Chika, Where Are Your Clothes?

Even if an award-winning actor showed up, he still wouldn't be able to look Miss Sadako in the eyes with such affection!

So much for her being severely socially anxious. Why was Miss Sadako walking toward him step by step? They were about to be face-to-face!

Amamiya Natsuki took a deep breath and calmed down.

There was no way he could go outside.

The hallway shrouded in darkness was obviously very dangerous.

If that was the case...

"Miss Sadako, let me show you something amazing."

Amamiya Natsuki reached into his pants pocket.

"..."

Miss Sadako stopped abruptly. The black hair covering her cheeks trembled slightly.

S-something amazing?

What was this man planning?

Could it be... that kind of thing?!

Every other human who had seen her had cowered in a corner, trembling. Why wasn't this boy playing by the rules?

Had she run into a pervert?

The more Miss Sadako thought about it, the more nervous she became. She even took half a step back.

"Don't move." Amamiya Natsuki pulled a wooden comb from his pocket and said solemnly, "Let me give you a middle part."

The 100% Middle Part Comb!

As long as you had biologically growing hair, it was guaranteed to give you a middle part!

Looking at the thick black hair covering Miss Sadako's cheeks, Amamiya Natsuki felt that the Middle-part comb in his hand was already itching to get to work.

The instant the comb touched the black hair, Amamiya Natsuki felt his right hand slip out of his control and start moving at high speed, even leaving afterimages in the air.

Just a few seconds later, the perfect middle-part hairstyle for a young woman was complete.

"Huh?"

Amamiya Natsuki had expected the face beneath the hair to be terrifying, or perhaps for there to be no face at all. Instead, Miss Sadako looked surprisingly beautiful with her hair combed back.

Aside from her pale, bloodless complexion, her eyes looked just like an ordinary person's, clear and black-and-white. Beneath the outer corner of her left eye was even a beauty mark... She had the sort of mature, married-woman face that made you want to tease her the moment you saw it.

Miss Sadako was dumbfounded, not having reacted at all to her hair being combed back in the blink of an eye. Her expression was plainly bewildered.

Amamiya Natsuki looked straight into Miss Sadako's eyes.

Their gazes met.

With nothing covering her cheeks, Miss Sadako trembled. Her social anxiety flared up, and she hurriedly looked away, covered her face, and ran toward the television.

"Don't run." Amamiya Natsuki raised an eyebrow and called after her. "We're roommates. What are you afraid of?"

Miss Sadako ignored him completely. She dashed to the television and quickly crawled inside, returning to the ancient well.

The room fell silent.

Amamiya Natsuki quietly put the Middle-part comb back in his pocket.

So, he'd handled his roommate relationship pretty well, right?

Now he didn't need to worry about getting stabbed in the back by his roommate.

Amamiya Natsuki waited quietly in the ward for a while, then noticed the lights in the hallway had come back on.

He stepped out of the ward and looked up. His room number was 404.

Click.

A ward not far away opened, and a petite girl wearing an eyepatch stepped out. A single cowlick swayed atop her head. She was clearly a human player, and her eyes were misty, as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment.

Amamiya Natsuki looked around quietly. Seeing neither Fujiwara nor Kaguya, he thought for a moment, then decided to ask the girl in front of him for information:

"What's your name?"

The cowlick girl's eyes brimmed with tears. "T-Takanashi..."

(Well, it's completely over. I'll at least finish this week. I shouldn't let the recommendation slot go to waste.)

Classmate Chika, Where Are Your Clothes?

"Name."

"...Evil Eye Wielder."

"You just said your last name was Takanashi."

The cowlick girl took half a step back and pressed her right hand to her eyepatch. "My true name represents my power. I can't tell it to people just like that."

"..."

Amamiya Natsuki fell silent for two seconds, suddenly feeling that the cowlick girl in front of him wasn't too bright.

"Are you the only one in your ward?"

"N-no. There's someone else."

Amamiya Natsuki raised an eyebrow. "Is the other one a player too?"

"No." The cowlick girl shook her head and nervously glanced at the door behind her. "It's a terrifying Vengeful Spirit. It can talk, too. It said it was hungry and told me to go find food. It'll get angry if I don't find any, and the consequences of making it angry will be really bad."

Meanwhile.

More and more Unlucky Players emerged from their wards, but unfortunately, neither Fujiwara Chika nor Shinomiya Kaguya was among them.

After everyone exchanged a few words, Amamiya Natsuki had a general understanding of the Game Rules.

First, every player would appear in an "Initial Ward" and be paired with a "Wardmate."

The Wardmates weren't human. They were all evil spirits and the like, and they clearly bore the players ill will. However, they wouldn't attack players directly, instead deepening their fear in all sorts of ways.

The lights would stay on for only ten minutes.

The hallway shrouded in darkness was especially dangerous.

Players had to spend most of their time in their wards. To avoid getting hurt, they needed to get along with their Wardmates by fulfilling all sorts of terrifying demands.

For example, the cowlick girl in front of him had been ordered by the Vengeful Spirit in her ward to go find food. The consequences of coming back empty-handed would surely be unpleasant.

In short, all the danger came from the Wardmates for now.

Amamiya Natsuki thought of Miss Sadako, who was in the same ward as him.

Miss Sadako had retreated into her well because she was socially anxious and refused to come out no matter how much he called her. Didn't that mean his ward had turned into a Safe house, where he could just lie around without a care?

Of course, he couldn't just lie around so soon. He still hadn't found Shinomiya Kaguya and Fujiwara Chika.

The two girls hadn't appeared in the hallway. They were obviously still in some ward, unable to leave for some reason.

Amamiya Natsuki glanced down the hallway. Wards lined both sides.

"Should I open the doors and search one by one?"

"Too dangerous."

Amamiya Natsuki quickly shook his head, driving the idea from his mind.

He could see hints, but he wasn't One-Punch Man.

"In that case, I need to figure out which wards Fujiwara and Kaguya are in first..."

His thoughts raced, and Amamiya Natsuki soon sorted out his plan. He started walking down the hallway.

A cowlick girl followed closely behind him.

"Why are you following me?" Amamiya Natsuki stopped and looked at the cowlick girl behind him.

Takanashi Rikka looked up at him. "Fate guides me..."

Amamiya Natsuki put on a stern face. "Get to the point."

"Oh." Takanashi Rikka's cowlick drooped. "I don't know where to find food."

"You're a seasoned player now, and you're even an Evil Eye Wielder, which sounds impressive. Solve your own problems when you run into them."

"Um, my Evil Eye is temporarily unusable because I overused it..." Takanashi Rikka looked pitiful, like a little animal about to be abandoned by its owner. "You look like a good person I can rely on, senpai."

"Bad people never wear a sign saying they're bad."

"Yukinoshita-senpai said that too."

"Hm?"

"..."

After asking a few more questions, Amamiya Natsuki learned that the chuunibyou girl in front of him had only cleared one game so far. She was still a fresh-faced newbie.

She hadn't cleared it because she was both beautiful and clever. Instead, she'd met a powerful player in her last game, a long-haired girl named Yukinoshita.

Compared with the other players, who were pale and visibly panicked, Amamiya Natsuki was remarkably calm. He reminded Takanashi Rikka of Yukinoshita, the powerful girl from her last game, so she decided to latch onto another strong player!

As they talked, a nurses' station appeared in front of them.

Under the dim, chilly lights stood a young woman in a white Nurse Uniform. Her figure looked pretty good, but her clothes were covered in dark brown stains, and bloodstained bandages were wrapped around her face. She was completely unappealing, especially since she was also holding a thick syringe. Even a pig would squeal for ages after getting poked with it. No player dared approach her.

An audacious player who called himself the Tyrant of the Nangong Family had gone over earlier. He'd barely opened his mouth before getting stuck with a needle, and he was still lying on the ground.

Amamiya Natsuki stared for a few seconds, and a prompt appeared before his eyes.

[You have discovered the Swollen-faced Nurse]

[You have seen through her weakness...]

[As the lowest-ranking employee in the hospital, she does the hardest work, earns the lowest pay, and has endless night shifts. Nurse Sis wants to kill herself every day.]

[This nurse hates night shifts the most and has absolutely no desire to speak with patients at night. As long as you stay quiet and don't make a sound, Nurse Sis will choose to ignore you.]

After seeing through her weakness, Amamiya Natsuki prepared to head to the nurses' station.

"Senpai..."

Takanashi Rikka panicked and quickly grabbed the hem of Amamiya Natsuki's clothes.

"Stay quiet."

Amamiya Natsuki raised a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture and said in a low voice, "Wait here. Don't make a sound."

The chuunibyou girl covered her mouth with both hands and nodded earnestly.

Amamiya Natsuki turned and walked steadily toward the nurses' station.

A player saw this and was instantly stunned.

"What's that boy doing?"

"He knows he'll get a shot if he goes over there, and he's still going? He's going to die, right?"

"Maybe he got a mission he has to complete, so he has no choice... Wait, why is he fine?"

As the two Unlucky Players stared in disbelief, Amamiya Natsuki strolled over to the nurses' station and started rummaging through things right in front of the swollen-faced nurse.

"Found it."

Amamiya Natsuki quickly found a work schedule listing the admission information for every ward.

He was in ward 404.

Fujiwara Chika was in ward 405.

Shinomiya Kaguya was in ward 406... Good grief, she was right next door.

After getting the two girls' exact locations, Amamiya Natsuki turned and left the nurses' station. The nurse had ignored him the whole time.

"How come that guy's fine?"

"Did he turn invisible?"

"Impossible. The nurse clearly looked up at him just now."