Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

"The core obsession determines the dungeon; fulfilling that obsession ruins the game; if the obsession gets out of control, everyone's gone—thrown into the dungeon!"

"Ashes scattered, corpses unburied; purple talismans borrow life, summoning monsters; players scattered to the winds, murder and arson daily."

The spirited young girl strummed her guitar and rattled off a whole string of words in one breath.

To be honest, Gao Hai was somewhat intimidated by this amazing veteran, Boqi, at that moment.

As for Princess Zhenfei, who was also standing next to her with her mouth agape, she was probably in a state of extreme shock as well.

So, did she just recite the rules summarized by the players in this way? Because she's too socially awkward to ask others for the player manual, did she simply force herself to sing out this information using her musical talents?

Although the singing was alright, it just felt completely meaningless...

Not knowing how to make a comment, Gao Hai could only force himself not to show any subtle expressions, and then try his best to remember what the other person was singing, trying to extract useful information from it.

Interludes 1-12: World-building information is being continuously unlocked.

More than ten minutes later, inside the cabin.

Gao Hai closed his eyes, pondered for a moment, and then slowly opened them.

"Okay, I've roughly figured out the situation."

In the neon-lit area, or at least the Tokyo area, there are currently fewer than fifty active players. The vast majority of them are unorganized, solo players. The only three player organizations each have fewer than ten members.

For example, the organization "Female Face Gang" consists of five members, all of whom are women. They obtain a special flesh-and-blood artifact from a Dark Night-level hospital instance, which allows them to replace or seize the existence of others, and even use this seized existence to die in place of themselves in dangerous moments. It is an extremely powerful artifact.

This information completely resolved Gao Hai's confusion about the traitor's methods. It now appears that the traitor killed Maeda Miwa and seized her existence using a memento, subsequently impersonating her. The so-called "Maeda Miwa whose death became a ghost story" in the first and second loops was actually the traitor releasing the entity she had seized, causing it to be attacked and killed by the ghost story in her place, thus achieving a cover-up.

In a sense, if Gao Hai hadn't taken immediate action to eliminate the traitorous woman in the third playthrough, he would have had to kill her twice after she completed her existence takeover. The variables involved were considerable, and it was hard to say whether he could have successfully ended everything in the third playthrough in that situation.

The reason why Gao Hai didn't discover this obsessive entity when he killed the traitorous woman is quite simple. Just like its name, "Substitute Flesh and Blood," to use it, one must devour it, allowing this writhing mass of flesh and blood to occupy a part of their body. Even if the host dies, this obsessive entity will not detach itself from the host, but will gradually devour them from the inside out until only a human skin remains. Then, by manipulating this human skin, it will enter a state of out-of-control and return to the ghost story instance.

That's right, Takami has already understood from Goto Ichiri what happens when an obsession goes out of control in the real world: [returning to the ghost story world].

If a player's possession goes out of control within a dungeon, it will summon the corresponding supernatural entity to the current dungeon, greatly increasing its danger. If a possession goes out of control in the real world, it will vanish into thin air within approximately five to ten minutes, along with all the people and things affected by the possession's out-of-control state, sending them all into the dungeon world corresponding to the possession.

Considering that obsessive objects seem to have a shielding effect on ordinary people's perception, this also better explains why there have been no large-scale paranormal events in the real world.

No, it should be said that there haven't been any large-scale paranormal events yet...

Gao Hai couldn't help but think again about those things floating in various places.

"It's hard to believe that such disgusting obsessions still exist. No wonder people who accept such things are so crazy."

Sitting next to Gao Hai, Zhen Fei sighed softly, revealing an expression of disgust.

The power of the [Substitute Flesh and Blood] is immense, but its side effects are also significant. The user whose flesh and blood have been replaced develops a craving for fresh flesh and blood of their own kind, resulting in a drastically distorted personality. Furthermore, the longer this object of obsession is used, the more severe the abnormal changes occur in the body. Even an otherwise normal ordinary person will inevitably become a bloodthirsty and cruel madman after using it. Moreover, this object cannot be returned; once used, it accompanies the user for life, with no way to undo it except through death.

"This is the standard villainous player faction, the most heinous of all, and they've already made enemies with us. These bastards are quite united in their hatred; after we wiped out one of them, the remaining four are coming after us. And since they've already killed Maeda Miwa, they probably already have basic information about us. But if they really do have information about us, shouldn't they just come to us directly? Why haven't they made a move yet?"

Gao Hai was utterly unafraid of this so-called "Female Mask Gang." Killing one was the same as killing five; as long as they weren't friendly girls like Kaguya Maki or Kobochi, he wouldn't feel a pang of regret killing a few of them. He just didn't quite understand the current situation. Since the other side was able to quickly find Maeda Miwa and kill her, it proved they were capable. However, judging from their previous performance in the market, the "Female Mask Gang" seemed to have no information about Gao Hai and his two companions at all, to the point that they had to hire people to test the waters in the market.

Are they a bunch of psychopathic veteran gamers who can't even pry open a piece of trash's mouth?

Gao Hai became increasingly confused.

However, from Gao Hai's personal perspective, it is normal to feel confused due to insufficient information.

He had no idea how furious the four members of the "Female Face Gang" were, or how deeply confused they felt about not being able to obtain any information.

Miwa Maeda is indeed not a person who keeps her mouth shut.

In fact, after surviving the Shirakawa Apartment, the woman almost immediately ran to a hotel, where she drank and reveled to vent the fear that had accumulated in the apartment. She also brazenly told everyone about what happened at the Shirakawa Apartment, which was immediately discovered by members of the "Female Face Gang" who happened to be in the hotel.

The subsequent interrogation was bloody, but what was important was that Maeda Miwa, who was initially thought to be easily pried open, failed to provide the information the "Female Mask Gang" wanted. The reason for this was quite simple:

Before being discovered by the "Female Face Gang," Maeda Miwa had already taken five times the normal dose of hallucinogens.

This drug, recently popular in Japan and extracted from a highly poisonous mushroom, produces a strong euphoric effect, plunging users into a state of delirium. Despite the Metropolitan Police Department's efforts to crack down on it, many psychedelics still circulate in various entertainment venues.

Having experienced the life-or-death crisis at Shirakawa Apartment, Maeda Miwa, in an act of venting her anger, recklessly consumed the substance, driving herself half-mad and rendering her unable to utter a coherent sentence to the [Female Mask Gang]. Coupled with the corrosive effects of the [Substitute Flesh], and given the already extremely volatile and cruel nature of these players, the interrogator couldn't resist killing Maeda Miwa on the spot, leaving the scene seething with rage, and beginning to seek other ways to find the participants in the Shirakawa Apartment mission.

Although the [Female Face Gang] has indeed put in a lot of effort to find the person, even they themselves feel the chances are slim. After all, the players participating in the dungeon come from all over the world, and their small gang's reach is limited. Therefore, they are currently more inclined to believe that this is something done by a veteran player, and their main investigation focus is on some clandestine information vendors. On the market side, they have only hired two people to repeatedly talk about relevant information to attract attention, and incidentally, to try and find any clues.

"In short, we should keep a low profile for now."

That was all Gao Hai said in the end.

The total number of active players in Japan is no more than three hundred, while the number of active players worldwide is around two thousand. At least the number of registered users on that global player network—accessible only to players and ignored by ordinary people due to the influence of obsessive objects—is roughly around two thousand. Goto Ichiri shared this information with Takami and Maki, giving them the website address, thus officially connecting them with the player community.

Just as Gao Hai initially guessed, the [Entry Ticket], an item obtained by players after successfully completing a dungeon, is essentially an invisible, floating object visible only to its holder. It can be summoned at any time for confirmation, and ownership can only be transferred when players are within two meters of each other. It must be used during the monthly dungeon opening time, replacing the dungeon assigned by the game's sacrifice system—a way to reduce uncertainty and increase the probability of survival.

Veteran players have a huge demand for "Entry Tickets," especially Twilight-level ones. Dark Night-level quests are extremely difficult, practically guaranteeing a one-in-a-lifetime chance of survival; Red Moon-level quests are even more dreaded, with top-tier players barely managing to survive. However, the game doesn't care about such things; once you achieve two A-level ratings of the same difficulty, the next quest will always be of a higher difficulty. Therefore, "Entry Tickets" have become a lifesaver for many veteran players.

However, this method has its limits. Although Goto Ichiri hasn't experienced it firsthand, she learned from the veteran player who helped her clear the game that regardless of whether you get two A-rank ratings for the same difficulty level, if you clear a level five times in a row, you'll start to be targeted the next time you enter a quest of that level. If you refuse to change the level of the quest after being targeted, the targeting will become more and more obvious, and clearing the game will become increasingly difficult.

For example, other players who are playing normally will be given an identity by the instance, which will allow them to find their place and the rules they need to follow. However, veteran players who are being targeted will enter the instance with no identity or even a confused identity. For example, Lao Guo will not be able to obtain the identity of "tenant" like Kaguya Maki and others, and will be directly identified as a hostile target and beaten up by the corpses in the house.

Assuming Lao Guo survives the Baichuan Apartment instance and continues to participate in it repeatedly, he will face even more severe targeting due to his continued participation in the Twilight level instance. Perhaps he will appear directly on the 3rd floor surrounded by porcelain dolls and footsteps; perhaps he will start by sitting in the living room of 109 with an open diary directly opposite him and the little girl's name right in front of his face; or perhaps he will be thrown into 304 at the start, face to face with those beastly parents who have now become fuel.

There's only one way to get rid of this targeting: participate in dungeons of other difficulties, such as Dark Night or Red Moon. However, for most players, the Dark Night dungeon is dangerous enough to deter them. Therefore, unless they're targeted to the point of being unable to continue playing from the start, experienced players would rather endure all the malicious targeting and stay in Twilight.

As for why the Dark Night level is so daunting for veteran players...

Takami looked at Goto Ichiri, wanting to ask her for guidance.

The pink-haired girl nodded earnestly, then took out her guitar again.

"No, could you explain it in a normal way?"

Gao Hai raised his hand and suggested that he really didn't want to hear that strange singing again.

So Goto Ichiri put the guitar back with tears in her eyes.

This child, although he always has a long face in the animation, doesn't he cry so easily?

In short, after spending some more time, Gao Hai finally learned from Goto Ichiri what the differences were between the three difficulty levels of the Sacrifice Game.

First, as a common feature of all games, there are four game hints, which are often related to the core themes of the game.

As the simplest Twilight-level game in the Sacrifice game genre, its core obsession is singular, and its four game hints are always true. In other words, the origin of every Twilight-level game stems from the obsession of a particular individual, and players receive four hints related to this obsession at the outset. By confirming the information about this core obsession, one can deduce the relevant methods to clear the game and even attempt to seize the core obsession item.

As for the second-tier Dark Night level game, apart from the characteristic that one of the four game hints is always a false hint, three different situations have been summarized so far.

In the first scenario, similar to the Twilight level, only one instance core exists within the Night-level game. However, the timeline within this instance often spans decades, resulting in a complex mix of the resentments of the deceased, making the search for the core extremely difficult. This scenario is the most common and simplest in Night-level games.

The second type of Dark Night difficulty has two to three core obsessions. This type of dungeon is no longer composed of a single core, but begins to show the stacking and invisibility of different obsessions. It is a high-risk difficulty that can be called Dark Night. Every known dual-core or triple-core Dark Night dungeon is a terrifying thing that players avoid at all costs.

Besides these, there is a third type of Dark Night-level game. This type is usually no longer considered a Dark Night-level game because it is actually a downgraded version of the Red Moon-level game. When a Red Moon-level game loses one or more core artifacts for various reasons, causing a decrease in difficulty, it is downgraded and reclassified as a Dark Night-level game. However, although the difficulty has been reduced and downgraded, the rules, complexity, and danger of these dungeons remain essentially Red Moon-level. Even extremely skilled players struggle to survive in these dungeons, hence they are referred to by players as pseudo-Red Moon-level.

As for the true Crimson Moon-level games, Goto Ichiri knew very little. She had never played a game of that level, and none of the veteran players she knew had ever survived one. The only thing she knew for sure was that a Dark Night-level dungeon, known among players as "School Mystery," had once been a Crimson Moon-level dungeon. Players had discovered eight different Core Obsessions in that dungeon, but later, a player managed to take three Core Obsessions from it, causing the dungeon to be downgraded to Dark Night-level.

When the topic of their core obsession came up, Gao Hai finally realized that, within the current player network, many players who had cleared the Shirakawa Apartment Twilight-level dungeon had already noticed a trend towards it becoming a fixed dungeon three months ago. This dungeon happened to be the only one about to be fixed during this period. Therefore, once Gao Hai and his group, who had cleared the dungeon but lacked entry tickets, were exposed, those with ulterior motives would immediately associate it with this dungeon.

As for the Spirit Blessing obtained by Gao Hai and his companions, this is actually a different system from the Core Obsession. The player who took the Core Obsession actually followed the normal method of clearing the dungeon; they simply took the Core Obsession. After taking the Core Obsession, the dungeon will be in a "locked" state and cannot be entered until the obsession goes out of control. Obtaining the Spirit Blessing, however, requires satisfying the core obsession of the dungeon, finding its weakness, and destroying the entire dungeon. In this case, the entry ticket will directly become invalid, rather than showing as temporarily unusable. Therefore, it is easy for other players to know which dungeon has had its Core Obsession taken and has been breached, unless it is a newly appeared dungeon that no one has entered yet.

"That's true... but Shirakawa Apartments has long been suspected of being... likely to be upgraded to Dark Night level, so not many people are willing to go there. You guys... how exactly did you manage to clear the game?"

Despite the ordeal of speaking each time, Goto Ichiri eventually couldn't resist asking out of curiosity.

"Well, should I try harder?"

After thinking for a while, Gao Hai tried to give this answer.

"If I had to put it into words, it would be that I gave it my all and then had a bit of good luck, that's about it."

Consort Zhen nodded in agreement, and after thinking for a moment, she also spoke up.

Then, in the next moment, Goto Ichiri disappeared again.

Ah, no, it's shrunk back into the cardboard box.

Where did this cardboard box come from? It just appears out of nowhere, like a prop from a comedy anime.

"In short, thank you very much for your valuable information today. I hope we will meet again in the future, Ms. Goto."

After exchanging information and clarifying the various aspects of the information that the players had summarized, Gao Hai and Maki did not continue to disturb Goto Ichiri, who was now almost curled up in a ball, and left the hut and the underground trading market.

I had originally planned to see if there were any suitable items to exchange, but it seems that none of the three items from Lao Guo's traitorous female side are suitable to offer, so I had to give up on this matter.

However, they already know when the next market will start, roughly three days before the new mission begins, so they can try again. If they prepare in advance, the situation should be much better than this time.

"Ms. Goto, do you know the normal way to clear the Shirakawa Apartment in the fixed stage?"

Just before leaving, Maki, seemingly lost in thought, suddenly turned to look at Goto Ichiri and asked again.

Goto Ichiri, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, immediately tensed up. After a while, she managed to remember to answer Takami and Maki.

Judging from her demeanor and attitude when answering, it seems that although Goto Ichiri herself is not very interested in these things, a rather strict friend forced her to memorize a lot of information from the dungeons.

"According to information sold by some players who participated in the instance at fixed stages, the rescue team had basically succeeded in evacuating most of the residents on the 2nd and 1st floors. The problem must have occurred during the evacuation of the 3rd floor. Therefore, it is possible to exchange clothes with the corpses to disguise them as residents, and then have other players disguise themselves as the rescue team by wearing badges, thus escaping the apartment by recreating the past. However, the prerequisite for doing this is to find the residents who were successfully evacuated back then, and players wearing rescue team badges could not possibly leave alive under any circumstances."

After summarizing the information provided by Goto Ichiri, Maki raised an eyebrow and looked at Takami beside her.

"It seems we chose a more difficult path back then?"

Only then did Gao Hai fully realize that he had taken a path that ordinary people would not take in his beginner's dungeon. He couldn't help but shake his head slightly and sigh.

"In a sense, this is like asking for trouble."

Zhenfei gently shook her head, talking as she walked up the stairs, gradually leaving the dark underground plaza and returning to a place bathed in sunlight.

Whether you're just asking for trouble depends on whether the final reward is worth it.

Gao Hai originally wanted to say that.

But when he glanced at the girl walking ahead, her right hand in her pocket and her left hand deliberately free to swing, he smiled, walked up to her without saying a word, and gently took her small hand in his.

Then, the two of them started walking forward together.

Interludes 1-13: Time for Reflection and Chance Encounters Under the Night

slam-la-

Amidst the splashing water, Kaguya slowly sank into the bath, immersing her entire body in the hot water.

"Well……"

After a soft moan, the girl with long black hair stretched her body slightly in the water, then opened her dark red eyes and looked at the bathroom ceiling.

Yesterday, Takami and Maki's initial reconnaissance resulted in the formation of a friendship with a friendly, experienced young girl. They obtained a considerable amount of information from her, laying the foundation for further contact with player groups.

"Ashes... Purple Talisman..."