"Knife!"
Takumi stretched out his hand and shouted to Maki.
That sharp scalpel was immediately handed over, and then Takumi stepped forward and slashed at that man with one blow. Although this Obsession Item small knife did not look big, the wound it inflicted was much larger than its form, so that Takumi directly chopped off this thing's two legs with a single strike, causing its upper body to fall onto the ground.
"Takeda Yūsuke, pay back the money!"
While shouting, Takumi kicked at this thing's legs, wanting to kick it out. But the moment he merely touched the legs that the man had standing on the ground, an intense pain accompanied by the scalding sensation of boiling water began to spread, forcing Takumi to retreat a step. A Horror Story was always a Horror Story; even if it had a human form, even if it was still speaking human words, giving people the impression that it seemed possible to communicate, it still could not change its essence.
[I have no money… I—I don't owe you money?]
The man whose two legs had been chopped off had already recovered to its original state in the next instant.
Its dazed expression caused by Takumi's shouting was gradually changing, little by little returning to its original vicious look.
But in the next moment, it was grabbed around the waist by Takumi, who directly held it like that and shoved it out of the room's door, and the two figures rolled together into the ruins outside the door of Room 309, which had already slanted into a slope.
Takumi got up, and on the rescue-team uniform he wore, boiling water appeared and then rapidly vanished.
Following that, another muffled sound rang out behind him. Kaguya, also wearing the rescue-team uniform, rushed out and rammed that woman flying, then in midair twisted around and kicked the other party, sending her rolling into the ruins as well.
"The Blood Puppet is already close to its usage limit. Any further and it will lose control. I can hold the badge for 30 seconds."
Landing from the air, Kaguya took a deep breath, somewhat out of breath, and quickly explained the situation to Takumi.
"I can still hold on for more than 1 minute. Beat them far away; don't let them get close to this door! Maki, support Yamamoto Hiroshi and the others!"
While speaking to Kaguya, Takumi had already started charging forward. At this moment he saw Jamal supporting Yamamoto Hiroshi as they rushed over, so he shouted to Maki, who had also run out of the door behind him. Then he once again went after the man in front and punched him viciously, striking him right in the middle of the nose and knocking this man to the ground.
Unlike before, after putting on the badge and manifesting the rescue-team uniform, he would, to a certain extent, lean toward the Horror Story. At this moment, although it was impossible for him to eliminate other Horror Stories, he was already able to have an effect on them, and would no longer end up hurting himself instead the moment he made contact as before.
[My… daughter…]
The man's expression was becoming increasingly irritable, slowly recovering from the frozen state caused by Takumi's words.
"You old fart my ass, die!"
Takumi fiercely delivered a flying kick, once again knocking this man down and sending him rolling downward through the ruins for a distance.
[Mouse… mouse…]
On the other side, Kaguya leapt high, clamped her legs around the woman who was howling as she tried to charge forward, twisted her body forcefully in midair, and then that woman was sent flying upward and far away, rolling in the ruins and tumbling an even greater distance—more than three times farther than the distance Takumi had knocked that man back.
"Takumi-kun, Oba-san, hurry!"
Maki had already brought those two into the room. Without time to explain too much, she directly let Yamamoto Hiroshi and Jamal go through the door of the small bedroom.
Because the "Parents" had already moved far from Room 309, the two entered very smoothly, disappearing directly into the door and escaping from this game that was about to collapse.
The girl did not choose to follow them in. Instead, she turned around without hesitation and ran to the doorway, shouting to Takumi and Kaguya.
At this moment, Takumi had once again knocked that man flat on the ground with a punch, and then Kaguya, who was beside him, pulled out from the ruins a pitchfork left behind by some resident, directly stabbing it through the man's chest and pinning him to the ground. Only then did the two see Maeda Miwa running, panting heavily.
"Hurry up!"
Takumi shouted to that woman Maeda. At this moment, Kaguya beside him was already nearing her limit and had no choice but to remove the badge, taking off the rescue-team uniform that had appeared out of thin air as she gasped for breath.
Because he still had about twenty to thirty seconds left, Takumi did not hesitate. He simply grabbed the exhausted, weakened, and mentally fatigued Kaguya around the waist, lifted her up, and directly charged toward the door.
"W-wait for me!"
Maeda behind them was running completely out of breath, but Takumi did not dare wait for her. One had to know that the surrounding ruins were collapsing more and more severely, and that completely dark void area had already spread to at most a few hundred meters around them, and even that distance was continuously shrinking.
"Faster, faster!"
While shouting, Maki wanted to come down to help, but as soon as she took a step she stumbled.
[Boom—]
The ruins around the door of Room 309 were gradually tilting.
The increasingly severe collapse caused the ruins to continuously fall and scatter in all directions, and also caused the entire mass of ruins to gradually begin sinking.
Realizing something was wrong, Maki turned back to look and discovered that the door of Room 309 was actually already suspended in midair, floating at a height of roughly half a meter above the ground, and this height was still continuously increasing.
If this continued, there would be no time to escape!
"Hurry!"
Maki, shouting once again, leapt onto the door of Room 309. Her gaze swiftly searched inside the room, then she toppled a large cabinet inside, laying it sideways at the front of the door as a brace. Next, she yanked down the curtains on one side of the living room, tied one end to the cabinet's handle, and threw the other end downward toward Takumi and Kaguya, who were already almost running up to her.
At this moment, the distance between the ground and the door of Room 309 had already widened to more than five or six meters, roughly the height of two floors.
The entire mass of ruins was continuously descending.
Falling and scattering in this boundless darkness until everything completely returned to nothingness.
Only the door of Room 309 stood high in the air, still emitting light from within, like the only salvation in this hell.
Takumi finally ran to the open space beneath Room 309. With one leap he grabbed the curtain, and with his other hand forcefully exerted strength, using the power provided by the rescue-team badge to fling Kaguya upward, directly throwing her onto the door of Room 309. Maki then reached out and grabbed her, pulling Kaguya into the room.
Next, Takumi, who was also nearing his limit, removed the badge, took several difficult deep breaths to steady himself, then forcefully climbed upward, quickly reaching the area near the door. He was then pulled up by Maki and Kaguya, who both reached down to grab him.
Only at this moment did Maeda Miwa finally run to the area beneath Room 309. She jumped with all her might and barely managed to grab the curtain but no longer had the strength to climb up.
"Save me, save me!"
Hanging from the curtain, Maeda could not help crying out loudly.
"Goddamn it, still just a deadweight piece of trash…"
Takumi cursed, having no intention at all of saving Maeda Miwa, and instead intending to yank Maki and Kaguya directly into the room. But before he could carry out this decision, he noticed that Green, who was supposed to be dead on one side of the room, twitched a few times, tore apart the stitches on his body, and stood up.
'Crap!'
To deal with that filthy pair, at the critical moment the three of them had not paid attention to Green's corpse, forgetting the situation where corpses would undergo aberrant changes in the Shirakawa Apartments.
[It's already so late. Why haven't you gone back to sleep? This isn't the behavior of a good child.]
A strangely twisted tone came from Green's mouth.
This man, whose entire body was severely scalded and densely covered with stitching, was at this moment speaking in a coy manner like a woman, just like that girl's mother who was worse than a beast.
A "Mother" incarnation twisted by the rules of the apartment itself, or a change in the consciousness of a resident polluted and distorted? In this critical moment Takumi had no time to consider what this thing's origin was, but what he could be sure of was that, just like the fake Kaguya from the first loop, this thing absolutely must not be allowed to receive injuries that were fatal or could cause unconsciousness; otherwise its combat power would increase tremendously.
And then this fake Green… the injuries on his body seemed to already be fatal? After all, he seemed to have already stopped breathing just now.
[Bang!]
Before Takumi could react, amid the sound of a gunshot, Maki—who was in charge of keeping Tanaka's backpack and therefore had the gun—decisively fired, with one shot piercing Green's leg and making him stagger and half-kneel on the ground.
In the next moment Kaguya reacted, twisting her steps, rotating her waist to deliver a kick, knocking Green over and sending him rolling to the side of the door.
Lastly, Takumi—who had already moved toward the door of Room 309 in advance—wrapped both arms around Green's overturned waist, sharply arched his body backward, and directly flung Green into the air, using a standard German suplex motion to throw him straight out of Room 309.
"Haah…"
Kaguya, her stamina completely exhausted, fell to her knees at this moment, nearly unable to stand.
Takumi also leaned helplessly against the wall beside the door, breathing repeatedly, unable to recover for quite a while, his vision somewhat blurry.
The intense consumption of the rescue-team medal, the climbing, and the fighting during the emergency just now—after this series of exertions, he now felt his lungs trembling with each breath.
"We can't delay any longer, let's go."
Maki, the one in the best condition, supported Takumi so that he could stand, then helped Kaguya up. At this moment it was already a matter of utmost urgency. She knew there was no time to sympathize with Maeda Miwa below; she had to prioritize surviving herself, so despite struggling, she ultimately restrained her kindness.
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