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

This is not the scale that Fujiwara Chika should have at all.

Although she is still older than Kaguya herself, Maki, and the two young ladies combined, she is still too small.

Although Kaguya Shinomiya had been unhappy about the huge difference in size between herself and Chika Fujiwara, and had even considered killing her because Chika Fujiwara had intentionally or unintentionally flaunted her figure (not in the real sense), this was definitely not the size Chika Fujiwara should have been.

What did she do? Why did such a big change occur?

Shinomiya Kaguya was a little curious.

The pink-haired girl turned her head and immediately noticed Kaguya's gaze.

She lowered her head, and after realizing that Kaguya was looking at her chest, she had a look of sudden realization.

Then, Chika blinked, made a fist with one hand, held it to her forehead, and smiled slightly:

"Hey~"

A perfectly standard anime girl sticking out her tongue to act cute was displayed so naturally.

No, what do you mean by "hey"? You can't even be bothered to give a reason?

Kaguya Shinomiya frowned, but in the end, she said nothing and continued forward, heading back to the research base.

The operation is now over, and the priority is to return to the research base.

Therefore, although Misaki was still very curious, Kaguya managed to divert her attention and focus on the task at hand.

As for why Chika, who was standing next to her, was deliberately acting cute, well, to be honest, it was because she really didn't know how to answer Kaguya properly, so she just used this method to get by.

After all, it was indeed a bit hard to explain why she suddenly had Gao Hai wrap her chest with a cloth before she came.

Chika felt a little guilty as she thought to herself.

She knew that Takami and Maki had a good relationship, and originally, during her second playthrough, she had prepared to give up, deciding to suppress her feelings and pretend nothing had happened. However, she later learned that Takami was likely still trapped in the instance, possessing the ability to rewind time, and was probably currently trapped and unable to move, suffering a fate worse than death. Seeing Maki's resolute determination to save Takami, Fujiwara Chika didn't hesitate and joined in, returning to the Red Nut Gray Hole together.

Then, knowing that everything would eventually start over, that everything that had happened would be rewound, returning to a point before anything had happened, the girl, in that dark cave, when facing Gao Hai, chose to confront her own heart and express to him the most genuine, budding love in her heart.

Originally, this wouldn't have been a problem, since Chika always thought that since she was going to die anyway, everything would start over, and the only ones who needed to worry about this were Takahashi and her other self. But when the explosion ended and she opened her eyes again, she found herself back at the beginning of the Red Nut Gray Hole dungeon, and then she saw Takahashi again.

It was then that she learned that, in addition to the ability to rewind time, Takahashi also had the ability to rewind time with others. However, the prerequisite for this function was that Takahashi and the person he decided to rewind time with had to have a certain level of mutual goodwill. When he told her this, Chika could see that Takahashi's expression was complicated, because he then told her that he had already been able to rewind time with Shijou Maki in the first instance, and Chika immediately understood what this meant.

Becoming the other woman in your first love is something that's hard to be happy about.

But, Ah Hai has feelings for me... Ugh, I'm actually happy about something like this, I feel like I'm turning into an idiot.

Fujiwara Chika sighed softly, unsure how to describe her feelings at that moment.

Finally, perhaps because she had some ulterior motives, although the ostensible excuse was to "take precautions in case we encounter a narrow cave" so that Gao Hai would put a breast wrap on her, she actually wanted to test Gao Hai's reaction and also to give herself a little disguise.

The scene at the time was still quite embarrassing and made my heart race, especially Gao Hai's hand, whether intentionally or unintentionally... Ah, let's not talk about that, it's better not to think about such things.

In short, with her own little scheme in mind, Chika put on a breast wrap, changed into explorer's clothes, and then returned to the research base with Kaguya as explorers. They then went through the standard procedures of inspection, showering, and finally heading to the staff rest room.

Maki Shijou, needing to steal two researchers' lab coats for Kaguya and Chika to change into, didn't check the surveillance area before leaving to carry out her mission. At that time, the surveillance area was still guarded by the mysterious researchers, allowing Maki to leave early. However, if in the first playthrough, Takami and Chika suddenly appeared after their exploration, the surveillance area would be empty, forcing Maki and Kaguya, disguised as researchers, to check. But in the third playthrough, they would be unaware of this.

Because of this, Maki didn't see Chika's true size this time. After she put the change of clothes in the staff rest room, Kaguya and Chika changed their clothes and came out. What Maki saw was Fujiwara Chika, whose figure was not particularly outstanding.

Well, although it is indeed very cute and has the feel of a lively puppy, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Although Haijun is an absolute pervert, this one is not a big threat, after all, their figures are not much different from his own, at most just a little bit bigger.

Shijo Maki comforted herself in this way.

She didn't notice that Chika was also secretly observing her, carefully scrutinizing her.

As for Kaguya standing to the side, if her expression were translated into words, it would probably be something like, "What's going on with these two? Why do I have this strange feeling? Are they observing each other? Why are their eyes looking so weird?"

"Hai... Gao Jun has handed these obsession items over to you. Now it's up to the three of us. He can't participate in the core obsession here, so the three of us must find its root and a way to break it."

Qianhua took out a blood-red rag doll, a blood puppet, two scalpels, a necklace, and a medicine bottle.

Takami had already told Chika how to use the several items of obsession and the potential dangers. She quickly explained this to Kaguya and Maki, and then the three of them distributed the items of obsession and began preparing for the next operation.

In the previous two playthroughs, Kaguya and Maki encountered some obstacles in gathering intelligence, mainly due to the extensive surveillance within the research base and the numerous guards and patrolling soldiers, which greatly hampered their intelligence gathering efforts. Now, the three of them need to find a way to solve this problem.

The first step of the plan was to blow up the monitoring room.

It seems that this research base is under surveillance in most areas. Only by disabling the surveillance can the girls move freely.

But that alone is certainly not enough, so a second step is needed: sabotaging the base's power supply.

Although doing so could potentially lead to some unforeseen consequences, Kaguya and the others could simply change into explorer or other attire and escape if things went wrong, leaving the doll behind as surveillance, and then return to continue their investigation once everything returned to normal.

After all, the time limit for this mission is 15 days, so there is still a lot of room for maneuver in terms of trial and error.

This was the plan that Fujiwara Chika called the "Great Explosion and Bombardment Crash Plan," and it's worth mentioning that this plan's name was jointly rejected by Takami, Shinomiya Kaguya, and Shijo Maki.

"Then, I'll take control of this doll."

Shijo Maki took the rag doll, put a strand of her hair into the zipper on the back of the doll, stuffed it into the blood-stained cotton inside, and completed the activation and remote control of this object of obsession.

As a rather peculiar and almost uncontrollable obsession, the Blood Doll can run, jump, and even become invisible, making it quite a useful item. Its only drawback is that if it gets injured, it will return the damage to the user many times over, so it must be used with extreme caution.

At this moment, the doll was holding a homemade explosive device, the kind that Old Guo, who died in the Shirakawa Apartment, had given to Kaguya Maki. Using the Blood Doll's invisibility, the explosive device was silently brought into the monitoring room, while Kaguya and the others had already returned to the research area, and the two sides were quite a distance apart.

Complete the work in the analysis room.

Just like they had become researchers in this base, the three of them obediently pressed the buttons, waited for the process to finish, and then went to the second floor to hand the report to Professor Furnen, who was waiting in the corridor.

At that very moment, after submitting the report, as Forn, who exuded a chilling and eerie aura, turned to leave and return to his office, Maki manipulated the doll to detonate the explosives.

boom--

A dull thud was heard, accompanied by a slight tremor in the ground.

At this moment, Zhenfei and the other two noticed the other researchers and soldiers passing by. After finding that these researchers and soldiers were still expressionless and unresponsive, they also put on stiff faces and pretended not to know anything and stood still.

At that moment, all three of them clearly saw that Professor Follen, who was facing away from them and about to enter the office, stopped in his tracks the instant the explosion occurred.

Chapter 60: Key information about the instance is being unlocked.

Anthony Tovan Bush.

The man who played a key role in the process of Red Nut Gray Hole gradually turning into a haunted house of ghost stories was arguably the biggest troublemaker in the dungeon.

As a squad leader in the city's fire department, Howard Smith was naturally not qualified to have contact with people of this rank. He could only try to find out information about this person through various means and public channels, roughly knowing where this person went, what meetings he attended, where he gave speeches, and so on. It was obviously extremely difficult to find valuable information from this kind of information. Therefore, Howard's investigation process, as recorded in his notes, was basically like a headless fly with no direction at all.

However, things changed slightly after Howard shifted his investigation focus to the mayor's actions. Because the mayor frequently participated in city events and made public appearances, more clues could be uncovered.

【military】

This word was mentioned in particular in Howard's notes.

Of the hundreds of events the mayor attended throughout the year, about 20 involved military personnel and consisted of seminars and business launches on the process of converting military technology into civilian applications.

Howard hadn't quite figured out what that military technology product was. The mayor and military representatives used all sorts of flowery language at the press conference, but Howard couldn't extract anything useful from it all; all he could gleaned was the phrase "buy, buy, buy." However, his subsequent investigation revealed that a company responsible for operating this product had a presence in the city, yet he rarely saw anyone entering or leaving the company, as if it were just an empty shell.

slam-la-

Gao Hai turned to the next page, glanced around to make sure there was nothing unusual outside the car, and then continued reading.

Howard didn't attempt any clandestine infiltration or investigation of this suspicious company; he didn't have the capability. He simply found a corner near the company and installed a surveillance camera. After monitoring for a month and a half, Howard finally captured footage of people entering and leaving twice, both times in the middle of the night, and the vehicles entering and leaving the company ultimately headed in the same direction.

Red nut gray hole.

Some of those people were undoubtedly from the military, judging by their behavior; others were less clear, but they were carrying some strange-looking research equipment—perhaps they were researchers?

They entered the Red Nut Grotto in the middle of the night. I don't know what they did inside, and I don't have the authority to access the Red Nut Grotto's nighttime surveillance footage.

[However, I've heard that several of the night shift security guards hired by Red Nut Gray Hole have gone missing. I always thought they encountered some strange things, but... maybe they disappeared for some other reason?]

I don't know what those people are trying to do.

But... could the anomalies inside the Red Nut's gray hole be related to them?

Howard's notes appeared somewhat disorganized.

Gao Hai could sense Howard's complex emotions when he wrote those sentences from the notes.

He couldn't help but recall the moment during his second playthrough when he had the rescue team run into the [gentle slope] during their escape from the timeline where the security guard was located.

At that time, Gao Hai did not notice anything beyond the strangeness of the white dress.

But the thing appeared immediately after the rescuer shouted "I am human," before the rescuer had even fully entered the [gentle slope] area. Then, in the next moment, the rescuer was attacked by the thing and was pulled into the fork in the [blood vessel].

He wasn't able to keep up with the rescue team's perspective at the time, but he didn't notice anything unusual.

No, really nothing was found?

Gao Hai closed his eyes.

Perhaps I did notice the problem.

The problem was so well hidden that he didn't notice it immediately.

He began to try to recall what he had seen at that moment.

A pitch-black cave.

A cave shrouded in darkness.

The sound of running footsteps.

The gaze of a terrifying, eerie creature.

Is that all?

wrong.

This is not the case.

Gao Hai recalled the scene he had witnessed at that time.

In the darkness, in the shadowy cave illuminated by a flashlight.

Part of the darkness was not illuminated by the flashlight.

It was black...

Those are black... clothes!

Gao Hai suddenly remembered.

That's right.

After the rescue team ran into the gentle slope area, which was off-limits according to security rules, he saw black clothes, the kind of pure black tactical uniforms worn by the soldiers at the research base.