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

The thing seemed to become even more confusing, its sounds and movements like a PC version of The Last of Us played on a 1050ti, lagging so badly it nearly crashed.

"I'm here to switch shifts with you. You've already finished your shift!"

Extremely nervous, Fujiwara Chika answered loudly almost immediately after the other party expressed doubt, her forehead already beaded with sweat.

[Shift change? Time... Shift change...]

The thing seemed to be confused for a while, then looked up as if to look at the clock hanging in the guard booth.

But Chika, who had already sensed the thing's intentions, immediately stood up and stood in front of the clock, waving her hand to block its view, if the flattened thing really did have such a thing as "view".

“A shift change is a shift change. If I say a shift change, you can really go home. What, you want to work overtime?”

Chika deliberately asked in a harsh tone.

[Off work...off work...]

The strange creature, which seemed to have more or less understood, or rather, had finally been tricked by the girl, nodded slightly. Then, its tattered security guard uniform was taken off and casually thrown into the corner.

The thing that was taken off its clothes was a completely flattened lump of rotten flesh, which looked extremely disgusting and terrifying.

He himself seemed to be just an ordinary security guard, dropping his clothes, putting down his flashlight, hanging the key on the hook next to the door, and then slowly turning around and leaving the guard post, not forgetting to close the door before leaving.

"Ah...that scared me to death..."

Fujiwara Chika finally breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed to the ground only after the footsteps of the other party had completely disappeared.

She looked up and saw a map, a framed map hanging on the wall, with the title "Red Nut Gray Hole Tourist Map".

Standing up, the girl walked back to the table, looked down, and saw a short set of rules pressed under the glass of the table.

[Guidelines for Security Personnel on the Giant Slide]

Welcome to the Red Nut Gray Hole security checkpoint. Here are the rules you will need to follow during your work. We believe your experience here will be a unique memory, and we sincerely hope you will fulfill your responsibilities.

[1. Your job is to stay here for 12 hours a day to ensure the security of the perimeter wall. The day shift is from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and the night shift is from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM the next day. Do not leave your post or the "plain" area during your work hours.]

2. You need to patrol every 30 minutes. The patrol area consists only of the barrier wall surrounding the large slide. Use a flashlight to illuminate the wall and visually inspect it. Do not touch the barrier wall with your hands.

3. If you find cracks or collapses in the barrier wall, do not attempt to deal with them. Return to your post and contact external staff via the communicator. If there is no response, leave the Red Nut Grotto via the "Stone Forest Path" and go outside the cave to notify other staff. Do not walk on the "Gentle Slope".

4. Your work is done alone; you have no partner. Therefore, unless it's shift change time, no one will come to relieve you or patrol with you. If someone appears during your shift and claims to be your partner, ignore them. They will leave on their own after a while. The company is not responsible for any disputes that may arise.

5. Ensure the guard booth door is locked. Whether you are patrolling or staying inside, keep the door locked. Do not allow tourists to slip inside, and do not open the door to anyone knocking and trying to enter. Please note again, the company will not be responsible for any disputes you may have with others, and you will be required to pay double the compensation for any damage to the guard booth property.

6. Your flashlight will be replaced and recharged daily by company personnel to ensure it has sufficient power, so you don't need to worry about running out of power. If the flashlight flickers, the light dims, or it fails to illuminate, it means the flashlight is malfunctioning. You can stop this patrol, return to the guard post to rest, and wait for the next patrol to replace it with a different flashlight.

7. The power supply to the guard post is very stable and there will be no power outages. If the guard post experiences a power outage, you should suspend your security work, leave the Red Nut Grotto via the "Stone Forest Road" as soon as possible, and notify other staff. Do not respond to or be curious about any sounds coming from the "Gentle Slope," and do not approach the "Gentle Slope" at this time.

8. When you are at the guard post, do not ignore people outside asking for help, especially those who claim they need you to rescue them from behind the slide. This is a prank by nearby residents.

9. You must not discuss with anyone what you see or hear during your security work. As a security personnel, you have signed the strictest confidentiality agreement. For the sake of your job, please remain silent. If the number of tourists decreases due to your rumors, the compensation you will have to pay will be an amount you can never repay in your lifetime.

The above is the code of conduct for security personnel. Please be sure to memorize and comply with it. The company's security department will regularly check your work to confirm that you are performing your duties properly.

Is this a new rule for ghost stories?

The girl in the security guard uniform frowned, carefully reading through the rules and memorizing the words. Then she turned to look at the time on the wall and saw that it was around 9:30.

I'm not sure if it's 9:30 AM or 9:30 PM, but anyway, at 10:00 AM sharp, I'll have to leave this post and go out on patrol.

And these rules seem to be vastly different from the previous Explorers' Rules.

"After the disaster versus before the disaster?"

Chika closed her eyes, muttering to herself in thought, then looked up through the window of the guard post at the desolate, empty cave.

Chapter Fourteen: It's time to show off my skills!

Gao Hai walked into the guard post.

It's very clean here; it looks like someone cleans it regularly.

He saw a table, a bed, a tattered security guard uniform lying on the floor, and a map on the wall.

Gao Hai realized something was wrong the moment his gaze briefly fell on the map, and quickly looked away, thus not seeing the map in its entirety.

Taking a step forward, Gao Hai walked to the table and looked down at it. He saw a piece of printed paper under the glass of the table. There seemed to be some writing on it, but the handwriting was too blurry to be recognized.

After a brief moment of thought, Gao Hai reached out and grabbed the edge of the glass plate, easily lifting the glass plate, which weighed at least several tens of kilograms, with one hand. Then he picked up the printed paper and flipped it over to the other side.

I'm in the guard post. The rules state I can't leave the plain, the cordon wall is checked every half hour, and I can't go to the gentle slope. I'm all alone. Everything is brand new, as if nothing has happened yet...

The ballpoint pen she found in the guard booth was almost out of ink. After a moment's thought, Fujiwara Chika wrote down her situation on the back of the rule sheet she had painstakingly pulled out from under the glass, and then stuffed it back in.

Because there wasn't enough ink, the girl's writing was rather brief, but it basically introduced the rule sheet she had received and a brief overview of her situation.

I don't know if he'll see this.

Chika felt somewhat uneasy.

However, the man named Gao Hai is very capable. He can realize the assimilation effect of the expedition team's clothes and continues to investigate and act without fear of any strange phenomena. So after discovering that they have separated, he will definitely try to find the guard post and the place where the [security guard] should be.

So if he comes looking for me when I have to go out on patrol later, maybe the contents of the paper can help him. And... if Chika's guess is right, then the rules she wrote down might be helpful to him.

Fujiwara Chika is a girl with whimsical ideas.

Born into a family with extremely strict discipline, she was not allowed to play video games or any other games from a young age, and her entertainment activities were strictly controlled. However, the naturally playful girl was not defeated by such upbringing. Instead, she constantly sought loopholes in the rules through wits and battles with her parents and family, and eventually became a board game master with in-depth knowledge of various word games and niche games.

Therefore, from the moment she came across the strange rules, the girl had been racking her brains, trying to analyze and interpret what could be found in these rules. However, a single rule table was hardly enough to extract anything useful, especially since the rule tables themselves contained riddles and deliberately left blanks, which made the girl's thinking even more difficult.

However, at this moment, after putting on the security guard uniform and observing that the "plain" area outside was clearly cleaned regularly and that the bedding in the guard booth was brand new and hadn't been used much, Fujiwara Chika immediately thought of the division of time and space.

Perhaps Gao Jun and I are now in two different time periods?

Having this idea in mind, the girl decided to leave her notes on the rule sheet and see if she could leave any clues.

She guessed that perhaps she had arrived in the past of this cave's timeline, but it was also possible that they were simply separated in different spaces, still able to sense each other and even have indirect contact. That would explain why she saw someone wearing yellow striped clothes who looked very much like Kaguya Shinomiya.

Next, after searching the room, she found a total of nine flashlights, each with a large-capacity battery and a very long battery life. Qianhua sat on the edge of the bed, looked up at the wall clock, and after confirming that there were still more than ten minutes until ten o'clock, she sat on the bed and waited quietly.

Gao Hai had already put down the printed paper.

Is she here?

My gaze swept across the wall clock in the room; it was broken, the hands no longer moving.

After a moment of silence, Gao Hai reached out and gently adjusted the badge on his shoulder, then summoned the rescue team member he could call upon.

"Wearing that tattered security uniform, we know there's someone in another dimension who needs our rescue, and this uniform could be the key to finding her."

Without hesitation, Gao Hai gave the order, and the rescue team member, who was essentially a weirdo, acted without hesitation, picked up the dirty and tattered security uniform, paused for a moment, seemingly a little disgusted with it, and then put it on.

The next moment, the rescue team member vanished from Gao Hai's sight.

As Fujiwara Chika looked up in astonishment, she saw the security guard uniform in the corner suddenly expand out of thin air, and then a person grew out of the uniform—a person wearing a rescue suit, which stretched the already somewhat tattered security guard uniform even larger, with an indistinct face.

"Hey, hey, hey?!"

Caught off guard by this unexpected turn of events, the girl shrank back into the corner, watching in terror as the figure approached step by step.

Is that rule wrong?

Or did my attempt incur some kind of punishment?

The powerless girl watched as the tall figure walked up to her, straightened up, and nodded slightly to her.

[The trapped person has been located. Please wait while I work with Captain Gao Hai to develop a suitable rescue plan. We will definitely get you out of here.]

Hey?

Please follow the security rules now. The rule list in this instance has a special purpose. Unless a rule has been confirmed to be highly problematic, it is best to follow the rules to avoid danger.

Hey hey?

Now, after reading the rules, I will leave the guard post to explore the cave in this time and space. If you encounter any abnormal situation that you cannot handle, please call for help immediately. I will arrive to rescue you as soon as possible.

hey hey?

After watching the figure say such a series of words to her, Chika walked away on her own, glanced at the rules table, then walked to the guard post, opened the door, and went out. On the way, she picked up a flashlight that Chika had found, politely closed the door, and then left.

“Very good. As long as it can be reasonably explained as a rescue operation, I can basically completely control that individual’s actions.”

Gao Hai sat down in the guard post, frowning. He felt a slight sense of relief as he sensed the actions of the summoning entity under the power of the obsessive object.

Wearing different clothes gives you different identities.

I originally thought this rule might only apply to players, to people.

However, it now seems that even a bizarre entity can use this rule to change its identity, and even create nested dolls of identities. As long as the outermost layer of clothing can still be used for identity verification, the inner layers are completely irrelevant. In other words, the rescue team member controlled by the object of obsession can now switch between the identities of a security guard and a rescue worker at any time, and enter and exit the different timelines where Takami and Fujiwara Chika are located at any time.

Since the supernatural can change its identity in this way, are there other methods to exploit the rules, such as two people hugging each other and wearing large clothes to acquire the same identity? Or repeatedly changing multiple identities to suppress the assimilation effect?

These actions only flashed through Gao Hai's mind; he never actually tried to put them into practice.

He turned to look at the three new players waiting anxiously outside, thought for a moment, and then stood up. Using dual-threaded communication, he directed the rescue team in the dark cave in his mind while simultaneously conversing with the three players.

“Mr. Wang, you are still mentally sound, so you can stay for now. As for the two of you, you have started to forget your identities, which means you can no longer continue to hold your identities as members of the rescue team, otherwise you will completely forget yourself and never be able to leave. So I need to change your clothes. But changing clothes means changing your identities, and you may be teleported to an unfamiliar area. So think carefully about whether you want to risk changing your clothes.”

Gao Hai earnestly gave a warning to the two players who had forgotten their own names.

Although they were complete newbies who had never participated in the game before, both of them nodded without hesitation, clearly aware of their current situation.

"Alright, I hope you can survive. After all, I have many ideas that I need your help to verify in order to have any chance of success."

As Gao Hai said this, he quietly took out the Blood Doll from his watch.

After being cautious for so long, it's about time to take the initiative and act.

Chapter Fifteen: In a Corner He Hadn't Yet Seen

slam-la-

As the warm water flowed down, Kaguya looked up at the showerhead in front of her, then reached out and turned it off.

Pick up a towel, gently wipe your body, and then put on the yellow striped uniform.

Kaguya Shinomiya disliked the outfit quite a bit because its style reminded her of prison inmates' clothing, except that prison inmates' clothes were usually black and white stripes, while hers was yellow and white stripes.

[Shower time is over. Please proceed to the staff rest area. Your second exploration mission will begin tomorrow.]

A noisy sound came from the top of the bathroom.

Kaguya walked out of the bathroom without saying a word, passed by the medical staff, and finally returned to the staff rest area.