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

For students, this should be the happiest day. Friday's classes have just ended, the weekend is not yet here, and the two-day holiday is just beginning. Everything is at its best.

Well, students and working people who have to attend classes on Saturdays or even Sundays don't need to join in the fun.

For the three girls who are both students and gamers, Saturday is naturally a very important time, a time that must be carefully planned and not taken lightly. Although one of them is now absent, the team is no longer complete.

"Why is Maki not feeling well? And why is she sleeping in Taka-kun's room even though she's not feeling well? What's going on?"

Kaguya was very confused when she learned that Maki would not be participating in the morning activities.

Well, there are all sorts of factors involved.

Gao Hai scratched his head and answered helplessly. After being warned by Maki not to talk nonsense, he could only make up a few words with Kaguya now and could not reveal the real reason.

"...It all seems suspicious, and it's really a shame that one person is missing. Should we cancel the morning's schedule?"

Kaguya looked at Takami with suspicion, but seeing that he was unwilling to elaborate, she didn't press him. Instead, she turned to Chika and asked her.

"How can I do that? This is a rare team activity, and I don't want to spend half the day holed up in the hotel. Besides, Xiao Zhenfei already said not to worry about her, so let's just have some fun."

Chika naturally expressed her opposition quite righteously. For this playful girl, it was clearly impossible to confine her to the hotel after going out. Therefore, after discussing it for a while, the three of them finally left the hotel together.

The three of them went to a small bamboo grove near the hotel. The scenery there was quite nice, and a morning was enough for a round trip, making it a good choice for a short trip.

I'll take this opportunity to get closer to Gao Jun and beat everyone else to it!

During the journey, Kaguya thought to herself.

Maki's body temperature and touch seemed a bit lower than Chika's, but her thighs felt very nice to the touch. Of course, Chika's advantages go without saying...

While on the road, Gao Hai was still reliving the experience of last night, and subconsciously compared it to his first sexual encounter with his previous partner.

Climbing mountains, climbing mountains, climbing mountains, climbing mountains—

Throughout the journey, Chika remained focused and was the only one who truly immersed herself in the play.

So sleepy... I want to go back to sleep... What on earth is Kaguya-sama planning to do...? Ah, I have to pull myself together...

As for Hayasaka Ai, who was trailing far behind, she hadn't slept well after being frightened the night before. Because of her status as a servant, she had to get up earlier than Kaguya, so her current state could be described as quite low, and she could switch from a low-pressure state to a low-blood-pressure state at any time.

The morning sunlight filtered through the bamboo leaves, falling on the forest path and on the people walking along it.

The three of them walked step by step up the mountain. On the other side, out of their sight, in a secluded and secluded place on one side of the small mountain, a figure also arrived at this time, silently carrying an old guitar and walking along the dirt path in the bamboo forest.

Interlude 2-27: Goto Ichiri's Melancholy and the Idlers

It's so quiet.

Goto Ichiri raised his head and looked at the forest path in front of him.

This is already in the suburbs of Tokyo, and it's a remote area where almost no one usually goes.

After walking a few steps forward, Goto Ichiri saw an abandoned shrine. The torii gate had collapsed, and the shrine itself was nothing but a dilapidated ruin. It looked extremely gloomy under the cover of bamboo forest, and even had a somewhat eerie atmosphere.

A girl with long, messy pink hair stopped in front of the shrine, remained silent for a long time, and finally lowered her head and sighed softly in a voice only she could hear.

Only a handful of people know that this place was once the origin of a Twilight-level dungeon.

That was Goto Ichiri's first mission as a newcomer. Whether it was lucky or unlucky, she was participating in a brand new instance that had just appeared and had not yet been explored by other players. Moreover, she joined with one of her hard-won friends.

The entire mission was extremely dangerous, but fortunately, they were led by reliable veteran players. They also successfully discovered the core obsession of the dungeon and ultimately chose to fulfill the other's regret, freeing the eerie spirit lingering in the shrine and liberating all the obsessions trapped there.

The girl received her first blessing from here.

Together with her friends, she struggled to survive until the end, won, and returned to her daily life.

Even after that, they had to face the various dangers in the dungeon every month.

But she always believed that they could persevere, that they could overcome one difficulty after another, until finally, they would find a way to escape the "Sacrifice Game" and this terrifying world.

Then, I was left all alone.

In silence, the girl sat down on the remaining steps of the shrine ruins and took down the old guitar that was on her back, which even had some faint bloodstains.

Close your eyes and gently pluck the strings.

Flowing music then filled the open forest clearing.

I heard the same voices again, and I saw the same things again.

As the guitar music played, Goto Ichiri opened his eyes wide and saw everything that had vanished reappear in his senses.

The feeling of indulging in fantasy doesn't seem so bad.

Because the real world has always been so boring and painful.

The band that once brought her warmth and made her feel herself gradually changing—they all forgot her existence after she disappeared. Will they forget me one day if I die in a dungeon? After all, I'm a player, but they aren't.

Ah, that's why I chose to leave that band.

After becoming a player, I should have made this choice a long time ago, since the life of an ordinary person is long gone.

But what am I still hoping for, what am I still waiting for now, this person who has accomplished nothing?

I opened my eyes and looked at the guitar in my hands.

The girl took a deep breath, seemingly wanting to stop playing and try to play the wrong note.

She knew that if she did this, she would definitely be able to go back, back to that place, back to the place where her past had completely collapsed. But in the end, she simply slowly ended her playing, completing the piece perfectly without a single mistake.

Alright, now it's about time to head back...

"You played it quite well."

The girl's inner world was interrupted at this moment by the man's voice that suddenly interrupted her.

Goto Ichiri suddenly looked up and saw Takami standing next to the collapsed torii gate, looking at him.

Someone's here!

The pink-haired girl, who suffered from severe social anxiety, started trembling almost immediately, her eyes darting across the stone slab as if trying to find a crack to crawl into.

"It's me, Takami. Do you remember me, Ms. Goto?"

Takami didn't approach Goto Ichiri, but stood next to the torii gate and continued speaking.

It wasn't that he didn't want to get closer, but the chilling aura emanating from the guitar held by Goto Ichiri was simply impossible to ignore. Feeling extremely uneasy about this, Kaho thought it over and decided it was best to keep his distance.

What exactly is going on with that guitar?

Even recalling all the obsessive objects he had ever encountered, Gao Hai couldn't find anything more terrifying in terms of its aura than that guitar.

If forced to make an analogy, it would probably only be through the core obsession itself, that is, those terrifying and eerie auras. But even so, the only eerie thing that Gao Hai could think of that could be compared to the guitar in Goto Ichiri's hand was the eerie red dress under the great rift.

In other words, that obsession is at least a top-tier Dark Night-level core obsession, and possibly even more? After all, this obsession hasn't gone out of control yet, and its truly terrifying side hasn't been revealed.

Realizing this, Gao Hai looked at Goto Ichiri with a more cautious expression.

Regardless of how adorable and withdrawn the original Pochi was, she was definitely different from the player Pochi in this crossover anime world. Although this Pochi was equally cute, her strength was not to be underestimated. It was hard to imagine what kind of power that strange guitar had given her.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm extremely sorry for bothering you—"

After Gao Hai finished greeting her, before he could even figure out how to continue the conversation, the pink-haired girl with the guitar on her back had already run away amidst a series of words, showing no intention of giving Gao Hai a proper chat.

"Running really fast..."

Gao Hai had only just reached out his hand and hadn't even managed to call out a word to stop him when the other person had already slipped away dozens of meters away.

This made Takahashi, who was waiting for Kaguya and Chika to go to the restroom and was attracted by the guitar music, purse his lips. Feeling a little bored, he turned around and walked back the way he came, and casually took a picture of the map of the ruined shrine.

Speaking of which, when Xiao Boqi left just now, I think I saw a very small label on that coveted guitar.

The handwriting on that label... I don't remember it very clearly, it was something like some kind of middle school? Is it really possible that I can't remember something with my memory and observation skills? Or is this also an effect of that obsessive object, allowing information about the holder and the obsessive object itself to be ignored to some extent?

Gao Hai couldn't figure out the specific effects of Goto Ichiri's obsession for a moment, but he couldn't very well chase after her to ask about the effects and origins of such an important item related to his life and fortune. Therefore, he could only keep his doubts to himself and leave the matter alone for the time being.

"Gao Jun, where did you go just now?"

"Didn't I tell you not to go far? Hey, Ah Hai, what kind of place have you found?"

Kaguya and Chika's voices rang out from not far away. The two girls walked over and quickly discovered the abandoned shrine not far away. Kaguya was somewhat wary of such places and was reluctant to go in, but Chika treated it as a great place for a grand adventure, and even dragged Takami into the shrine to take some pictures.

"Speaking of which, why is there such a large shrine here, yet no one around knows about it? It seems to have only been abandoned for a few years, right? There are quite a few things in the shrine that don't look like they've been destroyed, and there are no signs to identify which deity is being worshipped."

Full of curiosity, Chika remained intrigued about the shrine even after returning to the hotel.

Unfortunately, everyone they met along the way knew nothing about the shrine, not even the elderly people who had lived there for decades. Takami and Kaguya, noticing this, exchanged a glance and understood each other's thoughts.

That shrine, like Shirakawa Apartments and Red Nut Gray Hole, was probably once a dungeon, which is why it was forgotten and became a nameless ruin that no one remembers.

However, according to the consensus found by the players, the eerie place that has become a dungeon should disappear from the real world. But Gao Hai and the others can see the shrine and enter it, which means that the place has returned to the real world and the eerie things that originally existed there have been liberated.

Did any player manage to break free from the obsession and obtain the blessing in that instance, thereby destroying the instance?

That must be a really strong player, right? An ordinary player couldn't possibly do that.

"Ahai, let's investigate together! Follow me, the great detective Fujiwara Chika, and uncover the truth of the past!"

Before Gao Hai could think of anything else, Fujiwara Chika, who had somehow produced a red hat, ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and dragged him toward the library in the nearby neighborhood.

"Hey, wait for me..."

Kaguya, who had originally wanted to create an opportunity to spend more time with Takami, followed behind them angrily, shouting, and was forced to run with the two of them.

Kaguya-sama is very unhappy right now.

In her opinion, the morning's outing was quite unsuccessful.

Because Qianhua was clinging to Gaohai the whole time, she basically didn't have many opportunities to be alone with him. Even if she found a chance to say something, the other party would quickly come over and join the conversation. Now she was even running with Gaohai.

Ugh, that's enough! What's wrong with this guy?!

The little voice inside me keeps shouting, stomping its feet, and spinning around.

On the surface, Kaguya could only barely maintain a calm expression as she followed Takami and Chika into the library, abruptly transforming from a tourist into an investigator.

While the three of them were excitedly browsing through the library's collection, Maki, on the other side, finally recovered somewhat and sat up from Takami's bed, yawning.

"Ouch...it still hurts so much..."

With teary eyes, the girl gritted her teeth slightly, looked down at her lower abdomen, then turned to look at the broken secret weapon lying on the ground, a blush gradually spreading across her face.

So that's how the secret weapon is used...

And why did it hurt so much at the beginning? Will it hurt every time from now on? Although it got better in the middle... No, it didn't hurt much this morning. The pain was a lingering pain from last night. Does that mean it's only like this the first time? Ugh, I never understood this kind of thing before. The etiquette teacher in my family just said that this kind of thing should be taught by my future husband. It seems so complicated.

Speaking of which, did Kai-kun go out with Aunt Kaguya and Fujiwara?