Chapter 90: Chapter 10: During the Transitional Period, Nothing Seemed to Happen
Chapter 10: During the Transitional Period, Nothing Seemed to Happen
"This is… clothing?"
Chika glanced at the scattered clothes in the cave ahead, unconsciously muttering softly.
Under the flickering light of the two headlamps, a slightly damp, rectangular-shaped cave appeared before them.
Nothing strange showed up here, There are also no extroverted corpses.. Only a large pile of dirty clothes was haphazardly tossed on the ground, their time lying here completely unknown.
The process of reaching [The Heart] turned out to be easier than expected.
Compared to the vast space before, the narrow one-way path leading to The Heart was tighter but still passable by crouching down.
Takahashi Takakai had conducted a preliminary measurement of the path, dubbed [blood vessels]. The estimated results showed that the narrowest sections of the cave had a width and height of approximately 40 cm. For someone tall and broad like Takakai, this width and height posed some challenges, but he managed to squeeze through. As for Chika, her petite figure made navigation far easier. Although some parts of her body were quite impressively developed, they weren't enough to get her stuck in the cave.
The entire journey was free of any bizarre occurrences. There were no voices whispering behind them, no corpses lying above their heads. Throughout the passage, since Takakai was trailing behind, he could see Chika crawling steadily ahead of him.
How should it be described? This girl seemed to not only have an impressively developed front but also quite a striking rear.
Of course, this was just something Takakai happened to notice. A serious person like him couldn't possibly entertain such irrelevant thoughts while struggling through a narrow tunnel. That was absolutely out of the question.
Even this final stretch of the journey didn't involve any spatial overlaps. From start to finish, Fujiwara Chika, who was ahead of him, always remained herself. His Blessing consistently confirmed her as human and judged her to harbor goodwill toward him. Unless the anomalies of this dungeon were terrifying enough to deceive his Blessing, his judgment couldn't possibly be wrong.
Could it be that by exploiting the mechanics and temporarily avoiding the four corpses, these bizarre phenomena had also temporarily disappeared?
Takakai couldn't come up with a definite answer.
In any case, the two finally reached the location of [The Heart] without incident, confirmed there was no second entrance, and found the sign marking the area. Unlike the sign in [The Great Space], this one merely displayed the name [The Heart] without any additional description.
"Why are there so many people's clothes here…"
Fujiwara Chika cautiously observed the scattered clothes, muttering softly while taking a step back. She had no intention of approaching.
"Don't mind it. As [explorers], we've completed our objective—we've reached [The Heart]. Let's rest for a bit and head back immediately," Takakai said nonchalantly, standing nearby. He also had no intention of getting closer to the clothes.
Surveying his surroundings, Takakai found that this so-called Heart was nothing more than an ordinary-looking cave. It had the usual stalactites, stalagmites, and rough stone columns. There was nothing about the place that remotely connected it to the name "Heart."
Chika, however, keenly noticed some fossil traces on the cave walls and even identified them as possibly being fossils of prehistoric fish. Excited, she wanted to take some photos as souvenirs. Takakai admired her optimistic spirit, but given the unusual nature of this place, he couldn't help imagining what might happen if, after taking the photo, they saw a crowd of people staring at them in the picture. In the end, he stopped her.
"With so many fish fossils here, what do you think this place used to be?"
"Who knows? Whatever it was before, it's definitely not a good place now. Let's go."
Takakai and Chika didn't stay long in the cave and quickly decided to leave.
The scattered clothes on the ground gave Takakai an unsettling feeling. Especially when he examined them more closely, he realized all the garments were casual wear—T-shirts, shirts, shorts, and jeans. The longer he looked, the stronger the sensation grew that there were people standing silently all around the cave, staring intently at him.
They couldn't stay any longer.
A deep sense of danger urged Takakai to act swiftly.
"Uwa… we have to go again? This is so exhausting…"
Chika let out a light complaint. Crawling through the narrow cave passages had drained her energy. Despite wearing protective gear and a helmet, Chika had been scraped by the cave walls several times. Now, a few bloodied scratches marked her cheek.
Though she grumbled, her actions betrayed no hesitation. She immediately crawled back into the tunnel they had entered through earlier, where a damaged safety rope was fastened to the wall, and began crawling at a faster pace.
"As long as we haven't completely left this place, we can't let our guard down. There's no other choice," Takakai said as he crouched down, preparing to enter the tunnel.
Tsk. His sweat was sticking to his clothes—it felt awful.
As he thought about this, Takakai tried to pull at his shirt, but it wouldn't budge. Whether it was because the sweat had increased the fabric's adhesion or not, Takakai felt that the shirt, which was already tight-fitting, was now glued to his body so firmly that it was almost impossible to take off.
Why had the shirt suddenly become so tight?
This fleeting sense of doubt brushed through his mind but was quickly dismissed.
The more pressing matter now was to leave this place as quickly as possible. Takakai had started to faintly sense the sound of footsteps echoing somewhere in the cave.
Bending down, clutching his backpack tightly against his chest, Takakai slowly entered the tunnel, which was just over forty centimeters high, and began crawling deeper into the darkness ahead.
[Where is this place?]
A voice, seemingly filled with confusion, echoed faintly from the cave behind them.
[I was just driving… How did I end up here?]
[What's happening? I fell asleep, and now I'm in this place?]
[What the hell is going on? Hey, is anyone there? Help!]
The shouting grew louder and more chaotic as more voices joined in, uttering all sorts of phrases. Each voice was filled with confusion, each one trembling with fear.
Takakai ignored the voices and kept crawling forward.
[We can only crawl out through here, right?]
[There's no signal here, and we can't call the police. The only option is to try crawling out.]
[Hurry up, I feel like something's really off about this place.]
The sounds seemed to be getting closer.
The rustling noises of something crawling echoed behind him, following close on his trail.
Vaguely, Takakai sensed that this time, the situation wasn't the same as before.
But he had no way of turning back now. He could only press forward, trying to speed up, crawling faster through the pitch-black tunnel.
.....
Meanwhile, Kaguya was hiding behind a rock pillar, carefully observing the structure ahead of her.
It was a guard post.
The guard post was located in the [plain] area, blocking the outer entrance to the [big slide]. Light spilled out of the post's windows, and faintly, she could hear the sound of music playing inside. Next to the guard post, the original entrance to the [big slide] had been sealed off with cement, blending almost seamlessly into the surrounding rock wall, making it hard to distinguish.
Dirty clothes were scattered all over the ground.
Since Kaguya had entered the cave, passed through the maze-like rock formations, and reached this area referred to as the plain, she had seen countless pieces of clothing strewn about.
All of them were ordinary clothing—some were even pajamas—entirely unlike the gear worn by cave explorers.
Among the discarded clothes, she noticed a set that looked identical to the striped yellow uniform she was wearing. However, these clothes were heavily damaged, as if torn apart by something—or, to be more precise, scratched or abraded in some way.
Could it be that many previous explorers had taken off their uniforms here?
[The guard post has been confirmed. It's currently not suitable to proceed. C1, lead your team back to the entrance.]
A new directive echoed in her earpiece.
Since it was her first time using this equipment, Kaguya hadn't yet found an opportunity or method to destroy the communication device, so she was still under the command of the control room.
"Yes, I'll lead the team back immediately," Kaguya responded as she turned around.
For a moment, she thought she heard the sound of knocking.
It was as if something was pounding forcefully against the sealed cement wall, the faint noise reaching her ears.
Kaguya said nothing about it. She simply turned her back and began to leave, leading the two other team members step by step toward the path they had come from.
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