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

The way you looked at me just now wasn't respectful enough. Come with me. You'll be our biology textbook for today. Don't worry, I'll use a knife.

[You saw me going up the stairs and didn't even bother to help me? Hmm, here's a spoon. Use it to cut open your stomach and scoop out your intestines.]

That was a picture of the man when he was teaching at the school.

[This is fantastic! Just by saying it, I can make those students die. They'll obey any order I give.]

[Haha, look at the looks in these little guys' eyes! It's so satisfying, I love this job! Hmm, there are already several "models" piled up in the office. Collectibles are best kept in small quantities; that's right, just assemble the most perfect parts and keep only one.]

[Hmm, the third batch of sacrifices is complete. All eleven outstanding students from this year's cohort are dead, and their method of death was cannibalism. The final number is 0. Ha, what exactly is that old guy trying to do, killing off every cohort of students in various ways... Oh well, whatever, as long as I'm happy.]

Those were the words this man uttered when he was a teacher at this school, when he was full of vigor and ambition.

But now, shrouded in darkness, he has become a traitor.

What awaits him next is the darkest and cruelest side of this school.

Hiding intelligence inside mannequins and smuggling them out of the school is a good idea. You've made so many "mannequins" over the years; who knows how much intelligence you've leaked? So, execute them in your favorite way: use this spoon to scoop out their internal organs and eyes.

Amidst the piercing and desperate screams, the man's hollowed-out corpse was swallowed up by the darkness.

Then, it seemed that one of the girls couldn't help but chuckle, and then skipped away.

The hallucinatory scene has ended.

Upon witnessing all of this, Miko felt a sudden, intense dizziness and nearly collapsed to the ground.

"Yotsuya-kun?!"

Rika Ichino, who was walking beside Miko, quickly helped her up.

"What do you see?"

Gao Hai also saw a similar scene to Miko, but did not hear any particularly clear sounds. Therefore, when he saw Miko's reaction, he immediately realized that she might have seen something different from what he had seen, so he stepped forward and asked.

"I...I saw that [Turtle Teacher] being...I saw him being..."

The girl, her face deathly pale, stared at the figure carrying the mannequin and walking downstairs. After trembling for a while, she finally recounted what she had just seen.

The three girls around her were more or less skeptical. Ichino Rika worried that Miko might be hallucinating, while Sanada Kazumi, who she brought along, suspected that Miko might have suffered a mental breakdown due to some kind of trauma.

As for Gao Hai, he only paused to think for a moment before signaling the others to continue forward and head upstairs.

It's really interesting. What kind of "key information" might be hidden inside the body of a human model?

In the previous playthrough, Miko didn't receive any information about this because she didn't encounter the mannequin or Kame-sensei? However, touching the mannequin would result in being attacked by its strange power, which is extremely dangerous in itself. Moreover, I broke the mannequin in the first playthrough, so why didn't I see any information or evidence at that time?

Moreover, this intelligence came at a very opportune time, as if it had been deliberately presented as a direction for investigation. Isn't it a bit too coincidental?

Where are we going?

Seeing that Gao Hai simply told them to continue upstairs, Ichino Rihanna couldn't help but ask.

"..."

Gao Hai did not answer, but continued to go upstairs.

"What were those people wearing turtle headgear all about?"

After hesitating for a moment, Ito no Rika asked again.

"..."

Gao Hai still did not answer.

"you……"

Rika Ito wanted to ask more, but Miko reached out and tugged at her sleeve. When she turned around, she saw Miko shaking her head at her, so she had no choice but to stop asking.

At this moment, the five of them had slowly walked to the location on the 7th floor.

Gao Hai used the candlelight to illuminate the floor markings on the wall, then walked out of the stairwell and arrived at the place where the key to passing the level was located.

What he didn't see was that in a small corridor on the 5th floor, where he had already left, the elevator doors slowly opened with a crisp "ding-dong" sound, revealing its empty interior.

pat- pat-

Footsteps echoed in the corridor, but no one could be seen.

Only a faint voice echoed in the darkness, and no emotion could be discerned in that voice.

Alice's friend... has been stolen...

Chapter 22: Arrival on the 7th Floor and the Girl Who Received Special Treatment

The teaching building, 7th floor.

At first glance, this place is no different from the 5th floor. It is equally dark and dilapidated, with wall tiles and wallpaper lying on the ground. There is garbage and debris everywhere on the floor, as well as broken tables and chairs, dirty clothes, plastic bags and other things piled up on the ground. It looks like it has been abandoned for many years.

Gao Hai soon found the map of this floor and confirmed his current location.

"The teachers' offices are behind, the chemistry classroom is in front, the place we came from is on the right, the art classroom is on the left, and if you continue forward you can reach the elevator and classes 23, 24 and 1 of the ninth grade. Speaking of which, this floor map seems more abstract than the fifth floor. What's the meaning of the chemistry classroom being so close to the music and art classrooms? And do the home economics classroom and the chemistry classroom share a waste disposal room? And what's that room that has no connecting corridors?"

Looking at the map in front of him, Gao Hai couldn't help but complain repeatedly. The four girls beside him, looking at the strange, twisted map, clearly had the same thoughts as Gao Hai, but they just didn't dare to say it out loud.

A normal school building could not possibly look like this.

However, although Gao Hai had told the four girls in the stairwell that "the terrain of this place is completely distorted," the four girls were still somewhat stimulated after experiencing the counterintuitive terrain of this place step by step during their exploration and seeing such a bizarre map.

"Why...why did we bring you to a place like this? Is this...is this still the real world?"

The girl named Sanada Ai, who was brought out by Ito Satoka, lost her composure and shouted loudly at Takami.

"He didn't do it..."

At this moment, Miko Yotsuya spoke up, explaining to Kazuya Sanada before Takami could speak.

"Huh? No, it wasn't him? If it wasn't him, then who was it? And he just said something about us cooperating with him to complete the mission..."

Sanada was a little confused by Miko's words and subconsciously asked her a question in return.

"Because Mr. Gao needs us all to obey him, so that we won't act recklessly in this dangerous place, and we'll have a better chance of survival and won't cause trouble for Mr. Gao. I know why we came to this place. You've all participated in that ritual, right? That ritual of making friends. That ritual brought us here."

As Miko calmly finished speaking, Sanada Kazu's expression changed slightly.

When Sanada Go heard about "Alice's Game" on the radio and saw it on that notebook paper, she had a vague feeling that it was familiar. Now that Miko had brought it up, she immediately understood. Ichino Rika's expression also changed slightly, clearly realizing the same thing. As for Ogawa Kyoko, her face turned deathly pale, and she almost collapsed to the ground. She was one of the initiators of the ritual, having actively pulled many classmates into participating, and now everyone she had participated in the ritual with had come in.

"Enough with the nonsense."

Gao Hai coughed lightly, then took the lead and headed towards one side of the hall.

The girls who had been talking to each other just moments before quickly stopped and followed Gao Hai closely. Although they still didn't quite understand the situation, they became even more subservient to Gao Hai, a powerful and ruthless man, and followed him without him even needing to say anything.

“Mr. Gao… um, I’m sorry for dragging you into this, and also… about Yuka-san. Well, I understand the necessity of what you did, and I will do my best to help you.”

Jianzi took a few steps closer to Gao Hai and whispered something to him.

Gao Hai looked down and saw that the girl looked nervous and was trying hard to suppress her fear.

She was afraid of herself.

Unlike her trust in the first playthrough, Miko is terrified of Takami in the second playthrough. She is afraid of this terrifying man who cut off her classmate's arm and then jokingly cut off her own hand to demonstrate his regenerative abilities.

Even so, she could see that Gao Hai's approach was the best way to ensure the survival of the majority of people.

Ultimately, it's almost impossible for a group of ordinary high school girls raised in peacetime to survive when suddenly thrown into such a dangerous and bizarre place. While Gao Hai's actions may seem like those of a villain, he did, in fact, protect all the students.

Therefore, we shouldn't criticize him; instead, we should go along with him. After all, protecting such a group of burdens is always a burden for Gao Hai. If he feels that his group is truly useless, he might abandon them.

With this in mind, despite being terrified of Gao Hai, Jianzi forced herself to approach him and spoke earnestly, hoping to leave a good impression. After all, among all the students present, she was the only one Gao Hai valued most because of her special visual abilities, and she thought that only by expressing her stance could she make Gao Hai more willing to protect the students.

Snapped!

"Ugh..."

Then the other person reached out and patted him on the head.

"Forget about trying to be clever. I brought you along because you seem to be somewhat useful. You two need to keep a close eye on your surroundings for anything unusual. As for the others, just follow my orders and don't cause any trouble. You don't need to worry about anything else. Do you understand?"

Having discerned Miko's thoughts, Takahashi casually remarked, while also feeling a slight sense of surprise.

During the first playthrough, the class was attacked in a bizarre manner. When he could only protect himself, he saw the girl desperately fleeing with him, without any other thoughts. But now, in the second playthrough, the students have been protected, and this girl has developed a slight desire to protect them, even coming to him specifically to pledge her loyalty. This different change in the same person under different circumstances is, well, quite interesting. Of course, it would be even better if this change wasn't triggered by him being turned into a puppet; honestly, even someone with an iron will would find that unbearable.

We walked through a sloping, cramped corridor that made us feel very uncomfortable.

Under Takami's arrangement, Itono Rika, along with Ogawa Kyoko and Sanada Kazumi, kept a close watch on the area behind and to the left and right of the group. This arrangement proved quite effective; the braided-hair girl was very meticulous. Realizing the situation was dire, she observed her surroundings closely, spotting several students sneaking closer, some with their chests and abdomens ripped open, others with their skin peeled off and covered in blood.

Of course, there were also some more subtle things, like when a teacher wearing a duck-head mask approached, she didn't react at all. It was only when she sensed something was wrong and felt a chill run down her spine that she quickly turned around and discovered the thing approaching. Then, Takashi stepped forward and chopped off the thing's duck head with one stroke, throwing the huge duck head out of the corridor window and out of the school building. He then severed the thing's limbs, and thanks to the knife's targeted effect on the eerie nature of Fujika Middle School, he directly crippled the creature, leaving it almost half-crippled, requiring at least a day to recover.

The attack terrified the four girls.

After seeing that even after the duck teacher's head and limbs were cut off, the remaining torso was still wriggling on the ground and her hands and feet were still moving, they were even more terrified.

However, Gao Hai himself felt very satisfied. After the frustration of the first playthrough, the experience of being able to suppress these monsters in the second playthrough was extremely enjoyable.

He was still a little annoyed by the thought that using this machete might attract Alice, but considering that she was one of the problems he had to face, he wasn't afraid of that thing.

tread--

After cutting the strange creature with a searchlight sewn onto its head that had emerged from the front of the corridor into several pieces, Gao Hai continued walking forward.

The four girls behind them followed silently, even closer than before, because the lamp woman who had been slashed to the ground was still wriggling and trying to get closer to them, which made the girls dare not slow down.

Jianzi was walking closest to Gao Hai, practically clinging to him. If it weren't for this awful place, Jianzi would never have gotten so close to any man. But after witnessing Gao Hai suppress those two monsters, especially after clearly seeing how terrifying they were using his special visual abilities, only staying close to Gao Hai could give her a sense of security.

tread--

Amidst the footsteps, the five candle flames still flickered slightly.

To enhance the lighting, Gao Hai gave each of the four girls a candle. Of course, these were all candles belonging to the students of the ghost school; he had carefully categorized them and wouldn't take out any candles belonging to living people.

The sloping corridor was longer than expected.

After several attacks, nothing came near for a while, so the only sounds in the corridor were breathing and footsteps.

In the distance, one could faintly hear students singing.

It was unclear what was being sung, but one could hear laughter mixed in with the singing (only Takami and Miko could hear it), along with crying and screams (only Miko could hear it).

The group made no reaction and simply continued moving forward.

But as they went further, more and more stains began to appear on the walls and the floor.

Black, like the footsteps of something, like some kind of liquid splashing, like black traces left by someone being dragged.

From few to many, eventually becoming densely packed.