"Eh-eh-eh? How did we suddenly get pulled into the game?"
Chika jumped in fright, quickly grasping Natsuki's sleeve as she nervously looked around: "Where's Kaguya-chan? Why isn't she with us?"
"It seems we triggered a special dungeon, so Kaguya didn't enter the game."
As Natsuki spoke in a low voice, he calmly observed the environment. His slight drowsiness from earlier had completely vanished.
From a packed subway to an empty, desolate environment—it had happened in the blink of an eye.
The air was cold.
The lighting was pale.
Only the humming sound of the subway's operation filled the air, along with a handful of passengers.
Most of the passengers kept their heads down, their skin deathly pale, their expressions rigid, as if they hadn't noticed the environmental change at all... They were clearly all vengeful spirit passengers.
On the floor lay the corpse of a middle-aged office worker, surrounded by bloody marks from struggling—a shocking sight.
"I heard it too just now—it said 'Midnight Subway'... What the heck, it's not even eight o'clock yet." Chika couldn't help but complain quietly. "How is this a midnight subway!"
"Um, excuse me, are you two also players?"
A girl wearing a school uniform cautiously approached, asking in a low voice.
Natsuki looked at the girl, confirming by her dark circles that she was indeed a player.
"We're players." Chika quickly nodded. "Were you also suddenly pulled into the game?"
"...What do you mean?"
"Like, sitting on the subway and suddenly getting pulled into the game."
"Sorry, that's not what happened to me." The girl sounded puzzled. "I was just doing homework at home..."
"Eh?" Chika froze, looking up at Natsuki. "What's going on?"
Natsuki pondered for two seconds before quickly deducing the truth:
"The others have mandatory missions. Only the two of us are unlucky fools who accidentally entered the game while riding the subway."
It had only been a day or two since the last game—there was no reason to be selected again. They just had bad luck!
Humans have a psychological need to band together for warmth. Before long, two more players walked over.
One of them was a girl with waist-length blonde hair, tall and well-developed, wearing strange black clothing with a black maid headpiece, a black pet collar around her neck, and what appeared to be a tongue piercing. In short, she had the standard gyaru look, yet she introduced herself openly and graciously:
"Hello everyone, I'm Marin Kitagawa, a player who's experienced two games. Please treat me well."
She looks like a super-spicy gyaru, but surprisingly polite.
"Excuse me, why are you wearing those clothes?" Chika asked curiously. "Is it some amazing item?"
"Sorry, it's not an item—I made these clothes myself." Marin coughed twice, her face showing a slightly troubled expression. "It's the outfit of a game character I really love. I suddenly got the game notification earlier with only ten seconds to prepare, so there was no time to change clothes."
"Exactly! Ten seconds of preparation time is way too short." Chika couldn't help but nod. "What if everyone gets summoned while bathing? That would be so embarrassing."
"Um, it seems only our consciousness enters the game, not our bodies." Another girl said quietly. "Even if we're bathing, it's fine—we automatically appear wearing our most commonly worn clothes."
Hearing this, Natsuki looked at the girl who'd spoken. You know this so clearly—could this be from personal experience?
The last player was a bespectacled otaku whose hair clearly hadn't been properly groomed, holding a swimsuit figure of Alice from Sword Art Online.
"I'm Tomoya Aki. I just finished my part-time job and got home, and I was organizing my figures when the game selected me."
After briefly exchanging information, they discovered they'd all cleared the game twice and still hadn't met any veterans.
The possibility that the horror game had only recently started increased further.
Of course, they couldn't rule out someone deliberately concealing information.
"The game's mission is to ensure we survive before the subway reaches its terminal station." Marin covered her chest with her right hand, blocking the view. She couldn't help it—this gyaru's figure was really too good, worth at least ten Kaguyas. "...What about you all?"
"Same here."
The boy named Tomoya Aki quickly nodded.
"The terminal station..." Chika pressed her pink lips together in thought. "I think it's Shinjuku Station?"
"Not anymore."
Natsuki pointed at the subway's indicator light.
The players all looked up to see the subway indicator light flashing red, covered in blood stains. Some station names had even turned into garbled text, with only the terminal station's name perfectly clear.
Kisaragi Station.
"I-it's actually Kisaragi Station?!"
Tomoya sounded panicked.
As one of the top ten terrifying supernatural incidents of the new era, Kisaragi Station was known by everyone—its fame surpassed even the Slit-Mouthed Woman and Hanako-san of the Toilet.
Legend had it that once someone got off at Kisaragi Station, they would be trapped there forever, never able to return to the real world.
Seeing Kisaragi Station, everyone grew tense. After all, they were just newbies without much game experience—they couldn't possibly remain calm and composed.
"Natsuki, what should we do now?"
Chika couldn't help but ask nervously.
The combined technique of eliminating evil and purging darkness was powerful, but it required a target. Right now, they had no idea where the enemy was.
Natsuki pondered:
"Since this is a game, there must be a way to clear it. We can't just sit and wait—we need to take the initiative and search for clues."
The suggestion quickly received unanimous approval.
"Subways all have emergency brake buttons." The blonde gyaru Marin suggested. "Should we try the emergency brake?"
Natsuki nodded: "We can give it a try."
A moment later.
"It's no use." Marin looked disappointed. "The game really isn't that simple."
"Um, how about we check the driver's cabin?" Another player girl suggested. "The driver's cabin should have a mechanical brake."
"Let's go take a look."
The players gathered together, carefully circling around the office worker's corpse lying in the middle of the subway car as they headed toward the driver's cabin.
After entering another car, the subway instantly became empty—there were no other players or vengeful spirits, only messy bloody handprints on the windows and increasingly pale, dim lighting.
After walking for quite some time, Chika's eyes suddenly lit up. "There seems to be someone ahead!"
Natsuki narrowed his eyes: "You're seeing things. That's not a person."
Getting closer, the players all panicked.
"What's going on?"
"We actually came back around?"
What appeared before the players was the lighting and passengers from the car they'd just left. The middle-aged office worker's corpse lay on the ground, his briefcase scattered beside him—even the position hadn't changed.
"But this is a subway." Tomoya said incredulously. "We kept going forward the whole time—how could we possibly come back?"
As soon as he finished speaking, a vengeful spirit woman who'd been keeping her head down suddenly reached out and grabbed Tomoya's wrist. Then a hoarse voice followed:
"...Pervert, you actually groped me!"