"Finished reading." Natsuki set down the survey forms. "This game really is dangerous."
"Shameless! Hypocrites!"
The beast-girl spirit ground her teeth in fury. "You humans just love to lie!"
"Hm?"
Natsuki's gaze turned fierce. "Fujiwara, cut another bunch of chives."
The beast-girl spirit lowered her head in submission, though her mouth still issued threats. "...I will remember this grudge!"
"Everyone can share their opinions and thoughts now." Kaguya Shinomiya crossed her arms. "Fujiwara, you go first."
"Ahem."
Chika Fujiwara made a fist with her right hand and coughed lightly into it. Her voice rang out clearly. "First of all, every player's ward has a different vengeful spirit, and their personalities seem to vary as well. Some spirits can be communicated with, while others are quite dangerous."
"Earlier, one player mentioned that he got a skill from a mystery box that lets him detect the presence of important items... He sensed something valuable on the spirit sharing his room, but he didn't dare ask about it, much less try to take it."
Chika looked toward the beast-girl spirit. "That player also mentioned that our cow lady has an important item on her as well."
"I'm not a cow!" The beast-girl spirit bared her serrated teeth. "Just look at my teeth—I'm a carnivorous cow!"
Asuka Kujo muttered under her breath, "But you just ate a whole bunch of chives."
"That's because of you despicable, shameless humans!"
"I'm sorry."
"..."
Natsuki looked at the beast-girl spirit and extended his right hand. "Hand over whatever you've got."
"I don't have anything on me." The beast-girl spirit denied it fiercely.
"If that's the case, then we have no choice." Natsuki sighed and pressed the beast-girl spirit against the edge of the bed. "Fujiwara, come strip all her clothes off. I've always been curious—humans are born wearing nothing, so why do they end up with clothes after becoming vengeful spirits?"
"Today, we're going to thoroughly investigate this mystery."
"Miss Spirit, please cooperate."
"..."
Miss Spirit was on her knees, her upper body pressed against the hospital bed. The position was so humiliating that her voice trembled with rage. "Ahhhh! You shameless human, let me go this instant!"
Chika Fujiwara hesitated slightly. "Stripping a girl's clothes..."
Natsuki's tone was meaningful. "She called you fat earlier."
"I am NOT fat!" Chika's pretty face hardened as she swiftly steeled her resolve. "I'm coming."
"Kujo, Rikka, you two help as well," Natsuki added. "Many hands make light work."
"C-Coming..."
Asuka Kujo felt dazed.
Pinning a teary-eyed vengeful spirit to the bed and stripping her clothes—wasn't something wrong here?
Why did she suddenly feel a surge of guilt?
Seeing Chika Fujiwara start tugging at her denim shorts, the beast-girl spirit finally broke. "S-Stop! I'll give you the thing!"
"Huh? You're giving it up that quickly?" Chika sounded disappointed. "I wanted to see where exactly your tail was attached."
Natsuki helped the beast-girl spirit back up into a sitting position.
"The thing is in my chest." The beast-girl spirit ground her teeth, her eyes misty. "Let me go and I'll get it for you."
"No need to trouble yourself." Natsuki's gaze fell upon the cow spirit's deep valley, his expression serious. "I can handle this."
"Stare—"
Several girls all turned to look at him in unison.
"Natsuki." Chika crossed her arms over her chest. "Sexual harassment is a crime, you know."
Speaking of crimes, suddenly barging into someone's room and forcing them to eat grass—weren't they all accomplices?
"I'll get it."
Chika stepped forward without hesitation and reached into Miss Spirit's chest, beginning to search for the item.
"S-So big... my hand is sinking in."
"And so soft."
"It's just ice-cold with no warmth. If it were warm, hugging them while sleeping would definitely be super comfortable."
She was overthinking it. With something that big, if you accidentally pressed your face into them while sleeping, you might suffocate!
"I suddenly understand what the Bible meant by 'a land flowing with milk and honey'..."
That was ancient Canaan, not the territory you're exploring!
Moments later.
"Got it."
Chika quickly withdrew her hand, revealing a small piece of black material of indeterminate origin floating in the air on her palm.
"What is this?"
Natsuki examined it carefully, but unfortunately, the only prompt he received was "a fragment."
Unable to determine what it was for now, they put the fragment away. Kaguya continued, "I counted earlier—there are only eighteen survey forms in total."
Indeed, at Kaguya's request, Natsuki's group had filled out survey forms as well.
Natsuki's survey form was quite simple.
[Roommate: Miss Sadako]
[Danger Level: Unknown]
[Attributes: Shy, social anxiety, tear-mole at corner of eye, makes you really want to bully her...]
"Is there a problem?" Chika looked puzzled.
"The numbers don't add up." Natsuki raised an eyebrow slightly. "There are twenty rooms on the fourth floor."
Asuka guessed, "Two players got trapped in their rooms and couldn't come out?"
"At the very beginning, one unlucky player got stabbed down by the nurse and was eliminated early," Natsuki said. "That leaves one room with unknown information."
Kaguya mused, "Once the corridor lights up again, we should go to the nurse's station and check the room information chart."
"..."
The darkness receded.
The corridor returned to brightness.
Natsuki temporarily let Miss Spirit off the hook and walked out of the ward with the girls, heading straight for the nurse's station.
"Shinomiya-san and I can handle this," Natsuki said quietly. "The rest of you stay here."
This trip was just to check the room chart. Two people were enough.
"Be careful," Chika covered her mouth. "Make sure you don't make any noise."
Natsuki nodded and quietly approached the station with Kaguya.
The swollen-faced nurse was still spacing out. As long as no one disturbed her slacking off, she didn't care if players came and went seven times over.
"Found it."
Right in front of the swollen-faced nurse, Natsuki gently picked up the room information chart he'd seen before. He finally noticed what was wrong.
The numbers didn't match.
Every room had two occupants—one player, one vengeful spirit.
The players' names were nicknames assigned by the game's evaluation system. For example, Chika Fujiwara was listed as [Cancer of the Earth], Rikka was [Wielder of the Wicked Eye], and others included names like [Crimson Flames of Karma] and [I'm Really Not Into Elementary Schoolers], and so on. The spirits' identities were displayed as strings of black blocks, unviewable.
However, at the very bottom of the list, the registration information for the last room showed only a string of black blocks—no player present.
"So... there's no player in the last room?"