The ghosts’ glares were settled firmly on me. If I dared to shout or start running, they’d be on me like a swarm of mice on cheese. I had no doubt about it.
Hold on. Wouldn’t it be more efficient—and less scary overall—to race through level 10 spookiness in one minute than to walk through level 5 spookiness in ten minutes?
No way was I gonna do that! I had zero confidence I could keep my sanity once they upped the fear factor even more.
I needed to switch my mental gears from teen on a class trip to game developer. If I could focus all my brainpower on appraising and analyzing this mansion’s gimmicks, and thinking about how I could adapt them for Koyagi, I would no longer have the mental space to be scared.
It was time to be calm, cool, and collected. Time to analyze, compartmentalize, and scrutinize the very framework of the entertainment product before me. For the sake of the knowledge and body and flesh of our video game and no, I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore, but I just needed to keep thinking so that I could stop thinking!
That’s right. As long as my head remained clear, the ghosts of this mansion were completely trivial. Thinking back, all the monsters we’d encountered so far had spooked us at point-blank range, but none of them actually made physical contact. That made sense when you considered that most of TEL’s clientele were female. We were living in times when being touched by a male actor without a good reason was enough for someone to cry sexual harassment after the fact, so there was no way these ghosts would go around touching people left, right, and center.
Even if that wasn’t the reason, Tenchido could get into a ton of trouble if one of their employees touched a visitor and that visitor got hurt as a result.
These ghosts made it look like they were about to grab you, but there’s no way they’d actually cross that line!
Ha ha ha! Who’s laughing now, ghosts?!
I’d figured out their trick, and now I had nothing left to fear.
It was just like a video game. Once you’d learned the AI’s behavioral patterns, there was no way you could ever lose to those NPCs again!
✦ ✦ ✦
I managed to get out of hell’s darkest zone and make it to the stairwell leading up to the next floor. I turned to the ghosts who were making no move to follow me to the stairwell, and felt my lips turn up into a smile.
“Hah! You guys weren’t such a big deal after all! Feels bad, huh? Then keep chasing me if you wanna! Ha ha ha ha!”
“Uoooorgh!” (Translation: If that is what you wish...)
“Gaaargh! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Not the stairs, please! This is s’posed to be a safe zone!”
Pro tip: bragging never gets you anywhere.
I know you’re a sensible kind of person who’ll take that to heart. Please do, because it’s important. Never forget to stay humble, no matter the situation.
“Anyway... Looks like we’ve been well and truly separated.”
Even though I’d made it to the stairs, there was no sign of Mashiro. Ordinarily, I’d think I might have passed her, seeing as this floor was so dark, but this was Mashiro; she seemed to know no fear and just kept on charging forward like a wild boar. The chances I passed her were pretty much zero.
More likely than not, she’d already gone up the stairs...to the fourth floor.
I looked up at the entrance to the next floor from the bottom of the stairs. There was a red light seeping through the gap in the open fire door—apparently, it wasn’t pitch black like floor three.
“The fourth floor...” I muttered, my mind getting to work. It was still set to creator mode.
If I were the planner behind Ghost Mansion, what would I have done? How would I have arranged these four floors of horror?
Four was an unlucky number—the number of death. I was sure that the next floor held the most violent, terrible, frightening traps imaginable.
“I don’t wanna go up there...”
I probably had about five near heart attacks just going through the first three floors. I knew the ghosts were just actors, and the cursed items and poltergeists were props, but in a place like this, logic didn’t really work as a shield.
And what was with the actors, anyway? They were way too talented.
It was probably because of all the time I’d spent watching Iroha act, but I just couldn’t stop myself analyzing and categorizing stuff like the tiny quirks of people’s acting ability, and how they performed. The details I perceived made me realize (even through my fear) that these actors weren’t your run-of-the-mill theme park employees.
I made it to the stairs because I’d taken courage from the realization the monsters couldn’t actually touch me. And they hadn’t—but even then, every time they got close to me, my defensive instincts were convinced I was about to get grabbed or bitten. My limbs would get stiff, my brain would send panic signals every which way, and I’d start to break out in a sweat.
The way they acted, it looked just like they believed they were ghosts. Their talent was enough to give Iroha a run for her money—at least when they were playing ghosts—and these impressive actors stretched all the way up to the third floor. If we assumed the fourth floor cranked things up another notch, then I’d much, much rather not have to traverse it by myself.
“We haven’t been attacked on the stairs so far. I’m guessing this is a safe zone, like a checkpoint or something.”
I touched the wall of the landing. It wasn’t actually a wall, per se. It was a blackout curtain hung over the wall. Actually, it wasn’t even a curtain, but I only realized what it really was after I touched it. My touch pushed the material back, making my hand disappear into a dark cavity. There wasn’t a wall on the other side; there was a space people could walk through.
“Of course. It’s so people can throw in the towel.”
The building itself was pretty big, and this place was scary enough to freak out a tough guy like me. There were definitely gonna be people giving in before the end, or others who downright fainted in fear or something.
There had to be a “normal” space here, separate from the scary floors, where people who were overcome with fear or panic could get out and receive medical attention, or whatever they needed. There was a need for assistant staff too, so there had to be a staff-only area somewhere in this place. The most probable area for such a place to exist was in the safe zone, where ghosts weren’t allowed.
“My logic is flawless! Looks like I’ve just defeated Ghost Mansion.”
I’d won. Therefore, I could bow out now if I wanted to.
“Like I’d do that. I can’t just let Mashiro go on ahead while I dip— Huh?”
“Huh?”
Something grabbed onto my hand from the other side of the curtain. It gasped at the same time as I did.
And then, something incredibly unfortunate happened.
Whoever—or whatever—grabbed my hand started to fall, suddenly exerting a ton of weight on my arm. I worked out, but not nearly enough to withstand the weight of a full person pulling on me out of nowhere.
“Argh!”
“Eeek!”
My body was pulled beyond the curtain, and I found myself falling face-first. My brain quickly realized I needed to take some sort of action to protect myself, so I squeezed my eyes shut to brace for the pain, and pulled my chin in.
I’m ready for the pain now! Come at me! I’ve taken all the steps to make sure I’m not seriously injured!
The impact was squishy.
...
Squishy?
That...wasn’t right.
Wasn’t there supposed to be a crash! Or a bang?!
Someone had fallen onto the floor over here, and you’re telling me there was no high-impact sound effect? Otoi-san would be ashamed.
“But...huh. It does feel soft. My face doesn’t hurt at all.”
“Nngh... Owie...”
A female voice came from underneath me. Apparently it was a woman who had cushioned my fall, probably one of the staff.
Nice job, idiot.
Because I’d tucked in my chin, my face had landed in her solar plexus, buried right in her underboobs. My defensive measures had been supposed to protect me, not make things painfully awkward. The spectacular feat mimicked the artistic manner in which romantic comedy protagonists fell. I never thought I’d see the day when I copied that trope in real life.
My place in the classroom was always on the very edge of the action, far from where a protagonist had any right to be. But for some reason, it felt like I was ticking off all the tropes for a romantic comedy on this class trip. What the heck was happening to my ordinary life? Was this all because I was taking a break from Koyagi and focusing on living a little bit more? Maybe this sort of stuff happened all the time, and all that was missing was my proper perspective.
Wait, what was with all the random reflections? This wasn’t exactly the time for that.
And yeah, maybe I’d fallen face-first into the boobs of some haunted house staff member, but so what? My feelings were already set. I was already on a certain girl’s route. It was actually pretty gross that, despite those feelings, I was now having inappropriate bodily contact with an unrelated girl.
“Um, sorry. Could you please get off me, whenever you’re ready?”
“Aaah! No, I’m sorry! I’ll get off right away, and— Wait, what?”
It was only after I’d jumped to my feet that I realized. It didn’t matter that there was barely any lighting, I’d recognize this “staff member”’s face anywhere.
The amber-gold hair, the perfectly polite face reserved for lesser-known people that hid unbridled cheek, and the features so beautiful even she knew it.
“Iroha?!”
“Huh? S-Senpai?!”
My kouhai from next door. My friend’s little sister, Kohinata Iroha.
We weren’t supposed to be meeting on this trip. She was supposed to be playing the good little honor student, going to school and taking her classes, and I was supposed to have abandoned her back home.
It looked like she was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
We pointed at each other, shouting out the first question that came to mind in unison.
“What are you doing here?!”