Carefully, Kaguya stepped into the corridor ahead.
Maki followed behind her, likewise observing her surroundings with caution, and closed the door behind them to prevent anything from slipping in through the open doorway.
Both girls were keenly aware that once they entered here, they might not be able to come out alive.
Therefore, before the situation completely deteriorated, they had to gather as much information as possible and find clues of real value.
"This place looks a lot like the second-floor hallway," Maki whispered softly to Kaguya.
"Don't speak for now. There might be something here that can be triggered through sound—use coded language."
Kaguya gestured a few times to remind Maki, and only after seeing Maki nod did she continue forward.
Takumi silently observed the surroundings through the doll's perspective. He had already called Yamamoto Hiroshi, Green, and Jamal back into the room. Because he could not be certain whether anything might go wrong, he needed all three of them present to ensure that Maeda Miwa could rewind time with the clock at the critical moment.
He had also prepared to sever his connection with the doll at any time and stop observing the interior of Room 304.
But for now, he did not feel anything unusual. Perhaps it was because he was observing through the perspective of an Obsession Item—the inherent properties of the Obsession Item were, to some extent, blocking the transmission of the curse. Only, Takumi had no confidence in how long this Obsession Item's effect could last. All he could do was hope it would hold out as long as possible.
At the front, Kaguya had already reached the end of the corridor.
Turning around the corner of the corridor, what appeared before them was a room so vast it was hard to believe.
It was as if they had stepped into the kingdom of giants.
Towering tables, leather boots as large as trucks, rice grains scattered on the ground the size of basketballs.
At a glance, there was simply no way to see the end of the room.
No.
Not right—this room was a magnified room!
This astonishing and bizarre sight made Kaguya freeze in place. But then Maki suddenly grabbed her by the collar from behind and yanked her back into the passage.
A pair of enormous slippered feet stepped onto the floor, making the ground tremble slightly.
Then came a gloomy female voice that reached both their ears.
[There are mice in the house again…]
Amid the dull rumble, the gigantic feet slowly moved aside, revealing the face of an old woman—wearing a filthy apron and shabby clothes like an old crone, her face covered in pimples, hair disheveled, and teeth uneven with several broken.
This woman was holding a giant bowl, muttering something as she slowly walked through the room.
[Are you done yet? Where's the beer?]
From the other side of the table came a man's irritable voice.
Kaguya and Maki heard the muffled thud of a porcelain bowl slammed hard onto the table, followed by a bottle of beer rolling off the tabletop and shattering with a loud crash, scattering shards all over the floor.
[If you want beer, then just ask for it. Why are you breaking things?]
The woman's voice turned displeased the next moment.
[Cut the crap! Bring the beer to me!]
The man's voice grew even more irritable, like that of an enraged beast.
[Beer, beer, beer—you only know how to drink all day.]
The woman's footsteps moved slowly. She bent down, opened a cardboard box placed by the wall, took out a golden bottle of beer from inside, and then tossed it to the man.
It looked like the ordinary daily interaction of a family whose relationship wasn't very harmonious.
If not for their absurdly exaggerated height and size, Kaguya and Maki would probably have found such a scene utterly dull. But now, they had no choice but to stay on high alert, thinking about how to handle the situation before them.
"This should be what Takumi-kun mentioned—the 'Replay' described in Sanchez's diary. In this room, the family of Room 304 will continuously repeat a past scene like a movie being replayed. We can't let them notice us. Although these two people are repeating the past as if following a script, once they discover us, the situation will definitely change immediately."
Through coordinated hand signs and eye contact, Maki quickly conveyed her thoughts to Kaguya.
"I know. The question now is—where should we go? Since this is Room 304, what we're looking for must be somewhere inside this house."
Kaguya remained calm, responding to Maki with gestures and glances. The speed of their silent communication rapidly increased.
Before long, in Takumi's view, their exchange had turned into something resembling two ninja performing a rapid hand seal exercise.
The narrow corridor exit already looked like a mouse hole at the edge of this gigantic house.
To the right of the hole stood a massive dining table against the wall, with three large chairs and a small stool placed around it. The man sat in the chair farthest from the mouse hole, seemingly drinking while watching the television inside the room—though in Kaguya and Maki's view, the TV was nothing but a fuzzy static screen, showing nothing at all.
Closer to the wall on the right side of the hole, an old-fashioned water dispenser could be seen in the corner, along with a low stool not far from it—both could serve as cover. Farther ahead, beside the box, there was a passage that led into the bedroom.
Farther ahead from the low stool was a box placed in the corner, and inside it was the alcohol. Every so often, amid the man's curses, the woman mopping the floor in the living room would take a bottle of beer from the box and hand it to him. Then she would mop the area near the front door and the old television, and after mopping for a while, she would enter the half-open door directly opposite the hole—the place that was theoretically the kitchen—rinse the mop inside, and then come back out again.
Although they appeared almost lifelike, in essence these two people were merely hollow shells endlessly repeating the past. After observing for a while, Maki and Kaguya confirmed their movement patterns and summarized the rhythm of their actions.
"Let's try entering the bedroom first. Neither of them goes there, so maybe the bedroom is a temporarily safe place to stay and search. From the bedroom, it'll also be easier to access the kitchen. If we move along the left wall, there are things we can use as cover. As long as we grasp the timing properly, we should be able to avoid those two things' line of sight."
As Kaguya said this, she quickly took action, slipping into the gap behind the water dispenser when the woman turned around.
Maki did not hesitate and followed immediately, hiding together with Kaguya in the space behind the dispenser.
[Don't block my view of the TV! Damn it, you just have to mop the floor while I'm watching, don't you?!]
The man started cursing again.
[Yes, yes, I'm not blocking you. Keep your voice down, don't wake the child.]
The woman's voice was nearly numb; muttering as she moved aside a little, she continued mopping near the front door.
Meanwhile, Maki and Kaguya moved forward again, hiding behind the low stool and using its legs to conceal themselves.
'This feels… like a first-person Little Nightmares scenario.'
Watching all of this through the doll's perspective, Takumi wiped cold sweat from his palms, throwing in a wry comment about the current situation.
For some reason, Room 304 had turned into this exaggerated house of giants—two enormous beings mechanically repeating the conversations they had in life, while two small girls advanced cautiously within, avoiding the gaze of those things long dead.
A gaze…
Takumi felt a gaze.
From the doll came a clear sense of being watched—from a certain direction.
The doll resting on Maki's shoulder slowly turned its head, looking backward—toward the hole like a mouse hole from which the two girls had emerged.
Then he saw a blurry figure standing at the entrance of that mouse hole, silently locking eyes with him from a distance.
[Drip—]
A drop of scalding water fell onto Takumi's face, making him flinch in pain.
Sitting on the sofa in the living room of the second-floor room, he lifted his head and looked upward. There, he saw a figure standing upside down on the ceiling, its head twisted back at an almost broken angle, meeting his gaze.
The core curse of Room 304 had once again turned its eyes upon him.
On the doll's side, Kaguya had already taken a deep breath before suddenly darting out from behind the low stool, rushing toward the bedroom door.
At the same time, the woman's muttering voice slowly echoed once more.
[There are mice in the house again…]
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