thinking this, Y/N acted the part of a timid, inexperienced boy. And near him, Kaguya Shinomiya—who had been cold as ice—also let her expression shift slightly, giving off the impression of a frightened girl just trying to stay calm.
"She's a natural actress," Y/N noted. "Better than me."
She didn't even need to speak; just her posture conveyed 'scared honor student.' Beside her, Nino was clinging to Fuutaro, her fear genuine, while Alya was hiding behind Masachika.
"Is anyone in there?" Tanaka called out, ignoring Hiroshi's questions.
At that moment, everyone in the corridor heard stumbling footsteps coming from inside Room 205.
[Bang!]
The door Y/N had just cracked open was violently shoved wide.
A young woman with dyed blond hair, wearing a tank top and shorts, with a heart tattoo on her arm, scrambled out of the room. She fell to the ground, crawling on her hands and knees, eyes wide with terror.
"A d-dead body! A dead body!"
Her scream was piercingly loud. Even when she had been inside the room, her screams had been enough for the whole floor to hear. Now that she was in the corridor, the sound echoed violently off the peeling walls.
Y/N analyzed her instantly. Judging by appearance, she was a standard NPC. Probably just an original background character created for this scenario.
"Normally, wouldn't a noisy character like this be the first cause of a total party wipe? Feels dangerous."
As Y/N had this faint thought of retreating, Hiroshi and the crew-cut Black guy, who were closer, stepped forward to help the woman up. She trembled uncontrollably, clearly terrified by whatever she had seen.
"Hey, hey, are you alright? You said there's a corpse?"
Supporting the woman, cold sweat appeared on Hiroshi's face as he nervously glanced at the open doorway of 205.
Was there really a dead body hidden inside? Damn it, why had he been dragged to this cursed place?
Hiroshi's agitation was plain, while Y/N stepped back a pace, preparing to retreat into his own room at any time.
Suddenly, Y/N noticed Kaguya beside him tilting her head slightly, her ears angled toward the right side of the corridor, as though she had caught a sound.
At the same time, Ayanokoji, who had been standing silently in the shadows, and Tanaka, the backpack-wearing veteran, also reacted.
Ayanokoji's eyes shifted barely a millimeter toward the stairs. Tanaka's reaction was more guarded—his body tensed up. If Y/N hadn't been watching the self-proclaimed "veteran" closely, he never would have noticed.
From the right-side stairway.
Was someone coming?
Y/N had no special hearing ability, so he could only guess from the others' reactions.
The air seemed to grow colder.
For some reason, a faint stinging sensation spread through his left hand.
Lowering his head, Y/N looked at his left wrist—at the strange broken black watch he had discovered earlier.
Just now, it felt as though something inside the watch had pricked him with a needle, leaving a faint sting.
A warning?
The blond-haired woman who had been helped up was still muttering, "There's a dead body in the room, under the bed! It's rotting!"
Because she wore only a tank top, both arms were bare, and goosebumps now covered her skin.
"Oh god, what is with this lady?" Nino covered her nose, stepping back. "She reeks! It smells like something died a week ago!"
"Nino, be quiet," Fuutaro hissed, though he looked pale too.
"She's right," the Black guy muttered, his Japanese accented. "She smells like a dumpster. What the hell is this place?"
Masachika stepped forward, trying to maintain order. "We need to calm down. Tanaka-san, what should we do?"
Tanaka had already turned his full attention to the right stairway entrance, making no attempt to hide his guarded stance.
"Take her to my room," Tanaka said suddenly, his voice sharp. "My Room 210 is larger and undamaged. She can rest there for now. Is anyone willing to go with me to check the room she ran from? We're all trapped here, we need to figure out what's going on."
Tanaka spoke as he turned, walking a few steps to open the door of his room.
Up to that moment, nothing in the corridor had seemed especially strange to the group.
But Y/N could already tell—something was wrong.
Tanaka had said to bring the panicked woman into his room, yet in truth, he was only using those words as an excuse to return to his own doorway.
Y/N saw that Tanaka's room was 210—the one closest to the right stairway.
It was the room nearest the sound of the approaching footsteps.
Was he going there to confirm what was coming?
As Y/N wondered, he saw Tanaka at the doorway facing the stairwell, one hand in his pocket, pausing just briefly.
Then, without waiting for anyone to bring the woman, Tanaka slipped inside his room and shut the door behind him.
[Click.]
The lock engaged.
"Hey! What's that about?" Rintaro, who was holding Kaoruko, looked confused. "You told us to bring her in and then slammed the door?"
"What the hell?" Hiroshi, supporting the woman, shouted in dissatisfaction.
Watching this scene, Y/N felt the chill around him deepen.
The "Veteran" had just abandoned them. He used the chaos to retreat to safety while leaving the rest of them in the corridor as bait.
Y/N still heard no footsteps from the stairway, but he inferred it from the reactions of the three who had noticed: Kaguya, Ayanokoji, and Tanaka.
Who was it? A man or a woman? What kind of thing was it?
Of all that, he knew absolutely nothing.
But in that instant, seeing the decisive reaction of Tanaka, Y/N already felt the thought rising from his heart—this is bad.
He immediately determined what he had to do right now:
"Run."
He grabbed Kaguya's arm. "Back to our room. Now."