Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

Even when mentally prepared, when things actually escalate to the point where life is at stake, the fear and uncertainty are still overwhelming. However, even then, there's no feeling of being unable to move or panicking to the point of being helpless. In that respect, I guess I've grown a bit, haven't I?

As Yamada Ryo pondered this, he continued forward through the pitch-black underground passageway, which was riddled with forks in the road.

Not long ago, after confirming that she had lured the monsters over, she immediately fled to the subway station entrance that Nijika Hoshika had marked in advance. Together with Nijika Hoshika, who had already entered the underground passage, she went deep into the subway station, intending to use the complex structure of Tokyo subway stations to try to shake off the monsters.

The attempt was quite successful in a sense; they shook off the creatures' pursuit in less than a few minutes after entering. Although they could still hear the monster roaring behind them from time to time at first, as they ventured deeper into the complex areas of the subway station, they eventually stopped hearing any sounds from the creatures and could no longer sense their chilling aura.

The operation has been successful at this stage, and the next step should be to find a way back to the ground.

However, this is where the problem arose: they simply couldn't find their way out. The three of them walked back and forth in the pitch-black underground passage several times, unable to find a path leading to the surface. Instead, they seemed to be going deeper and deeper into the darkness.

"Up to this point, it seems like we've been to completely new places, and there are absolutely no signs or markers to refer to. Is this really a subway station? It feels like we've wandered off into a completely different place."

In the group, Hongxia breathed on her slightly cold hands and then asked with some confusion.

"It's hard to say. We sensed the presence of strange creatures as soon as we entered. Although we've shaken off the pursuing monsters, we might already be entangled by some of the strange creatures lurking around here. But at least there haven't been any unusual changes around us yet, so let's keep going and deal with it when we really encounter problems."

Yamada Ryo shook her head. She was still quite calm. The life-or-death experience she had gone through at Dansu Company had brought her considerable growth. Even though she knew that she was probably in danger again, the girl did not panic. Instead, she was still seriously thinking about countermeasures.

The flesh-and-blood monsters chasing from behind don't seem to be able to catch up for the time being.

These dirty bombs, hastily manufactured by the hospital and crammed with curses and contamination, are of poor quality. While they possess astonishing lethality against the living, especially ordinary people, their tracking ability, explosive power, and other basic attributes are not particularly high. Once they encounter a genuine attack from supernatural forces, they often become vulnerable. Even without supernatural intervention, ordinary people, if calm and possessing a favorable position, might still be able to escape or even defeat these monsters.

For example, right now, the three of them used the complex structure inside the subway to shake off those monsters. Although they would most likely be able to find them again by tracking their scent, now that they were at a greater distance, Yamada Ryo was certain that these monsters' tracking speed was rather slow when they couldn't directly see their target; they might not even be as fast as a dog.

However, it's not necessarily because of poor tracking ability. It's also possible that those monsters have a strong ability to track the aura, but for other reasons, they are unable to catch up with the three people ahead quickly.

For example, a strange entity hiding in a subway station has locked onto three people inside and has begun to manifest its own power of rules. After this entity's power takes effect, the monsters that were tracking them are seen as competitors by this strange entity, so it uses its power to eliminate them, causing the monsters that should have quickly caught up with the three to be unable to get close at all, and even the distance between them is getting further and further away.

Well, of course, there's also the worst-case scenario: that their senses have been clouded. In reality, the pursuing monsters are already very close, but they can't hear their voices. However, this possibility is very low, considering the power given to her by Mr. Gao. Simply clouding their senses to this extent is difficult; if something like that were to happen, they would definitely notice.

So, what is the situation now?

Splash—splash—

As they walked, the water, which was already above their calves, stirred and splashed, scattering droplets everywhere.

It was really dark here; apart from the flashlights the three of them carried, there was no other light source to be found.

Even though the power from the high seas had genuinely improved the three women's senses, they still couldn't see anything with their flashlights off. This wasn't due to the strength of their night vision; the problem was that there were truly no other light sources in this underground area. Without light itself, even the most powerful night vision couldn't reveal anything. This is also why deep-sea creatures and cave dwellers often lose their eyes—after all, vision ultimately requires light to function properly.

Even with a flashlight as a non-natural light source, Yamada Ryo found that her field of vision was still limited. While she could see clearly in the areas directly illuminated by the flashlight beam, the dim areas outside the direct beam—those places that should have been clearly discernible with enhanced vision—were just blurry shadows, much like the effect of an ordinary person using a flashlight in the dark. This was somewhat abnormal.

Therefore, there must be some supernatural force at work on you.

Even though there isn't a particularly noticeable eerie atmosphere yet, and there hasn't been a situation like being relentlessly chased by various monsters like in the previous dungeon world, these subtle anomalies themselves already indicate a certain fact.

Now that we've confirmed that the monster has locked onto us, the next key step is to locate its position and find a way to break free.

As Yamada Ryo pondered this, he continued walking down the flooded corridor.

After passing through a corridor paved with white tiles, turning a corner, passing through a road covered with various billboards, turning another corner, entering a small square, then entering another road, and then entering another long passage that seems to have no end.

The number of places we passed along the way was countless, but no matter how we moved forward, we could never find the way out. The entire subway station seemed to have become an endless, vast maze, and the escape route had been completely hidden and no longer existed.

If we could just summon a cannonball or something to blast through the ceiling and fly out, we probably wouldn't have to keep circling around here.

Unfortunately, Mr. Gao did not grant him such invincible power, so Liang could only imagine the situation in his mind before continuing forward, cautiously guarding his surroundings and walking step by step through the waterlogged road.

"There's something wrong. Even if there are a lot of branching paths in the subway station, we should at least pass through a few platforms if we keep walking like this. But why are we just wandering around in corridors all the time? Apart from that, we've only passed through a few places that look like indoor plazas?"

Even Xingge, who wasn't particularly good at observing, sensed something was wrong and realized that the three of them seemed to have entered some kind of strange environment.

"Now we can only keep moving forward; stopping here will only bring more danger."

Liang gently shook her head, her words, though not explicitly stated, were essentially hinting at Xingge's guess. Hearing this, Hongxia's face paled, but she remained calm and continued following Liang without making any rash moves.

I can feel a slight chill now.

It seemed that after the three of them had confirmed something, accompanied by a faint, elusive wind, the evil thing that had been lurking in the shadows began to reveal itself more clearly, allowing the prey deep within this place to become more aware of its presence.

There is still no way to determine the other party's location.

Although they could vaguely sense the enemy, the feeling was extremely weak and far from sufficient for the three, whose perception wasn't particularly strong, to pinpoint the enemy's location. However, even if they could directly determine the enemy's location, Yamada Ryo estimated that they wouldn't have any way to deal with them. Finding a way to break this strange situation was the most important thing.

"……Um?"

It seems like I sensed something.

When I realized it, there were already some marks on the wall next to me, some words that looked like blood and bits of flesh pieced together and stuck to the wall, like a child's doodles.

When passengers are floating in the water, please stay close to the wall and pass through; do not float alongside them.

When you see passengers on the other side, please lower your head and pass by. Do not make eye contact with passengers... Do not make eye contact.

When the passenger in the mirror walks out, please turn around and leave steadily. Please do not move the dining car.

[If a lost child passenger needs assistance, please ask security for help... (unreadable text)]

[As many passengers disembarked... (unreadable text)]

[Arrived at Exit 0... (Unreadable text)]

[...you won't encounter any fellow travelers...]

【Home……】

Their home...

The number of characters that can be recognized and read is not large; only three or four sentences can be considered clear and understandable, and the rest are basically short words and single characters with little or no meaning.

What's going on here? Is it a rule table?

Why would a rule table be found here? Logically, a rule table should be a record left by survivors from the dungeon world to those who come after, but this is the real world! Could it be that the monster brought out information about the people it killed along with it after coming from the dungeon world to the real world? Is it possible for such a strange thing to happen?

Yamada Ryo was a little confused about what was going on.

Then, without much time to think, when Hongxia and Xingge noticed Liang's movements and turned to look at the stained writing on the wall, an even more unsettling and eerie atmosphere quickly spread.

Splash—splash—

Something is coming from the front.

As the water on the ground was gradually pushed aside, something unknown rapidly approached the three people present.

"Lower your head."

The moment Liang realized what it was, he lowered his head and hissed at the two people beside him. Hongxia and Xingge reacted quickly, immediately lowering their heads as well, neither of them looking at the figure that had appeared in front of them, but only staring at the water below.

Wow…

So the bloated, rotting, deformed corpse slowly walked past the three women, as if it couldn't see them with their heads down, wading through the water and passing by them.

Chapter 83: Naïve Notes and the Light-Up Screen in the Abnormal Space.

The corpses have disappeared.

The rotting, bloated corpse, reeking of a foul stench, passed by the three of them indifferently, like a traveler who had simply stumbled upon the scene, and vanished into the darkness.

A slightly unpleasant, putrid odor lingered in the air.

But the sound of splashing water could no longer be heard, and there was no dirt left in the water. The clean water revealed the white tiles directly under the flashlight beam, just like the clean water in a swimming pool.

So... is it some kind of eerie object?

Yamada Ryo stood motionless, slowly frowning.

In that instant, she could sense a kind of eerie aura, icy cold and chilling, which made her tremble uncontrollably.

But thinking back on that feeling, those walking corpses seemed slightly different from real monsters. Although she couldn't quite put her finger on the differences, Liang instinctively felt that those things that had appeared earlier were at least not normal monsters, but rather some kind of unconventional existence.

Is it some kind of derivative? Or a manifestation of a curse? Or pollution? Or an illusion?

Liang recalled the classification of ghost stories that Gao Hai had taught him, but he couldn't make up his mind.

Based on just one brief encounter, it's impossible to determine exactly what that thing is. After all, Yamada Ryo herself isn't exactly an experienced player; by all accounts, she's at most a newbie right now, and unlike Yurikawa Hana, who at least has a blessing, she's still a complete beginner.

But she was certain that if she and the other two hadn't immediately followed the instructions on the wall and instead looked up to face the corpses, they would probably be dead by now. After all, that undisguised, intense malice still sent chills down his spine.

"...There shouldn't be any problems for now."

In the dim light of the flashlight, Liang cautiously raised her head and looked in the direction the things had gone. After confirming that the traces of those things had completely disappeared, she turned back to look at the road ahead to make sure that nothing would suddenly appear in her face before she slowly spoke.

"What was that just now? Why would we see something that looks like a rule table in a place like this?"

Hongxia gripped the flashlight tightly and whispered to Liang. She had received some instruction from Gao Hai, so although she hadn't noticed anything unusual about the strange auras, she at least knew the patterns of the rule charts and that such things shouldn't appear in the real world.

"I don't know, I'm not quite sure what's going on. I think we might have encountered some kind of exception. Anyway, we should be as careful as possible from now on, as escaping this place probably won't be so easy."

As Liang said this, she looked at the wall again and found that all the writing on the wall had disappeared, and the entire wall was clean and there was nothing left.

Has it already disappeared?

It seems that all we can do now is keep moving forward.

However, the changes in this place... it has completely become another place. Have we unknowingly entered another space?

The girl lowered her head, staring at the water that reached above her calves. At that moment, through the clear water, she could clearly see her shoes, the white floor tiles, and the dark gray cement between the tiles—everything was so clear, just like the white tiles on both sides of the corridor and the white-painted ceiling.

This was undoubtedly abnormal. The water accumulating in the underground passage came from the torrential rain that covered the entire city of Tokyo. Rainwater flowing into the subway station from the streets could not possibly be clean water; it was impossible to see the brickwork clearly through such water. Conversely, although the area they were in was unfamiliar and rarely visited, Ryo knew it was one of the older areas in Tokyo. The walls and floor tiles here couldn't possibly be so clean and tidy; they would inevitably bear some wear and tear. But now, she couldn't see any of those marks; every corner within her sight was perfect.

So, are we now in a closed space? Or a semi-open alternate dimension? Either way, this place is most likely no longer the real world, and escaping won't be easy. Should they search for an exit? Find the strange entity at the core of this space and try to subdue it? Or find the corresponding rules to break the seal and open a passage in and out?

The current intelligence information is still too limited to determine what to do.

Never mind, let's just take it one step at a time. That's all we can do for now.

"Do you remember the information on the wall earlier?"

Thinking this, Ryo looked at Hongxia and Xingge and asked.

"I remember, my sister and I both have improved a lot in terms of memory under Mr. Gao's treatment, and we can remember all the information we just saw."

Hongxia nodded and then recounted what she had just seen. Liang and Xingge quickly followed suit. Considering the issue of information contamination, the three of them were trying to avoid situations like "everyone seeing different information" or "someone seeing completely different information than others" by relaying the information to each other.

"Let's keep going. No matter what, we're in this situation now, so all we can do is try to move forward and adapt to the changing circumstances."

Yamada Ryo said this as he continued walking forward.

"Yes, my sister and I will be careful. Liang, don't be too stressed, we'll be fine."

Hongxia noticed that her friend was under a lot of pressure, so she whispered words of encouragement to her and followed Xingge beside her.

Wow – Wow –

The water was continuously stirred as the three people moved.