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

"Huh? Huh..."

Maki's eyes widened. She felt a strong sense of unease, but couldn't quite put her finger on it. It was as if something was desperately trying to stop her from recalling certain memories, as if something was trying to erase someone she knew from her consciousness.

I'm here. Calm down and don't get agitated.

Then, someone's voice suddenly rang in her mind.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Unobservable Double Lines and the Silent Gaze

As the morning sun rose and the clock struck 7:00, Gao Hai suddenly had a bad feeling, for some reason.

It seemed like something bad had happened, but he couldn't immediately see the problem.

This strong intuition made Gao Hai frown. He stepped forward and entered the dormitory building that had been opened. He went straight upstairs and shared the vision of Howard, a rescue team member who remained in dormitory 203, through the rescue team badge.

I did not see Kenta Hayashibe or Kenmochi.

In Gao Hai's view, the other three people in dormitory 203 were all unfamiliar students.

Is this some kind of show?

Gao Hai already understood what the scene before him might represent, and he had been mentally prepared for it beforehand.

Upon reaching the fifth floor, ignoring the shocked and wary gazes of the female students around him, Gao Hai looked through dormitories 503, 508, and 511. Unsurprisingly, he found that all the people in these dormitories had been replaced by girls he didn't recognize, and the players who should have been there had vanished without a trace.

The fact that they have different knowledge of the same things, which makes it impossible to exchange information, is just the initial manifestation of the Nightfall Mountain Middle School instance.

This dungeon only revealed its truly terrifying side when the information gap between different players began to widen further.

It makes it impossible for players with different perceptions to even recognize each other.

Am I no longer able to recognize my teammates, or have I been isolated in another dimension and actually appeared in another place?

Gao Hai slowly exhaled. He stood at the door of dormitory 508. After hesitating for a short while, he activated Chiyo Hachiya's blessing and used the power to manipulate his own mind within that blessing.

If what I'm experiencing is merely a visual illusion, then things should return to normal immediately. But if it's more than that, my actions might put me in greater danger.

Well, there's not much else to do, let's just try it out first.

Gao Hai quickly sealed away all memories of the nighttime operation, allowing himself to temporarily forget this part of the memory.

The feeling was strange, and in the blink of an eye, Gao Hai felt a strong sense of disorientation spreading through his heart. He clearly realized that he had sealed away the memory of the night's actions, but he couldn't remember what he had done last night at all. It was as if a void had suddenly appeared in his heart, and he was constantly trapped in a strong sense of incongruity.

Is this what it feels like to have your memories sealed away?

Gao Hai felt this indescribable sensation surging through his mind, and quickly realized that it was very similar to the feeling of encountering a familiar question in an exam hall, but being unable to recall the solution. It was that feeling of constantly knowing something, of feeling that you should know something, but just can't quite remember it.

However, unlike those candidates who genuinely couldn't remember anything during the exam, Gao Hai knew very well that he could recall everything at any time if he wanted to. That barrier of memory was something he had set for himself, and it didn't have any real force.

The key question now is, what changes will this bring about?

"call……"

Gao Hai took a deep breath, looked up, and looked at the dormitory room in front of him again.

He chose room 508, which belonged to Miko Yotsuya, Ai Hayasaka, Nanami Aoyama, and Kuma-chan. If he could return to where the other players were after sealing his memories, he should theoretically be able to see them now. Of course, it was also possible that they had set off very early, leaving him with only an empty room, but that would actually be more reassuring.

Thinking this, Gao Hai still saw three unfamiliar women.

No... change?

The unchanged situation surprised Gao Hai slightly.

The three girls inside the room were still whispering to each other, and they seemed to be starting to suspect that Gao Hai might be a perpetrator of indecent assault.

A group of girls had gathered in the corridor, all staring at him with hostile expressions as he barged into the girls' dormitory area. The entire corridor fell silent, and the atmosphere was clearly turning sour.

After a moment of silence, Gao Hai turned and left. Jianzi and Goto Ichiri caught up at that moment, and their expressions showed that they had also noticed the problem. The three of them didn't say much, hurriedly went down the stairs and out of the dormitory building, stopping only in the open space in front of the building.

"What should we do now that things have turned out this way?"

Seeing that Zi couldn't think of a solution, he had no choice but to ask Gao Hai.

"Communication connection failed, oh no..."

Goto Ichiri also started to panic. Clearly, she had never encountered a situation where communication with Aoyama Nanami was completely cut off before. No, in fact, it wasn't a communication interruption. She could feel that the artifact that connected her and Aoyama Nanami was still usable, but now, no matter how she tried to communicate with Nanami through the mental link, she couldn't get the slightest response, as if the other side could no longer hear her voice.

"Does having enough information mean that even if you forget, you can never go back to where you started?"

Gao Hai frowned. He remembered that yesterday morning, Goto Ichiri had used a memento to erase his own memories, thus avoiding the attacks of those strange creatures. But now he had also erased a part of his own memories, yet he still couldn't return to where the others were, and could only see unfamiliar students walking out of the rooms where his teammates should have been.

What's the difference?

Why was Pochettino unharmed while he was not?

Moreover, even after erasing her own memories, she could still tell others about it, allowing them to discuss the situation together. But now, the three of them are completely isolated from the other nine players, unable to see each other at all.

It's truly frustrating that things have gotten to this point after getting so deeply involved.

However, that's not necessarily the case; perhaps I didn't seal it completely enough.

If he were to seal away all his memories from last night to this morning, including the memories of not being able to see his teammates when he entered the dormitory building, he might be able to see the others again.

That's quite possible... but now is not a good time to try it. We should leave here first.

Gao Hai noticed that almost every student passing by would look in their direction.

Everyone was staring at the three of them.

Everyone turned their heads, expressionless and with blank stares, to look at the three people in their direction.

Something is wrong.

These students... seem to be paying more and more attention to the three of them.

"Let's go, let's go first, don't stay here any longer."

Takahashi said in a low voice, grabbing Miko and Goto Ichiri's arms, signaling them to leave with him quickly.

He noticed that some students had stopped and were standing still, staring at the three of them.

The atmosphere is changing.

In the eyes of these students who were actually avatars of monsters, the three people on their side seemed to have undergone some kind of change in their identities.

Right now they seem to be just standing still, but if this continues and they stay put, the situation will probably get worse and worse.

We need to get away from areas where many students frequent, at least not at the dormitory entrance during peak student traffic. It seems that as more and more students see us, some negative changes are becoming more and more obvious.

Walking along the road between the main teaching building and the indoor stadium, students kept stopping and silently turning to look in the direction the three were. The chatter of students, which could be heard everywhere at first, began to gradually subside and decrease. Under the morning sunlight, the entire campus seemed unchanged, but in the gradually spreading silence, a heavy atmosphere had already settled over it.

"..."

Seeing that Zi didn't dare to say a word, she just lowered her head and followed Gao Hai walking quickly.

She could feel the students' gazes.

Each one felt like a sharp thorn, piercing her back and into her flesh, even causing her to experience a slight phantom pain.

It wasn't just the students who had just seen the three of them who were watching.

Those students who had already moved far away and were theoretically no longer in sight of the three were still standing still, still watching them.

And inside the teaching building...

Jianzi could sense that someone in the main teaching building next door was already watching them from the window.

Even though nothing much had changed about them, why did these students' attitudes towards them change so drastically?

Is it simply because...they knew certain information?

Gao Hai began walking towards the swimming pool. This area wasn't open before class, and there were no students around at the moment, making it a relatively safe area in a sense. Furthermore, behind the pool was a green area of ​​the campus with many trees; in a crisis, he could consider hiding there to maneuver, well… provided that these increasingly strange students were the kind of monsters he could handle.

The swimming pool at Yeluoshan Middle School is an outdoor pool, which is divided into two pools, one large and one small. The small pool is 25 meters long and 1.2 meters deep, while the large pool is 50 meters long and 1.4 meters deep. Perhaps because it is for students, both pools are relatively shallow, and unlike many swimming pools, they do not have a structure where one side is deeper than the other.

There is a fence around the pool to prevent students from running around unnecessarily. To enter the pool area, you have to go through a two-story building on one side of the pool. This building serves as the entrance area for the pool. The first floor is used as a changing room and storage area, while the second floor houses a classroom for learning swimming theory, a medical room, and a rest room for the teachers on duty.

At this moment, the pool area is quiet, with no students in sight and no teachers present.

Gao Hai, who had stepped forward, glanced back and saw that the students in the distance were still standing still. After thinking for a moment, he used the Blood Key to unlock the door and hid inside the swimming pool with Jian Ziboqi. Then he locked the door again.

"They...are still watching us."

After entering the deserted indoor area, Miko breathed a slight sigh of relief, but then, because she could still feel those gazes, she quickly whispered to Takahashi Bochi.

"Yes, I can guess that the situation is probably quite bad right now."

Gao Hai nodded slightly. At this moment, he felt a slight emotional fluctuation transmitted through his mental link with Zhen Fei, realizing that she might have discovered something amiss.

I'm here. Calm down and don't get agitated.

He quickly conveyed this message to her via mental link, but then felt an even stronger mental fluctuation. For some reason, Shijou Maki didn't respond to him through the mental link, but instead continued to transmit her troubled emotions.

{you……}

After a while, he heard Zhenfei's voice coming from the mental link.

{You are...you are...Hai Jun? Hmm, I...I can't quite remember...}

She called out Gao Hai's name, but there was a clear hesitation in her voice.

Is Princess Zhenfei's memory being blocked due to the influence of this copy?

Wow, this memory mechanism works on both sides simultaneously.

{It's me, Gao Hai. Your memory has been severely affected. Can you still remember who I am? If you can still clearly recall some things, try talking to Ms. Qingshan first, and see if she has a similar situation. You're with other people over there, right? You haven't separated from the others, have you?}

“We’re going up to the second floor, but we have to be prepared to evacuate at any time, because the situation might continue to worsen.”

Gao Hai spoke simultaneously in the mental link and the real world, distracted by communicating with Maki and Miko Pochi.

His ominous premonition was growing stronger.

What the three people who entered the room didn't see was that the students who had been standing still, staring at them expressionlessly, suddenly started walking, one after another, towards the swimming pool.

【…】

There was no sound of words, breathing, or heartbeat.

In the sunlit campus, there were only blank expressions on the faces of the students, moving forward like puppets.

If someone were looking down at the school from the sky at this moment, they would find that, apart from the students in the affiliated teaching building and the canteen area who remained unchanged because they did not see Gao Hai and continued to chat and laugh there, the students in the other areas had all moved, forming a dark mass approaching the swimming pool area.