Chapter 144 "Welcome back."...
"Do you think there's a possibility, I mean, a possibility?"
Wang Ma Xiaoji said with a serious expression.
"In short, there is such a possibility."
"What?" Tsukino and Chiya asked.
"Actually, there's a trap outside the elevator," Wang Ma Xiaoji said in his still very serious voice. "After all, it's not normal for an elevator to go that high, is it?"
Tsukino and Chiya calmly replied, "That height is indeed abnormal."
Wang Ma Xiaoji continued seriously, "The situation outside the elevator is also very strange, isn't it?"
Tsukino and Chiya: "Hmm...that's true."
Miya Higashigore: "What are you trying to say?"
Compared to Tsukino and Chiya, who were willing to cooperate with Ouma Shokichi's various performances from the very beginning because they found them interesting, Higashigo Miya, who had also roughly figured out Ouma Shokichi's routines after spending time with him, chose to ask directly.
Upon hearing this, Wang Ma Xiaoji stopped being mysterious and said directly, "Perhaps only the elevator, which seems to offer little sense of security, is truly safe. Once we step out of the elevator, it's doomed...we might just fall straight down! And then the next day's front page headlines will be something like, 'Shocking! Hope Peak teacher and two students commit suicide by jumping off an old school building. Is this a distortion of humanity or a decline in morality?'...etc."
"Is that so?" Higashigo Mimi cruelly exposed Ohma Kichi's untenable statement, which was indeed made without much thought. "But the area outside the elevator doesn't seem like the kind of place that gives people a sense of security."
Without comparison, there is no harm. An elevator that rises to an impossible height, its cramped and enclosed space offering no escape route, certainly looks dangerous. But compared to the pitch blackness and thick fog that greets you when the doors open…
Anyway, back then, even elevators with overhead lights seemed more welcoming... Human beings' physiological instinct to resist darkness always makes the unknown environment, which cannot be seen clearly, seem particularly dangerous.
No wonder many works use "a faint ray of light in the darkness" to express hope.
But are dark places really full of danger? Can places with light really provide a safe place to rest?
"Moreover," Tsukino and Chiya pointed out the fact with equal cruelty, "we're already out. So even if Ohma said what he did just now... it's probably too late."
At this moment, they had already stepped out of the elevator.
The elevator doors closed slowly after all three of them had completely left the elevator, also drawing away the faint light inside. At that moment, it felt as if the three of them had been abandoned in some forgotten world.
But it wasn't a big problem. The three beams of light from the flashlights were enough for them to see the road... Well, in the thick fog, it was still a bit difficult to see the road clearly with just the light from the flashlights.
But actually, there's not much need to look. Because Tsukino and Chiya remember the way... He figured Ouma Kokichi should remember it too, but the purple-haired boy obviously didn't offer to lead the way, so Tsukino and Chiya ended up taking on this important task.
"Come to think of it, this should be your third time here, right?" asked Higashigo Mimi, who was walking at the back.
She didn't name anyone in particular, but that doesn't matter.
Tsukino and Chiya's calm voices came from the front: "Yes. If we count this as one time in that fake world, then this is indeed my third time here."
Then came Ouma Kokichi's voice: "This is my second time here. Kozuki and I didn't take me with them the first time we went~!"
You were the one who refused to say that you were too tired from running around in Yokohama and didn't want to move.
Tsukino and Chiya muttered to themselves, but didn't reveal it outwardly. They simply continued calmly, "Yes, I was investigating based on the clues the detective gave me. After finding the Sakuraba family, I went to the abandoned shrine. However, I didn't discover anything new at the time."
The abandoned shrine was nothing more than an abandoned shrine. On their first visit there, Tsukino and Chiya inspected every aspect of the shrine alone. He had, of course, also visited the study, where the floor in the fictional world contained an entrance to an underground chamber, but at that time… Tsukino and Chiya were quite certain that there was nothing unusual about the study floor.
However, when it comes to supernatural phenomena like the bizarre, it's normal for anything to disappear or appear out of thin air. So, in that fake world, Tsukino and Chiya didn't question the results of their investigation in the real world; they just felt that whatever happened was normal.
And now... after getting out of that elevator, he has finally come here again.
If the first visit was to a real shrine, and the second to a fake shrine in a fake world, then what about this time...? Is the land beneath their feet real or fake? Are they high in the sky? Or have they been teleported to the shrine by puppets using strange magic? Or have they unintentionally entered another illusory world?
Ah... by the way. In a fog so thick that even the figures of their companions could disappear if they weren't careful, what first allowed them to determine their current location was... a torii gate.
The dilapidated torii gate... with just one glance, Tsukino and Chiya realized it was the torii gate of the Sakuraba family shrine. His memory was always excellent, and he wouldn't mistake it in a place like this, especially since he had seen the exact same torii gate in that fake world not long ago.
"So, where should we go first?" As the only person present who was here for the first time, Higashigo Mimi humbly inquired, "The study you mentioned before?"
Tsukino and Chiya: "Let's go inside the room first."
Wang Ma Xiaoji: "Because the fog outside is too thick, even if we wanted to investigate, we wouldn't be able to find anything, so it's better to just go inside directly... right?"
Tsukino and Chiya: "That's right. And it's also a good opportunity to double-check that underground area... um?"
Higashigoro Miya: "What's wrong?"
Tsukino and Chiya suddenly stopped and looked down at the ground.
Wang Ma Xiaoji exclaimed "Huh?" and then teased, "Xiaoyueye, you didn't step on something either, did you? Was it a hair clip? But in this environment, could it be something more terrifying? Could it be a human bone?"
“No, no.” Tsukino and Chiya solemnly denied Ohma Kokichi’s guess. “Something grabbed my leg.”
It's the kind of holding on tightly and refusing to let go.
"I don't want to die...it's so painful...I don't want to die..."
"You should stay too..."
They were two almost transparent "figures." From their barely discernible human-like shapes, one could also vaguely make out the positions of their eyes, noses, and mouths by the light of a flashlight. Although they seemed on the verge of collapsing at any moment, Tsukino and Chiya, who were being held back by them, knew that this was not the case.
Tsukino and Chiya stood firmly with unwavering expressions, but only he clearly felt the terrifying force emanating from beneath him, a force that seemed intent on carrying him away.
"How should we handle this?"
Although Ouma Kokichi sometimes acts in seemingly reckless ways, it is mostly the result of careful consideration. Faced with such a clearly inhuman and unnatural situation, he would not be so foolish as to directly contact those two things and try to wrestle with them.
"Would it help if Teacher Donghu prayed for them?"
Suddenly mentioned, Miyako Higashigo: "Prayer? What the heck is that?"
Tsukino and Chiya explained, "Mr. Hachishiki encountered a similar situation before, and it was eventually resolved by a woman who was with him at the time praying for these spirits... Why don't you give it a try?"
Miya Higashigo: "...I'll give it a try."
Without refusing, Higashigo Mimi clasped her hands together and closed her eyes. Tsukino, Chiya, and Ohma Kokichi had no idea what she had prayed for, but after a short while, Tsukino and Chiya felt the force on their legs noticeably decrease, and then... the two spirits disappeared.
efficient.
After successfully dealing with the two spirits, the three continued onward. Due to the surrounding environment, even though Tsukino and Chiyo clearly remembered the way, they couldn't walk very fast to avoid tripping over anything under their feet and to be wary of any potential dangers lurking in the thick fog. In addition, they encountered earthbound spirits blocking their path one after another, so what should have been a short journey took them quite a while before they were finally nearing the end.
"But, that's so strange."
After Higashigo Mimi once again successfully freed the spirit blocking her path through prayer, Ohma Kokichi timely expressed his doubts.
"Was the forest where Mr. Hachishiki encountered so many earthbound spirits a place where many people died? But would so many people die at this shrine?"
I had barely taken a few steps when a spirit appeared and blocked my way. How could this be?
“Shrines are different from forests; corpses are not so easy to hide there,” Higashigomi Miya continued, “Similarly, if someone went to a shrine and went missing, a shrine would be much easier to search than a forest. It’s impossible that there hasn’t been a single trace of them by now.”
"Do you remember Yoshiko Morikawa?" Tsukino and Chiya thought for a moment. "In that future, she didn't die at Hope's Peak either. But the monster she transformed into lingers in Hope's Peak's preparatory course."
"Was the spirit here also transferred from elsewhere by Aurora? That's certainly possible. However," said Wang Ma Xiaoji, "what would its purpose be?"
This is a question that no one can answer at the moment.
With these words, they finally arrived at the door of the shrine's head priest's family's house.
Before anyone could even open the door, it suddenly opened by itself—no, not by some mysterious force. Someone opened it from inside the house.
A young girl was standing at the door.
Judging from her appearance, it was the doll-like girl they had seen in the elevator not long ago. However, unlike her disheveled state in the elevator, she now looked more… complete.
"I'm back." A voice suddenly came from behind the three of them.
An unidentified doll stood in the doorway, gazing at the three of them, or more accurately, simply looking in their direction, and softly said, "Welcome back."
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