Honestly, for a moment, Gao Hai thought he was done for, that his second life was about to be lost just like that, that he was about to reset on the spot.
But in the very next instant, the first thing he felt wasn't something attacking from the front, but the rope around his waist pulling taut.
Whoosh—
The sound of wind amplified in a flash.
Gao Hai's eyes widened as he found himself flying through the air, yanked clean out of the kitchen toward the ceiling, flying through the hole above, and returning to the second-floor kitchen.
In that split second, Gao Hai's gaze followed the rope and saw Kaguya, holding the other end with one hand.
The girl, not even 160cm tall, had planted herself in a horse stance, gripped the rope with a single hand, and unleashed a burst of strength, sending Gao Hai flying up and rescuing him in the shortest time possible.
Such astonishing strength... As expected of the "Muscle Queen"?
As the thought crossed his mind, Gao Hai slammed onto the kitchen counter, then fell and rolled onto the floor, his entire body immediately wracked with pain, causing him to grimace.
The other two girls, however, had no time to worry about Gao Hai's condition. Maki practically flew out, grabbing what looked like a makeshift wooden board to cover the hole in the floor. But an even greater force erupted from below, sending the board—and Maki with it—flying up and smashing into the ceiling.
Something was climbing up from below.
Gao Hai, still seeing stars from the fall, hadn't even had time to turn his head to see what was happening.
But he could already smell the damp odor and hear something grabbing the edge of the hole, making a sound like a drowning person's ragged gasp as it tried to climb up from the dark floor below.
"Gre—"
Kaguya, on the other side, picked up another wooden board. She seemed to be shouting someone's name as she prepared to rush forward again to stop the thing.
Is this the end?
The floor was already beginning to flood, with murky water seeping up through the floorboards.
Signs of corrosion appeared on the walls as specks of greenish-yellow moss began to spread.
Something grabbed Gao Hai's arm.
It was so cold it made his whole body stiffen, a touch that felt like frostbite.
"Ah..."
Gao Hai opened his mouth, gasping for air, but couldn't draw in a single breath.
He was forced into suffocation, feeling as if his throat and lungs were filling with sewage and mud.
"Green, the clock!"
Kaguya's voice finally rang out clearly.
But time did not rewind.
Maki fell from mid-air, landing hard on the wooden board. A gash opened on her forehead, and a dark red color immediately began to spread.
And Gao Hai, already in a state of severe asphyxiation, couldn't even think straight. All he could do was flail his hands, trying to grab whatever was touching him, wanting to push it away, to get away from this terrifying presence.
Riiip—
It seemed as if Gao Hai had torn something off in the process.
And in the corner of his eye, a black silhouette seemed to step into the kitchen.
Thud!
The heavy bang that followed was like the entire room was shaking in a violent earthquake.
Gao Hai thought he heard a shrill scream.
It sounded like the voices of many people mixed together, a final, muffled shriek as they sank into a quagmire.
The corrosion on the walls rapidly receded.
The stagnant water on the floor vanished in an instant, leaving only damp patches.
"Blegh—"
The first thing Gao Hai did upon regaining control of his body was to scramble up and vomit a large mouthful of muddy water.
"Uuugh—argh—"
The same thing happened to Kaguya and Maki, who were also in the room. A large amount of muddy water had materialized in all three of their throats. Now, as the anomaly in the kitchen subsided, they all began to retch.
Sun Dajun ran into the kitchen just then. He was first startled by something in the kitchen, but then he gritted his teeth, summoned his courage, and ran forward to help Gao Hai, who was kneeling on the floor vomiting muddy water, to his feet, letting him lean against the counter for support. Next, he wanted to help Kaguya, but she pointed to the hole in the kitchen floor before he could. Sun Dajun was stunned for a moment before understanding her meaning. He hastily grabbed a wooden board he had nailed earlier and covered the hole again, sealing it shut. When he turned back, Kaguya and Maki were already on their feet.
"What in the world was that?"
Although she wanted to maintain her cool demeanor, after getting hit and throwing up just now, Kaguya looked an absolute mess. Tears and snot were running down her face. She could only wipe them away while staring at the thing standing in front of the resealed hole in the floor.
It was the charred corpse.
The incomplete, charred corpse from Sun Dajun's room had burst in just as the three of them were trapped in a fatal situation.
It wasn't clear how the two anomalies had clashed, but judging from the current situation, the charred corpse, being the corpse of Room 206, had clearly overpowered the thing from the first floor, beating back whatever had followed Gao Hai up.
"Phew... Charred Bro is awesome..."
Gao Hai, having finally vomited up all the muddy water, had recovered. He wiped his mouth and gave a thumbs-up to the charred corpse standing in the kitchen.
"Just now, I was outside the door, trying to set up a tripwire with steel wire and a bell as a warning system or something. I came in when I heard a loud noise from inside the room (the sound of Maki hitting the ceiling). But as soon as I entered, I heard some noise from the living room, and by the time I got to the kitchen, I saw you guys like this..."
A pale-faced Sun Dajun roughly explained his side of the story. It seemed the charred corpse in the living room had only acted after Sun Dajun entered the apartment. From this, it could be inferred that the corpse moved because Sun Dajun had entered the premises; it was acting according to its own rules to protect him from being harmed by the thing coming up from the kitchen.
In any case, their lives had been saved, and by an anomaly, no less.
"Maki, are you okay? Treat your wound, quickly."
Having recovered, Gao Hai walked over to Maki. The girl just shook her head to say she was fine, wiped the blood dripping from her forehead, and then sat down on the floor, completely drained of energy, not even bothering with the filthy water everywhere.
Suddenly remembering something, she turned her head to look at the covered board beside her. After a moment's thought, she lifted the board slightly and looked down.
Staring at the densely packed, pale faces in the kitchen below, all looking up to meet her gaze, Maki silently put the board back in place. She then placed the other board on top of it before finally letting out a long breath and wiping away the tears that had almost spilled from her eyes.
"..."
Meanwhile, Kaguya, who had also recovered, stepped out of the kitchen and walked straight up to Green in the living room.
At the critical moment, Green, who was supposed to turn the clock, had done nothing.
The man was cowering in a corner of the living room, looking terrified. Although he hadn't been attacked by the anomalous power, he had heard the sounds from the kitchen clearly and knew something terrible must be happening. Of course, he had also heard Kaguya's shout. He knew he was supposed to turn the clock, that it was his turn to make a sacrifice.
However, turning the clock seemed to have some negative consequences.
That man, Gao Hai, hadn't said what abnormalities would occur after turning the clock, but Sun Dajun seemed hesitant to go near the wall clock, a tendency he hadn't shown at all before the reset. This made Green suspect that using the clock, a thing of strange power, might bring harm to the user. He worried he might be cursed by something for using it, so that even if he found a way to escape, he wouldn't be able to leave and would die here.
With these thoughts, in the end, Green did not turn the clock.
He had just quietly moved toward the living room door, intending to escape and find Miwa Maeda in Room 205 to get her to turn the clock instead.
Furthermore, Green had deliberately stalled for time. After learning the clock could rewind time, Green had speculated that Gao Hai might have already used it and suspected that those who died before a reset might not retain their memories. This was evident from the behavior of the black guy and Miwa Maeda before and after the reset.
So, if he waited until Gao Hai, Kaguya, and Maki were killed by the anomaly before having Miwa Maeda turn the clock, wouldn't he be able to hide his act of defiance? Besides, that woman who only screamed and clearly had a fried brain from too many hallucinogens wouldn't attract any attention.
Green was pleased with the idea he had come up with.
And then he was blocked by Sun Dajun rushing in from outside.
Sun Dajun, nearly fifty years old, wasn't much of a fighter, but he was certainly wide enough. And Green himself was a large man, over 190cm tall. Blocked in the hallway, he couldn't get out right away and was even pushed back a bit by Sun Dajun.
If he had been more aggressive and just knocked Sun Dajun down to get past, Green's plan might still have worked. But first he heard a loud noise from the living room and realized the charred corpse was on the move. At the same time, due to his lifelong habit of petty theft, Green's instinct when caught scheming was to panic and freeze up. As a result, he was simply pushed back into the living room by Sun Dajun, watching stupidly as he rushed into the kitchen. A moment later, a stone-faced Kaguya walked out.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I was too scared! I was so scared back then!"
Realizing his plan was a complete failure, Green dropped to his knees on the floor and began to apologize profusely.
Reaching out, she grabbed Green by the collar.
Though seemingly petite, Kaguya, as a 2D character with absurd physical strength, put her back into it, lifting the 190cm Green into the air and slamming him hard onto the floor.
Amidst Green's screams, she twisted his right arm, pressed his head face-down onto the floor, and with her left hand, smoothly pulled the knife from Green's belt, stabbing down and slashing a bloody gash across his cheek.
"Ah... Aaaah..."
Scared out of his wits, Green thought the knife was meant to kill him. He trembled uncontrollably and tried to scream, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Kaguya punched him in the head. Not only did he fail to scream, but he also had a tooth knocked out.
"Um, what is..."
Sun Dajun watched Kaguya's rampage, at a complete loss, unable to understand what was happening.
Gao Hai, supporting Maki, also walked out of the kitchen. Seeing the scene, he just shook his head, then helped Maki sit down on the sofa before looking at his own hand, which he had kept clenched since a moment ago.
While trying to push away the thing that had grabbed him, Gao Hai had torn a small object off it.
He didn't have a chance to look at it before, but now he could see what it was.
He opened his hand.
It was a small, faded cloth breast badge, brownish-yellow in color, which Gao Hai guessed might have originally been bright red.
Because the characters were embroidered, they were still legible despite having been soaked for a long time.
And the line of text was:
[XX Superflood Rescue Team]
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