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

She was responsible for staying in a secluded area outside the dormitory building to keep an eye on a door that Gao Hai had removed from the main hall. If Gao Hai encountered danger during his exploration, he would immediately use the blood key to open the door and escape from the dormitory building to Jianzi's side.

This was done for two reasons. First, Miko's self-defense abilities were too poor; even with Takami's protection, she was easily killed. Her instant defeat in the first playthrough, despite having her domain's protection, already spoke volumes. This girl with extraordinary perception was truly unsuitable for direct combat. Second, interpreting the rule that seemed to have been left by the [Life Club], the rule of [remaining silent and not communicating with anyone] appeared to have significant meaning. Under these circumstances, Takami was even more hesitant to let Miko come in with him.

I have no idea what I'll encounter next.

Will the female ghost who jumped off the building appear at this time? Will the thing that appears under the bed start moving around at this time? Will there be other unknown things lingering in this building? There are too many questions that cannot be answered in advance, so we can only take action first.

Thinking this, Gao Hai slowly took a step forward, moving from the area still illuminated by sunlight into the area covered by shadow.

everything is normal.

Although he could feel the temperature in the dormitory building had dropped considerably, creating an increasingly oppressive and strange atmosphere, Gao Hai walked from the entrance to the stairwell on one side without encountering anything unusual. It was as if this place was just an ordinary dormitory building, simply empty at the moment.

tread--

Gao Hai stepped onto the stairs.

He looked up into the gap in the stairwell, but saw no one looking down from above, no bloody heads or anything else falling from above.

It's just very dark and gloomy here.

So let's go straight to the rooftop. The goal of this operation is to reach the rooftop. Regardless of success or failure, life or death, we must at least get there.

Without hesitation, Gao Hai continued walking, ascending the stairs step by step.

He had completely focused his mind, alert to any possible anomalies around him, but from the first floor to the sixth floor, Gao Hai did not encounter a single crisis. The entire dormitory building was so quiet that it seemed unbelievable to him, making Gao Hai wonder if he was in a game or had actually walked into a dormitory building of a school in the real world.

If you continue walking upwards, the next step is the rooftop.

Gao Hai looked up at the last flight of stairs above, then turned to look at the empty sixth-floor corridor, feeling uneasy.

Could it be because I returned to the dormitory alone, making it impossible for me to communicate with anyone, and because I didn't say a word the whole way, that the building remained safe and nothing came out to chase me?

Speculating on the possible reasons, Gao Hai reached out and gently pressed his hand against the rescue team badge he was wearing.

He decided that after arriving at the rooftop door, he would use the blood key to open it and then let the rescue team go in first to assess the situation. If the rescue team could enter without being attacked, he would then follow them in to see what was inside.

Every few minutes, Miko Yotsuya would send a report saying, "No abnormalities reported for now." With all the students remaining in the main teaching building, the girl responsible for keeping watch was quite safe. However, whether this situation would change by the time the students finished their first class was something no one could be sure of.

tread--

Gao Hai continued taking steps.

In the dimly lit stairwell, his shadow swayed slightly against the wall, almost blending into the wall itself.

Unlike the first to sixth floors of the dormitory building, Gao Hai quickly noticed that the staircase leading to the rooftop was significantly more dilapidated. The handrails were covered with cracks, the walls were also showing signs of cracking and peeling, and there were piles of garbage bags and debris on the ground that looked like they had been carelessly discarded.

Gao Hai noticed a newspaper that looked very old, with yellowed edges.

The newspaper lay quietly on the side of the stairs, mixed in with the trash. If Gao Hai hadn't been observant enough, he certainly wouldn't have noticed it.

He was curious that he could find something with written information in this place, and wondered why Goto Ichiri hadn't been able to find this record in his first playthrough. So, after carefully observing his surroundings and making sure there was nothing unusual, he reached out and picked up the newspaper, wiped off the dust, and then opened it.

Hmm, this is...

The handwritten text and rough graphic design quickly made Gao Hai realize that this was a handwritten newspaper, and likely from the same person as the one he had seen in his previous playthrough. However, this newspaper looked much older, as it was severely soiled.

Gao Hai then looked at the headline of the newspaper.

[Strange Tales Report]

【Issue 2】

[Edited by: Jiang Gu Xianyi]

So this is it after all? Issue 2... Does that mean this newspaper is close to the early days of the "Ghost Stories Society"?!

Gao Hai's eyes widened slightly, and he immediately flipped open the newspaper.

We welcome your comments in the relevant sections of our student newspaper. Your suggestions may help our club grow and thrive.

[For students who wish to submit original ghost stories or collect and organize urban legends, please come to the Ghost Story Club activity room on the 10th basement floor of the main teaching building and submit your stories at the mailbox outside the classroom.]

Regarding today's segment, I'd like to continue discussing "taboo" topics.

The word "taboo" in everyday life often carries various meanings depending on the specific time and context. For example, snow-capped mountains become forbidden areas during heavy winter snowfall, and swimming in rivers is forbidden during summer downpours.

These kinds of taboos are actually quite easy to explain. After a heavy snowfall, mountainous areas become more complex and dangerous, and venturing too far increases the risk of getting lost. Rivers flooded by torrential rains make it difficult to see their depth, and swimming in such conditions is extremely dangerous. In other words, so-called taboos essentially represent potentially dangerous behaviors. Not breaking taboos is to protect our own lives and help us live safely and healthily.

But what about the other kind of taboo?

My father once said that you should never open an umbrella indoors, considering it an "inauspicious" act and a "taboo." The elders say that if you encounter sudden fog while walking on a mountain path, you must stop, otherwise you might get lost forever, and you must wait until the fog dissipates before continuing. These elders believe this is the work of monsters, their purpose to lure people astray, so this is also a taboo. However, unlike the taboos I mentioned before, these taboos often point to something ambiguous, something that cannot be described by common sense—what we call the supernatural.

Many of these taboos are quite inexplicable, containing incomprehensible and seemingly meaningless content. Even if some are violated, it seems nothing will actually happen.

So, what is the reason that such a taboo exists in the world and has been passed down?

What is the reason that these seemingly meaningless taboos, which appear to pose no danger even after being broken, have persisted to this day?

If a taboo does not have a "punishment" for breaking it, does it still qualify as a taboo?

The discussion on this topic has truly brought us a lot of fun. Some of the new members who joined the Ghost Stories Club tried to analyze it from various angles and came to many interesting conclusions.

However, my thinking is quite simple. I believe that if something is called a "taboo," then from the moment it is born and continues to exist, the "dangerous" element of the taboo has already been satisfied, regardless of whether it is actually dangerous.

Even if the danger doesn't actually exist, it fulfills the believer's fantasy of the "taboo."

What's your opinion on this?

Having chosen to break taboos and do something that "may have dangerous consequences," what is your attitude towards taboos, and what kind of result do you hope to achieve?

As my gaze swept over the last line of text, I seemed to hear a sound not far away, like someone reading the contents of a piece of paper.

Sensing a hidden danger, Gao Hai frowned and turned to look down the stairs, but found nothing amiss.

Then he looked up at the top of the stairs, towards the direction where there should theoretically only be one door leading to the rooftop.

Ok? !

Gao Hai saw the open door.

And the faint light shining from behind that open door, and the strong, damp, putrid smell.

What appeared behind the door was not a rooftop, but a prison surrounded by rows of iron bars.

In one of the cells, a dirty old man turned his head and met Gao Hai's somewhat dazed gaze. Then, he grinned and gave him a silent laugh, revealing a mouth full of uneven, broken teeth.

Chapter 47: The Gradually Invading Abyss Gate and Speculations on the Rules of Cognition

How is this going?

Gao Hai had anticipated various scenarios that might occur after the rooftop door was opened, including being instantly killed without even being able to use his blessing and being completely wiped out. However, he never expected that the scene behind the rooftop door would become the place called "Baidos".

That doesn't make sense. What connection do Yelu Mountain Middle School and Baidos have?

These two places are worlds apart in the real world, and they are also completely unrelated in the instance. Previously, when Gao Hai entered Baidos in his dream, it didn't seem to have anything to do with Yeluoshan Middle School; he was just using the switch between wakefulness and sleep to move between locations. But now, he saw Baidos; he saw the Baidos area directly within the Yeluoshan Middle School instance area.

why?

It doesn't make sense... How could the dormitory rooftop lead to Baidos's prison? It just doesn't make sense...

Standing on the stairs, Gao Hai was stunned, unsure whether to go forward or backward, and didn't know what to do.

No, that's not right.

My thinking ability... seems to be affected?

Gao Hai suddenly lowered his head and looked at the spot where the newspaper had been placed.

There were no newspapers.

Although there was a lot of trash piled up on the stairs, there was no sign of any newspapers. His hand, which should have been holding a newspaper, was now empty.

How is this going?

Where did the newspaper he was just reading go?

The fragments of reading the text in my memory are still very clear; I can recall every sentence in the newspaper, and I am certain that it was not false information.

But why... wait, wait a minute, the contents of that newspaper... were they talking to me at the end? Why didn't I realize it? Why didn't I react to such an obvious trap? I've experienced something similar before, but I didn't notice it at all... wait, this feeling, so that's it. Has my thinking ability, my intelligence, and my reaction speed been declining from the moment I stepped into the dormitory building?

This is not normal.

This is different from the mechanism at Nightfall Mountain Middle School; this is… the mechanism of Bydos. A strange tale mechanism from another region has been applied to me. Why…?

Gao Hai reached out his hand.

He slowly reached towards the back of his head.

He quickly found the sutures.

He felt a wound that had cut across his scalp and skull, enough to completely rip open his skull, but which was now stitched up.

Gao Hai could almost picture that scene.

He was strapped to a chair, and the doctors skillfully cut open his skull, exposing his brain tissue directly to the air.

Then, what did they do...?

A sharp, fine needle pierced Gao Hai's brain.

The viscous liquid dripped down, seemingly possessing a life force, and entered the cranial cavity.

My thinking is becoming increasingly confused.

An extremely intense pain shot through my head, so intense that I could barely keep my balance.

Then, a sound was heard coming from afar.

[It's confirmed that Nightfall Mountain Middle School has completed the verification experiment, and as expected, it failed. They only managed to annihilate a small squad of Ami's army before being completely wiped out. The bizarre, it seems, still can't transcend the boundaries of the understanding that gave rise to it.]

The first sound was the slow, deliberate voice of an old man, who sounded like someone of noble birth.

[Perhaps the Fujika Junior High School project will succeed. Of the three projects undertaken by the Japanese military, I actually have the highest hopes for Fujika Junior High School. Only this project truly achieves the ultimate cycle and refinement of "evil," something even Yoruyama Junior High School still falls short of.]

Then came a serious male voice that sounded somewhat familiar, which quickly reminded Gao Hai of the man he had heard before dying in his first playthrough. It was someone whose name seemed to be Captain Schmidt.

No, I don't think so. Both the Zaori Elementary School project and the Yoroyama Middle School project at least showed some tendency towards controlling their scale. But the Fujika Middle School project, in my opinion, is completely out of control. That school can't possibly produce any real results, and even if it does, those results will definitely not be controllable; they will only be an absolute taboo that drags everyone into hell.

"You make a good point, Mr. Hans, but I think all three plans are out of control. These guys, blinded by Sato, have recklessly chosen radical actions they can't afford the consequences of. Even Sato himself, the supposed survivor who escaped the '■■ Hotel,' doesn't really know what impulsive and risky actions he's taking; they're just gambling with everyone's lives."

[...Yes, every plan lacks a contingency plan for failure, and no means to prevent disaster. No, they even hope for such a thing to happen. If they could turn their territory into a world teeming with monsters, the cost of conquering it would surely be even greater, wouldn't it? Ha, after all, they keep saying they'd rather die for their country.]

We're pretty much in the same boat here; we've reached a point where failure is inevitable.