The staff wing slept like a graveyard. Only the hum of old fluorescent lights and the distant creak of pipes reminded me we weren't already buried. Reina's contact had delivered, a code scribbled onto the back of a medical supply form. It worked like a charm: one beep, a green flash, and the archive door clicked open.
The room smelled of paper rot and dust, heavy with decades of forgotten ink. Rows of filing cabinets stretched like tombstones, each drawer a coffin of secrets. The hum of my system pulsed faintly in my skull, not alarms—just awareness.
> [Quest Stage: Investigation Active.]
[Objective: Uncover Incident Report – Hoshino Saki.]
I moved with the patience of a soldier clearing a room. Not speed...efficiency. My fingers brushed over labels: Student Health Records, 1990–1999. Incident Reports, 2000–2010. There. That was the range.
Behind me, Mayumi whispered, her voice a low rasp of tension. "Feels like trespassing in a morgue."
