The attempt to confess his feelings to Maki, only for her to run away, was just a small interlude before everything began.
Outside the window, the light dimmed, then brightened, then fell into darkness again, before brightening a second time.
The third day arrived swiftly, accelerated by the constant turning of the clock.
"Alright, everyone, are you ready? This time, when we set out, we either leave this apartment alive, or we die along the way. Those are the only possibilities."
Standing in the living room of Room 206, Gao Hai looked at Kaguya and Maki beside him, then at the more distant Sun Dajun, Green, and Miwa Maeda, who all looked extremely tense, and finally at Mameier, who was waving his hands with the excitement of an elementary schooler on a field trip. His tone was solemn as he spoke slowly.
"Let's go. This is no time to hesitate."
Kaguya spoke in a cold tone, taking the lead and walking forward.
"...Yeah."
Maki just gave a soft reply, not daring to turn her head to look at Gao Hai. She kept her head down and followed Kaguya.
"Are we really going with them..."
Green was trembling slightly. He had originally thought he would stay behind on guard duty as usual, but was shocked when Gao Hai made the decision with a single sentence—"Everyone has to go"—that all the survivors on the second floor had to move out together.
"Mainly because we really can't stay on this second floor anymore..."
Sun Dajun, on the other hand, understood the decision perfectly. He looked down at the floor, which had become soaked, unable to hide the unease on his face.
The apartment's condition was deteriorating.
After the toy doll, which housed a portion of the core horror story's obsession, was taken from Room 304, the entire apartment's situation had been steadily worsening.
The walls of the supposedly safe second floor had begun to grow moss, water was dripping from the ceiling, and filthy sewage was gradually pooling on the ground. It was as if it was transforming toward that past moment—the worst moment this apartment building had ever experienced.
They could not remain on the second floor any longer.
It wouldn't be long before the second floor of the Shirakawa Apartments completely transformed into a zone of unknown danger. Therefore, the support personnel could not be left behind on this expedition. Everyone had to enter the third floor, and only after arriving there could they try to find a place to station those unsuitable for exploration.
Stepping out the main door and into the stairwell, they could feel an unsettling stench permeating the air.
Most of the people here didn't know what was causing the foul smell; they just found it extremely unpleasant. But Green's brow furrowed even deeper, because he knew very well that this was a smell that could only be emitted by rotting corpses.
And it was, without a doubt, the smell of human corpses.
Gao Hai also knew what was emitting this smell.
The stench on this floor wasn't too strong, far from being nauseating.
But as the group ascended the stairs one by one and entered the third floor, arriving at that twisted and chaotic area, the foul odor became intensely sharp.
"How can it stink so much? Ugh, it's disgusting..."
Maki really couldn't stand it anymore and felt the urge to vomit.
"Don't throw up. Don't make too much noise. Stay quiet."
Kaguya, walking at the front, also had her brow tightly knitted. She immediately turned her head and spoke in a low voice to Sun Dajun and the others following behind.
Sun Dajun had been on the verge of vomiting, but hearing her words, he painfully held it back. Green and Miwa Maeda, however, remained unfazed. The difference was that the former could barely tolerate the smell, while the latter had damaged her nose from inhaling some kind of irritant gas and couldn't smell anything at all.
"Oh, man, this is a terrible place."
The young black man, Mameier, had been excited at first, but upon actually reaching the third floor and facing the surreal scene before him, he swallowed hard, becoming somewhat frightened.
It was no longer the third floor they knew.
Gao Hai looked around, observing the damp floor, and became more keenly aware of the area's transformation.
All the walls were in a state of near-collapse, soaked through with water, like the top floor of a poorly waterproofed building after being battered by a storm. Large patches of paint had peeled off, revealing the moist brick structure underneath.
Water flowed continuously across the floor, spreading chaotically in all directions.
The children were nowhere to be seen.
The footsteps were gone too.
The third floor of the Shirakawa Apartments had shifted from a 'normal state' to an 'abnormal state'. The experience Gao Hai and the others had accumulated exploring this floor was now utterly useless, incapable of dealing with the current situation.
However, at least for now, they hadn't encountered anything that posed a threat to them.
"Maki, try using the key."
Gao Hai quickly found a nearby door, standing askew on a warped wall, and spoke to Maki.
"Okay, got it."
Although Gao Hai's earlier actions had made her heart race, now that it was time for business, Maki knew what was important. She immediately suppressed all her personal feelings, walked up to the door, and took out the red key.
The Blood Key, inherited from the veteran player Lao Guo, was an Obsession Item that could seemingly open any door, making the opened door lead to a place the user wished to go, or luring something dangerous to them.
It was a double-edged sword, so as she used it, Gao Hai and Kaguya remained on high alert, constantly watching to see if anything would be drawn over.
Click—
With a gentle twist of the key in the lock, the door swung open.
What appeared behind the door was a small living room with water constantly dripping, its windows sealed shut and the kitchen door tightly closed. The door Maki had opened led into this living room.
"It's clear. Everyone, come in."
Gao Hai was the first to enter the room. After a quick search revealed nothing unusual, he waved his hand, signaling for the others outside to come in. Maki, who was last, closed the door, pulled out the key, and carefully shut it again. Then, when Maki opened the door once more, the outside was still a chaotic, twisted architectural space, but it was clearly different from where they had just been.
"I haven't seen anything drawn to us for now. It should... still be safe."
After observing the situation from the doorway for a moment, Maki turned her head and spoke to the others behind her.
"Good, let's begin. The rest of you stay here and don't forget the agreed-upon signal. Maki, Miss Shinomiya, let's go."
Gao Hai nodded lightly and started to walk out the door.
Using the Blood Key, they had opened 'a door near Room 309 that leads to a safe, enclosed area'. Sun Dajun, Green, Mameier, and Miwa Maeda, whose abilities were generally not suited for exploration, would remain behind as a reserve team, hiding in this enclosed space. Gao Hai, Kaguya, and Maki would be responsible for exploring, searching for the location of Room 309, to find that room hidden within the endlessly twisting space.
So far, at least, this plan had not encountered any insurmountable problems.
The only issue, if one could call it that, was that the young black man, Mameier, still wanted to go outside and investigate. But at such a critical, life-or-death moment close to clearing the game, Gao Hai simply couldn't trust someone he barely knew, so he insisted that Mameier stay put.
Closing the door and turning around, Gao Hai looked at the maze-like, twisted walls and various broken pieces of furniture around them, all indistinguishable from one another.
Even now, no anomalies had appeared. There had been no attacks, no strange phenomena.
It had simply fallen quiet.
The entire third floor was submerged in a dead silence. That was all.
What could be the reason for this change?
[With rain this heavy, who the hell would want to stay in this leaky dump on the third floor? Let's go, let's go, we'll stay at Grandma's for a while.]
[By the way, what's up with that family in 304? It stinks so bad. Is their toilet broken?]
[What's it got to do with us? Just ignore them. Don't get involved. Why care about those rotten people!]
As he thought this, Gao Hai seemed to hear the muttering voices of people and the sound of footsteps moving away.
So, because the third floor was the top floor, it leaked severely during the heavy rain, causing many people to temporarily move out?
Slowly taking a step forward, Gao Hai advanced through this distorted space and soon heard more sounds: the shouting and cursing of people in their rooms, and the constant dripping of water from the ceilings, making entire rooms damp.
Everyone is hiding.
Everyone is avoiding.
They... They won't show themselves easily. They won't advance through this curtain of rain, unless...
Kaguya, walking beside him, passed by a relatively dry patch of floor, a place that, for some reason, hadn't been touched by the dripping water.
The instant she was about to step onto that clean area, Gao Hai reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Kaguya stopped abruptly. The tip of her shoe, which had already entered the dry zone, suddenly split open with numerous cracks.
"Don't go near any dry places without water. The things on the third floor haven't disappeared; they're hiding. They're hiding from the water. Any place without water could be hiding one of them."
While pulling Kaguya back, Gao Hai spoke seriously, looking at the dry area with lingering fear.
He couldn't see anything abnormal about that spot at all.
If his curse wasn't so deep that he could occasionally see phantoms of the past and think of countermeasures, he absolutely would not have been able to stop Kaguya in time.
"So, the rule on the third floor now is that it's only safe in places with water?"
Maki frowned as she looked at Kaguya's cracked shoe tip and spoke in a low voice.
"Not necessarily."
Gao Hai shook his head, his gaze fixed ahead, his tone becoming somewhat helpless.
"Huh?"
Before Maki could even voice her question, Gao Hai had already pulled her behind a fractured wall. Kaguya reacted at the same instant and ducked for cover as well.
Splash—splash—
The sound of splashing footsteps quickly passed the spot where the three had just been standing.
An eerie woman's voice followed right after.
[We have mice in the house again...]
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