[Splash—splash—]
Amid the sounds of water rising and falling, Kaguya slowly sank into the bath, submerging her entire body in the hot water.
"Mmm…"
After a soft murmur, the black-haired girl stretched slightly in the water, then opened her dark-red eyes and looked up at the bathroom ceiling.
The initial investigation Takumi and Maki conducted yesterday resulted in gaining the friendship (?) of a friendly veteran girl and obtaining quite a bit of information from her, which could be considered laying the groundwork for their upcoming attempts to further connect with the player community.
"Bone Ash… Purple Talisman…"
Kaguya softly spoke the names of those two items, showing a thoughtful expression.
Bone Ash, which could prevent a living person's corpse from becoming part of an uncanny phenomenon after death, and which could also, to a certain extent, block corpses that had already become uncanny as well as briefly hinder the uncanny itself—this item was extremely important for the upcoming dungeon. The small amount Takumi had scavenged from Tanaka was definitely not enough. But the price was very high. Kaguya herself had only one hundred thousand yen as pocket money. Although she had a black card she could swipe freely, first, using it might reveal her identity; second, if her family noticed she had spent a large sum of money, they would definitely become aware.
Even if the uncanny nature of Bone Ash would prevent her family from perceiving what she had actually bought with the money, having them increase their surveillance on her because of that was not impossible. Before she fully understood the boundaries of players' "information obscuration" with regard to ordinary people, Kaguya was not planning to take action.
As for Maki's allowance—hers was a bit higher, about one hundred fifty thousand yen per month—but even combined, that still amounted to only about two hundred fifty thousand. And based on the price Takumi and Maki had inquired about, a 500-gram box of Bone Ash produced through special methods required a price of twelve million yen, and one also had to attach a Dusk-level Obsession Item. Money alone absolutely could not buy it.
The other item, the Purple Talisman, was said to be a talisman sheet made from human blood and special paper obtained from a certain Dusk-level dungeon—and this one was even more expensive. Its effect was extremely peculiar; many players called it "Luck Burning." To use this item, one had to ignite it, and while it burned, the person who lit it would inexplicably gain good fortune. Effects ranged from narrowly escaping certain death, to miraculously obtaining items that should have been impossible to acquire, to even guiding the actions of uncanny entities for one's benefit. Various outcomes existed, of course, including cases where someone who should have died horribly instead lit the talisman and conveniently died on the spot. Overall, it was a strange item that temporarily increased one's luck.
However, every player who had used this talisman paper, without exception, fell into misfortune once the paper finished burning. And according to the statistics available so far, this decrease in luck was very likely permanent. Therefore, players referred to this phenomenon as "burning one's own luck," which, in a sense, was indeed a rather fitting description.
Thirty million yen plus an Obsession Item, or alternatively a good Obsession Item offered in exchange to waive the yen… this thing clearly had a severe side effect, so why was it even more expensive? Kaguya rarely showed a troubled expression, but she did now. She had never expected that, as the daughter of a financial conglomerate, she would someday have to worry about money.
Forget it. Instead of dwelling on this issue, it was better to think carefully about the next mission.
There were still more than twenty days of preparation time before the second dungeon.
All the various items and tools needed to handle potentially complex environments had already been fully prepared. According to the information Takumi and Maki had obtained, it seemed that only items of a certain size that were carried directly on one's person could be brought into the dungeon. None of the players who attempted to "put cars, tanks, ships, or similar things in their pockets—or at least act as though they were putting them in their pockets to bring them into the dungeon" had succeeded. The player known to have brought in the largest item so far had carried onto his back a World War II MK1 cannon that his grandfather had left behind, treating that recoilless gun as if it were a shoulder-fired launcher. He successfully brought it into the dungeon, then fired three shots at an uncanny old woman who held nothing but a neutral pen, and had his skull hollowed out by the uncanny amid the flying sparks.
In any case, the point was not this matter. The important issue was that the three of them had to ensure they all entered the same dungeon.
Kaguya, Maki, and Takumi.
As players who had already completed one mission together and developed a certain degree of coordination, if they could act together in the second mission, their survival rate would undoubtedly increase significantly. Especially with Takumi—Kaguya had already confirmed that this man possessed some kind of Obsession Item or special ability that allowed him to rewind time and start over. Although judging from the various details of his behavior, that ability likely had restrictions and needed to be used carefully, there was no doubt that as long as he was in the same mission, even if unexpected disaster led to total annihilation, he still had a chance to reverse the situation and begin again.
Therefore, they absolutely had to secure three Dusk-level Admission Tickets to ensure that all three of them entered the same mission.
But the problem was that Admission Tickets were not easy to obtain—especially Dusk-level Admission Tickets. Those were highly sought-after. Even though Takumi and Maki had done their best to ask that veteran, Gotō Hitori, for help, she could only say she would try, and judging by her attitude, they would probably still have to give her at least one Obsession Item in return.
It truly was a troublesome matter.
Kaguya could not help beginning to feel a bit of a headache.
She wondered what the other two were doing right now—Maki… and Takumi…
Feeling the water gradually cooling, the girl thought to herself as she rose from the bath, wrapped a towel around herself, and covered her graceful figure.
At the same time, in a small alley, several delinquents with brightly colored hair lay on the ground with miserable expressions, looking at Takumi with fear—and with a faint "Why is it us again?" kind of emotion that was somewhat strange.
"So, you're saying you're out of money already?"
Takumi's expression looked a bit displeased.
"We really don't have any left! You're already the sixth group this month that's robbed us—we don't have a single yen left! We've been robbed over and over again, our gang has gone bankrupt and disbanded! How could we still have money?!"
The bruised delinquent wailed with a miserable face. Judging from how pitiful he looked, he really might have been beaten up quite a lot recently.
"tsk… Someone got ahead of me…"
Takumi clicked his tongue in annoyance, sighed, shrugged, and turned to leave.
He had originally planned to do what standard novel protagonists did—shake down some delinquents for pocket money.
But after wandering around like this, Takumi discovered that many others had already done the same. It seemed that a good number of players, after acquiring supernatural power, had come to these delinquents to test their abilities—something that left Takumi rather disappointed.
Tonight was the same as always—those things unseen by ordinary people continued to wander everywhere.
From questioning Gotō Hitori and checking that strange website that seemed to have been built using some kind of Obsession Item, the results showed that, among players in the real world, there was no one else who could see these things as he did. It seemed this was merely Takumi's own hallucination—another world that only he could see.
But Takumi couldn't shake the feeling that, as these uncanny scenes continued to develop, sooner or later more people would be able to see these things.
Or perhaps… when that time came, it would no longer be limited to merely seeing them.
"Worrying about things that haven't even happened yet is pointless. I should focus on figuring out how to survive until next month."
Letting out a self-mocking chuckle, Takumi stepped forward, took out his phone, and typed a reply to the message Maki had sent a minute earlier—[I'm going to take a bath]—adding [Add me too] after it. Then he wandered casually through the streets, and happened to pass by a ramen shop. The moment the smell reached him, he felt a bit hungry, so he walked inside.
[Drip—]
As he did, his phone vibrated with a reply. Takumi lowered his head, lit up the screen, and saw Maki's response: [Pervert! There's no way I'd add you!] —words that practically let him hear her voice and see her expression.
So Takumi replied: [It's fine, you can reserve me for later], then lifted his head and looked at the modest little shop in front of him.
And immediately noticed a certain ribbon-wearing girl slurping down noodles with great enthusiasm.
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