[Drip—]
A drop of water fell onto his shoulder, bringing a faint, clear chill.
He had had the same dream again.
A dream of reaching his hand forward.
A dream of crawling forward bit by bit in utter darkness, inside a bottomless cave.
He didn't know how to describe that feeling.
If he were to draw an analogy, he might think of something he experienced in his childhood.
Back then, when he was about to fall asleep at night, he would deliberately turn over so that the blanket wrapped tightly around him.
It was the same kind of tightly wrapped feeling.
The surrounding rock layers, however, were different: very hard and very cold.
At every moment he could feel the sensation of his skin rubbing against those stones, could hear the sound of his body inching forward through the cave.
It was as if those stones were screaming.
[Drip—]
There was no way to tell where the sound of water was coming from.
Only the chill spreading through the cave kept rising bit by bit.
"Huff… huff…"
He could hear his own breathing gradually growing more hurried.
He continued struggling to move forward, then forward again.
In that moment, time seemed to stretch out infinitely.
He didn't know how long he had been advancing through this darkness.
He didn't know what might exist ahead in the darkness, or when he would finally reach the end of it.
"Huff… huff…"
But he could hear breathing.
Coming from behind him—from the back of this cave where he couldn't even turn around, where he could only crawl forward with difficulty.
[Drip—]
With that crisp water sound once more, Takumi heard something crawling behind him, heard the sound of skin scraping against rock.
A sound drawing closer bit by bit, approaching him.
Right behind him.
He struggled to swing his arms, grasping the rocks on either side, drilling forward a bit farther.
He couldn't even pull his hands back—he had to keep them stretched forward just to barely crawl through this narrow cave.
He couldn't lift his head.
Because even with his face turned sideways against the ground, his ears were already pressed against the top of the rock wall.
With scrape after scrape, his ears were already torn and bloodied, and even the pain had begun to dull.
He couldn't see anything.
Pitch-black—inside a cave with no light source whatsoever, he could only smell the scent of sand and earth.
"Huff…"
The breathing behind him seemed to grow closer.
But he still couldn't see anything.
He could only continue inching forward, slowly, in this suffocatingly narrow, pitch-black cave.
[Drip—]
He heard the sound of a water droplet falling again.
Takumi slowly stopped crawling forward.
He could no longer hear the breathing or the scraping sounds behind him.
In this silent darkness, it seemed once again that only he remained—or perhaps, from the very beginning, he had been alone.
"Huff…"
Just as that thought appeared, he heard a new breathing sound.
It wasn't coming from behind him, but from ahead of him—breathing accompanied by the sound of something squirming and crawling, drawing closer bit by bit.
There was no way to retreat.
This narrow cave had bends. When moving forward, he could grip the rock walls and inch ahead, but retreating was practically impossible—because he could not turn his head to see the rock structure behind him, and it was also nearly impossible to find any place to brace himself.
"Huff…"
Takumi struggled, forcing himself to retreat, but he could only move back by a tiny amount, shifting with extreme slowness.
"Huff…"
And the breathing ahead was already getting closer and closer—so close it felt as if the other party's breath was brushing against his cheek.
"Huff…"
He truly felt it.
Someone—something—was already pressed face-to-face with him.
He couldn't see that person's face, couldn't see their appearance.
But that cold breath hitting his face described that person to him with absolute clarity—described the figure right before him.
He reached out his hand.
Slowly, he stretched his hand forward, inch by inch.
"Huff…"
The breath gently brushed across Takumi's skin.
And his fingertips ultimately touched nothing—only air, and the icy rock walls on both sides.
No one else existed.
There was only him.
The one inside this suffocatingly narrow cave… was only him.
[Drip—]
With the next drop of water, Takumi slowly opened his eyes.
The sunlight outside the window was the same as always.
Pedestrians on the street walked by at an easy pace, chatting about their plans for the new day, living lives no different from yesterday's.
Takumi sat up from the bed, touched his ears—which had not been torn at all—and then looked toward the calendar hanging on the wall, at the days he had crossed out one by one, stopping at the few that remained.
He reached out and counted—there were 3 days left.
Meaning there were three days before the next mission began.
After the deal that day, nothing much happened in the days that followed.
Maki had gone out on a few dates with him to wander around town, but probably because he had taken advantage of her once before, that girl was now far more cautious. Basically, just holding hands was already her limit; she wasn't even very willing to let him kiss her anymore.
Kaguya would occasionally go out and organize three-person tea parties and the like, but he felt that the way she looked at him was no longer quite the same as before; it seemed, to some extent, a bit guarded.
He didn't really understand what girls were thinking; in any case, during the remaining time of this month, there really wasn't any progress.
It was worth mentioning that Maki had found a way to sneak Takumi and Kaguya into a private shooting range run by an upper-class individual, and had invited a professional instructor to teach them how to use and maintain firearms. Considering the environment of the next dungeon, Maki had found someone to procure two standard-issue pistols and had them modified for better adaptation to the cave's damp, sandy conditions, but as for how they would actually perform, that could only be known once they used them for real.
No—better if they never needed to know. After all, guns were meant to deal with players; if they had to use such weapons, it could only prove that there was antagonism and competition among the players inside the dungeon, and after being "baptized" by Tanaka and that traitor girl, what Takumi hated most was that kind of player infighting.
There were already several unread messages on his phone: one from Kaguya about the meeting place three days later, one from Maki saying hello, and, after she noticed he wasn't replying, another one saying, "Lazybones, stop sleeping, get up already!"
Takumi stood up, picked up the black pen on the bedside table, crossed off another day on the calendar, then turned and left to wash up.
Everything had already been checked.
Expedition suit, cut-resistant gloves, helmet, knee pads, hiking boots, searchlight, casual clothes disguised as tourist wear…
To deal with possible situations, the three of them had already made two sets of preparations.
Amid the rushing sound of water, Takumi had already washed his face.
He took up a towel and gently wiped the water from his face.
[Drip—]
The sound of water dripping from the faucet made Takumi pause for a moment in spite of himself.
"Have I gotten jumpy lately?"
He recalled the dream he had had for the third time.
In a narrow cave, climbing forward, hearing something catching up to him—only to finally discover that he was alone from beginning to end.
An oppressive, deep, and terrifyingly eerie nightmare.
Perhaps it was some kind of omen.
But Takumi still couldn't bring himself to give up the ticket he had in hand over an omen.
No matter what, this was still a Dusk-level ticket—an admission ticket to a dungeon that was known and that could provide him with a lot of player intel and clues in advance.
If he chose to give it up, he would have to prepare himself to separate from Kaguya and Maki and enter a completely unknown world alone—and that was clearly not a good option.
"…"
Reaching out his hand, Takumi used his finger to block the faucet's outlet, and just stood there in silence in front of the sink. After standing there for several minutes, he finally turned and left.
Today was another day on which nothing happened.
He had lost count of how many times he had rechecked his gear.
He waited for time to move forward step by step, waited for the next day to arrive.
Takumi seemed to faintly understand what the word 'torment' truly meant for players.
And no matter how he thought about it, that day would still come in the end.
Three days, two days, one day…
Until the day the game began.
"Are you ready?"
When he pushed open the door and entered the small private room that Maki and Kaguya had reserved in advance, the two girls had already finished organizing their gear and placed it by their sides.
"I guess saying I'm not ready now is already too late, right?"
Saying that, Takumi packed his gear into his backpack and sat down beside Maki.
The entry ticket for the dungeon was already held in his hand.
None of the three said anything more.
Only their breathing, and the oppressive atmosphere inside this small room, continued to spread.
"It'll be fine."
In the end, it was still Maki who spoke first, addressing the two beside her with a tone of certainty.
"Once we go in, if we're separated, regroup as fast as possible."
Only then did Kaguya speak. At the moment she opened her mouth, cracks appeared in her icy demeanor. Clearly, even with Ice Kaguya's level of composure, at the instant of facing a new eerie game, she still could not maintain a peaceful state of mind.
"Mm."
Not knowing what to say, yet feeling that staying silent would be somewhat inappropriate, Takumi finally gave a light nod and an "Mm," cooperating a little with the atmosphere at hand.
And then, they waited for that moment to arrive—and felt the countdown that ordinary people could never perceive fall to zero.
[Buzz—]
The entry tickets in all three of their hands spontaneously ignited without any wind.
And that eerie voice instantly rang in each person's mind.
[Welcome to the "Sacrifice Game"]
[The level of the game you are about to participate in is: Dusk]
[May you witness the end of all things within true fear]
The instant the voice fell, all senses were submerged in darkness.
Next—what first reached Takumi's ears was the clear echo of a drop of water falling onto the ground.
[Drip—]
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