Chapter 56: The Important Clue That Was Overlooked
"There are 3 hours and 20 minutes left until the end of the third day."
"There are 1 hour and 20 minutes left until it gets dark on the third day."
The sound of the woman's voice, from when it appeared to when it disappeared, didn't last long.
But for the three people present, the appearance of this thing clearly signaled bad news.
The abnormality in room 304 had begun to spread, starting to follow them.
"How did she appear out here, shouldn't she be in room 304?"
Shijo Maki was somewhat confused as to why this thing had appeared.
"Probably because we took something it thought shouldn't be taken. If we've encountered this, then that other thing could appear too. Let's go, we need to be careful with our actions, we don't know what we'll encounter next."
Saying this, Takakai pulled at the collar of his shirt, which was starting to get wet, pretending as if nothing had happened, and continued walking.
Just getting close to that abnormality, his shirt had already been soaked with boiling water, and the intense pain began to surge.
As the curse he had to endure deepened, the degree of contamination from the "parents" like animals seemed to be rising, as if he was gradually leaning toward that poor girl, becoming like her, subjected to the torment and abuse from the power of those "parents."
Speaking of which, everything he had seen, heard, and felt seemed as if he were in her position. And the final stage of this curse was that he would be punished by the same death she suffered, enduring the same pain as her. It was as though, through this curse, he was forced to experience her life, her painful life.
The problem now was, currently, only he had encountered this situation, but Shijo Maki and Kaguya were beginning to show signs of being cursed. Would they also reach this stage? If so, how much longer would it take for that to happen?
Unanswered questions made Takakai feel anxious.
"I wish we could use that key to get to 309."
Shijo Maki sighed.
"Actually, we shouldn't have such delusions. We've already tried, that blood key can't open this important room. The current situation is the best we can do. The only thing left is to find it."
Kaguya, who rarely spoke much, seriously warned Shijo Maki.
"Yes, yes, oba-sama, hm?, it seems like there's some noise ahead, be careful..."
Shijo Maki responded and immediately became aware of some unusual movements.
The three of them hid again and heard the noise from afar gradually getting closer.
"Come here, who's afraid of who, hit me, if you're scared, you're a dog, hahahaha!"
"Mother F*cker, don't you know how to aim when you throw a bottle of alcohol at my door?"
"I'll throw it wherever I want, come here, do you want to fight? Come, if you're scared, get lost, hahahaha—"
A drunken man was loudly cursing.
The neighbor was angry but didn't dare approach because he knew this man would actually strike, not caring at all about the consequences.
Though the police had been called, a fight would only be considered a serious incident if someone was actually injured. This man would never accept reconciliation; if he went to the police station, he'd drag both sides into jail. His thinking was simple: going to jail would be a perfect excuse to hide from debt collectors for a few days, but for those with jobs and families to support, like the neighbor, these people became truly disgusting.
Another part of the past reappeared, an echo of the past.
However, this time, Takakai was not the only one who could hear these sounds.
"The noises just now... Kai-kun, after being cursed, do you always hear these sounds?"
Shijo Maki turned her head to look at Takakai, the distorted sounds seemed not to affect her much, but compared to actually going through the situations Takakai had faced, she was even more concerned for him.
"Does the next phase mean boiling water will appear? Or are there other stages in between?"
Kaguya's face turned slightly pale, but she quickly regained her composure, looked at Takakai, and asked.
"Probably, anyway, we have to stay careful, this isn't a good experience."
Takakai spoke while looking at the slightly puffed clothes of the two girls.
To cope with the effects of the curse, Shijo Maki and Kaguya had layered several pieces of toilet paper and bath towels under their clothes. This way, when the "boiling water curse" suddenly appeared, they could use the toilet paper to absorb the water and quickly wipe it off to minimize burns and slow down the effect on their bodies.
However, the specific effectiveness of this method could only be known when the moment actually arrived.
"Forget about this family, this disgusting thing, as long as it's not something too outrageous, just ignore it."
"Just looking at them is disgusting, how can there be such people in the world."
Gradually, the disturbing echoes of the past began to resurface, like a toy being taken away, activating memories of this area that had been distorted.
"This family should just die off, his wife is disgusting too, a few days ago she secretly picked vegetables from room 303 and then stomped all over the garden."
"And their daughter, is she sick... She's like an idiot all day, ask her something and she jumps. Her mother even scolded me for talking to her daughter, really crazy!"
The disgusted voices, the disgusted expressions, the disgusted actions, no matter how they felt at first, in the end all became the same kind of disgust.
"Whatever, last time that young guy from room 309 was concerned about their daughter, you should've seen it, they purposely forced him to leave."
"Sigh, when will these debt collectors stop knocking on doors in the middle of the night? Once they even knocked on my door by mistake."
All these sounds pieced together, forming a story of what had happened, a part of the history of this apartment.
Faced with the disgusting couple, always worried about getting into trouble, from the initial conflicts to people gradually starting to ignore them, acting as if this family didn't exist, not caring about whatever happened. When everything became a habit, it started to become natural, like everyone knew the daughter of this family was always being tortured and abused. But for everyone else, what did it matter? Managing this, did it really bring any benefit?
Only a young man who had just arrived, a young person wanting to make a living in the big city, planning to save money by moving into this old apartment, when he saw the child in such a situation, his heart couldn't bear it and he took action.
But his kindness only brought endless trouble, eventually forcing him to move out. After this clear example, no one wanted to care about this family anymore, to the point that even their children began to imitate the adults' attitude, ignoring, insulting, and even bullying that poor child.
Everything was sliding toward the abyss.
The light gradually disappeared without a trace.
Or rather, the light had never existed in the first place.
Only for a moment, she had the illusion that, maybe, things would change someday.
...
"Hoo..."
Takahashi Takakai had removed his shirt, acting with his bare body.
The burns on his body were increasing, his skin reddening, forming blisters, and some areas of flesh were completely burned away.
Though the number of these injuries wasn't large yet, not enough to cover his entire body like in the second loop, for Takakai, the pain he was enduring had become so intense that it was starting to affect his ability to act.
"Still no good..."
Kaguya took a deep breath, removed her badge, and the rescue team outfit she had nearly completed began to dissolve, revealing the school uniform she was wearing underneath.
"Are we still missing something? Or is that door really hidden this much, hidden to the point that we've walked past this area so many times and still can't find it?"
On the other side, Shijo Maki also gasped. She had worn the rescue badge once, and only when she was nearly exhausted did she remove it, but still, nothing had come of it.
Wearing the rescue team badge and forming a rescue team outfit might have allowed them to find the entrance to Room 309. This was the possibility that Takakai, Maki, and Kaguya had considered, and it was the reason why they decided to experiment at this moment.
But the results were not as expected.
Even though they wore the rescue team badges, they could not find the location of Room 309.
During this process, the three of them also tried to repeat the tactics Takakai had used on the first floor—pretending to be members of the rescue team and calling for help, but no other members of the rescue team responded.
In contrast, the two "parents" wandering in the area were something they had encountered many times before.
Each time, the distance between them and those two seemed to be getting closer.
Despite trying to create a large distance, within a short time, the two would slowly wander closer to them again.
It was as if they had a way to locate them, a way to sense their positions.
Could it be because of the dolls in their hands?
At this moment, there was about half an hour left before the light completely disappeared, turning into complete darkness.
After nearly an hour of searching with all their strength, they still had no results.
Later, Kaguya even thought of using the blood key to open a door, trying to connect it to a door on the first floor and see if they could call the rescue team. However, this experiment not only failed to open the door but also attracted the attention of the "parents," forcing the three of them to hurriedly hide.
Perhaps because of the great conflict between the first and third floors, forcibly opening the door on the first floor at the third floor only drew the attention of those bizarre entities.
Takakai had thought it wouldn't be this simple, but when actually facing a situation with no solution, he had to admit that he was a bit too hasty.
"Because wearing the rescue team uniform can get into Room 309, because Xu Sheng is the team leader. After the entire apartment got caught up in this horror story, he contacted the rescue team and maintained his sanity for a long time until Sanchez destroyed everything... Tch, the first floor is the rescue team, the third floor is the origin. Perhaps because we are on the third floor, the rescue team from the first floor has difficulty coming here. If there's a way to establish a connection between the third and first floors, then..."
"Referring to the previous experience, if the level of transformation is high enough, it might directly call the rescue team from the first floor to the third floor. To break this deadlock, there needs to be someone who has essentially completed the transformation process here. But this requires an extremely high willpower, I think only I can do it, only I can maintain my consciousness while almost completely transforming."
After thinking carefully, Takakai put forward this opinion.
"I disagree. If we are going, we go together. This is not the time for sacrifices."
Without hesitation, Maki immediately expressed her firm opposition.
"I also disagree. It's not time to sacrifice anyone. We need to think more, maybe there's a clue we've overlooked."
Although her personality was cold, Kaguya also chose to oppose this plan. She wasn't an emotionless person, under the current circumstances, where there were still choices, asking her to choose to abandon Takakai's life was something she couldn't do.
"Alright... then let's leave this plan as a backup option."
Takakai gently nodded and said nothing further.
He had genuinely considered whether he should wear the badge and try to keep his consciousness intact during the transformation to call the rescue team.
However, the existence of the "return after death" function made him realize that if he sacrificed himself, the end result would just be everything starting over again, making it meaningless.
Therefore, he needed to find another way.
Takakai's thoughts rapidly shifted as he considered the possibility of Maeda Miwa wearing the badge and being fully transformed, then using that transformation to call the rescue team.
However, he quickly dismissed it. To call the rescue team, a certain level of conscious agency was required, and once fully transformed, they would definitely be sent to the first floor. Even with the badge, it was not guaranteed that they would be able to call anyone, and the risk was high with little hope of success. For now, it wasn't worth trying.
Was there a clue they had missed, something they needed to use now but hadn't thought of?
The clues…
Xu Sheng's message had pointed them to Room 109, where they found the key to Room 304, which led them to Sanchez's will, and from there, they ended up here. These clues were tightly linked, creating a path of survival for them. There was no reason why things would go wrong at the crucial final step.
So, what clue had they not used yet… the cassette tape?
It was something forgotten long ago, but suddenly, it surfaced in Takakai's mind.
"Open a door, a door that leads to where the cassette machine is. We've overlooked the tape. The cassette tape, it might contain a clue," Takakai quickly said to the others.
Maki and Kaguya were momentarily stunned, but they quickly regained focus. Kaguya immediately moved to a nearby door, inserted the blood key into the lock, and gently turned it to open the door. Maki found the tape that Takakai had placed in her backpack and followed Kaguya, ready to enter.
Once the door opened, they found a room clearly located on the second floor, with a thin layer of water covering the floor.
At first, the three didn't recognize the room, as its interior was slightly different from the other rooms they had visited. The room contained an old radio, a display case in the corner with musical instruments like a flute and erhu, and on the table, a small cassette player.
They entered the room and closed the door behind them.
Before Kaguya could grab the cassette player, the door behind them suddenly swung open, and the corpse of an elderly person from Room 201 rushed out.
If it hadn't been for Kaguya's quick reflexes in throwing the blood puppet, causing the flesh puppets to rise up and grab the elderly corpse, they might have had one more injury among them.
"So Room 201 hasn't been explored because the corpse was too aggressive? Tch, to be fair, we didn't have the Obsession before, so we didn't have the conditions to explore this area. Unconsciously, we treated it as a dead zone and didn't think about it…"
Looking at the elderly corpse, Takakai frowned and couldn't help but think about Old Guo and the imposter.
If those two hadn't been the kind of troublemakers that liked to stir up chaos but instead had guided the newcomers in a way that a seasoned player would, things might not have been as bad as they were now.
Despite his inner frustration, the focus shifted back to the information the cassette tape might hold after they managed to get the tape player.
Because the blood puppet couldn't keep the body on the second floor for too long, the three of them decided to return to the room where the others were. They left the room, retrieved the blood puppet, and quickly left before the elderly body stood up, then closed the door, inserted the blood key into the lock, knocked lightly on the door, and only opened it when they received a response. They then returned to the room where Sun Dajun and the others were hiding.
''So, any findings?''
Green, who was worried and afraid of being left behind, quickly asked.
"Silence, there's an important clue here, we need to verify the content."
Takakai said as he moved a table in the room to the center, then went to Kaguya, placing the cassette player and the tape into it and pressing the play button.
There was no sound, no movement.
"Is it broken?"
Kaguya stood stunned for a moment, not understanding what was happening.
"Did you forget to turn it on?"
Shijo Maki looked at it for a moment, with a bit of doubt, then glanced toward the 'over-50s aunt' who wasn't familiar with electronics.
"Well… maybe I'm not good with these old electronics."
Kaguya coughed lightly and skillfully changed the topic. Takakai had taken the cassette player, found the power button to turn it on, and as expected, even though the device had been in the Shirakawa apartment for at least a year or two, the battery was still full, and it immediately started playing the tape.
Zzi zzi —
The first sound was a chaotic static noise with no meaning.
Then, after the noise lasted a few seconds, a middle-aged man's cough echoed, followed by a sound coming from the tape.
['This is the xx police station, the time is xxx, we will now begin the investigation, so who will start talking about the cause of the incident. One person speaks, then the other, don't interrupt, don't make noise, everyone try to keep harmony, be peaceful, okay? We need to turn conflict into friendship, that's the way to make peace, right? Now, let this young man speak first…']
The middle-aged man's voice started slowly, with a somewhat bureaucratic tone, making it sound a bit impatient.
But just after this man's voice ended, the sound of another younger man's voice came, making Takakai raise his head in surprise for a moment.
Could this voice be…