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

Ignoring any sense of girlish shame, seeing that Zi had once again pressed herself against Gao Hai, she stared in horror at the surrounding commotion.

She could sense something much stronger than Gao Hai; she could hear the students whispering among themselves.

That seemed to be a game.

It was an escape game organized by outstanding students in Class 1 of a certain year, confined to the dormitory building.

The self-proclaimed elites, the supposedly new generation of outstanding students, brandished various knives and weapons, while the troublemakers could only flee in terror within the dormitory area, forbidden from venturing elsewhere. They were not allowed to leave until the outstanding students had their fill.

At first, the students could only die in despair and pain, with no way to resist or survive.

After all, the dormitory building is only so big. Even if they wanted to hide, they couldn't find a suitable hiding place. They would always be found by those outstanding students. Even if they didn't find them, they could be forced to come out of their hiding places by order.

Despite this, the students racked their brains and finally came up with a way to survive.

That is to throw the other students to the outstanding students. After all, they set the rules of the game themselves, and even these outstanding students must abide by them when everyone is watching. Therefore, as long as the other students are thrown in front of them in advance, these outstanding students must stop and execute them first before they can go to find others.

No matter how impressive those outstanding students are, their physical abilities are still at a human level. After dealing with a certain number of bad students, they will reach their physical limit and will be unable to continue playing.

The students found a way to survive, or at least a way for some of them to survive, through this method.

Now, those things have gathered together, seemingly targeting her and Gao Hai together, intending to hand them over to those outstanding students for execution.

Seeing that Zi was almost unable to contain her panic, she was about to tell Gao Hai what she had seen and warn him about what was going to happen next.

But then, the girl suddenly realized something was wrong.

The dormitories during the day...aren't international students not allowed there?

And shouldn't I have a very uncomfortable or painful reaction when I perceive those things? Why didn't I feel anything special after seeing those things this time? It was like I just looked at a slideshow or a short video and had no reaction at all.

if it is like this……

"Mr. Gao, Alice is right outside the door!"

Quickly realizing what had just happened, Miko kept what she had seen to herself and then hurriedly reminded Takahashi.

【Hey, little Jianzi, don't be so clever. Just honestly tell me what you saw. Be a good, obedient child.】

Alice's somewhat disgruntled voice rang out at that moment.

At this moment, Jianzi finally felt a faint stinging sensation and vaguely saw the aftermath of what she had just seen.

The "survival game" did not end with the excellent students becoming exhausted and giving up the killing. After discovering the bad students' intentions, the excellent students pressed on relentlessly, determined to kill everyone before they would stop.

Realizing this, the delinquent students, in despair, kept fleeing, eventually ending up...

They ran down... underground... no... no, that's not a basement, the dormitory building doesn't have a basement... they ran down...

"Well!"

Intense pain stimulated the girl's nerves.

Her instincts warned her not to watch any longer, not to try to understand what happened next. But her senses were completely beyond her control, as if being actively pursued by those polluted and distorted things, falling deeper and deeper, uncontrollably touching things she shouldn't have.

corpse...

So many corpses...

The floor doesn't exist... that place doesn't exist...

But why did they still end up in that place they shouldn't have been...?

And those things that appeared there... what exactly were they...?

Boom!

With a deep, resonant sound, like the tolling of a bell, the girl's consciousness snapped back to reality.

Some kind of force stirred up from a certain direction upstairs, dispelling all the unsettling and eerie creatures.

Having absorbed most of the mental erosion for Jianzi, Gao Hai, now so dizzy he was about to collapse, turned around and looked at the crack he had created in the wall. At that moment, he could see a blood-stained hand reaching out from behind the crack, slowly tearing it open and widening it.

The second rescue team member appeared beside Gao Hai.

The doll containing another Red Moon-level player was handed to this rescue team member by Gao Hai.

The next moment, the rescue team member rushed straight to the wall, smashing it to pieces, and then, carrying the doll, rushed into the [non-existent floor].

All the Alices screamed at that moment, whether it was the three intangible Alices wandering inside the building, or the ones located underground... or on the roof? Or underground? Gao Hai couldn't immediately pinpoint the exact direction, but he still sensed the presence of the fourth Alice, the one that should be related to the key obsession of the dormitory building.

"I'd like to see how you plan to snatch that doll from the rescue team without a physical form..."

With gritted teeth and a low growl, Gao Hai opened the door while carrying Jianzi. The doorway was empty. On one side of the corridor, Xiong Mi, who looked to be in a terrible state, had crushed several surveillance cameras on the ground with half of her body covered in blood. She then waved to Gao Hai and Jianzi as a greeting.

"Surprisingly, none of them are missing an arm or a leg. It seems that today's newcomers are much better than I was back then."

Xiong Mi, who clearly has a tendency to overuse her obsession objects, now has half of her face showing a certain degree of bronze-like appearance. Those bronze pieces are growing directly from her flesh, causing her face to be covered in blood, and the blood flowing out has stained half of her body.

Despite enduring this pain, Xiong Mi's face showed no sign of distress; on the contrary, she appeared very relaxed.

Gao Hai glanced at the marks on the ground and realized that the strange creatures that had gathered there were probably lured away by Xiong Mi alone. He couldn't help but admire the veteran player's skills even more.

"It was just a close call. If you had come any later, we might both be gone."

As Gao Hai said this, he helped the exhausted Jianzi to Xiong Mi's side. At that moment, accompanied by a pleasant ringing of a bell, the lights in the dormitory building went out instantly, and everything returned to complete darkness.

The once clean and tidy corridor has once again become a dirty garbage dump.

At that moment, Gao Hai keenly sensed an extremely unsettling aura.

He looked up and saw that Zi also looked up as if he had noticed something. Then, about half a second later, Xiong Mi also noticed the abnormality and turned his head away.

At the end of the corridor, a figure stood there.

In the darkness, for some reason, the figure of the eerie, pale and slender creature stood out conspicuously, exuding coldness and chill.

It is not human, and it is something that inspires fear and terror.

Just looking into that thing makes one want to run away; there's absolutely no desire to fight it.

wrong……

What's standing there doesn't seem to be that kind of thing?

Gao Hai blinked and noticed a young girl standing at the end of the corridor.

She was a girl with long red hair and pale yellow eyes, wearing a dirty school uniform full of tears and dust.

It's not a monster, it's not a monster at all.

She was just a young girl, the kind of cheerful and adorable girl that everyone would like.

"You guys... are nice..."

The girl tilted her head, smiled at Gao Hai, and took a step forward.

zizi——

It sounded like a knife scraping and dragging on the ground, followed by another loud noise.

Chapter 51: Kita Kita! Hello everyone~~~ Yuyo Yuyo!

Amidst the chilling atmosphere, a girl with long red hair strode towards Gao Hai and his two companions.

In this dark, dilapidated corridor appeared a girl who looked completely strange, as if she had stepped out of another art style. She smiled and slowly walked towards the three people.

"That is……"

The first person to sense something was wrong was Miko Yotsuya, who noticed a strong sense of alienation in the other person.

The feeling was hard to describe. If Miko had to put it into words, the only description she could think of was that the other person didn't belong here. This was a somewhat fitting description of the strange feeling she was experiencing. Because her existence was so out of place, so different from Alice, from those twisted and deformed students and teachers, from the entire Fujika Junior High School, and even from herself and Mr. Takashi and Ms. Kumami.

Moreover, it seems that I sensed two different existences at the same time?

It was as if the girl wasn't the only one standing there, but something else entirely, as if two different figures had overlapped at that moment, blurring together and existing simultaneously, making it difficult to distinguish who was who.

This strange sense of disorientation made Yotsuya Miko feel slightly dazed.

At that moment, the girl walked towards the group, and within seconds the distance between them had been greatly reduced.

"You guys... are nice..."

She opened her mouth slightly, smiled at the group, and waved to them in greeting.

As she spoke, she took a step forward, only to step on a tattered cardboard box and wobble. She looked down at the ground with a puzzled expression.

Gao Hai felt that this girl seemed a little dim-witted.

"Miss Kita, what are you doing here?"

The next moment, the first to respond was not Gao Hai, nor Jian Zi, but Xiong Mi, who had been frowning and observing the other party since the beginning.

"Kita?"

Gao Hai paused for a moment before successfully searching through the list of red-haired beauties he knew, and remembered the other person's identity and the work from which she came from.

In the anime *Lonely Rock*, Kita Ikuyo, a cheerful and outgoing girl known as "Lady Return," is one of the four main members of a band. Her surname and given name, pronounced "Kita Kita, Ikuyo Ikuyo," mean "arrival" or "departure" in Japanese, leading to numerous online parodies. For example, people often use "Kita Kita, Ikuyo Ikuyo" to replace "Here she comes, gone, gone." In the original story, Kita herself dislikes her strange name, which sounds like a lame joke, and when her real name is revealed, she displays the same disappointed expression as Pochi.

Kita Ikuyo… she's appearing in the [Fujihana Middle School] instance world, meaning she's a player just like Pochi-chan, or Goto Ichiri. And she's already reached the top level of a Red Moon-level instance? Speaking of which, the guitar Pochi-chan has is clearly no ordinary object of desire; judging from the intensity of its aura, it's very likely already at the Red Moon level. Could it have been obtained from the [School Ghost Stories] instance?

"Miss Xiong Mi, do you know her?"

While Gao Hai was filled with surprise, Jian Zi hesitated for a moment before asking Xiong Mi, who clearly recognized the red-haired girl, a question.

"Back when I was caught up in the operation at Fujika Middle School, there were quite a few Red Moon-level player teams working together. She was a member of one of those teams, a three-person team from Tokyo. Although there were only a few of them, they all seemed quite nice and easy to get along with, except for one member who was a little strange... I never expected to run into her here, but the way she is now... I'm not so sure what to say..."

Xiong Mi frowned, a cigarette dangling from his lips, staring intently at the girl opposite him. The veins on his hands bulged, clearly indicating that he was ready for a fight.

"Are the other two teammates named Goto Ichiri and Aoyama Nanami?"

Gao Hai looked up and met the girl's gaze, then slowly asked a question.

"Do you know any members of that squad?"

Xiong Mi's answer was exactly what Gao Hai had expected.

The girl who was standing opposite in a daze also brightened up after hearing these words, and seemed to become happy.

"You guys... know... Ichiri-chan... hehehe..."

Amidst the dazed sounds, Kita Ikuyo staggered a few more steps closer.

At this moment, Gao Hai and Jian Zi both heard a sound that became clearer and clearer, like a blade scraping against the ground, but they still couldn't see where the blade was.

The girl, who had seemed suspicious from the moment she appeared, had already stepped in front of the three of them.