"Haaah..."
The pink-haired girl in a tracksuit looked up at the sky.
No triggers? Random chance? Or does my method not count? Maybe loopholes don't activate the rules...
As she pondered, another pink-haired girl—this one carrying a guitar—stepped out of the dormitory's main entrance.
The moment her foot crossed the threshold, the clock struck 7:40 AM, the deadline for students to vacate the dormitory.
A crisp melody rang out as the guitarist plucked her strings.
With a resonant twang, a third pink-haired girl leapt from the fifth-floor window, landing gracefully in a Terminator-style crouch.
Meanwhile, a fourth clone emerged from the dormitory and stood silently beside the musician.
"None of them triggered anything..."
Gotou Hitori frowned in confusion.
The three duplicates—crafted through her Obsession Artifact guitar—had tested multiple rule-breaking scenarios:
Jumping from the 5th/6th floors → No consequences.
Overstaying past 7:40 AM → No anomalies.
Lingering in an empty dormitory → No threats emerged.
This makes no sense.
Crimson Moon dungeons typically punished even minor infractions with instant, brutal retaliation. Why was this one so... lenient?
Hitori knocked lightly on her own forehead, then gave up.
Whatever. I'll record the findings and let Nanami-san analyze them.
Though adept at solo reconnaissance, Hitori lacked analytical prowess. Once initial tests proved inconclusive, she swiftly shifted gears—leaving two duplicates behind (one in Room 604, one patrolling the sixth-floor hallway) while mobilizing the rest for broader reconnaissance.
A note on the duplicates:
Each bore slight variations from the original—minor facial adjustments, subtly different hair shades—to achieve two objectives:
Instant identification by allies as artificial constructs.
Preventing rule-based contamination from jumping between clones to her true self.
(The idea of something bypassing her Crimson Moon-tier artifact's defenses to target her directly was laughable—such entities lay beyond player comprehension.)
Hitori strummed her guitar again.
More duplicates materialized, scattering across campus like dandelion seeds.
Each new clone edged the artifact closer to awakening, but Hitori's flawless playing suppressed the risk effortlessly. This guitar had carried her through countless dungeons, granting:
Unmatched reconnaissance capabilities
Near-infinite error tolerance
A frankly embarrassing clone casualty rate (Her record: seven lost in one mission)
Still better than talking to real people.
She glanced around. Golden sunlight. Chirping sparrows. Lush greenery. Students laughing as they walked to class.
...Is this really a Crimson Moon dungeon?
It felt more like a glitchy vacation simulator.
Unnoticed by the strategizing players, Hitori froze when she saw Takakai's group.
The moment she imagined someone asking "Gotou-san, what do you think?", her social anxiety spiked like a corrupted blessing meter.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
She ducked behind a tree as Takakai's team entered the side building.
"Wow, this place is... nice?"
Despite knowing this was a dungeon, Takakai couldn't help admiring the spotless corridors lined with student-tended flowerpots. The central atrium bloomed with shrubs and even a fruit-bearing orange tree.
No creeping shadows. No bloodstains. Just aggressively wholesome academia.
"Does anything look off to you?" he asked Yotsuya Miko.
"Nothing abnormal," she murmured, equally perplexed.
Chika tugged his sleeve. "Over here! The rules are posted!"
Near the faculty office, a bulletin board displayed:
[Yoruyama Academy Classroom Regulations]
Wear full uniforms neatly.
No running/shouting/sports equipment indoors.
Class hours: Mon-Fri, 8:10-11:40 & 14:00-17:30.
Evening study sessions must end by 21:30. Campus closes at 22:00.
...
Tend to your class's assigned plants.
Twelve utterly mundane rules. The only vaguely suspicious points:
The atrium's restricted access
The emphasis on plant care
But is there really anything sinister here?
This school feels so normal. So... familiar. Haven't I studied here for years?
Takakai caught himself slipping again.
Cognitive interference. Right.
The dungeon was rewriting his memories, layer by layer.
And with the clear condition being "Alter the Inevitable Future" and no time limit, the real threat wasn't immediate death—it was slow assimilation.
"Your version matches ours, right?" Takakai confirmed with Miko.
"Twelve rules. All normal," she replied.
Good. Consensus.
He missed how Miko's fingers trembled.
Because what she'd actually said was:
"I see twelveSurvival Rules."
But to Takakai's ears—to everyone's ears—it had translated as confirmation of the basic regulations.
Just like the dormitory.
Just like everything in this dungeon.
The truth was becoming unshareable.