Exactly the same...
Exactly the same...
I hadn't misheard...
It was...
Me! With stiff movements, Chiba slowly turned his neck backward, bit by bit. At that instant, an indescribable shock rapidly filled his heart, so overwhelming that even the sense of security this world gave him could not conceal it.
The voice that had suddenly sounded behind him was exactly the same as his! It was even...
Simply his own voice.
In other words, the person who had just spoken was himself! "I didn't expect you to see this door so quickly, much less push it open and enter so soon. That old man really was up to no good."
And at that moment, the voice behind him—identical to his, no, perhaps it could be called his very own voice—rang out again.
This time, however, its words carried helplessness and a sigh.
It seemed that seeing him made the person behind him, the one with a voice identical to his, quite unhappy, yet powerless to do anything about it.
"Th-There's no one?"
Only then did Chiba's gaze finally sweep behind him.
Yet when he looked over, apart from a hazy expanse of mist, the scenery he saw was exactly the same as before. There was nothing behind him. Other than the fog, there was nothing at all.
"Whoosh..."
Just as his words fell, a small vortex suddenly formed where he was looking. In an instant, the surrounding mist began to spin, as though a drain had suddenly appeared in a tranquil lake. As it rotated, a clump of mist slowly rose from the center of the vortex, as if the dim darkness had condensed and compressed the gray fog.
At the same time, as that clump of mist rose, the knee-high fog slowly began to sink.
Before long, the mist