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

Akira Toyama closed his eyes and crashed into what should have been a wall.

In the next second, amidst the intense chill, he felt a void and the wind swirling downwards.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Infiltrating the Shadows of the Past and the Blurred Things Seen in the Shadows.

Close your eyes.

Deep within the still-throbbing brain, an invisible sense of awareness was released once again.

Akira Toyama forcibly released his power, which was nearing its limit, forcing himself to listen, feel, and understand the comprehensible parts hidden within the jarring noise.

I can feel it.

This feeling is so clear, so clear, that it's like feeling it yourself.

Tracing back through the flow of time, we return to the stage before everything truly happened, to the point where the story had just begun.

Yes, I wish I could go back.

It was as if you could hear a voice softly sighing.

Yes.

Before those things were unearthed, there was no darkness or cruelty in this story.

It's just an ordinary resort, inhabited by a group of people with no grand ambitions, simply looking to make a living. There might be some backstabbing and intrigue, and perhaps some less-than-ideal unspoken rules, but ultimately, everyone is just an ordinary person. Even if they are wealthier and have more resources than most people in society, they haven't really gotten involved in anything extraordinary, much less any terrible conspiracies or schemes.

If nothing unexpected happens, everyone will probably live a mundane life, continuing like this until one generation grows old, until a new generation takes over the business, and so on, turning the resort into a joint business of several families.

Perhaps when I was younger, I thought that kind of future would be utterly boring. But looking back now, even that thought seems like a luxury.

I wish that hadn't happened.

A sigh rose from the depths of darkness, the tone filled with growing感慨 (gǎnkǎi, a complex emotion encompassing regret, sorrow, and reflection).

In response, Akira Toyama simply deepened his perception, delving beneath that twisted and insane exterior, to observe and reveal things that wouldn't easily be exposed.

If this were a normal Red Moon-level instance, Touyama Akira wouldn't need to resort to such risky methods. He was certain that if he had genuinely entered such a Red Moon-level instance, he and his team would have obtained the resort's visitor rules, staff regulations, and various other detailed information at the very beginning, instead of forcibly starting a group with most of the information missing, and having to rely on his own willpower and Gao Hai's spiritual support to try and obtain information.

But this is only to be expected. Players will always encounter unexpected situations that they are not prepared for. It is often impossible to have everything under control.

Yes, accidents can happen suddenly and irrationally.

Regardless of whether the victim is rich or poor, young or old, special or ordinary, when it actually happens, the person who suffers the unexpected is always unprepared and will inevitably have to face something extremely terrible.

Fumio Asakawa originally thought he could further expand the resort and make the business even more successful under his leadership.

Even when the excavation work on the third underground floor unearthed human remains, he still believed this, and even considered turning these remains into exhibits to make use of waste.

But as that incomprehensible force, beyond human comprehension, began to exert its influence, and as people started disappearing and going insane, he was forced to make a choice regarding this unprecedented event: to shut down his long-cherished development plan and seal off the excavated caves and unfinished underground areas in an attempt to end the problem.

However, some things, once started, don't stop easily. No matter what methods he used, strange things happened more and more frequently in the resort. Although most people were unaware of or could not understand these things, it was as if their own cognition was incompatible with the abnormal phenomena in the resort. So much so that even if something terrible happened in front of them, they would act as if it didn't exist and not care at all. However, more and more people became different from the past and became able to perceive and come into contact with those terrifying things.

Although, through gradual contact with these strange entities, people began to summarize some methods for dealing with them and started to delve into the rules governing their actions, the inability to live in peace meant that these anomalies could not be completely resolved. In the process of trying to solve the problem, whether it was inviting sorcerers to perform rituals or conducting more in-depth investigations, the results were always unsatisfactory, and even resulted in larger-scale casualties. Ultimately, after making numerous efforts to no avail, the management decided to cease the investigation and stop interfering in related matters, choosing the worst option of simply continuing with the status quo.

That shouldn't be the case.

Making a compromise choice is wrong.

After the compromise, things actually maintained a balance, and no serious accidents occurred in the short term, which is something that should not have happened.

The fact that everything is continuing as it is is the most abnormal thing...

The middle-aged man sighed softly, his voice revealing a hint of weariness.

He seemed to have gone through many hardships, and his voice no longer carried the vigor of the past, but there was still a sense of determination in it.

Therefore, even when everyone else had given up, he did not. Even when everyone else had stopped paying attention to the matter, he continued to try to solve the problem in his own way, even though he was all alone, and keenly perceived the key to the problem.

Why is all of this still going on?

He continued to ask questions, questioning himself, and reflecting after each inquiry.

So many people have disappeared, and they are all living, breathing people. It's impossible to suppress such a large number of disappearances. There are many rumors circulating in the town, and everyone has been living in fear for quite some time.

[But as long as we stay open, as long as the resort remains open, guests will still come here. They act as if they know nothing, as if they've never heard of the terrible things that happened here, laughing and talking as they walk into our resort and spend a day or two, or even longer.]

This is abnormal, this is absolutely abnormal.

[After so many serious accidents, which have been reported on television news more than once, we have almost completely lost our long-term customers.]

As for new customers from other places, their first source of information about our resort is often the news, and they don't even need to guess what we look like in the news.

Therefore, it's impossible for anyone to come; it's simply impossible for so many people to be willing to take such a risk and come to our resort on their own initiative.

He muttered his conclusions, building more in his soliloquy, searching for plausible evidence.

I secretly asked those guests several times...

I had guessed the outcome of my inquiries many times, but each time I only received a bewildered response. They really knew nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a single negative thing about the resort. Even a three-year-old in the area could repeat that, but they just didn't know.

[But this wasn't the truth. Initially, I genuinely believed that the customers I questioned didn't know these things, and I was indeed deceived for a while. Until one day, I questioned the same customer twice on the same day. At that time, I wasn't in a good mental state and therefore didn't realize I was questioning the same person twice. However, reviewing the investigation records afterwards, I discovered that when I questioned the same customer about the exact same thing a second time, his behavior was exactly the same as when I questioned him the first time—without the slightest difference.]

We had discussed the same things on the same day, yet the customer completely forgot about it, having no recollection of anything we'd said before, as if their entire being had been "reset." This terrified me, but it also made me realize that I might be getting closer to the truth.

Akira Toyama could hear the tremor in his voice.

He even felt that he could vaguely see such a hallucination, seeing Fumio Asakawa, with a full beard, muttering to himself and leaving various records in an empty, dark resort.

[Those guests having so much fun... they seem unable to understand or remember the terrifying rumors circulating about this place?]

Their brains seem to automatically filter out relevant content; even if they hear it, they quickly forget it and become indifferent to matters that clearly involve their personal interests and safety.

Is this some kind of curse?

Or are these people pre-selected and brainwashed?

[Some terrifying entity beyond my comprehension and contact shaped these customers, destined to be sacrificed in the basement of this resort. This was their very mission. So even though they were warned of the danger, they still unwittingly entered this place and found themselves trapped in a deadly predicament.]

I don't know the answer, but I know that if I want to completely resolve this, I have to go in and see for myself. I've gathered almost all the intelligence I could from the outside; next, I need to go to those hidden places. I think perhaps there's something I haven't noticed before hidden there.

Too many people have died for this, too much blood has been shed for it.

I started all of this, so let me end it all.

It's time...

With a final sigh, the man's figure vanished into the darkness.

And Yuanshan Ming, who followed the path of his predecessors into this place along that cold, bone-chilling darkness, was able to enter a more profound realm.

Hunger, pain.

Weak, tired, and then dead.

The foundation of this dungeon lies in a forgotten ancient era, where people, deeply mired in suffering, conceived something and persistently developed this concept, thus creating the prototype of what was hidden in the cave.

That's not important. Akira Toyama already knows about this, and Takahashi has already determined that it's nothing more than a "failed doctor," just another failed attempt by the [Hospital], the formidable enemy. The other party may have once been a living person, but due to various causes and effects, they bore a certain power. However, with the continuous interference from the [Hospital] itself, that obsession ultimately failed to develop into a distorted existence. Instead, it became deeply bound to the instance world and imprisoned within it, just like most of the core obsessions in the [Sacrifice Game].

Then, in the second phase of history, Akira Toyama witnessed the victims who had been imprisoned there, dying of illness and starvation. Their deaths nourished the still-developing obsession, allowing the undeveloped "Doctor" to begin its growth. The remnants of these dead themselves slowly coalesced, forming the second core of the instance.

These are all things we already know.

What else is there? What I need to know is what I don't yet have the ability to know!

What happened after that, before the resort was built, after hundreds and thousands of people had died in the sealed cave?

There was a reason why those fanatical believers chose this resort to carry out their killings.

There's a reason why this resort was built on top of that cave.

It was chosen from the very beginning.

So that's how it is. This spot was chosen from the very beginning.

I finally remembered, I remembered that thing I hadn't been paying attention to.

The resort wasn't built from scratch. As its successor, I didn't know that this resort... was actually converted from a ruin from two hundred years ago. Many terrible things happened here many years ago.

With a sigh, Akira Toyama watched as the resort's exterior rapidly transformed, from a modern facility into a camp, a stronghold for soldiers armed with samurai swords, bamboo spears, and cannons. Then, fierce fighting erupted, accompanied by bloodshed. The soldiers quickly perished, and the surrounding villagers were driven into the camp, where they succumbed to injury, disease, and starvation within days. The bodies were hastily buried, and the land itself began further development, becoming factories or other facilities.

Akira Toyama did not pay attention to the history and power struggles involved.

His gaze shifted from the people shouting slogans and their eyes filled with ferocity to the more remote, unnoticed dark corners, to the figures silently watching and waiting in those places.

The ugly spectacle of people fighting for profit and power remains unchanged, no matter when. I think it's time for us to leave.

Among those blurry figures, a tall figure turned around and slowly walked away.

Yuanshan Ming couldn't see the figure clearly.

But Gao Hai, who had been watching this place closely and confirming what he saw, murmured softly at this moment, as if recalling something, and uttered a name.

【......Takamatsu Masahiko? 】

Chapter 59 [Psychotherapist] and [Masahiko Takamatsu] have lost contact with Akira Toyama.

This isn't the first time I've seen this name.

Gao Hai knew that this name represented the "Psychologist," one of the three subordinates with divine powers created by the "Hospital," and also the first doctor to directly confront him and be defeated. However, because the opponent had only created a clone at the time, Gao Hai only managed to severely injure him and was not able to truly eliminate him.

Regarding the confirmation of the psychologist's former human name, namely "Takamatsu Masahiko," according to Gao Hai, one instance was obtained directly by Miko through spiritual observation, and another was when Ichichi Nijika, under Gao Hai's protection, discovered a miniature shrine with the name "Takamatsu Masahiko" written on it while exploring the underground area of ​​the Jin'ya Apartment. Because of this, he had some suspicion that the Jin'ya Apartment instance might be the origin instance of the psychologist, but investigating in this direction yielded no results.

Now, Gao Hai has seen this name for the third time.

It appeared in the underground cavern of the resort, originating from the obsessive memories of those who died of starvation.

They uttered this name before they died.

Filled with indescribable, profound, and painful emotions, she whispered this name before death.

Nothing more can be seen; all that remains are fragmented scenes, nothing more. Just like the shrine located beneath the Zhenyang Apartment, there is nothing more than a few traces of information, as if that information had been completely erased.

No, it shouldn't be erased.

The results of the process must have been completely absorbed, leaving only a few remnants.

As a "doctor" who has already been born, the things that came at the cost of incubation are naturally absorbed as nutrients. That's why he couldn't obtain complete information; he could only see some residual traces and could only confirm the other party's name.

But even something as simple as that was enough for Gao Hai to figure out a lot of things.

Whether it's these dead commoners from ancient Japan or that miniature underground shrine, it all shows that [Masahiko Takamatsu] was once worshipped as a [god].

He may have once been a living person, but was canonized because of certain actions during his lifetime and worshipped as a god by some Japanese people. He may also have never been human from the beginning, but was a local deity who, after being prayed to for many years, truly gained supernatural powers.