Patter—
Patter—
The torrential rain seemed as though it would never cease.
Even now, it continued pouring down in endless sheets.
The air was damp and cold.
Each breath carried a faint sense of stickiness in the throat.
Kaguya slowly opened her eyes.
She discovered that she was lying on a large bed covered with numerous dolls.
The room was dark.
No lights were on.
Only a faint glow filtered in through the windows on either side of the bed.
Judging by the surroundings, it already seemed to be nighttime.
Apart from the sound of rain, there was almost complete silence.
Outside, only a few streetlights flickered dimly in the darkness.
Kaguya turned her head.
Beside her pillow lay a monkey plushie, tilted slightly to one side as though it were smiling at her.
Slowly, she sat up.
Clink—
Something brushed against her forehead.
She heard the crisp sound of objects colliding.
These are...
Stars?
Using the faint light from outside, the girl examined them more closely.
Hanging down from the canopy above the bed were numerous crystal-like ornaments suspended in midair.
Most of them were shaped like stars, crescent moons, spheres, snowflakes, and various other designs.
The slightest touch would set them swaying, causing them to bump into one another and produce clear, tinkling sounds.
She then looked back at the bed she was sitting on.
The mattress was piled with all kinds of toys.
Animal plushies.
Dolls.
Among them were even several distinctly Japanese-style dolls.
At a glance, it was obvious that this room belonged to a fairly young child.
Kaguya lowered her head and looked at the bed she was sitting on.
Both the blanket and the pillow were noticeably smaller than what an ordinary person would use.
It seemed that the place where she had awakened was a child's bedroom.
Takumi wasn't here.
After carefully examining the room, Kaguya confirmed that she couldn't see him anywhere.
He wasn't in this bedroom.
...So we've been separated?
Kaguya's expression gradually became serious.
The same thing had happened in the Red Nut Grey Cave. Back then, after entering the Instance, she and Maki had appeared inside the research base, while Takumi had been thrown alone into the depths of the cave.
Although she and Maki hadn't encountered anything particularly dangerous in the research base, Takumi had nearly died several times on the other side.
And now she was facing the same situation again—starting separately from him, and this time inside a Red Moon-level Instance.
That forced Kaguya to raise her guard to the highest possible level.
After all, who could say that this time it wouldn't be her side that encountered something truly horrifying?
At least for the moment, however...
Nothing abnormal seemed to have appeared yet.
Sitting on the bed, Kaguya vigilantly scanned her surroundings several times.
Yet she saw nothing that could truly be called abnormal.
Nor did she find anything resembling a rule sheet that could serve as a reference.
After hesitating briefly, she slowly moved toward the edge of the bed.
She intended to get down and conduct a more thorough investigation of the room.
[■...]
At that moment, Kaguya faintly heard a sound.
It was the sound of something breathing softly.
A sound coming from beneath the bed.
From directly underneath the bed she was currently sitting on.
It sounded like the steady breathing of a sleeping person.
So faint that it was almost impossible to hear.
Every movement Kaguya was making stopped instantly.
From the moment she heard that unusual breath, the room underwent a sudden transformation.
It became different from what it had been just moments ago.
She seemed to hear faint laughter emerging somewhere within the room.
Children whispering softly to one another.
Someone casually running around inside the room.
Even though she couldn't see anything clearly.
Even though she couldn't find any trace of whoever it was.
Kaguya could still feel it.
The sensation that someone was in this room with her.
"Haa..."
Her breathing grew heavier despite her efforts to control it.
Even though she had already experienced two Instance explorations, the strange dissonance assaulting her senses at this moment still made her deeply uncomfortable.
She forced herself to calm down.
Her eyes searched the room.
Eventually, her gaze landed on the dolls arranged across the bed.
No matter what, when players entered an Instance, they would always be able to find a rule sheet at the beginning.
Whether that rule sheet was genuine or false.
Whether its contents were still valid or already outdated.
The rule sheet itself always existed.
And the place where it could be found was always safe at the start—or at least relatively safe.
There had been players who investigated the wrong direction after entering an Instance and died before even finding the rule sheet.
But in most cases, players were able to successfully locate it during the opening stage.
As for why this principle had consistently worked across every Dusk-level, Dark Night-level, and Red Moon-level Instance—and why no Instance had ever violated it—no one knew.
Even in Fujihana Middle School, where the unconventional monster Alice existed, Takumi had still received a set of rules right at the beginning.
Granted, those rules had been created by Alice herself as a trap designed to lure people to their deaths.
Even so, the rule sheet had still existed.
Which meant...
There should be a rule sheet somewhere in this place as well.
Then, when she attempted to get out of bed, the room underwent a strange change.
In other words, if she stayed on this bed, would she be able to find the corresponding rule sheet? The clue that players were guaranteed to obtain after entering the Instance?
Kaguya carefully shifted across the bed, moving as quietly as possible until she reached the pile of stuffed toys.
She stretched out a hand and moved a teddy bear aside, then removed a doll.
After spending a little time searching, Kaguya finally discovered a small notebook hidden among the toys.
She opened it.
The childish handwriting on the pages, the kind only a young child would have, entered Kaguya's view.
[Hana-chan is a good child. Hana-chan is a well-behaved child.]
[Good children sleep at night. They lie in bed and sleep properly.]
[Well-behaved children don't leave the room. They don't cause trouble for adults.]
[Shh, shh. Be good and go to sleep.]
[If you fall asleep, the Black Thing won't come looking for Hana-chan.]
[If you fall asleep, you won't hear the Black Thing calling anymore.]
[If you fall asleep, the Black Thing won't take Hana-chan away.]
[Hana-chan, Hana-chan... are you asleep yet?]
Rumble—
Thunder rumbled outside the window.
A flash of lightning suddenly illuminated the dim room.
And in that fleeting burst of light, Kaguya saw it.
The thing standing in the middle of the room.
The thing whose shadow stretched toward her.
...
Rumble— Rumble—
The dull thunder temporarily drowned out the sound of something knocking against the window.
Takumi pulled the curtains shut, making sure the thing continuously tapping on the window couldn't see him. Only then did he look around the room.
After hesitating briefly, he walked over to the computer, pulled out the chair, pressed the power button, and the monitor lit up.
Windows 98? That's got some age on it.
Looking at the interface—which seemed almost primitive compared to the flashy mess that was Windows 11, yet was incredibly simple and efficient to use—Takumi couldn't help grumbling inwardly about that operating system that updated every other day yet somehow never seemed to improve anything.
The Start Menu was gone.
The right-click menu had been turned into a disaster.
And every update somehow made it run slower.
Seriously, what the hell...
Forget it. This isn't the time to think about that. First priority is figuring out how to stay alive.
Just as Takumi had expected, the computer wasn't connected to the internet.
There was no network access whatsoever.
On the desktop, he found a folder named [Survival Records].
Inside were several files labeled [Record 1], [Record 2], and so on.
There was also a JPG image that appeared to be a crude picture drawn on the computer.
The room seemed colder than before.
Faintly, Takumi felt as though he could hear something coming from beneath the single bed beside him.
It sounded like something crawling.
Because its entire body was pressed tightly against the floor, every movement produced soft scraping noises.
He ignored the sound and simply opened the file called [Record 1].
[Record 1]
[My name is Yoshitaka. I'm just an ordinary person with nothing particularly special about me.]
[I don't know why my bedroom door connects to those strange and terrifying places. I don't know why this place still has electricity. And I don't know how much longer I'll be able to stay alive here.]
[Before those horrible things kill me, or before I finally can't take it anymore and end my own life, I'll leave behind every record I can. These records will remind me of what I've experienced, remind me how to survive here, and... if there are people who come after me, I hope these records can help you as well.]
[This place feels like a shattered dream stitched together from the memories of countless people. It's an utterly incomprehensible and terrifying place.]
[Almost every time you open a door, what's outside is different. But one thing is certain: this place is made up of countless rooms. Every location I've entered so far—living rooms, bathrooms, storage rooms, bedrooms, kitchens—they're all rooms. All ordinary parts of a normal residence.]
[I've been struggling to survive here for a long time. At least according to the time records on this computer, I've already survived here for six days.]
[During that time, I've recorded some things. Things that can help me survive more effectively.]
[The first record: after night falls, once you get into bed, do not get out lightly.]
[If you leave the bed during nighttime conditions, strange things will definitely happen, regardless of whether the room lights are on.]
[Sometimes these strange incidents aren't harmful. They're only terrifying, and you just have to endure them.]
[But other times, the situation becomes far less friendly. And if you want to survive then, there's only one thing you must do.]
Click.
At that moment, the bedroom door made a soft sound.
Then, with a long creak, it slowly began to open.
And at that same moment, Takumi saw the next line in the document.
[Hide!]
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